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#clojure-uk
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2018-10-12
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alexlynham06:10:16

Taken the day off to hack on side projects

alexlynham06:10:31

Which means more clojurescript :/

paulspencerwilliams06:10:13

That's dedication.

paulspencerwilliams06:10:25

I've got around 15 days to book this year, and surplus days of normally used for cycling, but I'd like to do more geeking :thinking_face:

alexlynham07:10:51

wax on, wax off innit 😛

alexlynham07:10:47

if the climate was better for it, maybe I’d do more cycling

otfrom07:10:11

@alex.lynham you just need better rain gear or a move to Dundee mate. 😄

alexlynham08:10:40

Surely Dundee is wetter than Manchester?

otfrom10:10:40

165d of rain in Dundee and 184d rain in Manchester per year on average

otfrom10:10:28

and we're only about 1C cooler per month on average

paulspencerwilliams10:10:00

Rainfall's mainly distributed West -> East more so than South > North.

otfrom12:10:20

depends on some more local geography as well. London and Dundee both have hills and mountains to soak up the rain to their west. Dundee is south facing on the side of an extinct volcano. Rumours that I have a sekrit lair underneath Dundee Law are completely unfounded.

alexlynham08:10:05

(wait this rings a bell, I think you've suckered me in with that before...)

mccraigmccraig08:10:36

isn't it only the lake district that is wetter than manchester @alex.lynham ?

mccraigmccraig08:10:19

but the peak district has some awesome cycling, on and off-road, weather be damned

danm08:10:15

Wet but warm yesterday. Got drenched on the ride home having risked not bothering with the rain gear, and then heating had no need to come on so my stuff was still moist this morning 😕

mccraigmccraig08:10:37

wet here too yesterday. i spent a while falling off my bike repeatedly while learning to do a track stand, instead of getting drenched

😆 4
danm10:10:25

I've always been too scared to try trackstanding

danm10:10:45

Especially when I'm clipped in, although that might make it marginally easier

danm10:10:28

I almost trashed my new wheels yesterday 😕 Went over a pile of leaves at the side of the road just before a red light, so was going slow. Drain cover was under them with the slats in line with the road instead of across it. My wheel dropped right into the slot because 25mm tyres, and the bike stopped, I almost fell over sideways both ways before I managed to unclip my feet and pull the wheel out. If I'd actually gone over with the bike I would have bent the hell out of the rim...

mccraigmccraig10:10:34

ouch, that would presumably have been expensive and distinctly galling

mccraigmccraig10:10:50

i'm staying clipped out while learning to trackstand... i've got (mtb) clipless pedals which have a platform, so they work ok as flats too

mccraigmccraig10:10:04

i've decided to learn to manual, wheelie, and bunnie-hop too, 'cos they seem to be the foundational mtb skills for coping with just about anything a bit rough

danm10:10:14

Wheelie and bunnie-hop I know. What's a 'manual'?

danm10:10:46

Yeah, it would have been expensive. I definitely would have tried to claim from the council for it. I only just got these wheels

mccraigmccraig11:10:12

hope - swish! 🙂

mccraigmccraig11:10:57

a manual is lifting the front-wheel with just your weight, whereas a wheelie uses pedal action to lift the wheel

mccraigmccraig11:10:26

i really can't do either atm...

danm11:10:06

My front wheel lifts a bit if I'm in certain gears setting off from the lights, but I lean forward to keep it down. I don't generally want it off the ground, and I'm afraid if i managed it I'd go too far and off the back 😉

danm11:10:55

Yeah, they were actually ordered for someone else, but then took an age to arrive so he changed them for something more common like Mavick, and they were in the shop with some nice new disks on them too

danm11:10:18

Got 'em price matched to Evans (£135 for front down from £250, £225 IIRC for rear down from £290) with the disks thrown in, and fitting done when they did a bit of a checkup

danm11:10:10

Need to go back soon to get 'em double checked, make sure none of the spokes have rattled loose like they can after the first bit of use

alexlynham13:10:04

I thought about getting clips, but the number of times city cycling has me needing to put my feet down always makes me err back on the side of keeping the baskets

alexlynham13:10:05

besides which, converse make great brakes in the wet

danm14:10:33

I can unclip subsecond, no worries. But that's when I'm moving. I unclip as I get slow enough for it to be more of an issue, and the brakes can't slow me fast enough for me to get too slow before I've managed to unclip. The problem with this was that I was just beginning to unclip as the bike dropped in and stopped very suddenly. And then my weight shift from unclipping made it start to lean to that side, and I didn't want to damage the wheel so I leant the other way to counter, and that made it much harder to unclip because my leg was twisted the wrong way etc etc

alexlynham15:10:17

ahhhh the joys of city cycling

alexlynham09:10:43

iirc bristol gets more precipitation but fewer wet days… I think glasgow might be similar too

guy09:10:25

Morning!

guy09:10:20

I’m thinking about learning French, anyone got any tips or ideas? I was just going to start by using Duolingo a little everyday and see if that works.

keithmantell09:10:26

I'm doing that with German. Seems painless!

👍 4
alexlynham09:10:06

my wife did that and then moved on to the structured courses at the alliance francais and had some success with that

guy09:10:58

Did she find the alliance francais course to be worth the money? The 12 week course looks good for me, but unsure about spending the money if its not very good :thinking_face:

alexlynham13:10:18

so they are basically like gcses and then a levels

alexlynham13:10:36

if you like structured learning then they’re great, but not cheap

alexlynham13:10:24

she’s been doing them for over a year, done quite a few and is at sort of ~A level area - she def prefers structured learning & the cost & routine and homework helps I think

alexlynham13:10:38

depends what you want really

alexlynham13:10:49

if you’re after fluency you need to use the language a lot

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guy13:10:40

Thanks for the input, appreciate it 😄

keithmantell10:10:01

Cycling channel required? And human language learning?

Sam H10:10:45

I always find Duolingo is ok but comes out with the most random sentences that you probably would never use

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maleghast10:10:23

Morning All!

maleghast10:10:39

Greetings from grey, rainy but still delightful Scotland 🙂

otfrom10:10:10

morning @maleghast. the nice thing about your bit of Scotland is that it still looks pretty good in the rain. Dundee really needs the light to sparkle.

maleghast10:10:24

@otfrom - I will have to take your word for it about Dundee - I've never been! This place does still look lovely in the rain, it's true. Having said that, I am committed to honesty; it looks better AFTER the rain 😉

thomas11:10:36

@maleghast when will that be?

thomas11:10:38

😉

🙂 8
maleghast11:10:07

Hehe, a fair point, indeed 🙂

practicalli-johnny15:10:24

A new Clojure team being assembled in a London based company, check out the #jobs section. They have really nice offices a couple of minutes walk from Victoria station and culture seems very open and friendly.

yogidevbear21:10:43

Anyone else watching "The Haunting of Hill House" on Netflix? 👻 😱

alexlynham22:10:09

interesting… my SNS account has suddenly decided to stop delivering texts

alexlynham22:10:26

so much more my “eh, I can trust AWS to do their bit” life philosophy

alexlynham22:10:17

aha, a buried configuration for spending limits for texts that isn’t visible on the main billing page