[QUOTE=Brian-E;378596]Wow, I'm quite jealous now.:smile:[/QUOTE]The flight from AMS to STN is very quick, reasonably priced and runs several times a day. I've made day trips to Amsterdam from Cambridge.

TL;DR: drop by any time you want. If you want to stay overnight I could almost certainly accommodate you.

[QUOTE=xilman;378615]The flight from AMS to STN is very quick, reasonably priced and runs several times a day. I've made day trips to Amsterdam from Cambridge.

TL;DR: drop by any time you want. If you want to stay overnight I could almost certainly accommodate you.[/QUOTE]
Well, that's very nice of you. Thanks, and maybe I'll take your offer up sometime.:smile:

[QUOTE=ewmayer;373169]I reverted my FF version to 22.0 and disabled auto-update after Mozilla made image-display mandatory in 23. (You can still toggle it but now you have to go through the tedium of accessing about:config and digging out the option there. No thanks.)[/QUOTE]

My 5-y.o. macbook classic appears to have finally died [based on the funky-screen-display optics when I try to reboot I suspect something on the mobo went 'boink'], so until I figure out what I want to do - probably will attempt a HD transplant into a similar used system first - I am using my clunky old battery-less Lenovo ThinkPad. That has everything I need to do ongoing Mlucas code-dev and I have configured the LAN interface to be able to talk to my barebones ATX-cased Haswell system, which is 'headless', i.e. text-only user interface and networking only via LAN-cable to a laptop which acts as a network-gateway. So far so good. But, my Thinkpad keyboard is unfamiliar to me after having used only the Mac for the past several years, so...

...somehow while using my FF v22 installed on the Thinkpad I accidentally hiit some key or key combo which overrode my "no FF updates" option setting. Voila! Before I could do anything about it I was updated to v30. Looked around for a v22 download but failing to quickly find one, I did a websearch for "disable image display firefox". That turned up two useful links:

1. [url=https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=851701]This FF "bugfix request"[/url] in which one of the lead FF developers propose to fix the longstanding "bug" of allowing users to toggle image display via an Options checkbox. If you read the discussion it is clear that THERE WAS NOT ANY USER REQUEST TO DO THIS - the developer just thought it would be a great idea to "unclutter the Options menu" and "protect users from themselves". There are a few nicely tart push-back comments, but the old option was removed, and remains gone.

2. [url=https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/image-block/]This very simple FF add-on[/url] which restores the image-display "kill switch". It apparently does so at the upstream end (i.e. prevents image loading), i.e. has the same bandwidth-reduction effect which s one of the things that makes this feature so handy. (The other main one being to make it easier to focus on page content.)

It's not so remote when it's close to home.
 

I live just a few miles south of Ferguson Missouri, a place that has been in the US national news the last couple days.

There's a groundswell of local peaceful protesting going on, but since that gets little play in the local media I imagine it gets almost no national press.

The local thugs have come out of the woodworks and people are taking advantage of the shuffling of police forces in the area, but at the same time any petty larceny or street fight has now obtained a status of "inspired by" or "attributed to" the protests.

Keep St. Louis in your thoughts people. I know I'll appreciate it.

How many more? How many more? :rant:

[QUOTE=chappy;380248]I live just a few miles south of Ferguson Missouri, a place that has been in the US national news the last couple days.

There's a groundswell of local peaceful protesting going on, but since that gets little play in the local media I imagine it gets almost no national press.

The local thugs have come out of the woodworks and people are taking advantage of the shuffling of police forces in the area, but at the same time any petty larceny or street fight has now obtained a status of "inspired by" or "attributed to" the protests.

Keep St. Louis in your thoughts people. I know I'll appreciate it.[/QUOTE]

The [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-28764278]BBC [/url]has, amongst other material, [i]Protests during the day on Tuesday were peaceful if tense, but they came after police used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse a large crowd in Ferguson the night before.[/i] so it got some national press. I haven't investigated the US national press yet.

It's so painful to rent a house in the UK, why? They are trying to check my background but that is impossible, I live abroad with my wife's parents. Also I don't have yet an UK check account, only when I start my new work there. This bureaucracy kills me.
They even translated my Portuguese name into English...lol

[QUOTE=pinhodecarlos;380277]It's so painful to rent a house in the UK, why? They are trying to check my background but that is impossible, I live abroad with my wife's parents. Also I don't have yet an UK check account, only when I start my new work there. This bureaucracy kills me.
They even translated my Portuguese name into English...lol[/QUOTE]AIUI, there are two main reasons. First and of lesser importance is that the landlords want to be certain you have a right to be in the country. Yes, I know you claim to be a citizen of a EU country but they have to check that claim. Your wife's status in this respect is also relevant, assuming she is coming over here to live with you.

Secondly, it can be very hard to get rid of undesirable tenants in the UK. Undesirable includes not paying rent; trashing the accommodation; running businesses (especially of the more disreputable kinds) from residential premises and more besides. Once more, they prefer to check in advance rather than have to pay expensive legal bills to deal with you after you have moved in.

I personally don't have any reason to doubt that you are anything but a well-behaved citizen with a legal right to be in the UK. On the other hand, it's not my money which may be at risk.

[QUOTE=pinhodecarlos;380277]It's so painful to rent a house in the UK, why? They are trying to check my background but that is impossible, I live abroad with my wife's parents. Also I don't have yet an UK check account, only when I start my new work there. This bureaucracy kills me.
They even translated my Portuguese name into English...lol[/QUOTE]
At risk of delving into issues which are better discussed in the Soap Box, I'd just like to say that I think you are, once more, suffering from discrimination and it's simply unacceptable. You have my sympathy. But then immigrants are always the very last group to have their interests looked after, even those moving within the EU. My partner and I ran into loads of pointless bureaucracy too when we migrated 21 years ago (in our case out of the UK). You can be sure that UK politicians, motivated by the views of those who vote for them (not new immigrants!), would sort out the concerns of landlords which Paul describes above P.D.Q. if the people being disadvantaged were privileged British passport holders with a vote in elections.

I hope you manage to get through all this pointless red tape and find somewhere to live. Good luck.

I called them and I got the feeling it was just a bunch of bureaucracy, no discrimination taken place on me and my wife at the moment. They even called me "darling". This is a private joke because if it is was in Brazil it would be an awful thing to call me "darling". No hard feelings at all.

I think the rules are more strict due to the fact that UK is fundamental trying to close the borders for outsiders and I do understand. On the other side I have two great persons from my future office trying hard to help me, they even found me a place to stay. We have been in daily touch trying to sort things out.

To thank for the help they are giving me I am trying to send a bottle of an 10 year port wine to my boss and a few bottles (eight) of a good Portuguese white wine to the person from the human resources. She has been always helping me on everything, she even invited my wife for the first week of formation in the office.

Finally, I was not understanding the UK rules and when I look back I think it is the best way to insure I am a good tenant for the landlord. I could be a criminal/terrorist and the agency is trying to filter that. So, I do now understand all this bureaucracy.

Thank you Paul and Brian-E.

Carlos

[QUOTE=Brian-E;380386]At risk of delving into issues which are better discussed in the Soap Box, I'd just like to say that I think you are, once more, suffering from discrimination and it's simply unacceptable. You have my sympathy. But then immigrants are always the very last group to have their interests looked after, even those moving within the EU. My partner and I ran into loads of pointless bureaucracy too when we migrated 21 years ago (in our case out of the UK). You can be sure that UK politicians, motivated by the views of those who vote for them (not new immigrants!), would sort out the concerns of landlords which Paul describes above P.D.Q. if the people being disadvantaged were privileged British passport holders with a vote in elections.

I hope you manage to get through all this pointless red tape and find somewhere to live. Good luck.[/QUOTE]AIUI, most if not all of these hassles are experienced by British voters. The regulations and their consequences were were introduced by UK politicians.