Aspman

I got out of Edinburgh during the Met Office Black Warning "snow bomb". The X-drive is actually pretty good at most things. Except farm tracks with massive ruts which is why I've now got a RR.

I had a BMW 335d, that IMHO is one of the great engines in the world. 313hp and an achievable real world 42mpg (plus no adblue). If you want a mix of power and economy I couldn't recommend it more highly. Mine was pretty much faultless for 3yr (other than diamond cut wheels rotting) I don't know your budget but the 335d isn't crazy oney used. However, yep lots of short journey will kill any DPF equipped diesel.

The old Audi Quattro stright 5 sounded pretty good Me old ZXR400 4 cylinders, 396cc and 14k of revs. He hits the limiter at about 40sec

The current Jag V6 sounds like a bag of spanners at low revs/idle

It's not lost its way it's just not looking to us Brits/Europeans to make money. It's looking East. Older cars sound better, it's a fact. I was going to scratch my V8 itch with a Jag XFR but various issues in life have ended me up in the RR.

Aston has been owned by many people. But looking at what BMW has done to woo Chinese customers I would dread to see the design decisions made by a Chinese owned Aston. TBH the DBX is bad enough And going into F1. Might as well burn £100M.

It's already worse than that, you pay Elon to switch on the extra power. It was always there but you need the tick in the box. Or you'll have to bribe your 14yr old nephew to hack your car. I don't think any electric car will beat these sounds 3:00 5:00 And this nutter doing it in a Tee shirt 0:20 I know bikes sound not so great from miles off but the howl when you're on it..... I think 70s cars maybe sounded the best

I think it's more complex even than that. It's only recently I've become solvent enough to consider some nice motors. And sitting in and driving lots of different cars it's funny the cars that give you the tingle that says "yeah I like this" and different cars do it in different ways. Bike gave me the tingle like nothing else but they also terrified me. My ZXR400 would rev to 14k and do 0-60 in 4 sec with only 65hp, it howled and would take corners at speed that my brain couldn't cope with. I still love bikes but I wouldn't get a fast one, I'd last an hour. My 335d was all about acceleration and heft. Also in some ways that car felt a little dangerous, it always felt like there was a gap between power and handling that made the car feel like it would quite like to kill you in fast corners. But the acceleration made me giggle maniacally the first time I drove it. It felt insane. The rest of the car was nice if a little uninteresting. When I drove a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon, it was again hilarious, it really felt like you could drive over anything in that car, it was a Tonka Toy for the road but it never felt like it was usable every day. It was rough round the edges, loud and wobbly. Fun for a short trip but it felt like it would be agony on a long one. The RaRo isn't that fast, but saying that its 0-60 is about the same as my old VRS, but there was something about it that gave the tingle in the same way as the 335d, but it wasn't acceleration. I have had it offroad or at least down some tracks that would wreck a normal car, it is great fun in those conditions. So i think it's more intengible, some cars just have it. I have to say I'd love a mustange but I think I'd find the interior a bit low rent. I did look carefully at a Rouche Mustang (750hp) but a pregnant partner and access to back seats killed that idea. Just the same as looking at an M4 comp had to go. M3s were overpriced in comparison. I did lookmat an M5, that did give the tingle, but the depreciation was just too much to bear. The RaRo will also tank in value but it fills all my needs right now whilst being a very nice place to be while driving, and it gives the tingle.

It's not something car manufacturers are very good at tbh. I'd imagine it's not hard to recode these systems

Just some general pieces of advice... If you've only one copy you have no backup. It doesn't matter where it is. Don't trust things just because they are in "the cloud" or provided by a big compnay like Google or MS. "The Cloud" = Someone else's computer. Always think if you are happy for your stuff to only be stored on "someone else's computer". The big players all have history of deleting/losing peoples stuff, suddenly discontinuing services or changing terms; all of which can mess up your files. If you're not paying for storage on the cloud then you can have no expectation of service i.e. they can lose your stuff and you have no comeback.

If you plug your phone into a computer can you see the photos?

^ good points. Personally if you've got space I like a full sized case. Also I like to fit the largest fans I possibly can. A 140mm fan can move the same volume of air as an 80mm but rotating much slower, it keeps the noise down a lot (anyone old enough to remember the old 80mm Deltas screaming away in a case?). Ducted fans are also great if you can get them.

Have a dig around for leaves in there too. That used to happen a lot in our minis. You had to pull out the pollen filter then get your hand in and pull the bugger out. Used to confuse the hell out of SO when she would find me upside down in the oassenger seat of the cars

Last PC I built I put in a Ryzen 7 first gen I'm not sure I needed it but I was intending to build a rig that could last. I was happy with the CPU it gave me no problems (it's been in storage for a year). I've a laptop with an intel core i7 as well and it's plenty fast too. TBH you looking at bang for your buck and tbh that's the only way to go. The Ryzen 5 is probably the sweet spot for that. Better to spend money on a decent SSD and more RAM

In general yes you should always apply updates promptly. BIOS updates have often given people the fear since in the old days a bad update could brick the device. It's been a long time since I've heard of that happening.

@e-RoottootCan't say it's unfortunate that the Fisken family are getting a kick, they're not really the nicest bunch of people. It's a shame for the sales guys, some of them were ok.

Yeah it is expensive and tbh it probably isn't £180 good. My Ruark was £500 (down from £800 as a Grade A used) but it utterly blows my socks off and feels worth every penny.. The Roberts is good. it does everything you need but the sound is good, not amazing. It is easy to use but there is a knack to it. We like the internet radio stations, we regularly listen to some stuff we'd never have even heard of before (Radio Nula (funk and soul), Boot Boy Radio (Ska) and quite a few foreign stations too. you can search by genre as well as name. It also lets you play BBC Podcasts directly as well which is good. It does have a good reception for a low signal area (it's really bad here). If you've spotify you can use that with it (we do but we don't if that makes sense) and the bluetooth works well and I often play my phone through it. It's pretty repliable as well for a 'smartish' thingy. It has crashed but only a handful of times in a year and that's probably down to our poor connectivity as well. So I'd suggested the functionality might get you £180 of value from it if it does everything you want but you'd get a better sounding speaker for £180. But as said we're quite anti smart speaker in our house.

I use Proton Mail as a spare. Sometimes you need additional accounts and it's nearly impossible to use GMail etc without associating with a phone number these days. A very security aware friend uses MrMail to provide him with a secure mail service. One thing to remember is that is you want something that is genuinely not tracking you then you will need to pay for it. If you don't pay then the service must be paid for either by mining your data and/or advertising to you. A pretty decent rule of thumb is - If the service is free you are the product. although increasingly you can pay for stuff and they will mine you for profit anyway - https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?id=1583755244&subaction=showfull

Honestly, avoid "Smart" if you can. Smart deviuces rely on the manufacturer to keep supporting them or they will just stop working and manufacturers have a habit of dropping support a long time before the devices are worn out. Sonos has tried some really dirty tricks over the years to try to force customers to buy new kit (https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/5/21166777/sonos-ending-recycle-mode-trade-up-program-sustainability) Amazon stuff has so far been quite well supported but the damn things listen to you all day every day. Unless you are comfortable with Amazon monitoring your every move "for quality purposes" I'd not touch em, https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidphelan/2019/04/12/amazon-confirms-staff-listen-to-alexa-conversations-heres-all-you-need-to-know/https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidphelan/2019/04/12/amazon-confirms-staff-listen-to-alexa-conversations-heres-all-you-need-to-know/ We got a Roberts internet capable DAB radio from Argos - https://www.robertsradio.com/en-gb/smart-radios/stream-94i#STREAM94I We're in a low signal area and this one had reviewd that it could cope. It does do better than my expensive Ruark R4 but not as well as the £30 Tesco DAB radio my son uses. However the internet Radio on it is good, if a little fiddly to choose stations. It's in their "Smart" range but it's not smart. It doesn't talk to Alexa or Google. But the sound is good as well.

Bit late to the party.... I've had a Samsung fridge and it was fine. Also had a Daewoo American style fridge and it was totally fine too. Only thing with the Yank type fridges it that they weigh so feckin much. In my last house I didn't pay for "fitting" as it's a fridge, I can plug it in. Turns out that without "Fitting" they wont lift a 200Kg fridge into your house. I was lucky the pair that delivered mind were a couple of Glasgow lads who appreciated a bit banter and some biscuit bribary and they lifted it up for me. When I sold the house I made sure the fridge was sold with it, there was no chance it was getting lifdted out again. I got mind from Appliances Online. The prices are good but they like to try some sneaky sales on extended warranties after a year. I don't see the point in guarantees or warranties on fridges or washing machines unless they guarantee next day fixing who is going to last two weeks waiting on them to come out?

I've not had a skoda for nearly 7yr and I'm still here. 500 miles in a year I was doing about 12-17k for the last 5yr which was about as low as I've ever been. I've driven about 1000 miles in the last 3 months since getting the RaRo. which is a real shock to me. But probably just as well with how much it drinks in winter

I'm not sure bhp has a lot to do with it. I really don't feel safe in cars or bikes with low hp. If you consider the safety cross when driving, low power or in this case auto speed restriction, removes one direction of travel from me to esacape danger. I have absolutely accelerated out of danger and having a more powerful car has enabled me to do that. However, power is nothing without control, I'd support a motorcycle like license. i.e. you must be qualified to drive a car of a certain power (or power to weight to be pendantic). I'm sure many people can drive in a hideously unsafe way with 60hp and tbh I think the vast majority of stupid driving I've seen has been done in cars/vans of low to average performance.

It might well be a future classic but it'll tank in value for the first 10yr like any other mainstream model. £40k for a Yaris! Unless you desperately want to be the one and only owner in the book wait 18 months and pick it up for £25k if not lower.

P400 is an £80k car. I've not been in a P400 but I have driven a First edition D250 which is quite high spec. I can't see many people getting into a P400 and thinking they've got good value for £80k. And I like the new Defender. I see a few dealers have them specced up and priced over £100k. Good luck with that, they aren't going to hold the money the old ones do. If you're gpoing to drop £100k on a 4x4 you're either going to get a G-Wagon, a full fat Range Rover Autograph or wait on a used Lambo Auris. Or you might be mad and drop £100 and defender that'll be worth £30k in 3yr.

My actual 10yr old installs the "Fart Skill" in every unlocked Alexa device he finds