Well, yeah! I thought it was common knowledge that car speedos read 10% fast, so at 55 indicated you’re doing 50, etc.

No it isn’t.

At most 10% fast, and not at all slow is the actual thing. How much fast it is varies per car, it’s 72 = 70 on my Golf (less than 3% over-reading).

Last night’s night ride. This is normally a narrow singletrack, you couldn’t see the track, and the drifts were up to about 4-5 foot in the bad bits. 2 hours to do 6 miles.

Dvd 2 channel – they know the right downmix settings (or may even mix completely differently).
Unless the dvd is done very badly that is.

Ffmpeg would probably do it, very few audio things it can’t do.

Vlc player should also do it (as a transcode).

Both of them you’ll have to fight options till it works though.

It may or may not sound good though – weird things can go on in downmixing.

No, apple don’t let you change the keyboard, and they don’t support it in the stock one. So only in special apps like path input (you write in the app then copy paste into a message), or if you jailbreak.

It’s been in the stock android keyboard for ages now, it’d be surprising if it doesn’t turn up as a revolutionary new feature on ios soonish – the ios keyboard is okay, but they haven’t really done much to it compared to how much other os keyboards have changed.

I use messageease, another example of an innovative keyboard that is unavailable on iOs – it is an odd alternative keyboard, is fun, fast and doesn’t do prediction, just individual letters, which is nice if you type odd words regularly, or need to type odd punctuation. No more mispredictions.

This webcam site is useful for knowing how much snow there is in a lot of peak district places by the way.

http://www.derbyshireheritage.co.uk/Menu/webcams/camlist.php

Need to unlock it. Which is a pain if it is an iPhone. Easier for her to move to orange pay as you go (free to do, and doesn’t take long, whereas most unlocking methods cost money).

You might be better off giving your wife your current phone, and having the new phone yourself. Orange should unlock your current phone if you ask them, whereas they might well not unlock the new phone.

Also worth looking at old bills and checking how many minutes & texts you actually use, how much data etc. and then checking how much you’d save by going to sim only (for example if you have one of the ridiculously expensive £35 iPhone contracts, you often will be able to go down to £10 or £15 a month sim only), bearing in mind that you pay a lot of money for your ‘free upgrade’ – when you do the sums on these things, you’re often paying £400-£500 or so for your ‘free phone’.

Looking out the window now, in Belper, the answer is absolutely not. Anywhere further up the A6 or into the Peak District will probably have more snow. The forecast is for a whole night of heavy snow, followed by snow all Saturday, with the temperature not getting above -1 from Friday night until Sunday afternoon. If by some chance it isn’t that cold, then it’ll be the joys of riding in sleet instead.

At the valley level there is a lot of slush on the roads, anywhere off road will be a mix of snow and slush depending on how high you are.

Best bet is to wrap up warm and embrace the snow, it isn’t like you get many chances for snow rides in this country.

Surely just tell them about the valuation and be honest that you can’t afford to pay any higher deposit, so you can only pay £165k (maybe email them a copy of the valuation to show you’re not taking the piss and causing hassle). You’ve got nothing to lose, if they say no, then you can’t buy the house anyway, if they say yes, everything is fine and dandy. If they say no, then tell them the offer of 165k is still open if they change their mind, and go and look for another house.

Also, if you’re at all sceptical about the possibility of sea swimming without a wetsuit, check out these nutters, who do weekly swims in the sea – I’m pretty sure they live somewhere colder than you do, assuming you live in the UK.

http://www.facebook.com/groups/144316178965047/?fref=ts

If you say non-competitive, ie. you’re not entering any events that require one, then do you need one? I find they’re a pain to put on and take off, expensive if you crash into anything and tear them, a big (and wet) thing to carry around on the way to and from your swim, generally a bit limiting. Oh and they chafe if you don’t lube your body pre-swim, and even one that fits really well is not as comfy to swim in as not having one on.

They only have two advantages – warmer, and slightly faster and more buoyant to swim in if you’re in a hurry, which is why you need one for events if you race, and extra buoyancy is nice I guess if you want to sit floating while taking photos or whatever (although in salt water any idiot floats easily, so that is less of a big thing).

On warmth, unless you’re right up the top of Scotland, the sea doesn’t really get so cold in summer that it is too cold to swim without a wetsuit for a long time. You just need to be acclimatised by going in the sea on a regular basis (most people recommend at least once a week). Cold showers can help too – friend of mine started swimming this year two weeks back (at 5 degrees water temperature), just off the back of daily cold showers.

Last year, at 17C water temp, I could swim for as long as I can swim for (more than an hour no problems), without hurrying about it. Even at 14 or 15 I could swim an hour.

This winter I’ve been swimming through, weekly on Thursday mornings in the river, and 5 mins at 2 degrees, 10 minutes at 3 degrees is no problem, 30 mins at 7 is doable, so I suspect my tolerance is very much improved over last year now, and I’m pretty sure I could swim as long as I liked in the sea in May or June.

The great thing about sea as opposed to rivers too is that the temperature changes much more slowly, so even at night, sea swimming is nice in summer, whereas rivers can drop off hard after sunset, so you can get your weekly swim fix for acclimatisation in any time you have an hour spare.

So there you go. 150 quid saved. Buy you a lot of post-swim cake. Simple.

Joe

I keep thinking that these need something like hypercard* – where it’s really easy to pick up and get something going without worrying too much about programming syntax, IDE, compiling etc. Especially if it let you have an easy way to access the GPIO pins and so on.

You just described Scratch. Which is installed as default.

It apparently can do IO pins too now

Scratch controlling the GPIO on a RaspberryPi

The slipperiest phone in the world

Yes, stupid fashion for glass backs on phones. iPhones and their shiny backs started it. Was stupid then and is stupid now. But it looks fancier and more expensive than plastic, so there it is.

I have a second one, after the first met a watery grave in a swimming pool. That was a bad day at work to say the least.

I’d agree with everyone else it is jolly nice, and I would say nicer than the more expensive Galaxy S3 that I also have.

I still use a Desire as my personal phone (rooted and all that, running some kind of stock android), because it is nice to know that if I break it, an exactly the same replacement would cost about £5 to £10 on ebay. It also satisfies my general urge not to buy too much electronic junk to have kept the same phone for three whole years.

double post

SA has it’s own page on wikipedia about how bad violent crime, particularly rape, car jackings and murder are. If you look at the other statistically similar countries, half of them are war zones or places with little meaningful government. That alone would put me off going to live in one of the more violent cities in the country.

Has the little bit that the spring braces against snapped off? Mine did it once in cold weather, just overnight when left in the shed, and seemed very similar in what it did (wouldn’t shift unless kicked).

Like this:
http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=2719l

Calmly but firmly dress her, don’t kick off or engage with her.

I suspect that if you have kids, they are really quite compliant and good kids. I don’t know if I have a particularly wriggly one (she is surprisingly muscular and wiry now I think about it), but at just under 3, our daughter is well past the point where you can dress her when she doesn’t want to be dressed – it is just physically impossible; I’m relatively strong from swimming and stuff, but she is just too capable of resisting for it to be possible. She potty trained herself early, because she decided she didn’t want nappies on, and it wasn’t physically possible to force them onto her.

Not to mention the obvious failure of this idea with a strong willed child that once the clothes are on, by the time they’re 2 or so, they can just take them off again. If you have one with a strong will, which it sounds like this one is, then the only possible thing is to get the clothes on with some level of cooperation or agreement from them.

Oh, and we don’t have this level of fussiness, but like all normal kids she does sometimes refuse to get dressed or go out or whatever. I personally tend to resort to a combination of distraction and bribery, in that I say that I’ll lift her onto the window sill, so she can watch the birds in the garden (or the snow, or rain or fog or whatever is out there) whilst I get her dressed.

Is she okay putting pyjamas on, or leggings or other completely smooth clothes? Presumably she could actually not like the feeling of non-smooth clothes?

By far the norm abroad.

Varies based on country. Almost always free in USA, pot luck in Europe, mostly free, but sometimes costs.

If it’s a work trip, then expense the cost of wifi.

If it isn’t a work trip, then just go to cafes for a drink once every couple of days and use their wifi, surely you don’t need email or web every ten seconds on holiday.

Do you mean 2, or 2+?

And when you say ‘adsl max’, what was the underlying product, was it ADSL, or ADSL2 or ADSL2+?

If you’re going from standard ‘up to 8 megabit’ ADSL to ADSL2+ ‘up to 24 megabit’, yes you’ll probably notice a difference assuming you’re not a zillion miles from the exchange. Ours is a bit faster (it connects to the exchange much faster, but there are obviously still the bottlenecks on the whole system)

Just sold a comprehensively water damaged (dropped in a swimming pool) but very modern phone (Nexus 4) on ebay for £50.

Various people bid for it, the one who bid most paid straight away. Assuming they receive it in the post, then it should be okay.

Listing mentioned about 20 times that it was broken, to save time-wasters. I suspect it is worth £50 to the buyer to split it for the parts that aren’t damaged (fancy glass back, brand new spare battery), and a gamble on the parts that appear to be working (screen).

Had one buy it now question, but no other hassle. If you get stupid can you post it abroad questions, you can just ignore them.

I don’t know about anyone else, but as a buyer I hate best offer – it always seems like people who enable it pretty much want 99% of the buy it now price, so why the heck put it on there. Just start it at 99p, and put it on to end on a Sunday afternoon/evening. There are enough people on ebay that you’re not going to get missed and sell it for a fiver, and more people bid on things that start at 99p, so you’re likely to get more money. Or so it seems to me.

As a buyer I also wouldn’t usually bid on a buy it now for second hand stuff – people pretty much always put stupid high values if they think it is worth a buy it now, whereas auctions you can sometimes get it for not a ludicrous amount of money, and there is at least some honesty about how much it is worth.

I’ve done that too, in early summer a couple of years back. Looks great on the map, but unless it’s a drought, it’s a killer – one of those horrible trails that you have to pedal on the downhill.

I keep wanting to like dynamo lighting, but for me it just doesn’t make sense. My current commuting lights are a converted Philips LED Bike Light as a dipped beam, and a modded Lumicycle with a triple X-ML as a main beam. With both on full, they draw over 22W, whereas dynamos typically only produce 3W.

No they don’t. Dynamos produce 500ma current, but much higher than 6v output. Things like the exposure revo won’t be quite as bright as your lumicycle, but will be blooming bright. Even my pretty basic front/rear setup is more than 3w.

You don’t need a state to have modern money

Whilst in theory that is true – things like bitcoin exist, can you actually think of any successful currency that isn’t state backed? Now that currencies aren’t liked to anything physical like gold, they’re essentially a fiction based on the existence of a backing bank, and a large number of people who will also believe in the currency. States (usually) provide the stability that means that we can reliably believe that the money has a value and will still have a value tomorrow. Alternative currencies like bitcoin exist, but then you’re reliant on a relatively unregulated system with a lot more risks – look at things like the recent hacks of bitcoin storing sites. Or commercially backed things like nectar points, where no one would accept their pay in them, because you’re essentially at the whim of those running it as to how much they are worth at any point.

Even ignoring the backing of all successful currencies by states, the state also provides many mechanisms without which the financial system couldn’t function. With no state, if you had something, there would be nothing stopping me from coming and taking it. There’d be no infrastructure for me to get something from you once i had bought it, no car for me to come and pick it up. We’d have a simple barter system based on physically available goods maybe, but how on earth that could support the making of modern things with big supply chains involved, i don’t know.

The financial system which we all rely on, only exists because the state exists and provides the legal foundations for money. To say that you would rather pay no tax, is to say that you think that the state shouldn’t exist, in which case your money wouldn’t exist, as there’d be no banking or legal system to maintain the fiction that is modern money.

Taxes are great, they mean we can have a functioning state, rather than living in some mad max apocalyptic future world. They allow things like the internet to happen (largely state funded initially, and wouldn’t work without state support and regulation}.

The 5 pound ‘swedish’ ones with the tiny hard bits for each eye will still suck your eyes. The fancier ones like those speedo ones don’t.

I don’t need goggles to swim outdoors in fresh water, or to swim breaststroke, but in a pool, i find a massive difference when swimming crawl – you just are so much more aware of everything going on around you.

Also, when learning crawl, most people suggest breathing every third stroke, so you don’t get unbalanced. And don’t lift your head to breathe, just roll it. Swimsmooth web site (google it) has lots of good tips for learning crawl (they sell books and things, but at least to start off with the website has lots of free info).

It’s like being in two different gears, because that leg has less leverage. It feels weird and wrong, and is not a good idea.

If your legs really are different length, then you could probably do with messing with cleats, shoes or pedals in some way to adjust.

http://sheldonbrown.com/cranks.html

It might just be how you hold your legs, particularly if you’ve been worrying about pain in one leg. Or how you sit. Or that your cleats are differently adjusted on each shoe.

One last question on the follow me – does it need a rack, or is that just a coincidence that all the pictures on the site show racks?

With the follow me, how quick is it to attach to the adult bike? I know that it is quick on the other end, but i’d be putting it on and off of my commuter a couple of times a week.

Push chair for teddies/dolls – all the kids, boys or girls love those. We got two from charity shops and hand me downs, and that means they can chase friends around.

A couple of months early, but you might as well get the balance bike now.

Other than that, balls are a good one.

Possibly just coming up to the painting age – get a good apron and a tarp and be relaxed about furniture etc.

Almost Duplo time maybe, although at that age, you’ll just be making things for him, so it can be a bit of a drag.

I wouldn’t worry about things being educational – they are learning by doing pretty much anything at that age – running, carrying things, climbing, riding on toys, throwing stuff, whatever it is all educational, it is hard for them to do any activity without learning. I do a lot of the looking after our one, and at that age she mostly was having picnics at the park,climbing up and jumping off stuff, playing in the woods, swimming etce whilst the jigsaw puzzles and toys were left at home, isn’t a problem, she’s much more into that stuff at two and three quarters now she understands them a bit better.

can the Nexus 4 be had on contract or is it SIM only?

Can be, but the SIM only cost of the phone is £270, and the extra cost of a contract with a phone over a sim only contract with the same minutes/data etc makes it not worth it. You do better by buying the phone and getting a sim only contract.

Its difficult to see how minimum pricing will effect that though. Most of the cost of booze is already duty anyway. and that doesn’t seem to have any noticable effect on the Saturday night town centre carnage.

Which would suggest that this wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference to the things that generate policing, NHS and social care costs.

If only someone from a university (or perhaps a whole bunch of people from a bunch of different universities) had done a bunch of studies on pricing of alcohol and its effect on heavy drinking behaviour, then we would have some idea of whether this was true, and wouldn’t have to rely on what we’ve seen from the Saturday night town centre carnage. That would be great wouldn’t it?

Seriously, if pricing didn’t have an effect on alcohol consumption, there wouldn’t be any difference between the number of fights / number of people puking up outside Yates Wine Lodge or dodgy bars with ‘triples for singles’ promotions than there are outside all the fancy wine bars, and there blatantly is a big difference.

Assuming you’re too early for the famous passes, some lower down places:

Lake Annecy (in France) is on the edge of the Alps. The route around Annecy was a Tour de France stage, and is by no means flat, but I think it is probably about low enough that it will be possible to do before June (check that though!). Annecy has a train station (from Lyon or Geneva I think, not sure). Absolutely masses of roadies riding round there.

Also Lake Como in Italy – again not so high, unless you head off into the alps proper, but quite mountainous. Trains from Milan. There were lots of roadies there when we went years back.

Joe

I’d love to do it but it clashes with a wedding.

Instead I am doing the Derwent from just near my house to Derby 13ish km. Some point in June. Whilst it is less snappily named, it will be free to enter. It is a bit more exclusive too – limited to me, my mate Gary, and any other local idiots we can persuade to come. There will be a feed station at about Duffield where I will have concealed a bag of mars bars or similar next to the river. Anyone successfully reaching Derby will be transported back to the start in the 13 year old VW Golf of Doom. Extensive safety cover will not be provided. There are 4 weirs on the way, 3 are definitely runnable, I still have to scout out the other one to see if we need to walk round it.

The safety switch is there for exactly this type of incident. It is expected to happen which is why it is there therefore the company have to take responsibility for their own procedures. They can claim on their insurance if they want. Wifey has done what was expected and the safety system now needs replacing. Isn’t that the companies responsibility unless they pre warned me that any use of the safety system could result in a charge.

Brilliant. I shall use that logic when I do something stupid and crash into your car and set the airbags off. Airbags are for exactly that type of incident, so by having them, you immediately take all responsibility for any crashes into your car.

Seriously though – your wife did something that risked blowing up a petrol station (or whatever bad thing happens without one of these), and you are saying she shouldn’t be responsible for it, because their safety procedures have stopped her getting blown up?

Speedo squidgy ones for me (I get whichever ones are about £8 or 9 quid from chainreaction or wiggle with the soft fit – current ones are ‘futura ice plus’).

I don’t buy expensive ones, because of my careless habit of getting through pairs of goggles.

I think I have lost goggles by:
1)leaving them in hotel swimming pool locker
2 & 3)leaving them on a beach
4)my toddler bit them and destroyed the seal around the lenses
5)Mystery goggle losing event
6)The only non-speedo goggles I had the strap broke, and the strap was so tiny that other replacement straps wouldn’t fit. Oh and they started fogging up really bad anywhere colder than a standard pool.
7)In a river.

Problem with kids these days is they don’t spent enough time outside unsupervised getting injured. Then when you do turn up with A&E is stands out like a sore thumb and you get labelled as a child basher. In my day, we were falling out of trees and concussing ourselves every week, just part of growing up.

That would make loads of sense if the whole multiple visits to A&E triggering social services was a new thing. It happened to me when I was a kid in the early 80s too.

For my parents it wasn’t a problem – parents just pointed them out into the garden where I was running around like a loon, and they immediately understood what was up.

I have both S3 and Nexus 4 (for work).

I prefer the nexus 4. Just feels newer and nicer. It also gets updates pretty much the moment they are in the main operating system, so you have the latest features and gubbins, which is nice.

You can put sd cards in the S3 though, so if you have tons of music that makes a difference.

Nexus 4 also supports low latency audio, which means you can use fun music making apps and stuff like that if that is in any way interesting to you (it is kind of important for my stuff). Galaxy S3 doesn’t, and doesn’t obviously seem to be going to.

Joe

In summer, I am pretty sure it is somewhat slower than currently, I can swim noticeable amounts upstream in summer, so it can’t purely be the slope of the river.

Could it be something to do with the sluices and big weir up at the mill 500m upstream affecting it?

We have a Miele (something very similar to the S2111 linked above).

It is okay. It is better than our ancient dyson was, but that was pretty worn out.

It doesn’t have a beater brush, if you like those.

It sucks very very powerfully, which is good, but it does feel very brute force – to pick up dirt reliably, you have to whack it on maximum suck, in which case it threatens to pull up carpets. Not sure what it is, it kind of feels like the floor head bit isn’t very well designed. It is nice and quiet, much quieter than the dyson ever was.

The small miele ones like that go through dustbags like they are going out of fashion too (maybe 1 every 4 times we clean the house) and even ebay imitation ones are something like 50p a bag. That’s part of why they recommend them as a ‘second cleaner’. Is okay if you’re scuzzers like us and clean once a week, but if you get a lot of use out of your hoover, expect to have to buy loads of bags.