Squaredy

Interesting, thank you.

I have for the first time used the angry emoji. But the trouble is will it be clear that I am reacting angrily to the subject not the fact that it was posted here. Or am I just over-analysing…?

It’s quite a scandal isn’t it? I went on a cruise in 2018 stopping in 7 different European countries and then Russia. With the exception of Russia every country automatically locked onto the best local signal. Automatic roaming. And as soon as we were back in the UK I was stuck with the useless network I was on (Tesco who use O2 I believe). I left Tesco mobile soon after and now get better reception, but still really poor at work. Even in the EU it was quite a battle to get high roaming charges removed if I remember correctly.

Yes, the most powerful signal where I am is from a mast in Portishead about 15 miles away. The tall trees are the problem. It was better years ago when I could see the river Severn from my main building; but since then the trees have grown up a lot and it looks to me like they might just grow some more!

To be honest I don’t mind making Musk a tiny bit richer. If he gets rich by providing something no-one else can I take my hat off to him. Contrast that to my current situation where I pay £100 a month to XLN for a barely usable copper line; and £18 to EE for a completely useless 5g router.

When I had my 4g antenna fitted a few years back the engineer spent a good couple of hours trying different locations for the antenna and eventually got download speeds of 6mb. But then the mast he pointed it at was permanently degraded and it has not worked since. There are several people nearby who have Starlink and all have really good things to say about it. And whereas the UK is reducing the number of masts for mobile phone signal, Starlink are continuing to ramp up their satellites. Another 11,000 going to be launched over the next few years apparently. And of course there is no contract. If it starts to decline in performance I can just back out. Whereas my stupid 4/5g mast I am still paying for until at least next year.

Yes I had a 4g antenna fitted, and it worked for a couple of months. When I complained they upgraded it to 5g but it hasn’t worked at all for over a year. You see it isn’t my home it is my work site and in the middle of a forest so trees get in the way for phone signal.

Yes all phones will eventually be VOIP. But the challenge I have is how to keep my landline number but get the connection via another supplier (Starlink). The copper wire to the property here is in poor condition but is not being upgraded to fibre so I don’t want to keep paying for a really poor connection.

Does anyone else not at all love the new operating system on their iPhone? It seems to make it almost impossible to quote a section of text on ArbTalk amongst other gripes. Did Apple not test it on ArbTalk forums…?

Maybe you can enlighten us. What did he say about the US? I did Google it but didn’t get much.

Well that is the six million dollar question, and at the end of the day you will need to work out what prices work for you. The only tip I can really give is to remember that what you mill will be very different from what builders merchants offer. Your timber will i guess be unseasoned. If it is the right species (larch, douglas fir) it will have natural durability. And you will be able to offer a bespoke service. Eg if the customer wants beams at 135mm x 60 you can help, whereas the builders merchants will not. Also I suggest always pricing up for the full length. The customer may ask for many different lengths, but you should charge for the length your logs are. And I haven’t mentioned that of course pricing should be by volume, except possibly for very thin or narrow pieces.

Ah yes I should have mentioned: no mobile phone signal at all. At least not enough to hold a conversation anyway.

He will get very bored with mine…

Has anyone got any experience of using Starlink to operate as a landline using VoIP? I understand it is possible but I am finding it difficult to work out how to go about this. I am sure I could ask a local firm to set it up, but I believe setting up Starlink is very easy. What I want though is to be able to transfer my existing landline business number over to the Starlink broadband. The reason I wish to do this is because the current setup is just so poor and expensive I believe Starlink would be way better. I currently have a copper landline provided by XLN whom I have been with for years and it costs around £100 per month for the line and broadband (terrible speeds making many websites unusable). XLN have even told me that as a legacy copper line the cost is going to go up by 15% per year! I have tried shopping around but as soon as they know the premises everyone declines to get involved. I guess this is because they know it is a long run of poorly maintained copper cable that is not being repaired or upgraded anyone soon. Openreach have surveyed the line with a view to installing fibre, but unless there is a lot of government funding this is not happening anytime soon as we are miles from anywhere. Anyone else tried using Starlink with landline?

And now for some new news… Trump has declared on social media this evening that the framework of a deal for the USA to acquire Greenland has been reached with the NATO secretary general. What the Danes think of this I have no idea!

Maybe we can put the sex offences one to bed by remembering that data from all 43 UK police forces confirmed that men of Pakistani heritage were between 200% and 400% more likely to be perpetrators of grooming and related offences than the general population. Apparently it is even known where these men originate - the Mirpur region as they have a very different culture there even than most of Pakistan. And of course ethnicity and skin colour are irrelevant; or should be. But the point is that men of certain ethnicities were being protected by the establishment for fear of stirring racial tensions. That is why ethnicity was brought into it. Every perpetrator should have been treated equally - but they were not.

Well they did go soft on them eventually yes. The initial terms of the Treaty of Versailles however were very humiliating and impossible for any country to comply with. So to an extent they really had no choice but to go a bit soft as the original terms were unworkable. We created a perfect ground for someone like Hitler to exploit.

I know you have already been corrected on this but it might be worth reading up on the causes of World War 2. To an extent it was down to Germany being punished severely and stripped of much of their land in the Treaty of Versailles. The USA came up with a list of fourteen principles that were meant to be enshrined in the treaty and how the defeated Germany were to be treated. Every single one was broken by the allies.

It looks as if there is rot in one of them which will affect the value. If I milled them for a customer I would charge probably £30 per cubic foot. Shorter beams would be less; I charge a premium for long beams. But as it is unlikely they will exactly match anyone’s need the seller will have to be realistic. If he gets £20 per cube he should be happy.

We should start a History thread maybe...

Thank you very interesting. I am aware of the difference in living standards post war in the USA and the UK and much of Europe. But I wasn't aware about the trade so I will be reading about this. I often say to people I know that WW2 was in effect won by the USA and lost by Europe. Which is not to deny the incredible efforts of the UK, France, and a host of other nations - it is just that even the so-called winners in Europe were losers in reality.

Douglas or larch I would say.

Bit of a derail I know, but how did the UK get hung out to dry by the Marshall plan? Incidentally hopefully you know that we never paid back our WW1 debts to the USA and we very much betrayed them in the aftermath of WW1. Yet still they gave us $31 billion for WW2. What would that be worth today?

That is bizarre. I guess you will have to go and have a chat with them at the sorting office. Sounds like your local office have a few problems.

From someone who has milled many wide slabs over the years, I have a tip. Try softwoods, especially cedar of Lebanon, sequoia, pine. They behave really well. The hardwoods like oak and ash that you could mill in the UK love to move and twist all over the place.