Truecrypt. Part of the installation process is the creation of an unlock disk just in case you forget your encryption passphrase. As long as you keep this somewhere safe (make two copies) you should be ok should something go wrong. The reason the company wants FDE is in case your gf’s laptop gets stolen with their data on it. If it is a requirement of the contract, make sure you conform, as any data breach will probably be liable to a big payout (get liability insurance)

Seconding Evisu, they last forever

Just buy Hope sintered and get on with your life

S65 and a RRS, both going back this year though, not sure what to get next. As middle age rapidly approaches I’m starting to look (even more of a) tool in a flash motor. I quite fancy a Prius wagon thing.

BMW every time, it’s a much better car than any of the others you listed. Your first car could be a brilliant one, and someone else is picking up the tab – you jammy so and so!

Edit: I would look at the 316d and 318d too – you would pay less tax and the saving in list price would mean you might be able to go for an estate with a few toys.

Childcare costs? Never a problem in my day – kids had the huge benefit of having mothers who actually wanted to look after them!

Ironically, the explosion of dual income families helped cause hyperinflation in the housing market, which means that both partners now *have* to work in order to keep a roof over their heads….

BT own plusnet

My experience of the very rich people I know, is that they are alarmingly similar to the grindingly poor people I know (as in people in deep, generational poverty, not folk who are bit skint at the moment). Both are careless, self destructive and anti-social because they know no matter what impression they try to make the people around them will despise them on principle, they’ve no reputation to loose. So I’d suggest the behaviour outlined above is a consequence of being rich, not the quality you require to become rich.

This is spot on. It’s the same reason only the very polar in society can give their children stupid names. You can bet your bottom dollar someone called Kayden or Blaze either lives in a trailer or a mansion.

Orange 5 with big forks like half the other riders – boring predictable choice but it works.

Happiness is a flat stomach and a tight butt. I have neither but yours looks great. PS do you have any beer?

If you can’t make a go of it in the best country in the world, what makes you think you can make a go of it somewhere else?

Edit: Speaking as an American living in the UK – seriously stop whining, the UK is the best place on earth to live.

Good on you OP, fox 36 and ccdb on an o5 is the perfect combination for the Alps. Anyone who thinks 140mm 32s is fine out there isn’t riding proper trails or rides like some old granny IMO. Jesus next thing you know there’ll be some stw riding gods talking about how they do just fine on a ht 🙂

Edit: if you’re one of those guys who thinks you’re smashing Les Crosets on your stumpy let me put you straight, you are just holding everyone up and everyone thinks you are a twunt for bringing your Surrey bike to the Alps. There I said it.

“imagine a world populated by those dreadful grasping middle management sorts in their ill-fitting suits and bottom-of-the-range-but-one AUDIs, incessantly **** each other off while recruitment plebs spam everyone involved” was how it was described to me.

I would go back and study Medicine. I had the chance and passed it up, opting instead to study Economics. I’ve made far more money than I ever would have as a medic but I’m not fulfilled. Maybe it’s not too late (I’m nearly 40) Any medics ITT want to share their experiences?

IE?

Molgrips how do you rate the prius? That new 7 seater one looks interesting, might make a tax efficient and more eco friendly alternative to my unacceptable 4×4 when it goes back.

hora is this a PCP or is it HP? I think PCP is the one that gives you the most protection, 50% walkaway etc.

Yep always do this, get a new car every year or two (cheaper if you swap after 3 or 4 years though. You can do a Voluntary Termination (I think it’s called) when you have paid 50% of the agreement quite legally but of course check your contract.

Means you can drive an expensive, new, reliable car all the time. Sure you don’t own the car but cars aren’t appreciating assets, and if I need to bail out of the agreement due to suddenly being poor, it’s easy enough to do.

Some people don’t get it and would rather drive an unreliable old shitbox that they own instead, each to their own I guess.

Well them’s the breaks

No, a bit of fun for charity 🙄

On another forum I frequent we raised over $50,000 for charity this Christmas by instigating ban wars.

1: You could pledge $10 to get another poster banned for 24 hrs.

2: Before the nominee got banned they could respond by bidding $20 to have the pending ban annulled, and ban the person who paid for them to be banned for 48 hours.

3: If a person was nominated for a ban by multiple people, they could bid $40 to anull their ban for 24hrs and ban *all* of their nominees for 72 hours.

4: These people all had option (2) open to them again, and could bid $20 to have their pending ban annulled, and nominate a new bannee (not the orginal person they nominated though)

It was hilarious and raised a lot of money, and would work well here.

I used to wear Hunters but the last few years the quality has gone down the shitter; they are no longer handmade in Scotland, instead they are churned out in a Chinese slavefactory, see this reference.
🙁 You’re basically paying £60 for rubbish now. And it is rubbish, I have had my last two pairs split within 9 months whereas they used to last for years and years.

I just wear Timberland boots for walking the dogs now, they last ages and are warm and waterproof.

Sometimes I think about getting a tattoo, but then

🙁

The worst people are those who sit at 70 in the outside lane, I presume they think they are some kind of law enforcement officer. If they don’t get out of the way I give them a few flashes and slam the horn a few times. If this doesn’t work I undertake them and flip them the bird.

If I’m not in a rush I just set the cruise to about 80 and sit in the middle lane, it’s too much effort to have to keep switching from the slow lane to overtake trucks and the elderly every few minutes.

Gotta say I don’t get the hate aimed at Hugor, his approach seems pretty sensible to me.

You can’t consider yourself a proper member unless you’ve been banned a few times

BT is crap and needs to be left to market forces.

I’ve never understood this stance – if BT weren’t so heavily bound by the regulator they would wipe out every other telco and revert to being a monopoly. All the privatisation of BT did was to screw with a natural monopoly – every other telco only exists in the UK because of the restrictions put on BT – they have been forced to open up their network to other providers.

Telecoms infrastructure is a natural monopoly – personally I would renationalise the infrastructure and allow private telcos to sell bandwidth and services on it at a guaranteed minimum price, with a guaranteed cut being paid back in to a fund that maintains and upgrades the infrastructure.

The current situation means that nobody can afford to invest in widescale fibre rollouts apart from BT (Virgin don’t count, they haven’t laid fibre for at least a decade and won’t do now). Even given this, BT are forced by the regulator to offer their fibre services to other ISPs in order that they can resell them. This removes a lot of the incentive to perform expensive fibre rollouts.

TL;DR? – Don’t blame BT for the crap state of broadband in the UK , blame a fake market created by regulation of a natural monopoly.

One of my riding buddies had pretty much the exact same thing, snapped a few mechs and bent no end of mech hangers. Turns out his rear wheel was flexing so much it was causing this damage. Changed the wheel, problem solved.

I reckon the 5 series touring is probably the most complete car on sale right now. The lease is up on my current everyday car at the end of the year and I’m sorely tempted by an M550D touring, might even get a Euro model, from what I hear they are going to be 4WD. Perfect car?

You can fit normal tyres yes but runflats haven’t been crap for a few years now, I wouldn’t run anything else now.

That didn’t take long. Just FYI all RWD cars suffer in snow. It’s a decision owners have to make ; do the benefits of RWD for most of the time outweigh the negatives of RWD when it’s snows and you just HAVE to drive? I leave my car at home or drive the 4×4 the one or two days a year this is an issue for me.

If ghosts are real why are they always from olden times (you don’t hear of any ghosts in tracksuits for example). Actually why are they clothed at all? Ergo, ghosts don’t exist.

He’s got a good point. You know your economy is up the shitter when people up to their eyeballs in debt are buying £500 iphones, driving this year’s AUDI and holidaying in the Seychelles, all using funny money.

Justgiving link? Facebook link?

Rush to push the door open for her but in your haste trip and fall with your full bodyweight into the door, knocking her over in the process, the end result being rather embarrassing for everyone involved 😳

ROAM does it for me – specifically the Whistler section, really captures what MTB is about

You’ll take one look at your new bundle of joy and want to wrap him or her in as big a tank as possible 🙂 Vectra / Signum / Something equally massive?

Good luck getting 80mbps throughput

Calm down girls I was only joking, sheesh. Time of the month is it?

Buy from your neighbour’s shop. If you don’t he might go bust, lose his house and you will have benefit scroungers living next door.