NC7s a good pick.

But don’t blur all 2k+ beemers into the same group. I had a 2004 GS for a good few year - my first proper bike. Not as solid as the CB or NCs that’s true, but that big solid boxer engine is lovely and a superb motorway cruiser. The 04’s were the last of the oilheads, widely considered the most reliable engines, But even then, BMW were over-complicating shit, and it’s much worse now.

/If/ he’s declining (I like spankinspinach’s answer) through dementia, then as someone who’s watched their very intelligent mother, their step-father and their uncle all decline with it - my answer to “how do you accept this?” is - you can’t.

Oh, you can be rational, and sympathetic, and take steps to protect them and get them the care they need - but emotionally? Dude, it’s fucking hard. Seeing someone go through their own denial in the early stages, how they try to trick you into thinking they’re okay. As it progresses and they have to surrender, then the oblivion that inevitably follows. Watching my own mother forget every single fact about our shared memories to the point she didn’t even know who I was, then worse, when she thought I was my father. Then her regression to a little girl. (That sounds linear but it isn’t)

If he is going down that route, then the only thing to do is try to prepare yourself for a whole world of hurt and anger. Be strong, be the parent for them, but die yourself inside.

Good luck with your licence. I found it a hard test when I did my DAS a few years ago but did pass first time, doing both MOD 1 and 2 back to back.

You say you’re not fussed about top speed, but smaller bikes are very buzzy at the top end of their range (as you know on a 125) so don’t be afraid to go bigger for motorways and it’s nice to have power in reserve. Big bikes ride better there and less twitchy in side winds, but are less agile in the city.

If you want a solid commuter bike, you can’t go wrong with Honda cb500 or similar. There’s a lot of older ones still chugging away - tatty and less stealable, but ultra reliable and cheap to maintain. 70mpg, more than enough power for the motorway, not too fat to filter.

Some of the older (2000-2010) BMW 1100-1200s are fairly good, either GS or RT. Lovely torquey engine, good presence, comfy and nice on the motorway. A bit fat for filtering sometimes.

Good shout on keeping your 125. They’re a hoot and great for bombing around the lanes or cities.

Extended Warranties.

As in the pig from Charlotte’s Web?

Says the millennial, complainingly.

Dunno. I use Debian, so that stuff just works from day 1.

It’s about market share (“Your first hit is free…” marketing), but you’re probably seeing only one aspect.

They’re already charging very real money for subscription users, especially enterprise.

Uber spent $3.4bn, their entire budget for AI fees for 2026, within the first four months of this year - that’s real money by anyone’s definition.

We (not Uber) set up a monitoring portal (litellm) to manage this. Some users are burning through a surprising amount, hitting what we considered sane daily limits within their first hour. One person asked a single query that cost $30 .

Individual consumers of AI are riding free on this as the big AI players jostle for position and valuation.

Will that bubble burst or gradually deflate? Or keep growing longer? Nobody knows, or if they do they’re investing cleverly and keeping their mouth shut.

And also why tahler is seen in some old books, and those in well researched fantasy - some origin.

Guess: Junctions are weighted.

There’s an extra junction on the green route. Junctions often add delays when giving way to traffic, so the algorithm may choose routes with fewer.

Turn the router off and see how long before your family notices.

I enjoy being a linux sysadmin. I still do some web full stack, but largely for my own team and I have full autonomy over what tools I use. Can’t be many other people writing websites in perl today.

Seriously, wtf Redhat?

Long term and by all accounts, valuable, employee makes a reasonable request for distance working and gets denied? What’s more, them leaving has landed them with a serious problem about maintaining key software.

I’ve not been a big fan of Redhat for some years now, but that’s a new IBM smelling low. Their best years are definitely behind them.

I don’t disagree that some are like that, and the only reason tax laws in many countries in particular are so complicated are because of politicians squeezing in exceptions that benefit them.

But it’s far, far from “all laws”. The quality of life and legality for average people has changed a huge amount for the better. Even in my lifetime in the UK. When I was a child, it was illegal to be homosexual. You were openly discriminated for being black, Irish, foreign, fat, old, young. Now there are laws to protect against that. My wife’s mother had to get her brother to sign the paperwork to buy a house because even in the 1950s, women couldn’t get a mortgage without a man guaranteeing it. Those are just a few examples.

If you’re American, then yeah, maybe your system is skewed far to the rich beyond what most countries do. It’s long been the case that justice in the US doesn’t apply to the rich, but the US is not everywhere and not everything, despite what the current news cycles might tell you.

I understand why someone might think that, but it’s not true, except perhaps in the most corrupt of countries.

This can’t be a surprise to anyone though, right?

I think he’s fairly credible, but it’s obvious he also likes talking and being the center of attention so I suspect will exaggerate for attention. Being Ex-CIA guy is also his business, so he has motive for continuing to appear interesting and relevant. I think it’s prudent to remain a little sceptical.

You say that, but outside of Europe, I’m fairly sure much of society is getting less permissive since the 60s.

Personal view from someone who considers themselves pretty liberal: I don’t get why people spend money on it.

I have no issue at all with anything someone does to make money, provided it doesn’t hurt anyone else. Good for them, wish I was attractive enough to do it. I’d have absolutely no issue with my wife or sister or friend earning money this way.

What I do object to, is low effort. Not just OF/porn, but influencers and streamers more widely. Fake noises, grotesque leering, begging for money - none of it is real, and it doesn’t interest me in the slightest. It doesn’t appeal to me as a consumer, and I don’t understand at all that it does for anyone. Obviously it does work and people do pay money to watch it but I’m genuinely bewildered why. If you want porn, it’s everywhere for free. If anyone reading is a viewer, please do try to educate me on what you get out of it!

(Also, I do know there are people who genuinely enjoy performing and put a lot of effort into producing quality, it’s not all shite)

True story; I used to employ a chap doing building work. He was straight, married (but open, he slept with several of our female staff), good looking and very fit - and one day he handed me his notice. He said he’d been doing OF and gay porn at the weekends and he was making ten times the money in half a day doing that than he was working five days for me. Good for him, he was able to afford a lifestyle he couldn’t otherwise.

Don’t forget the Totnes Pound