Zero Hedge

Zero Hedge (http://www.zerohedge.com/) is an independant news website mainly concerned with the world of finance, stock markets and investments. It came to my attention only recently and I really like it. It deals with the ups and downs in the financial markets and the underlying issues therein. Lots of the articles are thorough and treat a particular piece of market data but also give the full context including who is involved and why it happened the way it did. There are guest writers too; including a few people who identify trends in current economic data and give reasoned predictions of what happens next through the hindsight gained from stock market history.

The website takes a different approach to the markets and government action on finance because it gives an unadulterated presentation and pulls no punches. It makes no apologies for the opinions and themes it pulls from the news and whom it criticises for poor decision making. Many people who write for the website are closely related to the financial industry so they know their ground and this makes re-assuring reading.

On days when there's a run on the banks or a big government data presentation or news from the Fed, BoA, BoE, there's many articles written, constantly updating the blog-style format of the website.

The fact that Zero Hedge is syndicated and affiliated with many other market commentator and money blogs is also encouraging as it shows a wealth of information being brought forward in one community. It's certainly the place to go if you want to read about what's really going on in business and ensure that your money is working as hard as it can and more importantly, is safe.

money website guide

Sleep

Because I've been moving around all over the place recently, I've been sleeping in lots of different houses at different times. It's safe to say that my typical sleep pattern is shot. I do have some simple techniques that I use to help implement a regular sleep routine to help me maximise the amount of good sleep I can get out of a night.

Techniques
For me there are a few simple techniques that I use and I'll talk a little about each one below:

Darkness
For me, there's one thing I can't do without when it comes to sleep and that's darkness. I'm a bit of an owl in that I like total coal-black darkness in order to fall asleep. This means no hall lights, blinds / curtains cut and closing doors to rooms which permit light from outside in.

Quiet
I like real quiet when I go to bed, the dead space is like a blanket and wraps around your mind and body, sending me to sleep. To remedy any noises from outside, I don't go to sleep early and if there is an occasional ambient noise, I focus on the silence and apply a pillow to my ears.

Airflow
It has been proved through countless sleep studies that a good flow of cold (not freezing) air through your bedroom can help put your body to sleep and help you relax. I always have my window open a crack. This cold air is hard to come by in summer so I just switch out a duvet for simple sheets and this helps attain the desired coolness.

Sheets
As mentioned above, I use a bed covering appropriate to the season. In the height of summer, I use a couple of thin comfy cotton sheets to drape over myself to keep the chill off. In the winter, I snuggle under a thick duvet of many tog.

I hope these tips help you get some good rest yourself

health

Find-a-flat

I've just graduated from the University of York (Yay!!). I've decided to read an MSc chemical process engineering at UCL (University College London) before trying to enter the chemical industry as a graduate engineer. I want to specialise in engineering to develop my macro-world scientific skills which aren't really nurtured that well when studying the chemistry of atoms and molecules.

Not being native to London, I didn't know where is good for students / what kind of rents to expect, etc. There are many different variables in the equation and it was difficult to know where to start. I've had help from friends and condensed some of the knowledge that I've gleaned from my searching to help you guys get a place that's right for you. A good way to start along to road to renting is to place an ad about yourself and your requirements on various housing websites. This will allow people to view you flatmate profile and what you're looking for. You can match yourself with others looking for the same thing and find a house together or apply to a property and try and form a group to rent that way. This way, you can find people who will be suited to living with you and you get a better chance of finding housemates you can get along with.

Location
Location is the number one thing to consider when starting to think about hunting for property to rent. You need to consider where you're going to live in terms of how much the rent will be there, where your home is relative to your place of work (or study) and, less importantly, where all the local amenities are. Once you have an idea of the area you'd like to live in, you can do searches for houses (or in my case flatshares) in the areas you want. This will make your searches more efficient so you can find the right place faster.

Price
Rent pcm (per calendar month) is the important factor to consider when looking at price. With bills included can make the prospect less attractive but bear in mind how much extra you would have to pay if bills were separate and how much those bills could be. By having the utilities bundled in with the rent of the property, you get may get a better deal. This comes from paying for utilities and the energy you use at a regular rate instead of a crippling bill post-christmas. Prices will vary from place to place and properties in the centre will cost to rent than those at the periphery.

Housemates
If you're particular about your housemates, state it in your application to housing websites. Tell them if you're a smoker and need to be with others or if you're interested in being part of a single gender household. The website will try and advertise you to people of your interest. The websites will also apply filters to their listings to assist you in paring down your options. Alternatively, if you just want a place for yourself, filters can be applied there too to help you find what you're looking for with a minimum of fuss.

Extra Features
As above, if you're in need of specific features in a property, such as parking or a garden, let this be known too and you should get more targetted search results and more specific replies to any ads you place on housing websites.

Puncture repair guide (with tips!!)

Hisssssssssssss!! The angry sound of a puncture. Don't let it ruin your ride and don't waste money on a guy from Halfords to change your inner tube either. In this blog article, we'll be looking at puncture repair for bike inner tubes: the motivation, some tips and general installation instruction.

Hiss Bang Groan

Firstly, you need to identify the type of puncture you've got and this will allow you to tailor you approach to the repair of the puncture. A low hissing sound implies a snakebite or pinch puncture. This is a puncture which will slowly bleed out the air from your tyre and will have two small holes in the inneer tube. This is more minor damage and you may even be able to
ride home on such a puncture so you can fix it there more easily. A fast, loud bang is a rupture and is more serious. It implies a blowout of your tyre and may mean that you can't fix the puncture by the roadside.

Getting started

So you've identified your puncture and which wheel of your bike is afflicted. What now? Well,
firstly, you want a set of spoons, also known as tyre levers (not the eating iron variety). These should ideally made of tough plastic and are available from online stores such as Chain Reaction Cycles and Ribble cycles. Chain Reaction has free delivery on all purchases so it's worth giving them a look.

Use the more spoon-like end of the tyre lever to lift the rim of the tyre over the wheel rim. You may want to use 3 tyre levers for this to lift the tyre off the rim all the way round one side of the wheel.

Now pull out the inner tube. It's as the name suggests, a rubber tube, usually black and it sits under the tyre in the wheel rim. If you have a minipump to hand, pump some air into the inner tube and listen all around the tube for a hissing if you cannot already see the puncture. Many pinpoint punctures are very difficult to see so hearing and the feel of the airflow against the finger tips can help you locate the puncture.

After finding the puncture, use a puncture repair kit. My favourite at the moment is the Rema TIP TOP TT04 Sport mini puncture repair kit (~£3.50 Chain Reaction Cycles). It comes with little patches for little punctures and a couple of larger patches to cover more substantial damage. It also comes with some vulcanising solution (rubber glue) and a piece of sandpaper to help adhesion between the patch and the tube.

following the instructions in the package, lightly sand the tube to rough up the surface to help the patch stick. apply a blob of vulcanising solution. Then apply the patch and hold strongly for about 5 minutes while the glue sets.

Now put a little air into the tube to check for additional punctures. If there are none, seat the inner tube back into the tyre, making sure to seat the air inlet pokes through the hole in the rim. Now, using your hands, lift the rim of the tyre back over the rim of the wheel. Don't be tempted to use the tyre levers to lift the tyre back into place as this risks pinching the inner tube and ruining all your hard work as you'll need to repeat the above steps. Don't worry if it takes a while or you think you're doing it wrong. This is the most difficult part of the repair as anyone aside from a repair shop man will probably not have the grip strength needed to do it all in one go. Just take your time and make sure you don't catch the tube between the rim and the tyre as
more damage will ensue.

After all that, good luck. Let me know if there's anything I missed :)