Posts by anth
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I never watch any Sky content. I will concede that if I had a subscription I'd probably find something else to watch.
Sky Basic + Soho = $57/month. I don't know how easy it is to quit and rejoin so the 10 episodes for a season could require being subscribed from anything from 3-12 months, putting the cost between $171-684/season or $17-68/episode.
Compare with box set at around $60/season. It means waiting but also having a set of discs to keep. Hiring each of five discs will cost much less than that. It has been mentioned that iTunes would be $35/season.
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Hard News: The future: be careful what…, in reply to Dylan Reeve,
As expensive as Sky is, it’s a lot cheaper than buying all that content directly (assuming you could).
It depends on how much of that content you want. For those of us who don't care about anything on Sky except Game of Thrones the cost per episode would be absurd.
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lanes between parking and pedestrians ... there’s the one guy who likes to literally go against the flow & ride the opposite direction in the cycle lane (so he’s facing the oncoming cars & bikes)
I can see that as increasing the chance of being seen by someone about to get out of the passenger side. I've never ridden in such a lane though so haven't put much thought into it.
I don’t see that many people wearing work or street clothes and I can’t remember the last time I saw a ‘frocks on bikes’ type
I think quite a few of us have said what we wear varies depending on the length of trip. It may well be that in terms of number of trips normal clothes predominate while in terms on total riding time lycra does, with the number of observed cylists being more closely related to the latter.
Flash for attention and use more than one steady light if you want drivers to estimate distances effectively (not sure about two flashing lights).
The road code says that if there are two front lights only one may flash.
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What I wear depends on what I'm doing, mostly the length of the trip.
I used to regularly cycle fast and far, and for that a full set of cycling clothes really is useful. Summer would mean bright yellow shirt, black shorts, fingerless gloves. A cold, wet day could mean adding any or all of a thin jacket, sleeves and legwarmers, thin full finger gloves under the padded fingerless gloves, a polypropolene tee shirt as a base layer, and neoprene shoe covers. I've never seen the point of paying to look like an advertising hoarding so have plain rather than team wear.
I stopped doing that around about the when I became a parent though. Some of the gear still gets used, mixed in with varying amounts of normal clothes.
I had a fairly decent commute for several months, 16km each way and with a toddler in the seat on the top tube in the mornings. For that I'd wear bike shorts with less revealing shorts over them, a normal t shirt, and sometimes some of the warmer stuff. I'd have a shower when I arrived at work and didn't try to keep dry if it rained.
My current very short commute is done in normal clothes, possibly with a bright yellow cycling jacket. It keeps just enough wind off when it is cold, any other jacket or jumper I own would be too hot. When it gets colder the non-padded lycra gloves will come out again. If it rains I wear a waterproof jacket and trousers, if it isn't raining but looks like it might later they get carried.
I still use bike shorts, covered by something else, for longer trips. They really are much more comfortable but I'm not often going to be riding for long enough to bother.
The exception to normal clothes for even short journeys is that I wear bike shoes on every trip as I use SPD pedals. I've got platform pedals sitting on a shelf so could swap those on easily but I've got a strong preference for being clipped in. The shoes I've seen in bike shops have been either for road racing and not suited to walking or for mountain biking and with tread which tends to pick up mud then deposit it on the floor inside. Shimano touring shoes bought online were a good solution. I keep a pair of normal shoes at work, if I'm going somewhere else those shoes are fine for walking around in.
Although not clothing I think it worth mentioning the mudguards and panniers.
Even the fairly minimal amount of cycling clothing I wear now would have seemed silly to me when I was a student. What I was wearing when going to bunch rides would've seemed ridiculous to that version of me.
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Before the give way rule change I saw a few examples of drivers thinking that turning right gave them right of way on both lanes and who actually seemed to try to ram a left turning car
I should have made it clear that these incidents weren't at this on ramp, but at controlled intersections when both turning vehicles had a green light.
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The cyclist as a vehicle clearly makes the entire situation completely different from that rule, since there is no way it is correct that a cyclist turning at that intersection must take the right lane of the on-ramp.
Yeah, this entrance to the cycleway is a pretty good example of how to not design roads. When it was on my commute I’d wait at the front so that the cars behind could get past.
I don’t recall the codes from the 80s having any specific mention of different rules of right of way for 2-way entries into two-lane roads
I definitely recall this rule when studying the road code prior to getting my licence. That must have been at the end of the 80s. I’ve checked a copy from 2004 which has this rule; that isn’t the 80s of course but is before the recent give way rule change.
It is in the “Key driving skills” section, specifically “Using lanes correctly”, rather than the later “Giving way” section. This which makes sense given that there is no need for the paths these vehicles to follow to intersect.
it’s quite rare to find an uncontrolled intersection of this kind. It is a stupid design
It is quite common at controlled intersections though, and if both directions perpendicular to the two lane road have a green light and there is no through traffic this is effectively the same. I think not having this rule would be stupid as that’d mean there were two lanes with two vehicles wanting to use them and yet one vehicle would have to wait while one lane went unused.
Before the give way rule change I saw a few examples of drivers thinking that turning right gave them right of way on both lanes and who actually seemed to try to ram a left turning car. Fortunately the driver of the left turning vehicle not only knew what the rules really were but was ready to stop in case of encountering an idiot who though deliberately crashing was a suitable way to react if someone didn’t share their misunderstanding of the rules. I don’t recall it being a problem to me personally when I’ve been cycling, which is surprising as there aren’t many situations where cycling works out better in terms of treatment from motorists.
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Hard News: Neither fish nor fowl, in reply to BenWilson,
I’ve never been so much as tooted at
I've been yelled at to get off the road by the driver of a car behind me.
I wonder if some of this is because of the recent law change on turning vehicles. In the past, cars turning right onto the ramp had right of way over left turning cars ... Now, this is not an issue. The right turners have to wait.
Actually as there are two lanes on the off ramp, with one lane from each direction to feed them, both left and right turning vehicles have right of way to the lane closest to them. This law remains the same with regard to this though has always seemed to be little known so I was on occasion let through.
In fact, it might even have been technically illegal anyway, since the bike was not turning onto the on-ramp. It would thus have been attempting to turn across traffic that was going straight ahead. ie the bike ramp and the on-ramp could be considered to be 2 different intersections.
I'd often wondered if that was one intersection or two.
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wish we could get fibre – looks like I’ll have to wait another 3-4 years at this point
It is probably no consolation that some of us due to have fibre already are still waiting. Last year it was due at our house in September 2012, right up until October when that changed to February 2013. At the start of February 2013 the Chorus website said we had UFB but the ISPs said we didn't. That website has recently been updated again to say UFB is due in either June 2013 or June 2014 depending on which part I read.
There were cables laid etc around my neighbourhood but that seems to be over. There is a new pipe running about 2m up the power pole near my house but it just ends there rather than terminating at a box on top. I've not got anything out of Chorus but a helpful member of the geekzone forums suggests that they may be planning to replace the power pole before completing the install.
I think there’s a lot of resentment outside of Auckland about all the money being spent ... motorways
I think there is quite a bit of resentment within Auckland about some of those motorways too.
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These complex relationships that have been discussed suggest that in addition to the mathematics of marriage we need to consider the database engineering perspective.
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From section 2 of the Family Proceedings Act 1980:
marriage includes a union in the nature of marriage that—
(a) is entered into outside New Zealand; and
(b) is at any time polygamous,—
where the law of the country in which each of the parties is domiciled at the time of the union then permits polygamy