It would be more useful to correlate this with other common risks, like PFAS exposure, genetic factors, etc

Chicken burger, scampi, gurkin, and a battered sausage. Pineapple fritter if I’m feeling fancy

Thank you, but no

No no, Miata is always the answer. Clearly, Miata is in that case answering the question “how do I look like a bellend without spending too much money, and clearly communicate that while I understand mechanics, I probably shouldn’t”.

Must ecstatic at the moment, it’s absolutely torrential here

Yeah, I can see the whole “bed not being the safe retreat from the horrors of the waking world” thing being traumatic, I reckon I’d probably just burn the whole lot and start again

No mention of the bastard Horse Fly that chewed me up while I was strimming yesterday. I reckon the only ones I like less than the Horse Fly are the flea and the tick, and the last only because they’re disease-ridden little nightmares. That said, I’ve never been bitten by a bedbug or stung by a scorpion, so they may well be bastards too

Vaguely, I think a lot of my outlook on life came from reading Terry Pratchett and Ian M Banks amongst others

That being my point, I only really use “Ex-pat” to describe someone with that particular mindset, with the negative connotations firmly implied. I guess the negativity wasn’t clear - If they were someone who’s just changed country without the resultant attitude I’d probably just have said “lives in” or “has moved to”, and I try not to use “Immigrant” in a negative fashion. Though from my point of view he’s an emigrant if you want to be accurate.

He’s not that bad, but my mate’s dad is a pretty massive trump fan. He’s an English expat, of Indian descent, living in Spain…

Well colour me shocked

I have a chisel from 1910, and a vice from the 1890s, the barn doors I open to get at them are from the early 1800s, and the well that our water comes from is probably a hundred years older than that. Most of the doors in our house come from its first renovation, in about 1880.

There’s also the fact that we vote with our wallets - if green products become more profitable, companies will pivot toward them, and visa versa. However, I feel your original point holds water inasmuch as making these issues out personal responsibility remove the onus of responsibility, and often the spotlight, from companies whose practices cause pollution. The plastic industry is a case in point - the idea that us recycling will solve the issue was put forward by the industry so that they wouldn’t have to take responsibility for their shitty actions. Quite often individual responsibility is pushed where national/international legislation is needed

Yeah, that’s pretty much my attitude. Why am I worrying about a watt here and a watt there when muppets are constantly asking LLMs inane questions and getting them to make dodgy hentai.

I have a whole bunch plugged in constantly for various synth nonsense. Running off solar, I thought it would be worth seeing how much of a difference it makes turning everything off at night, and basically it wasn’t worth the effort. It’s like a percentage point on top of the things like my fridge that run constantly, and is way less than using my toaster once a week. That said, if you’re on mains, it’s probably a worthy consideration if a lot of people were to do it, but it’s also probably comparable to using ChatGPT once a day or something

That’s an interesting build, thanks!

Fantastic, thanks, that’s a good resource even if they don’t have the specific ones I’m after

I’ve always wondered how Ventongimps got its name

I should have specified, shouldn’t I? Auto/commercial/plant. I seem to only buy gear that doesn’t have readily-available workshop manuals

You may have found my specialist subject… I’m assuming you’ve seen Project Binky from Bad Obsession Motorsports, and through that possibly Fanatik Builds, but there are also a couple of scandiwegian YouTubers doing excellent work. First and foremost Peter Bjorck is quite phenomenal, his lambo-powered Volvo is on of my favourite builds, and his skill and humble manner is great to watch. Then there’s the Meteor Intercepter, that’s an interesting project.

Back in the uk, Soup Classic Motoring is doing a nut and bolt resto of a classic lotus, Mike FPE has built a DTM-inspired Fiesta that’s pretty mental, and the lad from Council House Creations is only building little stuff, but what he manages to build with basic tools is still very well engineered and pretty interesting.

The StanceWorks F40 build is jaw-dropping, and The Sendy Club is Robin Shute building what will probably be the next dominant car on Pikes Peak. That’s proper race-winning engineering, with the occasional bit of work from Superfast Matt thrown in.