But as far as time is concerned, I consider every minute I spend on the bike to be one minute I don't need to spend at the gym.
Then how come despite the fact I cycle to work every day, I'm unfit, fat and have no muscle? Cycling does not replace going to the gym.
Tell me a single person with a muscular body who only cycles and never works out?
At least you can push a bike; good luck pushing a car to work in the rain.
How often does a car break down for every time a bike breaks down? Maybe 1 in 1000. Anyway I'd rather sit in a warm car rather than wrestle with a tyre and innertube in the rain, holding a torch in my teeth.
How would the time/work lost due to mechanical failures (punctured tires, snapped chain, etc) be any worse with a bicycle than with an automobile?
With a bicycle you lose a lot more time due to the more frequent failures. I had a car for two years and it didn't go wrong once. I've had a bike and it goes wrong on average once a month.
A bicycle is a much simpler machine.
Made with cheaper components in a manufacturing process with lower standards. If cars were built that were as fragile as bikes they'd never be allowed to sell them.
If I had to make a guess, it would be that the bicycle incurs fewer failures than an automobile.
A guess, right. I'm talking from experience. Guess which one of us is right and which one of us just pulled something out of your arse?
Mass transit is also unpleasant to use and generally very slow.
No, badly done mass transit is like that.
Then tell me an implementation of mass transit that:
a) Goes at any time, 24/7, not just when 9-5 workers need it. b) Takes you directly from your starting point to your destination with no transfers or much walking. c) Allows storage. d) Doesn't involve being surrounded by chavs. e) Doesn't involve standing outside in the rain waiting for it. f) Doesn't have routes cancelled, ever. g) Doesn't stop ever five yards to pick someone else up.
Disclaimer: I cycle to work every day and relating first-hand experience verbatim.
I can definitely commute much faster in rush hour traffic than I can in a car.
I can drive to work in 10 minutes. Cycling takes 45 minutes if you factor in getting changed, wringing out clothes etc. That's over an hour a day, five and a half hours a week.
Cycling's very cheap
If your time and comfort are worthless.
and it turns an otherwise stressful time into a pleasant experience
Yes, what could be more pleasant than wobbling around as the wind tries to blow you into the path of oncoming cars, and then getting to work soaked through to the skin? Or trying to peer into the dark road covered with fog with your tiny light as the hail gets in your eyes? What about getting a puncture on a winding road in the dark and rain at 11pm, with no pavement and cars going past at 70mph, with another four miles until home?
Not to mention increasing your chances of getting a cold as you're exposed to the elements, cycling through mud and horse shit on the roads that sprays up in your face.
We don't all live in idyllic Australian suburbs.
And it gives exercise!!
Unless you're going 50 miles, it's not much exercise, I'm very unfit and overweight despite cycling every day for years. Even the exercise you do get, it's only your legs, and only endurance, it won't give you any strength or muscle size. And do you want exercise when you're wearing a suit going to work, in the sun? What if you've pulled a muscle? You suddenly can't go to work. Losing you job doesn't save you money.
The other plus, is that finding parking for a bicycle is always easy.
Yeah, you've got a rack that leaves the bike in the rain to rust up, and where it is easily vandalised or stolen. That's assuming there are any racks nearby. You also have nowhere to store anything, and you can't travel any serious distances., meaning you can't go anywhere after work but home. You'll deal with constant maintenance, constant punctures, and are liable to being attacked or run over. You can't get past any major junctions or roundabouts without risking death. You have less time to do anything in the morning like eat breakfast or drink coffee. Your quality of life is lower.
Your productivity per hour worked figures assume that the French all work 35 hours a week, which most don't. Considering that most unpaid overtime isn't recorded you've no way of working out hours worked. Nor have you any way of objectively recording production, outside of manufacturing at least.
For a business, at the end of the day all that matters is total production, not production per hour. If a worker does the work in 35 hours rather than 40 it doesn't save you any money, the unions won't let you pay them any less. And knowing human nature, they'll probably do proportionally less work in the 35 hours, still getting paid for 40 hours obviously.
I've always wondered how a 35 hour week works in manufacturing. With a normal 40 hour week, each shift works 8 hours a day so it runs 24 hours a day. With 35 hour weeks, do you turn off the machines for three hours a day? How does it work when you've got factories running 24/7? It would be impossible. No wonder manufacturers are clamoring to close down their French plants.
My commute to work is about 30 minutes by bike (plus 5-10 minutes to change clothes) and 20 minutes by car. While I would love to live closer, I can't complain too much. One thing I really love about biking is that I don't have to put up with traffic.
Surely the time you lose by using such a slow form of transport is more than the time stuck in traffic?
Not to mention the time you spend on a road in the middle of nowhere in the rain pushing the bike along because you've got a puncture.
Or the time finding places to dry out your clothes, or washing all the mud off the bike before it all solidifies, or redoing your hair after it's flatted by your hat, or washing all the mud off your face, or squeezing your change of clothes into your bag (along with everything else you need to take to work). Or the money lost because you're late to work due to a puncture, snapped chain etc.
You apparently aren't aware that sports rules and physics have changed arbitrarily over the years.
Yet the laws of physics and human physiology, and the general object of the game, have remained constant. In a computer game, all that changes with a single patch.
And of course, America made up its own 'football', arbitrarily changing the game completely from that played in other countries--and most play the old games, not the new one.
Those changes have taken centuries. In the computer game world, games are released and outdated within a year, replaced by something completely different. It'd be like if every season, the NFL decided to revert to a spherical or rectangular ball, a triangular or ovular pitch, goalposts half the size, and played the game in a zero g environment with laser guns.
Those are the sorts of change we're talking about. I can't think of a single computer game which was popular fifty years ago, and is played today with pretty much the same rules, objectives and physics.
The entry barrier to playing sport is a lot higher than turning on the computer.
Also with sport you're watching something real, that's actually happening, that depends on your own body and the laws of physics, not some pixels that with the flick of a switch could completely vanish, based on arbitrary rules that could be changed with a single update or sequel.
Imagine if every few years, the rules of football were changed, so the field went from 100 to 200 yards, the ball was made three times lighter and four times longer, the laws of gravity and momentum changed, and the number of players double or halfed. Some people played the old game, and some people played the new game. And every now and again some 'patch' came up so that a few games here and there had different rules. No-one would bother watching it, let alone working out what the rules of the week are.
I had no idea that Kevin Mitnick was convicted of a crime called "Fraudster".
The crime is called 'fraud', people who commit that crime are usually refered to as 'fraudsters'. I can't believe I'm giving yet another language lesson on this website.
Think of it like this: Name of Country, Descriptor America, United States of China, People's Rebuplic of Korea, Republic of France, Republic of
Except America isn't the name of the country, it's the name of the continent. America referred to the continent long before the United States even existed. Where do you think they got the word 'America' from?
I suppose you think Central America refers to Texas/Oklahoma?
America DOES refer to the whole of the Americas, its usage to refer to the US is a recent development brought about by verbal laziness.
Note that the South American football championship is called the Copa America, not the Copa South America. Also football teams such as 'Club America' in Mexico, and 'America de Cali' in Columbia, they have no link to the US.
It's only inside the US and other English speaking countries that America only refers to a single country.
Where do you think the term 'North America' came from, if not being the northern part of 'America'?
Tell that to the people who refer to Microsoft as 'convicted monopolists', yet scream about the injustice if you remind them that Kevin Mitnick is a convicted fraudster.
And that heritage has been repeatedly invoked here in Southern Rhode Island, where the local communities are looking to restore the 'Brothel Laws' in order to make students' lives miserable.
That's ironic, considering that students have made it their raison d'etre to make other peoples lives miserable.
What you probably fail to realize if that the chef (and the waiter you later mention) are in what's known as a "service organization" and as such their entire goal should be to "serve" their customers.
As a chef your goal is to prepare good food. A well done steak isn't good food, it's what people order who don't really like steak. A chef who serves a well done steak has disgraced his profession.
Use your vast talents to create the best damn well-done steak you can. Be proud of your ability to improvise under adverse conditions.
Why do that, when he can throw the customer out and instead cook for someone who actually has working tastebuds?
Yes, there are pretentious snobs who think this crappy service attitude adds a degree of class to the establishment
I think only you could consider cooking decent food to be 'crappy service'. You'll find that top restaurants have waiting lists measured in months or years, and people who want their steak well done have no business eating there as they won't be able to taste anything anyway.
If you want a well done steak, why are you going to a good restaurant anyway? That's like going to the Royal Opera House and complaining that you can't see Bernand Manning.
But ultimately this is a self-defeating attitude, as you will eventually lose sight of the fact that customers are occasionally (not always) right, and if you can't respectfully disagree, you're not going to be in business very long.
Note the previous point about several month waiting lists. Obviously being pretentious enough to only serve good food doesn't drive restaurants out of business.
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But as far as time is concerned, I consider every minute I spend on the bike to be one minute I don't need to spend at the gym.
Then how come despite the fact I cycle to work every day, I'm unfit, fat and have no muscle? Cycling does not replace going to the gym.
Tell me a single person with a muscular body who only cycles and never works out?
At least you can push a bike; good luck pushing a car to work in the rain.
How often does a car break down for every time a bike breaks down? Maybe 1 in 1000. Anyway I'd rather sit in a warm car rather than wrestle with a tyre and innertube in the rain, holding a torch in my teeth.
How would the time/work lost due to mechanical failures (punctured tires, snapped chain, etc) be any worse with a bicycle than with an automobile?
With a bicycle you lose a lot more time due to the more frequent failures. I had a car for two years and it didn't go wrong once. I've had a bike and it goes wrong on average once a month.
A bicycle is a much simpler machine.
Made with cheaper components in a manufacturing process with lower standards. If cars were built that were as fragile as bikes they'd never be allowed to sell them.
If I had to make a guess, it would be that the bicycle incurs fewer failures than an automobile.
A guess, right. I'm talking from experience. Guess which one of us is right and which one of us just pulled something out of your arse?
Nobody works 8 hours straight. People have lunch breaks. So they're really at work 9 hours, but only working 8.
No, they're at work for 8 hours. There are people to cover for breaks. Have you even worked in a factory?
Mass transit is also unpleasant to use and generally very slow.
No, badly done mass transit is like that.
Then tell me an implementation of mass transit that:
a) Goes at any time, 24/7, not just when 9-5 workers need it.
b) Takes you directly from your starting point to your destination with no transfers or much walking.
c) Allows storage.
d) Doesn't involve being surrounded by chavs.
e) Doesn't involve standing outside in the rain waiting for it.
f) Doesn't have routes cancelled, ever.
g) Doesn't stop ever five yards to pick someone else up.
Disclaimer: I cycle to work every day and relating first-hand experience verbatim.
I can definitely commute much faster in rush hour traffic than I can in a car.
I can drive to work in 10 minutes. Cycling takes 45 minutes if you factor in getting changed, wringing out clothes etc. That's over an hour a day, five and a half hours a week.
Cycling's very cheap
If your time and comfort are worthless.
and it turns an otherwise stressful time into a pleasant experience
Yes, what could be more pleasant than wobbling around as the wind tries to blow you into the path of oncoming cars, and then getting to work soaked through to the skin? Or trying to peer into the dark road covered with fog with your tiny light as the hail gets in your eyes? What about getting a puncture on a winding road in the dark and rain at 11pm, with no pavement and cars going past at 70mph, with another four miles until home?
Not to mention increasing your chances of getting a cold as you're exposed to the elements, cycling through mud and horse shit on the roads that sprays up in your face.
We don't all live in idyllic Australian suburbs.
And it gives exercise!!
Unless you're going 50 miles, it's not much exercise, I'm very unfit and overweight despite cycling every day for years. Even the exercise you do get, it's only your legs, and only endurance, it won't give you any strength or muscle size. And do you want exercise when you're wearing a suit going to work, in the sun? What if you've pulled a muscle? You suddenly can't go to work. Losing you job doesn't save you money.
The other plus, is that finding parking for a bicycle is always easy.
Yeah, you've got a rack that leaves the bike in the rain to rust up, and where it is easily vandalised or stolen. That's assuming there are any racks nearby. You also have nowhere to store anything, and you can't travel any serious distances., meaning you can't go anywhere after work but home. You'll deal with constant maintenance, constant punctures, and are liable to being attacked or run over. You can't get past any major junctions or roundabouts without risking death. You have less time to do anything in the morning like eat breakfast or drink coffee. Your quality of life is lower.
Your productivity per hour worked figures assume that the French all work 35 hours a week, which most don't. Considering that most unpaid overtime isn't recorded you've no way of working out hours worked. Nor have you any way of objectively recording production, outside of manufacturing at least.
For a business, at the end of the day all that matters is total production, not production per hour. If a worker does the work in 35 hours rather than 40 it doesn't save you any money, the unions won't let you pay them any less. And knowing human nature, they'll probably do proportionally less work in the 35 hours, still getting paid for 40 hours obviously.
I've always wondered how a 35 hour week works in manufacturing. With a normal 40 hour week, each shift works 8 hours a day so it runs 24 hours a day. With 35 hour weeks, do you turn off the machines for three hours a day? How does it work when you've got factories running 24/7? It would be impossible. No wonder manufacturers are clamoring to close down their French plants.
My commute to work is about 30 minutes by bike (plus 5-10 minutes to change clothes) and 20 minutes by car. While I would love to live closer, I can't complain too much. One thing I really love about biking is that I don't have to put up with traffic.
Surely the time you lose by using such a slow form of transport is more than the time stuck in traffic?
Not to mention the time you spend on a road in the middle of nowhere in the rain pushing the bike along because you've got a puncture.
Or the time finding places to dry out your clothes, or washing all the mud off the bike before it all solidifies, or redoing your hair after it's flatted by your hat, or washing all the mud off your face, or squeezing your change of clothes into your bag (along with everything else you need to take to work). Or the money lost because you're late to work due to a puncture, snapped chain etc.
What about the sleep deprivation?
To be a sport it needs an element of physical exertion. There are people who get out of breath going up the stairs but can play golf.
What exactly is sociable about running? You can't talk when running, and you probably don't go at the same speed as everyone else.
You've also neglected to mention that running is completely mindless and monotonous. It's like being in an imaginary hampster wheel.
You apparently aren't aware that sports rules and physics have changed arbitrarily over the years.
Yet the laws of physics and human physiology, and the general object of the game, have remained constant. In a computer game, all that changes with a single patch.
And of course, America made up its own 'football', arbitrarily changing the game completely from that played in other countries--and most play the old games, not the new one.
Those changes have taken centuries. In the computer game world, games are released and outdated within a year, replaced by something completely different. It'd be like if every season, the NFL decided to revert to a spherical or rectangular ball, a triangular or ovular pitch, goalposts half the size, and played the game in a zero g environment with laser guns.
Those are the sorts of change we're talking about. I can't think of a single computer game which was popular fifty years ago, and is played today with pretty much the same rules, objectives and physics.
The entry barrier to playing sport is a lot higher than turning on the computer.
Also with sport you're watching something real, that's actually happening, that depends on your own body and the laws of physics, not some pixels that with the flick of a switch could completely vanish, based on arbitrary rules that could be changed with a single update or sequel.
Imagine if every few years, the rules of football were changed, so the field went from 100 to 200 yards, the ball was made three times lighter and four times longer, the laws of gravity and momentum changed, and the number of players double or halfed. Some people played the old game, and some people played the new game. And every now and again some 'patch' came up so that a few games here and there had different rules. No-one would bother watching it, let alone working out what the rules of the week are.
Is it a good game if you have to hunt down and install countless mods, all with unknown side-effects, just to make the game enjoyable?
If you can't find a mod for it, mod it yourself and let everyone else enjoy it!
What if I want to play a game, rather than write and exchange mods?
I had no idea that Kevin Mitnick was convicted of a crime called "Fraudster".
The crime is called 'fraud', people who commit that crime are usually refered to as 'fraudsters'. I can't believe I'm giving yet another language lesson on this website.
Think of it like this: Name of Country, Descriptor
America, United States of
China, People's Rebuplic of
Korea, Republic of
France, Republic of
Except America isn't the name of the country, it's the name of the continent. America referred to the continent long before the United States even existed. Where do you think they got the word 'America' from?
I suppose you think Central America refers to Texas/Oklahoma?
Your theory is a common urban legend.
America DOES refer to the whole of the Americas, its usage to refer to the US is a recent development brought about by verbal laziness.
Note that the South American football championship is called the Copa America, not the Copa South America. Also football teams such as 'Club America' in Mexico, and 'America de Cali' in Columbia, they have no link to the US.
It's only inside the US and other English speaking countries that America only refers to a single country.
Where do you think the term 'North America' came from, if not being the northern part of 'America'?
Actually you'll find that anyone remotely educated in the West knows who Mao is.
Tell that to the people who refer to Microsoft as 'convicted monopolists', yet scream about the injustice if you remind them that Kevin Mitnick is a convicted fraudster.
What does 'rushing the field' mean?
And that heritage has been repeatedly invoked here in Southern Rhode Island, where the local communities are looking to restore the 'Brothel Laws' in order to make students' lives miserable.
That's ironic, considering that students have made it their raison d'etre to make other peoples lives miserable.
What you probably fail to realize if that the chef (and the waiter you later mention) are in what's known as a "service organization" and as such their entire goal should be to "serve" their customers.
As a chef your goal is to prepare good food. A well done steak isn't good food, it's what people order who don't really like steak. A chef who serves a well done steak has disgraced his profession.
Use your vast talents to create the best damn well-done steak you can. Be proud of your ability to improvise under adverse conditions.
Why do that, when he can throw the customer out and instead cook for someone who actually has working tastebuds?
Yes, there are pretentious snobs who think this crappy service attitude adds a degree of class to the establishment
I think only you could consider cooking decent food to be 'crappy service'. You'll find that top restaurants have waiting lists measured in months or years, and people who want their steak well done have no business eating there as they won't be able to taste anything anyway.
If you want a well done steak, why are you going to a good restaurant anyway? That's like going to the Royal Opera House and complaining that you can't see Bernand Manning.
But ultimately this is a self-defeating attitude, as you will eventually lose sight of the fact that customers are occasionally (not always) right, and if you can't respectfully disagree, you're not going to be in business very long.
Note the previous point about several month waiting lists. Obviously being pretentious enough to only serve good food doesn't drive restaurants out of business.
If you have to blame anyone, blame American computer programmers for pricing themselves out of the market.
Your post has more meaningless buzzwords than the article!
Yeah, and TV will kill the radio, computers will kill books and newspapers, and cars will kill walking.
The sky is falling!
Your complaints apply to ALL mmorpgs, if it works for warcraft or everquest why not pirates of the caribean?