One on it’s way to you in a minute.

Whoops :)

Specifically for high visibility at night, stuff like this rucksack cover made entirely of silver scotchlite is great.

I wondered this last year and found out the cheapest chorizo, apparently, has plastic skin. More expensive ones, it’s edible.

Sent!

YGM, £5 off 50 fresh today.

(Going by other threads and one I was sent, they expire within a couple of weeks).

“Art” is a debate that’s been endlessly rehashed by game developers for years. People still often ask me “Are videogames art?” and my answer used to be “For them not to be, you’d have to deliberately redefine art to exlcude them”, but nowadays it’s “What, all of them?” :)

For me the question “Are videogames art?” is a badly formulated one. Lots of videogames are obviously not, some maybe are. Debating if a thing is or isn’t art is usually pointless. The role “artist” in a game studio is not the same thing as “artist” outside of games, and more analogous to an illustrator or someone working in VFX (likewise “art books” for games, and I don’t mean any disdain by putting it in quotes; people just talk at cross purposes whenever the A word comes up).

A better question is “Can the tools used to make games be used to make art?” and the answer is not only yes, but that there’s a long history of people doing exactly that, from Lillian Schwartz as artist in residence at Bell Labs in the sixties to people making stuff with computational skills and methods right now. Because they’re not involved in “industry” and their work isn’t commercial though, they’re largely ignored by the games industry and it ends up endlessly rehashing debates people have been exploring for decades.

Nonetheless, there’s amazing, beautiful, thought provoking work being done in games right now, like Journey and the other stuff linked in this thread.

D… does that help? :D

Hmm, thanks. I’ve found it okay on skateparks, but riding there and back kills my back (whereas a few hours on the ones we rode at the track didn’t).

Maybe it’s new frame time. That’d mean the only things I haven’t replaced would be the forks, bars and stem :) Might just whack a one piece crank back in and sell it. It looked way better like that, the modern bits don’t go well with the retro frame.

You know, after occasionally dealing with some of the most vitriolic, insensitive toxic a*sehole stereotypes of gamers you can imagine through work, this thread on STW is properly heartwarming to read :)

Some other huge recommendations for things that are a bit arty and in most of which you are not a hero:

Proteus (walk around weird island that makes sound, finding out how… stuff works)

FRACT OSC (Like Proteus, but very different aesthetics, more obviously puzzle based, and you’re walking around inside a giant synth)

Flotilla[/url] (3D space combat, difficult to get into at first if you’re not used to having so many degrees of freedom, and it looks quite typically game-like, but but there’s something deeply flippant and lovely about the tone it’s written with)

Kentucky Route Zero (I struggle to describe this beyond the words art, philosophy and Americana. Three parts of five released so far)

Become a Great Artist in Just 10 Seconds (If you like glitches, this is for you)

Lumino City[/url], which they made out of photographs of beautifully intricate and tiny physical models.

Pretty much what rp16v says, on the wetter days an ass saver will do nothing that’s noticeable. Also, if you ever stand up to pedal it completely defeats the point of the smaller ones.

Was also going to throw in Minecraft for the girls.

Minecraft is kind of great for everyone, and dads I’ve known playing it in survival mode with young kids have often had instinctual “must protect child” moments :)

It’s still early enough in the xbone’s life that there’s not a great deal around for it. What kind of games has your son enthused about for previous consoles? Building off that’s your best bet.

Oh, and don’t bother with anything for Kinect; even if you have a McMansion to run around in rather than a typically pokey British living room, it’s still such a load of bobbins that even Microsoft have pretty much killed it. Rumours are that the mood at Rare was “jubilant” after years having to crank out stuff for it :D

Call of Duty all the way. Irresponsible parenting it may be but my kids turned out ok :)

I think it comes down to how well people can contextualise it. Obviously despite the games industry rating stuff there’s a lot of peer pressure at school to play the latest stuff. Probably the best approach I read of in dealing with it was a dad who gave his kid homework because they wanted to play Medal of Honor; it offset any glamorisation of war and his son ended up understanding a lot more about what kind of thing he was playing through.

Alternately, I’ve known some proper little sh*ts who turned out all “WAR! DEATH! GUNS! I HATE WOMEN! WAR! **** YEAH!”

I’d love to do the 29th too.

I have this, but I think the 19.5″ TT is too short compared to the ones we were riding, and I’m not sure I trust the original straight laced front wheel. I bought it as a wreck for £25 from a kid whose dad resprayed it in the Caterpillar factory, then spent about another £200 on bits.

Phwoar. I wasn’t really into Canyon’s blue frames, but matched up with skinwalls that looks great.

I think what Speeder is trying to say is:

“SIR,

I am writing to you about an affront so ghastly it caused my titanium sport monocle to pop forth from my very face: The so called “skinwall” tyre. In a past rose-tinted time, a certain kind of such tyre was tolerable and perhaps even appropriate on certain kinds of bicycle, but these days they are appearing in places most unacceptable, such as mounted on otherwise well-esteemed and fully suspended rigs. A less refined mind may mistake such a contraption for a beach cruiser, and the unchecked spread of such tyres will surely impart an unseemly dimension of complication to what tyres threads.

I am most perturbed by the issue and it is disturbing the sickness of my lines. This egregious rubber is the preserve of buffoons, and if neither designers, nor manufacturers, nor retailers, nor even the press shall police the refined and subtle aesthetics of mountain velocipedes, then we must take it upon ourselves to do so. I humbly suggest a mass campaign of sternly worded letters pleading for the purity of our hobby. This is not about personal preferences; aesthetics are a science.

Yours faithfully, I await your swift reply &c. &c.”

Massive thanks to Gaz and Chipps!

I’ll give them a call about booking the Velodrome for some fixie track bike action too.

Well up for this too.

Hooray, despite some fun crashes, we didn’t recreate this:

Still in. Full face and pads at the ready.

Anything by mr. div:
http://mrdiv.tumblr.com

I think I spotted a couple that have been posted here already.

in gameplay and design terms have there been many better games produced ever than Wipeout2097?

Studio Liverpool made incremental improvements and occasional steps backward with further instalments of the series. I think WipeoutHD was a high point, it gave me massive flashbacks to 2097. Sadly, most of the team were laid off a few years ago, but I can’t see Sony leaving Wipeout alone now they’re aiming to put out consumer VR hardware.

£420 is a fraction of what it costs to become, say, a qualified snowboard instructor.

I mus have got lucky when it comes to stock, but I’ve used them plenty in the past and they’ve been fine.

For the record – 40mins in, update 6 of 9….

I’ve heard of a couple for whom PS3 update sex became a thing.

Not from a jersey pocket, but pootling along a towpath with my helmet on my bars, the fork crown shunted a Contour camera off the helmet mount. Luckily only a five minute ride back up the path after I noticed, and it didn’t bounce into the canal.

Even counting the times I went out as a kid intending to get covered in muck, last night was the muddiest ride I’ve ever been on.

Plenty of sideways action down the “Poop Chute” just before the switchbacks and excellent crisps.

Heard I wasn’t the only one to launch myself at the gate. Didn’t expect it to be off the back of the bike! :)

Gaze: I’m in if there’s space and will bring money tonight.

gofasterstripes:
OUCH :(

Really hope that heals quickly, see you soon.

brennak, of course!

(I’ve been working very long days with very little time to arse around on the internet, so hope this isn’t a pearoast)

Hammer a nail through it.

Don’t do this unless you know it’s fully discharged to 0V. Also not with your hands or face anywhere near it, charged LiPOs eject a lot of hot gas when punctured.

Don’t bother with those skewers, they have a really weak clamping force because of the way ti can stretch. I had some that seemed fine with a Spesh Hardrock, but when I put one on the back of a Blue Pig, on the second ride it kicked the back wheel out on a climb and bent the brake side dropout. I’d checked the skewer was tight before setting off, and would have been screwed if the frame wasn’t steel. Once I googled it, I found plenty of people who’d had similar experiences with various brands of them.

It’s fixed on iPlayer now.

Very tempting, there’s Haglofs stuff too.

Going by the thread about tools there though, sounds like Sports Pursuit are a bit pants when it comes to fulfilling orders.

A goose trying to drown a duck by repeatedly grabbing it’s head and holding it under the water.

Niche!

:)

After the links earlier in this thread, I bought one of these. Only one ride in the rain and mud so far, but it held up just fine for a few hours without really using much of the battery (I switched it off or to single LED modes for the non-descending sections). The rubber band type mount was solid enough, and didn’t slip anywhere near as much as I thought it would. I think I’d still like to replace it with a proper locking clamp though, which should be easy if I can find one, as the existing plastic block just screws into a hole on the base of the aluminium housing.

I also have a bunch of 501b and 502b XPG and XML torches. They make alright lights for your helmet, but one by itself without anything else on your lid or handlebars is pretty weak once you’re going fast. This and this are the best helmet mounts I’ve found (for anything with average sized vents, at least). They’re cheap, the velcro locks them down tight, and thought it can flex, the torch won’t move too much when it’s on your head. If you put one on the bars it’ll bounce really annoyingly though.

dirtyrider, try repairing permissions in Disk Utility.

Are there any good pubs in Hebden other than The Old Gate?

Most of the people who’ve come to visit me in Calderdale have been surprised to find fewer pubs and cafes than they expected there.

Almost certainly. Plan for it breaking within a few weeks.

Year ago, I was occasionally paid to visit people and get rid of malware on their PCs. Removing Norton was always the first thing to do.

Plenty of good AV out there, but Norton definitely isn’t among it.