Anything by Charles Stross, a frighteningly clever, inventive and funny SF writer with an amazing work ethic. William Gibson, who actually managed to write a SF novel with a cycle courier as a heroine, (Virtual Light).

Totally agree with all the sentimentson here. Chris Moyles, and his third-rate copycat George Lamb are the worst sort of radio presenter who are far too impressed with the sound of their own voice, and a smug self-satisfaction at their own percieved ‘cleverness’. Neither of them have any kind of comedic talent, a fourteen-year old son of a friend called Moyles ‘childish’, and Time Out magazine described him once as ‘a talentless ****-wit’
I used to love Slim and Shady, the squirrels; I nearly crashed a company car once laughing so hard at them one afternoon coming back from a business trip!
Genius presenters, with a genuine love of music and talent for comedy.

Simon, while you might be happy carting several kilos of dslr around on a bike, for most a decent compact is more than adequate. My Lumix TZ3 will print up to A4 quite happily, which for the great majority of the camera toting public is all they want. Plus, I can get away with taking pics at most gigs I go to, whereas security would have words if I stood there at the front with a Nikon D700. I’ve even had problems with using a Nikon Coolpix 5700 bridge camera, which is itself a pain to carry on the bike, as it has to go in my pack, while the Lumix will sit in a small pouch attached to the shoulder strap. As far as shutter lag is concerned, I can’t honestly say I’ve noticed it with the Lumix, and for quick snapshots, well, you’re not exactly doing high-speed sports photography, so even a fraction of a second lag is hardly going to compromise a picture, is it?

Of course the battery is struggling when the public demands a wafer thin phone and expects days of life out of the battery while the phone is running its GPS, 3G, WiFi, iPod et al. All those those things kill the battery. I had an N95 before my iPhone, and just about every function is much much better on the iPhone, the camera on the N95 is almost impossible to focus, the GPS won’t lock; I had to buy a BT receiver to use mine properly, and the standard battery on the Nokia is worse than the iPhone. I bought a higher capacity battery for mine, but then the SIM kept losing contact. Unless the public accept bigger phones so that higher capacity batteries can be fitted then shorter run times have be expected if you want to use power-hungry functions. Nano-wire battery technology isn’t in production yet to allow small high power batteries. Get over it.
For what it does, and what it costs, the iPhone is a marvelous piece of kit. Try buying a SIM-free Nokia and see what it costs you. IIRC the N95 was around £450, and frankly it sucks compared to the functionality of the iPhone. My ONLY critism is lack of Flash (blame Adobe), and cut-and-paste. I certainly couldn’t browse this forum and write answers like this on the Nokia, and definitly not on the awful XDA Mini that preceded it. For the £30 a month this thing costs me it’s worth every single penny for all the useful apps, as an ebook reader, (have you seen how much one of those costs in Waterstones?), and for Internet use there’s little to touch it to functionality.

I know, I’ve got nearly seventy on my iPhone, apart from the ebooks I bought from the apps store.

I use Etymotic ER6i’s with custom eartips, which are very pricey at £152, although Ultimate Ears go up to $1000 for custom fits! The Sennheisers are very good for the money, and I recently spotted some phones in HMV in Bath which were identical to CX 300’s and were a fiver, so they’re brilliant value for money. Probably the best around at the moment are the Denon AH-C500’s which are around £70 and are outstanding quality.

Oh, and how can someone ask for somebody’s signed cd? Bl00dy cheek! I have loads of signed cd’s, from the likes of Goldfrapp, Portishead, KT Tunstall, Gemma Hayes, John David Souther, who wrote a number of the Eagles greatest hits, and I won’t even think about selling them, let alone give any away.

Seen Polly Jean twice in Bristol, at the Fleece, (400 capacity), and (the now)O2 Academy. Sure, she can be as mad as a box of frogs, but she puts on a blinding show. I really don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

CD’s are a built-in back-up. My most recent ones are
King Creosote ‘KC Rules OK’
Pendulum
Ting Tings
Foo Fighters ‘The Colour And The Shape’ with extra tracks
The Who ‘Then And Now’
Joan As Police Woman ‘To Survive’
New albums to get include
Asobi Seksu
Baskery
Andrew Bird
A Camp

Oh, and Clinometer is brilliant for angle checking, and when you lay the Touch flat it becomes a bubble level, but any of the spirit level apps are really handy for things like saddles…;0)

Fizz weather
Fstream (youl’ll need to go to http://www.bbcstreams.com for the compleat URL’s then you’ll be able to get all the BBC streaming radio stations. Mmmm, 6Music: yummy).
Last FM
Shazam
Ereader
Wordbook
Tioti TV+
iManual
Flixster
Starwalk
Allsubway
London Mini AtoZ

Shazam will work on a Touch, you just need a pair of ‘phones with a microphone suitable for an iPhone.

Which fake moon landing was that? I’m struggling to remember one. I DO recall lots of people saying it was fake, the same ones who say there were alien autopsies carried out at Groom Lake, Nevada. (That’s Area 51, for those not so familiar with US geography).

CaptainMainwairing is right about the battery. I have had my iPhone on all day listening to music, and the battery indicator hasn’t moved, but now I’m at home tapping this out using my wifi connection I’ll almost be able to watch it going down. There are lots of so-called ‘free’ wifi, but many require you to actually register with them first, and some, like The Cloud are only free with some contracts, like with the iPhone. Glastonbury is supposed to have free wifi in the town centre, but I found it impossible to connect to it last time I was down there even when I could see a signal. If you’re with O2, and have access to The Cloud, then there is free access anywhere there is an O2 shop. If you get an iPhone for example, there are apps that detect local hotspots, and can remember all passwords so will connect automatically anytime that particular network is detected. The problem with many phones is that the screen is a little too small for any extended web browsing. Don’t rush into getting a phone just ‘cos it looks whizzy. I had an XDA Mini, and an N95, and frankly they both blow goats as far as web browsing is concerned. Since getting my iPhone, however, my laptop has barely been out of it’s case, as I use the phone for practically everything, emails, Internet shopping, checking tv listings and local cinema listings, booking gig tickets, checking the weather, even, on occasion as a telephone! Not everyone likes the iPhone, but for me it is by far the most useful electronic devise I’ve ever owned, for it’s sheer versatility.

A mate was going to get the Onkyo after reading lots of good reviews, but ended up getting a Denon that had just been announced, which was £50 more at £650, which he paired with a set of Kef 5.1 speakers and a huge Marantz upscaling DVD
player that weighed more than the amp. With £350 worth of QED cables the sound is stunning!
Go for the Denon.

There was repeat showing on the news tonight of the plane going down in the sea off the coast of, IIRC, Ethiopia, and the plane broke up on impact, with loss of all on board. Thank God the Hudson is the width it is, it could never have been done on the Thames. The pilot deserves every award going, compare him with a footballer who’s just been bought for £250 million and tell me who’s worth the money.
A truly uplifting event.

Four: a chrome Bates Fixie when I was a teenager, a Handjob to see if I got on with a ss mountain bike, which had all the bits swapped onto an On-One 853 frame five years later, and now a Kona Sutra with bullhorn aero bars and mudguards as my winter hack bike. It’ll soon have cx tyres as well, and possibly an 8-speed hub and carbon forks later this year. Fun bike, the Kona. Sorry, can’t post up pics from this devise.

Some of us browse on here who can’t right-click, so opening a new window is very useful. The reason being I don’t have a mouse on this thing, and I can’t be arsed to dig the laptop out. Otherwise I’m loving the site as it is, and I’m full of respect for all of you who’ve got it back up and running so quickly. Well done.

Your helicopter is made of cheese.
As I was reading the post ‘Wesley Snipes’ I happened to look up at the tv just as Wesley Snipes appeared on a movie trailer on FiveUS. Spooky!

Must admit I felt just a little put out when I saw that subs offer, as I don’t recall ever receiving any gift at all when I subscribed first of all, not even a tee, so would have been nice to get something for being faithful, but I guess it’s a bit late to worry about it now :0{

Oh Christ, where do I start?
Black Sheep Rigwelter, Bombardier, Hobgoblin, Bath Ales Dark Hare and Festival, Waggledance, Golden Glory,
Broadside…
In fact any ale sold in a bottle in a good supermarket or offy is worth trying once; that way you get to find out easily what whets your pallet. I’ve yet to find a bottled quality ale that I didn’t like, and I’ve tried a couple of dozen at least.
…and I’ve just realised I’ve drunk all mine. Damn. :0(

Hadn’t seen that, genuinly sorry, he was a good actor. Loved The Prisoner, tho’ I didn’t understand it first time around, and only marginaly better second time around. Not sure the new version is going to improve on the original.
I am Number Two…

Well done chaps, and I’m not being sarcastic, but most of the responses have made me laugh out loud. Great restraint, with such an easy target.

I’ve had my iPhone since November, so I have a little experience with it. It is, despite a few flaws, a remarkable devise, and I wouldn’t swap it for any other phone on the market. Previously I had a S/Ericsson K750i, an XDA Mini and a Nokia N95, and the iPhone is just so much easier to use. Web browsing with the XDA and the N95 was a joke, the supposedly superior camera on the N95 would almost never focus, I actually spent half an hour trying to take a couple of pics of my bike and only got one in focus, from five feet away! The satnav on the N95 was useless, I had to buy a BT receiver to be able to use ViewRanger, and a bigger battery to get even a day out of the phone. The iPhone camera ALWAYS focuses, and with some of the apps around like photolab and camerabag really nice pics can be taken. The satnav picks up almost immediately, it’s a brilliant ebook reader, and with apps like dictionaries, AtoZ’s, tube maps, weather, etc, make it more useful on a day to day basis than my computer. I browse this site with it, listen to Last FM and Wolfgangs Concert Vault, and, on occasion, actually make phone calls! Sure, it could do with MMS, but that is coming, apparantly, and it needs Flash, but that’s up to Adobe.
Blackberry’s are fine if you absolutely must get emails the moment they’re sent, but I get mine within ten minuits or so, which is fine, and I can email a pic if I need to. It can only get better and better, and unlike Americans, I get to keep my phone and put a PAYG sim in it when I upgrade to a new one, which will probably be 32gb by that time.
I really don’t think you’ll regret getting one for one second, plus you can get the Missing Manual from the Apps store for £2.99

There’s also an eight-speed Sturmy Archer hub which is disc compatible to consider as well, just to complicate things, which is around £157.

Just made me laugh. I just imagine ‘straight’ middle-class parents looking at him in horror, thinking ‘who the frack is THAT?’

I would second carbon forks. I had a pair of Planet X rigids on my Handjob when I SS’d it, but when I got a proper On-One ss to hang all the bits on I got a pair of Brant’s carbons, and they make a LOT of difference; the steel forks were quite harsh, but the carbons are lovely off-road, especially with carbon bars.

jj55 gets the prize. The broken blade was found below the turbine, and the damaged one is bent about halfway up. It’s easy to see how a blade, coming loose, would be struck by the next blade as it rotates upwards. The pic of the lights I’ve seen looks like a sundog in high cirrus cloud.

This sort of opportunistic behaviour makes me so angry. I think some parts of the governent are waking up to the fact as well, so perhaps something may be done to control it…
…but don’t hold your breath.

Just been Reading through this thread with much amusement. Why, exactly is a road bike only a racing, and anything else with skinny tyres and drop bars isn’t a road bike? Sorry, I’m confused. Druidh’s Sutra is a touring bike. It’s for riding distances on the road. It has skinny tyres and drop bars. That makes it a road bike. To say otherwise makes you a snob. I also have a Sutra, with one gear, aero bars and bar-end levers with cross-top levers as well. It’s a road bike. It’s not a tourer, it’s not a cx bike, and it’s most definitly not a mountain bike. It does, however have discs. And a Brooks Swift Ti saddle. ;0)

…tumbleweed drifts slowly across screen from stage right…

As a quick tag onto this thread I see Apple will be selling all non-DRM music at variable prices. A couple of albums I’ve bought in the last year on pre-order also allowed me to have a free download sometime before the physical release, which is much the best way to do it. In the case of Kris Delmhorst the money actually paid for her to record the album by taking time off the road, and she signed a big thank you across it when I saw her last April. :0)

As far as torrent is concerned I can never get it to work, also I like to have a physical item available in case I get the chance to have an album or collection of albums signed. If you were an artists, would you want to sign a cheap cd-r with a quickly knocked-off cover on cheap paper? While it may be from legit downloads who can tell? I’ve had quite a few signed over the years, including Portishead and Goldfrapp, and I know for a fact Beth Gibbons would only sign mine ‘cos they were genuine, and the guy who took them along had their old studio next door. She did make a sarky remark about them being on eBay next day, but still signed. Things like that I treasure, whereas a download is just vapourware, gone in an instant if you’re not careful.

Hadn’t even noticed that, well spotted! Gets my vote too.

I’m also with cinnamon-girl, especially with that name:0) Part of the problem is down to the main distribution outfits going tits-up just before Christmas, which has made it difficult for a lot of artists to get their stuff into store, Pinnacle handled a lot of Indy artists, and Woolies most of the rest. I couldn’t find any Burial stuff at all in Bath or Bristol, for example. I do get the occasional download, but cd’s still sound better on my SACD/DVD-A player than 320kb AAC’s through the same Yamaha amp, plus I’ve always got a proper back-up that is immune to being lost like digital files can, like the 8000+ I lost from my harddrive last year. :0(

Bl00dy heck, but there’s some fabulous pics on here. jad, your ‘moon over Pladda island’ is just beautiful. Excellent work, people.

That’s a really good shot, and I wouldn’t mess with the colour at all, no matter what sfb sez. And as for sharpening it up loads, absolutely not, I see far too much injuditious sharpening, which puts nasty white halos around things. All that’s needed is a little unsharp mask, but too few people know how to use it properly, and you rarely need it for web pics, only for print. iPhone pics need some USM, ‘cos they’re fairly ‘soft’, but most digital camera photo’s need it sparingly. Keep up the good work, I can’t fault that pic.

Ahh, John Martyn, one of the most pissed people I’ve ever seen on stage, which sadly was a crappy gig as a result. The other was Sparklehorse, when Mark Linkhause came on stage already halfway through a bottle of JD, and played a brilliant gig, which he apologised for later for being so drunk.

LOL, I work with a Geordie lass who was appalled when she saw girls dressed like that in Chippenham where she’s just moved. She’s 26…

Rudeboy, are you that sanctimonious all the time? Let them get on with being students and enjoying themselves. Or are you just jealous you didn’t have any fun yourself and hate other people having a good time.

Who cares if it influenced anything or not. If you ‘get’ it, great, if not, well, whatever. Oasis are supposed to be great, but I don’t own a single thing of theirs and wouldn’t give even a free copy space. I happen to like DSOTM, but then I bought it the day it was released and saw them play it live at the Bristol Hippodrome, along with tracks that later appeared on Wish You Were Here and Animals. That’s not to say I don’t love loads of incredibly varied music, particularly Canadian bands.