Depends a lot what you want to do (and what your local rivers are like). I've been out of paddling for ages now, but looking at that it is quite long. Makes it more stable, but less good at paddling where you want to turn corners, or playing in white water. It looks like it will go in a straight line pretty well though – so probably great for paddling canals, and easy rivers etc.

Personally, if you're a complete beginner, I'd try joining a club or something, then you can see what kind of paddling you enjoy, and get a much better idea of what kind of boat you'd like (and learn how to roll it, which is always a useful skill). You might find you like playing on white water, and want a ludicrously short fat boat to do rad dude tricks in, or you like racing kayaks, and want a silly narrow unstable pointy boat.

Having said that, if you picked that up for £150 or so, you'd probably get £150 worth of fun out of it

Joe

When I looked, it was Air New Zealand every time – they let you take the bike for free.

I took a 29" wheeled unicycle, full camping gear, computer, clothes, juggling stuff, bike lights, mountain boots, spare tyres, tools and everything I needed for 6 months of working out there, and was fine. The bike doesn't count towards the weight limit.

Or at least that was how it was 2 years ago – check their website. It was slightly more expensive but a lot less than doing excess baggage.

Oh yeah, and go via LA not via Hong Kong or wherever they go via, as you get about twice as much baggage allowance that way (it is item based going via USA, or weight based going East).

Joe

Hitch hike – supposed to be easiest to hitch hike with a woman, so she should be in with a chance – and it'd be a cool adventure to hitch hike from Spain to the UK.

We're in the USA, and someone at our work is seriously trying to get us booked as passengers on container ships!

Joe

Oh, I had not looked too closely, I had assumed that they'd opened up the ANT interface, rather than producing yet more proprietary products. I shall have to investigate further.

There isn't an ant receiver on any current phones. There are a few bluetooth heart rate devices, most of which are very expensive, but this is talking about the polar for bluetooth belt, which is unknown price, as it appears to be impossible to buy currently.

I'd try and book a ferry before you go worrying about anything else. Last I heard, Dover->Calais ferries, Eurotunnel etc. were all booked out.

Joe

I have an old MacPac waterproof sleeping bag. In summer, I'll happily sleep out in that, as long as the temperature isn't forecast to go below about 5 degrees. It weighs 440g. I try to sleep somewhere a bit soft or grab some stuff to put underneath me. If it is slightly colder, I'd take a sleeping mat.

There is no way I'd get that light with a tent – there's basically no penalty over just sleeping rough in a sleeping bag, and you stay nice and dry if it rains.

The riding is so much nicer when all your sleeping kit weighs <500g, whereas I bet no-one with a tent can get it much under 2kg.

Joe

Just for you, all thanks to the wonders of Google: http://www.beer100.com/brewpubs_a_to_k/georgia.htm

I know, in fact I've just been to one of them. I'm still 4125 miles away from my heavily pregnant wife, and not a clue how I'm gonna get back, as my flight getting home Saturday has now been cancelled, and BA are not picking up the phone (and nothing of use on their website).

Joe

[selfish]Me and Mrs. S are booked to fly out of MCR to Paris CDG on Saturday morning. We've got two nights booked at the Paris Pullman, Tour Eiffel and a pissing volcano in Iceland could eff it all up.[/selfish]

Hey, think yourself lucky – you aren't stuck in Atlanta Georgia, and worrying about having to spend an extra few days in the land of mediocre cheese and crap beer. My flight is tomorrow, so I'm crossing my fingers.

Joe

Santa Cruz County in Califormia gets an average of 770mm rainfall per year, and Marin County even more… considerably more rain than we get here in East Sussex.

Yeah, but a)it is very concentrated in some months of the year, and they get heavier rain followed by dry days, rather than a lot of on and off changeable days and b)in many Californian riding areas, they officially close the trails for 3 days after a rain storm – I don't know how much notice people take of this, but I've gone on rides with californians, where they said that the ride was only on if it didn't rain in the days beforehand, as the trails would be closed.

new secure, audited database preferable to remaining scattered through various home grown databases and paper notes

Because if someone gives away your data now, they'd have to be someone pretty local to you, or who has dealt with you.

Whereas under the new system, basically anyone who has £100 to spend will be able to look at your medical records, same as is the case with the DVLA, Police computer etc.

Joe

Whatever you do, beware of things like the one you linked that are widescreen, unless you are providing all the photos, and you take your photos in widescreen aspect ratio (which you probably don't). You get a choice of either chopping off anyone at the edge of the picture, or having ugly black lines at the sides of the picture. Get something that is roughly the same aspect ratio as the camera that you are using. The one you link looks great in their pictures where they cropped everything to perfect size, but will suck with pictures off a normal camera.

I'd think a digital picture frame is complicated enough, I would totally avoid something you have to charge up, and that requires user interaction – the reason picture frames are neat for non technical people is that you can just bung pictures on it when you see them, and they just need to keep it plugged in, there is no need to navigate using fiddly controls or rubbish like that.

Also, the album, whilst they say it weighs the same as an apple, it is 400g (which is a darned big apple, more like 2 or 3 apples in reality), pretty big and thick, plus add the weight of the case , the charger, cable etc. and it only lasts for 3 hours between charges, which is crazy.

Joe

If you want to buy it on the go, then ginsters are absolutely perfect (cheap supermarket versions are available too, although they're mostly not as good)

If you feel like you'd kill for a pork pie flavoured energy bar, that is probably your body telling you it could do with a pork pie.

Joe

In situations like this, you should always a)take back any parts of yours that they have as soon as possible, and b) refuse to pay for work that you didn't ask to be done. If you just walk out, they're hardly going to call the police on you. They'd not have a leg to stand on if they do try and go legal on it. It isn't like you'd want to go back to the shop anyway.

Joe

gimp will save them, although I'm not sure how it handles multiple sizes (I think it just saves one size.

For icons to look good at smaller sizes you really need to create them properly in an icon editor with the multiple sizes – those kind of 'take a bitmap and zoom it down' editors create rubbish looking icons when they are small (although being a mac person, I guess you'll be used to application icons looking a bit fuzzy, as display of icons & fonts on macs is generally that bit fuzzier than windows*).

Joe

*there is a good technical reason for macs doing it this way though

Ambrosio Excellights

Is there any advantage of these over Mavic Open Pro? They seem very similar, although 5g heavier than open pro if that makes a difference at all.

Joe

As fo writing to the "ceo" do you really think that makes a blind bit of difference, it's not like he read it

I've found that if you email CEOs, things often get done very quickly. For example, I facebooked the CEO of East Midlands Trains when we had some problems with some tickets that they'd sent to the wrong place, and couldn't get their stupid call centre staff to sort things out. I sent the message at 10pm, and it was sorted out by 9:30 the next morning.

Call centre staff don't give a damn about your business. CEOs also probably don't care that much, but they do very much care about having their time wasted by having to read emails from irate customers.

Joe

I usually get onto Bramcote Ridge from the end of Cooper's Green or by using the steps up from Heather Rise near David Grove. There are several bits of singletrack along the ridge between there and the other end of the ridge at Thoresby Road. You can then use Bramcote Park to cut across to Coventry Lane if you're heading up to the trig point

If you are feeling fit you can even ride out to Belper, Ambergate etc too!

You can do Belper 95% off road from Wollaton – by going along the top of the ride, then – go down to Erewash Canal in Stapleford (about 5 minutes ride from Bramcote Park), canal / bike path up to Shipley Park (some naughty trails off to the side in here too I understand), obvious bridleway to Smalley, tiny bit of road, obvious bridleways to Denby, 'special bridleway' up to Openwoodgate, little bit of road then bridleway which comes out just at the back of Belper Park. It is a bit boring mind, almost all dead easy riding, sustrans / easy bridleway stuff and about 20 miles, but it is an okay way to get out to that riding if you have the legs to do a 20 mile easy ride, then do a proper off road ride – was great in the snow.

Joe

Does it run the battery down quicker?

Yes – 4 or so hour battery life in most GPS apps, and you can't just swap the battery like you can on a normal phone. I understand some apps may have slightly better battery life, but the GPS really drains the battery.

Joe

I think once you get used to Vans, you gain a certain amount of skill in wandering around with them on in places where they are not suitable. I've climbed up Scottish Munros in my vans, up Snowdon, hacked my way up Jacobs Ladder when it was under sheet ice and snow. You just have to be slightly careful on slippy stuff. They are fine on rocks.

It depends on the balance between walking & riding, but if I was planning to spend more time riding than walking, I'd just take Vans (or some other skate shoe that you can pick up cheap on the net).

Joe

But the thought of 24 hours flying makes me feel sick.

It is horrible. And if you add in all the getting to/from the airport, it can easily be well over 24 hours of airline rubbish. The only thing that you can do to make it better, is make sure you spend at least a couple of weeks out there, so you at least get some non-jetlagged time out there – anything less than a couple of weeks is a waste of time in my experience. Oh and make sure you sleep lots on the plane if you're a good sleeper.

Joe

I'm at the uni, would be nice to find somewhere within easy riding distance

One other thing you can do is ride to the train station (Beeston or Nottingham), and catch a train out to Matlock, Ambergate, Belper. Tons of riding, and direct trains are 1 an hour on a Saturday. Takes about 40 -50 minutes on the train, and is pretty cheap.

Joe

I find a chocolate milk drink does me good after I've had a lot of exercise. Mix of protein and carbohydrates. Cheap chocolate milk is supposed to be better than the bought supplement things – there has been a bunch of research on this. The wacky (and expensive) supplements, maybe if you're body building they might help, but probably not otherwise. I wouldn't use creatine either, not without advice from someone with some kind of medical qualifications, rather than someone selling creatine.

I've only started doing the milk thing when I upped to doing quite a lot of exercise, I ride about 800-1000km in a typical month at the moment, and that is getting to the amount where you really need to think about getting a bunch of extra food, and milk is a cheap and easy way to get 500 or so calories in one hit.

How much sleep do you get? That is one of the biggest things that you find when you up the exercise level – I've gone from 6 hours to 8 hours a night over the years, and it massively helps. Much more so than eating well, although I eat pretty well (vegetarian diet makes that much easier for me). I find 9 times out of 10, if I am falling asleep, that is my body telling me that I'm tired, not because I haven't eaten enough / taken enough supplements etc.

Joe

You can get small (A5 sized) regional road atlases, which are good enough for road use. I've used them a lot.

Although most of Lincolnshire is only really a long day's ride from London, and a horrible place to ride – it is either flat and boring, or flat and windy. I'm guessing you have some reason to want to go there though.

Joe

And because of the way it works, it's imposible to tell whether there's more suff on the drive, or not. Brill.

Although not if the person looking at your drive is an expert – I understand* that there is some analysis they can do to detect the hidden partition. But unless you're involved in a criminal case of some kind, probably no one involved is going to be capable of doing it.

Joe
*I don't know how common knowledge this is, but I know for certain of at least one person who has done this, and I did get the rough details, but it was all a bit too clever for me.

Problem with waterproof gloves is that once any water gets in, they are waterproof in the opposite direction too. They have a great big opening where your hand goes in to let water in..

I found warm, non waterproof gloves with a liner under them to be much better than my sealskins gloves, which always seemed to be ice bags if it rained.

Joe

There is the htc tattoo, but the touch screen is apparently horrible to use, and even that is £20 a month or so.

Also LG GW620 is on £20 a month on t-mobile / virgin, has a physical keyboard too, which is a bonus, although it currently runs quite old Android software (dunno how much of a difference that makes).

I think all of the android phones so far have GPS.

Joe

Don't forget that the Sora / Tiagra range this year has technology from last year's / year before that's. Same with MTB stuff really 2010 Deore could be compared to a previous year or two's XT.

Not quite true of Sora as far as I know – that still has the tiny little upshift button that is hard to reach from anywhere except the hoods, whereas tiagra has a proper shift lever you can reach from the drops like the fancy groupsets.

Joe

I did a year commuting on Race tyres (MMich Pro Race) and to be honest, they were fine. I didn't puncture and they are the nicest ride, but the main thing is that you wear them out quickly and they're expensive.

I've heard people say that, but my front tyre is at over 5000km, and has loads left on the wear indicator and the back is at 4000 (the last one wasn't worn, I just hit half a broken bottle and it got cut up). The GP 4000S is supposed to be pretty long lasting according to Continental, and it seems like that is true. You are right that they are bloody expensive though – I paid £20 a tyre last year, and it looks like they are £25-27 this year, although I don't mind that if they last thousands of km a go.

Joe

There was a shocking article in the Guardian the other day, from a Catholic, who was saying that the abuse statistics amongst priests weren't too bad, compared to the population as a whole and that hence they are no worse than any other profession. Which is basically wrong – as he is missing the point that almost all abuse is by parents, who obviously have most access to children, and that abuse from people outside the family is incredibly rare. Compared to teachers, Catholic priests are many orders of magnitude more likely to be abusers. The "we're not too bad really" tone and the misrepresentation of statistics in that article really made me angry.

By that argument, would you also state that all muslims are responsible for 911, etc?

Islamic terrorism is hardly on the same scale though. No one sensible has ever suggested that anything other than an extremely tiny minority of Islamic leaders are active terrorists. Whereas 4% of US Catholic clerics have been accused of being child abusers – that is 1 in 25 of them.

It is hard to understand how anyone can claim to take moral leadership from an organisation with such an endemic problem of buggering children. Or can go to church and worship with the knowledge that there is a 1 in 25 chance (or better if there are multiple people running the service) that one of the people teaching them how to be good is also buggering kids in their spare time.

Joe

I use GP 4000S tyres. They are a 'racing' tyre, but punctures seem rare as long as you keep them at 100PSI or more – they're supposed to have some kind of puncture protection in them.

As for potholes, best plan is just to keep an eye out for them and try not to hit too many.

I always go for something as slick as possible for the extra grip compared to a treaded tyre.

Joe

I suggest £1000 becauase if the bug bites (which most likely it will) then it will save you £s upgrading.

But the great thing about the road, is that unless you race seriously, there is no real need to upgrade. Once you get a basically okay bike with tiagra (so usable shifters), sort of thing you can pick up 2nd hand for £450 or so, all upgrading does is potentially make you slightly faster. It isn't like mountain biking where fancy parts can make a big difference to how possible it is to ride, due to breaking easily or whatever.

Yeah, sometimes I get dropped by people on £4000 super bikes, and maybe they are slightly faster, but to be honest, I've never felt that it was anything to do with what they were riding, I've overtaken people with much fancier bikes than mine, and been overtaken by some bugger on a fixy that couldn't have been worth more than £20.

I also did a good few miles on a 500NZD (about £150) 2nd hand road bike in New Zealand, and as long as it was maintained (oiled every so often), it was fine. The only thing that annoyed me was the funny Sora shifters. Cheap road bikes have got surprisingly good. You kind of notice the difference in a fancier bike, but really it isn't anywhere near as big as you'd think.

Joe

You could always try your local hospital……

Who have a pharmacy which will only fill prescriptions that were written in the hospital – you can't get any non-prescription drugs or get your doctor's prescriptions filled there. At least that's true for ours.

Joe

Budget at least £1000.

You can get a perfectly rideable road bike 2nd hand for £300. My £450 Trek 1200 has lasted well over 10,000km so far, with only chains, brake pads etc. needing to be changed (it was in pretty much brand new condition when I bought it), and still runs lovely and smoothly. I guess with the higher groupsets it might shift slightly nicer or weigh 50g less, but they are a lot more money for what seems like no increase in reliability.

I would go for a minimum of Tiagra – it is the first one that has sensible shift levers.

The Boardman bikes from Halfords are pretty good value if you're willing to put it together yourself.

Although having said that, I'd always go for something with mudguard mounts – a full on road bike with close clearances is nice in summer, but sucks if you ride in the rain, you can get clip on guards but they're not the same. As a bonus, you can change a bike with guard / rack mounts into a fast commuter easily if you don't get into road riding for fun.

Joe

3D at home won't really be a realistic proposition until the concept of the 'TV' is done away with altogether. It may even have to wait until projection is superseded by large scale display surfaces that can be disguised as a wall etc

3d TVs (with glasses) will be out later this year or early next year.

Using active wireless shutter glasses, where one side is on and the other is off per frame is pretty technologically easy, especially with modern HDTVs that are 100 or 200 frames a second. I had a computer graphics card that did this in 2001. It will probably be standard on high end large HDTVs, as the extra cost is pretty minimal.

I believe there is already support in blu-ray for 3d.

Joe

One thing worth considering is Computer Science. Some people argue it is engineering, some argue it is science, but it doesn't really matter.

In the modern world, probably way more of what makes things happen is actually in software than building hardware. Even crazy things like camera lenses have a chip running some software in them. An electrical engineering degree will teach you lots of programming, and a load of stuff about electricity, whereas on a CS degree, you learn all about computer based problem solving in depth. Personally I think most of the more interesting problems involving tinkering with software rather than hardware.

Like engineering, there are lots of boring jobs you can go into after a CS degree, but there are also cool things that require programming.

At the moment, I am messing around with automated ride systems at work. They are cool in a big machinery way. The engineering element is pretty much a solved problem (some clever engineers put some big motors together, and make a control panel with lots of safety limits on, we hook some actuators on to the control panel), whereas the ride automation stuff we're looking at is purely software, and no one has done it before.

Computer science is a bit mathsy, and being good at maths really helps you be good at programming, but to be honest I reckon on most CS courses the maths is way less hard than engineering maths.

Joe

I'm a bit perplexed why everyone is so bothered about the American health care system

Same reason people are bothered about poor people dying in third world countries.

Except with an added sense of it being a complete waste, because the USA is one of the (is it the) richest countries in the world, and spends way more than pretty much anywhere else on healthcare, yet has health outcomes way worse than the other first world countries (which all have universal healthcare). Even rich people who get seriously ill don't get good treatment, which is crazy.

They also get bad treatment due to over-cautious medical staff worried about being sued by insurance companies, meaning people get tons of invasive procedures that they don't actually need (and that carry a risk of harming them).

Oh and they waste vast amounts of money on lawsuits, where insurance companies sue people to try and avoid a cost – which is one of the biggest sources of the crazy litigation culture that they have in the USA.

Not to mention having the largest percentage spend on administration of pretty much any healthcare system.

Oh and it also being depressing because it is basically a pointless ideological argument (supported by a bunch of insurance company lobbyists), where people put attach way less value to the lives of their fellow Americans than to trying to shore up their stupid ideology.

It's also interesting to see the depressing state of the US health system, because there is some chance we'll have a Conservative government, some members of which appear to think that it would be great if we went to a US style insurance backed system, where only the very richest would get decent healthcare, and everyone else would be pretty much left to die (or in an emergency, would be treated and then presented with a £20,000 bill).

Joe

I would phone up someone in the department (undergraduate admissions tutor probably) and talk to them. Don't apply for foundation courses etc. until you know whether the departments you are interested in will recognise the exact foundation course you are applying for. That way you avoid making an expensive mistake.

Like Bristolbiker says, there are lots of things you can do to make yourself more obvious (and being a mature student is quite likely one of them).

The other thing worth considering if you're not in a massive rush to go onto a foundation year, is whether first just getting a maths qualification is worthwhile. Assuming you're looking at engineering, the maths will be hard (really hard). If you're not capable of an A in a-level maths or equivalent, engineering maths will probably be too hard to cope with. You can do a-levels at evening courses pretty easily. If you had time to do maths and further maths, or maths and physics, and the ability to get an A in them, you might make yourself much more attractive for technical courses.

(mainly due to lack of application, definitely not lack of ability)

It is worth being really sure that you are right about this statement – particularly in terms of the maths stuff.

Joe

High Peak Junction and it's pump house, also Middleton Top on the High Peak Trail – make a nice little bike ride between the two.

And a pair of aqueducts over both a river and a railway, which is somehow rather satisfying. Oh and a nice enough tunnel too.

Joe

The idea that protein types are a problem, and that vegetarians have to be careful about types of protein and combining them was a bit debunked a few years back.

The idea that vegetarian diets are typically high in fat and unhealthy is just crazy madness that you made up in your head and isn't supported by any data – because it is rubbish – all the data suggests that at worst veggies are equal in healthiness to meat eaters, and typically eat a lower fat diet..

Again, the idea that veggies don't get enough protein to grow or to do sport is also rubbish and not supported by evidence.

Like meat eaters, vegetarians need to get a balanced diet. But as with meat eaters, the thing people are most likely to be low on is eating enough fruit and veg – which is far more of a health problem for everyone than lack of protein.

About your anecdote about the kid who was vegetarian , i was that kid too – veggie since 10ish, perfectly healthy, and fine to get in at least 500 km of riding in the average month. I imagine I'm fitter than the average person, even if they eat meat.

I've got an olympus e p1 as mentioned above.

It is great, and lovely to use, very nice being able to carry it around easily, yet still have a quality sensor and choice of lens.

Having said that, if you don't want the smallness an slr proper will probably be a bit better especially if you need to take pics of fast moving things etc

Joe