pc486

joined 1 year ago
[–] pc486@reddthat.com 75 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The advice is good (steel and aluminum are much underappreciated) yet this op-ed is weird and mean spirited. Yeah, carbon fiber bikes are expensive and quirky. They're a specialty bike for racers squeaking out tens of seconds to a minute or two of time. No one is seriously advising new riders to get a 10 grand bike. Why the gatekeeping? Let racers spend their money on their favorite, healthy, and engaging hobby.

[–] pc486@reddthat.com 13 points 9 months ago

There's a whole suite of vaccines which do not provide what you're asking for: sterilizing immunity. That's the penultimate ability of a vaccine. It's incredible we're even able to create anything of that character given we're fighting against living, evolving things.

Setting the minimum bar to "I must never get sick" instead of "won't find myself in a grave" or "I wasn't able to work for a month and was stuck in a hospital for three weeks" is a crazy thing to hang onto.

[–] pc486@reddthat.com 2 points 10 months ago

I own a Jeep (TJ) that I've built up for off-road excursions. I'd like to clarify about how these vehicles handle dirt, country roads, or mountainous terrain compared to bikes: Jeeps are nowhere as good as bikes.

Crazy, right?

It's not like what the marketers would love you to believe, but it's true. A 1.5 ton, four wheeled vehicle will struggle in all kinds of situations where light two wheeled vehicles will have no trouble at all. There's a reason why you'll see so many people standing around in videos of us four wheelers trying to make progress: walking is faster and easier! Pushing a large, heavy box through difficult terrain is a large part of the fun of a Jeep.

My recommendation for a bike is a gravel or all-terrain bike (ATB). Today's mountain bikes are built for fast descents, very rough terrain, and large jumps. They're amazing on certain trails but, IMHO, not the best for dirt and gravel tracks. Gravel and ATBs are also more flexible with mounting points for things like racks, cages, etc for outdoor excursions. As a bonus, they're cheap right now. Gravel was all the rage during the pandemic and now stores are overstocked. You can get a great deal on new or last year's models from your local bike store.

Or, if you really want that four-wheeling experience, take look at recumbent quadricycles. They're quite unique! With fat tires they'll float over just about any soft surface.

As others have stated, do not go to a box store or online with very limited exceptions. A LBS will generally employ a mechanic who knows what they're doing, will stand behind any issues that arise, and can work on the bike after it breaks in. You'd be lucky if a Walmart employee manages to put a handle bar facing forwards.

[–] pc486@reddthat.com 2 points 10 months ago

Absolutely. My comment is about why a regulation would be 2 hours when today we can get more capable, air rated parts. US regulation is lagging behind, but it was based on what was within reach 20+ years ago. Heck, I bet most craft would eventually become 25 hours voice recording as older standard recorders become no longer available.

[–] pc486@reddthat.com 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Flight recorders have a very long history with modern ones being engineered in the 1960s. They used film and magnetic tape loops, having very limited capacity. That's where we get 2 hours from. Early ones only ran for 30 minutes, so 2 hours is pretty good in comparison.

It's time to upgrade the regulations to match our current technology instead of 1990s limitations.

[–] pc486@reddthat.com 6 points 10 months ago

Uber has posted profits for the last two quarters. Lyft hasn't yet been profitable, but they have been reducing their losses quite a bit.

I don't think either of them will fail this year. Some AI gold rushing unicorns out there certainly will. It's hard to know which though; they're still private companies.

[–] pc486@reddthat.com 3 points 10 months ago

Nortel wasn't killed by Huawei stealing their IP, which certainly did happen. They tanked themselves with some terrible accounting that hid the terrible situation they put themselves in. Nortel and Enron are the reason GAAP is the gold standard and legally required to be reported these days.

[–] pc486@reddthat.com 2 points 10 months ago

There are sailed powered logistics ships! Here's a grain ship that just launched. There are also companies that produce inflatable or deployable sails to reduce fuel consumption in favorable winds.

Ultimately there will be a need for chemical energy or similarly dense energy to move a ship. The wind doesn't always blow, and when it does it won't always be in the direction you want. Nuclear is certainly an interesting option.

[–] pc486@reddthat.com 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Aerobic exercise in the heat is difficult. What I've found that works for me is "salt sticks." They're capsules of electrolytes that help rebalance during times of high water intake.

I take one after approximately consuming 1.5 liters of water, depending on temperature and water consumption rate. I also take one if my fingers start swelling; a certain sign of dehydration. It works for me and maybe it'll work for you.

This is the video that convinced me to give electrolytes a try is GearSkeptic's Performance Nutrition for Backpacking, Part 4: Electrolyte Balance. The whole playlist is good, as long as you're prepared for many hours of talking hands and reading up his sources.

[–] pc486@reddthat.com 1 points 10 months ago

-20 isn't so bad. Neither is the winter gear, assuming you go outside at all during winter, as it's the same gear as going out for a walk.

Studded tires are nice, but also not necessary if there's proper bike infrastructure. Plowing bike lanes goes a long way.

[–] pc486@reddthat.com 7 points 11 months ago

A friend of mine explained why it's important to his kids: they can't chat with a group of their friends.

Why? Because parents don't want to install WhatsApp or other group chats due to legitimate concerns about scammers, pedophiles, and other child predators. SMS chat fills that gap, but it breaks horribly for groups bigger than 10 people. Hence if some kid is on Android, they break their chat. Given the penetration of Apple devices, it's the kids with Android who are considered at-fault. "Just get an iPhone!"

Welcome to anticompetitive practices targeted at your children.

[–] pc486@reddthat.com 31 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Spot on!

Sometimes even cheaters could be dealt with without an admin in those days. Servers would have fun game settings and odd maps that would break cheating gameplay.

My brother and I often played CS in the same room, on opposing teams because we didn't like being cheated and didn't want to be cheaters. We found an empty server with a sniping-only map. Made for great fun and someone joined in about 15 minutes later. They seemed really good, so we joined together to see if we could make it challenging. The new guy was just too good, so we decided to swap back and forth with the new guy to see if one of us could make a 1v2 miracle happen. That's when we figured out he was impossibly aim hacking. Bummer, our fun game was toasted.

Then we realized the map settings had friendly fire on and a 5 second start delay. Aim hacks don't target your own teammates. A perfect trap was available: we'd headshot TK the cheater at game start and then 1v1 each other. The cheater tried swapping to the other team only to find my brother using the same TK tactic. Our cheating friend found himself without a chance to grift. Needless to say, he didn't hang around for long.

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