Chris`I

What they fail to quantify is how much if any of the overtime the employing company would be willing to pay for. I have worked for companies where they have a lot of paid overtime going, but this was because it was a specialist area and they couldnt hire any more people. If they could they would as it would be cheaper. However in the current economic climate people are working unpaid overtime to cover the fact that many companies cant employ more people. Again, if they could I'm sure they would rather than having good hired hands go off sick because they are working too much. Once again, unions are spouting @*!# to flame their own fire

Hmmm, wonder if they are looking into it? Shouldnt need to take the site down to do that though, site being down is either coincidence or there was something really wrong with their random number generator and they've fixed it rather sharpish!

Man cave arguement, clearly the easiest way to win

Better hope you dont need any 370z help any time soon

Pretty easy to fit the washers to an aftermarket bumper, you just need to cut the holes AFAIK. The harder bit is if JDM owners have to retrofit washers as they dont come as standard but use HID lights

I think Toby (EH 370z) said that the 370z wheels have multi stage paint on them, the 40th and GT Edition dark wheels certainly are, and I think he said the silvers were (may stand corrected). That will be one reason they wont list it as its not just one paint code involved. A good repair company could match it closely though I guess.

See this is where it will get difficult. If you modified the car during SVA at the time it was imported to meet the required regs for the time (most common change is fitting a fog light), I'm not sure how they can retrospectively then change the rules and now say all JDM 350z owners need to go out and find washer jets for the headlights. Sure they can apply it going forward so anyone now trying to bring a car in will have to comply, but not sure they will be able to make it stick to cars that are already in the country. JDMs will plumet in value as owners are faced with selling the car or fitting headlight washers.

I'm guessing when cases like that come out then they'll revise the rules. I'd imagine it'll say if the seats are meant to be able to move (ie have rails) then they will have to move, but if they are fixed via bolts then that will be ok. Similarly I can only imagine with the HIDs they will have to say if import and OEM spec, then test to spec, meaning if there is no washer by default then you dont need to have one. That or the rules will only apply to new cars going forwards meaning to import a car without washers they'd have to be fitted as part of SVA? EDIT: Rereading the seat thing: Surely they'd have to just look to see if the seat can be unbolted and fitted in different positions? Means if you fit your own fixed seats then the rails/frame will have to have a few holes to enable you to move it forwards and backwards. Or the fact it doesnt have a mechanism means that test is null and void?

Correct. As I understand it when they load your details up to do the test, it is meant to alert them to this fact so they do it the old "hoon it down the road and slam the brakes on" method

It used to be mandatory for OEMs to fit the systems. So before if you had an aftermarket bumper, you could try to claim the HIDs were aftermarket and use that as a get out of not needing the washers. It was at least a grey area, now it seems rather black and white. I'm quite happy with the new rule TBH, it will get rid of the idiots that fit HIDs to non-HID designed housings with their crap cut offs that end up just blinding other road users

Hmm, that sounds to me like aftermarket bumpers will fail then Pete Yup, that could effect a few on here

If it was anything other than a pure coincidence then a developer will be having their P45 handed to them

Definately, if they are the right parts and they didnt have a clue how to use/fit them, thats not your problem.

Good to see in this day and age a proper broker can be cheaper than a massive call centre fuelled monster

Tell the missus you want a man cave, nice and dark with carpet, projector, surround sound, lazyboy and PS3/XB360. Then when she says no way, the idea of having carpet in the living room seems like a good comprimise Our living room is slowly morphing into a man cave-esq room. Next up is the Stressless sofa I want to go with the projector/surround sound/PS3 etc etc

Dont underestimate the cost of underlay for wood flooring, it can be just as expensive as its carpet counterpart. We actually went for a slightly cheaper flooring and more expensive underlay on the word of a friend and actually it made a real difference. The floor sounds a lot more solid to walk on than the parent-in-laws real wood floor. You can fit it yourself fairly easily though, that saved us a few hundred quid doing that over xmas a few years back Also go price up some rugs, they aint cheap for good ones I feel your pain Daryl, seems like the same thing I went through 5yrs ago, keep fighting though

We have engineered wood floor in our kitchen and hallway. Its lovely stuff and great for high traffic areas as its hard wearing and easy to keep clean. The stuff we've got you can relay, but it has to be backed out from one side to another (can be done from either side), but you cant do it from the middle. Personally I wouldnt have it in the living room as it can be cold and gives off a lot of echo. Not ideal given the money it looks like you may be spending on AV equipment. Anything other than a budget system will be degraded by having wood floors unless you have rugs covering most of it, in which case - whats the point? Carpet on the other hand can easily be lifted to run cables, is warmer and reduces echos a lot. Oh and speaker stands normally come with little rubber covers for spikey feet for hard floors

And the Vette wont like the fact that many of our roads are broken up and not super smooth like they have over in the US. Looks very cool though

Scew the mounts to the floor? As the others have said, AV stands arent known for their child friendliness, they can topple over easily, especially with not so light speakers on them. Will you be decorating when you move in? Will be easier and neater to chase the cable into the wall while you are doing that (when its a mess anyway), worth the effort in the long run. I know the battle you will be having, I had the same with my missus. But after chasing our rear speaker cables into the wall, she decided it was so neat that we should do the front ones too!

I'd make her walk to work or get a bike/bus/train

Did you tell Scorpion that it wasnt straight? Sorry if this has been gone over before but being made in Derbyshire, I wouldnt be supprised if they would go out of their way to sort it out. I once lost the removable baffle for my bike exhaust and they just sent me over a new one very quickly at a reduced rate. Still something to be said for "made in the UK" With the JapSpeed it depends how well they've copied the HKS, or even how well they've copied the copy of the HKS I get the feeling most of these exhausts probably come out of the same factory and all the copies are the same just rebranded.

Yup Its hard to achieve with lenses that are small and with sensors that are small, which is why you see it a lot more on SLRs than any other cameras. They are getting better at tricking smaller sensor cameras into doing it, but it will never look as "right" as with a full frame SLR.

Didnt think you could measure bokeh? Isnt bokeh the quality of the blurred areas? If so how do you measure it and have more? Yes, bokeh is the blurry background. A low f number will give you some bokeh and a larger sensor. Also bokeh changes lens to lens. A nifty fifty gives you decent bokeh but a sigma 50 f1.4 gives you some amazing bokeh Lense/sensor/aperture combo will give you different depths of field, so more or less or the background can be in focus or not, but bokeh is the quality or feel of that blurred area, not the amount of blurred area. Some combo's give aesthetically pleasing bokeh, some not so. But AFAIK you cant have more or less of it, it just is what it is. You cant mathematically quantify it nor easily design it into a lense. Or get "good bokeh" using a certain focal length/aperture/sensor size combo

Didnt think you could measure bokeh? Isnt bokeh the quality of the blurred areas? If so how do you measure it and have more?

Yes got an external hard drive, getting a bit of a dear do this camera lark!! Slippy slope, just like cars, next it will be more lenses, filters(?), flash, other accessories