MTFU

Mostly ride on my own because it’s just easier to organise to fit in with work/kids/orienteering/running etc. and because I like to go at my own pace and decide where I am going as I feel during the ride.

Except this time of year when I usually meet up with a bunch of guys for a quick night-ride burn round the woods for an hour and a pint after on a weekday evening every couple of weeks.

I believe it is traditional to leave the guts inside a woodcock when you eat it.

Ditto whitebait.

In some asian countries they eat deep fired insects with whatever is inside them.

I did the Run Rider the day after the Oktoberfest a few weeks ago – it was great: http://www.runrider.co.uk/%5B/url%5D

Has he not currently got a trike?

If he has then just leave him with that until he’s big enough for the balance bike.

OR…

Do what we did and get a small bike, but take the pedals off.

Both my kids used small bikes (£1 each from the tip) for about 6 months with no pedals. When we put the pedals on, they both just rode off, turned around and came back without so much as a dab. Amazing to behold. I wouldn’t even think of going down the stabiliser route as the balance option is just so obviously better when you see it in action.

being woken up whilst driving over the rumble strip on the motorway.

x2

16stonepig,

I think you will find that is perfectly normal behaviour.

Why do you think we are all sitting here wasting our time writing responses to your question?

In my case it’s because I’m supposed to be sorting out the allotment.

I started out doing the degree (engineering) -> blue chip, management potential, route, but after a couple of years got fed up and left to go windsurfing. Then I tried starting a business and did a few years of low paid but fun/lifestyle work.

At that point I was in my late 20s and in a similar situation to you – i.e. unemployable by anyone I’d consider working for.

So I took out a career development loan and went back to uni to do an MA in public relations in order to make myself more employable in a field I was more interested in.

I then started at the bottom in a PR agency, became a manager and then went to work for a client managing their agencies.

Probably cost me less than your £15K in order to get the qualification and live for a year whilst I did it.

I’m sure I could have done “very well” for myself. HOWEVER…

… after a few years of that I got fed up again, went freelance, started a photo business and spent a lot of time looking after my kids and doing up houses.

Of course it helps that I married a *teacher* who has a steady job that smoothes out the peaks an troughs of our finances (and who doesn’t seem to mind me doing things in an unorthodox fashion).

Anyway, the point of this ramble is that yes, £15K is easily enough to set your life off in a different direction. However, you may find that you’re just not cut out to do that and you’ll end up reverting to type.

But “rapidly approaching 30” is nothing to worry about anyway.

Really it’s up to you. You just have to decide what you want to do with your life and get on with it as best you can, but in my opinion you are best off doing stuff you are interested in rather than chasing money.

Dunc,

My understanding is that the SMD type lights have an incredibly wide beam pattern (not a beam at all really) – so they would be the ones to go with for your cellar.

I’d actually prefer a narrower beam to give a bit of texture to the room rather than completely flood it with light so I’m thinking of the ones that use just 1 (or 2 or 3) bigger LEDs.

What I also want is some fire checked fittings that will still take whatever bulbs I decide on. As I mentioned with Megaman, their bulbs look good (on paper) but I’m not sure that they will fit in standard fittings.

Thanks for all your help. I guess many of you still live in caves?

Hot lemonade.

Most important thing for good skin is to get a good night’s sleep.

Me[/url]

Good on you.

If it works out you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it 10 years ago.

Make sure you get in quick with an offer to freelance for your old firm. You know what they need, can probably work out how to do it cheaper/better for them from you new freelance position and you’ll be doing it on your terms.

Junkyard,

RPRT Considering you think the number of planets is irrelevant you are very keen to know my view and yet incredibly unkeen to make any comment on why an increasing number does not alter the odds.

I didn’t say that it didn’t alter the odds. I said that it didn’t matter. lets say for the purposes of illustration that there are a million potentially habitable planets, and then we find 10 more.

Because we don’t know what the chance of life is, having a few more planets available to look at changes the odds of finding life from:

A potentially very small, but unknowable amount in a million.

to:

A potentially very small, but still unknowable amount in a million and 10.

We still have the same level of uncertainty about the answer, because we never knew what the chance of life was in the first place. Ergo, the number of planets doesn’t matter.

Thanks Horatio,

It’s been very lonely out here in the endless void of the STW forum.

m_f: no argument there. The chances of us being able to communicate with any life out there is incredibly tiny, even if life was abundant.

You’ve missed the point again Graham.

He was talking about me and you.

thepurist,

Have you not read the thread?

About half way down the first page we had:

i think it would be both naive and arrogant to think in the near infinite expanse of space there wouldn’t be another planet, perhaps thousands of planets, with intelligent life on them.

Followed by various other comments along the same lines.

That’s not quite “arguing over the error bars”

It could be, but we don’t have any reason to suspect that it is.

Or that it isn’t.

the balance of probabilities

Aaaaaaarggghhhhhhhh!

I’m just slapping myself on the forehead.

That Hubble telescope has a lot to answer for.

Junkyard,

When I said that the number of stars and galaxies was irrelevant I was kind of assuming that people would be thinking of a finite number – how large that number might be isn’t important, but it is important that it is finite.

Then you started talking about an infinite number of chimps, which gave me cause to check that we were all indeed thinking of this problem within a finite universe.

Simple really.

So do you, Junkyard, think that there are a finite number of planets?

I reckon most people would consider odds of, say, 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 to be “vanishingly small”

It’s not really a question of “what most people reckon” though is it?

This isn’t the committee for the formation of alien lifeforms.

My point (still) is that no one knows, or can know, what the figure is. it is unknowable, and may be very, very, very small.

OK, to take the point about a finite number of planets. If we agree on that then we are getting somewhere.

What we don’t know is what the chance of life spontaneously happening is. It could be vanishingly small.

What most of you seem to be concentrating on is the big number (of planets) but somehow you’re not too bothered about how small the chance of life starting is. If it is a vanishingly small chance, then overall chances of finding alien life will also be vanishingly small.

The point is, that we can’t know what that chance is because we’ve not observed it happening.

Chances are that in time, we may get a pretty good idea of what the big number is, but we have literally no idea what the small number might be.

Even if we send probes to every planet in the universe it is possible that they will all come up -ve.

this isn’t true, there’s at least one. Right?

It doesn’t matter.

Actually, sorry, I apologize wholeheartedly for my gross error.

I was wrong about the lucky dip thing.

However, the probability of winning would still eventually get to 1 as once the pot got big enough it would be worth someone buying a ticket with each combination.

But really, my point about the planets is important – do you think there are an infinite number or not?

Because of the random way that numbers are picked for each draw there is no guarantee that all the combinations will be covered for any draw so the probability is never 1. But the probability become lower as more tickets are bought (Think Graham S has explained this pretty well too)

It would get to 1 because of “lucky dip” tickets, which select an unchosen combination if one is available.

But we are getting away from the main point.

Junkyard:

…do I really need to explain why that is poorly thought out?

Yes, you do.

The point about the alien life problem is that it can’t be solved by theory. Empirical evidence is required and we have none. Until we get some, we are simply guessing.

so if I give you one chimp and one typewriter and I have infinite chimps and infinite typewriters our odds are the same of creating Shakespeare as nothing has changed

Are you suggesting that there are an infinite number of planets?

Based on your lottery argument it was 1.0 wasn’t it?

I see there are people here who know even less about probability than Graham.

You’re talking about a church hall raffle. We’re talking about a National Lottery draw where its perfectly possible to have no winners.

No it’s not.

You may not have a winner in one particular week, but eventually you will have a winner. Eventually all of the combinations will be covered and someone will win.

Even if we send probes to every planet in the universe it is possible that they will all come up -ve.

Could you explain why the number of stars and galaxies dont alter the odds?

Because we don’t know what the probability of life on earth was before it happened.

We have nothing to extrapolate from.

If the chance of life occurring spontaneously is infinitesimally small, then even multiplying it by a very big number makes no difference. To all intents and purposes it would still be virtually zero chance.

In scientific terms, having a bigger number of stars planets would be akin to “turning the amp up to 11”

have I got that right?

No.

That wasn’t where we started.

Graham’s opening gambit was.

I can’t see how it could be possible that we are the only life in the entire universe.

That seems fairly certain to me.

But several others have been just as adamant.

Evn i know tha the probability being one means I buy one ticket I win the lottery – so every week everyone who enters wins the lottery then – It is not even won every week so the probability is not even 1 for the lottery being won that draw.

Oh dear.

With the lottery, money goes into a pot.

Numbers are drawn.

Eventually someone wins.

The probability of someone winning at some point is 1, because people will keep playing until it is won.

Even in the worst circumstances, eventually all of the combinations of numbers will be covered and the lottery will be won.

We have looked at some of the universe and found no evidence of alien life so far.

Just because we keep searching does not mean we will find it, because it might not be there.

No matter how big it is, or how long we search, if it is not there, we won’t find it.

Do you see why the situations are not analogous now?

elliptic,

Do you really not understand the problem with the lottery analogy?

Are we back in the land of aeroplanes on conveyors?

So Graham,

you’ve moved from:

I can’t see how it could be possible that we are the only life in the entire universe.

to

I just think that it seems extremely likely based on the balance of facts, research, extrapolations and theories that we currently have.

I see I’m winning you round.

Are you saying that because we’ve not met them they don’t exist?

No.

I’m saying that the degree of certainty that others are putting forward that there IS alien life is totally unwarranted.

It’s just not possible to say that it is “very very likely” or that “Undoubtedly life exists elsewhere in the universe” or “the drake equation proves it”

The problem is a bit like Schroedingers Cat, where alien life is the cat and the box is the universe – unless and until we actually see some real evidence we simply have no way of knowing. The number of stars and galaxies is totally irrelevant.

I did say that I assumed you didn’t

But you thought the opposite though didn’t you? Otherwise you’d not have bothered with the nasty little dig?

It’s interesting that you seem to have complete faith in alien life but mock those who have faith in a creator. You see any paradox there?

If you believe in (Christian) God then you believe in at least one alien, surely?

I don’t believe in God.

You really are desperate.

The stuff about attitudes is dead right.

Whether or not Ricky Gervais meant any offence, his loyal followers certainly did when they started flaming people who expressed their offence with the same insult. That’s just nasty and disrespectful.

Yes. Sometimes even multiple planets people win it – despite the very long odds. See what I’m getting at?

I see that you don’t understand probability.

We do know that someone will win the lottery – the probability of it happening is 1.

We do not know that there is alien life – the probability of us finding life is unknown – no matter how many potentially habitable planets there are, the probability will remain unknown unless we find it.

I’m assuming rightplacerighttime is not a religious type – as he doesn’t believe in aliens and God is the ultimate ET.

What a pathetic response.

Winning the lottery is quite unlikely, but somewhat less so if you buy 50,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tickets (estimated number of stars in the universe).

Another terrible analogy.

The difference is that someone always will win the lottery.

Apologies if this reference to the scientific community’s current best practice is too overconfident and can’t be taken seriously.

Ah, sorry, I didn’t realise there was unanimity in the scientific community. Well, if that’s what they all think….

But NB, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t entertain the idea of life elsewhere. What got my goat was the ridiculous level of certainty expressed that there must be alien life expressed by a few here.