serrac

You can buy win7 keys very cheaply on the bay. They're from business PCs which have been decommissioned. The machines are built at the factory using an OEM type key and they get a key label attached in case windows needs reinstalled at some point - most are never used. MS won't like it but since the box it was sold with is now scrapped, as is your father's old laptop, I'd say it's fair and reasonable to use one of these for your build. And I never mentioned Win7 tiny at any point in this post...

I wonder if Police Scotland have their own view on "you don't have to show good reason" as they do on "no response from doctor = assume no concerns" I had my FEO interview for my SGC the other day. "Where do you plan to shoot?" "I have permission on a farm" "how often do you shoot there with your air rifle?" "Can I have the farmer's phone number so I can check you actually have permission?" I wasn't expecting that to be honest - not that it should be a problem, hopefully...

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/bail-in-powers-implementation-including-draft-secondary-legislation/bail-in-powers-implementation "Bail-in involves shareholders of a failing institution being divested of their shares, and creditors of the institution having their claims cancelled or reduced to the extent necessary to restore the institution to financial viability." When they say "creditors", they probably mean you... How would any of this work if there was a bank deposit protection scheme in place?

"So how we'll has it worked in Scotland? How many licenced their air guns?" As of 30th June 2017, Ch Supt Barry McEwan told BBC Scotland he was "pleased with the success" of the air weapons project. "Members of the public embraced the legislation right away," he said. "They understood the danger that air weapons can bring to our communities in Scotland and 21,000 plus have handed their weapons in and we have destroyed them. "What we have also had, since then, is almost up to 15,000 people have applied for certificates of air weapons in Scotland. So out of an estimated 500,000 "air weapons" in Scotland prior to licensing, 36,000 have been accounted for. Suggesting we now have up to 440,000 newly created criminals in Scotland. Way to go SNP - have you told Visit Scotland to mention this in their adverts? Mike

Funny! I was looking at this exact page a couple of days ago. Think I might give it a try since the cost is minimal assuming you already own a PC As I understand it the distance between the LEDs can be set in the software as required. However this might take some working out as the software assumes an audio based signal pickup.

"You can always tell if a person had a Gat or model 2 Diana .... They will have ring mark in the palm of their right or left hand." Or in my mate's big brother's case, in the middle of the forehead from the spring flying out when he tried to dismantle it (Later in life he had half a hand removed by a guillotine in the paper mill where he worked - just accident prone I guess...)

team tractor " I lost my sister through it 19 years ago at 19 years old." I'm very sorry for your loss - epilepsy claims far too many lives, very often otherwise healthy young people with their whole lives in front of them. general grievous"That's a great post Mike but I think you are missing a really important part ... How and why did Debbie's treatment change so that she is now doing so much better? If that's too personal, please ignore this question but for me and I'm guessing, other followers of this thread, your post is both uplifting and intriguing." Happy to elaborate with the caveat that this is strictly our interpretation of the situation. I did actually answer your point :-) - Vitamins and CBD Oil Debbie is among the the 30% of epilepsy sufferers who are considered "refractory to treatment" - non of the conventional drug treatments have worked for her. Her epilepsy is also described by her doctors as idiopathic, as in "we don't have a scuby what's causing your seizures". We'd even considered brain surgery but were told she wouldn't be a candidate as she hadn't demonstrated that her seizures weren't controlled at the maximum dose of her medications. The problem with that is she starts becoming emotionally disturbed and/or psychotic at anything over 10% of the max dose. She has attempted doubling and even trebling her dose but always ended up dropping down to a level she could tolerate as the side-effects were horrendous - and with no reduction in the frequency or severity of her seizures. One medication actually made her seizures much worse at the higher dose. Her GPs started using the term "non-compliant" and became increasingly dismissive of her epilepsy related issues, as if she was bringing the seizures on herself by not maxing out on the medications as they suggested. As an engineer the term "idiopathic" didn't sit well with me - I couldn't accept that her seizures were an "un-caused effect", so I started to research less mainstream ideas about epilepsy and it's treatment. I soon found there were a number of nutritional deficiencies which could provoke seizures, either directly or indirectly - i.e. Vitamin B6 supplementation is the only known treatment for pyridoxine dependent epilepsy (surprise surprise pyrodoxine is a posh name for Vitamin B6). At the end of 2013 I compiled a shopping list of vitamins and minerals that were suspected to be of potential benefit and Debbie started to take them in addition to her medication. Now 2013 had been a horrible year, culminating in her receiving skin grafts on her arm three days before Christmas having clamped her hair-straighteners on her arm during a seizure - but from the week she started taking the supplements and for the next seven months she was seizure free. Then, she had a single cluster of seizures lasting a few days followed by another 6 months seizure free before the seizures started up again and fell back into their old pattern of two or three clusters per month, and 7 - 15 seizures per cluster. Shortly after that my wife and I were away on holiday and Debbie was staying with her boyfriends parents, his mum took her to an appointment with the epilepsy nurse at the local hospital. Mark's mum had seen all the bottles of vitamins and insisted she show them to the epilepsy nurse - who demanded that she immediately stop taking them: "we don't treat epilepsy with vitamins". So she stopped all the supplements. One day she collapsed with a seizure while talking to her GP's receptionist and was taken to see a GP - she was put under a lot of pressure to max out her medication again. They also told her to stop taking advice from me as I wasn't qualified to give medical advice. They tried her on a new medication which just made her so emotionally messed up that her boyfriend (and his mum) couldn't cope with her so he finished the relationship. The next year was very difficult - both from a medical point of view and because her employers began to put her through disciplinary procedures for absenteeism - despite having assured her this wouldn't happen as they had made a "reasonable adjustment" to accommodate her epilepsy. She decided to jump before she was pushed and was offered a job with Fife Council - who to their credit, when advised of her epilepsy immediately put procedures into place to ensure they could take good care of her. A couple of weeks before she was due to start she told me she wanted to give the vitamins and minerals another try since they seemed to have helped in the past. I was concerned what her new employers would think when they saw the extent and frequency of her seizures and was desperate that she would have at least a couple of weeks clear of seizures so they could see that she was a capable worker before they had to deal with the down side. As it turned out she was seizure free one week, two weeks, a month, two months. Then, a man at work with a daughter who also has epilepsy told her that his daughter had started using CBD oil (cannabidiol) and it seemed to have significantly reduced her seizures. I had looked into CBD oil only a few weeks before but had dismissed it as too "out there" - after all it's derived from cannabis so I presumed it was illegal to buy and own - and I certainly didn't want her on a drug rap in addition to all her other problems. However taking a second look I discovered that CBD oil was openly sold on Amazon and there were plenty of reviews from people saying it had helped them with epilepsy and seizures. I also found there is a growing body of scientific evidence that the CBD molecule is very special - indeed there is now an experimental drug Sativex - though that also contains the "high" producing cannaboid THC in addition to CBD. I ordered up a bottle of CBD oil and Debbie added it to her daily routine. So thirteen months now without a seizure - and no discernible side effects from the supplements or CBD oil. So is it the vitamins or CBD oil that's preventing the seizures? We don't know and we don't care! Indeed the most sensible thing we have heard from the medical community lately was her consultant: "if it's working for you - keep doing it!" OK, sorry to have rambled on so much but hopefully that's given you a better picture of Debbie's situation. (See "Weed" by Sanjay Gupta on Youtube for a fascinating documentary on CBD oil being used to help children with the most extreme forms of epilepsy. ) There is one dark cloud on the horizon however - late last year the Medicine Control Agency wrote to the major sellers of CBD oil advising them that they had classified CBD oil as a medicine and therefore they would have to apply for a licence to sell it and put their products through testing costing six figure sums. A similar move was made by the DEA in America, suggesting a co-ordinated effort to remove the product from the market world-wide. There was sufficient push-back on both sides of the pond to make them go away and reconsider, but no doubt they will be back with a new and better plan to get it off the market. Been stocking up but the stuff is *expensive*. Cheers Mike

13 Months without a seizure for my lovely daughter Debbie. They started at 14 and she is now 34 and in the last few years had been having ~30 seizures per month Believe me it's been hellish - injuries, side effects of medication, psychosis, suicidal thoughts, prejudice & harassment - we could write a book and probably will. After two decades of having to watch her 24 hours a day, she's now living in her own house 5 minutes away from us. Praise the Lord for vitamins and CBD Oil... :-) Mike

"Farmers will give you more credit for shooting corvids than they do for shooting pigeons. " Why IS that? Mine says he has a "huge crow problem" but seems oblivious to the huge flock of ferals that fly in and out of his feed shed all day scoffing and ####### on his grain pile... Mike

Hi, Don't worry, I do have an AWC! "a Coterminous is still 2 certificates" I wasn't aware that they still issued 2 certs with Coterm - but there are still obvious advantages to going that route where possible. "I am unaware of simply being able to add it to an FAC though?" Suppose you had a <12ft/lb air rifle you wanted to upgrade to FAC You'd need a FAC with a slot for a FAC air rifle. Then you'd need to apply the serial number for the <12 air rifle to the slot on the FAC before sending the gun off to the gunsmith to get it uprated to >12ft/lb My plan was to do everything up to the point of sending said gun off to the gunsmith - I can't see plod chasing me up to make sure my gun was powerful enough... I would potentially be limited to only using that gun on the land for which it'd shown good reason though and it might be harder to sell too. To be honest the shotgun and <12ft/lb air rifle are sufficient for most of the shooting I'm ever likely to do on this particular farm. I just liked the idea of getting the approval process for SGC and FAC under my belt in one go and only costing a little more than the FAC alone. Probably the best advice I've had so far is to not strain my relationship with the farmer and lose the permission over this, so I've pretty much decided to put the FAC on the back burner until I have a genuine need for it. Thanks everyone who replied for your inputs - appreciated :-) MIke

"It's a little odd a farmer won't allow a firearm to be used on a farm.... " Apparently this has been allowed in the past and the privilege was abused in some way. "I thought all air rifles had to be licensed in Scotland now anyway?" They do - the new AWC relates to <12ft/lb rifles & you still need S1 for anything more powerful. I'd heard that it's possible to put a <12ft/lb air rifle on a FAC cert by declaring the serial number, though that gun would forever-after be considered as FAC "His land his permission hard to get very easy to lose" Very true - hence the dilemma. "they will visit the land to assess it suitability for your required calibre" Given that a rim/centrefire has been used on the farm at some time in the past I would have thought it would automatically be cleared for FAC air rifle. I suppose it's possible someone might have been doing so on an open FAC. "They may ask for you to be mentored for a year or two." Really? Anybody know of instances of someone being required to be mentored with a FAC air rifle? Given most of my airgun shooting is likely to be rats and feral pigeons around the farm buildings <12ft/lb is probably most appropriate anyway. I was just thinking it would be nice (and cheaper) to get the FAC checks over and done with in conjunction with the SGC checks.

Hi, Wondering how you guys would resolve this little dilemma. I have a permission to shoot vermin on a farm using an air rifle. The farmer also said he was OK with me using a shotgun once I get my SGC Living in Scotland, I like the idea of going co-terminus to have the air rifle and shotgun both on the same cert. That would mean I would already have my FAC if I need a rimfire in the future - and would only need to manage/finance one certificate rather than three... However when I previously mentioned applying for a FAC for a rifle to go after foxes he said he woudn't allow a rifle on the farm. Now my dilemma is if I apply for a FAC slot for my air rifle and the FEO contacts him about it he might think I'm "at it". I could talk to him but not sure if he would understand how a FAC air rifle is different from a rim/centrefire. So how would you proceed? Cheers Mike

1.5dci? Check the timing belt Thoroughly Often Then check it again. Try to become obsessive about it :-) My son bought a 2010 Qashqai in 2013 with the same engine. 13 Months later the timing belt broke at ~50K miles. NP he thinks, the car is still under the dealer's warranty. "Well sir, the limit for a single claim is £2500 and it will cost £4250 to rebuild your engine or £4500 for a factory reconditioned unit" A bit of research showed this was a known issue Nissan were refusing to own so he engaged in a social media name-and shame-campaign which miraculously resulted in Nissan paying for a new engine (with a modified tensioner and sprockets to fix the issue) and all the labour costs to fit it. A couple of weeks ago he phoned me to say the timing belt in the new engine had just broken. I have a feeling Nissan aren't going to step up a second time... Mike

Last week I was just lining up on a flock of pigeons on a heap of grain in the feed shed when they all flew off in a hurry - to be replaced by a fox cub that wandered out from a pile of bales. The farmer was telling me he had a fox problem but I'm not sure he realised it was that close to home... Mike

Hi Alec, Fancy a coffee in Dobbie's sometime? You can put your big fish in the goldfish pond - he'll be absolutely fine. Not so sure about the goldfish though Mike

"Welcome young man" Don't hear that too often nowadays "Hi Mike, what area of Fife are you from?." Dunfermline area - you?

"....same for someone selling outside of Scotland?" We didn't look into that but I presume Police Scotland are taking their stance based on the requirement for the buyer to "show" an AWC to the seller. Since a buyer in England is not required to have an "AWC" one would hope that requirement doesn't apply. But as we already know Police Scotland read legislation to suit themselves so proceed at your own risk if you are a seller in Scotland. Regards Mike

The thing is she's as likely to be able to tell two guns apart as I could a pair of knitting needles - so as long as I only ever bring them out one at a time... The spousal strategy probably wouldn't work so well some of these eastern European ladies - probably more a case of them laughing at my little toys as they head out the door with some serious hardware.

Hi, Please be aware that the situation wrt posting "air weapons" appears to be different now in Scotland. I purchased a non-FAC air rifle privately in January - the seller and myself were both in Scotland and both AWC holders. He tried to post it via Parcelforce but the driver refused to uplift it claiming it was "dangerous goods". He spoke to the Police Scotland Air Weapons team who told him that "all air gun transactions now need to be done either face to face or RFD to RFD" So in the end I paid £30 more than expected and he received £30 less than expected - way to go SNP On the other hand the RFDs probably need the business - mine told me the air-gun trade seems to have collapsed in Scotland recently for some inexplicable reason. Regards Mike

Hi, I've been lurking here for a while and occasionally itching to jump into some of the conversations - so time to register. I'm a recent returner to shooting after a hiatus of 30 years or so - ironically prompted to get active again by the SNP's AWC folly. Don't get me started on that but I suppose it did get me off my backside and participating again in order to keep the guns that had been sitting innocently on top of the wardrobe for decades. Of course that required finding a permission to go with my certificate application - which actually turned out not that difficult for me as a church acquaintance happens to be a farmer with ~300 acres and lots of rats and feral pigeons around his buildings. I currently have the following: RWS LR20 .22 Webley Raider 2 shot .22 Original 35 .22 (actually belongs to my brother but he doesn't have a licence so...) Sharp Innova .177 My wife says all but one will have to go and if she enforces that the RWS will be the keeper. My farmer friend is OK with me getting a shotgun to go decoying but I've been sitting on my SGC application for a while, partly due to the GP issue but also because of a recent bereavement and a lot of strife with my wife's family over finances which has threatened at times to boil over into legal issues which might prejudice my application. Hopefully soon. Cheers Mike

Hi, How are you getting on with your LR20? I have the same model which came to me with an Air Arms moderator which works well and matches the rifle well in terms of appearance. The main thing to watch is the LR20, having a shrouded barrel has a female thread so you need a moderator with a male thread to match. A 2nd hand LR20 is a lovely piece of kit for the money but I must say the ergonomics around the bolt/magazine are a bit of a nightmare. To remove the magazine hold the rifle by the fore-end with your left hand, pull the bolt fully back and hold it there against the spring tension with your right hand. Now use your other hand to remove the magazine, taking care to avoid it springing off the rifle and into the nearest puddle :-) Cheers Mike