Jan and Klodi's Party Bus - part II off topic discussion

magicbastarder · 13-06-2017 12:54PM

accepting the concept of 'the selfish gene' is not the same as accepting 'humans are selfish'; a gene being selfish could lead to altruistic behaviour.

though everyday definitions of altruism and selfishness can muddy the waters. you can be altruistic and at the same time act within your own interests, which raises the question regarding motives. still, i'm going to stick with the approach while out on the bike that motorists are not acting in my self interest.

Alek · 13-06-2017 01:08PM

On a lighter note: just riding in the woods

https://www.facebook.com/FailDownhill/videos/2307991869425289

(NSFW)

magicbastarder · 13-06-2017 02:42PM

speaking at someone married to a public servant, i can tell you it's frequently 'the system' that's to blame rather than the people.
something david simon was talking about in a recent interview i read, must find a link for it.

magicbastarder · 13-06-2017 03:43PM

my biggest issue is the way they treat staff as completely homogenous interchangable units. you can be transferred from one job to another simply because you meet the required grade, with little analysis of what your actual talents are. i've heard of some choice changes of job where my wife works.

Lusk_Doyle · 13-06-2017 03:49PM

Hi folks,

I'm looking for some advice on cloud based storage solutions. Can anyone advise what would be a good idea for a small business with only a few users for storage, sharing, etc?

Thanks!

tomasrojo · 13-06-2017 04:31PM

rollingscone wrote: »

Three or fourish things I don't need in this stressful world.

1. Mrs RS having daily near misses by cyclists bombing ped crossings.

2. People salmoning up the middle of the lane around a corner on Lincoln place.

3. Cyclists treating pedestrians as obstacles in general i.e. doing exactly the same thing that we hate cars doing.

4. Cyclists shouting at slow pedestrians to "get off the road"

4. General Mé Feinerism in everything, everywhere.
[...]
[/rant]

It's a minority complaint, but I don't like people on those weird short bikes that have no cargo box in the middle trying to pass me with 1cm clearance and then swinging in front of me just before they collide with the car in front.

Lumen · 13-06-2017 04:46PM

Lusk_Doyle wrote: »

I'm looking for some advice on cloud based storage solutions. Can anyone advise what would be a good idea for a small business with only a few users for storage, sharing, etc?

Dropbox. More reliable than Google Drive. Or Box, if you want it in the EU.

Chuchote · 13-06-2017 09:45PM

I find most people (including drivers) pretty nice. Drivers can be thoughtless, usually because they're shut in a box alone with their own worries, and if you get out of their way and motion you on they don't really realise that it's a human who's kindly done this; but in general I don't find that most people are terribly selfish. Most are living within society and swimming in shoals; it's the exceptions we notice.

But getting back to the radio jocks, hell, don't just make them go to the inquest; make them go to the post mortem too, and explain what they said to the lovers and family and friends of the killed.

Harrybelafonte · 14-06-2017 08:46AM

ford2600 wrote: »

It's a long way from pop science, but there doesn't seem to be a consensus in scientific community from what I've read.

article/game-theory-calls-cooperation-into-question1/

Good article, you'll get links to read up on both sides from it.

Richard Dawkin's "Selfish gene", is interesting if very dry. Plenty dissenting voices also.

Jesus man, you say it's far from pop science then you refer me to that gob****e

smacl · 14-06-2017 09:29AM

Lumen wrote: »

Dropbox. More reliable than Google Drive. Or Box, if you want it in the EU.

Depends to an extent on your storage requirements and applications. I've a Dropbox plus account to share and exchange big data with clients but use FTP on a hosted web-server for my main online storage as it works out far cheaper if you need > 1 terabyte. I use midphase for the FTP side which costs me ~€60 per year for unlimited storage and a dedicated IP address, and the Dropbox is another €100 per year for 1TB.

tomasrojo · 14-06-2017 10:16AM

Harrybelafonte wrote: »

Jesus man, you say it's far from pop science then you refer me to that gob****e

I've never read The Selfish Gene, because I also dislike Richard Dawkins, or at least his public persona.

However, my understanding is that the scientific notion he was explaining in that book (and it's not a theory he originated) is not that people are selfish, but that paradoxical behaviour by individuals of a species can often be explained by thinking about how that behaviour ensures the propagation of genes carried by that individual. So certain types of altruism and heroism can be explained, as well as some less exalted behaviour. In particular (as far as I recall), close family members going out of their way to save or raise other family members, even to the point of self-sacrifice, can ensure the propagation of the genes of the altruistic actor, even if it doesn't help them to reproduce, or even brings their reproductive career to an abrupt end, because they share so many genes with the close family member they save or nurture.

I think in more technical terms the idea is that evolutionary pressure is exerted at the level of the gene, and not the individual (or at least more at the level of the gene).

I've no idea whether it's true, but The Selfish Gene as a title is very eye-catching but ultimately can be misleading, as Dawkins acknowledged more recently. Obviously, genes have no motivations or ideations, so they're not in any sense "selfish".

Harrybelafonte · 14-06-2017 11:43AM

tomasrojo wrote: »

I've no idea whether it's true, but The Selfish Gene as a title is very eye-catching but ultimately can be misleading, as Dawkins acknowledged more recently. Obviously, genes have no motivations or ideations, so they're not in any sense "selfish".

Yeah, he acknowledges after making a fortune from the sales. If he were principled in any form, as the seeker of "truth" as he likes to put it, he would have recognised the misleading nature of the title. It's attention grabbing, he's a shill and another player in the current group "Cult of Personality" intelligentsia, whether they want to be a member or not (thinking others like Chomsky and Zizek) whom the "unthinking left" like to follow without questions. Easier to take their comments onboard and claim them to be gospel than read the original philosophical/scientific works.

oflahero · 14-06-2017 03:10PM

Harrybelafonte wrote: »

Yeah, he acknowledges after making a fortune from the sales. If he were principled in any form, as the seeker of "truth" as he likes to put it, he would have recognised the misleading nature of the title. It's attention grabbing, he's a shill ...

WTF are you lads smoking? You sound like you're writing copy for a conspiracy website.

The book was published in 1976. It was groundbreaking at the time, and still is an amazing introduction to the topic. The man's done more than his fair share for science and research. You seriously reckon he should have put out a publisher's note with it saying, 'I wish, with precocious foresight, to blunt the elegance of the central conceit of this book by explaining in a deadening way that I don't mean that humanity is inherently selfish or should be guided by selfishness'?

A more recent quote: "What we need is an anti-Darwinian society. Anti-Darwinian in the sense that we don't wish to live in a society where the weakest go to the wall, where the strong suppress the weak."

tomasrojo · 14-06-2017 04:05PM

oflahero wrote: »

WTF are you lads smoking? You sound like you're writing copy for a conspiracy website.

Not sure whether that's directed at me, but I didn't actually criticise the work itself (I haven't read it). I just said I don't like his public persona, which is neatly satirised here.

It's scarcely even an exaggeration.

oflahero wrote: »

You seriously reckon he should have put out a publisher's note with it saying, 'I wish, with precocious foresight, to blunt the elegance of the central conceit of this book by explaining in a deadening way that I don't mean that humanity is inherently selfish or should be guided by selfishness'?

If fact, to be fair to him, the latest introduction to the book (which I have read) pretty much does that.

Harrybelafonte · 14-06-2017 04:07PM

oflahero wrote: »

WTF are you lads smoking?

Clearly something with less potency than you are.

OleRodrigo · 14-06-2017 04:59PM

Lusk_Doyle wrote: »

Hi folks,

I'm looking for some advice on cloud based storage solutions. Can anyone advise what would be a good idea for a small business with only a few users for storage, sharing, etc?

Thanks!

Cloud services for process and workflow might be a good idea - Zoho and Asana are free options for small number of users. I'm nearly sure Autotask offer free subscriptions for up to 10 users with a cap on file storage.

You could use those free resources in conjunction with Dropbox - great for a small company starting out. Or up, in modern parlance.

oflahero · 14-06-2017 06:24PM

Harrybelafonte wrote: »

Clearly something with less potency than you are.

'Shill'. Lolzers!

Harrybelafonte · 14-06-2017 06:40PM

oflahero wrote: »

'Shill'. Lolzers!

"The man's done more than his fair share for science and research." Lolzers! In Zoology, yes, 30-40 years ago.

ednwireland · 14-06-2017 10:52PM

How come we don't have boards mini league for the tour de suisse . I'm flipping 30th overall !

Rogue-Trooper · 15-06-2017 08:49AM

Can't believe Leo has left Shane Ross as Minister for Transport.

We'll never get anywhere now........

tomasrojo · 15-06-2017 10:23AM

Rogue-Trooper wrote: »

Can't believe Leo has left Shane Ross as Minister for Transport.

We'll never get anywhere now........

I guess the alternative was call an election and risk becoming the shortest-serving Taoiseach of all time.

magicbastarder · 15-06-2017 10:33AM

call a snap election? sure what could go wrong?

Moflojo · 15-06-2017 03:42PM

Rogue-Trooper wrote: »

Can't believe Leo has left Shane Ross as Minister for Transport.

We'll never get anywhere now........

Ross has succeeded in getting Stepaside Garda Station reopened, something that will help to secure his seat if he goes for re-election.

With that in mind, perhaps he can now focus on his brief as Minister for Transport and actually get something done. We have to keep the pressure on him regarding cycling though.

manafana · 15-06-2017 05:37PM

Moflojo wrote: »

Ross has succeeded in getting Stepaside Garda Station reopened, something that will help to secure his seat if he goes for re-election.

With that in mind, perhaps he can now focus on his brief as Minister for Transport and actually get something done. We have to keep the pressure on him regarding cycling though.

stepside reopening was needed, and local politics will always take over im afraid.

VW 1 · 16-06-2017 09:35AM

Give or take, how much would you be expecting to pay for a schwalbe tyre in an LBS on a road bike? Was quoted 70 for the lesser quality and 90 for the better quality more kevlar reinforcement tyre. Is this out of the ordinary?

Chuchote · 16-06-2017 09:39AM

I read that wheels with lighter rims take a lot of the weight off a heavy old bike. How much, and what are these wheels?

rubadub · 16-06-2017 09:43AM

VW 1 wrote: »

Give or take, how much would you be expecting to pay for a schwalbe tyre in an LBS on a road bike? Was quoted 70 for the lesser quality and 90 for the better quality more kevlar reinforcement tyre. Is this out of the ordinary?

Sounds a lot, this is just for 1 right? do you know the model, marathon plus by any chance.

I found the cheapest place for schwalbe tyres was from german sites.

I got 2 for €52 including delivery which was €10, these are big yokes too €29.50 each on CRC and that is 59% off

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/ie/en/schwalbe-super-moto-x-mtb-tyre-greenguard/rp-prod128889

Idleater · 16-06-2017 09:45AM

Chuchote wrote: »

How much, and what are these wheels?

Standard 700c aluminium clinchers:
https://www.extralite.com/Products/HyperClinch%20SP.html

Though they have put on 100g in weight in 5 years.

Chuchote · 16-06-2017 09:48AM

Idleater wrote: »

Standard 700c aluminium clinchers:
https://www.extralite.com/Products/HyperClinch%20SP.html

Though they have put on 100g in weight in 5 years.

Thanks, Idleater. Iggerant as I am, what is the difference in weight between these and my clunky old wheels from the 1990s or so? (And I can't see a price?)

VW 1 · 16-06-2017 09:53AM

My apologies, that is the price for two tyres.

Doesn't sound too far off then considering the mark up for buying local and that the need was urgent. Just wanted to be sure it wasn't way over the odds.

Not certain on what exact model it is of the new tyre though!

Jan and Klodi's Party Bus - part II **off topic discussion**

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Jan and Klodi's Party Bus - part II off topic discussion