Harwell ARS one is only 50 miles from me so probably worth it for a day out.
It was a least as good as Kempton, if not better. Fewer new dealers, more car boot stuff, indoors with electricity. IIRC I picked up a sort-of-working 475 for £10.
I put it down to Harwell having more (interesting) physics-techies, whereas Kempton has more (uninteresting) fin-techies.
I ought to add that fin-techies that have an electro-techies sideline aren't "uninteresting"
That sounds rather interesting. Booked into the calendar!
Kempton isn't too bad in that department as we have National Physics Laboratory [1] up the road too in Teddington which contains the officially sanctioned national time and volt nuts. However the population is muddied by the semi-religious technology yokels from the local amateur radio clubs and the other yokels that refused to be shipped off to new towns in the 1950s and 1960s.
Have to agree with most of the fintechies - either dull, weird or doing something illegal and nothing else. I'm weird and probably doing something illegal.
Damn, bd; just when I'm absolutely convinced you've lost your last marble... you casually toss off a little gem of absolute philosophical clarity like that one.
Root cause analysis: if a stupid person (me) says enough words, one day they will say something profound
Jeebus... bad enough the MBAs have utterly commoditized Tech and pretty much anything that actually requires a brain just so they can beat us up on the price of prostituting our genius; now they're sniffing around our WOMEN (what few we have) TOO?
I'm getting my crowbar... gonna kneecap me a few accountants just on GP.
mnem
Time to get William Wallace on their asses before there's nothing left for us nerds but the crumbs...
If it's any consolation the MBAs and fintech people usually pay for their women from what I've seen (no joke - it's one sector full of properly fucked up people). There are a few "fringers" (like me) who don't have to because we weren't born into finance and thus don't value everything objectively with dollar signs like some Ferengi death cult.
Edit: to extrapolate. The fintech sector is roughly staffed with MBAs who did coding bootcamps, computer science and economics graduates without a conscience and ex engineers. The ex engineers like myself are admittedly screwing the sector hard because at the end of the day their original careers full of promise turned into political nightmares managed by incompetents so they all want to accumulate to escape ASAP and just log out of life and surround themselves with their own interests. This is counter to the other intent which is to acquire status through the purchase of expensive things like Teslas and watches that cost more than my car.
A quote from my father: A man suddenly with nothing has only the respect he earned before he had nothing. Lots of these people end up with nothing.
[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Physical_Laboratory_(United_Kingdom)