Thanks for the feedback, I’m sure you’re right. It’s alu – to the tip it goes

I remember Mr Illingworth, our 5th form tutor giving our us a careers advice talk. It went like this.

"You can stay at Grammar school for 6th form, get good A levels, go to university and get a great job.

Or you can go to sixth form college."

I agree with the above couple of posts. Format it and reinstall windows to really make sure you get rid of all the bloatware that's slowing it down, 5 years isn't that long, that's probably 1.5 GHz? Most current netbooks are probably around that spec and prob won't have dual core chips.

On the subject of netbooks vs laptops, if you're in the house I wouldn't bother with a netbook, pros are extreme portability and integrated 3g apparatus, cons are compromised power and usability (due to small form). Which of these do you need?

I do a lot of graphics and multimedia work. When buying my current laptop I purposefully chose a 13" screen over 15" because it does the same res, so it gives me the same working area, but is a fair bit smaller (first gen dell xps). For video viewing pleasure I would deffo go for something with a dedicated graphics card, and I doubt you'd find a mini netbook with one.

I had some boxxers on a freeride bike, which I had to pedal up hills sometimes (to get to the top). If I had to stand up, never mind the fork wallowing about, I was forever twatting my knees on the stanchions. That was a fairly short frame though.

I quite like 'em.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_yorkshire/8095635.stm

Ahem.

I'm pretty sure Edinburgh to York is under 4 hours via coldstream, not A1 all the way. York to leeds c45 mins on a64, depends whereabouts in Leeds and Edinburgh though.

Same here, don't buy magazines because they're full of toss. I've never really been bothered how much a bike weighs, and tend to ignore anything that looks remotely gimmicky. There are more important things in life. There's so little difference between most mass produced stuff these days that you may as well choose it because you like the look/feel of it. Goes for most sports equipment/consumer goods in general, in my experience.

Free online conversion tool. Handles all kinds of formats, seems to work well…

http://www.mediaconverter.org/%5B/url%5D

I used to work from home and rode almost every day of the year for 1-2 hrs. I like riding alone, so that aspect wasn't a problem, and I lived right next to the hills so I could just slope out the door and be on peak moorland. Interestingly I did a Polaris a few years back after a long stint in an agency over summer and found the (fast 12 mile) commute had got me way fitter than I normally was from MTBing an hour or two a day.

I did it on a pair of v brake wheels (mavic 318 or something?), nothing to worry about imo. Probably even less of an issue on disc wheels unless they're weight weenie light to begin with. Don't sue me though!

I love cooking, probably eat meat in 70% of meals, though in the past it's been a lot less. The comment above about texture is spot on. Also I usually find cooking meat more gratifying than veggie because a) it's an easy centrepiece of a meal (easier to decide what to buy in the shop too), and b) it's easy to make a piece of meat very tasty, simply by roasting it in salt a pepper or whatever. IMO if you start off trying to replace meat with something (ie tofu) you're setting yourself up to be disappointed. Veg are full of great flavours and textures, but you have to treat them a bit differently.

Try roasting aubergines; artichokes a la grecque; and other tapas/antipasta type stuff. It can taste amazing and isn't any the worse for not having meat in.

You can make most curries, thai food, noodle dishes etc without meat, use chick peas or mushrooms instead.

Tortilla (spanish omlettes) are a nice thing to know how to make, good comfort food. Normal omlettes are a quick meal with lots of protien.

You can make lasane and canelloni without meat and it's just as good. Anything with mince in really – I always find mince a bit pointless and it smells gross, so if I was making pasta sauce I'd normally just use tomatoes and maybe some peas or mushrooms.

It's always good to learn something new, variety is the spice of life.

nice bike, I always liked the look of slayers.

KO, died last march aged 15ish. My gf got her from York RSPCA in 1995. They called her KO because she was unconscious when they found her, they thought she had been hit with a hammer or something.

Really miss having a dog and trawl the local rescue home websites every day looking for a suitable victim.

Re being a lab assistant and having a degree, I think it must depend on the place/employer. Everyone who worked as a tech in my GF's old lab in Manchester had a degree. One had an MSc. For most it was a first job, and some were able to gain postgrad quals while working, my GF did an MPhil and then was taken on as a RA and did a PhD while working. It's very unuisual to get an RA position with a Batchelor's (I know one person who did). The Prof there treated techs as junior research staff, which had pros and cons (but was basically due to him being a cheapskate control freak).

Money-wise she started on about 12K (in 2002) and as a tech maybe earned up to about 17 before she became a RA (2005?) then it went up to 22 or so. That is in academia so probably less than comparable role in industry. Re conditions/job satisfaction I think it's ace, if I had my time again I'd love to work in science or engineering.

In the past at times I've lost quite a lot of weight, adopted a harsh exercise regime and given up smoking.

In my experience, having tangible goals or benchmarks is most important. If you tell yourself to eat "a bit less fatty foods" it's much harder to judge what is less, over what period, etc. If you become a vegan or decide to just eat salad then you've got a clearer rule to follow.

I agree with the point above about exercise as far as physically/physiologically, you can't start running marathons if you're overweight. When I started MTBing I hadn't done any significant exercise in 10 years and I immediately started pushing myself as hard as I could and challenging myself every time I went out. I'm doing a half marathon in Feb, but this time I decided to use a training plan which basically involves gradually increasing time spent running. I find this much better than when I've run regularly in the past, where I was running the same distance over and over and just trying to do it faster.

I think the above is quite a male perspective though: setting yourself against something, and achieving goals by bloody mindedness. The first time I gave up smoking I did this and lasted a 6 months before gradually sliding back into it. This time I read allan carr book, which is much more sensible than I would have ever believed. However to paraphrase, "yes stop smoking completely – you have to or else you'll still be addicted and just sad that you can't smoke – and don't mope about fags".

Does anyone know anyone who's ever got a ticket from an average speed camera?

No, I've often thought the same [/quote]

I've always thought that these average speed cameras were probably a sham. I am very doubtful of the ability of the UK authorities to be able to accurately apply this kind of technology in a real world situation, when they still struggle with some of the simpler traffic control techologies, for example, grit.

Analogue Andy – you say there have been a lot of successful prosecutions, is there anywhere these records/stats are available online?

my dad's got one, he's happy with it, pulls a little trailer and gets him up and down rough tracks, gathering firewood etc. Probably a bit agricultural for a commuter vehicle, I used to have a vitara, and I think the Jimny is less car-like. He's got a basic model with no electric. Mileage something similar to the vitara I think 35ish.

The three things that make an SLR worthwhile for me…

Proper manual focus – With an SLR you can take the photo you want to take, though it might take a bit more fiddling to get really into it.

Proper telephoto zoom lenses – I went on safari in October and my photos would have been crap if I hadn't had a 200mm lens.

Very fast accurate autofocus and fast capture – compacts always seemed to focus and fire way way after I needed them to.

I have a very entry level Nikon D40x, I've never really played with the manual exposure settings much, and it still takes way better photos, and is a lot better to use than my previous 4 digital compacts (Nikon/Sony). Yes it's a lot bigger, but as SLRs go it's not too bad.

If you're anywhere near Sherburn in Elmet, my girlfriend's brother used to work for a fabricators there who do a fair bit of stainless construction stuff, called Fusion Engineering Services Ltd. I think a few people had left recently so they might be worth contacting if that's your thing.

Does a pair of trainers hanging from a telephone wire denote poverty?

Gola, yes. Y3, no.

The country was bankrupt so he had very little chance to do anything, political capital or not. Have you ever visited sub-saharan Africa? Pretty much every other country there is much worse off than SA. Many are still riven by war, corruption, repression and abject poverty. Some European countries have more dubious leaders than Jacob Zuma.

"he achieved nothing. His legacy is SA of today, just another African shit-hole. He could have achieved so much but he didn't. He's just another useless politician. "

what a load of bullshit. have you been to SA? Have you been anywhere else in Africa?

Edit, I should qualify that; one legacy of his calm and reconcilliatory leadership is that SA didn't immediately explode into anti-white violence that would have absolutely torn the country apart.

In the face of their non-violent efforts to achieve equality in their own land during the 50s and 60s, and when many other countries in Africa were moving towards majority rule and independence, the blacks in SA were actually met with a massive increase in intolerance, repression and violence, to the point of being forcibly repatriated from their homes into barren "homelands" in the bush, and stripped of their citizenship. All of this was aimed at eliminating blacks from SA.

the ANC resorted to a campaign of sabotage against military and government targets. Probably not an uncomplicated figure, but don't you think that in the face of a military machine bent on the destruction of his poeple, he did the right thing? Wouldn't you like to think you'd do the same?

Have you started taking it off already? In that pic it doesn't look like it's seated properly. To get them off I normally hammer a paint scraper/screwdriver between race/fork crown, then once it's moving (looks like you're already at this stage) gently tap it on either side to work it up the steerer.

Does anyone know if the olympic training track in East Manchester got saved?

"Deep down I want music to be something more than just a list of files on my computer."

A stack of plastic discs on a shelf? I've thought about this quite a lot, because I used to feel we were losing something, but ultimately music is sound. Everything else is just gimmicks, picture sleeves and hard copies aren't the essence of music and their demise doesn't herald cultural entropy. I'd rather listen to a decent radio station or lastfm, be connected with the creative world as it happens and discover new things every day.

Music, and the way we use, share, experience it, is changing radically, as are attitudes to ownership and intellectual property. It's a radical change in a short space of time, though, and I can understand why people aren't comfortable with that.

As regards the OP, HMV.com was always supposed to be the same price as its stores, to avoid taking away market share. They make a lot of their money at Xmas, and likewise with Waterstones, which they also own. Rather a bizarre choice of acquisition give it's in the same retail/online dilemma as HMV.

I've seen this lately on a couple of mobile phone sites here in Germany. I would hazard a guess that there isn't anyone at the other end when you visit the site, but that if you typed in a query someone would get alerted and you might get to speak to a real person (like the silent caller thing on the phone). Either that or they have some decent AI to field your question, don't know really as I've never typed anything. At any rate fundamentally I doubt it's any different from any other popup.

It depends what his SMTP settings are. I had this problem before, I use live.com (via my hotmail account) now and it works everywhere.

If I were you, I would stay in Ambleside or Hawkshead. Both have a few pubs, shops & amenities, both within reach of coniston, grizedale, windermere. I'd recommend going up Garburn pass, but there may be some snow at that time of year. There is a lot of nice scenic mountain biking at lower levels round there.

edit: this should give you an idea about possible routes/locations:
http://www.bikemaps.co.uk/lake_district_maps.htm

I've had a vapour rise smock for a couple of years (don't think it's a "stretch") very very warm, too warm for me 95% of the year in UK. Seems pretty well made, only minor niggle is that the neck zipper is irritating when zipped right up.

Not free but looks like it might be less than a tenner.

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Articles/Index/Normal/100

ipod or nothing. maybe you could try and get a voucher to use on amazon or dixons or somewhere like that, you can normally find something floating around on the internet that will save you a tenner.

Looks pretty decent. I bought a Shuttle PC a few years ago, maybe have a look at them too. Really good for the money.

I was going to say "a spasm", but was bettered by "a tourette"

Option 5 – rent a cheap flat/houseshare in/near brum and go back at weekends?
There is no way I would drive that distance daily, Manc to Brum must be one of the worst commutes in the land, plus it will cost you a bomb.

3rd isohunt, they've all got the same torrents on anyway.

I used to wear these regularly to cruise a couple of miles to the local jump spot and back. Nothing too strenuous, plus maybe a couple of times to head into the hills for an hour or so. They are pretty waterproof, I found my arse got wet from spray off the back wheel but everything else was dry. Grit sticking to the jeans probably made that worse. They did get a bit of condensation inside but normally I steam up in any waterproofs, and overall I'd say they're good in that respect. I wouldn't wear them for training though, the fabric is fairly stiff and it would annoy me, I'd rather get wet shins and have the cooling/freedom to move.

anyway mate, if you find yourself in Duss or Cologne, give me a shout and we can hook up for a ride/beer if you fancy.

That report was just about cost of rent. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit 2009 Cost of Living Survey, Frankfurt has the highest cost of living in Germany. My remark was based on what everyone has told me before/since moving here. I admit people probably like to think they live in the country's more exclusive places.

You don't see many scallies.

I had my all-purpose bike nicked in late sept, and my bottlerocket is in a box in my office, so I don't know what the riding's like! I saw a guy cruising into Königswinter on a bottlerocket, so I guess I'd find some riding there, it's certainly very hilly and beautiful (google Drakenfels). Been walking in the Eifel, which is pretty hilly, and Bergisches Land is supposed to be hilly and have a bike park. Probs 1/2 hour drive/train ride to somewhere hilly. I think there must be a lot of local riding though, there is so much forest round here, 10 km from the city centre. Here is probably better than duss in that regard.