I think you meant "sold off their brand to Lenovo", they did that with their consumer brand years earlier but then later sold off their x86 server division as well. Lenovo laptops are still good but being Chinese owned is strictly verboten for anything that might be secure in the UK and US... So I've not seen an IBM (or Lenovo) server in years and can't comment if they're still as good as the old IBM X servers.

Motorola is my current go-to. I've got an Edge 60 Neo that is reasonably good, bought my mum a G56 that will probably see her the rest of her life (erm... she's old and a life long smoker).

The best manufacturer changes every few years, used to be Nokia. Motorola is currently making decent phones with good hardware for reasonable prices without too much bloat or crapware (and what little there is can be disabled easily). The G56 mentioned above is a £150 phone with a gorilla glass screen. Also much lighter than the ancient Samsung it replaced.

Not to mention the creepy guy at the pharmacy who'd judge all your photos, not that many of them where any good mind you, the average person knows feck all about photography and used to just waste film. At least now they only waste time.

I knew who OnePlus was, no idea who that other person is... Some kind of Social Media Infuenza no doubt that should just be ignored. Not like you can't just pay for subscribers.

The problem with OnePlus is that they were at best, offering the same thing as everyone else so nothing really stood out from the competition and when you're beige, you're going to be out-beiged by the big bois like Apple and Samsung who can afford to advertise the hell out of their beige.

When I look for a new phone, I usually check out what OnePlus offers and find that it's nothing special and move on. Then again, I'm not a typical purchaser looking for a new beige phone.

This.

As a self defence practitioner I tell people two things about self defence in the UK.

1. PUT DOWN THE DAILY MAIL. it's full of lies, you are 100% within your rights to defend yourself, with force if required, in the UK. The whole "you can't even defend your family" in the UK is utter bull meant to keep you more scared of phantoms than fascists.

2, If your attacker flees or attempts to flee... Let them go. This is the only major thing that'll end up harming a self defence legal defence, which is all or nothing in the UK. There are no degrees of self defence, you either did or didn't, you walk or you get done. Attempting to restrain, imprison or any way prevent an attacker from fleeing will seriously harm any chance of getting off by claiming self defence. Further more, injuries sustained during an attack, even if not related to the attempt to restrain may then be considered excessive that would not be otherwise as it then becomes your responsibility to show that the injuries were not sustained as a result of trying to restrain the assailant.

Beyond that, it's actually incredibly difficult to restrain someone. This is why cops, bouncers, et al. in the UK typically use 4 on 1 when restraining someone (1 per limb). Trying to hold someone down is more likely to result in an injury to yourself. Yes, you can defend yourself, your family and your property but if they run, just let them go. Pat yourself on the back as you've successfully defended yourself and make sure everyone's OK and then find a nice spot to sit down as the adrenaline crash is an absolute bitch (worse is when your senses come back to you, you'll start to question everything you did, did you need to fight, did I hurt someone, what if I had been injured). If you can get someone else to check you for injuries as well.

The GP was being disingenuous at best.

What they meant is that we don't have any state issued cards that are just for ID like many other nations, similar to how the US has no single government ID as a point of reference. We certainly have ID, drivers licenses, passports, several different proof of age cards (under the PASS scheme), residency cards, so on and so forth. We just keep most of our departments separate, so I've a different ID with the DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency) to the NHS (National Health Service) to the HRMC (His Majesty's Revenue and Customs (erm... the tax dept), similar to Australia or the US but quite different to say the Netherlands.

In fact I'm sure I've got two references for the DVLA, my license and my car registration (VED) as VED is not tied to a single driver.

The closest thing to a universal ID is a National Insurance Number (NIN) but that is really only for anything to do with money, I don't have to use my NIN to tax my car nor can I use it as proof of age when buying alcohol. There have been schemes to introduce a single ID card system but every time they fail because they're really just a solution looking for a problem. We're happy with the system the way it is (also equally happy for digital equivalents to ID cards like a drivers license to be created as long as the physical card is still an option and it will be for years as they still accept the old paper licenses despite not issuing one for decades).

Pretty much this. The right kind of rich are leaving, the ones that aren't productive, don't invest in the local economy and pretty much demand to pay no tax... they're fleeing to whatever tax refuge they can get. The ones who actually do something, invest in things, things that have jobs, they're not fleeing.

The one's fleeing are essentially tax refugees... seeking asylum from their obligations. Good riddance I say and nothing of value was lost.

There is no such thing as a labour shortage, when they say "labour shortage" they really mean a "serf shortage".

This is what happens when the foundation of your economy is an underpaid class of worker and you chase that class of worker away with racist rhetoric... at the same time the same conditions are forcing highly skilled workers to flee as they know as soon as the immigrants are dealt with, "intellectuals" are next. Whoda thunk fascism would be so destructive.

Whilst I'm no fan of the uber wealthy (I'm not at the point of saying we should eat them, but we do need to tax and control them better before we are at that point) this is actually a more sound business move. Most large airports have a "hidden" private terminal that the wealthy can use to avoid the hoi-polloi. London Heathrow has one, it costs £2,500 a person and that's just paid to the airport. In effect it ends up subsidising the other airport operations (better than having overpriced restaurants and LHR is one of the few airports where eating there doesn't cost an arm and a leg).

LHR doesn't handle GA so that's 2,500 quid for getting on a commercial flight. Private aviation in London is served by other airports like Farnborough.

With SFO, I suspect the problem is that they don't have a lot of room to expand.

However back in the real world, in the US deistically the rich count far more than the average person, when it comes to the government, hence why so many in the government kowtow to them.

They might only get one vote themselves, but enough money means you can buy the votes of others, by hook or by crook if necessary (The whole reason for Fox News' existence is to control who people vote for by limiting the information they receive). At that point, they also get to dictate policy.

Thats the thing, people are buying consoles thinking it'll be cheaper... well at least they think they are.

With Consoles, you pay less for the hardware initially but then pay through the nose for everything else. Pay for multiplayer and online access, pay for replacement controllers (Sony can fix the stick drift, they just don't want to lose the extra revenue from £60 controllers), you pay more for games.

PC is the opposite, you pay full price for the hardware as no-one is subsidising it, then your savings start immediately, games are cheaper and go on sale more often, hardware actually lasts (I've a £30 mouse that's approaching it's 10th birthday and still going), you don't pay for online access and what's better is that we have actual competition, not one gatekeeping corporation.

If you play games, the price difference between a PS5 and a mid range gaming PC is made up in less than 2 years... and it's only that long if you don't play a lot of games.

However people are stupid, so they get suckered in by the low sticker price. Even when they're outright told this will be more expensive in the long run (years ago, UK stores had to put "per unit" pricing on the shelves, so £ per 100ml or similar, people still buy the more expensive option).

This, sometimes I am looking for cheap, no-name products. I really don't care who made my bin bags as long as they fit in the bin and aren't a total PITA to open. It's going to be the same terrible quality as you get from the supermarket but saves me a trip.

What I'm concerned about is, is that Panaphonics TV I'm buying a genuine Panaphonics TV? That's when you have to check it's not being sold by Dongfeng or XSFCDWS.

Yep, could easily be a count of users running some kind of privacy extension like Privacy Badger or NoScript.

Also I certainly hope they're not basing this on the user agent string, that can be made to say anything. Also Android seems conspicuously absent.

However any decrease from the 99% Microsoft used to have is a huge improvement and any increase in Linux adoption is also worth celebrating. With Steam running Windows games on Linux I suspect I'm not the only gamer looking to move full time to Linux.

Germany (and the Netherlands) are bad examples as they teach English to kids to be competitive on the world stage. They also didn't have large colonial empires so few other countries speak German or Dutch (nothing against the Germans or Dutch mind you, both great people). Spanish and French are more useful as there are more people who use these languages exclusively and a few former colonies that use the languages exclusively. Whilst in Spain you can get buy with little to no Spanish without a problem but try Colombia, Argentina or even Mexico where English is less widely learned and used.

Even if you're not fluent it is still useful as you can pick up on things said to you (or around you), read signs, menus so on and so forth. I used to be able to count up to 999 in Thai (I never learned the word for 1000) I did it mainly for shits and giggles whilst drinking but found it came in handy as I could walk around the markets and listen to what the Thais were negotiating and then realise how much I got ripped off for being Farang.

Are you joking?

Merchants would love to lower their prices, they do it all the freaking time. Even if they only reduce the price by half the amount they save, it's still a win for you (in fact it's a win/win for everyone except Mr Bankster).