Damn – just had “Windows Technical Centre” on the phone but I didn’t have the PC with the Win8 VM powered up. She hung up on me before I could get it going. Maybe next time.

That Veho slide “scanner” that Cougar links to on the thread he links to looks exactly like the Ion Slides2PC device I got from Costco for about £50 on an impulse. I’ve found it very disappointing. It isn’t really a scanner as such, it takes a relatively low-res photo of the slide and consequently the results are similar to what you get if you project the slide onto a screen and then take a photo of the screen. On the other hand it’s a lot more convenient than a flat bed scanner if you don’t mind about quality!

Abolition of slavery by the Whigs in 1833? I’m finding it hard to think of anything more recent.

Recently, the Leveson Inquiry seems to be a fair and decent move

Depends what it comes up with. If it leads to new laws that restrict the freedom of the press then it could well not be a good thing, IMHO.

Was quite impressed that it installed first time in Virtual box this morning. I installed Firefox just to see what happened, and it seems non-metro apps just look like an afterthought on the metro UI. Works ok though, unlike most of the apps – mail didn’t do anything, app store not available, messaging didn’t seem to work with my account etc. Not sure what to do with it now, although like allthepies I was hoping for the “Microsoft support” people to call – “yes, it’s Windows. No, I can’t see the start button…”.

Ask any of the photographers on here if they consider the use without permission of their photographs to be theft or not

They may mistakenly consider it to be theft, but that doesn’t mean it is. It’s a crime, but it’s not theft.

A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it

copyright infringment is theft

No it isn’t, and calling it theft isn’t helping anyone. Theft is a crime because it deprives the owner of the stolen goods of their use. So if someone steals my bike, that’s theft and it’s a concern to me because I no longer have use of my bike. If someone makes a copy of my bike I really don’t give a stuff and it’s not theft.

Copyright infringement may be bad, and may be a crime, but it isn’t theft.

Toolstation do some more substantial legs if you want to go that way, but I used this for the part of the loft I wanted to use for storage.

Of course we would need a space elevator first

Construction firm aims at space elevator in 2050

I’ve seen the Death Star, it’s in the Seattle science fiction Museum and Hall of Fame. It’s crap, I’d do you a better one for half that price. For the full price I’d even finish the back half the cameras couldn’t see.

Chancellors, like other government ministers, are generally only as good as the advisors they pick. If Osborne’s picked the right ones then he’ll probably do ok. If like Brown he succombs to the Dunning-Kruger effect then he won’t.

Got a bell for use on the canal towpath and it’s useless except to annoy the “where’s your bell?” types, but quick application of my old Hope Minis would wake up anyone, current X2s are almost as good.

Recco – Helping avalanche teams locate bodies for years

True, but whilst finding my body is essential for the insurance claim I’d rather they find me alive!

Not many people ski with a Recco detector (which I was once told was the size of a fridge and therefore carried in a helicopter – haven’t actually seen one myself), any group of off-piste skiers should have several transceivers with them so can set up a search team.

Edit:

Is there much difference in beacons in terms of being found?

Supposedly, for example the Ortovox 3+ I use is supposed to optimise its transmission pattern depending on which way up its buried. Also the digital ones I think tend to be easier to find. I haven’t noticed much difference when they’re buried for practice though. But there are definite differences in search capabilities!

Yep, cheapest I’ve seen a BCA Tracker (original v1, not v2) for is ~£158

Pieps Freeride from various places e.g. Sport Conrad is around £100. Not a brilliant device for searching but adequate for being found.

Yes, they’re expensive but until recently a transceiver was £300+. Cost will go down if they get more popular. Most guiding companies will provide safety equipment as part of the service if you don’t have your own, and I saw one guiding group in St Anton a couple of years ago who had all been provided with airbag backpacks so maybe the rental market’s coming.

If you just download and install MSE it will take care of Defender for you – I haven’t looked into it but it seems to keep the defender engine but remove the GUI. But make sure you remove all traces of old AV/firewall etc software first or there will be tears later!

There’s a good link to a video of an airbag in action on that site –

Maybe it needs to go on my shopping list!

Edit: can’t get the video thing to work!

Edit again: ah, fixed it.

Most likely you’ll have to replace the existing memory. Apple provide very good instructions on memory upgrades – have a look here (assuming it’s Macbook, there are other pages for iMacs and tower systems). Once you’ve bought the thing there should be a link somewhere in “about this mac” that takes you to the right instructions.

If you had any significant experience in the public sector you would have known that recruitment is as objective as possible.

Mrs R went through a public sector recruitment process a not so long ago for a post she had already been informally told was hers (in fact the post was created to move her from a contract to a permanent post). The process she went through was very clearly designed not to select the best candidate (and in this case that decision had already been made) but to make sure that no one individual could be held accountable if a wrong decision was made.

Very different from the Osborne case where it’s clear who’s responsible for his appointment!

They’re very common now around the Ivinghoe/Tring/Wendover part of the Chilterns. When the farmer harvested the field behind our house I counted 20 following the combine, presumably to catch the rodents. They also seem to have aerial fights with the local crows quite regularly, which is quite something to watch.

Sky foxes, will soon be regarded as vermin

I hope not but there have been reports in the local press of them stealing schoolchildren’s lunches, caused I suspect by the children feeding them. “Won’t someone think of the children” and all that. Also if one of them decides to crap on your car the result isn’t pretty!

Airbags, for or against?

Friend of mine has just bought a Snowpulse, probably driven by the fact that we both got caught in a minor avalanche last year. There still seem to be some issues with taking them on planes, he’s had to get letters from the airline for a trip to Switzerland in a couple of weeks.

I’m still in 2 minds as to whether they’re a good thing – I recall that my main concern as my life flashed before me in the avalanche was being swept over a drop or into rocks, not keeping my head above the snow. On the other hand if you use them as a supplement to normal safety measures, rather than an excuse to go out when you really shouldn’t, and the extra weight isn’t an issue (not sure about that yet), and you pack them properly (so that your ice axe isn’t propelled through your head when you deploy it) then they’re probably a benefit.

Magic trackpad is excellent, well worth getting not only for the gestures but also because it’s just nice to use. Our magic mouse is now consigned to a drawer but maybe you should get a trackpad but keep the mouse so that you can vary the way you work to avoid over-repetitive movements?

One of the best chain lubes I’ve found was some Castrol 5w30 synthetic oil intended for the car that I started using after my Finish Line wet lube ran out just before a ride, but like all wet lubes it turns into grinding paste if you don’t clean it off regularly so it’s a bit of a faff.

For the last couple of years I’ve been using Squirt lube; I intended it for the summer only but last year I thought I’d try it over the winter since my drivetrain was on its last legs. Surprisingly it was fine so I’ve carried on using it, drivetrain always looks clean and lasts well. YMMV if you regularly ride through water or for long periods in the rain.

I’d considered MSE, but it won’t protect against the latest viruses and spyware, according to BBC Click

I couldn’t understand what they were doing in that BBC test – it looked as though they were seeing if AV software would detect a piece of custom malware, but then they said that one of the vendors that detected it had admitted thet they wouldn’t have detected it if they hadn’t already seen it before. Very odd.

I’m sticking to MSE, which like the rest updates regularly and unlike most of the rest isn’t a self-inflicted DoS attack.

One thing you don’t say is whether you’ll still have any links up North. If you do, don’t underestimate the additional time to get there from anywhere south of London (unless of course you’re flying!). Dorking to the M1 can be an hour on a good day, more like 2 at a bad time. An accident on the M25 can make it a bit longer – M25 J7 to J25 once took me 5 hours…

More than £127,000 has been given to charities, including all proceeds from his book, Beyond the Crash

Meanwhile, Gordon’s latest book, Beyond the Crash: Overcoming the First Crisis of Globalisation, published last December, has sold a mere 1,124 copies through Amazon, according to Novel Rank. Real sales figures are hard to come by for this work, which blames the financial crisis on everyone but himself.

I guess the other £126,999.99 came from lecture fees.

Chalfont, Beaconsfield, Denham and Gerards Cross are nice but you’ll be paying a premium for good links to London on the Chiltern line that you say you don’t need.

In general places inside the M25 won’t be particularly biking-friendly unless you’re a closet roady or you want to travel to Heathrow by bike.

Slough should be added to your “don’t do it” list.

Amersham, Chesham and Berkhamsted or the surrounding areas might be worth considering, but again you pay extra for the rail links. Avoid Hemel Hempstead.

if you think how a house looks is more important than how much energy it uses then you are a pillock

Which really does make the planning system a pillock. If you want to understand the true hipocrisy of the system try asking the council for permission to put windows with 21st century insulation values (which is a proper energy saver, not just greenwash) into a listed house or one in a conservation area and see how far you get.

On Channel 4’s “Home of the Future” programme on Sunday (crap programme btw) they installed PV cells that seemed to replace the tiles and just looked like a shinier part of the roof. That may be a better subsidy-harvesting technology for visually-sensitive areas of the country.

Your local car or motor bike supplies shop (e.g. Halfords) should be able to supply a tub of suspension grease big enough to last a lifetime for a very reasonable price. I think the stuff I use is made by Silkolene.

Ti = T.I.

If you asked me what the symbol was for titanium in the periodic table I’d say T.I. not “tie”, so I don’t see why I’d say it any differently just because it’s in the context of a bicycle.

We’ve been on Talk Talk (formerly AOL) for years and never had any problem with them although others do seem to have a different experience. For comparison local BT users have started a petition to get BT to improve their service (5Mbps day time and sometimes 50kbps evening download speeds) whilst from the same exchange TalkTalk never goes below 5Mbps and can give me over 10Mbps during the day. But YMMV.

Sent from my TalkTalk ADSL line.

If some horsists are behind the sanitisation of bridleway then they’re as fair representation of horse-riders as those cyclists who want to be able to ride their hybrid slowly on offroad paths away from cars but on a nice smooth surface even if it’s in the middle of nowhere, are of those of us on here.

I believe a lot of the sanitation of trails around here (Chilterns) is done either by or at the behest of the commercial horse-riding organisations, not the individual riders – what I would refer to as the rental-horse crowd.

Regardless of this, I wish horse riders would have more sensitivity to trail conditions – yes, a horse is capable of getting through practically anything but the mess it can make of soft trails (including footpaths; horse riders round here have the same attitude to RoW designations as mountain bikers) is unbelievable.

For normal skiing I use Direct Travel insurance, because they’re cheap and they cover off-piste as standard. Disclaimer: I’ve never had to claim so I don’t really know how good they are.

If you get a policy that doesn’t cover off-piste be very careful that you stay within the piste markers!

teachers are paid on a “time served” basis

I’ve always wondered why teachers get a bonus for just being there another year. Anyone care to explain that one? Does it happen elsewhere in the public sector?

You’re supposed to have got a pre-paid and pre-addressed return bag. If yours isn’t I’d get on to Apple and ask for another one.

Many horse riders round here seem to ignore any effect they have on trails; they also have the same flexible approach to RoW designations as most cyclists but do far more damage to footpaths. Recently some of the steeper bridleways were “improved” by turning them from nice singletrack into 3m wide tracks. Whoever did it put signs up asking people not to ride horses on them in wet weather until they had time to settle. Needless to say people didn’t take any notice and now we have ugly 3m wide quagmires that I can’t imagine is any fun for the horses never mind anyone else.

I suspect the main culprits are the rental horse crowd rather than horse owners – as they say, you can go mental in a rental.

Bonuses in shares are not taxed as income IIRC – its a tax dodge

Unfortunately that’s not what HMRC thinks, they seem to think it’s taxable just like any other income.

Been using an Airborne Ti seatpost in an Airborne and then an On-One Ti for nearly 10 years and never had a problem. I don’t use any grease as it tends to make it slip down unless you use unreasonable amounts of torque on the clamp bolts. I am very heavy though!

any extra shares dilutes the returns to existing shareholders

I always understood that shares for incentive schemes had to be purchased by the company, they’re not just “printed”.

Whilst I’d agree that there’s an issue with executive pay in this country I wouldn’t have singled out Hester as a particular example although I can see why he makes a convenient scapegoat for the press. As Dimbleby pointed out on QT last night there are plenty of other highly paid public sector employees such as the DG of the BBC who should be under equal scrutiny (never mind Dimbleby himself)!

At least Costco always has them

Just finished off a Costco one last night, very nice.

I noticed the pasty shop at the station was selling haggis pasties last week. The ultimate in made-up traditional-fare fusion-food maybe, narrowly beating a chicken tikka pizza.