Simon Rumble’s blog

Just got a call from David at Cheeky who's been working on my bike. The spokes on both wheels were very loose, and the wheels were pretty badly out. The first spoke he touched broke off at the nipple, so it's gonna need a complete rebuild.

This brings up the point that the bike is a hand-me-down and there's a few things that need doing. The drive train is well on the way out, and it's gonna need replacing within a few months at best. It's too warn to swap out individual components so it's gonna be new crankset, rear cluster and chain. Expensive. I bet the rims on the wheels probably aren't in great nick either, as this bike has seen some big distances.

So I think I may be better off buying a shiny new bike. Much as I like the idea, I've been quite enjoying the ride this frame provides. The shape means the bike just wants to zip along. Thing is, it's pretty old and heavy, so I really probably should buy a new one.

I've been fantasizing about my ultimate commuting bike for some time now. It would have a hub dynamo driving LED lights front and rear, hub gears and a chain cover. Now's the time to see if such a beastie is viable.

Any such bike will also need to be workable as a touring bike, so it can't weigh a ton, needs to perform well in a range of gear ranges and have strong

This big problem is, with such a specialised bike it'll probably take a bit to work out what to get. In the meantime, what am I gonna ride?

Any suggestions on bikes and components? I'm not one of these bike nerds who can rattle off Shimano's latest catalogue. That's something I've always left to good mechanics.

Was just watching a Simpsons episode from earlier in the week and caught a promo Channel Ten ran for Lost in Translation. The promo started with "One of the funniest movies in recent years". WTF? It's hardly a comedy, and any comedic elements are vastly overshadowed by the other themes of this excellent film. Yeesh. Did they even watch the film?

My case of free beer just arrived. It's the James Squire Porter, a lovely drop. Only trouble now is getting it home from work. I think it'll have to be one six-pack at a time.

I'm subscribed to the Malt Shovel Brewery's (of James Squire fame) email newsletter. The latest one had what I thought was a pretty condescending comment for something sent to self-identified beer lovers.

Now don't be scared. Yes it is a dark beer. Okay, you've never been fond of dark beers. But our James Squire Porter isn't that intimidating.

Now I know the average Australian beer drinker would find a dark beer intimidating. But then the average Australian beer drinking would find a case costing more than $40 intimidating. The people these marketroids are talking to have already pointed themselves out as adventurous beer drinkers, so why talk down to them?

Anyway, I emailed them my thoughts and got this reply:

Thanks for your email. Our apologies if you found part of our April Newsletter patronising. We can understand how beer lovers could have taken those comments in that way. Our newsletter is certainly subscribed to by beer lovers, however we also have a number of members who are new to craft beer and might not have been introduced to the full range of flavoursome James Squire beers. Our intention was to encourage them (as well as beer lovers) to enjoy Porter as winter approaches.

We appreciate your feedback and would like to send you a carton of James Squire Porter. Please let us know the address where you would like us to send it (will be a weekday courier delivery).

Free beer! Can't beat that. And we just finished the last of our case of wonderful Hop Thief too.

I'll have to complain more. I'm sure you, gentle reader, would know that's quite difficult for me ;)

Now that the weather has cooled down to reasonable levels, I put a brew on yesterday. Nothing spectacular, a Cooper's Mexican Cerveza kit with a kilo of Cooper's "Brew Enhancer 1". I'm planning to put chillis in some of the bottles when it's all done.

Soon enough I'll have complete temperature control with my beer box, but I'm still working on that.

Someone recommended those shoe rack hanging things for keeping geek bits and bobs. I bought one last week and just spent some time putting all my shit in it. I can now see my desk! Brilliant idea.

Everything is clearly visible and accessible. You can organize things, like all soldering/electronics stuff in one shelf; regularly-used tools in one shelf, random shit in little drawers. Love it!

Now just to organerize the stack of crap sitting next to it on the left there. Anyone wanna buy a Newton 2000?

I've been listening to a great radio play called The Department from Radio 4. It's very sharp satire. This afternoon I listened to the episode where the team tackle terrorism, and it had this brilliant rant:

"Well our problem here is that right from day one the War on Terror has been based on the wasp's nest principle, which thinks that the best thing to do if you've been stung by a wasp is to follow that wasp back to its nest and hit the nest with a big stick, and then keep repeatedly hitting the nest with a big stick until the stripey little shit has learnt its lesson."

That is going straight to the signature file, the email equivalent of the pool room.

Last night I finished my woodworking course at Sydney Community College (old Leichardt High School). My project was to make a box that will keep my beer fermenter cool, as our house gets to very high temperatures on sunny days.

It's a big box on quite tall legs, which a sliding out removable front panel and lift-out top. The design allows me to bottle the beer without moving the fermenter, which keeps the yeast from getting in the bottle.

I'm planning to line the inside with expanding spray foam. Cooling will be provided by a Peltier effect thermo-electric cooler controlled by this kit. Since I'm already cooling, I figure I can experiment with proper lager fermenting temperatures over the winter too!

Photos shortly.

My blog is syndicated on quite a few Planets:

• GLLUG
• SLUG
• Linux Australia
• Linode

During my recent exchange with Erik de Castro Lopo about Fred Nile and racism, I got a few emails from people asking us to "take it off the Planets". Janet probably put it best, and her comments were typical:

Guys
Might be worth thinking about having the full on religious debates on a
different blog than the linux planet, its a pretty sad thread to read
through for a group building collaboration and community.
Janet

Now I'm all for civility, and despise the scumbags who've got Kathy Sierra fearing for her life. If you read through the exchange with Erik, I think you'll find it was completely civil. In this world, we're allowed to disagree. In fact, it's incredibly important to collaboration and community. So I really don't see any problem with our discussion. Spirited, but polite, discussion and disagreement is a sign of a healthy community.

The next issue is the content. We were talking politics, and specifically state politics. I suspect this might be of little interest to readers of Planet GLLUG, Planet Linode and much of Planet Linux Australia's readers. But the thing about Planets is they're not discriminating. They take the feed and shove it up online.

I think this is actually a strength. It would be entirely possible to limit the feed Planets take to specific topics, for example by taking the geek category from my blog. It would make the Planets more efficient, perhaps, and certainly more focussed, but I think would also take away a lot of their joy.

I really enjoy learning more about the people I deal with on technical issues, experiencing them as full human beings rather than just geeks. I love hearing their opinions on random subjects, learning of their hobbies, their family life. It's great to see pictures of their lovers, dogs, kids, weddings, parties, friends and travels. It's what makes Planets great.

So I will continue to talk about whatever the hell I like on my blog. It's my blog and I'll crap on about beer and politics if I want to. If you don't like that, you might want to skip the Planets and subscribe directly to peoples' individual blogs, or at least those that focus narrowly on geekery. I think you'll miss out on something wonderful if you do, though.

Malcolm Turnbull yesterday said something I find difficult to disagree with:
"I think religion is a very poor guide to public policy."

Can't argue with that! Doesn't mean I actually like the Vaucluse Battler. Maybe he can start working on religious bigots in his own party like Abbott?