Squiffyp

I work for a very large IT organisation in a big global company. Did ITIL v2 Service Manager (Foundation course, then separate 1 week courses for Service Delivery and Service Management) and the exams about six years ago. A couple of years ago did the conversion course and exam to get to ITIL v3 Expert. In very large organisations it is a help to see how the different parts of the organisation work together. Especially the interaction of change, incident and problem, and the value of a CMDB (configuration management database). I'm at a reasonable level in the organisation, and ITIL has been a big help as part of getting here. And I know if I was looking to move it would be a strong selling point. The only problem is that getting the v3 qualifications from scratch would be expensive and time consuming as there is a complex route through different courses to get there. But I'd say it would be a good investment in your career. The foundation is worthwhile too for understanding, but I'm dubious about it alone as something that would impress employers. As someone who occasionally recruits for my own team I'd only really be impressed with someone who had the full qualifications and not just the foundation.

Hmmm, not sure why that would be. What did he say about my case, where a car which had already suffered failed injectors and was having the others done as a precaution? Incidentally I didn't ask for it - the guy from Skoda UK offered it before I could!

I submitted a complaint to VOSA, but have not been in direct touch with Skoda UK. So bit of a surprise when someone from their customer services called me yesterday to discuss my car. They asked what happened, what had been replaced and what costs I'd had. I told him I'd had at least one injector replaced, and holding an extended warranty I only had to pay the costs of the wiring loom. Anyway he said they'd speak to the dealers to confirm exactly what had been replaced and he'd get back to me. Which he did this morning. He confirmed I'd actually had two of the injectors replaced. And that Skoda UK had arranged with my dealer for the other two to be replaced, and for the costs of the wiring loom to be reimbursed. It has taken some time, but I'm very happy with this outcome.

That is true - the treatment will not stop the normal aging of your eye. This aging is mainly related to the focusing power of your eyes as the muscles involve weaken. But treatment may help prevent the need for bifocals. i.e. if you are short sighted they correct that and you don't need glasses for it. But when your muscles weaken you only need glasses for close work or reading, and not for distance / driving. Without treatment you would need bifocals. There are solutions that are easy to adapt to your eye aging anyway. See Implantable Contact lens-Centre for sight and INTACS | Intacs for Correction of Keratoconus and mild Myopia The first one sounds a bit icky to me though!

Having the flap cut doesn't hurt. And they don't use a scalpel. Similar to the above, they put a suction ring on. They then attach something which I could only describe as being like a cigar cutter which moves over the suction ring and cuts the very small section of eye protruding above the ring. The flap is left attached at one side. My wife only ever saw one complication with a flap, and that was only because in the week after surgery the patient was poked in the eye by his young daughter! :eek: He was fine though.

Someone commented that laser eye surgery had been thinly researched? Laser surgery has been performed for well over 20 years now, with hundreds of thousands of people treated. To my knowledge there have still been no negative long term effects of the treatments. My wife is a trained ophthalmic nurse, who worked in a clinic where they performed laser eye surgery. (She does not work there now, and is in no way associated with any of these clinics). I had Lasik in 1999, both eyes. My original prescription was around -7.50 in each eye, plus a slight astigmatism in one eye. I've been free of glasses since then. (My sight is starting to deteriorate slightly now, but only because I'm diabetic). There are two main types of laser eye surgery. They both have one thing in common - the cornea is exposed and then a laser is used to re-shape it. If you are short-sighted they flatten the cornea, if you are long-sighted they steepen the curvature of the eye. This isn't as drastic as it sounds, they work on tolerances of the number of cells deep. PRK is the original procedure, which is the one most people find painful. The reason being that to expose the cornea, they actually scrape away the top layer. Ouch! And not only is this painful while it is growing back, there is an increased risk of scarring and haze at night. Lasik is a newer procedure (still at least 10 years old though), where a flap is cut into the top layer of the eye. This is then peeled back to expose the cornea, and after the procedure it is lain back down on the eye. This is pretty much pain free, although for a few weeks afterwards you have to take care not to rub your eyes to dislodge the flap. If you can pick, choose Lasik over PRK. However people with larger pupils or thinner corneas might not have the choice as they may not be able to have a suitable size flap cut and PRK would be their only option. There is a new procedure around which uses the same flap-cutting process, but instead of laser treatment a contact lens is inserted under the flap. The advantage of this is that as you age and your eyes change (which is an inevitable aging process regardless of whether you have been treated) the flap can be lifted and the contact lens changed. I have no hesitation in recommending Lasik, so long as it is performed by a reputable clinic.

I've stayed in both, and the Grand is the nicer one. A bit old fashioned, but better service and a much better restaurant.

TallioN, what on earth is that under the film on the first pic? Looks like someone took a dump on the screen and then covered it with clingfilm! :eek:

When they are old enough to do that, the list of things I wish they wouldn't do will be much smaller. Err, yes I have. Did I get something wrong, or didn't you disagree with my point that people are free NOT to buy anything that offends them? Being just a poor, simple man, perhaps you could set me straight. I could have sworn that removing the right to choose would be fairly similar to dictating what people are allowed to choose?

That is appalling. I would be tempted to reject the car, and seek a full refund.

Erm, no they can't. At ages 4.5 and 7, I strictly control the forms of media they can access. So what is the alternative? Or to put it another way, why should I let you dictate what I and my family are able to watch, read or listen to?

I couldn't care less about semi-clothed or even naked women or men on the covers of our newspapers. It is only the human body after all. We've all got one. I would be perfectly happy with my three young children seeing things like that. (Although I do ban them from watching the likes of Buffy which IMHO is too violent for them). What does it say about our culture? It says that we are a tolerant and diverse nation, with reasonably good free speech rights. It also says that adults have the right NOT to buy media they aren't happy with.

Delight

My father-in-law was in the building trade, so has some idea of what things really cost. His boiler went wrong recently, so he had BG out to do a quote. Which was £2500 for the boiler, and about £1000 for fitting. To which my father-in-law queries how they could charge that much for a £800 boiler, and why they charged £1000 for one days work. The BG salesman just went a bit sheepish. Always shop around, and IMHO avoid the big suppliers like BG who rely on their brandname & lazy consumers to keep their prices higher than the rest of the market.

I seem to recall it being a declarative language, rather than procedural. For a university project I had to write an expert system to recommend a car funnily enough. Haven't touched it for 15 years though, so good luck.