Ben Harris

Ben Harris

@bjh21.me.uk

[bridged from https://wandering.shop/@bjh21 on the fediverse by https://fed.brid.gy/ ]

13 followers1 following262 posts

Ben Harris
@bjh21.me.uk

A useful fact I recently learned is that conventional basin screw taps have standard innards that you can buy from B&Q. So now the cold tap on my bedroom basin doesn't leak. It's also very shiny because I had to remove the tap to apply enough violence to get […] [Original post on wandering.shop]

Ben Harris
@bjh21.me.uk

That's a new basin too, because the old one had been cracked for decades and I found that Armitage Shanks still made the same model. The interesting bit was replacing the horribly bodged brackets holding it up with something a little nicer.

Ben Harris
@bjh21.me.uk

Having got bored with sieges in #DwarfFortress, I decided to dig deeper in search of magma. I've found some in the third cavern layer, along with lots of valuable (and inconveniently flammable) gems. Join me and see if I can continue not setting fire to […] [Original post on wandering.shop]

Ben Harris
@bjh21.me.uk

I've worked in higher education for 29 years. But somehow I've only just realised that the VAT regime means that outsourcing intrinsically makes less financial sense for a university than for a normal company. This makes me feel like a bit of an idiot.

Ben Harris
@bjh21.me.uk

To explain: most things a university sells are VAT-exempt. So we can't reclaim input VAT on most of our supplies. That means that most goods and services are 20% more expensive for us than for a company that can reclaim input VAT. But this doesn't apply to paying staff, or to renting or buying […]

wandering.shopOriginal post on wandering.shop
Ben Harris
@bjh21.me.uk

I'm sure when normal people wake up with a headache, the thing they regret isn't staying up far too late reading building societies' annual accounts.

Ben Harris
@bjh21.me.uk

Today, Network Rail were doing something on the London to Norwich line. So I caught the train that was unusually terminating at Stowmarket and cycled home. Thus I discovered that the camera on my phone is only marginally better than a potato.

Ben Harris
@bjh21.me.uk

I think this means I should update my list of stations from which I've cycled home off a terminating train from Cambridge. Nuneaton Leicester Peterborough -King's Lynn --Norwich Ely Cambridge North -Harwich International --Colchester -Ipswich -Stowmarket -Bury St Edmunds (Cambridge) -Audley End […]

wandering.shopOriginal post on wandering.shop
Ben Harris
@bjh21.me.uk

I only had a terrible phone camera to hand, but my official PaleNeØ fan did cast quite nice shadows. #eclipse

Ben Harris
@bjh21.me.uk

It's often hard to tell what's going to happen in a #DwarfFortress stream. For example last week seemed calm and then the elves and dwarves had a battle on our doorstep before a forgotten beast covered several unfortunate people (and dogs) in deadly dust. So […] [Original post on wandering.shop]

Ben Harris
@bjh21.me.uk

Last session of #DwarfFortress we had a mostly successful (from our point of view) attack from some elves. But they did get into our kennels and kill an awful lot of dogs so I fear tonight will mostly involve disposing of the bodies. Join me if that sounds […] [Original post on wandering.shop]

Ben Harris
@bjh21.me.uk

Inspired by the clamps used for telephone cables, I devised a twirly thing for suspending our pendant lights from hooks. I feel that this should be an article of commerce rather than something I made in my garage from an old bicycle spoke.

Ben Harris
@bjh21.me.uk

Cambridge often has trains that terminate at Bishops Stortford, but they're usually at very awkward times of day. Today there were such trains every hour, so I took one of them to the terminus and cycled home. On the way, I found discounted Creme Eggs […] [Original post on wandering.shop]

Ben Harris
@bjh21.me.uk

Today has been tiring. I'm trying to install proper network cabling in my house, and the current room has turned out to involve making holes in lots more bits of wood than I was expecting. But I think I've got past the difficult bit now, and I did also manage […] [Original post on wandering.shop]