Apart from old consoles I have only one computer with a CD/DVD drive. There are a couple of radio/CD players around the house but they’re never used.
I have a large wallet of “backup DVDs” in the attic that I made more than 10 years ago. The files on them are my photos that are on multiple drives and in cloud storage too. Probably a good thing as the discs are likely unreadable by now.
I also have one machine that reads 5.25″ discs from the early 1990s so you might realise where my priorities lie.
The resurgence of vinyl records may well be fuelled by the realisation that people like to have and hold physical objects.
Tá seic do chiste ($ 2.5 milliún) curtha i dtaisce againn trí roinn Western Union tar éis ár gcruinnithe deiridh maidir le do chiste. Níl le déanamh agat ach teagmháil a dhéanamh le Stiúrthóir Western Union, an Dr. Ferdinand Umeh trí sheoladh ríomhphoist, tabharfaidh sé treoracha duit maidir le conas do chiste iomlán a fháil.
“WESTERN UNION”
You’d think that after going to all the trouble to hack a mail server the spammers would realise that 99% of people in Ireland speak English and the vast majority don’t speak any Irish at all.
Gmail picked it up as spam anyway. Better luck next time.
I was back and forth to the car a few times while we were in town. Each time there was someone trying to reverse into that space before realising they wouldn’t make it.
Until an old Nissan Micra pulled up and reversed in like a champ. I hope they had room to get their car door open.
The Linux kernel is 30 years old today. I used a Linux distribution for my desktop for a good 10 years or so starting in the late nineties. Oh, how we laughed when people said, “this would be the year of the Linux desktop”!
Linux was always strong on the server but it still struggles as a desktop OS. Steamdeck will help in a small way with that, but it really won on mobile phones as the kernel of all Android phones.
Here’s to the next 30 years. I wonder what changes those years will bring.
Demos come in all shapes and sizes, 4k, 64k, intros, demos and more, but I think this is the first time I’ve seen a demo running on a Commodore 64 disc drive, or 1541 drive. You can read more about it on the Freespin homepage.
The 1541 family of drives have the same CPU as the Commodore 64 so adapting code to run on it will be easy for anyone familiar with the machine but what’s different here is that the drive is hooked up directly to the monitor to display the demo.
Sound is supplied by the drive, and as expected is the usual buzzing sounds until the end when it changes and becomes slightly more musical.
Worth a watch, even if you have no interest in demos. The idea of running software on a disc drive like this blows my mind!
If you live in the EU and bought cheap goods from China or anywhere outside the EU you may have been surprised when you didn’t have to pay customs duties or VAT on the product.
To be honest, the extra payment required by An Post/a third party carrier to pay for more expensive goods is probably what surprised most people buying from outside the European Union. That can be €10 to €15 or more.
Well, from July 1st you may have to pay that fee regardless of how much the goods you bought are. If you’re looking for a cheap phone case, or book or whatever from the UK you better do it ASAP because if it’s delivered here (Ireland or elsewhere in the EU) after July 1st you’ll end up paying extra.
The Irish Revenue website has a page explaining how it works and it’s not pretty.
From 1 July 2021, import VAT will be payable on all goods entering the EU, irrespective of their value. VAT will always be collected, irrespective of the amount due. If you order goods valued at €22 or less before 1 July 2021, that arrive after that date, you may have to pay VAT.
A pair of socks costing €17 may end up costing you €30. Must be a hell of a pair of socks!
The revenue.ie page does not mention that non-EU sellers can charge VAT at point-of-sale. A paragraph on this page explains how this works:
The EU has therefore agreed to scrap the import VAT exempt threshold. Instead, it will require EU and non-EU sellers to charge VAT at the point of sale for consignments of €150 or below. This will create a more efficient ‘Green Channel’, with quick and easy customs clearance. Note – the delivery agent may still act as the import VAT collector (see below).
Sellers will charge VAT at the rate of their customer’s EU country of residence at the point-of-sale on the website. Sellers can use the delivery address of the customer to determine the country VAT rate. No VAT is due at the point of import in this case.
This already happens for digital sales, such as those for games and software.
I suspect this change to the VAT rate will also apply to UK magazine subscriptions since periodicals are charged(PDF) 9% VAT in Ireland while they are 0% in the UK. If that’s the case it’s not worth it (An Post will charge €10 to deliver a magazine worth let’s say €6.) unless the seller is registered in the EU and charges VAT on the subscription.
Google Photos will start counting your uploads against a storage limit from tomorrow. Make sure you upload anything you’ve been meaning to upload in the next few hours!
Also go into your shared albums and click the “Save photos” button if you want “local” copies of any photos shared with you.
I’m sticking with Google Photos. The ease of sharing photos and AI search make it worth while, but I will be disabling automatic upload off my phone. I take too many snapshots that I don’t care enough about to pay for them.
If you look at one thing today on Twitter, it should be #mattleblanc as Irish Twitter went on a journey of appreciation for Matt leBlanc as he appeared in the recent “Friends: The Reunion“.
He looks like an Irish uncle and people added typical things that uncles say.
Lots of famous people like to claim Irish heritage, but there's also a certain thing about Irish folk deciding that yes, you are in fact canonically Irish regardless of actual heritage. So, welcome to the family Maitiu LeBlánc. Céad míle fáilte!
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