First (and last) time I ever used a QR code on the table. We walked in, sat ourselves at an empty table. No sign of any staff. Ordered ourselves via their QR code. It was self service drinks even. Literally the only thing the server did was carry a couple plates from the kitchen to our table then we never saw them again.

The order required prepayment and added 15% tip by default.

Back during covid we sent my wife's grandparents a smart phone so they could video call. They only had a dumb brick phone.

I forget what model but it was one specifically aimed at easy of use for seniors. We had it delivered so I could set it up. Then delivered it to them ready to go.

It was impossible. Even just answering a call being touch and hold the green circle then slide it 2cm in any direction and release took nearly an hour.

My wife does social care now and a client yesterday had managed to enable audio description on his firestick. This is what i was explaining. Hold back and menu on the remote to turn it on/off. He'd probably done it by accident and now his TV is explaining everything on screen after every button press and he has no clue where to even begin to turn it off. It's utterly incomprehensible. I'm sure they thought it was a good idea to have a way to turn it on that doesn't need you to see the screen.

Yesterday describing how to do a thing to my wife over the phone "The menu button" "There is no menu button" "It's a hamburger icon" "What?" "3 lines" "How is that a menu?"

We got our water butts free on local Facebook groups or marketplace. You're right though, they don't store a lot. Our outside tap is somehow unmetered so i mostly use that anyway. The water butts ran out weeks ago. No hosepipe bans here (north west).

UK introduced a tax on high sugar drinks a few years ago. Most drinks changed their recipe to be under the threshold and taste weird now. Coca Cola was the only one that didn't. I just looked and a 24 pack of cans is £15.25 for original where diet and zero are on sale at £8.50. The tax is only about £2 on that though so no idea why it's so much more.

I pretty much entirely stopped drinking all of them though because I can't stand the taste now so I guess the tax worked. They are lowering the sugar threshold again in a couple years so I imagine more recipe changes are coming.

I've grown cayenne for the first time this year. I've got so many! It's only in a 15l pot.

Yeah, decent tomatoes here are like £3 for 250g. Last year I grew 55kg. This year not going so well but also I planted a lot less.

I accidentally saw a youtube ad today. It was a fake product with ai video and voice over. Complete scam. It was several minutes unskippable so i assume that's expensive. They must be hoping to scam a lot of people. I had no idea it had gotten so bad.

Saw a video a while ago that asked similar to this. Might have been WWI.

I think the result was it would be devastating in any single battle but ultimately wouldn't make a difference to the overall war. They weren't using unlimited ammo and parts though.

Affordable houses are a scam as well. Most people think it means, a house, that is affordable.

Instead it's usually a shared ownership thing so it's still stupidly priced but you can buy 25% of it.

New development near us the affordable houses were 25% of a 2 bed semi for £100k.

Then you get to pay £800/month rent on the other 75% while being 100% responsible for all the costs and maintenance.

I've been on the site since 2008 i think. Used to use it loads. Posted questions and answers. The question i actually got an answer to was 2018. Since then it would just get nothing. Sometimes a mod might tweak it a bit in a pointless way but just no answers. Gave up in the end.

Meanwhile gas has been really reliable this year...