subtafuge.com

Motorbike Reviews

Posted by subby

at January 24, 2010

I am about to buy a motorbike. Obviously this means hours and hours of researching online which bike to get. In short, motorbike reviews are a complete joke! How about a website dedicated to real world reviews of motorbikes?

I am 6′4″ (193cm) tall. This presents a pretty obvious dilemma when choosing a motorbike. Most motorbikes are built around the average of 5′ to 6′, lets be honest, they are built more for the lower part of that range. So when I am looking at reviews, there are a few criteria that are important to me. Here are my needs:

The bike needs to be comfortable for my height (and weight) and not look like a toy underneath me
The seat should feel comfortable underneath me for at least 2 hours at a time
I want a compromise in my riding position between completely upright, and lying down on the tank
The bike should have enough power to be able to pass traffic going 70mph (and obviously give me that little kick of adrenaline every now and then!)
Ride comfort and brakes should be good
Fuel economy should be pretty decent (around 45-55 mpg)
Insurance costs shouldn’t be that of Bugatti Veyron

As far as I and probably 95% of the other prospective bike riders/owners out there, these are the basic sorts of requirements we have. But according to online review sites, these are the requirements they think we have:

The bike needs to do over 170mph, just in case I need to pass a F1 car on the way to work
Should be able to do a lap of Silverstone within 2 seconds of the time that Valentino Rossi did it on a race spec machine
Needs to be able to corner at at least 100mph, with my knee scraping along the ground (I didn’t buy those Knee Pucks for nothing!)
I should be able to pop the front wheel up in any gear, and at any speed below 100mph
The brakes should be good enough so that I can perform stoppies, lifting the back wheel up, on the highway whenever I get the urge
The bike should sound like a jet engine just about to break the sound barrier…at idle.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love a bit of speed and power…I am a guy after all. But unless I am on a track or on the Autobahn I am unlikely to ever go over 130mph. Any modern sport bike over 500cc will get you over 120mph, and because of EU regulations they will need to be able to safely get you back down to 0mph in a decent time too. Give us reviews on how this fits the average Joe who isn’t 5′6″ weighing 120lb. Give us a review telling us how it felt getting from London to Scotland, and how much fuel you used to do it.

Motorbikes

Google Chrome OS: New Kid on the Block

Posted by subby

at November 21, 2009

It was inevitable that Google would enter the Operating Systems market (although you could say they already have with Google Android). True to form, Google have introduced something that defies convention. They have introduced an Operating System that promises to be all about “speed, security and simplicity”.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tech

Save Shobiz Newsy News

Posted by subby

at October 10, 2009

If you haven’t heard of Shobiz Newsy News with Ty Paddington yet, then subscribe to this free podcast now for your iPod/iPhone, or check out the website. This show is one of the funniest podcasts out there.

If you are, like me, a long time subscriber to SNN, then you might know they are trying to raise money to keep the show going. And if you have never heard of the show before, hopefully you checked out the links above and are a newly converted fan. Please donate whatever you can spare

Just to let you know, I am not affiliated with Shobiz Newsy News, or know Ty Paddington personally (he keeps rejecting my phone calls!), so this is purely a fan of the show trying to get the word out. Fingers crossed Shobiz Newsy News keeps going!

Free Stuff

JAVA Speech Recognition

Posted by subby

at August 29, 2009

I was messing around today with speech recognition. It seemed like it was going to be pretty easy, and it was…except for the first step: Getting hold of the API!

Here is the JAR file : jsapi.jar
Import this into your IDE (typically into the “library”), then add the following lines to your code:

import javax.speech.*; import javax.speech.recognition.*;
Below is a link to get you started with using it, enjoy!

http://java.sun.com/products/java-media/speech/forDevelopers/jsapi-guide/Recognition.html

Uncategorized