I had to re-activate WinXP after fitting a new motherboard, but the message was informative enough that I realised that the hardware change was why I had to do it. Not just some general guff. And the reactivation was by phone!

Also worth mentioning, the message was most definitely not in a browser or a browser popup.

Also, I recall Windows activation does not need a link clicked, just an online connection. Although the link could legitimately lead to some information about why this might have happened to you and how to buy Windows.

I think someone else using the same windows key as you could cause something like this, but never been there.

‘Dear Ex.
That’s odd, she made ME a wonderful card.
I guess she just loves me more.’

Yup, DVLA website has crashed as it’s overwhelmed by applications 6000 a minute I read. All the other gov websites are bust as well, I cannot do a change of address for my driving licence this morning either.

Ooh, is this one of those DDoS wotjibbers..?

I have said reminder notice in front of me now, and it says at one point (paraphrased):

“If you can’t tax on time, by law you will not be committing an offence as long as you tax the vehicle within 14 days of the date your tax runs out. However, you must keep the vehicle off the road during this time.” (My emphasis.)

All pretty academic though, as the road tax website is currently down.

I got sideswiped on my motorbike, and as someone who has as little to do with insurance companies as possible I was immediately depressed thinking what a nightmare it could turn into.

A guy visited me, we spoke about the damage, he agreed to let me do the labour for the repairs myself (a bit unusual, I did it to avoid a financial write off of a mint 1996 fireblade) and it was all sorted quick smart.

I did tell my insurance company, and when I told them I’d made full recovery from the 3rd party they left my no claims intact. They didn’t even ask for proof!

In conclusion, it seems that insurance companies can be pretty decent about this sort of thing.

C J Cherryh has written some outstanding sci fi, the Company Wars series is gritty politics and warfare from the P.O.V. of dockers, miners, and pilots. The Faded Sun series is good too.

Elizabeth Moon wrote a good series about a “disgraced” officer turned merchant captain.

Cherie Priest has written some entertaining Steam Punk.

Trudi Canavan wrote a nice series about sorcerers – don’t be put off by her calling them magicians, it’s not about conjuring at working men’s clubs.

In all seriousness (sorry) assaulting a politician would be undemocratic, it would be an attempt to affect someone’s participation using the threat of violence.

As a mountain biker:
– Gears that don’t require adjustment, and aren’t open to the elements.
– Suspension as cheap, durable, and serviceable as a motorcycle’s.

I like ’em, up and down, a perfectly acceptable part of the mix.

@klumpy 98% of us would want a better bike than either of those, the vast majority of us here have better bikes than those.

I don’t see a “need” in there. And I’m not sure that the herd behaviour of STW is a good starting point for giving advice to humans. This is a place where paying a 300% premium for a frame because it has a 6 month waiting list and is made by a beard in a shed is normal. Where buying tyres on a per trail centre basis is normal. Where overshooting a corner means you start to experiment with pad/disk combinations – and post about them.

The OP wants to ride a bike.

All the bike 98% of us will ever need

All the bike 99% of us will ever need

This is the one where you slide on your bum on the snow for 10 minutes, pick a random bike from the pile at the bottom, then do a cross country ride?

Thick hard wearing shorts, ski-shaped buttocks, a natural resistance to piles, and the ability to spot a good bike from 50 meters are the most important factors.

To summarise then as i think I’m getting confused – the bike is involved in an accident – the other party attempts to recover their losses via the insurance policy that’s in place for the bike (you don’t have to own a vehicle to have an insurance policy on it – look at loan cars for example, some companies require to have your own insurance). The bikes insurance policy pays out as its legally obliged to do then it finds out that the person who bought the policy hasn’t complied with their contractual (and legal?) obligation to inform the insurance company that they no longer owned the vehicle. They then try to recover their losses from the individual.

Does sound disarmingly reasonable when phrased like that, but if you sell a motorbike outside of office hours the insurance co won’t be notified until they’re open. Armies of uninsured drink and drug addled lunatics could cause mayhem with it in the intervening hours. Surely a reasonable layman would agree that a policy from Scumco that insures Bert to drive Daisy cannot be assumed to cover Ernie. Ernie != Bert.

Thats interesting Klumpy because i was thinking about doing the same with my currently unloved, unridden Boardman thats sat in the shed. Thinking of popping some 120mm 29er Raidon forks onto it with 29″ wheel just to see how it rides. Currently has 150mm/26″ Sektors on.

It was the 69er that inspired the 29er. People noticed that the 29 inch front wheel always arrived first so was obviously faster than the 26 inch rear. But in this configuration you need to make sure you have a quite hefty frame as the front wheel will be so much faster it will be constantly trying to rip the front off. Hence a move to 29 at both ends meaning not having to build that strength in.

I thought about 69-er-ing my Kona Five-0 when its bombers died, measured it all up, knew what kinda travel I needed to keep the jometry, but then hit the Unassailable Wall of Unnecessary Standards (or “UWUS”, pronounced “you wuss”). Being not that into the technical side of bikes I couldn’t find a combination of more than two thirds of the bits (and the bits of the bits) I needed that would fit. :(

Oh, the logic of it – the front wheel will have a harder time rolling things than the rear due to being pushed rather than pulled over obstacles, so the front wheel ‘needs’ to roll better.

Learn to flat base the flat sections and go into them as fast as is possible.

On no account should you do this.

FOD for sessioning the downhill trails (I’d skip the XC loop as it’s pretty dull aside from the last descent)

The latest incarnation of the red route is brilliant, on the way up and down again. And there’s a sneaky push up part way round which lets you get right to the top of the red descent and pretty close to the top of the blue descent, which as already mentioned is great. See if you can get horizontal in the corners. :)

Then explain why cyclists hardly ever kill pedestrians in collisions, whereas motorists do every day.

KE = 0.5m*v^2.

Serious question? Because cyclists very very very rarely actually do 35mph. In this thread we’re not talking about the typical harmless and useful UK cycle use of 5-10mph tootling to work in your office clothes with the saddle at the wrong height and etc etc, for which I have nothing but good feelings and which kills no-one.

Well it is clearly a lot safer (for other road users) doing 35 on a bike than in a car.

Balls. Modern cars are designed to be as crash friendly to pedestrians as possible, and can stop in a distance a bicycle couldn’t hope to get near. A road going bicycle is a barely braked complex form full of angles, bar and lever ends and toothed cogs with a toothed, elbowed and kneed lifeform on top that will begin any impact with an 11 stone 35mph headbut straight to your face. You’re better off stepping in front of the car.

I’m not convinced that speeding though a built-up area, by any means, is something to boast about.

Considering the heat people usually attract on here for getting nabbed a few mph over, I have to agree.

Does anyone know if No voters have said they’ll move South in the event of a Yes?

And are the Yes voters all gonna jump into the sea in the event of a No?

That is one hell of a racket.

I’m not possessed of the magic mechanic’s ear, but it sounds very dramatic* for cam chain and too regular to be piston slap. Overheating on an air cooled bike could indicate oil starvation (low oil level or blocked feed) leading to something(s) getting very badly worn.

*although maybe I’m not allowing for what 30 year old bikes should sound like!

@epic, by the way when you fill in a form/drop down list on the internet I assume you select United Kingdom there never being a Scotland option ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL_injection

What do you see, nurse, what do you see? What are you thinking when you’re looking at me? A crabby old man, not very wise, Uncertain of habit, with far away eyes.

Who smuggles in burgers and grins in pleasure, When you say in a loud voice, “mind your blood pressure!” Who seems not to notice the things that you do, And hobbles about in jeans and skate shoes.

Who makes sexist jokes and pinches your bum. Who constantly asks to meet your mum. Is that what you’re thinking? Is that what you see? You’re probably right nurse, that sounds like me.

I’ll tell you who I am as I refuse to be still, As I ignore your concerns, as I eat at what I will. I’m a small child of ten with a toy Tonka truck, sword fighting with sticks, jumping in muck.

A young boy of sixteen, with a BMX bike, exploring the woods and goes where he likes. A student at twenty, collecting wisdom like pearls, if wisdom is drinking, drugs and girls.

At twenty-five now, some money’s been made, and gone again on a new fireblade. A man of thirty, a milestone day, spent on the slopes with a snowboard at play.

At forty the fireblade is sold, it’s lost. The money went on riding motocross. At fifty my body’s too old and too slow, so the crosser’s converted for riding enduro.

Dark days are upon me, my pension is small, the bikes are all gone and life has a pall. But the young are all riding BMXs again, so I buy one from a neighbour for a ton plus ten.

I’m now an old man and nature can shove it, riding is great and there’s ways to love it. My hip is broken but it warmed my heart, To be the only pensioner in the BMX park.

Inside this old carcass a young man still dwells, And now and again my battered heart swells. I remember the joys, I remember the pain, and I’m getting back onto that bike again.

I think of the years, all too few, gone too fast, And accept the stark fact that nothing can last. So I’ll rest only briefly, while you make me some tea, there’s some days yet to lived – and lived by me!!

The solution is obvious.

For some, mountain biking is constantly replacing perfectly good components with slightly different ones in the hope that it will make up for dismal riding skills – it’s why we see threads like “I fell off on some roots, I need new tyres” or “I went over the bars, recommend me a stem”. This has driven the industry forward, but the trouble is that it costs a lot of money so in order to participate these riders need the best possible price all the time. LBS owners just need to somehow convince such riders to only “upgrade” about two thirds as often in order to make non-internet prices affordable, and “et voila!” (as they say in Spain), problem solved.

I remember seeing something about a very dangerous spider species in Australia. It was not at all aggressive and its bite was mild, but it was huge and ugly and as it like hiding under slabs of rock it would also (somehow) sneak into cars and hide on the sun visor. Drivers who lower the sun visor and find themselves with a lap full of giant arachnid tend to roll the car.

The photo isn’t great but it is supposed to be the UK heaviest spider.

That actual spider there? Or that species?

Sticking to the speed limit (as long as you are paying due attention to everything) HAS ABSOLUTELY NO DISADVANTAGES.

People will naturally adjust their speed up and down as the demands of the road change, if the road opens up you might well adjust to over 60 by accident – unless you keep looking at the speedo. But that famous article by the air force guy tells me that comes with significant disadvantages. Looking down, acquiring the speedo, then looking up and reacquiring the picture in front takes a lot of road. (And you might think you’ve acquired the view ahead again and be unaware that most of what you see is entirely made up by your ‘software’.)

(None of that excuses 97mph through a busy junction. Or even 57mph.)

Twenty one years motorcycling here. Rolling into a situation like that, two junctions (if I recall), with traffic around and in them, and you slow right down – I suspect I’d not even be doing the limit through that situation. It illustrates that riding on the road is about so so much more than just bike control.

The whole discussion of blame is complicated by the fact that the driver didn’t misjudge the speed of someone going way too fast, they didn’t even see that person, or even the other car on the same road, at all. That’s dangerously incompetent regardless of whether it caused this crash.

Popping to the local IAM or equivalent is a very good idea for any motorist, regardless of the sniping advanced driving/riding groups get from some STWers.

The motorcycle enduro club I ride with charge 30 quid for a race or practice day, plus 3 quid for non-members, plus three quid if you enter on the day. Even including the petrol it seems cheaper than most MTB “enduro”.
Despite them needing motorsport levels of insurance.
And fewer entrants means less economy of scale.
And they need to regrade a lot of the track (if not all of it) to the condition they found it.
And quite possibly had to build a lot of the track just for that weekend.
And they use transponder timing, and it works.

Oh, and on the motorbike you only change your tyres when they’re worn out, not because this track is 3% less moist than the last one you rode! :D

Does anyone have a logical explanation?

Yes. Some people (including policy makers) don’t understand the difference/relationship between power and energy. And you can enact virtually any legislation that makes things slightly worse if you remember to use the word “sustainable”.

Would that awesome battery and motor run the risk of this being technically a motorbike, meaning that off-roading almost anywhere would be illegal.

For it to be technically a motorbike it needs to be able to go over 15mph (I’m assuming that’s without pedal assistance): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_bicycle_laws#United_Kingdom

Oh, ton must have been using the words “best”, “capable”, “proper” and “offroad” in a way I’m not familiar with. ;)

the bikes all seem to have the best battery/motor available.
very capable of proper offroad stuff.

Would that awesome battery and motor run the risk of this being technically a motorbike, meaning that off-roading almost anywhere would be illegal. And not normal mountain biking illegal, the kind of illegal where you actually get in real trouble.

And don’t imagine for a second that the ramblers wouldn’t be taking notice.

I got roped into a few matches when the only sports I did were kickboxing and jujitsu and the like. Put in goal, I’d wait until a suitable pass between the attackers then aim to arrive foot first into the receiver in such a way that I collected the ball a fraction of a second before impact. Basically smashing the ball through their feet, lofting them end over end while clearing it. Everyone preferred to be on my side, so that means it was legit.

A woman said that if she had the positive (or likely) result of a Downs baby she wouldn’t know what to do. He said abort and try again as to have the baby would be immoral. And in her case he’s quite probably right, you shouldn’t have a kid if you’re not sure you want it.

I concur with all the Iain M Banks recommendations – start with Consider Phlebas and Excession.
Also concur on James S A Corey – even though he doesn’t exist. :)
C J Cherryh’s Scifi stuff is very good, Heavy Time and Hellburner are a good pair to read.
Neal Asher’s Owner trilogy. (And all his other stuff too.)
Michael Marshall Smith’s Only Forward.
Some similar-ish themes to Snowcrash (which is great) pop up in Babel 17 by Sam Delaney, published 1966 – you seem to like the older stuff.

Oh, and no account should anyone ever read Otherland. Ever!

Yes only th egreens think that nuclear waste is dangerous…Pfft

It’s the huge amount of stuff they’ve successfully lobbied to get classified as nuclear waste that’s the problem.

Just to leap in on nukes. If you want to have a nuclear deterrent, sub based ICBM born nukes are the best cheapest and safest thing available.
– They can’t be pre-emptively attacked like a land based ICBM, so wiping a sub equipped nation off the earth doesn’t stop a response.
– The fact that they are safe from pre-emptive strike means you don’t have to decide to “respond” until you’re sure an attack is happening, making accidental armageddon far less likely.
– ICBMs can’t be shot down, unlike cruise missiles or bombers (aiplanes, not the MTB fork), so are again a real deterrent.

As for moving them from Scotland, the base was never a nuclear target in itself as the deterrent subs are mostly at sea, and if any part of the British isles is attacked then the fallout won’t respect the border in either direction – an attack on any part would be an attack on all. So Scotland would enjoy all the protection of the deterrent without ‘contributing’; smart or cynical? They do however lose some highly skilled jobs and industry.

And as for ‘nuclear waste’ released from the base, the nuclear industry is so tied up in green inspired regs intended to render it unworkable that the water from the bucket used to mop the sub’s floor would be considered ‘nuclear waste’.

There may or may not be reasons to vote yes, Trident isn’t one of them.

Nuclear incidents at Farslane[/url]

Depends on the engine. The main feature of these fuels is that they have a higher RON (98 or 99 typically).

Oh, and to add – all that was for petrol engines.

True dat. High octance diesel never really caught on.