My understanding is it’s just the installer.

Damn – was hoping you’d just found me a reason for not upgrading. Now my only problem is that I’m still on Leopard. :(

If you like “More or Less” then you might also want to try “The Bottom Line”, which is Evan Davis’s economics podcast. Also try “Material World” on environmental issues etc, it’s not too preachy so quite good to listen to. Then there’s always R4’s Friday Night Comedy Podcast. And if you’re really bored, try “In Our Time” – very worthy but something it’s easy to get distracted from.

Seems I was wrong – he’s a “comedian” called Johnnie Marbles. Even tweeted that he was going to do it. I would have thought they’d have done something to block phone signals in the room. It also looks as though people were tweeting questions to the committee unless it’s just a coincidence that members have been asking questions just after they’ve been raised on Twitter.

Cue the conspiracy theories – this guy was an NI stooge paid to disrupt the session just before Louise Bagshawe could come in with the killer question… 8)

“How dense and deaf to language development do you have to be? If you don’t like nouns becoming verbs, then for heaven’s sake avoid Shakespeare, who made a ‘doing word’ out of a ‘thing word’ every chance he got. He ‘tabled’ the motion and ‘chaired’ the meeting in which nouns were made verbs.”

People who quote Shakespeare to justify mangling the language.

One I’m not sure on…
Is it “I text her” or “I texted her”??

People using nouns as verbs.

“I sent her a text”

I find using the right goggles helps – a bit more peripheral vision can make a lot of difference, I use the Aqua Sphere ones. Otherwise as others have said try breathing both sides and follow the pack – although I have followed someone only to find they’re also going way off line. Of course, this doesn’t help if you’re really fast and at the front…

I agree about the silver – probably a load of rubbish; I was about to say that I’d bet the Ronseal was a lot cheaper than the Osmo but a quick Google search seems to indicate that it isn’t. Maybe I’ll go for the Osmo, if it’s anything like the stuff we use on our oak staircase it should last well.

wood is “anti bacterial”

If it’s well oiled the antibacterial-ness is covered up. Maybe we should all just use bare wood and go for the rustic look. :-)

Currently using Danish oil but it’s due for re-oiling (last done 3+ years ago) and might try this http://www.screwfix.com/p/ronseal-anti-bacterial-worktop-oil-1ltr/92309 or one of the Osmo oils next time to see if it lasts longer near the cooker where some aggressive cleaning products have splashed the surface and dissolved the finish. Hint: don’t let oven cleaner get near your wooden worktop.

Haven’t read the report but I basically agree with binners – there’s no reason why people should pay more tax so that others can inherit money. There must be some way that state care payments can be sort of added up and then added on as a sort of inheritence tax when the person dies, and if there isn’t enough in the estate then the outstanding amount is written off – that seems to be fair to everyone, tax is increased for those who can afford it but we don’t all end up paying for other people’s inheritence. I’m sure someone else will have proposed this and no doubt there are all sorts of problems with it though – there always are with tax!

200 staff to loose their jobs= 200 more people with a grudge against murdoch,

Nice thought, but a drop in the ocean really.

are the ceramic bearing ones worth the extra?

I’ve been using a set of the non-ceramic KCNCs for so long (4+ years?) that the wheels have practically worn away and I’m going to have to replace them soon. Never had a problem with the bearings which are still going strong with the occaisonal re-greasing so glad I didn’t splash out the extra for the ceramic ones.

I got them because at the time they were the cheapest option, Shimano wanted nearly as much for XTR replacement ones as I paid for the mech. Wierd that they’re now the expensive option.

They do have a tendency to pick up mud and trail detritus in the holes but the main effect of that is a reduction in bling-ness, they still keep on working.

If you’re on the latest Firefox on Windows there’s a drop down menu at the top left of the screen – the orange box with firefox in it. From there it’s Options -> menu bar.

Although the cloud idea has been about for around 10 years, look at Utility Data Centers, so its just a spin on a very very old idea

Goes back a lot further than that, basic concepts are the same as the computer bureaux of the 1960s and 1970s.

The cloud is an application layer, not a hardware layer

Depends what “cloud” service you’re talking about. It can be application but equally OS or even basic iron – SaaS, IaaS etc to throw in a few more buzzwords (buzz-acronyms?) designed to impress your CEO.

I’ve tried contacts and the Adidas things with inserts but keep coming back to my prescription Oakleys. I’ve got Oakley XXs with prescription lenses, about 10 years old and still as good as new despite being considerably abused, also some Oakley wires (I think) with transition lenses that are also ok for general wear and night riding. Both from a local optician a long way from Yorkshire but if you’re paying that much then getting them on the internet is a bit of a risk as mistakes can be costly. I had to have the lenses replaced on the wires because the coating started to come off, done at no cost through the optician negotiating with Oakley’s service department.

I find that with contacts I need some sort of eye protection to keep the mud, insects and dog mess out of my eyes so I have to wear glasses anyway which defeats the object, and with the insert things all is well until they fog between the inserts and the lenses at which point I want to take them off and stamp on them.

We went a while ago – before the tsunami modified some of the islands – and tbh it’s an awfully long way to go to just sit on a beach with a nice view. Windsurfing tends to be limited to flat water within the reef and although some of the diving is good it’s not a patch on the Red Sea which is a lot nearer. We did see people surfing on the tidal waves between the islands, apparently that’s very good but you need a boat to get out there. The island we were on (Kuda Huraa) was spotless in a Disneyfied sort of way and you could walk round it in half an hour, certainly no scope for tennis – a court would have taken up most of the island. Don’t recall seeing any waterskiing on any of the islands – they’re more into eco-friendly stuff. You need to take some sort of footwear for use in the water – reefs are sharp! It was very quiet, to the extent that you hardly saw anyone except the hotel staff who mysteriously appeared whenever you needed them. Being in the tropics darkness comes early and the nightlife is severely limited – our place did a roaring trade in film rentals; it was either that or a very empty bar. Mrs R got severe cabin fever after a couple of days. Wouldn’t go back unless we happened to be in the area for some other reason or maybe for a couple of days combined with a trip to Dubai or Sri Lanka (we did Dubai and the Maldives). I’d recommend the Red Sea instead as long as the locals can avoid descending into civil war.

Not sure what some people do with their Dysons but we have an 8 year old one that’s used for building work etc sucking up stuff that clogs other vacuum cleaners in seconds and it still works fine, it lives in the garage with stuff thrown on top of it and hasn’t broken. We have another more recent one with the ball that’s kept clean for inside the house. Dysons are infinitely repairable – they come apart fairly easily and you can (must) wash the bits periodically and clean the filters. On the other hand our builder currently has a Henry on our building site and it seems to be holding up ok.

I used to have a Hoover which I got because people said they lasted for ever, Mrs R had an Electrolux for the same reason; true to some extent but they were both completely useless at cleaning so they went down the tip.

My first mountain bike was one of those – probably still got some parts from it somewhere but the frame went down the dump. BB was a Shimano square taper, had it replaced several times, can’t remember exactly what type but it was bog-standard so as above any LBS should be able to change it. Last time I had it done it cost about £15 fitted but that was many years ago!

Isn’t that what gonefishin said?

Looking back and piecing together what’s been said you’re probably right. Maybe gonefishin = Mark Barratt?? :-)

The original work cited in that Guardian article seems to have disappeared from the internet but if you read some of the other work by the same guy what he seems to advocate to even the load, in order of preference, is:

1) Export the spare electricity to somewhere it’s needed
2) Store it as electricity (pumped storage, batteries etc)
3) As a last resort, store it as heat.

So the original author’s not quite as barking as he comes across, its just that he’s been Guardianised (if you tell them what they want to hear they won’t engage their critical faculties). On the other hand some of his other ideas about wearing different clothing so that we can sit comfortably in our houses at 15.8C may be a bit more on the fanciful side.

I’ve got some prescription Oakley Whispers with photochromic lenses that I used to use for everything, but also now use disposable contact lenses, “normal” glasses or prescription sunglasses 8) depending on what I’m doing. When the lenses are clear the Whispers have a bit of a Heston-Blumenthal look which is probably inevitable if you want some wrap-around.

calday hill, through the woods opposite calday grammar, then to west kirby, then wirral way to hooton, then back to Calday

Hate to be pedantic but as it’s my old school – it’s Calday the school, Caldy the place without the extra “a”. :-)

Chilterns were fast and hot today, very few other riders out apart from a couple who shot across my path on their way down to Chequers, in fact everywhere was practically deserted.

sub seven minute walk to the cafe area

Cafe? Ivinghoe Beacon? Haven’t come across that and I go there quite a lot, but then I tend to stay away from the car parks. There’s an excellent run from the Beacon across the downs to Pitstone Hill where you can often look down on red kites hovering over the edge of the escarpment. It would be great in these conditions but I wouldn’t want to try it on a bank holiday when the numpties are out; although most of them stay safely near the car parks one or two tend to spill out and get lost on the bridleways. I’m all in favour of them staying by their cars. :-)

http://www.getamap.ordnancesurveyleisure.co.uk/%5B/url%5D

Looks like most people’s are more advanced than ours, which are only just coming out. Somewhere in the Chilterns yesterday:

India’s been working on it for a while too.

How many uranium miners die?

I can find at least 2 deaths recorded in Uranium mines in the last 10 years. Apparently there are about 100 working Uranium mines in the world. There are many more coal mines so the death rate can be expected to be proportionally higher – Wikipedia reports over 6000 deaths in Chinese coal mines in 2004 for example. No idea how this works out in deaths per kWh, which is the figure that really matters.

How many are killed each year due to the coal industry?

”As far as we know, not one person has died from radiation,” he added. “Let me put that in context – in the same week, 30 coal miners died. Generating electricity from coal is far more dangerous.”

Hari confuses debt and deficit, probably deliberately. He probably understand this but is relying on there being a lot of gullible people who don’t understand the difference and are looking for straws to clutch to.

Comparisons of the UK situation with Argentina do have some value; the financial crisis that caused Argentina to default on their debt was largely due to running an excessive deficit. Fernandez put much of Argentina’s economic recovery down to their inability to borrow since their debt-default – they have few options but to spend only what they can raise in taxes. They also addressed the debt, to quote Christina Fernandez in 2008:

“The administration which took office in 2003 made debt reduction and twin surplus policies state policies. So we set about thoroughly and painstakingly reducing our debt then, because we knew that this was a very important problem not just because a debtor must pay their debts in all contexts, but essentially because this is also a way to boost your relations based on credibility and trust vis-a-vis the rest of the world.”.

Useful lessons for the UK, and which would imply more agressive cuts to public spending than the ones proposed by either the coalition or Labour.

For those interested in some proper discussion of this subject I found the Ars Technica forum thread to be very good and apparently well informed (at least to my limited degree-level physics level of understanding). If anyone’s thinking of contributing there the Chicken Little’s get short shrift – you need to back your opinions with thought! Ars Technica also has some good general articles on what’s going on.

I watched it hoping for some great insight and enlightenment but just got to the usual problem at 10:13 :-

“I don’t have the solution”. :?

I find it fascinating how the pro nuclear folk deny that this is serious

I’m not sure who the “pro nuclear folk” are – maybe linking to an article that’s not all “doom and gloom we’re all going to die” makes me one. I haven’t seen anyone deny that it’s serious, but to quote the BBC article –

“Even under this worst case, though, the direct health consequences of the nuclear accident would be very small compared with the thousands already killed by the earthquake and tsunami, let alone the continued suffering of the survivors”

The Japanese first commenter on the BBC article puts it well:

…the media craze about the Fukushima plant in the US and European countries has nothing but amazed me. People thousands of miles away are more hysteric than we here in Japan. It is hard to remain objective in the middle of the disaster and I am very grateful for this so far one and only voice that I have found in the media that is calm and tries to put things into perspective

Personally I’ve always thought that it’s a really bad idea to build nuclear reactors in areas prone to earthquakes such as Diablo Canyon and these Japanese ones. However, it appears from this incident that I may have been wrong; if minimising loss of life is your main criterion then preventing people from living in an earthquake zone should be your priority and the nuclear plant is almost an irrelevance.

Edit: I see that none of this is important any more, Elizabeth Taylor’s death has pushed it off the BBC front page.

Sensible article by the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12785274

envy, hatred of the public sector and lies are the issues

As someone who has a perfectly adequate pension provision and therefore has no reason to be envious I’d say the issue is more one of “I’m all right, Jack”, the attitude that made Britain the country it is today. :roll:

all those private sector loving STW folk who believe that just because they’ve got crap pensions, and this must be caused by halfway decent public sector pensions rather than the greediness of their own bosses

Haven’t actually come across one of these people yet. I’ve certainly never said, or heard anyone else say, that private sector pension problems are caused by public sector pension provision – that’s a quite bizarre statement, and in fact many private sector pensions are extremely good and a lot better than much of the public sector gets. Is “you’re only jealous” the only argument anyone’s got for not reforming public sector pensions to take into account demographic changes?

Perhaps they should just volunteer their services, not get paid out of your taxes and feel jolly lucky they still have a job working for you.

Not what I was saying at all. All I’m saying is that employment pensions should be properly funded and not left as a liability for future generations.

tEH FACTS ARE VERY DIFFERENT FROM THE INCESSANDT TROY PROPAGANDA FED TO THE PUBLIC TAHT MANY FOLK BELIEVE

oNE ASPECT FOR EXAMPLE IS THAT MOST PUBLIC SECOTR PNSIONS ARE LOW – A FEW THOUSAND A YEAR – AND THESE

TJ, you seem to have exploded. :?

TJ, I suspect you’ve been reading too much on that TUC web site. The current system is not sustainable unless we cut NHS funding enough to increase mortality rates or cut the number of public sector employees drastically.

A fair system, IMHO, would provide a dignified state pension for all and anything above that should be properly funded (i.e. not paid out of taxes). Why some people think they have some kind of right to make others pay for pensions based on their employment is beyond me.

Edit:

Come on… join the real world! is pretty much shorthand for that very sentiment

I’d read that more as saying what I said; that some people think themselves immune from demographic changes.

it baffles me that the shortcomings of the private pension swindle industry are being used as a stick to beat public sector workers

I’ve seen very little of this, even on this thread. What baffles me is why people with public sector pensions think they should be immune from what you describe as

the reality of the demographic challenges, cost, failure to grip the issue etc etc