RantMachine

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That price is bloody insane Typical BMW! Anyway, they probably teach you a load of bad habits like not nodding at anyone who doesn't have a squinty headlight I rode on my 125 for more or less exactly a year, then did one and a half days training (which cost something like £150 total). The first session to go over Mod 1 with lots of practice, the second to do some road riding on a big bike. Well, we did about an hour of road riding then decided I would be fine and spent the rest of the morning in a greasy spoon talking about the bikes we'd both seen at Motorcycle Live But anyway, that was all the training I did. Chuck in the price of the tests and the hire of a bike from my trainer for the test, and it cost me a grand total of just under £400 and I passed first time with a clean sheet. If you've been riding for six months and have done a decent few miles in that time, I wouldn't recommend bothering with a guaranteed pass course.

I'll go, if you don't get any other takers - saves fecking about with catching the last bus like last year!

Looks like they're doing well so far. I think that he had done enough already that they can just continue with bringing out updated models every year and a new product every five years or so and maintain a lot of their momentum - I think they've grown beyond the point where anyone can actually effectively assail their position. Maybe Google would have the sheer capital to make a go of it, but it would be a tough nut to crack because the way they generate their customer base is so wildly different. I think that if there is any change in apple it's that they won't enjoy the kind of exponential acceleration that they did under Jobs. Don't get me wrong, they'll probably keep going forward and keep going from strength to strength, but not at the sheer rate that they enjoyed in the past. Enough that people might get distracted very now and then by shiny toys released by other people, so long as the other parties are smart enough to try and fit around the Apple lifestyle instead of conflicting with it. Maybe something like a fully developed Google Glass, with the final price benefiting from a little bit of economy of scale, and maybe sold with a very narrow margin (or even at a slight loss, they can afford it after all) to encourage early adoption, could make them lose some of that momentum. Tough to say, but it's interesting stuff. But the thing that really interests me is to see what happens if they do lose momentum. I'm predicting some kind of attempt to trade on Jobs' image a lot more, raise him as some kind of messiah of the Apple fanboys I'd love to see that happen. Hell, I'd even be tempted to go for a job in their marketing team... Brb, gotta go wash my mouth with soap .

I'm trying to come up with some rules for a Risk drinking game, should be a great laugh. Spirits themed by country or continent, of course

By definition a captive market is one where the consumer has little or no other choice. Apple once had a captive market in professional designers, photographers, cinematographers, etc, but as I said in my post their competitors can now offer just us much. More, if we compare things by price. As that transition has taken place they've remarketed themselves exceptionally well and done a great job of expanding the range of products and services they provide in order to become a consumer electronics powerhouse instead of a specialist niche brand, but the brand loyalty that they have achieved is a very different beast to a captive market. A captive market is something that in theory you have to do very little to maintain; they need your product and have no viable alternative, so you can count on their business and all you really have to do is convince them to buy your more expensive products instead of the cheaper ones. Brand loyalty requires work to generate, and continued work to maintain. That's what Apple have done so well, they drum up excitement and desirability like nobody else can, and as you noted, they sell a lifestyle as well as a product range.

Cool, I'd be up for giving it a go! I'm a bit of a hardcore survivalist, on my old server they used to get me to build our spawn area every time we started a new map because I'd get a bit obsessive with my fences and torches and farms and pistons Yeah, I saw a video of it, looks awesome. If the gravity works well then the first thing I'm building is a bike Also had a conversation with my mate about using some of his little automated mining drones to try and cut a planet in half to see what happens... Fixed your mistake for you although they are getting better these days as all round PC's rather than design, video and audio editers. although they are still overpriced compared to standard PC. They have to, they don't have a captive market any more! Used to be a whole stack of reasons that you had little choice but to use a Mac, now there is less and less proprietary stuff giving them an advantage and you can spec a PC that's much better at running Adobe stuff for a fraction of the cost. When our last head of marketing started she asked if I needed a Mac to work on instead, I couldn't say "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" quickly enough Convinced her to sink some of the money on a nice new Eizo instead

Thinking about getting a PS4 after Christmas so I can play Fallout 4 and FF7 Remake but to be honest I do very little gaming these days, maybe an hour or two of Diablo 3 each week because my other half has an addiction that needs feeding and it's more fun doing two player than sitting there watching! TF2 is a shell of its former self, played it pretty much since day one and the community has really gone south these days. Mann vs Machine brought some of the old crowd back for a while but it didn't last. Minecraft too, been playing it since the alpha and used to love it but it's so hard to find a decent server now and I've played single player to death. Did play Space Engineers a bit with an old friend back in January, that was a good laugh. I see it's had some huge updates so I might revisit it, if my computer can still run it properly! Main thing is that I get overwhelmed by a sense of "AAAARGH I'M WASTING MY LIFE" if I sit down playing games for too long, must be getting jaded

Rant Machine with a gameboy in his draws..... this escalated quick Several, of varying ages

I blame Glorian. I just came here to insult/provoke you all but then he started talking about video games

Never bothered with the second one, the first was already perfect. Blow all the bridges, then tank traps, tank traps everywhere. Bit of barbed wire on the inside of it then finish it off with a few anti tank guns and machine gun emplacements. And then the artillery begins... Implementation of artillery is the make or break of a strategy game, in my books. C&C games are a bit weak (except for the GDI artillery in C&C3), but Relic really seem to know what they're doing.

Generals is hella fun. Company of Heroes is the hard stuff, though.

If I were at home, I'd upload a photo of my drawer of Gameboys... Still the most timeless platform in my books.

Hey now, less of that... I had a Spectrum for a little while

I still haven't forgiven the IT deparment at my work for saying that they "didn't see why I needed" a graphics tablet, forcing me to go out and buy a spare one of my own and bring it to work for the first six months here

Not one for words on this sort of thing, I can only say that I'm glad to have known him and am saddened that I won't see him again. My thoughts are with everyone left behind.

I remembered now - Start Rescue. Never had to call them so I can't say if they're any good

Yours is the one that breaks down while it's on the road, mine has the decency to always wait until I've got it back home before it goes wrong

I have the same policy on my Honda Can't actually remember who my breakdown cover on the BMW is with

NOTD today is me! Rode to work again, but on the other bike this time. First I tried to go down into second instead of up after pulling out of the car park and getting onto the main road. Then I forgot how to chuck the bike around properly, because it handles wildly differently to the other bike. And then I kept trying to cancel my indicators by pushing the switch in the opposite direction. It had all come flooding back by the time I got to work, but getting out of Cambridge was a bit cack-handed

I think I trust the drum brakes on my Honda far more than this setup, GoG

Shame, that would be utterly awesome

Try flossing?

Don't think we didn't notice! You'd better turn up next time or there'll be hell to pay...

I promise yours will be safe, it's just the Lexmoto and Sinnis crowd that need to watch out!