Battlefield 5 is being released next Tuesday (November 20, 2018)
I couldn’t wait for it, so I signed up for a month of premium access
Now I am downloading Battlefield 5, but at 44gb it’s going to take over 13 hours
Another reason to download it now is, I imagine next Tuesday the servers will be really busy.
Mr Brother shared his Netflix account with me.
So I am not very productive at the moment.
This is my first post on this blog.
Its running on WordPress on an Australian Cpanel setup for $6.48 AUD for the first year at zuver.net.au
Great value!
Ref: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/414006
I got a new bike, a Kona Rove NRB DL
I managed to buy my bike for only $2,400! This might seem excessive, but it is normally $2,999! I pick it up Friday, June 15
My fifth decade on this earth is approaching and I am getting a little wide in my girth. I have a perfectly good touring bike sitting in the garage, a Bike Friday Pocket Lama:
The only problem is because it is a foldable bike, there is a weight limit for the frame. I am over that limit 🙁
I need a new bike to ride my plus size me and the Kona Rove NRB DL fits the bill.
So why this bike?
The marketing spiel for the bike starts with:
what does a modern road bike look like? If you ask us, it would be quick on the pavement but completely capable of putting in time on a variety of surfaces. Thru-axles, hydraulic brakes, and room for big tires.
SO:
Bikes with these attributes are usually aim at the gravel market. This is for cyclists who like to ride on unpaved roads or even technical single track like a mountain bike.
Bikes in this category are often used for bike packing
The bike I have purchased meets the first five categories, but instead of steel uses aluminium for the frame.
Despite the ease of putting points 6 and 7 on a bike they didn’t do this for my bike.This would be down to two factors, cost and market differentiation.
Bike designed for the bike packing scene have lots of attachments points everywhere. This is incrediably versatile, but a little ugly. An excellent example of this type of bike is the Surly Troll.
While my dream bike entails images of cycling a heavy ladden bike through a desert or mountain pass, reality is moving around quickly, comfortably in a busy city with the occassional foray into the bush.
This is best served by a Road+ bike, which is essentially a comfortable road bike with fat tyres, in my case 47mm 650B (27.5″)
One of the bikes I was considering was the Surly Midnight Special which epitomises the Road+ category. I didn’t get this bike because
On the plus side it did have mounting points on the front fork. I love their marketing spiel which is just as applicable to my Kona Rove NRB DL:
Today’s road bikes are tricky little buggers. Sure, there’s still a place for super narrow, pizza cutter-esque tires that save watts and shave grams or whatever. There’s probably still even a place for a road racing bike. Those places still exist. We just don’t know – or particularly care – where they are. When it comes to road bikes, we just want to toss a few banabikenas into our pockets and see where the road takes us. We seek out varied surfaces on our rides and frequently go from pavement to gravel to shittier pavement.
Enter: The Midnight Special – a Road Plus bike designed to provide comfort and speed on those all-day rides that extend well beyond fresh pavement. It rides like a cloud on smooth pavement. but that’s expected. Any bike can do that. Where it truly shines is on pot-holed, deteriorating pavement and the occasional long stretch of gravel. The Midnight Special’s 650b Road Plus tires eat up road chatter and absorb all the bumps in the road like the champion it was designed to be.
If you’re some masochist who is unfazed by the thought of a bumpy, chattery eight-hour road ride, you should know that the benefits of Road Plus go beyond just comfort. They also create a wider contact patch, thereby increasing your traction. And traction is a good thing. Additionally, higher volume tires allow you to better fine tune your tire pressure on varying surfaces. Let a little out on bumpier roads and pump those suckers up on smooth ones.
Want to know what bike packing is? .. have a look at bikepacking.com for lots of great photos and stories.
| FRAME MATERIAL | Kona 6061 Aluminum Butted |
| SIZE | 56 |
| REAR SHOCK | n/a |
| FORK | Kona Full Carbon Flat mount CX Race Disc |
| CRANKARMS | Shimano RS510 |
| CHAINRINGS | 34/50t |
| B/B | Shimano 68mm |
| PEDALS | n/a |
| CHAIN | KMC X11 |
| FREEWHEEL | Shimano 105 11-32t 11spd |
| CHAINGUIDE | n/a |
| F/D | Shimano 105 |
| R/D | Shimano Ultegra |
| SHIFTERS | Shimano 105 |
| BRAKE CALIPERS | Shimano Hydraulic Flat Mount |
| FRONT BRAKE ROTOR | Shimano RT54 160mm (centerlock) |
| REAR BRAKE ROTOR | Shimano RT54 160mm (centerlock) |
| BRAKE LEVERS | Shimano Hydraulic |
| HEADSET | FSA No. 57SC |
| STEM | Kona Road Deluxe |
| SEATPOST | Kona Deluxe Thumb w/Offset 31.6mm |
| SEAT CLAMP | Kona Clamp |
| GRIPS | Kona Cork Tape |
| SADDLE | WTB Volt Comp |
| FRONT HUB | Formula 100x12mm (centerlock) |
| REAR HUB | Formula 142x12mm (centerlock) |
| SPOKES | Stainless Black 14g |
| RIMS | WTB Asym i23 TCS |
| FRONT TIRE | WTB Horizon Road Plus TCS 650x47c (650x40c size 46) |
| REAR TIRE | WTB Horizon Road Plus TCS 650x47c (650x40c size 46) |
| PAINT COLOR | Matt Metallic Sand w/ Charcoal & Red Decals |
| mm | inches | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ST LENGTH | 560 | 22.0 |
| 2 | TT LENGTH | 579 | 22.8 |
| 3 | REACH | 392 | 15.4 |
| 4 | STACK | 610 | 24.0 |
| 5 | STANDOVER | 803 | 31.6 |
| 6 | HT ANGLE | 71.5 | 71.5 |
| 7 | HT LENGTH | 186.6 | 7.3 |
| 8 | ST ANGLE | 73.0 | 17.1 |
| 9 | CS LENGTH | 435 | 17.1 |
| 10 | BB DROP | 70 | 2.8 |
| 11 | BB HEIGHT | 273 | 10.7 |
| 12 | WHEELBASE | 1050 | 41.3 |
| 13 | FRONT CENTER | 624 | 24.6 |
| 14 | FORK LENGTH | 395 | 15.6 |
| 15 | FORK OFFSET | 45 | 1.8 |
References
KONA’S VERSATILE ROVE LINE EXPANDS WITH 650B, REYNOLDS 853 – ROVE LTD, ROVE NRB DL, ROVE NRB
Riding the new Kona Rove NRB gravel bike in southern Spain
pelotonmagazine article
Riding Gravel Forum Post
2018-06-14-Kona-ROVE-NRB-DL
After breaking my last chair (is someone telling me I am too fat?) I decided to buy a new chair.
It seems there is an official standard for chairs if you want a government or corporate contract. My chair meets it and has a seven year warranty compared with the standard one year warranty.
At time like this I wish I had a car. To get my chair I cycled 15km into the city and wheeled the chair and bicycle to the train station, took the train back home and then walked another kilometre back to my house.
Price(Inc GST):$390.00
http://www.melbofficefurniture.com.au/office-chairs/task-chairs/oxley/243/productview.aspx
Description:
Fully ergonomic office chair.
Heavy duty
4 levers
Seat slide
Adjustable arms
Moulded back and seat
Black
7 Year Warranty
140kg rated
When I was shopping for the chair yesterday I decided to have lunch at my favourite Korean restaurant. It had gone out of business, the inside was gutted … it felt a little demoralizing.
So I went to my favourite computer shop, the usual guys weren’t there and I was talking with salesman about business. He said the rent for the small shop was over AUD $200,000 per year.
That’s highway robbery, so wandered down another few doors to an old chinese restaurant I really liked near RMIT … it had bloody closed, in its place another Korean restaurant 🙁
In disgust I wander back down the street and ate at the big Korean restaurant .. yummy
Just purchased StackSocials Mac Bundle 3.0 Ft. Camtasia 2 for $11. I purchased it mainly for Camtasia 2, a screen capture utility used for screencasts (video tutorials of computer programs). It is a PC port to the Mac of an excellent package. The main competition on the Mac is ScreenFlow.
But since both cost $99 and I got it for $11 I can’t complain even if I don’t use it much.
Just installed version 1.0 of Vox a lightweight music player for OS X.
I like it a lot, even through it initially crashed a lot.
Solution is at https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/24852/vox
– Open /Application folder.
– Locate Vox.app
– With control+click (right click) on Vox icon select ‘Show Package Content’
– Open enclosed folder Contents->XPCServices
– Remove com.coppertino.Vox.GNTPClientService.xpc
– Restart Vox
For today only I think, you can unlock the radio function for free – http://coppertino.com/vox/unlockradio.php?code=VOXRUMORS
To get around sandbox restrictions, an add-on for hardware control is downloadable at http://coppertino.com/vox/addon.html
It seems OK once I installed classic start menu
From my point of view I am only interested in three languages for stats, R, Python and Excel. Excel I won’t cover here, but there are many fine books on it on Amazon.
R and Python are free open source languages. R is a language for statistics, whilst Python is a more general purpose programming language.
I prefer the syntax of Python over R any day, but for statistical modelling and making pretty graphs, R has a great mindshare.
Think Bayes – Think Bayes is an introduction to Bayesian statistics using computational methods. This version of the book is a rough draft. The author is making the draft available for comments, but it comes with the warning that it is probably full of errors.
Think Stats: Probability and Statistics for Programmers – Think Stats emphasizes simple techniques you can use to explore real data sets and answer interesting questions. Think Stats is based on a Python library for probability distributions (PMFs and CDFs). Many of the exercises use short programs to run experiments and help readers develop understanding. Most introductory books don’t cover Bayesian statistics, but Think Stats is based on the idea that Bayesian methods are too important to postpone. By taking advantage of the PMF and CDF libraries, it is possible for beginners to learn the concepts and solve challenging problems.
Think Python: How to Think Like a Computer Scientist – Think Python is an introduction to Python programming for beginners.
R is used a lot in academia and science. A lot of online stats courses use R for teaching statistics.
A Crash Course in R | (R news & tutorials)– single program with many examples of syntax
Getting staRted with R. | (R news & tutorials) – lots of links to good tutorials
twotorials by anthony damico – excellent tutorial screencasts on R
Flowingdata Tutorials – Flowing data is a great site, not just for R, but statistics and presentation in general
The Guerilla Guide to R – It’s basically a number of Stack Overflow links organized and ordered in a way to help R programmers learn their way to the next level. If you are proficient in R, I hope these resources will help you get closer to being amazing. If you are just getting started with R, I’d suggest adding this page to your bookmarks and returning when you are familiar with the basics of R programming.
This “book” essentially writes itself since most of the experts (and peer-reviewers) are answering the questions. Most of the questions are “real-world” and are asked by novice or intermediate programmers.
IPSUR – Introduction to Probability and Statistics Using R – a textbook written for an undergraduate course in probability and statistics.
Learning Statistics with R | Computational Cognitive Science Lab – A free book form the university of Adelaide, designed for an introductory statistics class for psychology students, using the R statistical package as the primary tool
Introduction to Data Science – This book provides non-technical readers with a gentle introduction to essential concepts and activities of data science. For more technical readers, the book provides explanations and code for a range of interesting applications using the open source R language for statistical computing and graphics.
Available in PDF and ibook format
