Published in 1936 by Oxford University Press. Burgundy "pebble grain moroccoette" bound with gilt lettering and decoration to the spine. Very little sign of wear. The volume comes in an edge-worn burgundy card slip case. All pages are lightly sunned but clean and tightly bound. Signs of paste seepage and light foxing to the end pages. All closed edges are stained red as issued. Neat inscription to the front free end page.
Oxford Direct Services (ODS), the service delivery and commercial arm of Oxford City Council, has announced that it is to start providing drone-based services to include roof and building surveying, land mapping, aerial photography and filming.
As far as is known, this is the first time a council-owned organisation has brought drone services in-house and shows the innovative approach ODS has adopted to generate revenue since the City Council created the wholly-owned company in April. All ODS’ profits will be used to fund public services in the community.
Ben Strang, ODS’ project leader of drone services, explains: “I was a felt roofer for 15 years. If you’re working on low to high rise housing blocks to identify, for example, pest entry points or find roof leaks, putting up scaffolding is at best a very hit and miss process. You erect the scaffolding where you think the source of the issue lies but if it’s not there you then waste time and money moving the scaffolding tower. Using a drone resolves this and helps us pinpoint exactly where we need to work so that we can do first-time fixes and enhance efficiency.”
Ben Strang adds: “We’ll be very proactive with residents to safeguard their privacy. This means we’ll inform people by letter when we’ll be operating, the reasons for it and offer them the footage if they so wish. This is all documented in our operations manual which had to be approved by the CAA as part of our licensing process.”
ODS has invested in an off-the-shelf DJI Phantom 4 Advanced quadcopter drone, which has excellent safety systems and is simple to fly using a remote controller with built-in screen. Offering up to 30 minutes flight time per battery, the DJI Phantom drone comes with dual-band satellite positioning [GPS and GLONASS], five vision sensors for obstacle detection and is equipped with an one inch 20 Mega Pixel camera capable of shooting 4K super HD video and stills.
All drone operators need the permission of the individual landowner to fly over their land. In the Oxford area, drone services can be delivered quickly as ODS is already authorised by the Council to do this.
Simon Howick, Oxford Direct Services’ managing director, says: “Hiring a drone firm to survey a roof costs between £300-£1000, with scaffolding also expensive and cumbersome. It made total sense to invest in the drone equipment, flight training and licensing and add this skillset to our portfolio. It will pay for itself within a year, we’ll save money for our main customer – Oxford City Council – with drones becoming an additional revenue stream given we can now offer local businesses and residents surveying, mapping, photography and filming services.”
Top Deals, Comments, Forum Posts, Members of The Month and Other Stats for June 2016 - OzBargain Forums
Every Federal election brings attention to politicians and their parties who have diverse views on a number of issues. If you read through social media or sites like Reddit you would think that some running are evil incarnate. It makes political parties more like footy teams made up of one-eyed supporters. So what does this have to do with OzBargain?
Well, as the site evolves we get more non-bargain discussions about topics that can be quite provactive (driving, caged eggs, homeless etc.). Everyone is going to have a different opinion. Some opinions may be ridiculous in your eyes but you are never going to change someones opinion (in real life or on OzBargain) by attacking or belittling them or the community. Respecting others opinions and playing the ball rather than the man can be the best way to find a middle ground. It's too bad we don't see this approach in politics otherwise we'd find most of us agree on a lot of things. OzBargain will always support the freedom to have discussions on a number of topics, even if the opinions may not be shared by staff, moderators, or OzBargain members. Moving on…
With Kogan going public the other day (and tanking), it's probably a good time to check on our OzBargain fund. The fund is made up by our 10 most popular retailers on OzBargain and investing equally (as close as possible) in each company.
Unfortunately, it's only up 3.67%. In March, it was up 4.02% so not a great result. One thing that does stand out is Dominos. The pizza chain was the most profitable company in the OzBargain fund last year providing a return of 130%. This year alone it is up 16%.
Oh and you may have noticed a little phenonomen taking over the world called Pokemon Go. Well, if you haven't found a reason to play, you may want to. My local pub is providing free jugs of beer to Gym Leaders. See Picture
While the winner of Australia's next prime minister race is still not decided, these are the winners of OzBargain monthly awards for June 2016.
ShamelessBargains for posting the deal of the month, 20% off 30 eBay stores on the first day of the month, an hour before the sale actually started. It has been a big month for eBay (again), with 20% off from 43 other stores on the 11th and spend $200 get $50 voucher on the 27th.
altomic for dominating the deals with volume. He posted 72 deals in June with +16.1 vote average, most popular being free book from ACCC.
lyl for having most deals featured on the front page. 39 out of 52 deals he posted got onto the OzBargain front page with vote average +97.79), and most popular was this eBay 20% off memory deal. "lyl" is now synonym to RAM, SSD & Amazon here.
Katie2014 for posting the most popular competition last month, Win 1 of 41 Prizes from Telstra. 93 OzBargain entrants and no reported wins? Katie has also posted the most competitions last month. 55 of them with vote average of +6.02.
Myer - Family & Friends - Thursday 30 June 2016 (One Day Only) EG 50% off Selected Clothing, 20% off Selected Toys 102 15240 bigjilm 2016-06-29
Woolworths Mobile $30 Prepaid Starter Kit for $1 in-Store with Woolworths Rewards Card or $3 Delivered Online - 41,396
AskOzB: What's something you used to do to save money, but stopped when you realized it wasn't worth it? - 18,019
[Targeted Offer] eBay $15 off When You Spend $50 or $25 off When You Spend $75 or More with APP - 15,799
Overall traffic: 8,936,816 sessions, 28,673,404 pageviews. || May 2016: 8,955,807 sessions, 28,105,683 pageviews. || June 2015: 8,201,799 sessions, 26,886,153 pageviews.
Most clicked deal that didn't reach front page: MSY Deals - Rapoo Wired KB/M $9, Razer BlkWidow Stlth Mechanical 2016 $138, Samsung PLS LCD 21.5" $139 [All States] (3587 clicks)
Most neg'd deal: Denon AVRX2200 7.2 Home Theatre Receiver with Dolby ATMOS $1175 Delivered @ Apollo Hi-Fi (-5 votes)
I think I have noticed a new statistics part in the footer on ChoiceCheapies and CheapCheapLah, I suppose that will be on OzBargain soon.
Yeah we use ChoiceCheapies & CheapCheapLah for beta-testing new features and OzBargain is usually the last one getting them :P