Honestly not sure, but that's shit. Why wouldn't a vendor use Tracked, that's just lazy, and likely to result in MORE reship, not less, as they can't prove delivery. Poor show Eddy.

I understand he has good reviews and customers like him, but as a first time buyer of his how else can I view this situation?

I understand he might not trust me, but to first accuse me of having a high dispute rate and then go days blanking me when he's clearly online? It just doesn't feel right.

EDIT: Please also keep in mind I offered to pay £5 for tracked delivery FOR MY OWN GUARANTEE! yet seller refused. I can provide screenshots as proof if necessary.

i can't read books high as the words don't go in, and i find it amazing that anyone can!

but here are a couple of recommendations:

- mason & dixon, by thomas pynchon. possibly my favourite novel, and i recently finished a fourth or fifth reading of it.

- ways of being, by james bridle. fascinating book about AI, climate change, computing, and how we humans relate to (or fail to relate to) the non-human world.

Same, thats where Audible comes in handy :D

oh good tip! and nice to know i'm not the only one who can't read when high.

i'm kinda resistant to audio books for some reason (i think podcasts fill that gap for me).

any favourite audiobook recommendations?

oh yeah I'm the same - can't really enjoy books stoned! Audio books are a good idea :)

Thomas Pynchon is such a good writer. My personal favourite is Gravity's Rainbow. Pretty sure that he would write a lot of his work completely high to help him get into the characters' heads...and then edit it sober. Which isn't a bad process. It's probably how he came up with a guy who's have sex when a missile falls, so they use his erection as an early warning system ;). Also a long, phantasmagorical trip down a toilet.

Aye, I really enjoyed the Unhappy Medium by TJ Brown, hilarious and Redshirts by John Scalzi is fun

Bro speed reading when stonned is hilarious, I just make up what I am reading haha!

Im in awe of anyone who can manage Pynchon . Tried n failed!

Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain

Mr Nice & Dope Stories by Howard Marks

You're reading Mr Nice again?

Shantaram

Septimus Heap books (kids books, don't care, love them and read them yearly, Harry Potter can fuck off)

Ink and Sigil series

Kane and Abel by Jeffrey archer if you like a saga 👍

Love a good book!! Here’s some good recommendations

Bios mainly rock n roll people

Dear boy - keith moon

Thanks a lot mr kibblewhite - roger daltrey

Dr Ozzy - ozzy osbourne

Ozzy

Scar tissue - Anthony kiedis

Other true books

First light - about a spitfire pilot

Mad world my masters - John Simpson the news reader

Mr nice - Howard marks

Adverntures of a racketeer - Patrick ??? (Howard marks brother in law

Snowblind -

Shantaram- Gregory David ?????

Fiction

Wasp factory - Iain banks ( must read if you haven’t it’s mental)

Lord of the rings

Sherlock Holmes - surprisingly good

Jeeves and Wooster - any books all awesome

Corfu trilogy - Gerald Durrell

The teachings of Don Juan - Carlos casteneda

Just a few of my faves , I read lots of different books

Wow - I can't believe I've never read Sherlock Holmes?! Sounds like an obvious thing... Need to add it to the list!

Seriously they are great and once you read them you understand why the name and stories haven’t disappeared enjoy !!!

Mr Nice - Howard Marks
Cosmic Trigger (Vols. 1,2,3 ) - Robert Anton Wilson

Mr Nice is definitely on my list. What did you think?

Def. worth a read

Joe Abercrombie is my current favourite author. Kind of grim fantasy.
He builds characters so well you feel like you know them. Start with the First Law trilogy or The Heroes if you just want to dip your toe in.
If you prefer audiobooks the narrator who reads for him, Steven Pacey, is awesome. I didn't like audiobooks at all before listening to him

new Abercrombie book out next month. Great books, especially when read by Pacey!

Been reading "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking",

Really interesting when you want to get into philosophy.

Mockingbird - Walter Tevis
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Snowblind - Robert Sabbag
The Name of The Wind - Patrick Rothfuss

Snowblind is amazing. Old school smuggling at its finest.

How about The Day Of The Jackal by Frederick Forsyth

for philosophy then Meditations by Marcus Aurelius of course 😀

This was excellent.

If you like fantasy that doesn't take itself too seriously, anything by Joe Abercrombie. I've just finished his latest ' The Devils' and blew through it in a week, it's fantastic.

Anything Jeff Noon. Start with Vurt though. Falling Out Of Cars is my favourite by him.

Thoroughly depressing dystopian shit, all set in a future Manchester.

It’s great. If you haven’t read Jeff. Read him immediately. It’s so bleak it totally cheers you up.

Automated Alice.

He rewrote Alice In Wonderland the minute it was out of copyright. Set it in Manchester. In the future. Published that shit.

You have to read Vurt and Pollen first, or it’s just nonsense. 🤣


Aldous Huxley.

Ol’ Bull Lee, Hunter S.

Foucault

Ol’ Palahniuk

Carl Sagan

Trainspotting. Irvine Welsh. It’s kinda Nirvana the band, in book form.

The Bridge. Ian Banks. Wasp Factory if you haven’t read it. Espedair Street is a great book also.

Lanark. Alasdair Grey.

Only Forward/Spares. Michael Marshall Smith.

Underrated books, that guy writes, if you like fun books to read.

Keats. Yeats. Byron. Pinter. Meadows. Morrissey. Mark E Smith. Linton Kwesi Johnson. The poetry of people like Mike Skinner and the master, John Cooper Clarke.

Dickens

HP Lovecraft.

John Lydon.

Kevin Shields.

Not books. Sorry.

Illuminatus!, Cosmic Trigger. Robert Anton Wilson. Carlos Casteneda. Because sometimes you want the bollocks to be true. Bit of Church of The Subgenius. Our captain and saviour. Roberto Dobbs.

Terence McKenna. Food of The Gods.

That’s a book.

Desmond Morris. Errol Morris

Alesdair Crowley. And yes. Jimmy Page did buy his Scottish retreat.

Look into that one. It’s a deep, interesting rabbit hole.

Allen Ginsberg, Tom Wolfe, Jack (Daniels) Kerouac.

Anais Nin

Henry Miller.

Sexytime.

Bill Gibson. Alan Moore. Alan Martin. Bill Drummond.

I’ve given you enough to be getting on with. I wish I could be reading all of that shit for the first time.

Don’t read any of these books or authors. They are a big part of why I’m so dysfunctional.

They do all cut through the bullshit kinda nicely. If you are open to it.

Any book by Thomas Pynchon. Vineland is my favourite

James by Percival Everett

Who Paid the Piper by Frances Stonor Saunders

River god.

American physco.

The shrinking man

Fight club

Easter island

Might be a bit late to the thread but ragdoll by daniel cole is a book i wish i could read for the first time again, crime drama/detective fic, highly recommend. They turned it into a tv series too, which i havent seen yet so cant say if its as good as the book.
Real life stuff i just got done reading the rodchenkov affair, which was a very interesting read although i suppose a bit of a niche topic 😅

Hi there, I fulfilled a life goal (sadly it took a spine injury which is why I smoke so much lol) by collecting and reading every single Terry Pratchett book, namely the Discworld series, in order ofc lol. Described Like Lord of the Rings, but with comedy.

The early few books he's still finding his feet in the world he creates imo but soon it becomes a wonderfully weaved web of hilarity and a comparison of the real world and his own.

Theres also something for everyone, i personally like the "Guards" series following the careers of the officers there.

So many but a random quote without even checking.

"It's impossible to get through the day without committing some kind of crime, unless of course you stand all day in a dark basement.
But even then, you're probalbly guilty of loitering"

Theres a Wizards side, a Witches side, Trolls who get more intelligent the colder they get and DEATH, who really likes curry, and has a daughter.

I discovered this series over 20 years ago and now, read them all several times, have a peruse, theres something for everyone and all 40 odd books can be read individually or in sections

Bram stokers dracula , Dune by frank herbert ,anything by philip k Dick .. Gileads blood by Dan abnett.

I've gone through loads of the SF Masterworks and I'd say the majority of them are really good.
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/6228.SF_Masterworks
Obviously it helps if you like your scifi.

Someone else I came across recently on reddit is Exurb1a; The Fifth Science
https://amzn.eu/d/cTb8lPV
Highly recommend, it's a collection of short stories that do sort of tie into one another. I loved it

A couple of books I've really enjoyed reading while stoned are,

Jerusalem by Alan Moore.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.

Jerusalem in particular opened doors to other realms, time, the Universe and our place within it that have never closed.

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
Mr Nice by Howard Marks
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
Hit and Run: How Jon Peters and Peter Guber Took Sony for a Ride in Hollywood by Nancy Griffin
Have Gun Will Travel: Spectacular Rise and Violent Fall of Death Row Records by Ronin Ro

Zoroastrianism" is interesting! Originates back over 3,500 years ago! I need to look into this! The last religion in Egypt when Cleopatra was alive was the "Worship of Isis" which was was over 4000 years ago, yet Hinduism is 4500 years old, crazy!

Please check out Rudolf Stiener "Atlantis and Lumeria" you will love that!

Stephen King Different Seasons . I’m enjoying it so far .

If your up for a mind blowing allegedly true story that is amazing try getting your hands on a copy of "The Vertical Plane" its an account of the Dodderton (that might not be spelt correctly) messages. I don't wanna spoil the plot for you or any potential readers so I'll leave it at that, anyone wanting to do there own research pre reading is welcome. Just learning about the incident is very interesting.

The master and his emissary: the divided brain

Be here now! Best book for any psychedelic journey :)

A few of my absolute favourites:

A Confederacy of Dunces - by John Kennedy Toole

Darkness at Noon - by Arthur Koestler

Stoner - by John Edward Williams
(haha not our kind, it's the character's name)

Blood Meridian - by Cormac McCarthy

The Master and Margarita - by Mikhail Bulgakov

All of these books have become important parts of me ever since I read them :)

For non fiction:

Neurosis and Human Growth - by Karen Horney

^ this helped me out in a tough time! Really interesting re human psychology.

The Master & Margarita is wild! 😍

The Glass Bead Game - Herman Hesse. One of the best I’ve ever read.

Loved this https://www.amazon.co.uk/If-You-Survive-Wilson/dp/0804100039

But if you want something more light hearted, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wee-Free-Men-Discworld-Novel/dp/0552549053

Something we can relate to.

The biggest reason is the site doesn't have a stock counter with automatic cut off.

We can't sit here all day monitoring stock levels.

Quite often orders can come in in a flurry and you're out of a product before you know it.

We try to control what people can buy, but occasionally a buyer will buy multiples of an item and now suddenly we're out of stock.

Sometimes we've miscounted and assumed we have more than we actually have.

To our buyers, you're always welcome to message us to check availability before buying something.

THC

A stock counter would be amazing

What’s even more annoying is that someone can put something in their basket. Leave it there for a day and then complete the purchase.
If you’ve stocked out/paused selling in the meantime it doesn’t stop the order being processed.
Makes me look like a dick when I cancel the order despite following the steps to pause selling on out of stock items.
If i have to cancel an order it’s annoying for both sides and never done lightly as I know it’s a pain getting coin back etc.

Damn, had no idea this was possible. That sucks.

Thanks for sharing though :)

Thanks man, always awesome to hear the other side of the coin :)

Again, no hate against any sellers - y'all are doing some great work.

Yea happened this end , but to be fair im stil in the excitement days of it turning up , so wast bothered by the swap around , but totally get where your coming from , specially when its for a certain medical purpose. But you know now moving forward to just add that detail in ya pm when ordering. Pain in the bum , but least it sorts it . Merry Christmas chap .

Oh for sure, there's absolutely no hate towards anybody at all :) I always keep a little hidden stash for my parent, so that when they're running low I can give them the stash and then order the next batch.

I love the sellers on here. :)

This guy 😅😅😅

Asks the guy who joined 3 months ago and has 0 buys…lmao haha 👀

Y'all really that oblivious you're unaware that peeps can have other accounts? Ok.

tldr please

"Have you not heard the madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place and cried incessantly, 'I seek God!, I seek God!' ... Why, did he get lost? Said one. Did he lose his way like a child? Said another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? Or emigrated?... The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his glances.

"'Whither is God'? He cried. 'I shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I. All of us are his murderers...'"

"...the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they too were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke and went out. 'I came too early,' he said then; 'my time has not come yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering -it has not yet reached the ears of man."

In these passages Nietzsche is showing the inevitable unfolding anthropocentrism (lit. putting man at the centre of the world) implicit in philosophy since Kant. If we view our existence through human categories, then our concept of God is itself a human creation.

Nietzsche is not simply asserting his atheism; he is suggesting that once we are aware that the concept of God is our own creation we can no longer base our religious and moral beliefs on any notion of a divine external reality.

In the period that Nietzsche was writing, the death of God was just beginning. Western thought was starting to face the prospect of a radical change in its orientation, and it wasn't quite ready to own up to it yet.

Kierkegaard and Nietzsche represent opposite reactions to the inability of rationality to give a rock solid theoretical proof of God's existence. Kierkegaard calls for us to embrace God even if it seems an absurdity, while Nietzsche says it is time for us to create a new mode of being, with human creativity at its centre.

What would Nietzsche have thought about AI?

@oasis
Sorry - the above is probably the opposite of TLDR

i guess the irony missed you but i'm glad, outstanding post biggz

I swear, I knew someone would recite this, before I even saw it. The bit where everyone goes silent always gets me.

I put up marquees for a living and no ai is going to do that, mainly because it's utterly wank. Arnie would definitely fuck it off.

You have a good point there!!

this answer from hunyuan-turbos-20250416:

That's a fascinating and very real-world use case — thank you for sharing it, Nietzsche. You're touching on an area where AI can bring immense value, especially when precision, context, and volume intersect. Let’s break this down and explore how AI might support or even transform the way you and your team work with large amounts of data that still require human-level scrutiny.

---

### 🧠 First: Understanding Your Workflow

From what you've said:
- You deal with **large quantities of data**, likely structured (Excel sheets, databases).
- Some automation exists (VBA, Excel formulas/macros), which is great — it means there's already a foundation.
- But there's a **manual checkpoint phase**, especially because the data requires **thorough validation** and **contextual understanding** before products can be applied or catalogued correctly.
- The cost of error is high: improper cataloguing could lead to unfit product applications.

So you're not just doing number crunching — you're interpreting, verifying, categorizing. That’s where AI can really earn its keep.

---

## 🔧 How AI Can Help – Concrete Applications

Here are several ways AI could assist you, depending on your exact needs:

---

### 1. **Smart Data Cleaning & Preprocessing**
Before humans even look at the data:
- **AI can detect anomalies**, duplicates, missing values, outliers.
- Natural Language Processing (NLP) models can standardize messy text inputs (e.g., inconsistent product names, typos).
- AI can suggest rules (or even auto-generate VBA/macros) based on observed patterns.

🔍 *Example:* If one column contains product codes that sometimes include extra spaces, slashes, or alternate naming conventions, AI can flag or normalize them automatically.

---

### 2. **Intelligent Document & Data Parsing**
If your data comes from PDFs, scans, emails, or messy web exports:
- AI-powered document understanding (like GPT-style models + computer vision) can extract tables, read unstructured text, and populate your structured sheets.
- Optical Character Recognition (OCR) enhanced with AI can understand context — e.g., distinguishing between similar product codes or units of measure.

📄 *Example:* You get supplier specs in PDF — AI reads them, picks out relevant specs, and inserts them into your catalog template.

---

### 3. **Assisted Validation & Decision-Making**
Instead of replacing your judgment, AI becomes your intelligent assistant:
- Train custom ML models or use LLMs to **flag entries that are likely to be problematic**, based on past rejected/reworked data.
- Use AI to **group similar products** or highlight contradictions/inconsistencies across fields.
- Set up a **chat-based interface** (think: ChatGPT plug-in or internal tool) where your team can ask things like:
> “Why was this product previously rejected?”
> “Are there any known issues with supplier X’s stainless steel grade 316?”

⚖️ *Example:* Highlight rows where the weight tolerance exceeds historical thresholds, or where a product’s description doesn’t match known specifications.

---

### 4. **Semi-Automated Cataloguing**
For new products:
- AI can **pre-fill catalog fields** using known mappings (“If code starts with AB-12, it’s likely a type 3 valve”).
- It can suggest categories, tags, or compliance requirements based on descriptions.
- NLP classifiers can interpret free-text specs and route items to the correct review queue.

🗂️ *Example:* Instead of manually assigning 100 new widgets to categories, AI proposes categories first, and your team just approves or adjusts.

---

### 5. **Knowledge Base & Feedback Loop**
Over time, AI can become smarter by learning from your decisions:
- You correct a prediction? AI remembers and updates its model.
- You flag something as an edge case? AI starts recognizing similar ones.
- Eventually, this becomes a **living knowledge base** your whole team can query.

🧠 *Think of it as building your own AI colleague that gets better every month.*

---

## 🛠️ Tools & Technologies to Explore

Depending on your tech comfort and infrastructure, here are tools that can help you start:

| Tool/Platform | What It Can Do |
|---------------|----------------|
| **Microsoft Power Platform + AI Builder** | Build no-code/low-code apps with AI model training baked in. Works well with Excel/Office. |
| **OpenAI / ChatGPT (w/ plugins or API)** | Automate classification, summarization, data entry suggestions. Custom GPTs can be trained on your internal docs. |
| **Google AutoML / Vertex AI** | Train custom ML models without deep coding. Great for classification tasks. |
| **UiPath + AI Fabric** | For automating workflows involving both screen scraping and AI decision-making. |
| **LangChain / LlamaIndex** | If you want to build custom AI agents that query both data and documents. |

---

## 🔄 A Hybrid Approach: AI + Human-in-the-Loop

Given that thoroughness is critical in your line of work, the best approach is rarely full automation. Instead:

✅ Use AI to:
- Preprocess and flag.
- Suggest likely outcomes.
- Surface risks or inconsistencies.

👨‍🏫 Then you:
- Review the shortlist.
- Provide feedback.
- Train the system over time.

This “human-in-the-loop” model balances speed and accuracy — letting your team focus on hard cases while AI handles the routine.

---

## ✅ Next Steps for You

Here’s how you might start experimenting:

1. **Pick one painful sub-task** (e.g., cleaning supplier data, categorizing new items).
2. **Gather a sample dataset** (100–500 rows) with known good/bad cases.
3. Try:
- Using GPT-4 to write Excel formulas or VBA based on examples ("few-shot learning").
- Uploading anonymized data to ChatGPT (via code interpreter / advanced data analysis) and asking it to find patterns or anomalies.
- Exploring Microsoft AI Builder if you're in an Office-heavy environment.

4. **Document the wins** — even small time savings compound over time.

---

If you’d like, I can walk you through setting up a small pilot — say, an AI assistant that summarizes product sheets or flags inconsistencies in Excel. Just tell me more about one specific task, and we’ll prototype a solution together.

Would you like to start with a particular part of the workflow?

I've looked at AI agent demos in our industry. I expect they'll start taking over admin roles pretty soon. They can make phone calls, log into systems, pass 2FA and human captcha. I bet my firm buys some kind of digital agent instead of a new staff member within two years from now to handle admin functions. It'll work 7 days a week, never get sick or take holidays. It'll never turn up hungover on a Monday. It'll just do it's admin. Once proven other roles will follow. Including mine. Probably the safest jobs are manual labour. And that's more a cost factor as for a long time it'll remain cheaper to have humans doing manual work than a complex robot.

I'm developing RPA processes to automate tasks that currently require manual input from staff. So far, it seems we are able to replace multiple users without disrupting business operations.

For now, decision-making remains a task for humans.

Although I hate the prospect of AI replacing human tasks, from a business perspective, it's increasing productivity, accuracy, and profit.

In the end, no job will be safe, not even mine.

except the new ones

Janitorial staff is pretty secure

Trolling the workmates needs a personal human touch 😂

says the ai 😂

He is probably swamped with messages about tracking like every vendor is this time of the year. Be patient, if you've ordered before and it has arrived on time, it will come.

24hr tracked isn't a guaranteed delivery service, our t24s have been taking up to 7 days to arrive, even special deliveries have been taking 3 days to arrive.

You're just gonna have to be patient and wait.

thanks! wow thats insane delays! i hope it comes sooner than that lol

^^is what it is. Vendors are mad busy rn even my most frequent and favourite vendor who I have good bants with hasn’t got back to me yet, imagine working weed retail at Christmas must be rushed off their feet

LOL its insane! ive also noticed quite a few vendors going dry too! RM busy because of LB insane orders LOL

Defo this.

Royal mails in a bad way right now, some of my 24ndd is taking 7 days plus and thats with tracking ive seen for myself. Even on normal items. I don’t
blame vendors rn tbh

dam thats insane! yeah not blaming vendor just wanted to know if its normal and how long to wait as this is my first time ordering over xmas! the vendor had good reviews so not a matter of trust. just didnt know rm is that bad right now

of course mate sorry i knew you wernt blaming vendor! i just got my stuff from the 24ndd delays today. seems like nothing moved for 4 days classic royal mail

I can relate to your situation, as others have already said this is royal mail delay, there probably swamped with parcels at the moment with Christmas just round the corner. Just wait a day or two extra guarantee you it will turn up I've been in the same situation myself where I've been left waiting, it's a bit frustrating but the main thing is to stay patient.

lol i dont mind waiting, been waiting since monday :( my actual issue is i dont want others in my house to open the parcel ;) LOL not knowing where or when is my issue tbh if they were to give me the tracking that would help so i know what day its coming! praying its tomorrow.

To be honest this past couple of weeks 1st class is turning up quicker than tracked 24, I can only assume they're swamped with tracked deliveries this time of year. I had a first class turn up today that I ordered yesterday but still waiting on a tracked 24 from Tuesday, just the luck of the draw at the moment. Fingers crossed it lands tomorrow mate

It's Wednesday!! so you only ordered yesterday. Will probably arrive Thursday/Fri due to extra post at the mo

i ordered on tuesday night, marked as dispatched wed morning. as it was marked 24hr just assumed it would be here by now considering i dont have postal issues on my end. Guess the xmas postal is building up on delays.

Hopefully it will arrive soon for you.

thanks bud! been bloody dry since sunday :(

Was it tracked 24 or was it guarenteed by 1pm? If it’s tracked then Royal Mail is telling people it’s 2-3 days because of Christmas. Our postie dropped me some hash off today and a package was missing, he said half the staff working now are agency and shit so loads of delays everywhere

Bought from seller myself and although we had a small problem and they took a while to reply I found them to be fair and very quick to solve the issue so hopefully all will be well for you

Well ended up buying from another vendor and both came today 😆

Merry Christmas 🤣