are there no innovative, realist thinkers out there with workable ideas?

global pandemic ?

The problem with nukes is they destroy infrastructure as well. Reducing the economic potential of the area used.

What is need is some sort of massive global pandemic followed by population controls.

This will mean there are more resources per person and we might have a chance of providing a decent life for all.

It will be a bit like Britain after the black death where lack of labour lead to increased worker power and therefore workers wages and rights improved.

Sounds like the water was below freezing but hadnt froze to a solid.

But when you knocked it as the temperature was below freezing it all froze in one go.

Im Totally going to be shot down for asking this question but here goes.

Some of my wife family are from Austria so were going in september to Bad Ishl near salzburg.

Were hiring a car so will be able to travel, I’ve noticed the the bike parks in leogang and Wagrain and might go there. I doubt the wife will like them, as she’s not very confident on proper downhill and these look very downhill orientated.

I’ve been before and hired bikes in bad ishcl but I did find too much interesting mtbing. Although we did plenty of cycling

Basically I want to go somewhere like Swinley or Cannock where I can enjoy the riding by going fast and my wife can enjoy the riding by going slow ! These are my my wifes too favourite mtb spots.

Am I barking up the wrong tree asking for this in Austria.

I’ve a 20″ wheel dahon and that would be doable. The problem with small wheels is they dont roll so easily if the surface is poor and you really notice all the bumps.

I notice dahon have started producing some 24″ wheel bike recently which would probably be perfect for this sort of thing.

you can use the flat bar road shifters with a 9 speed rear mech if you want to keep rapid rise.

I managed to get a set for £25 on ebay but the price is very variable

I have to sit at my computer all day as a kind of war of attrition because it seems to be the only way i’ll get a reasonable amount done (which normally would have taken a ‘reasonable’ amount of time). I distract myself, get sick of myself, can’t think, it’s terrible. When I look through what I have done the next day, it normally seems pretty ok, solid work, but it was agonising to do, took all day and it’s not like it is world changing stuff,

I agree with all the above but then my understanding stopped. Normally when I start a project Im like this.

The immensity of the work to do, deciding where to start, the fact the finish line is so far away its seems like I’ve loads of time and having to do the background reading etc etc etc ..

There seems to me like a million reasons not to start something, the only time I do work solidly is when the project is coming to an end in terms of both timescales and work to do.

At that point Im much more focused everything I do seems one step closer to finishing and achieving something. I cant really understand not wanting to finish something once your’ve put all the initial effort in.

I can understand not wanting to put any effort in at all though.

So basically I have no understanding or advice to give you sorry…

If everybody descended at a speed within their abilities it would be fine.

But you know they’ll be some idiot who goes too fast for their skills.

Presumably this is what they mean by dangerous ?

When Im racing Im always keen to within my skill level downhill.
Your’ll only make seconds at most (probably milliseconds) going faster downhill, but if you crash(or someone crashes into you) your can easily waste 30 seconds to a minute getting back on the bike.

Or if you injured yourself its race over which makes all the effort put in before pointless.

Have Wifi only normally I want the latest and best and am disappointed if I dont have it.

But the kindle is a book reading device its not a web browser or anything else. Its for reading books. Therefore you dont need the 3g.

The only time I’d think you’d need it is on holiday but just make sure you buy plenty of book before hand.

Or you can use Openstreet map. http://www.openstreetmap.org/

If you have a decent phone with GPS you can try viewranger in combination with openstreetmap which is good for navigation.

There is the possibilty he might want to steal your bike you so you did the right thing.

The problem is for your first night out in years alone you’ve arranged to go to a take that concert.

Now you might have done this because you knew your wife wanted to go and your being extra kind (or because you have some kind of man crush on gary), but the problem is your MIL will assume you dont really want to go.

If it was a meal or something I doubt the MIL would be asking to come.

its good because its big, the best moment is always the night riding coming out of the smaller woods (west I think) and seeing all the lights from the campsite in the middle of know where.

?

Are you suggesting you got a refund and want to repurchase it ?

Or are you suggesting the shop what to charge you £20 for right size ?

what gets me is they seem quite happy until one of their mates die.

From what I’ve got they’ve killed lots of Taliban/Afgans but it does seem to register until one of their mates get killed.

Im not having a go at them for that, they would nt be very good soliders if they got all teary everytime they killed a man. But I’d expect them to have more respect for their enemy and their lives too.

Both weeks it has surprised me that they dont seem to realise how serious the situation until one of their mates dies.

I would expect them to be pretty sober or at least have some thought about the killing they are doing too. I could be wrong but I’d guess alot of the taliban are just young afganistany lads who basically dont have any work and have to sign up to get money same as the british lads.

I mean they were all getting worked up about the guy who died in the first week and seemed very surprised it had happened . But they said they’d just laid down 5 guys in the same confrontation, I’d be more surprised considering the number of taliban/afgans they were killing only one of them had got killed.

Maybe they are thinking things like this in their head but I suppose you cant say it to your fellow soliders as it would erode group moral.

I think thoose who mention “flow” are making an important point.

I love maps and reading them but reading a map on a bike is much more difficult than reading a map on foot. (ie you have to stop)

If I do want to go exploring an area then I have a map and a bike I can just head off why would I pay for an event ?

I pay for events because
1 like to compete against other people directly (ie I need to see them)
2 So I can be directed to some good trails , because no matter how good you are at reading a map you cant beat local knowledge.

Harsh (although the darkness comment was justified)

We all know carbon fiber is only strong in some directions.

It was just a video of him breaking a bike bit for a laugh.

You almost certainly won’t need a front ring any larger than 32t apart from fast road descents. 32t front by 11t rear is about 20mph when doing 90rpm; more than fast enough for most situations and definitely fast enough for 90% of off road situations. Anyone claiming differently is either flattering themselves or is an ‘expert’ category DH racer.

I sure your right, but how fast are you legs going at 20mph on 32-11 ?

The rate of population growth is exponential and if a fixed % of that population are into MTBing then the MTB population is also growing exponentially

The rate of population growth in the UK is not exponential. In some parts of the UK ie Liverpool population is dropping, and it was dropping in Scotland as a whole till recently.

UK population

Between 1975 and 1985 the population was basically stable. Shame it didnt stay that way.

Perhaps it could take the pressure off existing honeypots?
The only thing that will do that is if people stop riding there. I have. Have you?

I dont agree with this although the number of mtber’s is growing there personally I think there has to be a reasonable limit of people who are really into mtbing.

I know the population is growing particularly in the SE but I just cant see the numbers of MTBers growing exponential every year.

What some one needs to do is work out what percentage of the population are likely start mtbing, then what the average time they will spend mtb each year. Then what is the average distance they will travel and compare to population densities.

Personally I think a few more purpose built centres in the SE would be a good thing and will take the pressure off the current popular areas, with out us losing overall acess.

Just tell, her my dad died just before I was born. My mum just told me he was dead.

Funnily enough my understanding of death is probably as developed now as it was when I was 3-4. Ie I understood if you dead your not alive anymore.

What has changed is my understanding of life. At 3-4 I didnt really understand how long and complicated life is. I just thought you lived for a bit and then died soon after. Didnt worry me though.

Handle bars seem to have got alot heavier again recently. I have a sunline V1 25.4 thats only about 155grams.

There was a recall on the 31.8mm so I wonder if alot were failing and there’s decided to beef them up a bit esp as they are getting wider.

Still even though bars are getting wider 720-730mm is surely too wide to be considered an XC race bar ? Some racer still use 580mm bars.

I use 685mm wide bars and there was one race I was struggling to get through the trees when I got tired.

The Crank brothers cobalt 3 is fairly light for a good price.
click

but only goes to 680mm which personally seems about right too me.

This may already have happened and God may have created the universe in such a way that the sentient beings in the universe are pre disposed to believe in God.
You seem to be starting with the assumption that there is a god, and presenting a circular argument

No Im not

Well yes but as I said before in this context it is entirely appropriate. If you make a factual claim then you should be able to back it up. Why is that such a problem? If you say that it’s a belief of yours but you can’t back up it up with any proof then that’s fair enough as far as I’m concerned (I can’t speak for Mr Woppit) as it is not longer a statement of fact

Whats wrong with my argument above that the universe seems to construct more and more complex beings ?

What more do you want ? Surely its a possibility ?

I might be right I might be wrong.

The problem with saying just prove it, is some things cant be proven.

Godel incompleteness theorems

Probably more like without evidence the assumption that something does exist is wrong

Well I do have evidence us. Given enough time the process of the known universe seems to assemble creations that are sufficiently complex to start to understand the universe around them and how it works.

I suspect given infinite time (which may be a stumbling block or may not) these creations would become infinitely complex to the extent they will be able to create new universes in the same way the original universe was created.

They will be God to that universe. Im just extrapolating what I see.
This may already have happened and God may have created the universe in such a way that the sentient beings in the universe are pre disposed to believe in God.

Not at all. Atheism accepts that there may be a god. However, without evidence, it’s just noise. The probability that there is a god is so infinitesimally small that it’s as near to zero as makes no difference.

But, heck – all you have to do is demonstrate it…

Well surely god is an infinitely complex creation. If you were to believe there was more than 1 universe/parallel universes or reapeting universes we basically have infinite time. As complexity can self develop from simple components though repeating actions surely given infinite time god is sure to exist.

He’d probably then create a new universe to start things going again maybe to eventually make a new god as he’s lonely.

Definition of a Thesist : Believes they are right about everything
Definition of an Athesist : Believe everyone else is wrong about everything

that was a bit of poor sentence true.

Ok maybe Im not explaining my self right. I dont really care what other people think. Which is what alot of you seem to be interested in.

What Im actually interested in which approach to have myself thesist,athesist or agnostic. My vote is up for sale !

The little Q&A session above is more likely to be me putting myself in all three mind frames rather than another person.

No matter how I look at it all three approaches appear similar to me and there is no difference between them no approach is better than the other.

There do appear to be minor plus minus to each approach,

Thesist Disadvantage : no sex before marriage, advanatage : get to sing in nice building + traditional weddings + ready built community

Athesist Advantage : Sex before marriage, fit in on singletrack world : disadvantage : have to be an annoying git who tells everyone else what they believe is wrong

Q: Why does God exist?
Religionist: Does it matter? God created us out of love, and he loves us, which makes me really happy. What’s the problem here?

I totally disagree with this. But it might be true some religious people think like this. But then surely many atheists just think I exist Im happy whats the problem ?

And “I don’t know” is the atheist response, not “It just is that way”. Er, by the way…

Yes but the religious answer is I dont know as well.

But no explanation gives a good account of existence which is what I’m looking for.

Im just a bit annoyied at comments earlier suggesting I did n’t understand evolution

go on …

Explanation of existence

Q: Why does the world exist?
Theist : God decided to create the universe and everything in somehow.
Q: Why did god decide to do that and why does god exist ?
Theist : Oh, I dont know its just that way

Q: Why does the world exist?
Atheist : Void-BigBang-Delveopment of Universe-Planetsform-evolution-societies develop
Q: But what caused this to happen originally
Atheist : There may have been an infinite number of universes and this is the only one in which the right conditions exist.
Q : But what caused them universes to exist.
Atheist : Oh they may have been created inside black holes or be the results of the big crunch of another universe or them may all exist as once separatley in some kind of plane we dont understand or every quantum event might result in a new universe being created.
Q : But why did that process start ?
ATheist : Oh, I dont know its just that way

Q: Why does the world exist?
Agonist : I dont know its just that way

Result = same

“Complexity is evolved from simplicity”

are you lot joking ? Are you suggesting I dont understand evolution or how complex systems can develop from the repetition of simple actions ?

This is nt what I said at all. What I suggested is that currently a non-theistic explanation of existence has the same problem as a theistic explanation of existence.

Ie What was there before god ?

What was their before the big bang/void etc etc and dont bother giving me the there is no time before the big band I understand that but their presumably must be a cause and effect.

As I said the last thing I read on this seemed to be suggesting that actually the existence of something is actually more energetically favourable than the non existence of everything.

But still that seems to suggest there must have been something that caused the existence of something else I dont think we’ve got to the bottom of Why things exist and frankly I dont think science ever will.

It will still be the same flawed same argument as religious types have ie “its just because thats the way it is”

And frankly to me thats aa bad an explanation as because thats the way god made it to be honest its the same explanation in my mind.

that mans a hero

The only two answers to that question that I’ve come across are “they always existed” (a cop out) or the equivalent of “turtles all the way down” which is nonsensical

I agree with this, but the same argument seems to make sense for a non-thestic view to me.

Not to sure what the latest thinking is on the start of everything but I remember reading something in this book ->

click here

About the reason that there is something rather than nothing is because it is because given infintite time(except there was no time before the big band obviously) and fluctuations in an empty void it is likely that is more energetically stable to have something rather than nothing hence something becomes into existences.

But it just seems to be the same arugment to me.

What was their before the world ? An empty space slow collecting enough material in the solar system to form a planet. What was there before the solar system ? A high density glump of matter left over from the irregularities of the big band. What was there before the big bang ? A possibly another big bang possibly an empty void with random fluctuations that meant that something must exist. What was there before the void, hmm we dont know yet but its stuff all the way back.

At the moment I just cant comprehend this stuff and frankly a god is a good as explanation as any. In that I cant understand it.

Ask most Christians – churchgoing Christians – to name you the Ten Commandments, and they’d typically get about half. A survey I saw maybe a decade ago reckoned that only around 25% of Christian clergy could name them all.

In all fairness the 10 commandments are judaism not Christianity. Christianity still thinks the Old testament is important but that the new testament has replaced it. This is the closest in the new testaments I reckon :

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” [Matt22:37-40]

Jesus(ie Christianity) was nt all that big on commandments to be fair ie

“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27)

Also in response to the first point I reckon most Jews probably could recite the ten commandments. Both Jews and Muslims are very keen on learning the law/bible/quran, Christianity from its birth was very much more about the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law. So its probably a good thing that those Christains you mention earlier cant recite the 10 commandments.

Uplift companies need to invent uphill riding. Its like Downhill but the opposite.

This means they could double their profits and efficency by selling Downlifts as well Uplifts.

I dont think the 45c borough are really any where near 45mm