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I'm wary of adding another voice, as the most informed and relevant voices in this thread are women, transgender, and non binary people.
Me too. As a white, straight, cis-male with privilege oozing from every pore I'm hesitant to put my oar in more than I have done previously as, like you, I've found the most informative and enlightening posts recently in this thread to have come from women and non-binary/trans people. However, as someone who'd like to be an ally to both cis-women and trans-women, I also feel it would be cowardly not to try and educate myself on these issues and to engage in the debate so that I can better understand the issues, learning from those better placed than me to comment on them.
The one insight I have is that the pitting of transgender and gender critical women against each other is happening in a crucible of misogyny.
Also agreed. I can, I hope, understand the desire of cis-women to have safe spaces which exclude men given their experience of misogyny and male violence, and their fear that those spaces will be violated if gender becomes no more than a matter of self-declaration. I can also, I hope, understand the desire of trans-women not to be excluded from women-only spaces on the basis that doing so rejects their existence as women. I don't have an answer to how that conflict can be resolved, and given that I have no skin in the game, I don't feel I'm in a position to offer one. All I think I can do at present is to make sure that, as far as I possibly can, I'm not part of the problem.
If we could tackle the rancid and toxic misogyny that pervades every aspect of our society, maybe we could resolve some of these issues.
Also agreed, but it does seem to me that sport is one of those issues where there is a more fundamental issue than misogyny and general discrimination against women. It seems fairly clear to me - although I stand as ever to be corrected - that while there has undoubtedly been misogyny and discrimination in sport, the fact remains that people who were born male and grew up as male have a distinct advantage over women in sport, due to the effects of testosterone and androgen on the human body.
@Velocio has referred to women being excluded from the TdF, and being given their own race on that basis, but in reality the very best women cyclists wouldn't get a place as a domestique in a race open to both men and women. If you ignored sex in professional cycling, or Olympic track cycling, then there would be no professional women cyclists. That isn't the result of a social construct or historical misogyny. It's just biology. Sure, if I was racing against Katie Archibald on a track (or anywhere, frankly) I wouldn't even see which way she'd gone, but that's because I'm old, slow and have the athletic ability of a bunch of asparagus. To my mind, it's not a question of excluding women from male-only competition. It's a question of excluding men from women-only competition, so as to provide women with a space where they can compete on a level playing field with other women. As to who qualifies as a woman, well, on that point I am going to take the coward's way out and defer to others.
At the risk of being pilloried as Centrist Dad (despite having no children) I can understand why a trans-woman would want to compete as a woman, as an affirmation of her identity and to reflect the physical changes which come with hormone treatment. However, I can also understand why cis-women would consider it unfair that someone who had the benefit of the hormonal advantages of going through puberty as a man would be able to race against them when they did not have that physiological advantage. Going back to something @ough said, I'm not sure it's really a zero-sum game. Seems to me it's a question of two inherently incompatible arguments with no obvious answer.
I humbly suggest that men contributing here could put their mind to that goal.
Trying to. Hope that comes across to all and sundry. Flame away if you wish, but this is genuinely written in good faith and with a fair degree of trepidation.
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There are two types of FSA MegaExo cranks. The older version has external pinch bolts, very similar to Shimano Hollowtech II, and they work fine with Shimano BBs. The newer version doesn't have external pinch bolts, just a single bolt in the centre of the crank to tighten the cranks, more like SRAM GXP. They're known as MegaExo NBD cranks, NBD standing for Non pinchBolt Design. Although they're both nominally 24mm crank spindles, the NBD cranks don't work nicely with Hollowtech BBs in my experience.
That's why FSA make different BBs for NBD and non-NBD cranks. The BB-6000 works with non-NBD cranks, the BB-6200 with NBD cranks, despite the fact that both are supposedly 24mm BBs. In fact, the BB-6200 has very slightly larger diameter bearings.
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"precisely no difference at all" Not something I, or any other qualified mechanic would let back to a customer without the very simple and cheap job of doing it properly though.
Neither would I. I wouldn't have one of my bikes with a cable looking like that, and if I was fitting it professionally I wouldn't let it out of the workshop looking like that, because it looks awful. Nonetheless, once the cable leaves the clamping point, on a purely functional level, it doesn't matter if it's held together with a cable end, left as fluffy as a horse's tail, stuck together with rocking horse shit, or bonded tightly with the tears of a unicorn. In fact, you could trim it right back so that no part of the cable extended beyond the clamping washer, and it would make no difference at all as long as the cable didn't slip, which it wouldn't if it's tightened properly. As it is, provided the retaining nuts is tightened sufficently, the splayed cable makes no functional difference, hence the "precisely no difference at all" comment. It's still not something I'd want on my bike.
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more likely just a clusterfuck of delays
Pretty much a nailed-down certainty, I'd say. I've been doing a lot of work on the Building Safety Act 2022 recently. It's a complete fecking mess. The good news is that it's such a fecking mess, there'll be plenty of work for property lawyers arguing about it. Which is nice.
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Between the base rate and QE that basically exactly what they have done... if you hold assets, right?
Essentially, yes. The BoE has kept interest rates very low and pumped money into the bond markets through QE in order to keep asset prices artifically high. The result has been to benefit those who hold assets at the expense of those who don't. It could be argued that the alternative would have been a massive financial crash, which would have left everyone considerably worse off (I assume that's the justification the BoW would give). Whether or not that's true, I suspect no-one knows, and I certainly don't.
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Historically 4.5% to 5% has been seen as a zero-risk return on investment, on the basis that's been the ROI on government gilts. If the base rate was significantly lower than that then you'd effectively be allowing everyone to have free money by borrowing money and buying gilts. Apart from 2008 to 2021 interest rates have very rarely fallen below 5%. IANAFA either, but I'm not convinced they're going to fall much below 5% in the short to medium term, if at all. Thanks primarily to Brexit I can't see much of an increase in supply-side, due to the UK economy becoming increasingly isolated both in terms of the importation of raw materials and the export of goods and services. That means the BoE will have to keep a lid on demand, in order to prevent more hightened inflation. And the only tool they have to do that (because negative QE doesn't really exist) is keeping interest rates high.
As someone with no debts and significant savings, I'm entirely relaxed about that. Anyone for a large one at the 19th hole?
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I do sometimes wonder about the decision-making processes at Garmin HQ. I can imagine the following discussion taking place:
"So, what colour are the roads going to be on the maps?"
"How about purple?"
"Purple? Love it! Purple it is. And what colour are we going to make the saved course shown on the maps. Obviously we want it to be easily distinguishable from other roads shown on the map."
"How about a very, very slightly lighter shade of purple?"
"Genius! Let's go with that. Presumably we'd allow users to change the default very-slightly-lighter-shade-of-purple colour?"
"Well, of course, the user is always right."
"And presumably that would apply universally to every course once the user had changed it?"
"Oh no, we'd make them change it for each course individually."
"Ah yes, stupid me, that's obviously better."I can think of no other explanation.
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The strike off has nothing to do with potential liquidation or adminstration. That's purely an administrative step taken by the Registrar of Companies.
However, it does look as those Planet X may well be about to go into administration: https://caseboard.io/cases/7c9cda66-5c6e-42bc-ac84-06b024a9216f