I replaced 50x GU10 50W bulbs for 3W LED equivalents (no longer available) that were more expensive (slightly warmer light). Here in Scotland, energy prices are more than the USA - so the initial investment of 50 bulbs cost 20x as much as the GU10's burt due to the lower wattage (3W vs 50W) would pay back in 2 years (which they have) from lower overall electricity prices.

However, we've had a lot of failures. So far over 10% of the 50 have failed - usually blowing the main house fuse when they went. So the porblem at the moment is there is no way to assess the failure rate for LED household bulbs. This is having quite an impact on the payback period for the bulbs. .

There are currently riots by loyalists in the centre of Glasgow - which are being downplayed as "rivalry" by the bbc even though there are very few unionists or nationalists there. Just search twitter for "george square" for photos and on the scene twitterers to get the real picture.

Loyalists were supportive of the union (the orange order is registered with the electoral commission as a supporter of no) and are rioting because they won the vote. They are basically thugs with some ties to football and irish loyalism.

Scotland is a very dark place now.

People at work were crying today. The older retired baby boomer generation sold us out.

oh no, I would never say my vote was more important, nor indeed that I am somehow more correct than my fellow Scot. The points I was making were:

There has been a well documented bias in the media. Even the media here agree with that. There has been a huge discussion here in Scotland about the role of social media in this referendum, not unlike Tunisia, Egypt and so on. Politicians have said that things were out of control as both campaigns became alive oin social media. The pro-Yes media (aparty from one sunday paper) were online and largely funded by indigogo public funding campaigns.

This was the first poll we've had in living memory that has not had an exit poll; Lord Ashcroft's poll whilst not perfect is the closest we have to understand the voting demographic.

I ws making the correlation (not causation) link that over-65's were also the least connected in society. I admit I was also a bit rude about the over-65's.

Since I last posted, the pledge from the parties behind the No campaign for more devolution powers have already fallen apart. A lot of people voted no because they were promised a more federalised UK

As a Scot living through the referendum, it has been a sea of optimism and YES flags and events. Many people, including myself woke up this morning very disappointed but also wondering how did this happen:

One of the biggest revelations was that The over-65's swung it for No whilst all age groups from 16 to 55 voted for independence. one of the key elements of the YES campaign is that none of the media TV channels or daily newspapers supported independence and so Scots could only get information from the internet. Twitter, websites such as Bella Caledonia, Wings over Scotland have been on the only places to find real information that hadn't been skewed heavily in favour of the No campaign.

The over-65's are the least internet connected and the most trustworthy of the BBC, even though the BBC has been accused of bias in an academic study from a survey of their entire news output over a 6 month period.

Also, the over-65's have the shortest time stake in this. plus have had the trappings of gold plated pensions that the generation behind them cannot look forward to. It's a disgusting state of affairs and as a Scot I am embarrassed for my country.

google "weebluebook"

I don't claim to have the answers (see book above),

1: The 2016 in/out referendum for the entire UK (depending on tomorrows referendum outcome) to leave/stay in the EU is so much more important. Scots (according to polls) prefer the EU. the centre right politics more prevalent in England are less affectionate to the EU.

2: There are 3 sterlingisation methods described in the Scotland Future book. There are two types of pegging; but the downside for the UK with sterlingisation is that Scotland would not be liable for any share of the UK accumulated debt. Many are seeing the "We will use Sterling" as a game play tactic to force George Osbourne into a corner. The Treasure have already confirmed that the debt belongs to the UK and only the UK. This would leave Scotland with a new currency but with tremendous assets and no liabilities. Many Yesser Scots prefer this - but many in finance would prefer to see a shared currency and for Scotland to continue to be responsible for debt, a shared currency is cheaper to do business in.

The Euro is off the cards because you have to be in the ERM for 2 years with your own free-standing currency. remember when the Uk tried that before?

3: I don't know

4: Citizenship is covered in the Scotland Future book. It's the individuals choice to up until your grand children to have UK, Scots or both. My grand kids will be Scottish only citizens.

5: there are no border controls in the rest of Europe, or on the Irish border, not sure why this is a being played as a big issue. If there are controls, it will probably be on the English side only. Whilst driving in Ireland I had been in Ireland for a few miles before I realised I was on the south side of the border (a road sign had the speed limit in km/h)

also, HS2 will be paid out the national infrastructure budget - which means that Scotland has to pay 8.9% of the bill (which includes the debt interest) even though it will never get within 200 miles of our cities. The new train lines in Scotland however, are all paid out of Scotland's own budget with no consequential to the rest of the UK. This is why #indyref has happened.

Nuclear WEAPONS. Now, I do agree that lobbing a power station at ones enemy, it might be seen as a weapon; but the general plan is that Scotland wants to be in a position to have 100% of power production capability by 2020. Keeping Nuclear power stations on a bit in case that goal is not reached 100% of the time seems sensible so long as no new nuclear power stations are built.

The Channel 4 expose is just muck-raking pre-referendum. If you really want to dig around the deals being done with regard nuclear power generation then look at the huge deal done with EDF in England that will make electricity production hugely expensive whilst the rUK retains clean up costs...

It's hardly fucking insightful to watch a state broadcaster, owned and run by the same state that has a vested interest interested in one outcome of the referendum.

It's a ruse by Salmond. He is goading the UK into saying "no" to a shared currency so that Scotland can't, by law, pick up a share of the national debt. George Osboune (the chancellor of the exchequer) is so lame that he walked right into it. Salmond will just use Sterlingisation, suffer short term interest rate rise and then sit on a hugely asset (rather than liability) backed economy. My personal view is that Scotland should share the currency and pay off it's part of the national debt. BoE will have to write a cheque for 4bn of Sco issued notes and many 100's of bn for quantative easing to "buy out" Scotlands share of the UK GBP.

Have you read Scotland's Future or the Wee Blue Book. Both are free and cover the currency question.

Scotland has only been invaded by, erm, one country, many times as it happens, in the last 1000 years.

that is not true. It was chosen in the 60's (opened in the mid 70's) because of it's geography - deep water, protected harbour and faces west to the Atlantic. Only 520 jobs rely on the nuclear deterrent side of the operation.

While important for the Coul peninsula, the proposals are to base Scotland new navy at Faslane and so these jobs would be transferred.

It should be noted that the BBC is an interested party in the referendum (the first "B" gives it away). There have been protests outside the BBC offices in Glasgow because of their support for the union (even though Scottish public have to mandatory pay for the BBC if they watch TV). The BBC takes a very pro-union stance (or vote "no" stance if you prefer) so please take that into account when reading or watching BBC coverage of #indyref

BBC Scotland viewers get an assault of fear stories from Better Together campaign every day on the BBC with little or no attempt to provide the other side of the story. The BBC tried to coverup and bully an academic study into bias that proved that BBC Scotland were not following their own guidance on #indyref coverage.

It should be noted that the nuclear armoury is based only 15 miles from Scotland's most populous area, the city of Glasgow -- which in the politics of the union is totally fine so long as it's nowhere near English cities. The system has had multiple failures and there have been attempted coverups of accidents at Coulport (where the weapons are stored). The Royal Navy also stores the decrepit and rusting nuclear submarines at Rosyth, a mere 10 miles from Edinburgh, our capital city. Again the thought of storing these at Southampton or Portsmouth would not be considered because it's too close to English who don't want rusting nuclear vessels in their backyard.

Senior MOD officials have been on the back foot in this debate even though most UK military assets have already been removed from Scotland (airbases have been shut and army decimated). Rather like in a divorce where one party tries to remove as many assets as possible before a possible split. The problem with the nuclear armoury is that none of the other areas of the UK want it and it would be political suicide for an English MP to accept into their area.

Scotland, if the vote is YES next month, would be a small country and it would not be right to have nuclear arms. Scotland wants to set an example by not having them on our soil. Scotland has only been invaded by one country in the last 1000 years, it's a country to our south. Scots like the English (this is not an anti-English referendum) - we just don't like the arseholes in Westminster telling us what to do (neither does large areas of England as it happens)

To learn more about the Scottish independence, see The Wee Blue Book

or... a young Iranian guy wants to see his mum in germany and seeks diplomatic asylum.

This aircraft had modern rolls royce trent engines - these come with an online 24x7x365 service back to Derby in the UK where all engines that are flying around the world are monitored in close-to real time using an independent comms facility to that of the rest of the aircraft. They will know if the engines powered up/down and what their status was at the last moments before contact was lost. I imagine the Malaysian Authorities are keeping a lot of the data under-wraps at the moment and I would assume that a lot more is known about the aircraft than is being released to the public right now.

I can only guess at your daughters age, but at some point she'll go online - either at your nicely protected home network or indeed at her school or friends rubbishly protected network. The issue with Windows XP past April 2014 is that any serious security problems will be NEVERDAY (a cute phrase that sounds like 0-day) where security issues will never be fixed. It won't take long to browse through the flash games site before a browser injected malware will find its way on to the machine.

The problem with techies is that we think too much about the network, the AV, the machine - but less about the user and how they will use the machine in a way that we couldn't possibly predict. So the real ecomonic argument is not about GBP300 for a netbook, but the opportunity cost of the stress and hassle when your daughter loses all of her homework, photos etc because some cryptolocker malware wants 1bn Bitcoin (market rates will go down as well as up) in order to unlock the data.

if it were me, I'd factor in a replacement at her next birthday.