delusional

It's often worth doing the opposite and writing to praise products. My Mum told me a story about getting very stoned once and writing a letter to McVities, or a similar company, I forget exactly which ("I love your biscuits, they're so munchy. Mmmm, munchy." [note: it may have been a little more eloquent than this]). Apparantly it went down rather well, and they sent a letter back thanking her for her praise, along with a whole pile of free biscuits! I'm not sure if that'd work anymore (companies are somewhat more cynical these days), but it's certainly more fun than writing to complain :)

Nice :) I used to have a scaffold, unfortunately one of the holes refused to ever heal so I took it out about a year ago now. Still have a ring in one of the holes though, so I could always get the other one re-pierced at some point and put it back. I found mine was about the most painful piercing I've ever had done (I've had a few). Mostly because it was done as a single piercing, so going in through the outside edge of my ear was pushing the flesh against the cartilage. That really, really hurt! It's probably a good thing you have a PTFE bar, a lot of the problems I had with mine were due to the bar being too short and the piercings being a fraction out of line (not really enough to see, just enough that a metal bar in them caused havoc with the healing process).

I picked up on that snippet while hunting around for info on this, it probably should have confirmed for me that it was safe, but once you get a seed of doubt like that a direct answer is much more comforting. Everything's great :) Really enjoying riding the bike, although I've begun to hate evo mounts. I'm sure I'll get the hang of setting them up properly soon though, it just involves hours of fiddling at the moment!

I know a reasonable amount about Linux and other *nix jiggery-pokery, I'm certainly willing to chat about it. But I don't spend much time on MSN these days (when I go on there, people try and talk to me!). Did you have any specific questions, or was it just a general chat you were after? You're welcome to add me to MSN and try and catch me, or email/pm/post here if you have any specific questions. My MSN and email are both in my profile.

If you don't know, you wouldn't understand :op Mostly geek things really, in that it allows you to do a lot of things with it that you wouldn't be able to do with a normal router (like running an SSH server, as a very minor example) and lets you get a lot more control over how it works. In theory it should also have the potential to be a lot more secure, but of course that depends on how it's set up and what you're comparing it too. But yeah, most of the reasons are geek-cool ones.

Well they're wrong :op Linksys are actually a sub-division of Cisco, so you're pretty much guaranteed quality. I'm after a WRT54G at some point, as they used a Linux firmware in it, and if you're clever you can hack it about and play with it. Which is nice :) Means you get a proper Linux box, using minimal electricity and for minimal cost. Excellent! The only problem with those is that last I looked there was no PPPoA support available for them, which means in this country you'd need an aDSL modem as well as the router. I'm sure that'll be fixed in the not to distant future though. But yeah, LinkSys are reccomended. Especially if you've got some cisco experience, as they tend to use similar firmware these days (they've stopped using Linux firmware on the newer models :o/).

Too late now :) I've already filed it off one side of the rim ready for grinding (or sanding, not sure which yet)! Went with using a file in the end because the small patch I ground off didn't seem to be coming off that smoothly. I was concerned it was taking too much off the inside edge of the rim at the same time, as I couldn't quite hold the grinder smooth enough to grind just the lip (it kept dipping and catching the inside edge at an awkward angle). It takes a little while longer with a file, but at least I'm happy I'm not wrecking my rim!

Sorry, there may be a deluge of posts from me over the next few days. New bike, lots of of new mechanics to play with, lots of things I don't know! Anyway, I have a Tioga Factory DH rim (the ones with the white stripe) that I'd like to put a light grind on. However, around the outside edge of the rim is a small lip that I'm really going to have to grind off to get to the sidewalls. A small test shows it'll come off fairly easily, but I'm being a bit squeamish about grinding some of the shape of the rim away like this. I'm pretty sure it's not going to weaken the rim any more than grinding does anyway, but I've got doubts in my mind now that I'd like to have allayed by those in the know. Any advice?

Thanks, that's really useful. Having it in pieces I can see what you mean about the grease port... it's unlikely to get grease anywhere near the bearings from there! As it is, one of my pedals still refuses to spin smoothly. For now I think I'll just live with it until I can be bothered to spend a few hours fiddling around though :)

All is not lost though! Some *ahem* great bands are reforming...

I've got a set of V8s that are starting to look a little the worse for wear, I had a go at greasing them the other day, but it's not that easy to force much grease into the pedal using just your fingers and an allen key! When I got the pedals they were shop fitted, so I didn't get a syringe with them. I've tried nearly everything I have that might be suitable, and I can't find anything that I can bodge to force grease into the pedals. So, anyone know anywhere I can get hold of the syringes without having to pay out ~£20 for a whole new set of pedals? Alternatively - how easy is it to strip these pedals down? I guess I just need to pop the end caps out and clean/re-grease everything inside, but I don't want to force it off unless I'm sure I can get it all back together again.

Let me just for a minute ignore your horrendously in-humane politics, because I'm really curious. What do you have against people who are suffering from a terrible disease? Back to the politics though... I don't really see why you people are being so hard on these kids. As a few people have already said, that's exactly what they are - kids! Sure, the idea of an 11 year old getting pregnant is pretty f**king wrong by contemporary standards, but I would only feel sorry for the girl. It's hardly like an 11 year old is really going to fully understand all the ramifications of what she's doing when the child was conceived! I think it's quite disgusting that so many people are rejoicing in ridiculing this family. To me this seems more like a run of very bad luck (or good luck if you've got the right attitude - I'm inclined to think that a child being born to a loving parent should never be considered a bad thing). Really I expect most people lose their virginity south of 16, and many are probably at it like rabbits once they do lose it (if they're able to). After all, it's something new and very fun, of course you're going to do it as often as possible. No matter how careful you are there is no such thing as foolproof contraception - even condoms are only something like 99% effective, and young teenagers are not best known for being sensible with anything, let alone where sex is involved. So, it's easy to see how a small percentage of teenage pregnancies are a totally normal thing. For 3 to happen in one family then seems just like really bad luck to me. If you want to discuss the problem of teenage pregnancy outside the context of these thre individuals then I think there is certainly a lot of problems with the attitudes of contemporary society. It's not at all fair to sneer at these kids though. As for the concept of the poorhouse... I really hope you're not serious about that idea. The poorhouses were little better (and sometimes actually worse) than prisons - most people were sent there, not because they were lazy, but because they weren't able to earn enough money to support themselves. Most importantly, once someone was sent somewhere like the poorhouse that was it, the chances of ever working oneself out and getting back into society were slim to none. It's a barbaric concept that I'd hoped we're way beyond today. It's hardly like there's not enough money in this country. You're sitting here complaining that these kids are getting what is frankly a pittance for so many of them in this country, while you have enough money to be able to afford expensive bikes, yet you complain that your money is being taken away to feed people. I don't really see how that arguement holds up. Essentially you want people to starve and live in misery, just so you can have a little extra cream on your overstacked cake.

Just what he said. I really like watching your vids (as in, ones you ride in - although I've enjoyed all the ones you've edited as well)... I'm not sure what it is about your style, but it's really enjoyable. Plus, you don't release in wmv9, so I love you all the more.

Indeed. This is a very good, and very easy (in terms of space/time/etc needed), way to improve ones balance. I used to spend hours just trackstanding - in the garage, in the garden, even in the living room if you're short on space. Time yourself, see how long you can keep your feet up. Once you start getting a bit better you can start introducing little hops and shufle yourself around in a circle. This has the added bonus that you can do it in private, so you don't have to show off your skills in public until you actually have some :)

Good good :) Apologies for any intimation that you may be a member of the 'legions of metallers' that annoy me so! I agree with CoF, but I wouldn't call Manson industrial. I suppose some of the really early Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids era stuff was fairly industrial (actually some of it sounded quite similar to Skinny Puppy), and ACS era had fairly heavy NIN-esque tinges of industrial to it. But I'd refer to the majority of their catalogue as just rock/metal with varying influences. Industrial proper would cover acts like KMFDM, Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire and, of course, Skinny Puppy. It's quite often used as an unbrella term to cover all the different varieties of noise/drill 'n' bass/etc (acts like Converter, Hypnoskull, Whitehouse, Hocico) as well though.

That's almost certainly the chip you want, and it seems a pretty fair price. If I remember correctly most of the soldering was a doddle, if you're any good with a soldering iron you'd almost have to be trying to mess it up. There is one wire which is a bit fiddly (the d0 contact) though, although how fiddly it is in soldering terms I really don't know. I'm not even sure if that connection is ubiquitous across the various xbox versions... Your best bet for learning how to install stuff is to browse the articles on xbox-scene - I don't really remember any of the detail for the installation. But basically the initial install is all done via burning a DVD, and later updates can either be done via DVD again (if you like wasting disks) or using the FTP server in EvoX to directly transfer the files.

I've been watching that, I think they're a tad ambitious with their pricing :) I like this quote as well: "If the bike doesnt fetch the money i am looking for it will not be sold to the winning bidder". They've obviously never heard of reserve prices...

Isn't that being sold as an optional extra? There's already a optional extra harddrive for the PS2, the problem there is that as very few people are likely to buy an 'optional extra' hard drive it can't be relied on being present when developing a game (you can't limit your market like that!). So, in terms of game development, it may as well not be there....

Get rid of the frames and everything will be ok. Frames are a pain in the neck, you're much better off using div tags and css to layout your page. Then, rather than using php get variables to discern what content to load, as Danny suggested, I would be inclined to instead create one file per page of content (so a page called news.html and one called contact.html etc) and use include() to include the parts that are constant across all pages (menu, header, etc). This way the URLs for individual pages make more sense to non-techies [htttp://www.foo.com/news.html as opposed to http://www.foo.com/page.php?section=news] and there's less chance of you opening some form of security hole by allowing get variables to be passed to your script. It's really quite easy to do and should save you a lot of headache. Getting rid of frames has all sorts of advantages: It allows people to directly link to content within your site; it prevents search engines indexing pages that were designed to only be seen within a frameset; it helps prevent unsightly layout issues like you're experiencing here; it makes it easier to provide content for browsers that don't support frames (although that may be a little redundant these days - it's always good to provide backwards compatability though). Generally a good thing really :) I'm not sure if that makes much sense... I haven't written a single line of code for about 6 weeks now, so I may be a little vague. Prod me if you need a bit of a clearer explanation.

I'm actually vaguely looking forward to Episode 3. Episode 4,5 and 6 were rather good, although I really have to be in the right mood to watch them. Episode 1 was dire, awful trash. Episode 2 I thought was awful for the first half, but quite good for the second. One can only hope that this means episode 3 will be quite good all the way through. I'm certainly curious to see how they manage Episode 3. There aren't many films where every man and his dog have known the major plot line for decades before the film even began shooting. Then we just have to wait a few more decades until they get around to making episodes 7,8 and 9!

As people have already said, the main thing that sells a console isn't the spec but the games, and in this regard Xbox should be way ahead. From talking to a lot of my game developer friends, it seems the dev kits for the xbox and ps2 (and assumably the x360 and ps3) are worlds apart. While the xbox dev kit was quite high level, allowing basic structures of games to be quickly developed and leaving more time for those finishing touches that really make a game, the PS2 dev kit was made with the intent of letting the developers code 'as close to the metal as possible'. While in terms of raw performance this should in theory be a bonus, allowing the developers to manipulate the end product to take advantage of every bit of performance available, it does mean that any development team needs a rack of different experts, and a glut of extra time, to write any game. As such the development budget doesn't go as far, and you end up with a game with less polish. Of course, things might be totally different for the next generation consoles. For one thing, with the radically new hardware in the xbox it's no longer just a PC inside. As such, if the operating system isn't refined properly, it could stop the x360 being quite as attractive to develop for. Another big difference is the presence of a hard drive. I'm not sure what the final word is on a hard drive in the PS3, but as far as I'm aware they don't intend to include one. Frankly I think that's a foolish move on Sony's part, the hard drive on the xbox is absolutely integral to some new games, and the lack of it on the PS2 is blocking any chance some games had of being ported to it. A prime example of this is the "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic" games that used the hard drive extensively to keep track of the changes in the environment, etc. There's much more scope for far wider ranging games with a hard drive present on the x360.

Goth stuff seems somewhat contrasting with your other music taste... are you sure you actually mean Goth music? Bauhaus, Sisters of Mercy, Fields of the Nephilim, etc? Sorry, it's probably a slightly pedantic point, but misclassification of music, especially by the legions of metallers who seem to think Cradle of Filth and Marilyn Manson are 'goth', really gets to me :) Personally I like most things: pretty much all forms of Electronica. In particular Industrial, psy-trance, electro, some EBM and dark drum and bass (actually, all electronica is better darker); quite a bit of goth/indie/80s/etc; lots of experimental, weird stuff. Some of the artists on my playlist at the moment: The Mars Volta (lots and lots); Bauhaus; Radiohead (Kid A era); Hendrix; Joy Division; Lords of Acid; Hypnoskull; Imminent Starvation; Omar Rodriguez-Lopez; Grandmaster Flash; etc.

To be honest, if you're looking for good ankle support I'd not get the Ribos. When I say 'minimal ankle support' I really mean minimal. In this picture you can see the black 'ankle sock' bit - that's the bit with the little cf patch, most clearly visible on the back blue shoe. This 'ankle sock' is made of some sort of lycra mix, and is basically all the ankle support you're going to get (except the plasticy cf-look patches, that don't really seem to do anything). I actually quite like them like this, as it minimises any restrictions on your movement, but if you have problem ankles I'd be inclined to either look for different shoes, or expect to need some form of additional support.

I've been riding Ribos since Christmas, and I thoroughly recommend them. Mine seem to be showing very, very little wear for the last 4.5 months of riding. I threw them in the washing machine after a particularly muddy ride a few weeks ago and they came out looking almost like new. More importantly though, they're great for riding in. They offer good grip (stick to VPs like nothing else), some ankle support (this is fairly minimal though) and a sole with just the right amount of stiffness. Plus, unlike many 'normal' trainers, they attach to your foot properly (velcro and ratchets!) - so you don't find your foot squirming around inside your shoe. I've not used any other trials-specific shoes to compare, so I can't really recommend these over any (generally cheaper) others, I do recommend them in their own right though.

What he said :) Xbox-scene is the place for any xbox modding info. It used to be that if you soft-modded the xbox (i.e. didn't install a mod chip) you weren't able to play normal games afterwards, however that's probably been overcome by now (I haven't been paying much attention to the xbox scene for a while now). I'd probably go for a chip anyway - they're fairly cheap (around £25-£30 iirc) and it's nice to have the facility to turn it off. The X-Ecuter chips always used to be the ones to go for, I've got the 2.1 lite I think, and I've never had any problems with that. XBMC is definitely the main app you will be wanting, although I run EvoX as my primary dashboard (OS basically) as well just because it makes it a little easier to upgrade XBMC if I have another dash on there that can run an FTP server. XBMC is frankly an amazing piece of software, it's based on mplayer, so will play pretty much anything. It'll often play things that mplayer on my linux pc won't! I think I've only ever found one or two videos it couldn't handle... it's a doddle to integrate with your network as well, simply set up sharing on your windows machines or a Samba server on a *nix machine, and then browse to the shares in XBMC. Easy. You can install Linux on it, although tbph I don't see the need for it. XBMC does practically everything I could want from a machine plugged into my TV :) edit Sorry, missed a few of your questions: You may have picked this up from above, but... to transfer stuff to it in the first instance you're going to have to use DVD. This is probably the trickiest phase in modding your xbox, simply because some xbox's won't read a lot of DVD's. Generally, the newer your machine is the less problems you should have with this. After you have a dashboard on there though you can dispense with burning DVD's and start using FTP to upload stuff to the machine (most dashboards contain an ftp server). You can fileshare to the xbox, but I've yet to see a piece of software that will let you run a samba/nfs/etc server on the xbox. Although it would be a lot easier than faffing about with FTP everytime you want to upgrade something!