There has been much debate in the media and on forums everywhere regarding the whole bikes vs cars thing. Whilst most cyclists are well behaved, and most cars are well behaved, i think there are a select few making things bad for everyone by behaving like a child.

So I would just like to clarify things for you all and quote the road code here, just in case anyone was in doubt.

80-90% of Cyclists are also drivers, they pay road taxes, etc and drive on the road just as you do. Stop using this as an argument to justify your bad driving.

It IS legal to ride 2 abreast cycling, this however does take up an entire lane and so single file should be used when overtaking parked cars, or if cars want to get through.

If you are a car, then sometimes they may not notice you behind them, it pays to give a couple of short beeps to let them know you are there. At this point people in bunches will start the call ‘Car Back’ which is passed from rider to rider and they should move into single file.

At the lights,  especially when there are people turning, cyclists will sit in the middle of the lane. This is so that nobody turns in front of them at all, and because they can usually do a fairly fast take off.

Probably the worst situation is the most common, and that’s when a car overtakes a cyclist nicely and without thinking with plenty of gap, then forgets they were there and turns left into a street or driveway effectively cutting them off.  Whilst the crash may be minor for the car involve if the cyclist can brake, a resulting road rash or broken bones etc can sting for some time.

Riding on the footpath is illegal for anyone over 12 who is not a postie, its not an option that works for cyclists. The ‘cycling paths’ that are painted onto footpaths  are great for teenagers and kids, and even those slower riders or beach cruisers, however they are not in any way suitable for anyone riding faster than 15km/ph. The reason is because often people have children and dogs on the same footpaths which are unpredictable and will often jump out in front of you, not to mention people getting in and out of cars which have to cross the cycle path to get to the walking part, and in general people just not honouring the actual ‘cycle path’ part being only for cyclists.

The average roadie speed on the flat is easily near 30km/ph. A lot of people underestimate the speed they are going and think ‘oh they wont get here before i turn’ or similar’. On a downhill, personally, I’ve seen a lot of cyclists doing up to, and over 80km/ph, can you please be aware of this when you are turning and see a cyclist?

Above all, both Cyclists and Drivers, try to be more tolerant and less angry. You dont NEED to get angry if you get cut off, or if somebody over takes you, its ok to just let it go. Life is too short to waste time on pointless anger or in a jail cell/hospital because of it.

http://www.ltsa.govt.nz/roadcode/about-other-road-users/information-for-cyclists.html

Safety rules for cyclists

• Cyclists must wear an approved safety helmet. Always fasten it securely, by following the manufacturer’s instructions.
• It’s a good idea to wear brightly coloured or reflective clothing when cycling. That way you’ll be easier to see.
• Don’t ride your bicycle on a footpath unless you are delivering newspapers, mail or leaflets, or there is a sign indicating it is a shared pedestrian and cycle path.
• At intersections, you must:
  • follow the rules for motor vehicles, or
  • get off your cycle and walk across.
• You can only ride alongside another cyclist or moped. You must not ride alongside a car, truck or other motor vehicle.
• Always ride in single file if passing another vehicle.
• Your cycle must not be towed by another vehicle.
• Your cycle can only tow a trailer (one designed to be towed by a cycle) and must not be fitted with a sidecar.
• You must not carry a pillion passenger on your cycle unless you have a pillion seat and footrest. If you are carrying a child, the pillion seat must protect the child’s legs from the wheels.
• You must not leave a cycle blocking a footpath.
• Where there is an adequate cycle path or cycle lane, cyclists should use it.
• You must ride with lights on when it is dark (from 30 minutes after sunset until 30 minutes before sunrise).
• You must keep your cycle in good working condition.

http://www.ltsa.govt.nz/roadcode/about-other-road-users/sharing-road-with-cyclists.html

Safe driving around cyclists

• Hazards like parked cars, potholes, glass, litter and opening car doors may cause cyclists to veer off-line and move into your path. Because of this, give cyclists plenty of room when passing them. Ideally, allow at least 1.5 metres between you and the cyclist.
• Wait for a clear space before passing a cyclist on a narrow road.
• At intersections, apply the same rules to cyclists that you would to any other vehicle on the road. Take care to indicate turns.
• Only drive across cycle lanes when entering or leaving side roads, driveways or parking spaces.
• If you are crossing a cycle lane, give way to cyclists before you cross.
• Take extra care around young cyclists.
• You must not drive in a cycle lane.

I notice the term GEEK is used a lot these days, every man and his dogs flea refers to themselves as a geek. I’m talking computer geek here today, no other kind

15 years ago  it was a different story completely. In my book and having talked to several other people online, a geek is somebody who is into technology and understands it and is doing stuff beyond the average user.

But to clarify, can you please leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments. What is a GEEK and what is not a GEEK?

My thoughts are that you need at least one or two of the following criteria (not all!)

• You can program in more at least one language, probably 2 or 3 (html/css NOT included)
• You can use a command line easily without having to google commands in at least one of the following Windows, Linux, or OS X
• You know the difference between a Domain Registrar, Domain Name Server, and types of DNS records.
• You know what Linux is, have installed it, and used it regularly (using a friends/boyfriends/family PC not counted, and done without help)
• You can name all the following parts of a PC, AND what they do. CPU, RAM, HDD, BUS, PSU.
• You can create a full network, including DHCP, DNS, Gateway/firewall and know what IP ranges are reserved for private networks
• Do all of the above WITHOUT having to google!

You are NOT a geek if you ONLY do

• You are on Helpdesk
• you helped somebody fix their email
• You use IRC, Twitter, Forums, Other chat forums
• You Game lots (Some gamers are geek, but most are not)

Note: if you do the “you are not a geek if” and still qualify the above ones you are still a geek.

#!/bin/bash
# copious amount of useless comments 3 pages longer than the code should always be at the top of any shell script
# This is so you can run screen and vote for some person lots without looking like some automated voting system
# Feel free to use this, but please keep my name/website etc on it (need the fame ya know)
# I'm not gonna walk you through it, if you dont understand it then dont use it
# Yes im sure you could do better!
# Don't forget to edit it
# Written by Liz Quilty http://velofille.com

RAND=`dd if=/dev/urandom count=1 2> /dev/null | cksum | cut -f1 -d" " |cut -c1-4`
if [ $RAND -lt 1200 ]; then RAND_SLEEP=$(($RAND+200)) ; else RAND_SLEEP=$RAND;fi

while [ 1 ] ; do
# the below line wgets the link the 12345 is the users number and the 45 is country number (view web page for these) - Edit this line to reflect user/url
wget --referer=http://tweeterwall.mallplace.com/tw/new-zealand/top-something-url -U Mozilla http://tweeterwall.mallplace.com/tw/vote/12345/45
sleep $RAND_SLEEP # sleep for random time before voting again
done

Apon talking about about IPV6 addresses on IRC with some friends, I made the comment that the addresses are hard to remember. So conversation went along the lines of using phone numbers, or making ipv4 go above 255, and pretty much every other stupid idea we could think of.
But then we realized, IPV6 is actually not to bad to remember, you just have to make sure you have some great groupings!

feed:cafe
beef:babe
dd::b00b:135

About this time i googled and found the following page

We thought it was time for some fun of the geekier kind. If you know what IPv6 is, this should be something for you.

You may have seen IPv6 addresses that contain a couple of actual words. Here is a made-up example: babe:f432:42aa:8271:eee6:1076:dead:beef

Now what if we take this one step further, and construct entire sentences inside IPv6 addresses instead of just a few words? We decided to do just that, and here is how we did it.

Constructing words inside IPv6 addresses

When showing an IPv6 address a hexadecimal notation is used. The hexadecimal digits are 0-9 and A-F (the latter corresponding to the values 10-15).

A 128-bit IPv6 address is written as 8 sets of 4 hexadecimal digits. Since initial zeroes can be skipped in each set, we can include words that are 4, 3, 2 or 1 characters long.

When constructing words, we can use the letters A-F, of course, since they are already letters. Then, to give us a few more letters to play with, we decided to include some leet-style interpretations of the numbers 0-9. (As you’re probably starting to notice, we’re a pretty geeky crowd here at Pingdom. )

We went with: 0 = o or . , 1 = i or l, 2 = R, 5 = S, 6 = b, 7 = T, 9 = g.

So in the end we have the following letters to construct words with: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, i, l, o, r, s, t

Now on to constructing some actual sentences!

IPv6 addresses that make sense (sort of)

The “IPv6 sentences” below are not existing addresses we’ve found. We made them up. But although they’re just made up they are nevertheless correct and could be used in the real world.

Unfortunately we didn’t have the necessary letters to include words like “ping”, “tcp”, “http”, “down” and many others we would have liked to have in our word arsenal, but we had a lot of fun putting various sentences together over a couple of after-work beers.

Here are some of the better ones we came up with:

Happy sysadmin

(root is good. root is god.)

Fearful sysadmin

(dear god. last boot lost all data)

(data loss. good god. i dead)

(too late to face boss. flee flee)

(Almost a bit of storytelling there… )

The Digg (Slashdot) effect

(if digg site or blog is fast dead)

Ideal IP address for Icanhascheezburger.com

(lots of lol cats fill all blog data)

or just:

(lol cats lol cats lol cats lol cats)

A perspective on web robots and crawlers

(get lost or die bots . . .)

Can’t leave them cats alone

(if cat sees bird, cat eats bird)

The truth about beer

(ice cold beer is as good as life)

For ad-crazy sites

http://maple-news.com/2008/05/25/the-relation-between-beards-and-the-succes-of-programming-languages/

Lets see how successful are a few programming languages.

The F# Language.

This is its creator, Don Syme. He doesn’t have a beard, which means his Programming language won’t be a big success.

Next- Prolog.

Look at Alain Colmerauer’s face. No beard – no success!

Now, C.

Ken Thompson, Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie all have a beard (more or less ) and as we all know C is one of the most succssesful programming languages.

C++

C++ is still one of the most popular programming languages – but it is getting more and more unpopular. Lets see why:

So, why does this happen?

Look at Bjarne Stroustrup’s face – now and then:

1.

2.

3.

Basic:

Basic was once one of the most popular programming languages – but today it is very unpopular. Do you ask why? Here is the answer – Thomas Eugene Kurtz’s (the creator) beard of course!

Then:

Now:

Perl

Perl is still a pretty common programming language.

Larry Wall – Good Job!

Python and Ruby.

Recently these two programming languages became very popular. You obviously know why…

Guido van Rossum (python)

And Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto (Ruby)

Last, but not least- Java

Look at James Gosling’s beard. Did anyone say a picture can say more then a 1000 words?

And there are many more…

Enjoy!