Don’t buy a Hisense…

Yep, ours is working OK (except for disassembling it to get some glass out of the pump, that was my fault), but the plastics are rubbish, the door seal keeps coming loose and the metal baskets are slowly losing their powdercoat and rusting away. Started a couple of months after the warranty ended.

Wish I’d spent a bit more but it was during the first lockdown and I just bought what was available and able to be delivered.

My dad bought a 993 cab when he retired, although this was after several years in a mk3 MR2 and a Fiat Coupe before that. Not so many trackdays now, but between the Porsche Club GB and their local motoring club there’s lots of stuff to go to or get involved with if that’s your bag. I think if I had something like that my stage in life I’d never use it. At least 911s mostly make a good daily driver if you don’t need to carry too much stuff.

Dog travels OK in theirs on the shelf behind the front seats when you fold down the rear seat backs.

It’s had plenty of work done to it, engine rebuild, suspension refresh, new hood etc but that’s all cost less than the rise in value. Buy the right thing and it needn’t be expensive overall to run for a few years.

Shame no Thibault Laly, he looked really strong in the Pinkbike/Sleeper doc about this year’s cancelled one.

Really good to see a decent women’s lineup too. Looking forward to seeing the course.

The risk/reward economics are interesting, it’s one of the biggest events on the calendar for marketing and exposure – with DH teams and budgets shrinking, I guess some are thinking beyond UCI points.

Used/refurb Aeron. I think prices have calmed down now after the great WFH rush. 

The Tim Wheeler & Emmy The Great “This is Christmas” album is a favourite of mine. https://music.apple.com/gb/album/this-is-christmas/1451941430

When I needed £4k in cash, First Direct just increased my cash machine limit and I took it out of a machine in the HSBC branch. I believe Monzo and the like can do the same.

MSE have a nice summary of the packaged accounts but I’ve always found it better to get the cover I need elsewhere. https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/best-packaged-bank-accounts/

They’ve actually been through a total of five iPods already I think… didn’t know it was possible to replace the batteries. Might do that too.

It’s a bit of a pain to get the back off, particularly if you want it to stay perfect after. Thin flexy metal scraper and there’s a lot of good guides online for exactly where the clips are.

Once you’re in, super easy to swap over the battery and most aftermarket ones are higher capacity too.

This thread prompted me to dig out my very well-used iPod classic from the depths of the drawer of old tech. Battery was knackered so £10 on a new one, and an unnecessary purchase of one of the iFlash cards that lets you replace the hard disk with a SD card. All back together, synced up and working great again. Think I’ll pick out a bunch of music to put on it and try it out with the 8 year old.

Run an Ethernet cable to one of the speakers by the router. If you do that the rest run their own WiFi network between them (like the old Bridge units) which might work better.

Decathlon snow boots? Should be easy to slip on and £20.

https://www.decathlon.co.uk/p/men’s-warm-waterproof-snow-boots-sh100/_/R-p-108105?mc=8344304

Bought a couple of spare headsets, the weird internal routing ones that my Vitus ebike uses. Partly because they’re cheap (£2.99 upper, £9.99 lower), partly because I reckon the industry will have moved on from this terrible idea by the time I really need one.

There’s usually a credit card offering 18+ months interest free – so usually buy on that and just set up a DD to cover each fraction of the cost to get to zero by the end.

Mine has a 30W charger so need at least a USB C PD charger that delivers at least that much. Most ones for phones etc will be lower rated.

Assuming you’ve already got a USB C cable handy this will do: https://www.amazon.co.uk/UGREEN-Charger-Foldable-Compatible-Macbook/dp/B0B7B71Y5V/ref=sr_1_14?crid=19PBMND83I7OR&keywords=usb+c+pd+charger&qid=1701877311&sprefix=usb+c+pd+charger%2Caps%2C78&sr=8-14

Or for a bit more I like these for travel, can charge up plenty of things at once including the MacBook: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Anker-Charger-4-Port-MacBook-Laptops-Black/dp/B098X7X251/ref=sr_1_14?crid=33NGNEAESB48M&keywords=usb+c+pd+charger+anker&qid=1701877406&sprefix=usb+c+pd+charger+anker%2Caps%2C88&sr=8-14

I liked Vice City too, it’s funny how eras of my life line up with GTA releases. Had a lot more time back in the Vice City and San Andreas time.

V I only got around to playing about 3 years ago – absolutely no interest in the online/competitive play stuff, just played the main storyline and some side missions along the way but once it was done, happy to put it down after 50 hours or so. Did the same with RDR2 this year.

Waze lets you route for motorcycles, and has an “avoid difficult junctions” option that’s worth a go.

No routes are ideal, I’d be inclined to get to the A23 and follow it in – at least a lot of it is wider with bus lanes.

I believe that Bosch one is discontinued, not sure Shimano and others have ever offered them.

Found the company I was thinking of: https://powerbutler.de

Yes, right leisure battery setup will do it.

There’s a company that I can’t remember right now who make a DC-DC charger for ebikes, and has swappable cables for the various standards. Saves an inverter going up to 240v AC only for the charger to bring it back to DC again.

Don’t think so, iCloud sync is all or nothing. But they don’t take up space on your phone, it downloads them as you look at them.

If you don’t want them there, may be worth creating another library for the old photos – option-click Photos app to get the dialog for creating a new one. https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/photos/pht6d60b524/mac

I do mine on the Stepwgn just because the local garages don’t know what it is or trust that it takes the standard Honda oil filter. If I’m ordering a filter then I may as well get the oil and DIY it too.

The easiest way is to buy a Lidl oil pump that can pump it directly out of the dipstick tube into a container, but that only really helps if you have an oil filter you can access from the tip of the engine.

I got one of these, they work really well. I still take the drain plug out but usually there’s just a little bit left and better than being doused in warm oil.

Eurocarparts or GSF tend to have offers on much of the year, if they’ve emailed a coupon and it’s coming up to service time I get the bits in.

Quite a lot of cheap mini/micro systems and boombox things will play MP3s these days, either burned on CD (so 10 albums or so) or on a USB stick. Or there’s probably enough old 2000s/10s era iPods and other MP3 players languishing in drawers – worth asking around family and friends.

You can still buy new MP3 players – something like the Sandisk Clip Jam is £30, 8GB storage and expandable with microSD cards, nice simple interface, goes for 18 hours on battery. https://www.westerndigital.com/en-gb/products/mp3-players/sandisk-clip-jam

+1 on stand up to the jump.

(this one):

I fitted a humidistat fan too, xpelair one that was about £60.

Have it on a low timer and slower fan speed so can barely hear it on the middle-of-the-night toilet visits. After a shower it just stays on for as long as it needs to until the humidity drops again.

These are the highest weight capacity I’ve seen at 23kg but that’s still battery-out weight on a lot of e-bikes and I wouldn’t fancy getting it up there.

https://www.roofbox.co.uk/scripts/rbvehsel4_tab.php/car-specific-accessories/inno_tyre_hold_bike_carrier_no_ina389/Qx@w,6M42VAwp3@Rb%7B~cC4urewyWXI

Yep, we have a Brother colour laser too, bought it about 5 years ago when there were silly cashback deals on them. Had gone through quite a few cheap inkjets that usually cost a fortune in ink and broke after a few years.

Don’t have to think about it at all. Spends most of its time in deep sleep (well under 1W) and wakes up when we print. Put some paper in every few hundred sheets, toner every few thousand. Windows, Macs, phones, etc just find it and print with no driver faff.

Local library does printing for 10p/sheet which probably works out better if it’s very rare usage. I find most of the parcel services now can do printing the label for you too.

A neighbor had the same after moving their plate to a newer (compliant) car. Easily sorted with TfL though.

As far as I know Euro 3 was required by 2008 for motorcycles so not sure how you’d have a bike over that from a decade later. Manufacturers in the late 00s seemed a bit lax on registering that correctly though, I had to sort out a certificate of compliance for my 2007 bike to register it as ULEZ compliant as it wasn’t showing euro 3 on the V5.

Tideace FM-M068 is 27.5, 67 degree head angle, boost axle spacing, plenty of room (up to 3″ tyre claimed) and weight suggests pretty sturdy. 530mm a-c so OK for a 140mm fork?

I sometimes do an early or late call and have no qualms about taking the time back later. But then I can be pretty flexible anyway.

I know it can be hard to influence others towards it but I’m a fan of the Basecamp founders’ approach to comms – their book or articles like their internal comms guide. I try to use that where I can, flesh out and write up ideas and let people digest before jumping straight into discussing, and trying to get others to do the same rather than starting out with a call. Async as much as possible, which is extra important when you’re working across timezones.

Keep to two pages tops, ideally one. What you did as a junior whatever role 20+ years ago isn’t relevant at all. Half a page for the latest job, couple of lines for the previous, brief summary (as in dates, job title, company) of ones older that that.

It’s to get them interested enough to give you a call or invite for interview, if they want more about the older stuff then they can ask for it then.

I would have recommended the Holiday Inn Maidenhead. Has a pool, decent breakfast, often do deals with Legoland tickets. Not in Slough. Not a travellodge. Marlow’s 10 mins down the road for truly great pub food. However it appears to be completely closed for some reason, anyone know why?

Home Office has been block-booking it for the last 18+ months to house refugees.

We stayed in the Premier Inn Slough Central to split our two days at Legoland – car park nearby, pizza express just around the corner but plenty of other good options nearby. And the huge Tesco up the road to stock up on sandwiches and snacks for the following day.

Went to A and Symposium in Camden too. Watched A from the balcony and headed down in the break, ended up a couple from the front so went with it. Not done that in ages, still a bit sore this morning. I’m happy to go and see them play every November if they want to keep doing it!

Saw Ben Folds at Royal Albert Hall on Monday too, good setup with the band and guests even if his playing was suffering a bit (rest of euro tour cancelled with tendinitis). Hadn’t heard of Tall Heights, who were being his guitarist and cellist, but I’ve listened to them a lot this week, really enjoying. Bit gutted I can’t make it to their own show tonight.

Local club do a day trip to France, although the carpark they use doesn’t allow overnight. There’s a few private driveways on justpark within 10 mins ride of Dover port though.

Process at the port is here: https://www.portofdover.com/ferry/cyclists/

The 32GB base on earlier ipads was a bit limiting, but the 64GB base on the 9th gen is enough for most people. iPlayer/netflix/etc downloaded video for offline viewing is about 600MB an hour so you can have quite a few apps/games and plenty of video to watch offline while you travel.

If you use exposure then they do a wired redeye light that connects to your front one. Just one thing to charge and one place to see remaining runtime.

That’s a shame. I only got to watch two DH rounds live this year though, and £80+ a year for Discovery+ is a bit much for that – although if you can switch it on and off then it’s less than 6 months (£42) to cover the DH calendar and you could even switch off for much of July and August.

I’ll probably just go back to watching highlights and Cathro’s videos though.

Buying an M1 powered one today should last a fair while. But probably not as long as a base (9th gen) £300ish iPad, and £500 left in the bank to buy another in 5+ years time.

I’m happy with my Apple Watch (still on a series 5). If you take it off at night then charging not a problem – just drop it on the charger and wake up with it full. Lasts the day fine.

I mostly use apple pay on the watch for public transport, saves getting a phone or wallet out. Use it a lot on my phone too, hardly ever get a physical card out these days.

I wore it at night when we were camping as no pockets by our bed and it was handy to be a torch if the kids were up in the night. I’ve kept it up since for the sleep tracking – I tend to wear it during the day until activity rings are filled up then put it on the charger until bed. Since a few years back they do a 45 minute charge from 0-80%, a friend just sticks it on the charger first thing when he gets up, by the time he’s had a shower and got ready to leave for work there’s plenty for the day and the next night. Another friend kept an older AW and just swaps at bedtime, the sleep tracking doesn’t use much battery so even an old one with an ailing battery is fine for it.

Yes, as above. You can have a separate mini CU but there still needs to be cable going to where you want the charger. If you’re fussy about appearance then go with a electrician who can offer some creative options on how to run it rather than one of the fixed price merchants.

The chargers all have to be smart these days but the other factors these days are if you’ll be wanting to integrate with solar (look to something like Zappi) or if you want to use smarter tariffs like Octopus Agile or Intelligent (so something like Ohme). Else just get the one you dislike the looks of least.

I use whichever of Airalo or Nomad has the best deal for where I’m going.

Screwfix/Leyland garage floor paint worked well for me. It does need fairly warm weather though, now the temperatures have dropped it could take absolutely ages to cure properly.

Would probably go for something like Resincoat https://www.resincoat.co.uk/en/5-floor-paint – it’s ok to apply down to 7 degrees.

Yeah, it works fine. Once another SIM is active you get a bunch of new options so you can have a default SIM for calls but override on a per-contact basis. Data can be using just one or use the second as backup if you lose signal on the primary.