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Tomm

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Posts posted by Tomm

  1. Went out for a drive in my friend's Evo9 FQ360. What an obscene car that is, total monster. I can't really get on with the way it looks, and it costs a small fortune to run, but it's sooo much fun. You can buy a car that will worry a 911 GT3 for around 11 grand? Madness! It might be time to chop in the Civic for something a bit meatier...

    • Like 1
  2. Jardo:

    1) Read this - http://xkcd.com/386/

    2) Watch this -

    3) Decide whether it's more important to be right (and make sure everyone knows it) or to be civil/friendly/nice. If you were wrong more often, people would like you more.

    P.S. I'm aware that this is me giving Jardo advice he didn't ask for, when we're criticising him for doing just that to someone else. The irony has not escaped me.

    P.P.S. Jardo on this one I think you are actually right. But the way you go about stating your point is just unnecessary and incendiary.

    • Like 2
  3. No-brainer in my mind. Your rock rider is a very average frame with nice parts, and with the giant frame there wouldn't be any weak link really. The Trance X frame is standard I think, so it's the same frame that comes on the Trance X1 which is a £2.5k bike (Maybe a different shock?). Giant's Maestro link is effectively a DW-link design so it'll be much more active than your single pivot. Get it changed over!

  4. That's not that bad a time you know. A decent pace if you're alone is 16-17mph ish so your 14mph on a reasonably hilly ride is pretty respectable for a first time.

    You'll be fine for the 55. Just keep to the same pace / slower. Stick in a group if you can, but don't get caught in a race with anyone.

  5. One freewheel goes on which can freewheel clockwise and the other one freewheels anticlockwise

    I don't think that's right. Both rear sprockets freewheel normally, in the same direction (clockwise = drive, anticlockwise = freewheel). The bike can freewheel rolling forwards.

    Pedalling normally (clockwise) pulls the chain clockwise across the smaller sprocket which engages and drives the wheel. The chain then goes around the pulley and back round the larger sprocket in reverse direction, which spins (anticlockwise) freely.

    Pedalling backwards engages the larger sprocket clockwise so still moves the bike forwards. The chain returns via the smaller sprocket freewheeling as it spins anticlockwise.

    I love it. Really want a go!

    That trials bike is weird though. Pedalling backwards when you're trying to E.g. sidehop / gap etc is just plain wrong!

  6. Yeah, definitely make sure you take some test footage first. For a mountain bike it needs to be pointing upwards at about 45-60 degrees from your tummy - way more towards your face than you might imagine. Use the upsidedown video mode and mount the camera upsidedown.

    There is the odd shop that stocks GoPro stuff. I got my chest mount from Edinburgh Cycles.

  7. After a few hours using Photoshop yesterday I managed to use more than half of my 16Gb - just! I suspect if I was using large files, or maybe some complex Final Cut project, it would be worthwhile to have 16, but 8 would easily be fine for me. Having said that, there was only £25 difference when I ordered, and 16Gb makes me lol more.



    P.S. That was the SSD I bought a few weeks ago - very happy with it although they had a 20% off sale so it was £110+VAT. Might be worth waiting and seeing if they have another sale?

    Do you need the transfer cable? I didn't bother. I just did a clean install but moved all the files from a Time Machine backup via the Migration Assistant. All worked very painlessly.

  8. Has anybody got experience with the BMW 1.8D engines, specifically the 07> ones that come in the E90?

    There's no such thing. I presume you mean a 318d (which has a 2.0 litre engine - just detuned compared with the 320d)?

    They have a pretty bad rep for complete failure (google swirl flap and DPF problems) yet they still command a huge premium over the petrol versions. Unless you're doing 20k miles/year or more it's very unlikely that a 318d will be more economical than a 320i. I have no first hand info though. Have you considered an e46? I'd love an e46 330ci or 330i touring.

    My new theory on cars (and I'm sure this will change to suit my mood) is that it's far more environmentally-sound to buy an old/interesting car and love it, keep it well-maintained etc rather than something new / economical.

    • Like 2
  9. I thought the 5th season was the final one?

    I was very disappointed - been watching it on Netflix and have watched all seasons 1-5 over the last few months. But season 5 isn't finished yet and I have to wait until the summer to find out what happens. I won't spoil it but season 5 episode 8 leaves you on a real cliffhanger - very annoying! But yes, it's definitely one of the best things I've seen on TV (or at the cinema for that matter) in recent years.

  10. 2.5 hours is a bit less than your battery should get, but not by lots. Depends what you're doing of course. Mine says it has 4.5 hours from full charge. You can try running the battery down completely a few times to 'calibrate' it, that sometimes helps.

    I would have thought that your memory 1Gb inactive is about right. OS X is different to Windows in how it allocates memory. So 'inactive' is not the same as free. I think if you have something open, then shut it down, OS X will try and keep that application's data in the RAM as 'inactive' unless more RAM is needed for other things. I.e. if you reopen the application straight away then the data may still be in RAM for quicker loading. Having said all that, I don't know exactly what are healthy values. Mine is 1.87Gb Wired/2.45Gb Active/282Mb Inactive/11.40 Gb free ( :D ).

    I would be more concerned as to why you're only on 70% idle. What is taking up the 30%? With 13 apps open at the moment I have 87% idle. 10% of that is a quicktime decoder for one of my tabs. If you're doing nothing then 70% is wrong - however make sure that the spotlight search isn't indexing. That happens automatically after a reinstall and does take a while, hogging CPU and HDD speed until it's finished.

    • Like 1
  11. Yeah it should be pretty zippy with that spec - I've got an 'Early 2011' Macbook Pro so pretty similar to yours. I recently bought an SSD (which is amazing BTW - should have done it years ago)* and before I installed that it would run smoothly but grind to a halt after a while with lots of tabs (15+). But on a fresh restart with only a few tabs open it would be pretty quick, suggesting that something is definitely not right with yours. It may well be the hard drive from the sounds of it.

    The usual stuff - open up activity monitor and check that all your RAM is available / not being used

    Check the CPU usage (also in activity monitor) and make sure there isn't one thing that's hogging that

    One thing most people suggest for random errors is to 'Repair Permissions' on the disk using the Disk Utility app. I doubt this ever really does anything but it's worth a try

    You can do a hardware test (http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1509) to see if that identifies any problems. You'll probably have to do the extended tests (takes hours - I suggest leaving it overnight) to identify any HDD problems

    *I also bought 16Gb of RAM because it's a hilariously large amount. According to activity monitor I've never even used half of it :giggle: This does have the advantage of never needing to close down applications. Although from the SSD, Photoshop only takes about 3 seconds to load anyway. I love my computer's recent upgrade!

  12. Really? A car is for many a necessity but a reliable car that'll last for years can be bought for a couple of thousand. Even if you can theoretically afford it there's no benefit to buying a £20k car on finance when you could probably get the same model but 5 years old for £4k.

    We could all get by living in a 2 bed shoebox-sized studio flat in the red light district that's worth £25k or less. Pay off the mortgage in a couple of years? That would be good yeah? At least until we had saved enough to pay for a nice house outright?

    I'm being facetious, I know, but I Think your argument is partly dogmatic, not logical.

    Also don't write off new cars as the cost of ownership is typically reasonable overall with warranty etc. The cost of ownership differential isn't as great as you might imagine. The only 'cheap' way to run a car is to buy a shitter for a grand or less and run it until it falls apart and move on. But you're forever running rubbish unreliable cars. And anyway I'm not buying a new car.

  13. I'm not really sure why mortgages and student loans come into a separate category? Like you, I don't especially like debt, and I always pay off credit cards at the end of the month.

    Cars in general are a stupid way to invest money. They cost loads to buy/service/tax/fuel and their value only goes down. On the other hand I think cars are a really good way to enjoy money. They're fun, and there's only one person who can put a price on that.

    Funnily enough I was talking to a guy the other day who flies helicopters. He reckoned it wasn't as expensive as you might think - he used to have an expensive car habit and now he just drives one car but does weekends away in a helicopter several times a year. Legend. :dance:

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