I live down the road from the University of California (UC) Berkeley campus. UC Berkeley is quite well-known and has a good reputation, including being rated the best public university in the USA. Their website also lists the national ranking of all their ‘graduate’ (PhD) programs (including lots of firsts, seconds and thirds).
But what do these rankings reflect?
Continue reading How should we rank universities?
No, I don’t mean that at all really. It is about bloody time you are forced to take responsibility for your actions.
Continue reading Apologies to the “we’re cyclists, the rules shouldn’t apply to us” crowd
Ivan Basso won Sunday’s Giro d’Italia stage which finished with a climb up the hugely steep Monte Zoncolan.
Basso’s time for the 10.1 kilometer climb was 1 minute and 45 seconds slower than the previous occasion it was climbed in the Giro. The winner of that stage (in 2007) was Gilberto Simoni from Saunier Duval, a team with a history of doping its riders up to the eyeballs.
Sounds like an improvement to me.
Shàngshān róngyì xiàshān nán.
This is a Chinese proverb that means “going uphill is easy, going downhill is hard”. To all the cyclists out there that like to coast the downhills, this will probably come as a surprise. Racing flat-out down a technical descent is the hardest thing you can do on a bike.
Continue reading The hardest thing you can do on a bike
TTTE EXCLUSIVE: Cadel Evans wins filthy stage seven of the Giro and improves salute!
He is still persevering with the pointing, but at least both hands are in the air at the same time!
Jupiter has re-appeared from behind the sun, where it’s been hiding since late last year…
Crikey! One of the bands has disappeared! This can only mean one thing… Continue reading From the Astro-something Department
As you may be aware, my fellow locomotive engineer has recently admitted to driving the morning express to Fattytown.
Since excessive weight gain is not conducive to the raison d’etre of this blog, which of course is to get girls, I feel compelled to lend a hand by offering my foolproof (or fool-something) diet trick.
WWBD?
This is Bjarne Riis. He won Le Tour in 1996. As you can see by the photo, he was seriously skinny in those days. If you ride 50,000km each year, you can eat whatever you please.
He was also seriously full of red blood cells.
Can you spell E-R-Y-T-H-R-O-P-O-I-E-T-I-N?
Post retirement from professional racing, Bjarne started managing a cycling team. He spent most days hanging around with people who eat a lot.
“Bjarne, would you like another pastry?” 
“Don’t mind if I do!”
Bjarne stacked on a few kilograms.
In the photo on the right, a concerned Frank Schleck looks on as Bjarne behaves like a jolly fat man. Continue reading My Foolproof Diet Trick – WWBD?
In the basement of Casa de TTE, there are four washing machines.
Over the weekend, one of the washing machines went on the blink. Then on Monday, the company that owns the machines replaced the broken one. But there’s a catch. The new machine costs $0.25 cents more per load!
I can tell you I have no intention of paying $1.50 for a load of washing. But what about my cohabitants?
Cadel Evans wins the Fleche Wallonne in the World Champion’s jersey! (Head to minute 9 for the finish).
I am very happy that he is continuing the transition from whiner to attacker! And even sometimes WINNER!
But, can he improve his victory salute? Continue reading Whoop! Whoop! Go Cadel, but can you work on your salute?
Greenleaf Elementary is a small primary school in East Oakland. A friend of mine is working there as a part of the Teach For America program (TFA). TFA is pretty cool, here’s what they do:
We recruit outstanding recent college graduates from all backgrounds and career interests to commit to teach for two years in urban and rural public schools. We provide the training and ongoing support necessary to ensure their success as teachers in low-income communities.
They needed some extra people to represent at the career day and thefatcontroller got the call up just as the scraping sound emanated from the bottom of the barrel. Nevertheless, TTTE always likes to provide value and thus I offered not one, but a choice of two careers – bike mechanic or water policy wonk – to discuss with the kids. It turned out their choice was easy, and so last Thursday I fronted up with a bicycle and a few spare parts for show and tell. Continue reading Career Day at Greenleaf Elementary – A Short Anecdote
Folks interested in the operation of the inter-wobble are probably aware of the concept of NET NEUTRALITY.
For the rest of us, here is the gist: Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have the capacity to restrict their subscribers’ access to specific content and websites. For example http://www.CNN.com might load at the normal speed, but http://www.socialistdaily.com is made as slow as a wet week.
Advocates of Net Neutrality want such activities to be illegal.
Café Gratitude is a restaurant chain around the Bay Area. On the surface, it is just another place to buy over-priced food mixed with a new-age hippy philosophy, thus initially I intended this review to be a thinly veiled pretext for my rant against the fanatical lefty-ism around here. But all is not as it seemed…
When the invaders first showed up, I had no idea what they were. Now we know that aphids are everywhere in the Bay Area.
They have a little mouth tube and suck the sap out of the plant until it’s dead. Not good. And they breed like rabbits, the week after spotting the first one or two, you have a serious infestation. So what can you do about it?
We like to eat the rosemary, so that rules out a lot of insecticides on the market. What we needed, in true Berkeley style, is an organic, non-toxic, fair-trade, locally grown, homeopathic, humane aphid elimination system.
The first research I conducted told me that the natural enemy of the aphid is the lady bug. Fantastic, I will go out into the wild, capture a few lady bugs and bring them back to the house as pets.
I dreamed of whiling away my time watching scenes of carnage like this: Continue reading Getting Rid of Aphids – From TTTE’s Gardening Department…
Take my word for it folks, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. If you have aspirations of being a skinny dude and want to skip a meal, heed not the words of Claudia Schiffer, skip dinner. Breakfast is holy. Continue reading Feeding the engine.
I am excited by train travel, always have been. I like riding on trains (Ashby to Embarcadero or Beijing to St Petersburg), watching trains on film (my favorite Bond film is ‘From Russia with Love’) and playing with toy trains (gosh the memories). However, when a group of friends and I recently had the opportunity to ride the Amtrak from San Francisco to Salt Lake City, we decided on renting a car instead. Why is that? Continue reading What is wrong with long distance train travel in the US?
TTTE was none too impressed when Starbucks started showing up in its home town. Mocking references to “double orange mocha frappucinos” and “Starf**ks” were made on more than one occasion. But your correspondent didn’t just talk the talk, (other than one frustrating attempt to steal their wireless internet) TTTE had never set a foot inside one of their their faux-local, espresso by numbers, globe gobbling outlets.
That all changed today, at Breakfast time. Continue reading Blog-lite, Starbucks in Nevada
I am really looking forward to the professional cycling season kick off Continue reading “And now no-one does not believe that Armstrong will not win this year’s Tour de France” – Thomas’ tribute to professional cycling and Phil Liggett
The debate regarding cyclists’ rights and responsibilities continues. On the one hand the ‘vehicularists’ believe cyclists should behave (and be treated) like cars – on the other hand – (the inexplicably named) ‘facilitators’ believe cyclists should take advantage of their unique attributes and since ultimately it is their own safety at stake, they should feel free to bend the rules at their discretion. You can read more about these various views here.
Today this debate will take a new direction, by considering the input of another road user. In order to protect his identity, we will call him Gerald. Continue reading Does this man hate cyclists? The inaugural Thomasthethinkengine interview.
Thomas the Think Engine 