I believe Excel is built on a pretty ancient code base, when for some reason they decided to make a cell reference fit into a 24 bit binary number. It also limits maximum rows to 65536.

Excel 2007 has upped the numbers to 65536 columns and 1048576 rows though. Powers of 2 again.

Joe

I’ve got a Carradice SQR Slim saddlebag, which is pretty neat.

Just about room for sensible sized laptop (I think mine is 14″) and a change of clothes. There are bigger ones as mentioned above, although I’m not sure if they’re conveniently laptop shaped.

Weight sits in the middle of the bike, and doesn’t move around at all. The only downside is that it does make a little bit of noise if you have anything loose in there, and it is not quite as big as a pannier. Can carry a surprising amount of shopping though.

Reason for it is because I didn’t want to stick a rack on my nice road bike.

Joe

There is Crib Goch which is the semi “climber” route.

Then there is the pig track and the miner track which are both very useable. I wouldn’t go at the moment it’s been all over the news that they’ve had at least 2 or 3 people die on Snowdon recently. We went up it last April and it was still horrific, knee deep in snow, gale force winds etc. Definately NOT worth going up at the moment unless you are a seasoned climber with crampons etc, especially with the recent weather and I think you’d be a fool.

Presuming this is a biker, wanting to ride Snowdon, I’d avoid any of these routes listed above, they’re a)illegal and b)would be crap rides anyway.

If you’re going up the Llanberis Track, it’s a pretty easy path, even in snow. There is one corner that you have to be careful about though, where the track goes under the railway – it does a sharp left turn, and if you miss it, it’s a cliff. I’d worry about ice around there being a bit dangerous.

Personally I think it’s best in coldish weather – coming off the top in snow was really great fun last time I did it. Although this time of year you do have to pay good attention to the weather forecasts, and also find out how far down the snow goes. If you’re planning it for later in the year, bear in mind when you make your plans that bikes are only allowed up before 1st May and after 30th September.

Joe

The skyhook thing is pretty amazing. It located my wifi point within about 50ft. I’m in the middle of nowhere so it’s scarily thorough if a van has been past with a sniffer.

Was that on iphone or just an ipod? If it was iPhone, it may have cell ID lookup as a fallback? That’d potentially explain your result and the one above it too.

Joe

high achieving kids are not pushed enough in state schools IMO.

I always think that actually ‘high achieving kids’ are pretty much defined by how much they can be bothered to work. If they get bored and don’t work, that probably suggests that they aren’t really high achievers. Real high achievers don’t need their hands holding, and will just get on with learning stuff anyway. I was around when they started bringing in special educational needs for highly able kids, and what a waste of time that was. The whole ‘my child isn’t being stretched thing’ always seems like an excuse for people who have money to claim that their kid is quite clever but somehow the way in which the school are dealing with them isn’t letting them flower.

Joe

The iPhone location *is* done using skyhook.

They *do* drive round places, at least to create an initial database. They’re selling their software to Apple, Google etc. They can afford a few vans with laptops in.

They can also take user updates – although I don’t think the iPhone app does this – I think in apps that do, it asks you if you’re cool with it before updating, and there is a verification process before it goes back into the database.

http://www.skyhookwireless.com/whoweare/privacypolicy.php

If you’re a developer, you can get the skyhook SDK, and play with it to see what is in their database.

http://www.skyhookwireless.com/developers/

Also, I can’t remember exactly how they do it, but I have a feeling it works by looking at all available wifi networks, not just the one you’re connected on – so if you’re playing with stuff, make sure you turn off your normal home access points.

Joe
(who has some vague idea of how this kind of thing works due to working in a lab full of people doing location based thingies, we actually had some contact with the skyhook people at some point before they got into the Apple deal and stuff)

Skyhook actually drive through most major cities to build their database of access points. I have a feeling they may have some clever update – based on when a new mac address is searched for, looking at what other addresses that person has looked at recently to be able to add the new one to their database. Their back end database is bigger than a big thing – although it supposedly compresses very well.

Even if the way they do it is rather a brute force approach, it’s quite a neat bit of technology isn’t it.

Joe

At Cambridge, it used to be that people who got there from state schools got on average something like 1 class higher in their degree. A big significant difference.

So the answer is, thanks to universities imperfect admission policies – paying lots of money can make your kids more likely to get into a good university. But it doesn’t make them actually any cleverer once they get there.

But if you want to engineer it so your kids don’t have to meet poor kids, then private school is great for that.

Joe

Personally, I’d be using paid-for AV to ensure you’re fully protected. On that front, my vote goes to Eset NOD32. I don’t trust free AV. plenty of folk I’ve seen using free stuff have had problems with the odd sec threat, trojan etc.

I’d say quite the opposite. The people with loads of viruses who’s computers I’ve seen, inevitably have some version of Norton or something, where the subscription has run out. They say ‘it came with anti-virus’, but don’t realise that you have to pay to update the darned thing.

Avast seems to be terribly quick to update when new things come out, compared to the other ones too.

Joe

Macpac Epic. Waterproof down sleeping bag. No need for a separate bivvy.

The winter one even has a special hood designed for snow use.

The summer one is 450g and tiny. The winter one is something like 650g and a bit bigger, but still quite a small sleeping bag.

I’ve ridden with the summer one strapped to the outside of my camelbak, it’s great, like bivvying, but without having to carry a proper rucksack. You just ride until you get tired, then open it out and go to sleep.

Downside is they cost an absolute fortune. They are also cut for quite a tight fit – I don’t know how good they’d be for big people.

Oh also, if it rains and you’re out in the open, you have to sleep on your side unless you really like the opening completely closed. But you get that with normal bivvies really.

Joe

molgrips they don’t do studded tyres for 700c wheels, not that I can find. And I have considered it.

Nokian make em. I think Schwalbe do too.

http://www.dotbike.com/ProductsP1317.aspx?Track=FGL

I do what I want to do now. Not doing software development as my main job any more, am now a researcher in a computer science department, looking at ways of using computers in performance, games, art and fun stuff like that.

On the plus side
– I get to do really fun stuff.
– My bosses are not idiots.
– I don’t have to live in London.
– I get to go to exciting places
– I’m quite flexible with hours, holidays etc.

On the down side
– I work harder. At the moment I’m finishing my PhD, so I’m working long hours. Before I started here, I’d always worked strictly paid hours only – in at 10, home at 6.
– I don’t always take enough holiday.
– I have to live outside London.
– After 3 years doing a PhD, I’m now looking at the potential to be paid over £10,000 a year less than I was previously.

I’ve also previously worked in computer programming in companies in London, which was fun too. For me IT outside London (in Nottingham) was what really sucked, all the interesting and fun work, where you get to work with clever people who are really into their work seems to be in London. Nottingham was full of bored, cynical career people who were just in it to pay their mortgages, who every so often got so completely fed up with a job that they quit and moved on to one of the other 2 big employers in the town (only to inevitably come back after a few years when they got fed up at the other ones).

Joe

I just go slowly for a bit when I start. Maybe either go up the hill in a silly low gear, or just start in a different direction so you don’t get to the hill so early on in the ride (or even ride in circles a couple of times on the 3 minute bit you start off on).

I think the latest advice on warming up / stretching etc. is to just start whatever you’re doing straight away, but start off slowly and don’t push too hard for a bit.

Although I might think differently about warming up exercises in a couple of months – I’m moving so my commute will start right at the bottom of a silly steep hill.

Joe

Go to a shop and try some on. For what it’s worth I think Salomon will be no good for you – I seem to remember from the pair I had they are quite wide.

What you want depends a lot on whether you’re a runner or a walker. Presuming you’re not an off road runner (as otherwise you’d have some shoes) you might be best with something more like an approach shoe (like a cut down hiking boot) – you can get them from hiking shops.

If you’re proper running it, as opposed to ambling up it in a mild hurry to do the lot in 24 hours or whatever challenge it is, and you are used to running then maybe something more running focused like a pair of lightweight trail running trainers or fell running shoes, go to a running shop to get these. It isn’t like any of the ascents are particularly difficult, so you don’t need anything too hardcore.

Joe

First of all if we’re in the mood of saying ‘get more kids, they have to pay our pensions!’ what happens when they get old? With this thinking there would be a geometric explosion of people to keep the elderly well-cared for. At some point it breaks down.

You don’t need a geometric explosion to avoid an ageing population and the problems with pensions etc., you just need people to be born at the replacement rate. If women had to give up careers, this would probably go down even further.

Joe

I object to paying for other peoples children thru my taxes.

Surely at some point when you get older, and you’re collecting a pension, other people’s children will be paying for your lifestyle through their taxes? Do you not object to that, or did you opt out of the NHS pension scheme thanks due to your moral convictions?

Joe

That isn’t professional language though. It’s computer language. Which has to be exact and precise, because computers are stupid. They will only understand it if you get it right.

The only jargon stuff that isn’t code is talking about HTML, css and classes, which are again technical terms you need to know, because they are how you communicate with the computer.

The guy was giving a surprisingly clear answer to something – but assuming at least a basic knowledge of HTML, which given it’s the language websites are written in, is not surprising.

There are a million tutorials on the web about how to do this that might help you learn this stuff, start here:
<http://www.google.co.uk/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-GB%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=en&q=css+rollover+buttons&meta=&btnG=Google+Search&gt;

Also, be sure to test your site on something other than safari, it’s a bit of a wacky minority browser. If you only have a mac, then firefox is worth checking, although obviously at some point you need to load up Windows versions of Internet Explorer to try it out.

Joe

I go to Run and Become in London. They are great – they watch you run, look at the shape of your foot, and come out with two or three pairs of shoes, of which one usually will fit.

Last time, she down-sold me from a pair costing £80 to a cheaper pair (50 or 60 quid I think).

I’ve had a couple of pairs from them and both have been fine for going running, and I haven’t injured myself.

Joe

The path from Loch Einich at least the way I did it was a bit of an easy scramble in parts.

Across the top, there’s a bit of a hike / boring rocky bit, then the descent to the Lairig Ghru is a mix of rideable and quite fun, and boring as hell massive boulder fields (like 4 foot boulders – you’d have to be a trials god to get down em).

All in, it is a nice thing to be able to say I’ve done, but I wouldn’t bother doing it again.

Joe

I liked Frost/Nixon and Milk. Hated Revolutionary Road – it was just a pretty standard depressing drama, except that the drama bit was completely predictable from the start, and the characters were pretty dull, so it was basically just 2 hours of depressingness with no suspense or character interest to make up for it, kind of like the film equivalent of Keane.

Joe

I’ve got a 10 year old goretex jacket. It weighs a ton, is a bit hot, but is still 100% waterproof. I also have some cheap waterproof trousers, which do the job – not sure what the point of breathable waterproof trousers is – I don’t sweat massively through my legs, especially not when it’s absolutely minging weather, which is the only time I’d bother wearing them.

Waterproof socks are sometimes okay as long as you have waterproof trousers that go over the top of them – the inevitable hole at the top that your feet go into lets water in otherwise. Once you have water in them, they’re horrible.

Best piece of waterproof gear I ever bought is mudguards though. Makes way more difference than any jacket.

Joe

surely it’s just a basic safety thing? If you’re going down, you shouldn’t just barrel into people at high speed.

and you obviously have less ability to change direction, because you are going slower, if you turn your bars to the left a teeny bit, you’ll be on the other side of the trail in a couple of seconds, whereas if the downhilling rider does the same, they’ll get to the other side in a fraction of a second, on account of going faster.

Joe

How many times do ppl living in London actually visit an art exhibition or go to a top restaurant though? Most ppl I know who live in London mainly stick to their little area, so might as well be living in a medium sized town anyway.

Maybe I’m biased, as art stuff is kind of work related, and eating things is a bit of a hobby. But even before I was doing art related stuff, I went to quite a few smaller but still good art galleries, which is where outside London really misses out.

I also ate out most weeks, often just somewhere local – but living near Tooting, the local cheap Indian food for tenner a head was far better than the £40 a head posh Indian food you get up here in Nottingham, similarly, if I went into town for a £25 a head meal, it’d be better than anything up here except possibly the £100 a head Sat Bains that I’ve not gone to. That’s the thing really, you don’t have to go to ‘top restaurants’ to make the best out of London, as cheap restaurants there are often pretty good.

It’s a fair point that a lot of the stuff people go on about in London, they rarely actually do, like go to the theatre, go to gigs etc. but food and art are the big things I miss.

Joe

The syntax checking thing gets me every time in Excel. Grrrr.

eah because obviously London is the only place with those things? Have you ever been to Manchester (not where I live btw) – has the buzzing diverse culture

To be fair though, there is no city in the UK anything like as ‘buzzing and diverse’ as London. Local people will always say things like this about Nottingham (where I live), Manchester, Birmingham etc etc. But it isn’t the same.

For example, take art, London just has 20 times as many galleries, the competition means that the work shown there is of a much higher quality (and if something is not to your taste, it doesn’t matter, because there’s 5 other galleries in walking distance). In provincial cities, we get a few of the touring exhibitions after they’ve been to London, and a load of not very good quality local stuff. Similarly, restaurants, there are one or two good restaurants, but there isn’t the competition that there is in London, so the good ones are way more expensive, and there are a lot of really quite expensive places here that just wow people with fancy rooms and serve pretty boring food – it is way more expensive to get a good meal outside London.

In terms of London and riding – there is good riding south of London, quite a lot of people travel from north London to go south. There is some riding north of London, but no-one from south London travels to ride there ever, which kind of gives you a clue as to what it’s like.

Joe

If you leave neg feedback he could do the same to you, saying that you are a pain in the ar$e to deal with. You got what you wanted, OK maybe a little slower, but don’t cut your nose off to spite your face. Either leave positive or say nowt.

Not any more now – sellers can’t leave feedback because of exactly this happening – bad people saying don’t you dare leave me negative, or else I’ll leave negative feedback for you.

Personally I’d not leave good feedback if something took that long to arrive, despite them promising that it would arrive earlier, and telling me they’d posted it just to get me off their back.

Joe

You can sometimes switch between repayment and interest only, but it might mean having to get a new deal which might mess you up.

If the deal you drop onto with your current mortage is good, then you might be better off finding out how much you can overpay on it- as that’ll reduce the amount you owe. Some of them let you overpay loads (like 10% of the house value a year or even more).

Joe

yep would like t go on to a repayment mortgage and pay what i am now which would reduce my mortgage by 10years!!

If you’re on an interest only mortgage, there isn’t any ‘number of years’ to reduce. You still owe exactly the same as you did when you started (minus any overpayments you made), you’ve just been renting your house off the bank for 2 years.

In terms of variable rates – they can’t get massively lower, and the banks have priced in the drop in interest rates, so any variable rate you can get now is going to be quite high.

Joe

Yeah, not reported anywhere.

Except on the main pages of the Independent the Times, the Telegraph.

Joe

Joe – strictly speaking mate you can only claim expenditure that is wholly & exclusively expended for the purpose of the trade, profession or vocation (Section 74 ICTA 1988)

In a nutshell unless the expense is actually work related it’s not allowable & your work related ‘toys’ possibly don’t qualify unless you run a ‘toy shop’ [:-)]

Right, so if I sell software to use with juggling toys, and buy juggling toys with the profits (used for the testing of the software) would that be a goody?

Joe

Sounds great. My theory was that last time, we wasted about a week packing, and it was a right stress making hassle. I’d value that week quite highly.

Joe

Did the government “buy into” the company?
If so does it have a controlling share?
Does the bank have to pay back the governments share? (with interest?)

They issued a rights issue basically selling loads of new shares, that was underwritten by the government saying they’d buy any that were left. Nobody wanted to buy any of these shares, so the government now owns something like 70% of shares. Since this time it’s been revealed that they had a right dog of a year, losing £28bn, the most any company has ever lost, and the government has been sold a load of junk that they’re hoping someone will be able to pull back together and at some point it will be worth something near what they paid for it.

Joe

Probably it’s using it as a pedometer – same as the nike ipod thing does (and I think some of the polar ones do). Won’t work on a bike at all though.

Joe

Feet in the Clouds – a book all about how a relatively normal person became a fell running nutter. Although there is a danger you will find yourself getting sick desires to put on funny shoes and super-short shorts and go jogging up mountains.

Joe

The only solution would be to design “global” bonus structures which incorporated a company performance component, but sure as hell there’d be work arounds developed within days.

But if bankers in general (at least the ones high up enough to get serious bonuses) have screwed everything up by ‘working around’ bonus structures and gaming the system, then surely that implies that their previous bonuses are likely to have been undeserved. Obviously you can’t take back bonuses now, but by not paying them, at least for one year, they’d at least be making that point.

Joe

Bear in mind that a copy on an external hard drive is most useful if you keep it in a different place to the laptop. For example if you’re burgled and people nice your laptop, most likely they’ll grab the hard drive too. Similarly if your house burns down. Otherwise it’s only of use if your hard disk breaks.

I keep important stuff both at home and at work, but I’ve yet to get round to a sensible way of backing up photos.

Joe

Hey,

can you offset things like this even if you don’t have any kind of company? Just interested, because I’m hoping to make a bit of money on the side, but then to spend it on sort of work related toys. Can I just cancel it out as far as tax goes then?

Joe

40ish. Almost all off road in the snow. It was great. Been working from home and spending lunchtime / commuting time out riding in the woods.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=87791&l=d548b&id=635999387

Joe

consider the difference between systematic failures and individual culpability it might be a step forward. Until then, as you were…

There is a systematic failure, caused by a combination of factors, one of which is ridiculous short term incentives thanks to the insane bonus system. This systematic failure has also caused a massive increase in the perceived value of assets held, thus making it seem like these people are making a lot more profit than they really were, thus making it seem like it was worth paying them a lot more in bonuses than it really was. Now that has all unravelled, the idea that they are worth paying these bonuses for, and the idea that all this ‘talent’ will all suddenly jump ship* has been exposed as a myth, the idea of paying investment bankers and directors bonuses is idiocy.

In terms of individual culpability – it’s possibly true that except at the highest level (directors etc.), they were all taken in by the whole securitisation thing, and didn’t individually do anything bad, but it is also true that the performance measurement systems that they were working under were flawed, so whilst people were not individually at fault, they were almost certainly not performing anywhere near as well as they were thought to be, rather they were just riding a market bubble, in the main these aren’t really masters of the universe, they are just a bunch of very confident hangers on.

There you go, a systems approach to why bankers are all useless buggers and don’t deserve bonuses.

Seems a bit mean. Most “bankers” work in call centres / admin / back office / cashiers / tellers etc. Picture a big bank, 30,000 employees. Maybe 20 directors on a few million, 30-40 big traders / investment managers on 500k. These 60 may well be responsible for most of the current problems.

Surely the ones people are moaning about, getting the massive bonuses, *are* the traders / investment bankers, not the normal salaried staff in bank branches?

Joe

*not to mention the fact that not many banks are going on massive hiring sprees at the moment

The only hassle with wordpress, is that a lot of things made with it look very wordpressy. Most things made with it look like a blog, rather than a website, which kind of implies that they will be full of off the cuff, low quality content, like most blogs are.

My site[/url] uses wordpress, but I had to fiddle a lot with the templates to make it not look too much like wordpress, and that requires a certain level of programming experience (they’re all written in PHP).

The other thing about wordpress, is that the way it is setup as default really only makes sense for pages that are updated regularly. If you just want a simple advert for your work, you might be better off looking at something less bloggy. There are lots of things that’ll let you build a simple set of pages with some fancy background images that you provide.

Joe