Regardless of all the to-ing and fro-ing one thing is certain.

Lance Armstrong is a bully who has ruined careers. The man deserves everything that has been thrown at him.

The vested interests in the Pharmaceutical industry and the medical profession are huge. The Pharmaceutical industry conducts it’s own trials to prove it’s own expensive drugs “work”.

Ah the ‘big pharma’ conspiracy. I’m with Goldacre on this one – make all trial transparent.

But then again, what about ‘big homeopathy’? Homeopaths/quacks are not little old ladies in bide-a-wee cottages selling pills for a few quid. They can be, and are, large corporations. big homeopathy

As Billy Connolly says: “Never trust a man who, when left alone in a room with a tea cosy, doesn’t try it on. ”

I was told this whilst trying on a tea cosy.

Not seen it but it does remind me of Mitchell & Webb’s ‘boy with an arse for a face’ sketch.

Led NATS around the 5 Dales circuit. Started off very wet indeed. Lost two members after one went over the bars (hope she’s OK!) then lost another two a number of miles later as they were cold and knackered.

Weather picked up towards Chatsworth and stayed OK-ish all the way back to Darley Bridge. At arrival back at the car the *£$%! sun came out 😀

the cake I made was appreciated and there were lots of smiles at the end.

Bugger! I’m leading NATS around the 5-dales circuit tomorrow. Better call it off and recommend we do the green route at pines then!

🙄 😕

IIRC there was an attempt by terrestrial broadcasters to produce a single platform for telly IP distribution called ‘Project Kangaroo’ but the Powers That Be blocked it.

Kangaroo

But as for sport, I watch the cycling on ITV4 and while I support Froome/Wiggo et al. I refuse to give Murdoch any of my hard-earned. Other sports are in my ‘meh’ camp.

I’d be interested in Syfy but I think it looks like pants now.

wouldn’t it be an idea to optimise stuff instead of throwing ram at the problem? (generally i mean)

You’ve not met my DBAs or the code the developers write. Its usually cheaper to buy more hardware than to get them to properly normalise their data and improve their packages. Ooer.

They’re moving from a 32-core POWER6 server with 256GB memory which isn’t fast enough apparently, to a dual-RAC cluster on three DL9880s each site running RHEL 6 with 64 cores on each server and throughput of 40GB/s from storage. The things are frighteningly fast (still not sure if can run Crysis or Vista 😀 ).

And they *still* complain. 😆

5 workstations downstairs with 256

I’ve just installed 6 x DL980s each with 1TB RAM. Data warehouse. And I bet (because of Oracle DBAs) it *still* won’t be enough! 😀

An ex work colleague of mine works at the BBC and despite being classed as ‘full time’ gets paid £35k + to do seemingly the best part of bug*er all. Often tips into work after a lie in at 10am and normally seems to be at home again by mid afternoon, or out for ‘drinks’ at an internal meeting. From the way he describes it there’s so much money wasted within the organisation (his salary for starters) it’s untrue.

Name me a business over a certain size that isn’t like that. Mine is (private sector).

If only, project! It has been raised with HR and I hope one of them will either be moved or sacked.

Johnclimber: nah that voice is Nicholas Parsons, I think.

Partner was bullied at work. Eventually led to severe depression/anxiety. Then they got rid of him based on health a few weeks ago.

From a manager in a nepotistic position within the NHS (her husband was her boss). He tried complaining to the HR dept but they didn’t want to hear. Useless, HR are there for the company, to make sure all their boxes are ticked, not for you.

Now I’m concerned he won’t work again, at 47. 😐

What happens if a gay Muslim blows himself up? 72 hunky virgins? 72 hunky walls?

Outside pedal down. Push on inside bar.

Hopes that what Jedi said anyway else I’ll get an earful 😀

What MSP said.

Hi MrBlobby

Yes, easy. You log in with the right account. BUT they are completely separated, so you can’t swap data between the two. Unless you use a USB stick, I guess.

I use my Chromebook a lot. I like the docs on there.

The music playing program is pants. I uploaded my music collection and it plays but tends to stop for some reason.

I’ve played about with different things but I tend to have a small calendar and calculator open then hook into the websites I want.

Though Google may have to up its game with regards to docs if the new web-based iWork is any good. I’d also love to see a type of MS Access/Bento derivative on iWork/Google drive too.

Utter complete woo. Complementary medicine that works is often called ‘medicine’. What next, the homeopathy crowd? If it worked we would see it in all the double-blind trials and I would also accept. We don’t. It’s all placebo.

Cougar:

Are there many treatments that are actually less effective than placebo? What would you put into that category, a kick in the shins as treatment for a broken leg, perhaps? Trepanning?

Look up the ‘nocebo’ effect. If you give something to someone and say it will be bad for them they have a response. Here’s a linky

I’m in a bit of a quandry with this one. I have a nespresso and do like the coffee, but by gum it is expensive. We go through about £60 of caps every other month, that’s getting on for £360 a year.

So in the longer run, would it be cheaper to get something like a Gaggia Classic and make my own (need a small machine for the kitchen) or would I just be weeing my money up a wall?

I do have an ‘outpresso’ too but that’s for outdoors and I doubt will get to 15 bar.

I live in Long Eaton, near CD. I’ll hear it for free anyway, no doubt!

The system boards should be sellable, surely? We have a couple here but we’re moving off Solaris/AIX and moving mainly to Linux. Once Oracle bought SUN it was the writing on the wall….!

The boards could be used to increase someone’s unfilled slots.

Oh. Ooer. 😀

I don’t know what to cut from the NHS: I’d need to know first where the money was being spent. Then you could prioritise. If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.

Though I would put money into the NHS out of my own pocket if they could grab the tories/libdems that are causing the NHS to be sold off and castrate the lot of them, with a big warning to labour what to expect if they carry on in the same vein.

I think health spending as a percentage of GDP is lower in the UK so I’d perhaps stop stupid ego-based wars and reallocate the money. I’d also stop being idiotic in government and try to ‘nudge’ the population to healthier options, such as tax-breaks for local area gyms, tax high-fat crap, try to minimise smoking (or at least nudge people towards electronic ciggies), that kind of stuff, instead of getting MaccyD’s onto the food health forum thing they have.

In fact, just vote me in. The world will be a better place. Don’t worry about the gay national service thing, I’m sure it won’t affect you. 😀

The other year I got three going through Bulwell in Notts. It was winter. The first repair initially failed as the valve came out of the tube after inflating. When, half a mile later I got glass in there and got the third puncture I sat muttering.

Then it started to snow heavily on me.

For some reason I fell about laughing.

Since then I have bought some Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres and they seem to stop a lot of that stuff happening.

Err, accidentally left my iPhone on Strava in Norway recently. Got home and discovered that because of my car journey (about 50km) I’d shattered a number of Norwegian’s KOMs.

Oops. Found out a couple of hours after I got home. Deleted run but wondered if there were some vikings after my blood! 😀

Where’s the cyclists’ argument gone?

Same place as the:
[list][*]Classic car
[/*][*]Horse[/*][*]Pedestrian[/*][*]Cart[/*][/list]

I should think.

I’d love to but to be honest I’m scared that I’ll get to the shops lock up my bike and get back to find it gone.

The local Tesco has a bike rack but I’d be more interested if they had a decent camera pointing at them to discourage thieves.

In fact, I might look for a job in Norway…

Living is good there. People are socially conservative but there are fairly strong unions. I stayed in Stavanger where foreign workers are currently at about 20% population now.

If you go for a job look for something in Statoil. Loads of money there. Watch out for mysost/yatost which is a sweet brown cheese.

BTW do the citizens of any country not think that their tax was disappearing into a bottomless pit? A lot of Norwegians want to release some of the oil money to pay for infrastructure but the government won’t do it. Saving for a rainy day (please take note UK politicians of all hues!).

EDIT: also the differential between the richest and poorest is a lot smaller than in the UK due to the taxes, so I hear.

In which case, this wouldn’t be you

Ah, so all those amazing fantastic speculators in London don’t actually work there….

Or that Cameron chap.

Some jobs require you to be in a place, regardless of wages.

To be honest though the shrill call of “But they’ll LEAVE! Oh noes!” is piffle. There are many more lower-tax places on the planet and I don’t see them all upping and leaving.

Just got back from Norway and the level of tax there is what rich people would call ‘eye-watering’. Yet for some reason they haven’t all fled. Why do you think that is?

If that’s the case you’re not rich, and you’re already paying lots of tax.

Or you have clever tax accountants and a “business” in the Cayman Islands and pay no tax whatsoever.

Oo, is this a game anyone can play?

I blame that Thatcher woman for bringing us down to this. The last lot were just doing their best to get us out of the hole she dug for us.

Or that MacMillan. What a git – if it wasn’t for him then we’d all be sticky and smelly in that land of milk and honey.

Don’t start me on Lloyd George/Winston Churchill or Disraeli! If it weren’t for them, rant rant moan moan.

With a defence that transparently poor, did the jury take the world’s longest tea break in the middle of their deliberations ?

Did they have nice biscuits, you reckon? 🙂

Mate got caught speeding and was going to end up with > 12 points. He hired “Mr Getyouoff” solicitor (£££). The judge just laughed as he was caught bang-to-rights. 2 weeks ban. I shudder to think what his insurance is now. 😮

It will state in the schedule if there is a discount for an alarm. I think they have to be serviced for this.

And +1 what johndoh said!

Oh thanks, piemonster. Didn’t realise that. I’m now 100% convinced to go out and vote UKIP.

😕

My FiL I think is about to be diagnosed with dementia (83). But, saying that, I have never met such a bully, coward, tosser and right-wing [rude word] as him. He has ruined his kids’ life, both are scared to death of him, and he still thinks he’s funny and a patriarch, a la ‘godfather’. I only put up with him because of MrAdamW but if he pushes it a little then I’m liable to lose my rag with him and tell him what I really think.

😡

My dad, on t’other hand, was a great laugh, and I wish he’d survived until I was an adult. i would have loved taking him to the pub.

No idea if he minces or not.

Depends. To wind up very uptight people, yes. Normally, no.

Though on the bike I was a bit of a mincer, but am getting better! 😀

As an interesting aside (well I think of it as interesting) a certain Lord McAlpine wrote a book called “The New Machiavelli” which contains entries on how to deal with the media, for example: http://incubusblog.wordpress.com/2012/11/17/the-new-machiavelli/%5B/url%5D

Saying that, a pox on both their houses.

As far as I know there are many branches of islam so a single pope character would be a bit odd – like christianity in fact.

Here’s a handy pic of the main branches:

Met a gay mountain biker?

Err, hello?????