Author: mikal

This author has written 1346 articles

New tyres

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  • Post category:Bike

I ended up getting new tyres for the bike... I thought about getting airless tyres, but in the end just got random tyres from Mike's Bikes who came highly recommended on a mailing list at work, and seemed really nice. I got Specialised tyres randomly, and they're really good. I can't remember their name now (I'll look it up later), but they have a tall center section which makes them look and act like road tyres on hard surfaces, and a knobbly bit on the outer edges for loose surfaces. Overall, lower rolling resistance on the hard stuff, and they gripped really well on the soft. I like them a lot. Update: So, the tyres are Specialized 06 Crossroads, or at least that's what the packaging says.

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Cool people I have met at work

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  • Post category:Google

The guys behind the PKD android project -- very cool in a geeky way. Jimmy Carter -- very cool in an unbreaking the world way. Oh, and apparently you're always a President, even if you're no longer in office, and you're meant to stand when a President enters the room. Oh, and clapping means "yes".

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Done?

Well, given the book is now in stores, the figures online, and the sample code available, I think I am basically finished with the project (barring future editions, which may or may not happen depending on demand I suppose). So, if you have questions about the book, the process of writing an open source book, or ImageMagick, feel free to drop me a line at the magic ImageMagick alias and I will see what I can do.

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PHP sample source code

This is the source code for the sample graphing code demonstrated in Chapter 11 of ImageMagick, the Definitive Guide. This is a small PHP script which demonstrates how to use a stock background image and some images stacked on top of each other to make quite nice bar graphs for a fictional website. Extracted source Tarball Zip file

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C sample source code

Chapter nine of ImageMagick, the Definitive Guide includes a C program which acts as an ImageMagick delegate. This means it demonstrates how to implement support for a new file format with ImageMagick. Extracted source Tarball Zip file

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Ruby sample source code

This is the source code for the imwizard application demonstrated in Chapter 10 of ImageMagick, the Definitive Guide. This is a small Ruby script which demonstrates how to build an interactive program which builds a list of commands to apply to images, and then applies those commands to many images as specified by a regular expression. Extracted source Tarball Zip file

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Water, wheels, tyres (tires?) and computers

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  • Post category:Bike

Random updates on cycling... Water: apparently water is wet. Specifically, I hadn't realised how wet fog was until I rode to work yesterday... Visibility was down to about 150 meters, and I ended up having to take my glasses off to ride so that I could see where I was going. When I got to work there was water beading on my eyelashes. Today it rained just before I rode to work (but not during the ride thankfully), which was more the water I am used to. Wheels and tyres: which brings me onto wheels and tyres. I have basically bald tyres on the mountain bike. I suspect that the current tyres, which came with the bike, are very soft rubber. They only lasted about 1,500 km which I suspect is a bit low. I'm thinking that it's time to get new tyres so I can actually stop in the wet, but I need some advice... Here's what I need in tyres: Good wet weather performance on hard surfaces like concrete Ok performance on sand / very fine gravel (10% of my commute is on such a surface) Not too knobbly, as I am riding mainly on those hard surfaces…

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Do I look sexy in these?

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  • Post category:Bike

After years of resisting Lycra, I've given in and bought my first pair of bike shorts. I know I can get pairs that look like real shorts, but I figured that given the reason that I wanted to change was because of fabric rubbing, I should go with something which isn't likely to move around on me when I ride. I've now done the morning commute, and they were certainly more comfortable than normal shorts... Although the padding does take a little bit of getting used to. No rubbing though, which was nice. The big question though -- do I look sexy in these? Oh, and how come bike clothing is all so expensive?

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