guitarromantic

- friends
1,828 link karma
8,913 comment karma
send messageredditor for

Boris Johnson claims that nearly two in three cyclists killed or seriously injured on the road were breaking the law by jxmitchellin london

[–]guitarromantic 2 points3 points ago

I cycle to work and back every day and in no way have I seen 2/3rds of cyclists break the law. It's probably more like 10%.

Boris Johnson claims that nearly two in three cyclists killed or seriously injured on the road were breaking the law by jxmitchellin london

[–]guitarromantic 2 points3 points ago

The cycling community actually has an ongoing debate about whether helmets are useful or not. Not gonna get into it here but it's not necessarily as black-and-white as people think.

(for the record, I wear a helmet)

Obituary: /r/bicycling moderator no_numbers_here has passed away after being hit by a car by bicycling_communityin bicycling

[–]guitarromantic 5 points6 points ago

Just submitted something on r/IdeasForTheAdmins about adding a 'memorial badge' for deceased redditors. Could be a nice way to memorialise his efforts here. RIP.

http://www.reddit.com/r/ideasfortheadmins/comments/u2k1k/how_about_we_get_a_profile_badge_to_memorialise_a/

Cool LOTR illustrations by Frank Frazetta, circa 1975 (xpost from /r/pics/) by someFunnyUserin TheHobbit

[–]guitarromantic 1 point2 points ago

Nice! Might be worth posting to r/tolkienfans too!

Reddit, as a classical musician, tell me what we could do better. What is it about classical music that keeps you away from our concerts? by a12345678910in AskReddit

[–]guitarromantic 0 points1 point ago

Ah, so what you're saying is, the older something is, the better it is. Gotcha.

Before the 1950s there were barely any globally-recognised "pop stars". I'm sure a century from now people will still remember the Beatles and Elvis and co.

Sign up for a special redditgifts for the troops and send a care package to a redditor in the Armed Forces by kickme444in blog

[–]guitarromantic 0 points1 point ago

You're missing my point. Go back and re-read.

If you reduce things down, both a toilet cleaner and a soldier are people with little prospects in life (according to your reasoning) who have chosen to do jobs most people don't want to do. One of those groups isn't involved in dubious political shenanigans or employed to murder other people for money.

I'm not saying soldiers have it easy and that all war is bad, but my point is that given that soldiers know what they're choosing to sign up for, you can't really use the argument about poor conditions unless you're also willing to factor in others in similarly unfortunate circumstances (doing work nobody wants to do because they lack other options).

Sign up for a special redditgifts for the troops and send a care package to a redditor in the Armed Forces by kickme444in blog

[–]guitarromantic 0 points1 point ago

But the OP's point was that those people chose to go there, knowing those risks. My point is that by your logic (eg, that these people didn't have many choices), we should surely be helping people doing horrible, menial jobs -- people whose work doesn't attract as much controversy since they're not also shooting at people.

Reddit, as a classical musician, tell me what we could do better. What is it about classical music that keeps you away from our concerts? by a12345678910in AskReddit

[–]guitarromantic 0 points1 point ago

Okay, thanks for clarifying. I agree with your sentiment and wish I knew how to change things so people just loved music, but there's certainly elitism within the classical scene where its listeners are critical even of groups like the Beatles (let alone Nirvana and Green Day) for just being "mop-top pop" or whatever.

Reddit, as a classical musician, tell me what we could do better. What is it about classical music that keeps you away from our concerts? by a12345678910in AskReddit

[–]guitarromantic 6 points7 points ago

Your ridiculous elitism and snobbery in this comment is part of why I don't feel welcomed to the classical music world. Popular music is just as valid as classical. Why does it even have to be one over the other?

Sign up for a special redditgifts for the troops and send a care package to a redditor in the Armed Forces by kickme444in blog

[–]guitarromantic 6 points7 points ago

Agreed, so why aren't we sending care packages to the people who empty our trash and clean our toilets?

Best London/UK Alternative radio stations? by ElleSevenin london

[–]guitarromantic 2 points3 points ago

BBC 6 Music is the only popular station playing credible stuff, plus they have shows presented by actual musicians. Give it a go!

How did your postcode area vote for the London Mayor 2012 election? I made a webapp breaking down voter data by postcode so you can see if your street was an anomaly. by guitarromanticin london

[–]guitarromantic[S] 0 points1 point ago

Yeah, assuming the data is released in the same sort of manner, I'd love to extend it for national elections too.

How did your postcode area vote for the London Mayor 2012 election? I made a webapp breaking down voter data by postcode so you can see if your street was an anomaly. by guitarromanticin london

[–]guitarromantic[S] 0 points1 point ago

Cheers. Yeah, don't think the Google Charts I'm using for the main graph work on mobile (bit rubbish of Google, they're normally pretty hot on this kind of thing). Not sure why the postcode entry wouldn't work but that might just be a symptom of using an in-app browser instead of the 'real' one.

Would really like to get it working properly on mobile too but I didn't bother for this version given Google's apparent lack of mobile support for the charts (which are basically the centrepiece of the app).

Thanks for the feedback!

How did your postcode area vote for the London Mayor 2012 election? I made a webapp breaking down voter data by postcode so you can see if your street was an anomaly. by guitarromanticin london

[–]guitarromantic[S] 2 points3 points ago

It means that compared to the national average, it was 23% less overall. It's tricky to get the wording across in a little button but if you hover over it it should explain (using the actual numbers).

How did your postcode area vote for the London Mayor 2012 election? I made a webapp breaking down voter data by postcode so you can see if your street was an anomaly. by guitarromanticin london

[–]guitarromantic[S] 2 points3 points ago

Way ahead of you ;) https://github.com/mattandrews/whovotedwhat

There's a pretty hefty SQL database behind it which powers the postcode lookup bit -- that's not on GitHub.

How did your postcode area vote for the London Mayor 2012 election? I made a webapp breaking down voter data by postcode so you can see if your street was an anomaly. by guitarromanticin london

[–]guitarromantic[S] 5 points6 points ago

Calm down, dear. It's as accurate as the data will let you get. Most people don't know their ward code / name so reverse mapping it onto postcodes makes it more accessible. I don't know the full stats but I don't think it's as many as "a few hundred streets" per ward, not sure though.

The reason I made the app was because most of the other breakdowns do things like show entire boroughs by red/blue status -- pretty boring and quite easily guessable. I wanted to know how many BNP voters there were in my immediate area. The app scratches that itch, and I want people to immediately understand that they can enter their postcode and see data specific to it.

EDIT: for reference, this is my ward -- haven't counted, but I'd estimate ~30 streets there.

How did your postcode area vote for the London Mayor 2012 election? I made a webapp breaking down voter data by postcode so you can see if your street was an anomaly. by guitarromanticin london

[–]guitarromantic[S] 6 points7 points ago

(I posted this a few weeks ago with the 2008 data, but just updated it today with the newly-released 2012 data).

What was your first experiences moving to london? by OhDearMoshein london

[–]guitarromantic 4 points5 points ago

Shameless plug, but I blogged about my first year in London here: http://www.lessonslearnedinlondon.co.uk

What touristy things wouldn't you recommend? by Ekornin london

[–]guitarromantic 1 point2 points ago

It might be a shorter list to highlight the tourist things that are worth going to.

THIS is why I hope they never enable mobile networks on the tube. by muzfuzin london

[–]guitarromantic 2 points3 points ago

Well, 64 upvotes on that comment should be fairly indicative, but in the past, other people in /r/london have commented that similar tube-snappers were being a bit creepy and lots of people agreed.

view more: next