I want to label my toilet /dev/null now.
I never got rid of my pickup truck, but I have owned a few small displacement two-wheelers that I used for commuting year-round for several years in my 20s. Mind you I live in North Carolina, so A. I'm going to use miles per hour and miles per gallon, B. the climate here is warmer year round than almost all of Europe, and C. when I talk about any legalities like licensing, that's what I'm talking about.
I owned a Yamaha Razz (an ancient 50cc 2 stroke scooter), a modified Aprilia RS50 (rare bike to find in the US, by the time I got it this is a 75cc 2 stroke motorcycle, 6-speed manual transmission) and a Kawasaki Ninja 250F (250cc 4 stroke 2 cylinder, 6 speed manual). The scooter I mostly stuck to roads with speed limits of 45mph or under, and still that was pretty sketchy as in most cases I could not keep up with traffic. The other two bikes I've driven all over creation on every kind of highway we have.
Performance
The Aprilias 75cc two-stroke was just barely capable of pushing the bike to about 80 mph; it is my understanding that the RS50 is often limited to 30mph in the UK, and wide open it could do about 50. A two-stroke engine with nearly no torque isn't great for stop and go traffic; this bike was best on the backroads where you would stay at 45 to 55 mph. It made around 60 miles to the gallon, it did consume oil, wasn't that easy to start in the winter, etc. Cruising on divided highways and interstates was asking a lot of an engine that size. I did occasionally carry a passenger, which was a LOT to ask of that bike.
The Ninja 250 is a perfectly adequate machine for highway use. The chassis wasn't quite as sporty as the Aprilia, with a more upright riding posture, which just made it more comfortable. It was easily capable of over 100mph, it held nearly 5 gallons of gas and made 70 mpg, so it had tremendous range. I still haven't found a motorcycle that can do what that bike did. It was easy to handle in traffic and quite capable on the freeway. Carrying a passenger on this bike could be a challenge with any cargo; it was kind of a choice between saddlebags or a passenger, not for weight but for space.
I would estimate that a 125cc four-stroke with a CVT would perform about like the Aprilia or worse, probably more torque but less horsepower, you're probably locking yourself out of long distance commute by major divided highway.
Practicality
I only really started doing things like grocery shopping by bike when I got the Ninja. I had both a tank bag and saddle bags for that bike, which were frequently used. If I could do it again I would do permanently mounted and weatherproof saddle boxes. Some scooters come with trunk space under the seat but others are full of fuel tank since they often keep the space in front of the driver empty.
Weather
I rode bikes through 100 degree summers and in freezing rain. None of my bikes were really equipped for shielding the rider from the weather. The coldest I've ever been was in the saddle of that Ninja. If you don't like being rained on, commuting by bike isn't for you.
Riding gear is essential. I would budget about $1000 USD (about the same in euro) for a helmet, jacket, boots, pants, gloves and rain gear. I actually wore a jacket that was designed for summer weather, a nylon mesh jacket that breathed very easily, year round. IT had an internal rain liner I could put in which warmed it up a little, and I wore a fleece under that in winter, and still froze my ass off. For most of the year I didn't bother with the armored pants I bought because they were cumbersome; for commuting you might look into "steel jeans" or similar. Your gear is there to keep you comfortable when moving at speed and to keep you in one piece while crashing. Which you WILL eventually do.
Maintenance
Bikes need more maintenance than cars. Tires don't last as long, especially the tiny ones thy put on scooters. Those smaller, simpler engines are fussier. They might take less oil, but they often take expensive synthetic oil specifically designed for motorcycles, and it requires changing more frequently.
Everyone in cars is trying to kill you
No seriously everyone who drives a car including you and me are ignorant and malicious dipshits when it comes to the safety of those on two wheels. You will be pulled out in front of, you will be swerved in front of, you will be merged into. Much more so than in a car you will have to defend yourself. Keep your horn working, keep your eyes working, learn karate, install a Phalanx CWIS system if it's within your budget.
I saw the first one, enjoyed it...not sure I could explain the plot or what happened in it. At the time having the dinosaurs brought to life was spectacle enough; they could have made a movie about the park working correctly and it would have sold tickets.
I watched the second and third one back to back with a girl. They were alright. I don't care to see them again. I'm not watching any more of them.
A sentence of menopause in prison is an amazing idea.
Yeah, in my shop a band saw would be used for resawing as much as anything. RIght now I resaw with my table saw, which...isn't great. I don't do much intricate scrollwork, or if I do, out comes the jigsaw. It's what I rough cut the bottom arched piece of this with.
There's an Arduino-based CNC controller firmware called GRBL. Gurble? Gerbil? Garble? GeeArrBeeElle? GuhRuhBuhLuh?
I strongly dislike the end-around that these "live service" games are trying to do around copyright law. I'm a strong proponent of the idea that intellectual property law is a compromise. You get some time to make your money on your idea, then it becomes the heritage of all mankind. Treating games as a service is an attempt to weasel out of their end of the bargain.
So I don't fucking buy them.
If the population at large is too stupid to make healthy video game purchasing decisions, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for protections to come from the representatives they elected.
I can see a stack of ways that this isn't going to work:
- The government looks at the petition and says "No we're not going to consider that."
- The government says "We've considered that and decided to do nothing."
- The government pulls an EU and the solution they come up with is to make every video game published everywhere in the world force the user to agree to the EULA every time the game launches, prompting a slew of "EULA auto-accept" mods to work around the annoying thing you now have to constantly click.
- The government puts in a law that's written decently. The industry, particularly those parts based outside the EU such as Japan and North America, ignore it, and shut down servers when they damn well please.
But let's indulge in the fantasy that democracy works for a minute and Stop Killing Games becomes a law that works perfectly as intended. The publishers will find some other way to be shifty greedy fuckpukes. Case in point: Live service games just shutting down their servers whenever they want is 100% legal right now. The government currently is not protecting consumers. It never truly will. The shadiness of business will always outrun government protection, 100% of the time.
I still maintain, if you continue to pay for live service games, you're the problem.
Sure. I remember when Id Software released Doom as open source. They had just released Quake II earlier that month, Doom was old news and not really a money maker for the company, so they opened the source code to let the community play with it. That was a cool thing to do, it should be done more often.
I would say yeah, you should build a game in such a way that it can be played once its abandoned. The greed vampires who are actually in charge won't let a law like that be passed. Or if it is, they'll ignore it.
Most of the folks I've heard making tutorials about it pronounce it "guhDOUGH." To get that FOSS cred the name has to be a dumpster fire.
So...here's the thing, folks: What you're REALLY going to have to do is stop buying live service video games.
If I understand this, it is a petition to get the EU government to look into maybe thinking about making some laws to...do something about live service games becoming unplayable when the servers shut down. Okay, here's how that's going to go: "We looked into it and decided not to do anything."
Has anyone tried...not buying the damn games in the first place? If you pay for these games knowing that the soulless reptilian cloacal slits that run the AAA industry can just shut down servers whenever they want, YOU are the problem.
Possibly the wrong community for this, it was either here or casual_conversation which also feels like possibly the wrong community for this, but I haven't found anywhere better.
It is allegedly Men's Health Awareness Month, so instead of doing something lazy like post an image macro telling you it's okay to cry or other bullshit platitude, why don't we all hit the trails and talk about what we see along the way?
I went out to a trail around a lake local to me. Was almost tough getting any pictures at all without getting people in the shot. Used to be you could have the whole place to yourself, I'm not sure I was ever out of sneezing distance of someone the entire 2 miles. Used to be people would say hi as they passed, everyone's got earbuds in these days.
A deer! First of two I saw on this walk. Used to be you'd never see any deer or anything like that around this trail, too many people. But they've been clearcutting the forests around here left and right to slap in those godawful HOA housing developments or apartment complexes that we're running out of woods for the deer to live in. Used to be you'd never see them in town, but now there seems to be one living in the back of my yard. Not sure it's a great sign for the future that all the wildlife is being displaced.
The crik. Hope it don't rise.
I've always liked this spot, the path forks a little here and the lower path gives you this peek at the lake. About 20 years ago now I took the best picture I've ever taken at this spot, I was walking this trail shortly after sunrise, happened to look over, said "That's pretty" and snapped a shot with my LG EnV2.
Desire path? I don't fully understand this one, though I remember decades ago it was a lot narrower, like only bikes ever went to the right.
I don't know what this invasive species is but it's apparently not too healthy for the local trees.
So, now it's your turn. Go on a walk, talk about what you see out there.
I foreshadowed this one pretty good. I'm still working on the countertop but the cabinetry is done.
And here are some of those infernal hinges that are way harder to buy than they should be.
It's a little scratch and dent given it's made out of offcuts, scraps and extras from other projects but I think it came out okay. Three coats of fake "tung oil" finish and it came up to a nice warm semi-gloss, and ambered up the pine enough to take the edge off the grain.
Detail shot of the side hung, center guided drawer and its rabbeted dovetail front and shop made handle.
Yeah I'm going on a bit of a victory lap here, I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out.
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I don't know if I can say if I use my table saw or my router table more. If I do have to make curved cuts or something I haul out one of my jigsaws.