Very cool, if true

Argh... why are people obsessed with choice? This despite increasing amounts of research that it's bad for us. It's like with the trend with the NHS: no, don't want choice of hospitals, just want A reasonably good hospital not too far away.

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I don't get it either. I don't even want different kinds of cereal.

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I get bored of eating the same thing every day, and I'm in the mood for different things at different times.

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How many varieties of cornflakes do you need? :)

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Cornflakes?

I like weetabix. Or Muesli.

Cornflakes are clearly for the Wrong Kind Of Person.

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Hehe.

I think I told you about a friend who spent a year in a Nicaraguan village in 1980 or so, and then visited a supermarket. Freaked out.

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Hal felt somewhat similar when he came back from Kenya. And I believe that people from the old USSR had the same kind of Future Shock when they came to the West.

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Exactly! I have much the same reaction when I visit Scotland and Gregg's. So. Many. Pies.

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I'm generally in favour of it when it comes to non-essentials (pies, computer games and yachts) because who am I to tell someone that they have to play Doom, not C&C, or eat a steak pie rather than a bridie. When it comes to hospitals, having unnecessary hospitals just so they can compete seems like a massive waste of resources.

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Up to a point, cereal choice makes sense ;)
Crunchy / nutty / fruity / pencil shavings (aka bran flakes): these are tangible differences that you can have a preference for. But a lot of things (toothpaste, say, or headphones where I am currently paralyzed by the options), the choice is meaningless. I have no way of rating the different headphones, and there are dozens upon dozens of models at all manner of prices. I can't fathom what the choice represents and so I shirk from it, and have been doing so for over a year now since my iPod headphones broke.

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Headphones - ask friends to recomend some, and try them out if you can (after a good wipe, of course). I recommend Sennheiser CX 300's, which are about £20 and great sound quality. When I'm out and about I use Koss Sparkplugs because they keep sounds out better (being basically an ear plug with a hole drilled through the middle).

As for toothpaste - I hate really minty toothpaste, and don't like the texture of whitening toothpaste that Julie uses, so we have different toothpastes. If you don't care which kind you use then just buy the cheapest one - and then if you don't like it throw it away and buy a different one.

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Yup, for toothpaste, I can see there's a mintiness scale, and orthogonal to that is features like whitening / sensitive / regular. That still produces a grid of at most 9 types, and even allowing a few more if toothpastes came in non-mint flavours, it's not the array you see in Tesco.

BTW the whitening ones wear away your enamel.

Thanks for the tips. These would be exclusively for being out, so better noise reduction would be better. I tried Katie's which were maybe the Sennheiser.

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Well, I'm not sure you get more than 9 types of toothpaste per manufacturer - but what you do get is different container types. Plus, of course, different manufacturers. I'll be intrigued next time I'm in Sainsburies!

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iainjcoleman.livejournal.com

Just to back up Andrew: every piece of headphone-buying advice I have read, plus my own limited experience and that of my friends, boils down to this: decide your budget, then buy whatever set of Sennheisers most comfortably matches it.

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Very good! I had written a post about the CX300s (15 quid if you look around).

Whereas I'm stuck trying to find a laptop for a friend. Needs to run Windows 7, minimal use - surfing, some movies. 15 inch. Keyboard with lots of travel and depth. Cheap shipping. €400. Not easy, as it turns out.

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This looks like an updated version of my laptop:
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/179694
£350 - 15", comes with Windows 7. My keyboard is fine for me, but it's hard to know without trying it what this one is like. It has a ATI Radeon Mobility in it, which isn't up to Modern Warfare (I'd imagine) but happily plays World of Warcraft.

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Ebuyer don't ship to Ireland. =)

This is one of the many places it gets interesting. Now, Laptops Direct have it, but I'd really like to scrape off that excess €34.79.

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Oh hang on. Ebuyer do deliver.

How was your keyboard? Lots of depth and movement?

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I ordered these a couple of weeks ago. Astounding bass, excellent range, great noise-dampening. I couldn't hear a bin lorry go past, but I could hear Wagner.

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Ooh, thanks!

Similar to the ones I have, but I'll give them a go when these wear out :->

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That's exactly the thing - for 15 quid, they're very nearly disposable. For when you snag one on your shirt, on a door handle, underfoot... You do amass a great colelction of little rubber ear squishies, though.

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Thanks for the tip!

And they work well for Wagner you say... that's good to know. Some speakers sound great for pop but at soon as you put classical through them they're crap.

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Well, they're better than the previous ones I had, certainly (CX 300s, but an older design with a firmer cable that recently snapped), but there could well be something amazingly better out there. They do conduct a little sound from your footsteps when you're walking.

But for £15...

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a-pawson.livejournal.com

Much of the NHS is incredibly inefficient and run in very old-fashioned ways. The culture amongst many staff is one of resistance to advancement, efficiency improvements or change in general. Reforming that culture is pretty much impossible, not least due to resistance from staff and/or unions to change. Making hospitals compete financially, the argument goes, is pretty much the only way that you can force that change to take place.

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