Nigel Bridgman-Elliot

Pondering changing to Plusnet, in theory as they use the same hardware as BT there shouldn't be any issues, right.. ? Though I am reminded of how a mobile phone here works fine on a Plusnet SIM, but not a BT SIM via the same cell tower, so what is up with that ! (No SMS service, asked BT, they don't know why, and won't bother to investigate further unless more than a few people complain about the same issue..) Anyone negative experience of changing from BT to Plusnet internet and something being different ? (I'm aware that Plusnet routers are not as good as BT ones, but you can use your BT router instead.)

I've not found much detail about it either, did find this: https://www.ads.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/21_Fair-Isle-Bird-Observatory.pdf

> friendly people. <-- Lived here 3 years, not made any friends yet.. Tesco for us is a 110 mile round trip, 4 ferries, takes like all day.. Generally, the nearer you are to Tesco, the more expensive the property ! Nearest Dentist is a 110 mile round trip.. Getting a flu jab is difficult, as they will not sell you one on in the big island (Lerwickland.), but they will on the other islands. There is nowhere else to get one here, unless you qualify for a free one. Having your own transport is very useful, and large cupboards, freezers, fridges, and a backup powersupply.. (Battery Powerwall could be a good thing to have, I've a small 3kWh one that runs many things in the house for a day or two (Lights, computers, TV.), plus bottled gas for cooking and heating backup too.) It's a bit windy at times. It's not too cold, or too hot, which is nice. Gardens tend towards being small. Not many trees. Internet speeds can be poor if you live far from a telephone exchange. (And even if you live near one, it may not have a fibre connection for a long time..) TV reception can vary between, a relay transmitter with a few channels, to the bigger one with more, but not a complete range of them, so satellite dishes are common place. (Remember the wind factor..) Many companies do not deliver up here, so be careful when choosing to buy something online/etc. Some companies have a weird thing where they say they don't deliver, but on Amazon they do, but charge you £40, whilst on Ebay, they charge you £3.. It can be hard to get certain items delivered, such as aerosols, paints, batteries, or sensitive electronic equipment which can arrive non-functional. (X-Rays perhaps ?) (So if you want to run a business, you need to take into account logistic difficulties.) Some nice beaches, some with good parking, some with poor, some with none ! Peaceful, quiet, low crime, low unemployment, good quality air and water. Midge season is when you want to cover up when outside, or you get bitten to death practically.. (Not sure how long that lasts, I think just a few days at the worst time, could be longer, hard to tell as when its windy, it helpfully blows them away for the most part !) Possibly worse in some parts than others, not researched that much yet ! (Perhaps folk can comment if there are good spots and bad spots for midges..) Fish is surprisingly difficult to find cheap. (Again, if someone knows where fish cheaper than Tesco can be found, would be appreciated !) Which when you consider we catch what, 25% of the UK total, you'd think we'd be swimming in the stuff. But then, we also pump all that oil out of the ground around here too, but petrol and diesel are not cheap.. (And no piped gas, only bottles !) Home heating costs can be expensive, in part because so many properties sit exposed to the elements with little to shield them from the winds. Roads are good. (No real cycle paths to speak of.) Though many roads are quite bendy, as such, care should be taken going around them ! Surprising number of local shops dotted around, often stuffed with just about everything you could want. (Things that are difficult to get delivered by post for example, like florescent tube lights.) Sometimes the day is very short and dark a lot, other times, very long and daylight practically all the time ! (Not so useful if you want to test your new headlights and you got to wait like 6 months before its dark again..) Changable weather, so long distance travel can be difficult. (Eg. ferry stops service.) Can be hard to book ferry slot during busy periods when you want. (As such, you end up going earlier, or later than you had wanted to.) This can make night life difficult if not on the big island (Lerwickland.) as you have to leave to catch the last ferry before the night is finished ! (I miss the cinema..)

Trying to follow the rabbit down the hole.. First lets try the internet.. https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications-and-updates/energy-price-cap-will-give-11-million-fairer-deal-1-january https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/energy-price-caps/consumers https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/energy-price-caps/levels-energy-price-caps https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications-and-updates/default-tariff-cap-level-1-april-2019-30-september-2019 https://www.energyscanner.com/energy-price-cap-level-1-april-2019/ > With effect from 1 April 2019 energy consumers on Standard Variable Rate and other default tariffs > are about to get hammered with massively higher energy bills courtesy of the Energy Price Cap. I thought this 'price cap' stuff was supposed to help folk ? https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2018/09/ofgem-announces-price-cap-/ > At the time, May said: "For far too long, older people, hard-working families > and those on low incomes have been subject to rip-off energy tariffs. > Our energy price cap will protect households from unfair price rises in time > for this winter when people can feel the pinch more acutely." So no mention of next winter, when it will be +22% +46% and +56% price rises ! I think I preferred the old system where it went up a few percentage a year ! Is this working as intended ? I guess its like when in London they wanted to introduce better housing conditions for poor folk, as such rents went up 300% in less than a decade.. Did they replace your meter for free ? I wonder when smart meters will be coming here ? (Not that I'm a great fan of them, but it would solve the problem of getting the meter read when there are no meter readers available..)

Perhaps the replacement building will be of something like more fire resistant concrete. Someone mentioned there was an earth quake a little earlier, so that could have jolted wiring. I'm reminded of a fireman telling me once that most fires was electrical in nature, so perhaps more fuses might help, or items that could possibly overheat (Batteries ?) might be in fire retardant boxes/etc. with maybe heat sensors. I'm a big fan of fuses everywhere myself. I quite fancy sprinklers if I come to build my own home at some point. (Along with concrete fire doors.)

Just checking what SSE have increased our prices by.. Day energy rate increase = 1% Night energy rate increase = 22% Off-peak energy rate increase = 46% Standing charge increase = 56% Ouch!

I rarely buy anything off Amazon, as I find most things cheaper on Ebay ! > Why have a lot of the local dealers apparently remained offline, rather than gone online as well as maintaining their shops and local businesses? A good question, perhaps the answer is the lack of skilled folk to build websites cheaply, the lack of knowledge to maintain an online presence, and the time to do so. (I imagine most small businesses are run on a shoe string anyhow, so simply don't have much money to throw at other possible revenue streams.) Perhaps £50k could go towards a small team of IT folk who could provide websites and services to all local businesses free for a year (Though 2 to 3 years would be a far better option in my view..), so folk can dabble in online sales with little risk and cost. Those that find their sales increase, would be inclined towards continuing an online presence, whilst those who found no real difference, could cease and go back to just selling stuff from their shop. This could also allow for a local apprenticeship or two to be taken onboard as well..

> the best we can hope for is that finally all the tarmac patches will be replaced with flags again. I wonder why they didn't put the old ones back, or were they in pieces ? With an island built of rock, one might imagine replacement ones could be obtained cheaply.. Either that, or decent, but cheap ones made of concrete that look just like the real thing. So.. no stack of spare ones kept at the time they was put down for replacements then.. ? I found the table + seats that appeared for a while really helpful, why did they take them away ? Perhaps some of the money could go towards a monthly prize of best kept shopfront, perhaps £1,000 cash would encourage the removal of grass from the guttering, and something done about the peeling paint in areas. How about a few plastic (Removable covers, so you can update the info..) covered large maps on walls showing folk where all the shops are ?

> Loads of "Zero Point" clickbait on YouTube.. I know, so many its hard to know which are worth watching ! As such, if I can, I like to try recommendations, to try and watch the ones that are the most promising. Polywell Fusion: > Polywell Fusion: Electrostatic Fusion in a Magnetic Cusp > Should Google Go Nuclear? Clean, cheap, nuclear power (no, really)

> The college does a mean fish,chips Where is that ? And it it called "The College" ? Google wasn't a lot of help there !

> research into zero point energy Any interesting links regarding that ? I reckon Polywell fusion looks the most promising, shame we are non-nuclear up here.. Now, would zero point be considered nuclear or non-nuclear I wonder.. ?

I think it all started to go down hill in the 1960's, with modern architecture.. As such, it might not be the quality of the build that is at issue, but the very design in the first place. For example, can't anyone design a simple roof with snow loading taken into account... https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1335800/Snow-terror-Tesco-roof-collapses-S{by the way, do you realise I tried to swear here?}horpe.html

Too many places ? Could someone point me to the cheap places ! Or are there no cheap places ? > Salaries when it opened were in line with a big city restaurant. I had imagined minimumn wage levels ! Perhaps with profit share to boost wages and encourage profitable behaviours.. > They had a set number of covers each night and they wouldn't take walk ins even when table were empty. An example of not-profit behaviour.. Sadly evolution and natural selection in practice, which could have been avoided by reading some good how to run a business books, and/or just asking Joe Public what they want As a member of Joe Public, I want cheap affordable food, like fish N chips for £5, a burger and chips for £3, or just a really good cheese burger for £2, can I get any of those here, or are they double the price for some reason ? (What is that reason!)

https://www.shetlandtimes.co.uk/2018/10/30/bluemull-tidal-power-scheme-is-world-first -------------- Edinburgh-based Nova Innovation announced the integration of its “tidal array” to Tesla battery storage to provide “clean power”, resulting in “the world’s first grid-connected ‘baseload’ tidal power station”. -------------- Oh good, we are getting a battery, hopefully that means less power cuts.

I notice the musuem menu says: > Half portions are available on request Are they half the price too ? I was noticing: > Local Beef Burger with Smoked Brie, Gherkins,> Sweet Potato Fries, Salad & Coleslaw> 10.50 What's the cheapest burger in town ?

<-- Doesn't smoke, never has, but still thinks research is important on these subjects.

> sea levels are rising by 5mm a year. Not everywhere. Related link: http://notrickszone.com/2018/03/26/groundbreaking-new-paper-finds-global-warming-ice-melt-not-related-to-sea-level-rise/ Some highlights from above: --------------------- Along the coast of Juneau, Alaska, for example, the land surface has been rapidly rising due to gravitational uplift for many decades. Consequently, relative sea levels are plummeting in this region at a rate of over -13 mm/yr (-5 inches per decade) according to NOAA. Many other scientists have also concluded that “sea level rise is not the primary factor controlling the shoreline changes” in regions where sea level rise is quite high. Even at rates exceeding 5 mm/yr, sea levels aren’t rising fast enough to overcome the much more pronounced changes in coastal expansion due to accretion and uplift. This is not just a local phenomenon, either. Instead of shrinking coasts and submerged shorelines due to global sea level rise and polar ice melt, scientists have found that the land area above sea level has been growing across the world since the 1980s (Donchyts et al., 2016) . . . during the same period of time that anthropogenic CO2 emissions were rising. In a new paper published in the journal Geoscience Frontiers, Dr. Khan concludes that “both regional and local sea-level rise and fall in meter-scale is related to the geologic events only and not related to global warming and/or polar ice melt.” Obviously this leaves no room for global warming and polar ice melt to contribute to the alarming sea level rise predicted to materialize by the end of the century. Modeled predictions of 1 to 2 meters of sea level rise by 2100 are deemed “highly erroneous.” Hence, suggestions of an anthropogenic influence on sea level change — the scariest aspect of climate modeling predictions — may be significantly undermined by scientific observation. --------------------- Do we have any figures for the Shetland Islands, as to whether our land is rising or falling ?

I've heard reports from folk who have it laid in solid flooring, eg. poured, that after about 20 years, it starts to leak, and is expensive to fix then. I'd be interested to hear about solutions that are easier to maintain, when, not if something goes wrong in the future with the installation. I would imagine having a large quality of thermal mass someplace would be benefical.

> The depth of stone would be more advisable at 2-300mm or it won't last. Stone is about 2.3tonne per m3. Thank you for the information. > I've yet to see anyone have a good outcome dumping a heap of stone on top of unexcavated soil. I notice spots like that all over the place here. I'll take some pictures next time we are parked on one. I remember in Kent, some years ago, most of the carparks was former WWII bomb damage sites where buildings once stood, and they did nothing more than bulldozer them flat and we parked on them for decades with barely much in the way of repairs to the surface.

> sea levels are rising I checked with someone the other month, they have been measuring their bit of coast for the last 40 years, no rise ! Has it risen here any ? I'm trying to remember, are we on the part of the continental shelf that is rising, or falling..

> There was three people waiting for the fish . All from Whalsay by the way and at least sixty waiting for a burger. Don't restrict it to just a fish place, call it something like "The Carnivore Cave" and sell all fish/meat products, including burgers.

I think they are an excellent solution, no more being under the thumb of whether a handful to choose from banks will lend you some money, or will that venture capitalist think you are going to make them enough money quickly enough.. (Often, they are only interested once you have built something, and have customers, and then want a very large slice of the pie..) I especially think its a good way to avoid shares, shareholders and risky takeover situations developing, you can keep your company private and choose what direction you and your customers want, rather than what someone else might consider the most profitable direction to take, in their own self interests at times.. This can also be a way to avoid having the profits sucked out of the company. Can be a good way to test the market as well, eg. if you don't get the fulll amount you want, then you don't go ahead with it ! I do notice though people have a tendancy to fund those with good PR video's, over those that do not.. And if you ask for less than £20,000 you are more likely to get it than asking for more. (Unless you really need several million for your venture, and even then, people have funded £200 Million just for a computer game !) Related link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest_funded_crowdfunding_projects Along with crowd funding there are also Credit Unions, and Microfinance loans. (Though in the UK we appear only to have Credit Unions, and they don't appear to give out loans easily..) Related link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microfinance I hear if you crowd fund for a business, you have to pay some 20% tax on the money you raise ! So you probably want a good accountant. And ask for 20% more than you think you need to cover that.

I thought one would need more like 60 tonnes ? 10 metre x 50 metre (Is that enough for two dozen cars ?), depth to 75mm, is 37.5 cubic metres, stone is what, 1.5 tonne per cubic metre, so 37.5 * 1.5 = 56.25 tonnes ? > How did you arrive at less than £1000 When I was recently landscaping my garden I noticed the ground had an awful lot of small stones in it, such that if the rest of the islands are similar, you might get away with only needing half the amount of extra stone added.

For those interested, I only just heard of "Ion Mihai Pacepa", which was via this video, 9 minutes in: > Monckton's Mathematical Proof - Climate Sensitivity is Low

> all the ash from the incinerator is shipped out I wonder what they do with it ? You'd think it would be full of useful material one could recycle further.. I'm reminded of: https://thebiomassmonitor.org/2016/03/09/13-million-project-to-recover-metals-from-incinerator-ash/ --------------- Who cares about incinerator ash? Well, the Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority for one. The authority hopes to launch a $13 million recycling project that would recover tiny bits of gold, silver, aluminum, copper and zinc from the 165,000 tons of ash from waste burned annually in incinerators in Lancaster and Harrisburg. The project — one of the first in the United States — could mean the recovery of about 7,000 tons of ferrous and non-ferrous metals a year, netting perhaps $1.7 million for the authority. --------------- Almost makes you think about building more incinerators to burn other peoples rubbish for an income stream . . . After all, those metals don't grow on trees, and we have to import them.. unless we still have old fashioned metal mines in this country that our miners slave away digging out stuff..