Good News stories

[oddoneout]

Incredible.
Do you unplug before immersing in mild, green FL?

Naughty! Sadly of course there are always those who do not heed the "Do not immerse" caution.
But seriously, if a bit of cooking equipment isn't cleaned after use then it's likely to get increasingly yukky. Has the ' an air-fryer is the answer' over-promotion been taken to include saving time on cleaning the thing by just ignoring it?

[gradus]

Naughty! Sadly of course there are always those who do not heed the "Do not immerse" caution.
But seriously, if a bit of cooking equipment isn't cleaned after use then it's likely to get increasingly yukky. Has the ' an air-fryer is the answer' over-promotion been taken to include saving time on cleaning the thing by just ignoring it?

'Increasingly yucky', just so and hence the arrival of the self-cleaning electric oven and no more tiresome and difficult cleaning needed.
We only use our air fryer for cooking frozen chips and the occasional jacket potato and. FL cleans effectively.

[oddoneout]

'Increasingly yucky', just so and hence the arrival of the self-cleaning electric oven and no more tiresome and difficult cleaning needed.
We only use our air fryer for cooking frozen chips and the occasional jacket potato and. FL cleans effectively.

Although, depending on the type, the hit to your leccy bill can be considerable! I did have an oven with pyrolytic linings but never ran the cleaning cycle. Then again I didn't do the kind of oven cooking that creates a lot of mess - roasts weren't part of the family menu except the occasional chicken. The easiest to deal with was the next oven which had good quality enamel panels that could be easily removed, which saved having to crawl inside the cavity to get at messy corners. They were easy to wipe over in situ if necessary as the shelf supports simply unhooked.
One of my gripes about so much kitchen equipment these days is that it assumes possession of a dishwasher, so there are lots of nooks and crannies and unreachable crevices that don't lend themselves to hand washing.

[Serial_Apologist]

Although, depending on the type, the hit to your leccy bill can be considerable! I did have an oven with pyrolytic linings but never ran the cleaning cycle. Then again I didn't do the kind of oven cooking that creates a lot of mess - roasts weren't part of the family menu except the occasional chicken. The easiest to deal with was the next oven which had good quality enamel panels that could be easily removed, which saved having to crawl inside the cavity to get at messy corners. They were easy to wipe over in situ if necessary as the shelf supports simply unhooked.
One of my gripes about so much kitchen equipment these days is that it assumes possession of a dishwasher, so there are lots of nooks and crannies and unreachable crevices that don't lend themselves to hand washing.

Particularly grooves along tops of fridges and kitchen cupboards in which crumbs and sticky residues get trapped at the ends. One would think the designers of these items would have thought about such practicalities, but no.

[oddoneout]

My renewed passport arrived today, just 6 working days after applying, which I reckon is pretty good service, especially as I said no to the 'is it needed urgently' question. I did opt to pay the fee for the PO to do the application as they do the photo as well, which I knew would otherwise be a problem for me, and that may have helped speed things up.

[french frank]

Just passed the half way mark on earning my second £50 YouGov payment for responding to a survey. Mostly I answer Tend to agree, Tend to disagree, Neither agree nor disagree, Not applicable/Not heard of. Today it was about hobbies and recreation And pets, which in my case I have not got.

[teamsaint]

Just passed the half way mark on earning my second £50 YouGov payment for responding to a survey. Mostly I answer Tend to agree, Tend to disagree, Neither agree nor disagree, Not applicable/Not heard of. Today it was about hobbies and recreation And pets, which in my case I have not got.

Right, so you are getting paid for doing a survey about things that you don’t do or have ? Have I got that right ?
Sounds like my kind of thing…….

[french frank]

Right, so you are getting paid for doing a survey about things that you don’t do or have ?

Of course! It's about building a nuanced picture of society. If they ask 100 people whether they own a smartphone they'll have a pretty good idea how many don't have one too. They only find out by asking a random group of people which is representative of the whole population. One person in the group has no smartphone, so 99% do. And one has to do a vast number of c. 15-min surveys, taking up quite a bit of time, in order to earn some sort of voucher or £50 in cash after about 3 months.

As an individual I may not be representative of the majority but I'm part of a quantifiable minority.

[Roger Webb]

Of course! It's about building a nuanced picture of society........

My father was Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages for the County Town of Lewes, Sussex. But he was also Census Returning Officer for that town - a mammoth task pre-computer; our lounge floor was completely covered in piles of returned census forms, arranged corresponding to streets in alphabetical order. It was a legal requirement to count everyone who was resident in the town at midnight on the day of Census. He always had several refusals (perhaps Teamspirit may have been one, reading the bottom of his posts!). And a celebrated case that made the local rag: a tramp (as they were known!) took up residence in a doorway off the high street...his address being officially '...by the middle of Ireland's Lane', I remember in answer to most of the questions about facilities available, for example size of kitchen etc. my father wrote N/A.

My father being a bit of a 'Teamspirit' himself, on retirement, moored his boat on one of the Eyots on the Thames on Census night, it being out of reach of those councils on either bank.

[french frank]

our lounge floor was completely covered in piles of returned census forms, arranged corresponding to streets in alphabetical order.

That reminds me of another task I did - with nugatory payment as an honorarium in gratitude to a volunteer: indexing an annual research bibliography. That was also pre-computer, and I had tens of thousands of index cards (well, about 20,000) on my floor which were all sorted out into various alphabetical piles. They were then reboxed in the boxes in which they had come (in their unscribbled on form) and posted off to the editor. That pay amounted to a low 4-figure sum, but it did take up most of the long vac. In comparison, £50 for about 6 months work telling someone or other what I didn't do, had not got and had never heard of seems a modest sum ...

[Roger Webb]

That reminds me of another task I did.................... ...

..................well, didn't do. I was asked to submit returns indicating sales in my CD shop when the Classical Charts came in. Tempting, as I'd heard of the 'bungs' offered in the Pop Chart equivalent!

I'm glad I didn't take up the offer, as, viewing the charts as they were published I realised they bore no relation to what I sold...except for the obvious Pavarottis and Du Prés. My sales were divided into two categories: those that made a significant contribution to paying off my mortgage, and the rest! Most of the sales to my most loyal customers were in 'the rest' category!

[LMcD]

Neither of the Vape'n'American Sweets shops in the High Street seemed to have any customers this morning, even though the school holidays mean that there are plenty of families in town.

[teamsaint]

Of course! It's about building a nuanced picture of society. If they ask 100 people whether they own a smartphone they'll have a pretty good idea how many don't have one too. They only find out by asking a random group of people which is representative of the whole population. One person in the group has no smartphone, so 99% do. And one has to do a vast number of c. 15-min surveys, taking up quite a bit of time, in order to earn some sort of voucher or £50 in cash after about 3 months.

As an individual I may not be representative of the majority but I'm part of a quantifiable minority.

Fair comment.This sometimes seems to matter , and sometimes not so much.

( My mum owns a smartphone, but would have no idea if it was smart or not……)

[french frank]

Finally succeeded in setting up my new All-In-One printer. I chose the one which was most similar to my old one, but it turned out to be very different - I couldn't tell form the User's Guide that the In tray and Out tray were in opposite positions, so was trying to load the paper into the Out tray. And as for setting up the wi-fi. And finding the password. And how to remove one of the blue packaging tapes - but thank you YouTube , and for throwing in the detail of where the password was hidden while you were at it.

[gradus]

I always have a sense of victory when I finally get my HP printer to accept recycled ink cartridges after it has said 'No' repeatedly.