Any question answered...

none. unless we are counting excel.

i would like to do it on a 100x100 grid

Well, one way to do it semi-manually with Excel is to use this website to load an image into excel (I haven't tested the website though, btw). This is very non-elegant compared to using a proper language like Python, but has the advantage that you can work with what you know.

Once you have the image in one sheet you should be able to use Excel formulas in another sheet to calculate any kind of average or root mean square value of whatever grid you want.

Matlab does it I seem to remember. Probably only useful if you happen to be doing a maths degree.

thanks, i think that would work well enough

i'll save the python script for another time :)

Nah, Matlab is widely used by engineering students too, it's nice to quickly write code that does useful stuff, and there are a few super useful, well-maintained toolboxes.

Unfortunately you can realistically only really use it as a student, comparatively few companies cough up the money for Matlab (licenses are VERY expensive) when you can usually do it in Python etc. too. That being said, I've been told naughty people have found ways around the licensing thing for their private use. Still, installing it for this purpose it's a bit like rigging up a death star to hunt ducks.

This is how you might get the colour value for each block in Python, using pillow, the standard image processing library. You could do the posterisation as well.

Code formatting doesn't seem to quite work, // is integer division, not a comment

from PIL import Image

BLOCK_SIZE = 40
img = Image.open('image.png')
img_x, img_y = img.size

for x_block in range(img_x // BLOCK_SIZE):
    for y_block in range(img_y // BLOCK_SIZE):
        colour = img.getpixel((x_block * BLOCK_SIZE, y_block * BLOCK_SIZE))
        print('x:{}, y:{}; rgb:{}'.format(x_block, y_block, colour))

This would give you output like:

x:0, y:0; rgb:(65, 12, 11)
x:0, y:1; rgb:(197, 56, 120)
x:0, y:2; rgb:(245, 18, 90)

where x, y coordinates refer to blocks, not pixels.

Sorted, details hidden in paypal, only came up when using them instead of shippo or CanPost to print label.

yep TKMaxx sorted me out. Could use a longer one though, which one do you have? Thanks

Planet X pro evo disc. Does it take mudguards?

How are utilities priced? Presumably, for the household market, there's a wholesaler selling to a retailer selling to a customer.

We're with E.on on 'Energy Plan' (receive a bill every quarter and pay within a month - generally these are 250ish but November to Feb was 900 quid which made me switch to a smart meter so I could better keep track of it).

They installed it at start of October and current reading seems accurate and happy to pay however because we'd been on estimated rather than actual reads we'd somehow been UNDERpaying for the previous year so as well as the 300 for the quarter, we've got another 200 to pay. Spoke to E.On to clear it up - it wasn't stated in the bill that the discrepancy was between estimated vs actual, they just said we'd used 2 months worth of fuel in the week between our last bill and getting the smart meters installed (we were away that week which is why it stuck out!). Fine, will pay, whatever.

Chatting to them I asked if we were on the best tariff and they just said 'our prices are set by ofgem' before getting sniffy and abruptly ending the call.

I've paid about 2.5K in duel fuel since July 2018 including VAT and standing charges etc.

uSwitch suggesting I could save up to 600 quid a year by switching. I'm trying to work out if that's likely or they're basing it on models we don't fit into so the price would be the same wherever we went (we're both at home all the time so heating is on a few hours in the day in the winter).

Extract your usage from the bills and put it in one of the switching calculator things. I mean by and large the bills are just standing charge and usage so if it says £600 that's probably about right.

In my experience E.on provide a service that is a) shitter b) more expensive than most others so you've got pretty much nothing to lose

Chatting to them I asked if we were on the best tariff and they just said 'our prices are set by ofgem' before getting sniffy

Ofgem also tell them they have to write to you every year to tell you what you would be paying on whichever of their tariffs yielded the lowest bills based on your usage. I'd be surprised if they didn't also have to tell you on demand.

The switching/price comparison sites work as long as you give them the right info. You might want to run several scenarios if your usage is potentially volatile. Also clear your cookies and go direct to the sites of promising suppliers, as they may have deals not listed on comparison sites.

Thanks both - I put in my last years bills into uswitch so assumed it would be accurate, I just can't fathom the price difference if they don't set their own prices. Unless they're being disingenuous about that obviously.

I just can't fathom the price difference if they don't set their own prices

Ofgem set an upper limit on prices for certain tariffs. Anything else is down to the supplier to decide.

Thanks

A £600 surcharge for the same service is absolutely within the realms of possibility. They are pure scum.

Check your phone bill, internet, TV, car insurance, savings account rates, etc. as well, they all play the same trick.

Yesterday I googled a lamp and now I'm getting ads by the manufacturer of those lamps on Instagram. I (foolishly) thought Facebook could not track what I google, but it seems they can. What can I do to stop them from doing that?

https://slate.com/technology/2016/10/google-changed-a-major-privacy-policy-and-no-one-really-noticed.html

log in to here https://adssettings.google.com/u/0/authenticated?hl=en and turn off add personalisation. then do the same here http://www.youronlinechoices.com/uk/your-ad-choices . but really there's not much you can do. I'm sure someone with more smarts will be along shortly to tell you how to use a vpn and tor browser

Yup, and also any website that has a Facebook button will also include tracking to know you've been on it. If you don't want a search coming up in your adverts then use duckduckgo or an incognito tab for Google

I had already turned off Google's ad personalisation, but I've now done the cookie thing too.

I guess the only way to avoid being tracked is stop using them, but that's too big of a sacrifice at this point, who knows what the future will bring.

Read 'The Age of Surveillance Capitalism' and try not to worry that it's already too late?

A friend mentioned ukuleles in a recent group e-mail, and for a time my Pinterest feed was full of pretty pictures of the bloody things. Apparently one of us has a Gmail account...

Does anyone know if these graphics are under clearcoat or are silkscreened and removable?

1 Attachment

I'm trying to download versions of Python and Pil which are compatible with each other.
I could be wrong, I could be right, but there doesn't seem to be any crossover.

Is it ok to freecycle a bag that is slightly damaged but still useable, when because of the damage the manufacturer gave me a new one. Or would that be stealing a sale from the manufacturer who did the good thing by replacing it?

Their bag broke and they haven't lost a sale by making it good. Recycling the old one instead of chucking it out is a win all round.