These are cool toys, but the 40-60 pound weight means that they're not something you want to carry around.
However, as a longtime cyclist commuter, the 10-15 mile range is easily done on a bicycle. Better for you and the environment than a scooter. Yes, hills suck, but not as much as fighting with cars in traffic.
There are some collapsable bicycles, but I've never found these to be worthy of riding more than 1-2 miles at a stretch.
If your local transit company is forward thinking and has bike racks on the bus, then you're set. (Santa Barbara, I recall, had one bus per hour that dragged a trailer meant for bicycles, and I'd usually see it with 10 bikes on board.)
Buy yourself something theft-proof, like a Schwinn, which is still great quality. My Schwinn mountain bike is my city commuter, outfitted with street slicks, fenders, a rack, and hasn't been touched or mauled once in 12 years. I've ridden it through snow, rain, below-zero weather, and it saved me a bundle and kept my weight down.
Everyone comments that riding a bike in cold weather is cold, but it isn't as cold as you think I frequently had to ride slowly so as to not break a sweat. Your legs are very big muscles, and they generate a lot of heat once you get going. I'd be cold at the start of my 3 mile commute, then I'd be warm after 4 blocks, and perspiring for the last mile.
Snow was no problem with street slicks, but ice is. Fresh, untracked snow is easy to ride in, but once the cars start packing it, your tire wants to follow the random crossing tire tracks, and it gets squirrely.
If you're going to commute, get a good, reflective vest, a strong headlight, two tail lights (and clip a third one on you), and get another headlight for your helmet. Shining that head-mounted light into left-turning drivers, who are looking for a break in traffic and not anything else, are stopped cold by a bright light hitting them in the face.
Finally, always carry a cell phone. It depends upon the area, but some areas have motorists that enjoy scaring cyclists. I've had cars cross four lanes of traffic, coming toward me, just to try to scare me. Or they'll speed up past me, dynamite the brakes, and cut me off in a right-hand turn. Ride defensively, live to be old.
Above all, skip recumbant bicycles. Neato, but when you're sitting down that low, you can't see as well, and that little orange flag on a stick isn't going to protect you from motorists. Quite frankly, it is better to be thrown over the hood of the car that cuts you off, than to be whacked in the chest by the grill because you were riding a recumbant.
Well everyone else is suggesting stuff so I figure I will too. I'm looking to buy a PC in the UK sometime soon and for the past couple of months I've kept my eye on the prices. Here's my contribution:
Dabs.com Tried and trusted. I've bought plenty of stuff from these guys in the past with 100% satisfaction. Their site is a little annoying but they have the widest selection of stock by far. Their prices are very good if not the best. Product information (when available) is not terribly informative so you should know what you're looking for before you arrive.
Aria.co.uk Only bought a couple of things from these people and had no problems. Less stock than dabs but their prices are good. Specifically, they've got the best prices on Athlon XPs (1800 - 2100). And their CPU coolers & PSUs are cheap too. Product info on this site is poor and the design isn't much better.
Overclockers.co.uk Bought one thing from here and again no problems. Not a great deal of stock but the stuff they do have is top notch (in most cases). Their prices are slightly off-par, however they've currently got the best price on some CDRWs, HDDs and sound cards. Good product info available. These guys know their stuff. Their site design leaves to be desired.
Overclock.co.ukOverclockingstore.co.uk Not bought anything from here yet. Their prices are reasonable but I've not found anything I wanted cheaper here. A large selection of overclocking stuff available and a pretty poor selection of regular components. Good looking site.
Tekheads.co.uk Bought stuff from here without any problems. Their site is good and prices vary. Mostly reasonable and sometimes better than dabs. They've currently got best prices on sound cards. Product info available is ok.
Kustom.co.uk Nasty site but they have a selection of stuff you'll have a hard time finding elsewhere. Mainly oriented towards cases and accessories. Bought a couple of things from these guys, again, without any problems.
Crucial.com/uk OK, this isn't a retail site, but Crucial sell their RAM online at price up to £30 cheaper than elsewhere. If you're looking for ECC Registered 512MB PC2100 DDR chips like me, then you'll appreciate the £119.69 price tag.
CCLComputers.co.uk Not bought anything from here yet but I certainly plan to. Simplistic site but very navigable. A good selection of stock and they've got the best prices on some CDRWs, AIW Radeons and the sweet sweet Iiyama Pro 452.
EBuyer.com Not bought anything from here either. Not too keen on their site but they're one of the few who offer Antec PSUs, with a reasonable price too.
Scan.co.uk Found this thanks to other posts in this discussion. Have to say I'm very impressed. A tasteful cut-to-the-chase design with decent product information. I was surprised to see just how wide a selection of stock they have. Not as large as dabs but they stock some decent stuff. I was surprised to find the dual Athlon Gigabyte mobo on there. Their selection of hard drives leaves to be desired but the rest is OK. Best prices on Enermax PSUs.
There are other sites out there too, such as Simply.co.uk, Action.com, Globaldirect.co.uk, Dcsplc.co.uk, Stuff-uk.net, Insight.com and Jungle.com but I've yet to be impressed. In particular, Jungle.com is probably worth avoiding. I've heard some horror stories.
So to wrap things up I'd have to say that if you can build your own PC it's definately worth doing so. The pre-built systems you can get may be cheaper and may have an amazing "2GHz P4, 60GB HDD DVD, Scanner etc.. etc..", but on the inside the components will be from Happy Shopper or Value Land and you'll get about as much performance out of your system as a frightened donkey.
However, if you're going to build your own PC you need to know exactly which components you need/want beforehand. These sites will have the stock you want but in most cases won't give you accurate or useful product information. It's a lengthy process but it's worth consulting newsgroups and/or online reviews. Storagereview.com, for example, has a leaderboard where you can get up to date on the decent and not-so-decent hard drives.
There are countless hardware review sites out there. It's worth searching for the product comparisons. Tomshardware.com and Anandtech.com are popular sites worth a look.
When I saw your name troll came to mind, but your posts seem reasonable?
Perhaps I should remove you?
Re:For the brave...
on
Magic Sand
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
From the page
Melting Money and Melting Memos, marketed by So Much Fun, are paper items that dissolve when placed in water. The paper is composed of carboxymethylcellulose (starch) with 20% or less cellulose. This material has been used by organizations such as the CIA for secret or sensitive documents that can easily be destroyed by wetting with water. A number of toys using this are Trash Bag Bunch, the wrapper of Hot Wheels Revealers, and
Bye-Bye Diapers.
not only that, the hardware itself isn't auditable
imagine if the founders had said "we want everyone to vote, but it must remain a secret how votes get counted", does anyone think we have a chance in hell of still teaching our kids we are a pretend democracy like we do today?
Anyone using a non-major release dosen't need supported. I've seen nightly builds that wouldn't let me hit the back button before, these things are *not* ment for grandpa to be browsing in.
You have no obligation to support anything but major releases, and they will always be easy to support, end of story.
I especially loved the amazingly bright people who chose to do it over our wireless network at school. Downloading 20 songs at once completly stops everyone elses packets in thier tracks.
The problem with that, it's amazingly easy to completly flood a wireless AP if you have a crapy nic that dosen't allow others to talk, and there is no possibility for the school to add a switch and resolve the issue.
There's a new channel where I live (Iowa) called "More Music", it plays a decent crosscut from hiphop to heavy alternative (haven't seen heavy metal yet).
It appears to be trying to be what mtv once was, I'm not sure who owns/operates it yet, but I watch it a few minuites a day.
But don't a decent amount of the readers here make statments like "At least us linux admins patch our boxes regularly". And "There is a patch avadiable that night, and most linux admins patch asap; whereas MCSE's never patch".
I hope I never see another post stating that again, ok? Especially not a god damned +5 one.
Re:This book is destined to become a classic
on
Programming PHP
·
· Score: 1
Wtf, he's not a troll..
I almost added him to my friends list on several occasions. I find his posts at least as insigntfull as the average/. post, and quite often he is funny.
Try posting non-AC when accusing someone of being a troll.
Re:"And it doesn't stop when you leave home, eithe
on
When Users Attack
·
· Score: 3, Informative
get em a new mac
if they manage to break that, I will give them a cookie.
I'm quite serious, if there is such a thing as idoit proof, I think these beasts qualify.
(that us until they rm -rf / accidently or something...)
I got my iBook, first day I got it to work, 5 people literally exclaimed "WHY?".
I calmly explained that it does more than what I need, right out of the box. Is more stable, and easier to use. All of them got glazed over looks in ther eyes.
I'm starting to convert people, it's been almost a year and I've yet to have a single problem with anything or one configuration nightmare, and have several times had multi-day uptimes due to the instant suspend-resume features. But there are certain people that actually lost respect for me, all because I examined all posibilities and chose the best one.
This isn't a case like linux, where windows is still more "dumb user friendly", OS X is superior to windows, end of story. The only valid reason to us windows anymore is to plain certain games, and thats really not enough to draw me.
Slashdot Mirror
One simply has to read the article detailing how to escape a black hole.
Unfortunatly RTFM might not be an option when your being rapidly dematerialized.
These are cool toys, but the 40-60 pound weight means that they're not something you want to carry around.
However, as a longtime cyclist commuter, the 10-15 mile range is easily done on a bicycle. Better for you and the environment than a scooter. Yes, hills suck, but not as much as fighting with cars in traffic.
There are some collapsable bicycles, but I've never found these to be worthy of riding more than 1-2 miles at a stretch.
If your local transit company is forward thinking and has bike racks on the bus, then you're set. (Santa Barbara, I recall, had one bus per hour that dragged a trailer meant for bicycles, and I'd usually see it with 10 bikes on board.)
Buy yourself something theft-proof, like a Schwinn, which is still great quality. My Schwinn mountain bike is my city commuter, outfitted with street slicks, fenders, a rack, and hasn't been touched or mauled once in 12 years. I've ridden it through snow, rain, below-zero weather, and it saved me a bundle and kept my weight down.
Everyone comments that riding a bike in cold weather is cold, but it isn't as cold as you think I frequently had to ride slowly so as to not break a sweat. Your legs are very big muscles, and they generate a lot of heat once you get going. I'd be cold at the start of my 3 mile commute, then I'd be warm after 4 blocks, and perspiring for the last mile.
Snow was no problem with street slicks, but ice is. Fresh, untracked snow is easy to ride in, but once the cars start packing it, your tire wants to follow the random crossing tire tracks, and it gets squirrely.
If you're going to commute, get a good, reflective vest, a strong headlight, two tail lights (and clip a third one on you), and get another headlight for your helmet. Shining that head-mounted light into left-turning drivers, who are looking for a break in traffic and not anything else, are stopped cold by a bright light hitting them in the face.
Finally, always carry a cell phone. It depends upon the area, but some areas have motorists that enjoy scaring cyclists. I've had cars cross four lanes of traffic, coming toward me, just to try to scare me. Or they'll speed up past me, dynamite the brakes, and cut me off in a right-hand turn. Ride defensively, live to be old.
Above all, skip recumbant bicycles. Neato, but when you're sitting down that low, you can't see as well, and that little orange flag on a stick isn't going to protect you from motorists. Quite frankly, it is better to be thrown over the hood of the car that cuts you off, than to be whacked in the chest by the grill because you were riding a recumbant.
Well everyone else is suggesting stuff so I figure I will too. I'm looking to buy a PC in the UK sometime soon and for the past couple of months I've kept my eye on the prices. Here's my contribution:
Dabs.com
Tried and trusted. I've bought plenty of stuff from these guys in the past with 100% satisfaction. Their site is a little annoying but they have the widest selection of stock by far. Their prices are very good if not the best. Product information (when available) is not terribly informative so you should know what you're looking for before you arrive.
Aria.co.uk
Only bought a couple of things from these people and had no problems. Less stock than dabs but their prices are good. Specifically, they've got the best prices on Athlon XPs (1800 - 2100). And their CPU coolers & PSUs are cheap too. Product info on this site is poor and the design isn't much better.
Overclockers.co.uk
Bought one thing from here and again no problems. Not a great deal of stock but the stuff they do have is top notch (in most cases). Their prices are slightly off-par, however they've currently got the best price on some CDRWs, HDDs and sound cards. Good product info available. These guys know their stuff. Their site design leaves to be desired.
Overclock.co.ukOverclockingstore.co.uk
Not bought anything from here yet. Their prices are reasonable but I've not found anything I wanted cheaper here. A large selection of overclocking stuff available and a pretty poor selection of regular components. Good looking site.
Tekheads.co.uk
Bought stuff from here without any problems. Their site is good and prices vary. Mostly reasonable and sometimes better than dabs. They've currently got best prices on sound cards. Product info available is ok.
Kustom.co.uk
Nasty site but they have a selection of stuff you'll have a hard time finding elsewhere. Mainly oriented towards cases and accessories. Bought a couple of things from these guys, again, without any problems.
Crucial.com/uk
OK, this isn't a retail site, but Crucial sell their RAM online at price up to £30 cheaper than elsewhere. If you're looking for ECC Registered 512MB PC2100 DDR chips like me, then you'll appreciate the £119.69 price tag.
CCLComputers.co.uk
Not bought anything from here yet but I certainly plan to. Simplistic site but very navigable. A good selection of stock and they've got the best prices on some CDRWs, AIW Radeons and the sweet sweet Iiyama Pro 452.
EBuyer.com
Not bought anything from here either. Not too keen on their site but they're one of the few who offer Antec PSUs, with a reasonable price too.
Scan.co.uk
Found this thanks to other posts in this discussion. Have to say I'm very impressed. A tasteful cut-to-the-chase design with decent product information. I was surprised to see just how wide a selection of stock they have. Not as large as dabs but they stock some decent stuff. I was surprised to find the dual Athlon Gigabyte mobo on there. Their selection of hard drives leaves to be desired but the rest is OK. Best prices on Enermax PSUs.
There are other sites out there too, such as Simply.co.uk, Action.com, Globaldirect.co.uk, Dcsplc.co.uk, Stuff-uk.net, Insight.com and Jungle.com but I've yet to be impressed. In particular, Jungle.com is probably worth avoiding. I've heard some horror stories.
So to wrap things up I'd have to say that if you can build your own PC it's definately worth doing so. The pre-built systems you can get may be cheaper and may have an amazing "2GHz P4, 60GB HDD DVD, Scanner etc.. etc..", but on the inside the components will be from Happy Shopper or Value Land and you'll get about as much performance out of your system as a frightened donkey.
However, if you're going to build your own PC you need to know exactly which components you need/want beforehand. These sites will have the stock you want but in most cases won't give you accurate or useful product information. It's a lengthy process but it's worth consulting newsgroups and/or online reviews. Storagereview.com, for example, has a leaderboard where you can get up to date on the decent and not-so-decent hard drives.
There are countless hardware review sites out there. It's worth searching for the product comparisons. Tomshardware.com and Anandtech.com are popular sites worth a look.
Good luck!
a
Or both of you could get a mac and realize this works flawlessly out of the box with no tweaking
The hurdles one has to go through to use a x86 box, it's just sad.
But you have to admit, for the people outside of IT (where it's supposed to be used) Access is an amazing program.
When clowns in IT use it, I shiver.
Or, he could do this again
omg I remember that
I have no clue what it was about lol
removing you
Ealar mourns for juuri's karma
Why are you on my foes list?
When I saw your name troll came to mind, but your posts seem reasonable?
Perhaps I should remove you?
Diapers that disolve in water.. interesting
Actually FreeBSD is better than linux if you ever try it as a home unix user.
OTOH I would guess what you say is true also.
wait, say I have a string 1AU long, and I swing it with a peroid of 6 seconds, why would the end not be going faster than light?
Why is it impossible to do this? It seems to me it wouldn't require a excessive amount of energy to speed it up to 10rpm.
not only that, the hardware itself isn't auditable
imagine if the founders had said "we want everyone to vote, but it must remain a secret how votes get counted", does anyone think we have a chance in hell of still teaching our kids we are a pretend democracy like we do today?
Anyone using a non-major release dosen't need supported. I've seen nightly builds that wouldn't let me hit the back button before, these things are *not* ment for grandpa to be browsing in.
You have no obligation to support anything but major releases, and they will always be easy to support, end of story.
I especially loved the amazingly bright people who chose to do it over our wireless network at school. Downloading 20 songs at once completly stops everyone elses packets in thier tracks.
The problem with that, it's amazingly easy to completly flood a wireless AP if you have a crapy nic that dosen't allow others to talk, and there is no possibility for the school to add a switch and resolve the issue.
I can't tell if your a troll or a clown
Either way, that was fucking funny
If you add up the costs listed, it ends up cheaper than pre-built boxes from apple...
Really.. I swear..
There's a new channel where I live (Iowa) called "More Music", it plays a decent crosscut from hiphop to heavy alternative (haven't seen heavy metal yet).
It appears to be trying to be what mtv once was, I'm not sure who owns/operates it yet, but I watch it a few minuites a day.
But don't a decent amount of the readers here make statments like "At least us linux admins patch our boxes regularly". And "There is a patch avadiable that night, and most linux admins patch asap; whereas MCSE's never patch".
I hope I never see another post stating that again, ok? Especially not a god damned +5 one.
Who... Needs... A... Plot...
When... You... Have... Such... Great... Acting...
Wtf, he's not a troll..
/. post, and quite often he is funny.
I almost added him to my friends list on several occasions. I find his posts at least as insigntfull as the average
Try posting non-AC when accusing someone of being a troll.
get em a new mac
if they manage to break that, I will give them a cookie.
I'm quite serious, if there is such a thing as idoit proof, I think these beasts qualify.
(that us until they rm -rf / accidently or something...)
I got my iBook, first day I got it to work, 5 people literally exclaimed "WHY?".
I calmly explained that it does more than what I need, right out of the box. Is more stable, and easier to use. All of them got glazed over looks in ther eyes.
I'm starting to convert people, it's been almost a year and I've yet to have a single problem with anything or one configuration nightmare, and have several times had multi-day uptimes due to the instant suspend-resume features. But there are certain people that actually lost respect for me, all because I examined all posibilities and chose the best one.
This isn't a case like linux, where windows is still more "dumb user friendly", OS X is superior to windows, end of story. The only valid reason to us windows anymore is to plain certain games, and thats really not enough to draw me.
Unfortunately, it looks like it would be easier to change the physics of the universe than to get people to leave IPv4.
Damnit, I spilled pop all over my screen...
What you propose has already been done. You sound like you could use a shiny new Mac
The rest of us unix nerds have already made the switch, what are you waiting for?