but not tightening the handlebars is inexcusable by even the most heavily spotted hoodie adorning yoof.

Yeah, exactly.

Surprises me that you seem to know a bit about bike set up but don't take a 5mm allen key out with you

I do if I'm on a ride – it was just that I happened to be in town with some unexpected free time, the bike happened to be 'ready' a day early, so I popped in to pick it up. I also did an easy 10 mile ride in jeans and a t-shirt, without a helmet, with a big rucksack of shopping on my back.

I was kind of expecting anything wrong to be either obvious straight away (the things that were, I fixed in the shop, like tyre pressures), or things that were annoying, but would be fine to ride home with if I was careful (like the derailleur limit screws), not a cunning slightly loose handlebar booby trap.

Joe

speaking of which Im just off to the kitchen to make a chicken casserole. Im guessing it's using about £1 of vegetables (2lbs carrotts, celery, onions), a 50p tin of tomatoes, about £3.00 of chicken (1lb) and a dash of Le Piat d'Or.
Add £1 (5lbs) spuds, and thats <£1 per person.
Or its turkey twizzlers and microchips.

The wine was free then?

At the dodgy pizza takeaway near where I used to live you can get 2 large pizzas for £6. Would easily feed a family of 6. Plus you don't need to spend a fiver on a bottle of wine either. You'd also have no risk that your kids would turn up their noses at your boooring vegetables and chicken stuff, of that you'd burn things or cook them badly, whereas with your thing, if you're not a confident cook, you might mess it up and have wasted a tenner or whatever it cost.

Joe

A cheap door closer with a bit of plastic pipe stuck on it might do the job.

I wrote a compiler once in a mixture of prolog, and ml (wacky functional language) that compiled to a pseudo machine that was emulated in ml also.

I think I might have a claim to the king of the nerds crown too!

Why? I needed to learn the basics of compiler stuff for my compilers course, prolog for the ai course, and some functional programming rubbish – just thought i could more efficently learn all that stuff in one go. Oh and it was useful for another course (architectures or something) to write emulators – I did an Arm one too when we had to do firmware hacking and I couldn't be bothered to go to the lab where the chips were.

Joe
You'd never know I'm a nerd for a living still!

I've not used it before, but while looking for a bike* recently I noticed that my old lumicycle bits were worth some money to people.

Personally, I've only sold stuff that is worthless to me and cluttering up the shed, so I sell for a fair but cheap price, rather do that than have the hassle of bargaining or of not managing selling it, and it's good to know that the stuff will end up being used .- recycling innit.

Only slight confusion I have is about how and whether to let people 'bag' things subject to pictures or whatever. Any opinions on that?

Joe
*I bought new in the end – seems like the percentages people will take off a 2nd hand bike don't really make it cheaper than buying a new one in the sales.

Everyone I know has a joint – because then if one is a non-payer, the landlord chases the rest.

Joe

Also, I've worked somewhere with a direct manager who was a complete bullying stupid idiot, and I walked in the end, but I had sorted out what I was doing next. It was very satisfying. The company were never going to sort things out, despite something like 4 people leaving out of a team of 5, all directly because of this guy – I was one of the most experienced on the (ten year old) product when I left, and I'd only worked there 9 months or so.

Joe

Blimey – sounds like the person who is off might have a good case. I'd be looking as hard as possible for the next job straight away, and talking to the bosses boss about it if you don't mind taking that risk – it sounds like the manager has a real problem and the company should really think about sorting them out / starting some kind of disciplinary process.

As for quitting – that's gotta be between you + the wife really isn't it, you've just got to budget it, see if you'd be okay living on that budget and stuff, and think hard about how you'd be.

Joe

Without access to hotmail's logs you haven't a hope in hell. The SMTP headers aren't going to tell you shit, except perhaps geographical localization if hotmail uses load balancers.

This is wrong. It should be dead easy. If messages are sent from hotmail via the web interface, it adds a header called 'X-Originating-IP:' which tells you which computer the person was logged on from. For example when my wife sent me hotmail from work, it shows as a university of nottingham address, from home it shows as a virgin media address. I can match up the nottingham ip address with the one on the emails she sends from work.

Find that address, then check all the headers in the other emails for that particular address, or one that shares the first two numbers, that may well narrow it right down.

What email client do you use – you should be able to get this number out from the emails very easily?

Joe

I've been along our canal when the fishing matches are on (seems like they do several weekends). They all just stick their rods over the cycle path / towpath and leave em there. Dinging a bell seems to sort it out usually, but like you say, it doesn't half slow you down. You get the odd one who is arsey too and doesn't want to move their gear. Riding up as if you are going to do a trials style hop over their expensive rod makes em move it in the end though. It is a pain even if you're just going for a walk.

Personally, if it was an honest mistake, he left his rod there when the rest of them had moved them out of the way, you completely didn't see it, I'd have said oops, that was a bugger, and ridden off, same as you did. Obviously if you hammered through there shouting out of my way it'd be different, but otherwise, it isn't really your fault if he leaves a rod on the cycle path.

Joe

I asked roughly the same question yesterday, except with a £300 budget, and did what I was told, which is to buy a Carrera Vengeance from Halfords, at £300 supposedly down from £525. Which I guess is better specced than a bike that retails at £400 normally (certainly looked good to my very untrained eyes).

Joe

I use bikehike.co.uk now, which is free to print, and has OS maps. It doesn't have a very good interface for finding routes, but it is great for mapping.

Joe

The flaw in this question is that realistically, if someone turns up looking a bit of a chubber, on a fancy lightweight bike, you would almost always expect them to be slower than the person who turns up looking super skinny and fit, but riding a hire bike.

The only question that is relevant to any actual rider, is whether they'd be better off losing 10lb off the bike, or off them. Now in reality, for most people who aren't super skinny and fit already, that'd probably involve riding more, eating more healthily and generally getting a lot fitter.

Personally I think the answer to that question for most riders who don't ride tons already is that if they have the time, they'd be better off riding. If they don't have the time, maybe they should spend some money to compensate.

Joe

Costing about £40 and appears to be going to produce about the same amount fo light that the halogens did

The lumicycle 1W LED spot ones?

They will be about a 3W halogen equivalent. Be alright for road riding maybe (although I don't like fast descents on unlit roads using such a dim light), but blimey you're going to be riding by moonlight off road? Isn't that a massive downgrade from the halogens? I'd keep at least one halogen bulb in for off road.

Joe

IMO – Sure anything can fail but on balance you get what you pay for. And if you buy cheap – buy 2 to be safe.

I work on the principle that anything can fail, but when the cheap lights fail, you either fix em (usually dead easy with such simple lights), warranty them, or pay another £50. When people's lupines fail, if you're not lucky and covered by the warranty for that particular occurrence (say you crash onto the switch) they have to pay £100 even for what should be the simplest part (funny switch unit). Even if they are under warranty, you're talking a couple of weeks wait while they get fixed, which is a pain, whereas with the torches I've never seen anything not cured by just tightening up some internal part that was loose when it was first bought, and even if you had to re-wire it completely, you could do it in half an hour.

My lumicycles were great mind – anything broke on those even out of warranty, it was dead cheap and quick to get them fixed. Fantastic design. Only got rid of them because they weren't very bright and they were a bit big and heavy (oh and cos the battery & charger died, and it'd cost a fortune for a new one), and a cheap torch was a better replacement than what they were offering at the time.

Joe

I would get hold of a 2nd hand lumicycle halogen lamp casing or something similar, and buy a driver too. It'd cost you a few more quid, but then you're not risking screwing up the very expensive lumicycle light just for a little bit of extra light. It'll be dead fiddly soldering to get those LEDs in anyway, and it'd be an expensive mistake if you screwed up something inside the lumicycle.

Joe

Quick question, on such a long ride with regular (lots) of food- you must need poo stops a fair bit?

I've never needed to stop much on the hundred milers I've done – typically you'd eat loads of carbohydrate rich food, not a load of heavy food that makes you need the toilet.

Joe

But also, I think you can't deny that a lot of these products are intentionally sold at a luxury mark-up because the manufacturers know that people will pay for it regardless.

I think a lot of people will only buy expensive lights – because there are £200 lights and £50 lights, they think only the expensive light must be a proper light.

Joe

They cost that much because the people who make lights discovered that people were willing to pay £200 for a light. Some of them are fabulously well developed, some of them are just a bunch of standard electronics dumped in a case.

Or in the case of lupine, £500 for a light that is unreliable, very very expensive to fix when it goes wrong (£100 switch e.t.c.), but which everyone knows is jolly expensive, so it is a bit of a status symbol. Why on earth anyone buys those I don't know?

Joe

Inside the end cap is a bit with two little holes in that screws in, that holds the switch and all that gubbins. It is probably slightly loose. Unscrew it slightly then screw it back in and make sure it is in solidly. That should fix it, and let you tighten it up properly.

You need a pin spanner, or something with two prongs on it to unscrew it – I used the pointy bits off a voltmeter, in the past have used a pointy skewer thing from the kitchen, or the end of a small cross head screwdriver for the same purpose.

Joe

you COULD, buy an on one slot dropout scandal frame, which accepts both gears and singlspeed.

Blimey, I reckon £200 for the frame, before I've even considered getting a pair of forks, wheels etc. is probably going to blow my budget well out of the water, even buying 2nd hand? To be honest, I probably haven't got the time to do a build, given how slow I am at fettling bikes.

There's no point having a singlespeed, I think I do need gears, I mean even as an emergency commuter (only in case my proper road going bike breaks down again, or I do the offroad commute – the primary purpose is for riding offroad) it'd be a pain – there's 1000 ft of climbing on my commute, and imagine towing a loaded trailer up a 15-20% incline (the road next to mine, on the way to quite a few places is that steep) on a singlespeed. Ouch.

Joe

is there a side to cycling i havent heard about, i feel i may be missing out on offroad trike action?

Been one wheeled off road for the last 8 years now.

Halfords have got an MTB in the sale at the moment for 300 quid ish with hydraulic disc brakes / rockshox suspension etc.. can't remember the name. carrera something…

This one?

How much of a hurry are you in?
if youve got time, you could build a pretty tasty classifieds bike up for 300 quid, i reckon.

I'm almost tempted, but I think I'd have a nightmare building up a new bike – it somehow took me almost 2 hours to fit a new front derailleur the other day.

Joe

Man on Wire. Best film I've seen in the last few years.

Joe

Obviously bear in mind transporting full sized grands is dead expensive – even a large upright will cost you £80 or so to have it transported 5 miles by a piano movers, I hate to think what a grand costs to move.

Joe

Local 2nd hand piano shop. A long shot, but if you happen to be in/near Nottingham, Clement Pianos is a very decent 2nd hand shop.

As for what it's worth, depending on what it is, condition etc., could be anything from you paying someone to take it away, to tens of thousands of pounds.

Joe

So how much should you expect to pay for say 1 hour sitting, where you walk away with 4 digital images that you can then print yourself?

Thing with digital is, even though you don't have to process chemically, there's sometimes a fair bit of work getting from what you get straight off the camera, to a decent quality, colour corrected, edited, cropped image that'd you'd be happy to give to people.

Plus you inevitably don't walk away from it – what if they don't like the pictures, want changes / editing done, or just don't like the 4 images you chose.

It is also dead expensive in terms of equipment and other overheads – if you have a studio, that has obvious rent costs, then gear has costs – I've met people who spend 10k a year or more just on keeping up to date with cameras, lenses, flashes etc. computers for processing the pictures etc. Especially for the high-end kit that studio people probably use. If you drive places, then you have time getting to and from a job, plus paying to keep the vehicle running. I'm guessing if you total up time spent working and profit, it all adds up to not that great an hourly rate.

Joe

You can get your friends to do your wedding, but if you do you won't get great photos of the most important day of your life, like these, for example:

Like I said, a)it depends who your friends are, and b)whether you want a bunch of cliched, posed formal pictures, and the same set of 'creative' pictures that they wheeled out for the other 50 weddings they did that year.

Personally I very much like a more naturalistic style, particularly for portraits, which I guess means shots people take without posing everyone works best for me, I bloody hate those plain white background portrait prints in the high street shops. It is certainly not right for everyone though I'd agree, and very much depends on who you know.

Joe

A very good point about commercial photography though – all the commercial photographers I use, whilst technically retaining copyright, have no problem with images being used and re-used by the customer.

Bet they charge more than £40 for a days shoot though?

Joe

Personally, my top tip on portrait photography (sorry people who do portraits for a living), is to find someone you know who takes good photos and invite them over for a few beers. You'll probably end up with some more natural and fun photos than a posed shot. Surely everyone has a friend who always has amazing, fantastically well shot, natural pictures of their kids all over their facebook page? We took the same approach to our wedding, 4 or 5 of the guests were pretty good photographers and we just let them do their thing, no posed shots, and we got a great set of pictures in the end.

It may just be me though – my dad is a photographer, and quite a few of my family and friends take photography pretty seriously, so I seem to cross paths with photo people quite often. But it is worth thinking about your mates. If they are anything like my photographer friends, the hardest thing will be stopping them taking photos – is bloody annoying sometimes when you're just trying to relax / pick your nose in peace or whatever!

It doesn't save you masses if you want prints though, as if you want a decent quality print doing, that isn't exactly cheap however you do it. But you'd probably end up with a nice digital file that you can do whatever you want with it – put it on a fluffy cloud with angels or whatever.

Joe

Length depends on industry – in some industries they want 1 sheet A4, most are 2 sheets, academic / medical etc. they have massive CVs, with things like publication lists. Art / design etc., people tend to do portfolios / showreels or something as well as a CV which are a whole new thing.

They want it very simple and easy to read. A lot of people look at each CV for something like 10 seconds, if you can't get a rough idea of what you're like from the first couple of paragraphs / bullet points or something near the top, then they'd just dump it.

Joe

I don't think it would be illegal unless you sold the (poor) prints you made.

Yeah it would. You can't go making prints or digital copies of images where you don't have permission to make them (I suspect you aren't really even allowed to scan em in in the first place, but I'm not sure). Otherwise all the photo printing places wouldn't require you to tick a box saying that you have rights to print the pictures you're uploading.

Joe

Hey, just for reference, to anyone doing the Llanberis downhill, or starting up the hill late enough for it to be open, the cafe right on the Llanberis path just near the bottom is fantastic, and run by a very friendly, rather crazy welsh guy. The menu is basically 3 types of cake (or whichever he has in) cooked fresh each day (they only do cake), and drinks are beer, tea or coffee. The cake is very good and very fresh.

Joe

Yep very normal – the idea is that you decide you want more copies, you pay for them. Quite a few places will now sell you a digital copy and permit you to print your own for more money (quite a bit more though). In your situation I would shop round till you find one that does let you have the digital files and just pay the buggers the extra.

To be honest, if you compare the cost of portrait photographers with the cost of someone to do a commercial shoot of the same duration, (where the client gets the images and rights to use commercially) they have to make up the difference somewhere, and charging for reprints or charging lots more for digital copies is one way of doing it.

Of course this also they can use that image for their own marketing purposes.

Doesn't really make much difference – if you sign something saying it is okay for them to use the picture in marketing, they can, if you don't, then they probably wouldn't risk it without a release.

It is obviously illegal, but a lot of people will just scan portraits in – if you only want a low quality file to stick on a desktop or facebook or whatever that might be practical. Realistically photographers who refuse to sell digital copies are fighting a losing battle given how easy it is to scan and re-print physical prints nowadays, but like I said, it is still naughty and bad and you probably shouldn't do it.

Joe

B&M dynamo lights (I have an Ixon IQ senso plus, there is a new light called the Cyo light which is even brighter) with a shimano dynamo hub for my similar commute (16 miles, unlit lanes, big hills so quite fast speeds at times).

The perfect thing for commuting, although it was dead expensive (I think almost £150 including the wheel bits, and I did my own wheelbuild). No battery worries ever, it even automatically turns on when it gets dark, you just don't have to think about lights ever.

Joe

C'mon – no one really believes that Apples are really completely bombproof and safe from external attack do they?

External attack is one thing (a completely different thing to the current thing), but I bet a few people wish their macs wouldn't spontaneously wipe your hard disk just because you logged in and out again! Unless by external attack you mean Apple attacking it with their dodgy update?

Joe

She might do this one day!

I've got a friend who's done that – apparently the pop at the bottom is something like 10 foot up if you hit it right on a good day. Looks like pretty good fun!

Joe

There is unicycle hockey, which is like bike polo, except a lot more sensible and on much more manoeuvrable vehicles.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=33369338557&ref=ts

Bob Dylan at Glastonbury in 1998.

Brian Wilson in 2003, one of his first ever live gigs since the comeback. It was pretty obvious why he hadn't played many gigs for years, looked a complete wreck. To add insult to injury, the poor guy was onlny playing 1 song, which was a cover of an Elton John song (Rocket Man I think).

Joe

What game do you play in traffic jams

The ride down the right hand side of the cars game (or the left hand side if they're completely stopped and there's space)? Surely no cyclist with any sense sits waiting in traffic jams?