stevie_b

Did the quants come up with 15 as the answer? That's pretty poor, but I guess it's a reflection of the "business" aspect superceding other things. Even nowadays, you can't go far in hands-on IT without at least understanding hex: RGB colours in HTML for example.

The answer is 15, you're right. You have an error in your line where you say 15-15-5. By doing that you've implied brackets around 3 of the fives: 5+5+5-5+5+5-5 does not equal 5+5+5-(5+5+5)-5

I've never heard of spaces being used to enforce operator precedence. If they were my hand-written equations would be in serious trouble. I'm firmly in the BODMAS camp. BODMAS isn't a computing thing, it's a maths thing. Any calculator worth its salt will follow BODMAS: the Windows calculator in basic mode doesn't follow it, but does when in scientific mode IIRC.

Doesn't the generally-accepted operator precedence define a single correct way though? I suppose then it's an issue of whether one follows the generally-accepted way.

That particular game of Hangman is a lot less challenging once you've read the first post in this thread.

I'm sure he'd be delighted to hear you call him that.

I always run my NA on the bog-standard unleaded (95 RON?).

Your speed converter is the most likely cause. The sparking you saw suggests something was shorting out, but that could have been almost anything. It's most likely to be part of the loom that's been fiddled with, e.g. the speed converter. As for the £30 converters: I wouldn't want to fit one to my car unless I heard from reliable members on here that the specific model I was about to buy worked well, and didn't muck up the ancilliaries. There's more to speed conversion than just making the speedo show a different number. The ECU uses the speed to work out how much power steering assistance to use, how to control the overdrive AFAIK, etc. If you like having over-assisted power steering even at high speed so that you get no feeback through the wheel, then crack on and buy a cheap converter.

Not bad that! Several British people on here would do well to heed the spelling and grammar advice.

Good man! Keep up the good work!

Legally, I doubt whether you have any recourse. The sales blurb probably "promised" (i.e. a statement caveated with an asterisk) 6mbps, but I don't think any ISP would contractually promise to deliver that, as it does depend on factors out of their control (e.g. distance from the telephone exchange, quality of phone cable, amount of other users on at the same time etc etc). You might be able to contact them and threaten to leave, in order to extract concessions from them.

All your problems are down to a single cause: the speedo isn't getting an speed signal into it, possibly due to a faulty speed converter (good ones are probably just shy of £100 approx. Cheap ones can be had for a lot less but they have minor but annoying side-effects). The odometer and the O/D light are "downstream" from the speedo, so when the speedo doesn't work, neither will these things. You'll also find your ECU has logged a code 42 error: again, it's all down to the same single cause.

This intrigued me. I also read the Metro article, but wondered if that effect is negated if you're carrying a passenger in the front? I realise it's more likely that you'll be driving alone though with this sort of car.

I bet some people thought, "Ooh, this year's display has got off to a very good start!"

Good news indeed! Excellent club spirit!

Is it half-term week perchance?

1) Many cup holders are available. "The best" depends on what your main criteria are: do you go for the ability to hold large cups, how much the cupholder looks like John Terry's face, or that the colour of the cupholder matches your suit? Also consider how many rabbits have been harmed in the production of said cupholders. 2) It's fairly easy. Use the search facility. Welcome to the club.

Chavvy.

Liked!

Worth checking out, but I'd be surprised if it's covered apart from for immediate family.

This looks worth considering: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/compaq-presario-sr50-19uk-/280764158759. It's modern-ish (there's lots of ancient PCs going for silly high money on ebay), collection only from near you, and the motherboard has a PCIe x16 slot. The spec is here: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/documentSubCategory?tmp_rule=62970&tmp_task=prodinfoCategory&cc=uk&dlc=en&lc=en&product=3397528 I'd expect to pay up to about £100 for that PC. It won't have HDMI out as standard, so you'd need to add a PCIe graphics card that supports it, something like this: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MSI-NX8600GT-Graphics-Card-DDR2-HDMI-DVI-TV-Out-and-Dual-Link-DVI-/160674006948

If you PM me your postcode, I'll have a quick look on ebay to see if there are any candidates.

If you don't have any luck on here then ebay is worth a try. I would search for desktop PCs for maximum bang per buck, and limit your search to collection-only items within say 50 miles of you. That will cut down the bidding competition and hence the final price.

I found Times Square disappointing as a tourist attraction. I've only been to NY on business so I suppose that changed the mood of the visit. Imagine Picadilly Circus with lots more neon advertising, much taller buildings and many more fast food outlets and bargain-basement "Any 4 T shirts for $4" shops.

I have 2 reservations about using a tablet as an eReader for more than a few minutes: 1) battery life. The Kindle battery life is amazing, partly due to how the screen works. It only uses power when you turn a page. Negligible or no power is used to display the same page for any amount of time. I've been on 2-week holidays where the Kindle has seen daily use, and I haven't had to pack the charger. 2) Backlighting. I haven't used a tablet but I imagine the screen backlighting is very similar to a laptop. The background colour would be too white and too bright (even with screen brightness turned down) for a book.