egosoft.com

We haven't had any takers on the old Rant Thread here for several years now, and it's always good to let off some steam harmlessly.

Here's my starter:

Today I had an email from my energy supplier with a banner headline of 'Good news - Energy prices are going down!'. It went on to tell me that with the coming lowering of the UK energy price cap, electricity unit prices would be going down.

Then this little killer sentence - "As your electricity usage is low you may see a slight increase in your electricity annual costs, due to a small change to your daily standing charge." (I have solar panels and so low grid usage, and the 'small change' in daily standing charge was actually a 27% rise.)

So my 'Good news' is that my estimated electricity bills will actually go up by about £17 per year - and I'll probably get less for the surplus solar electricity that I sell back to them too.

ah yes, the old good news bad news switcharoo


I will add a rant then.

one more year of changing clock, because we live in pretend WW1 time

C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\DDDriver64DCSa.sys

This is a bit of a success story, but also a rant at Dell

For about a year now I have been unable to turn on Win 11 Core Isolations Memory Integrity.
Windows would report I had an out of date driver which needed updating, but did not list any drivers which were the cause ???.

Found out yesterday Microsoft have a Memory integrity system readiness scan tool you can download from here ..
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downloa ... ?id=105437
.. hvciscan_amd64.exe
Run it via an elevated Command line, and you will get actual results for any problem drivers/files.

In my case it was one file, which was left behind by Dell when they decided to pull a part of their support software. Idiots.
DDDriver64DCSa.sys - Dell Data Vault Control Device Driver I had to right click on the file and choose Properties, Security tab, and then go through the process of giving myself rights to delete it.
Once deleted, I could now select Windows Core Isolation Memory Integrity .. Peace of mind at last.

Historically Dell do things like this occasionally, little foobars with their support software not managing itself 100% correctly, overlays of old update extensions to support software for example which dont get uninstalled when the base update software is updated negating the need for the update extension which is still run after the base update and is incompatible .. causing knock on effects for windows and turn into a nightmare of trying to figure out what the hell is going wrong.

Dell, sort your shit out!.

Its pointless me going onto a Dell support site as Dell don't seem to listen, its just other users listening and helping, so Dell Tech guys never get to see any issues they need to solve .. So I may aswell shout out from here as anywhere else.

Ha, the increase in the standing charge. The cost increase that also covers clawing back money from taking over failed energy companies...

The same energy companies that failed because as the energy prices rose, the price cap prevented them passing on the cost to consumers, leading to wide scale bankruptcies.

So now the few surviving companies can pay off that debt via standing charges, and once done, be making wayyyy bigger profits* that aren't dependent upon actual usage \o/


*maybe they'll lower them, but with much less competition in the market place I wouldn't bet on it

Alan Phipps wrote: ↑

Tue, 12. Mar 24, 12:17

So my 'Good news' is that my estimated electricity bills will actually go up by about £17 per year

That is clearly good news ... for them.

alt3rn1ty wrote: ↑

Tue, 12. Mar 24, 14:07

a rant at Dell

Recent years the Dell monitors available to us were S-series. Latest purchase was a S2721DS.
It includes a HDMI cable. The standard desktops are Dell Optiplex. They have only DP-ports ...
(Now there seems to be P-series and they are supposed to include a DP-cable. Perhaps my rants did go somewhere.)

Alan Phipps wrote: ↑

Tue, 12. Mar 24, 12:17

We haven't had any takers on the old Rant Thread here for several years now, and it's always good to let off some steam harmlessly.

Here's my starter:

(Abbreviated).....

So my 'Good news' is that my estimated electricity bills will actually go up by about £17 per year - and I'll probably get less for the surplus solar electricity that I sell back to them too.

Now why doesn't that surprise me. It's a trend (as we all I think know) that seems to have been more noticeable since the start of the covid epidemic. I personally think it's various company's and organisations still trying to claw back revenue they lost over that period.
Thanks btw. for creating the new 'rant thread' !
I've a feeling I might be contributing frequently to this topic in the near future .

On the positive side, @ linolafett...Thanks for sorting out my login problems, it's very much appreciated!

Oldman

New rant - car hire using a 3rd party verification tool.

Wanted to hire a bigger car to take family in comfort up to Scotland for a family wedding. All pre-requested and but went into the hire place to confirm and show licence. Was told, in front of others waiting, that I had failed the 3rd party verification test. Are the details on the licence and shown on the computer screen all correct? - yes. How long had I lived at my address? - 25 years and I am the owner. Was my date of birth correct? - yes. Could you pay by credit card rather than a debit card? - I don't have a credit card and there's plenty of money for this available on the debit card.

I was left with - well we'll have to talk to our risk-assessment people - we'll phone you when we have. Days later and nothing heard, so I phoned their central Customer Support desk. Ah yes, that will be because you have no credit history with no loans, mortgage or credit card. I said 'Yes, but that's good isn't it?' Not for hiring a car it isn't .... You'll have to get another named driver to hire the car and pay on their credit card, you can always pay them back. We don't control the verification test and we don't take other proof such as bank statements, utility bills, etc.

This is the first time that I have ever been accused of being suspicious because I don't owe anyone any money!

Alan Phipps wrote: ↑

Mon, 29. Apr 24, 19:42

New rant - car hire using a 3rd party verification tool.

Wanted to hire a bigger car to take family in comfort up to Scotland for a family wedding. All pre-requested and but went into the hire place to confirm and show licence. Was told, in front of others waiting, that I had failed the 3rd party verification test. Are the details on the licence and shown on the computer screen all correct? - yes. How long had I lived at my address? - 25 years and I am the owner. Was my date of birth correct? - yes. Could you pay by credit card rather than a debit card? - I don't have a credit card and there's plenty of money for this available on the debit card.

I was left with - well we'll have to talk to our risk-assessment people - we'll phone you when we have. Days later and nothing heard, so I phoned their central Customer Support desk. Ah yes, that will be because you have no credit history with no loans, mortgage or credit card. I said 'Yes, but that's good isn't it?' Not for hiring a car it isn't .... You'll have to get another named driver to hire the car and pay on their credit card, you can always pay them back. We don't control the verification test and we don't take other proof such as bank statements, utility bills, etc.

This is the first time that I have ever been accused of being suspicious because I don't owe anyone any money!

How dare you be debt free!

Alan Phipps wrote: ↑

Mon, 29. Apr 24, 19:42

New rant - car hire using a 3rd party verification tool.
...
This is the first time that I have ever been accused of being suspicious because I don't owe anyone any money!

That is absolutely ridiculous.

I had a similar chat to this when I was looking for a mortgage, to buy my own place.

With no credit history it's a tough thing to do, need to have a bunch of loans.

So loans and credit cards I did

I heard about those situation many times, but I never experienced them myself.

Still, I bought a laptop on a loan like 10+ years ago for that reason, to not have zero loan/credit history.
I wonder if it still exist in those registries, or am back to be credit ghost.


Fortunately, debit cards are wastly more popular here than credit cards, to the point I wonder why would anybody even need a credit card.

I personally use credit cards for security.

I had money stolen from my debit card before, and while I got it back eventually, it wasn't a sure thing that I would.

I had theft/ unknown charge on my credit card and that was much easier and faster to solve.

Since then I don't carry debit / bank cards at all, only if I need to access my bank.

There's also a cash flow issue, a bit easier to handle with the credit card charges