If I could live anywhere in Wales, absolutely anywhere, I’d live in the forest of dean and sometimes drive to wales.

mattyfez
Full Member

I don’t know how true it is, but it’s all over Reddit that this latest ‘incident’ , the ‘would be shooter’ voted for Trump in 2016.

But don’t wear a green softshell + hiviz or people will constantly come up to you and complain about the standard of the paths/drains.

mattyfez
Full Member

I don’t know how true it is, but it’s all over Reddit that this latest ‘incident’ , the ‘would be shooter’ voted for Trump in 2016.

Yup, his social media’s been pretty extensively screencapped and circulated, there’s a lot of corroborating “I voted for you and you have let me down” stuff, and a theme of being radicalised by Russia/Ukraine. They’re making a lot of his conversion to the democrats but he was pushed there by Trump.

I got pretty addicted to HeavyDSparks- a heavy off road recovery channel. I didn’t make the Diesel Brothers connection at the time, but, it’s the Diesel Brothers in post-law-suit form. Like all youtube channels it gets more desperate for content and creates more and more “accidental” reality-tv disasters over time, lots of intentionally doing it badly but if you go back earlier it’s much more natural feeling (ie, they were still doing it badly but more because they didn’t have a clue, it’s amazing they never killed anyone). The presentation and production values are good, it can be absolutely beautiful sometimes. Plus big trucks.

“Before you go into meltdown about new standards”

TOO LATE

_charlie_
Free Member

@Northwind any current links for the imitation products you recommend

Nah, sorry, I just hit amazon ebay and aliexpress any time I want something.

I’m not sure Fiskars officially sell the machete/axe or their machete/saw in the UK, you can find them for sale but they definitely sail close to the terribly thought out “zombie knife” definition. If it had, say, the product’s name on the handle it’d definitely be prosecutable.

They have another tool just called “small solid billhook” which is really a bit small but has a useful blade, can saw a bit (it’s of the “heavy blade that saws badly but is very durable” variety and comes with a really good scabbard, I had a wee play with one of those and tbh if the handle or blade was 6 inches longer it’d be great but as it is, you can swing with it but you pretty much have to have long sleeves and just put your arm into the bushes.

towzer
Full Member

My current plan is to buy a folding scythe off eBay and try to modify it so that the blade goes round another 90 degrees so it is in line with the handle.

TBH this is what I really want, I didn’t get on with the 90 degree blade- be interested to see how you get on

Has Fort William really been “sped up” in that way? I mean, there’s a bunch of changes on the track that do make it faster but mostly they’re totally logical and in keeping with the track improvements that have been happening for years. Like, the big doon is far faster than the old line through the woods onto the road but not just to be faster. The section down to the river gap is straighter and faster but when the hoofer was first built the line into it was frankly bizarre, just slow and awkward, and some of the new options in the woods are slower than the classic lines (but more durable/less weather destroyable, for obvious reasons)

It seems to me that only the last bit above teh woods really feels like it’s been “straightened out” in this way but even that is largely about trail lifecycle things, it’s fresher than the old line so it’s smoother but in 5 years time it’ll be just as haggard. T

I’ve said it before but I really like Makita partly because they have the best copy/compatible market. Not for chargers and batteries, they are often terrible and may burn your house down. But I have about 50/50 genuine makita- for when it needs to work- and copy “for makita” for when it needs to be cheap. So impact, drills, chargers and batteries are all genuine but I have a £20 makita-compatible strimmer, I just wouldn’t have bought a genuine one ever. 3 cheap angle grinders because angle grinders are such simple tools and not having to change wheels is a huge advantage but buying multiple genuine tools is beyond me. A couple of lights which are actually better than teh Makita lights as well as cheaper. And a dual action polisher which cost the same as a cheap corded one

Cheap tool + quality battery can be a great combination. Course, you can get compatibles for other brands, or battery adaptors, but “Makita” definitely have the best selection

I have teh same folding scythe, could never really get the hang of the swing though, I stopped using it much (there was a load of wild-growing bamboo near me that it was awesome for but I just never got much use out of it for grass, nettles etc. I have a cheap, larger folding saw that works almost as well just wildly slashing with it.)

I’ve got a Fiskars xa3 Brushhook instead, it doesn’t fold but it does come with a blade cover thing and it’s still small enough to carry in a riding pack (not something you’d carry all the time like you can a folding saw, but it’s no bother to ride with). Chonky enough to cut up to small trees and super effective at light stuff, they’re not very sharp from the factory but they’re good steel, they hold a good edge if you put one on

Actually I wonder if the best riding option might be just to get a big folding saw, cheap 30cm number with the big handle, and detooth it then grind on a cutting edge?

+1 here for rockriders- they need a demist treatment ime but a quick spray of visorproof makes them as good as anything is. They scratch fairly easily but that’s OK, they cost £4. I’ve got some nice riding glasses but I basically never wear them.

The travel stuff just seems… deranged? That’s just something that doesn’t need regulated whatsoever. What’s the benefit supposed to be? Just let the riding dictate the bikes and let people ride what works.

Ah I didn’t know they were woolyhat, I bought so much stuff for my first mtb and later my commuter off them

+1 Joe Blow Mountain. Useless for a road bike (I physically can’t pump a tyre to 100 with it, I’m too light, I go up instead of pushing the pump down) but brilliant for a mountain bike. Better for tubeless, better for fast inflating, better for gauge reading.

Same reason so many dirt motorbikes have bigger front wheels, the 2 ends do different jobs and have different packaging constraints.

TBH I like 29/29 best overall, it works and it’s got advantages for tyres etc and I’m 5’10 so clearance sin’t really a problem. Only time I ever felt 29 rear was a disadvantage was at the mega, where the big tyre was a big disadvantage for cowardly tyre-sitting on the glacier.

But I stuck a 650b wheel into my older 29er enduro bike and that was great- lowered the BB, slackened it off. The actual wheel was worse at pretty much everything but the bike’s overall better. Needless to say that’s something manufacturers can achieve without wheel shenanigans but it can be a brilliant way to breathe new life into an old dog

Pretty interesting to watch this stuff, it’d be nice to think we’ve entered “we are going to lose, time to fight over the scraps” phase but Loomer and MTG and Graham have always hated each other. Loomer’s a proper outright lunatic, has been since she spent her university career hatching out conspiracy theories and endlessly trying to entrap and “out” liberals with a series of crazy schemes that got her suspended. But you have to keep moving right just to stand still with these people so if you started out that bad you end up in really weird places…

Graham wants rid of MAGA so they can get back to being respectable right wing pieces of shit, he misses the old party and the good old days of being more subtle about your racism and lies while being slaves to big business, you know, proper republicans.

And MTG I think it’s half that she’s competition and half that she’s jewish. Oh and half that MTG is possessed.

PS, I just became sort of aware that I’ve posted a bit but I don’t think I’ve ever actually said that Harris is doing so much better than I’d thought was likely, at best I’d given her faint praise and at worst I thought the party had pretty much discounted her as a future presidential candidate going by the last 5 years. I am very happy to be wrong, and now i’m feeling quietly, veeeery slightly confident and I hope I’m back to being right but what do I know :P

Superficial
Free Member

Harris is ahead but she needs to be ahead by more in order to overcome the Electoral College disadvantage.

Mmm. With the polls where they are we’re still in “nothing matters except the swing state” territory, neither candidate is gaining or collapsing enough to bring other states into play unless something hyperlocal happens. And tbf unless Harris has some sort of spectacular disaster I think there’s zero chance of <any> previously safe blue state becoming a swing state, while the bluer swing states still feel bluer. But the low-voting youth vote remains a large random factor and potential growth, and Trump’s got to be more likely at this point than Harris to switch voters off and lose them to nonvoting, so while few people are going to be switching most of the major turnout stuff looks to be in Harris’s favour. Basically I reckon Trump is still close to maxxed out, which is scary and mad but also in its way reassuring, he can’t go up much but he can go down. WHereas Harris has far more likelihood of going up.

So basically not <that> much point in listening to anything except post-debate swingstate polls of decent size, just keeping a wee eye on the 4%,5% states is enough, this is still a local general election. And it’s definitely the case that the democrats have been attacking those while Trump is still almost entirely preaching to the choir. Course, some of that choir is in the swing states, maybe Michigan most of all.

But it’s really noticable that frinstance all of this mad “eating your pets” stuff is targeting Ohio by name, and Ohio should be a pretty safe seat for Trump. In fact it’s a right-lurching state which used to be a bellweather. (2020 was literally the first time Ohio went for the loser in 60 years) So considering that the actual conversation point is almost entirely made up, it’s really weird to aim it there rather than picking up the most immigration-sensitive of the big 5 swings.

But right now I just don’t think we’ve seen any useful numbers post-debate? Everything’s really sticky and hard to move and I don’t have any sense that any of them is an exception but I’d be surprised if we see a majority rightward slide.

scratch
Free Member

Last night was Craig Finn at Clwb Ifor Bach, maybe one of the best gigs I’ve been to, great story telling throughout

I bloody love Craig Finn solo. When you want songs that are basically someone just talking and telling sad stories about doomed people, he’s your man. Plus it’s good for him to get that out his system so Hold Steady shows can be fully joyous.

I can’t model, but I’m a semi competent printer and it sounds like something i could do so let me know if you’re still looking once you have a good stl

Cougar
Full Member

Whereabouts?

My town, Penicuik, just near Edinburgh. Next induction is full but that works out OK since probably still healing from 2 broken hands and a broken shoulder is not ideal archery condition. Though even once i heal I still have the puniest arms in the world so I imagine I’ll have to be given a child’s bow or a stick with a rubber band on it.

But, looks like fun and it’s like 5 minutes walk. Albeit uphill

Daffy
Full Member

As with everything (most especially everything involving EM), he’s had some pretty giant shoulders to stand on, a borrowed ladder to climb even higher and has never stopped crapping on those lower down as he continues to climb. SpaceX had little or nothing to lose in the early days and used vast NASA contracts (delivered late – always) to get them there. The same is true here. Much of the cost of this capability has been borne by NASA for the commercial crew contract.

Yep, people largely overlook that without the various government contracts and subsidies, Spacex would have gone out of business with zero succesful launches and that would most likely have taken tesla down too. And Musk himself admitted that, though not so much recently.

Well, really they’d have just never existed because there would have been no point without the government money, the DARPA “we will pay you to launch random shit we don’t actually need launched” contract etc.

The mildest imaginable green here, the sort you’re not even sure if it’s real.

Huh, I was completely convinced I was at that show, had people say how iconic it was and how lucky I am, I literally just now figured out I wasn’t, I was at the 2004 show at the same venue :P Still great but not <that show>, man. Think it was the same stageset or at leat a similar round deal.

(we had standing tickets but found a gap in the curtain and sneaked onto the main floor, then one of our mates decided he was a freedom fighter and went back into the stand and started telling everyone else so there was a huge sway down towards the gap, so the security saw it and he got stuck back in the stand)

Huh, I came into the thread to make rubbish jokes but I’ve just discovered there’s a local archery club and just got myself on the waiting list for their next trial day/induction. Just what I need, another weird cult :)

It’s a sort of twisty question, this, because my absolute favourite type of bike is your standard big trailbike/small enduro bike. It can do pretty much anything, and you can specialise a little bit with parts swaps, wheels or tyres, to make it excel at even more. IMO we’re in an absolute golden age of “do it all mountain bikes”, that expression always used to be an admission that you just don’t really “do it all” but I could take my Aeris downhill racing or do a Ten or do the west highland way and finish off with a run down fort william, it’s as at home on a trailcentre or a tweed valley enduro track built by an actual lunatic or I can pedal it around my local stuff in the pentlands or (just now with my busted hands) spin it along the railway path. I can’t make an argument for anything else.

But. My favourite bike is my fatbike. It’s shit at everything and I love it.

@dufresneorama I’m a huge fan of the electric blanket, I intentionally get cold before I go to bed so when I climb in it’s like jumping in the toaster. Just lovely.

kormoran
Free Member

Burning Gold would be my choice, fantastic concept and coupled with some arrows of desire, you’ll have a timeless classic that you’ll grow to love as you get older.

And easy to transport as long you get the optional chariot

I haven’t used a modern infrared panel but I’ve always used oldschool ir heaters for the garage- they’re pretty bad at heating a space, but they’re brilliant at heating a thing (in this case, me) SO you can be warm in a cold room. Brilliant in a room that’s hard to heat- too big, too draughty, lacking insulation- but can also just be really efficient, and good for a quick boost.

Very tempted to get a modern one to stick under my desk, not for fulltime but for those moments where I’m just a wee bit chilly and it’ll take ages to fix it with the real heating

reeksy
Full Member

Am i the only one that just heard Trump suggest that Harris would allow abortion “probably after birth”?

He said the same thing in the first debate too

ads678
Full Member

Taylor Swift is publicly endorsing KH, if only 14 year olds could vote…

Swift fans cover a huge range. Probably more importantly they’re mostly ages that are underrepresented at the polls. It’s going to be way, way easier to mobilise X young voters than it is to move X voters from blue to red. And it’s also one of those chaotic factors that’s really hard to poll accurately for- because young voters are least likely to vote in states they consider to be fundamentally red. But if you get a swing going, then there’s this big silent bloc that can materialise seemingly out of nowhere, and that people don’t pay much attention because they think they’ve already succesfully marginalised them.

When Texas goes blue- probably not this time- it’ll be younger voters that do it and again it’ll happen faster and more decisively than is predicted because of that momentum effect, the less impossible it feels, the more likely it is. And blue texas makes a republican president pretty much impossible, or at least creates the need for a massive change in attitudes and party approaches and probably system.

maccruiskeen
Full Member

He has been putting off some MAGA nut jobs too

Just saw a poll result reposted on reddit- of registered republicans who voted trump last time and intend to vote trump this time, only 69% think he won this debate. That’s an incredibly low score for that demographic, just disastrous. He couldn’t have achieved that with a merely bad performance as Biden could, it had to be a performance that specifically switched off his fans. They like winners, they like bullying confidence, they like it when he looks strong, and last night they didn’t like what they saw at all.

Been bloody freezing here, heating’s off but the little heater’s often on in the living room blasting 400w of goodness directly at me from 2 feet. Room stays cold, feets get warm.

daviek
Full Member

Dropped the eldest off at Herriot Watt last weekend for fresher’s week and his accommodation looked to be pretty good.

HW’s a bit of a special case what with being outside the city, so partly they really have no choice but to offer good halls, but also they have the space for them with the size of the campus. Some planning constraints obviously but not too bad. And because they own it all they’re incentivised to look after them for the long term. All usually works out pretty well for everyone.

Only downside is they’ve lost the cheaper options- like others mentioned the oldest halls got demolished and now they don’t offer the next-oldest and cheapest to undergrads. And all the new stuff is built for higher end, higher rent for obvious reasons. But it’s still a decent offering overall. (I don’t like the new halls, Ferguson Spark and Macleod, they’re too civilised and “apartmenty” and not “hallsy” enough but they are really nice buildings. Robert Bryson party hall ftw)

Yeah that does sound poor. I always figured that basically if someone felt lost we’d ****ed up, theirs is a confusing campus so make it unconfusing! Nothing worse than going to a new place and just feeling lost and confused and frustrated, it’s so offputting.

In case they didn’t mention it, second year entry is often an option for a level students but it’s not for everyone, coming into the established 2nd year is a big stress for some. Parents tend to latch onto it a bit but I know I’d have dealt badly with that frinstance.

Also do always check out bursaries and scholarships, scottish unis often offer pretty wide deals for RUK students just because otherwise competing on 4 years for 3 is pretty damn difficult. Like, my lot literally just did “buy 3 get one free”

But do that anyway, you’d be amazed what’s available- when I went to uni I just assumed because I was an average middle class student I’d get nowt, so I didn’t bother to apply, in 2nd year I found out I could have got a decent amount but I just missed out because I didn’t look. So when I ended up working with this sort of thing it drove me ****ing crazy. Donors specify mad stuff like “One grant of £1000 a year to be given to the most worthy student from an NW postcode studying dentistry” and then you go 10 years and literally nobody is eligible, or there’s one person and they’re minted but they get it anway. Squeaky wheels and all that.

Hah, too late to edit but I just noticed I left a comment on that video, 16 years ago. Sometimes you close your eyes
and see the place where you used to live when you were young!

Another one I rewatch pretty often that I was at… I love my chemical romance anyway and especially loved the black parade period (it’s not emo, it’s just britrock/classic rock) so they were a pretty epic festival closer already, then Brian May turns up. And I love Queen, but this was that spell where Brian May would turn up to the opening of a crisp packet and play We Will Rock You, he was unavoidable, I saw him do guest appearances with probably 4 or 5 other bands from Pink to the Foo Fighters and it was usually pretty dull and low effort tbf. But this one time he learned the band’s own song and not just that but absolutely bloody smashed it- the first time when you hear <that> guitar sound really kick through on the lead and see him throwing shapes with Frank Iero still makes me grin like an idiot. Definitely not the best time I saw the band but it’s the one I’ll still remember when I’m a hundred and don’t remember my own name.

Festival closers just hit so different… Mass hysteria is hard to replicate.

jp-t853
Full Member

Glasgow made practically no effort, it felt like they are sitting on their laurels. The course tutors seemed bored and ill prepared.

So one of the problems of an open day is that it really can just be a sales job, but on the other hand a ton of the department staff simply do not want to be there. There’s a weird feedback effect, a lot of individuals and courses and departments insist that the admissions tutor stuff be done by senior academics- sometimes it’s seen as a promotion/opportunity, most times it’s seen as a massive inconvenience but even in the best case scenario where they’re really bought into being part of the admissions process, even then a ton of the staff just do not want to do the coalface stuff and have to talk to hundreds of potential students.

I’ve heard flat out “this is a waste of time, we see no benefit whatsoever” and then seen the guy who said there was no benefit still get made to do it, so he turns up on saturday and makes damn sure there’s no benefit to him heing there.

But suggest to the same arseholes that they give up the power of student selection and decision making and have admissions professionals and that’s when shit really hits the fan. A glorified administrator representing MY course? Just, they forget that they chose this when you make them come to work at the weekend and talk to youths.

Sometimes you really do get useful info from all of this but you’ve always got to really keep it in mind that you might be getting the grumpy arsehole that puts you off the perfect course, just as much as you might be getting the superb sales job for a course or institution that you’ll hate.

(when I went to the open evening for my uni, I met a grumpy arsehole who did not want to be there, he was flat out insulting and just the worst student experience imaginable. I ended up on his course anyway, he ended up being my main lecturer and academic contact for 2 years and he was absolutely brilliant. Great lecturer, interested and engaged and helpful and supportive. Still kind of an arsehole, to be fair. He eventually said to me “Oh you met me at an open day? Well I see my job at those as being just to put off timewasters, if you came to the uni anyway despite that it proves it was meant to be”. Just, get to ****

I was there for this one, which is weird because I don’t even like the Killers. But just for that one night they were perfect and this closer was perfecter. (apparently they ended up doing the “reprise” a lot but back then it was a genuine “we only do this occasionally when it feels right”. I’ve been watching this video a couple of times a year for 17 years and it still gets me.

When Brandon Flowers the actual robot is visibly having an emotional reaction, just imagine what the tired pissed humans were like :) Live music is sorcery.

Have to admit I’ve got very blase about charging- I’ve got a charging box for my rc car lipos and a quality charger and storage bags and all that, which I use religiously, but then I go off and charge my chinese head torches which are also lipo, with cheap random chargers, and knock the lights about (and then strap these small bombs to my head!). At some point in the last 5 years “this is basically a little incendiary device” turned into “this is normal” in my head even though there’s lipos in all sorts these days. But of course for most people it never even made that journey and just go “this is a battery”

There just isn’t a right or wrong answer. I like soft tyres, mine are just “as soft as I can go without the air getting out”, and I did arrive at that by experimentation and punctures and dents and it was totally worth it. They’re squirmy in hard corners etc, I just don’t care about that, I hate the feel of a hard tyre (tbf I’m not even going to claim it’s faster or slower or that I ride better or worse or anything like that, I just fundamentally hate it, it feels totally undermining and confidence de-inspiring.

But equally there are people at the other end who cannot stand the tiniest bit of squirm and run their tyres hard as a rock, and they’re just as correct, because it works for them. ALl you can do is experiment and learn what works for you.

tjagain
Full Member

Nortthwind – the garage should have said to the owner that it was seized and there was a risk of sheering it before brute forcing it.

If garages stopped and asked you every time something was seized up and there was a risk of shearing it, nobody’d ever service a 10 year old car again. “Hello, it’s us again, yes as we mentioned the first 3 bolts at were corroded and at risk of shearing, well you’ll never guess what, so is the 4th and the 5th and the 6th…” Pick up tool, put tool down, make call, customer doesn’t answer, take car off lift, customer calls back, every job takes 19 days.

If you want the brakes doing then the nipple needs cracked open and that means a risk of breaking. It’s not something you can just not do (welllll you can halfass it by bleeding it at the banjo, but you shouldn’t, more likely plenty of garages would just not do the job)

it might be biger than you need or want but I am still fully in love with my JDM Subaru Legacy GT. 280 claimed horsepower (245 at the tarmac on mine with just an exhaust and map), handling is a little soft as they gimped it slightly to make it understeer but that’s easily fixed (they NEED a rear ARB, the stock one is a bent paperclip), comfort is excellent, practicality is huge. Basically it’s a fat, respectable WRX hatch. Can do an awd skid or waft along all day on motorways in comfort or absolutely murder b-roads or equally bimble comfortably and effortlessly or do a trackday then pick up an ikea wardrobe on the way home, go to a chavvy car meet in an industrial estate and get attention for being jay dee emm and odd then get completely ignored by the police when they turn up to give everyone else asbos, or pop the back seats down and roll my size large enduro bike right in with both wheels still on, or get itself out of a muddy race field or make driving 600 miles in -15 degrees a doddle.

Also cheap to tax and insure. Albeit a little ruinous on fuel especially if it’s been mapped for 99 on import as many are. And most of all, any recent import will be pretty much rust free. I mean, mine is 20 years old but underneath it’s in better condition than some cars that haven’t made it to their first MOT. And compared to most imports parts availability is dead easy because it’s 90%+ the same as the UK car and the rest is well supported, and standard subaru legoness largely applies.

(being a grey import you don’t have to pay the normal punitive emissions; if you get a UK spec B 3 litre, that’s a really good car too with many of the same traits and the lovely flat 6 making a little less power but feeling absolutely effortless and sounding amazing… but the tax is £710 from 06 onwards and they’re almost all rusty as ****.)

It’s good enough I bought another one