@kim@fediverse.fun avatar

kim

@kim@fediverse.fun

Queer woman in Birmingham, UK.
Mostly posting about cycling, human-powered vehicles, camping and tech.
Formerly @kim

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kim, to random
@kim@fediverse.fun avatar

This rather old video confirms my suspicions that the hub is basically witchcraft, but after riding one for >1000 miles, it is nice to have a mental image to go with the different whirring noises. (I'm sure 7th gear is more cursed than 3rd and 5th, thobut.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4UpwoDmOb4

bkero, to random
@bkero@kosmos.social avatar

Does anybody I know on here have experience cycle touring in England? I'm headed to EMF Camp at the end of the month and it sounds really fun to simply cycle there (from London). I have many questions.

kim,
@kim@fediverse.fun avatar

@bkero One of most important things for foreigners to understand about cycling in the UK is that the overwhelming majority of cycle infra exists to fill someone (who probably doesn't even ride a bike)'s quota.

As such, on-road cycle lanes are often best avoided on safety grounds (there's no legal obligation for cyclists to use them), and signposted cycling routes are likely to be indirect, convoluted, hilly, muddy or obstructed by anti-cyclist gates. Off-road paths in urban areas tend to be full of dog-walkers and other oblivious pedestrians, which makes for slow progress.

Minor roads are generally the best option. Something like https://cycle.travel may be useful for route planning.

quixoticgeek, to random
@quixoticgeek@v.st avatar

I am currently charging my MacBook off a Makita 18v lxt battery...

kim,
@kim@fediverse.fun avatar

@quixoticgeek Noice.

Now try the other way round. Preferably at random for a feature-complete USB-C implementation.

kim, to random
@kim@fediverse.fun avatar

In Lake District news, the dry night with a bit of mist has suddenly and very quickly turned to six hours of heavy rain...

kim, to random
@kim@fediverse.fun avatar

This evening I have been hoovering live midges from inside my tent using a small electric airbed pump and a stuff-sack. How's your day going?

kim, to random
@kim@fediverse.fun avatar

Premier Inn reminder email:

Your stay in Hull starts in 7 days

Same mildly-threatening energy as when Evri tell you "We've got your parcel"...

Note for types: Registrations close on Thursday.

kim, to random
@kim@fediverse.fun avatar

Worst recumbent tricycle ever made. And still true...

RE: https://chaos.social/users/gsuberland/statuses/112299766520159828

18+ proactiveservices, to random
@proactiveservices@fosstodon.org avatar

Updating my "Emoji Shitlist" filter because geez, so much spam in the local timeline.

kim,
@kim@fediverse.fun avatar

@proactiveservices @RL_Dane Habitual long-thread posters on Mastodon annoy me. It's not like they couldn't move to some other instance/platform with a higher character limit and make things easier for everyone.

kim, to random
@kim@fediverse.fun avatar

I just burned a CD-R...

quixoticgeek, to random
@quixoticgeek@v.st avatar

Ffs. Picked up a world to UK plug adapter at the smiths at STP.

Seems the world does not include Schuko... Arse.

kim,
@kim@fediverse.fun avatar

@quixoticgeek WTF? Screwdriver in the earth pin it is...

revk, to random
@revk@toot.me.uk avatar

Playing with a new toy...

kim,
@kim@fediverse.fun avatar

@revk Robo-Ceiling-Cat?

kim, to random
@kim@fediverse.fun avatar

Did a bit of digging so you don't have to: It's got 8Wh of supercapacitors, and presumably does a reasonably efficient job of regen. So it's enough to help you up a moderate hill, but on average you have to do most of the work yourself. (It's obviously not the perpetual motion machine the headline suggests.)

I can see a real future for this approach if it can be made lightweight and unobtrusive: Just the thing for leisure cyclists who aren't as strong as they used to be.

But it's not a replacement for traditional battery powered workhorse e-bikes.

RE: https://mastodon.social/users/schizanon/statuses/112187456863955260

kim,
@kim@fediverse.fun avatar

@quixoticgeek It'll run for a couple of minutes. As I say, enough for a moderate hill. Make it sufficiently small and light and it's interesting, but more as an alternative to gears than an alternative to batteries.

quixoticgeek, to random
@quixoticgeek@v.st avatar

Oh. And before any of you lay any blame on the maintainers of these open source project.

How many of you have blindly installed stuff by running curl | sudo bash ?

Did you verify the binaries and the code the bash script ran/installed? How did you confirm trust on those binaries?

Xz is the oss supply chain attack we know about. You can guarantee there are many many more. How we manage installation, and dependency's should perhaps have a little more thought...

kim,
@kim@fediverse.fun avatar

@quixoticgeek @dusnm @allpoints Simon says. Which seems fine as a simple check that you really mean to make a system-level change, rather than a security measure.

Seems better than doing things that don't need to be root (eg. decompressing and compiling things) in a root shell, anyway.

kim,
@kim@fediverse.fun avatar

@quixoticgeek @allpoints @dusnm repeatedly typing a password would appear to be equivalent to repeatedly just typing "sudo " for those purposes. Except with more risk that your password ends up in your .bash_history

revk, to random
@revk@toot.me.uk avatar

TIL you don’t just get in to a space suit and leave your space ship, like the do in so many sci-fi, but you need to do a lot of pure oxygen first to get rid of nitrogen in your blood. It is because a space suit has to be around ⅓ atmosphere to be usable, and that means you would get the bends and very likely die if you tried it. What fun. Thanks @ZachWeinersmith

kim,
@kim@fediverse.fun avatar

@revk @mansr @ZachWeinersmith If you can transport a person from A to B by converting their molecules into a datastream, it doesn't seem too tricky to skip some of the nitrogen when you reassemble them... The wormhole might be problematic thobut.

kim,
@kim@fediverse.fun avatar

@revk @mansr @ZachWeinersmith Actually, isn't the whole problem that the Stargate is intelligent enough not to allow a flow of air/water through the wormhole? Otherwise you could just wait for the pressure to equalise and now you have two problems.

wmd, to random
@wmd@chaos.social avatar

Did my bike prep for bike trip. Next is testing backpack.

One thing I'm wondering about but also fear people have strong opinions about is helmet. I've never ever bought one for cycling and wouldn't use them here, but cycling alone in the mountains is a different stories. So looking for helmet advice. What to look for?

kim,
@kim@fediverse.fun avatar

@quixoticgeek @wmd This sounds like an entirely reasonable number of gloves. Although I've got old and thin and Raynaudsy, and probably need to investigate something with active heating for <5C. Maybe next winter...

kim,
@kim@fediverse.fun avatar

@quixoticgeek @th @wmd Yeah, fairly sure it's GP2s I've got on my Brompton

kim,
@kim@fediverse.fun avatar

@quixoticgeek @th @wmd Nahh, I have S-bars (the flat ones), which admittedly give a bit more flexibility for the mounting of Stuff.

kim, to random
@kim@fediverse.fun avatar

I'm going to bear this question in mind for next time I have really bad insomnia.

RE: https://bitbang.social/users/NanoRaptor/statuses/112070573804432656

wmd, to random
@wmd@chaos.social avatar

Did a brompton test ride today, they do ride super nice. But do wonder how it will function in mountain areas or longer distances with backpack. can't really test that before getting one. 🤷‍♀️

With a regular bike, I consider going electric, but that's a massive price difference and adds 6kg.

kim,
@kim@fediverse.fun avatar

@quixoticgeek @wmd Not tried it myself, but I've seen people do big backpack on a Brompton by hanging it from a bit of dowel or something attached to the back of the saddle, with the rear rack supporting most of the weight.

kim, to random
@kim@fediverse.fun avatar

Didn't get a photo as I was wheelchair-pushing, but today's hospital appointment took us past a sign pointing to "LUNG FUNCTION AND SLEEP", which is exactly what I need right now.

kim, to random
@kim@fediverse.fun avatar

Today I have been mostly contemplating cooking oil bottle lids...

You know the ones where some genius decided that the best way to close a container of hard-to-clean-up-if-spilled liquid was with a friction fit, where the liquid happens to be an effective lubricant, so it spends most of its time not staying closed.

I know this isn't technically @Anoia's department, but I sense her influence...

luis_in_brief, (edited ) to random
@luis_in_brief@social.coop avatar

So! Are there any smart fire alarms that aren’t awful? Just had a false negative from my Nest.

A few months after we moved in we had a lint fire, so I put a Nest in the laundry room.

3ish years later, just had another lint fire, with enough smoke that my upstairs neighbor (shares an airwell) ran downstairs frantically; we didn’t smell it because the door was closed, concentrating the smell in the small laundry room with the silent Nest.

Just ran a Nest test and it says it is fine.

kim,
@kim@fediverse.fun avatar

@luis_in_brief After frustration with the state of the few consumer-grade fire alarm systems that support a vibrating output (my partner is deaf), I ended up with a proper commercial building type fire alarm system. The fire panel has some relay input/outputs that I use with an ESP32 (running my own code, but you could use Tasmota or something) for basic smartness. Best of both worlds, and no 4am battery chirping, but not cheap or simple.

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