Blondie – Heart of Glass

As mentioned above, cleanliness is crucial. Basically, the fermentation conditions which best suit yeast also suit bacteria (and random wild yeasts which may be present in the air), and these can lead to ‘off’ flavours in your beer.

Bottling is a bit of a hassle, as you have to clean, sanitise and rinse all the bottles, but it’s a cheap way to get into home-brewing. You can always get into kegs later on – if you’re going to get into it long-term then kegs are much less hassle (but relatively expensive to get set up with, hence the need for long-term use to get your money’s worth).

You can get some very drinkable beer from kits. Ale is generally more forgiving than lager, so stick with that until you get more experience. Usually the yeast that comes with kits is a generic one that they chuck in with every kit, lager or ale. As a general rule, chuck out the yeast that comes with it, visit your local homebrew shop and buy some decent yeast specific to the type of beer you are brewing.

Avoid using table sugar if possible, buy the same weight of light unhopped spray malt (aka light dry malt extract, or LDME). This is also a sugar, but is derived from malted barley rather than sugar cane. Table sugar can add unwanted flavours, whereas LDMA will add extra malt flavour to your beer.

Finally, try to maintain a constant temperature during fermentation. Big fluctuations can often lead to various by-products which can affect the flavour of your beer. Usually 18-20deg C is good for ales, or about 10C for lagers.

and

LCD, edge-lit LED and true/full LED are all just LCD screens with different sorts of back-lighting.

In an LCD TV the light that is emitted from the screen comes from a series of very thin fluorescent tubes which sit against a white background, behind the screen. They generate a fairly even white light which hits the inside of the screen. Each of the LCDs is effectively a tiny window which allows light through. The voltage passing over the LCD affects the opacity, thus allowing more or less light through depending on how bright that particular pixel is supposed to be. Each pixel is actually three (or four) LCDs of different colours, but that’s irrelevant for the explanation of LCD vs LED.

The LEDs in the middle get most of their light from the white screen/fluorescent tubes directly behind them, but also gets some ‘leaked’ light from just above, below, left and right of it. The LEDs at the edges of the screen are not evenly surrounded by this back-light source, because part of their surroundings is off the edge of the screen and therefore there is no back-light coming from there. For example a pixel on the left of the screen will only have leaked light from above, below and from the right of it.

For this reason the edges of an LED screen can appear slightly less bright than the middle. This is where side-lit LED TVs come in. These have rows of LEDs along the edges to boost the back-light for the pixels near the edge so it matches the centre. Edge-lit LED TVs are basically LCD TVs with LEDs along the edges to even out the back-lighting.

True LED TVs replace the fluorescent tube back-lighting with an array of LEDs. On first thought you’d expect that this would have the same edge drop-off as your basic LCD screen, but since the light output of each LED can be controlled individually, those at the edge can be made brighter than those in the middle, thus compensating for the dimness at the edge. Another benefit is that for large dark areas of the screen, multiple LEDs can be turned off to give a deeper black (rather than the LCD having to block out the light, the light is switched off or dimmed). So true LED TVs are just LCD TVs with better back-lighting.

Plasma TVs, on the other hand, are not back-lit. Each pixel is made up of a tiny wee neon light bulb (and/or possibly argon, or some other noble gas) which is switched on and off. The phosphors on the inside of the bulb determine the colour of the light, so you have your red, green and blue bulbs for each pixel.

That’s how I understand it, anyway.

We’ve just bought a plasma (Panasonic TH-P50ST30Z) as we thought it had a sharper image, deeper blacks and handled fast-moving images better (eg sports) than anything else we could afford. Other opinions are available.

I occasionally get temporary tinnitus, apparently at random. I can just be sitting at my desk, or exercising, or pretty much anything, and all of a sudden I get a loud whistling noise in one ear or the other – never both. It can last anything from a few minutes to all day – after a night’s sleep it will have disappeared.

I found (no idea how) that I can often get rid of it if, immediately after it starts, I can close my eyes and concentrate on the sound. I visualise a sine wave and attempt to ‘tune it in’ to the frequency of the whistling (as I type this I realise how daft/surreal this actually sounds!) by allowing it to run across my vision until it seems to slow and become a static wave like you might see on an oscilloscope. If I can get it to match the frequency (which is complete bollox anyway, as I have no idea what the frequency of the tinnitus sound is, but it makes sense at the time) it usually goes away. If I can’t get it within a minute or two of it starting, I’m stuck with it until it decides to disappear.

No idea how/why this works, but it usually does. And not really very helpful to those with a proper tinnitus problem, but thought I’d throw it in the mix…

Ordered a bike from them just before I moved to NZ. Staff were very helpful, due to some indecision by yours truly it was a bit of a last-minute purchase and they made sure it arrived in time to go into the container :)

Yep, four miles each way every day, regardless of weather. My wife drives every day, parks in my parking space at work and then walks the couple of hundred metres to her office. I just prefer cycling, get some fresh air, some exercise, get to see some wildlife (seals, penguins, birdlife, and even orcas on one occasion). On winter evening I get time to appreciate the sunsets over the harbour. I reckon people who drive are nuts, really :)

My attitude is summed up by the this ‘joke’ I heard a while back…

Teacher: “What do you want to be when you grow up, Tom?”
Tom: “I want to be an astronaut, miss”
Teacher: “Very good, and what about you, Alice?”
Alice: “I want to be a lawyer, miss”
Teacher: “Good choice, Alice. What about you Billy, what do you want to be?”
Little Billy: “I want to be happy, miss”
Teacher: “I don’t think you understand the question, Billy”
Little Billy: “No miss, I think you don’t understand life”

We quit Barclays four or five years ago because they introduced one of these things, except you had to insert your card into it so it was the size of a small calculator rather than just credit card sized.

We’re currently with HSBC but have heard nothing about this new gadget. We managed to wrangle a free permanent ‘upgrade’ to HSBC Premier though, so maybe they don’t like to bother their economy-plus customers with the widget thingy? I’ll be annoyed if we end up getting them though, although we live in NZ now so only use the HSBC accounts a couple of times a year.

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Moth 1[/url] by W Hyde[/url], on Flickr

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Moth Eye 2[/url] by W Hyde[/url], on Flickr

Don’t think we have any bluebells here in NZ, and it’s autumn anyway. Here’s a fave pic of mine from the FoD a few years back:
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My wife is bloody good at what she does (civil engineering) and is making fast tracks up the career tree. I (traffic engineering, whatever the f£$% that is) am happy idling away without much progress, but making good money. Sprog #1 on the way, and I can’t wait to retire and be a house husband, which suits everyone. Bring it on :)

Right place, right time, my wife was on the same train as the 7/7 London bombers, she was lucky enough that she got off a couple of stops before they set the bombs off, so she wasn’t still on board. It made me realise how random life is.

The Foos playing in Auckland to support Chch this weekend, but the wife is in the club so I’ll be in the bad books if I abandon her… grrr life suks sometimes. Still, got it easy compared to many Cantabrians so will still happily pay over the odds for a ticket I won’t get :)

I’m in NZ, North Island – TV news is saying that elec is off in most of Chch, and phone networks are overloaded. They are asking people to text if possible rather than ring as it uses less bandwidth, and if you find out that someone is safe, post on their facebook wall etc. to say so, so others can see that they are safe and won’t continue to clog the networks trying to contact them(they’re unlikely to be able to post to say they’re ok due to no elec and jammed mobile networks).

65 dead so far according to the PM.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/image.cfm?c_id=1&gal_objectid=10708043&gallery_id=116912#7379726

I used to love walking through here as part of my commute when I worked in London
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St Pancras[/url] by W Hyde[/url], on Flickr

Me and my wife moved out here almost three years ago on a bit of a whim. No complaints about living in the UK, we just fancied a change, found jobs over here, sold the house and car and moved out here. This was just before the global economy turned to custard though. We love it, and have no plans to move back. We live in Tauranga (North Island). Here are a few random thoughts, some of which address your questions…

As others have said, the economic outlook here is uncertain – as it is in much of the rest of the world these days – but IMO, based on speaking to friends and family back in the UK, NZ seems to have had it pretty easy by comparison.

I find life here much the same as UK in many ways, except that outside of the Mon-Fri 9-5, and with hardly any effort, it’s like being on holiday, all the time. (It probably helps that we live right next to the beach, and that our part of town (Mt Maunganui) fancies itself as a bohemian, surfy, arty sort of village.)

The weather is generally better than in the UK, but that’s not to say we don’t get crap weather. It can be pretty windy for long periods (Wellington in partiuclar is known for being excessively windy), and I’ve never seen rain in the UK as torrential as I’ve seen it here, but then parts of the N. Island are sub-tropical (I think the north of the N Island is even classed as tropical) so it’s to be expected. There is generally a lot more sunhine, IME. There is also a lot more UV, thanks to us sitting slap bang under the hole in the ozone layer (remember that?) so you’ll get through a lot of sunscreen.

The standard of driving here is lower than the UK (not saying that it’s great in the UK though…). I think that in order to pass your driving test you have to prove that you can a) drive at 80-90 in a 100km/h zone then, when you get to a passing lane, speed up to 110 to prevent anyone from overtaking, before slowing again when the road narrows and b) pull out from driveways or intersections into the small gap between the penultimate and last car in a bunch of cars, causing the last car in line to have to brake hard, despite there being a large and safe gap behind the last car. Under no circumstances must you allow other cars to get in the way of you making progress in this situation. Also you have to demonstrate a healthy disregard for cyclists, and try to take the racing line through all corners, even when you can’t see round said corner, and it requires you to cross the centreline. On the other hand, there is very little congestion, especially if you don’t live in Auckland, Welly of Chch, and even there it’s light compared to any UK city.

NZ doesn’t have a RoW network like the UK, so you can’t just pick up an OS map and head out exploring, but there is still a ton of good walking and riding, both trail-centre and back-country stuff.

You can still get dial-up internet access, and a lot of people don’t see why you’d need anything more… Fibre-optic is available in some cities, ADSL is pretty much everywhere, but it’s expensive and you generally pay by bandwidth (volume) and speed.

Mobile phones are generally not subsidised by the providers like they are in the UK, so expect to pay close to full retail for a new phone, unless you’re happy to sign up for 18-24 months. Having said that, mobiles are still considered as utility devices, rather than mobile entertainment systems, so most people just have basic phones for ringing and texting (or maybe that’s just my friends and colleagues??). Mobile internet is not a big thing. These last few things are slowly changing though, I’ve noticed it even in the three years we’ve been here, and companies are selling the entertainment side of things. Maybe it’s just because I’m too old (at 32) to be interested in the latest new-fangled HD-ready mp4-playing internet phone?

Crime… happens, not that I’ve been on the wrong end of it though. But then I don’t recall ever being the victim of a crime in the 29 years I lived in the UK either. There are gangs – the Mongrel Mob, Filthy Few etc, they seem to drive around on motorbikes and make and distribute “P” (methamphetamine) but I’ve never seen any gang trouble personally. Other than that there’s the usual graffiti, petty theft, random muggings etc that you get in the UK. I don’t think it’s any better or worse than the UK, but don’t have any stats to back that up.

Most places, even the big cities, are small, and cycle-commuting is often feasible. I cycle every day, have great views of the harbour and I’ve seen a seal, dolphins and orcas (aka killer whales) on my way in to work. I also see little blue penguins most weeks while out in my kayak.

I’ve only had limited experience of the health service here (and almost no experience of it in the UK, I’m rarely ill and have been very lucky accident-wise), doc’s visit costs $40ish, prescriptions are v cheap though. I had a sudden-onset back pain while playing squash a few months ago, couldn’t walk, and couldn’t raise my legs while sitting. The ambulance took me to hospital, docs gave me a check-over and determined it was either a pulled muscle or cramp, and off I toddled. It cost me nothing. Dental surgery, on the other hand, costs a fortune (as the wife found out). Expect to pay $150 for a check-up, and several hundred for a filling, a grand or more for a removal or root canal. The standards, however, are top notch. Expect the dentist, on your first visit, to look in your gob, roll his/her eyes, and say “NHS?” in a faintly accusatory manner.

I miss old stuff. Most buildings are less than 100 years old, and only a handful are older than 150yrs.

There is a lot of good music on the radio, not just commercial pop tat. When I say good, you need to have a tolerance for AC-DC, but inbetween their tracks rock/metal gets a sizeable amount of airtime, which I like :)

I find that people here are a lot more active. In the UK, being active in more than one sport on a regular basis made you the odd-one-out, or that’s how it seemed to me. Here, we play squash a couple of times a week, mountain bike regularly, I bought myself a kayak and go for a paddle or a fish most weekends, I play for the local hockey team over winter, the mrs plays touch rugby and netball, we play beach volleyball after work for two nine-week spells each summer. This seems to be quite a normal amount of activity over here. If you go out on the beach-front road here early in the morning you’ll see plenty of parents out for a run, pushing a pushchair along as they go! Triathlons and multi-sport events (i.e mtb/kayak/run) are very popular and accessible.

Holy giant post, Batman. Sorry for the stream-of-consciousness waffle, hope it helps. Also, spend a few hours browsing ENZ[/url], there’s a whole load of useful advice there.

The aches and pains are your body’s way of telling you you’ve done some exercise and that it’s recovering. Say it takes five days for the pain to go after the first run, do another run on the fifth day, and you’ll probably find it only takes three or four days for the pain to go. Run again on the first pain-free day, and so on, and after a few weeks you’ll soon find that you could run every day if you wanted to without aches and pains.

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Rockhopper[/url] by W Hyde[/url], on Flickr

The mrs and I had a week in Zanzibar at the end of our honeymoon. Climbed Kilimanjaro the first week, went on safari for a week then had a week of chilling on the beach to finish with. Top place. Make sure you book a night or two in Stone Town as well as at time at the beach (beaches are at the north of the island IIRC), it’s well worth exploring.

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Feeding time[/url] by W Hyde[/url], on Flickr

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Mantis[/url] by W Hyde[/url], on Flickr

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Pink[/url] by W Hyde[/url], on Flickr

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Snorkelling[/url] by W Hyde[/url], on Flickr

After a recent trip back to the UK (from NZ), on the flight back from Auckland to Tauranga Richard O’Brien of Crystal Maze and Rocky Horror Picture Show fame was on our flight. And we stood next to him at the baggage carousel, but were too awe-stuck to talk to him.

Spotted this chap in Tanzania…

Patio needs weeding, the bench should be centred between the trellises and a quick run round with a broom wouldn't go amiss.

Bike looks great, btw, white looks good. I'd take razor blade to the swingarm logo though, lose the lines behind the word 'five'.

Saw a seal playing around in the harbour last year (Tauranga, NZ), just a couple of yards from the cycle path. Me and a random passer-by stood and watched it for a few minutes then it swam off. Made my day.

Photography is a hobby of mine and I wanted to get some experience of shooting action shots, so I went along to a local DH practise day. I asked the guy organising it if it was ok to take some pics, he said yep fine, just stay off the course (i.e. stay off the lines the guys are riding in case they crash into you). I asked they riders if they were ok with it, particularly the flash going off. They said yeah, no worries, so off I toddled.

It was a very useful day out for me, I learned a few things and saw some excellent riding. Afterwards I asked the riders about the flash, they said they never even saw me. I sent the organiser copies of the pics (well, the decent ones, anyway), he was stoked.

Couple of shots from an early ride in the Hertfordshire Alps a couple of years back. Chrome grey colour, I'm still undecided as to whether I should've got something a bit brighter. Some days it looks classy and understated, other days it just looks dull.

Ok, admittedly they're not great shots for checking out the colour, but I like them :)

The wife and I have been here (Tauranga, North Island) for two years and love it. We hadn't been here before, we just sold the house and car and moved out (having arranged jobs first, so we had residency visas).

As mentioned above, a lot of people seem to see NZ as some sort of nirvana, and try to escape whatever they perceive to be making them unhappy in the UK or wherever they happen to be. I guess this is partly down to some excellent PR work by NZ Tourism, who seem to have successfully promoted NZ as an outdoor sports wonderland where the sun always shines and there's no crime or pollution etc etc.

NZ is much the same as the UK in many ways – mostly good but with a few shitty bits. Occasionally it can be a bit 'get up, go to work, come home, dinner in front of the telly, go to bed, repeat'. But more often – much more often for us – it's like being on holiday, except you have to go to work. Sometimes we come home from work and walk down to the beach for a sunset stroll. We can surf before & after work. There is excellent MTBing less than an hour away at Rotorua, and some very good stuff 15mins away on the edge of town. In Winter we can leave our house and 4hrs later be sitting on the lift up the mountain with boards on our feet, so an easy weekend away is a frequent thing.

Most of these things can be achieved in the UK, if you know where to look, though. And some of the negatives people have pointed out are true:
– Bands you like won't play here often, and if they do it'll likely be one show in Auckland and one show in Wellington, both of which will sell out in 10 minutes;
– Same goes for theatre/musicals and other artsy stuff;
– Drink driving is still socially acceptable, although getting less so;
– There is a big gang culture in some places, although my only interaction in two years has been to see some yoofs in gang colours hanging out in a park as I drove through some small hick town. It's no worse than any UK city I reckon;
– A lot of housing is woefully under-insulated, and double-glazing is rare (although is now compulsory for new builds I believe).
– Interest rates are way higher than the UK.

Also, you can't just pop over to Yerp for a weekend of culture in some old city. But you can just pop over to Samoa or Tonga for an island break.

Overall though, we love it here. I think we were lucky in that we came here with no expectations, and had the option of just going home if we didn't like it (Obviously everyone can do that, but we were relatively well placed financially, don't have kids, and could have easily got jobs again back in the UK).

Basically don't expect to come here and find the answer to everything. And even something like picking the wrong town can make the difference. We have friends who moved out to Auckland, lived there for a year and got fed up with city life, and decided to move back to the UK. On their way they came and stayed in Tauranga with some friends, and loved it. They regretted having made the decision to go back, as they realised it was Auckland they didn't like, rather than NZ.

I suggest you have a lurk on vorb.org.nz for a bit, which is the equivalent of STW over here. See what people moan about, and also the cool stuff that goes on. Feel free to PM me if you have any specific questions.

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Grum – love that first one, at first glance I thought 'blimey, what crap composition, that gert big rock takes up half the fra… hang on a sec, what's that on the rock??' I like the way it draws the focus from the scenery to the carvings…

I have mono-minis on my Five which have never squealed in the two years I've had them. And the Shimano 525s on my old Rockhopper have always been excellent. I think I've bled them once in six years, and that was just because they were my first hydraulic brakes and I was curious to see how to bleed them, they didn't actually need bleeding. Haven't had alignment issues with either.
The wife's Juicy 7s had about 4 years of hassle-free running then suddenly went pear-shaped, rubbing constantly and squealing. Took a bit of fettling but they're back to normal now.

About £2 a month for two of us. But then we live in NZ (pay $5 ish a month) so not really a useful comparison… :wink:

Yep, me and the mrs sold up and moved to NZ two years ago, having never been here before. We love it, don't plan on going back any time soon, but wouldn't rule it out. We didn't move here to get away from anything, we just fancied a change.

We once found some lad halfway round FTD at Cannock with his rear mech in his spokes, and the chain jammed between his cassette and spokes right down near the hub, seizing it up. We split the chain either side of the jam, rejoined it round a reasonable gear and gaffa-tape & zip-tied what was left of the mech to the chainstay to make a tensioner. It was still a bit ropey but it got him round the rest of the trail. Whether he'd have been better off walking than fixie-ing is a whole other question though…

My best mate when I was a kid claimed to be Lemmy from Motörhead's nephew.