yofuckreddit
No bio...
User ID: 646
yofuckreddit
1mo ago
No Trick or Treat? Just trunk?
yofuckreddit
1mo ago
I've now been deep into bicycling as a hobby for 3 years. It's not the first time I've been very into being on two wheels by any means. As a kid, I was blessed with an extremely hilly course in my "residential golfing community" that had light enough traffic to allow me to often knock out two laps of the 18 holes in the dead of summer. In college, I used a bike to finish my nightly classroom IT maintenance routes twice as fast as my walking coworkers. I credit it with first getting a promotion, then the ability to watch movies in the huge amphitheater projectors on the clock and still finish on time.
But after my transfer to another school, my ride got stolen. It broke my heart a little bit. I got into cars and didn't have a bike again for the next 7 years. In hindsight, one of my bigger regrets.
The past couple of weeks have fascinated me with the real limits and consequences of equipment selection. When re-entering the hobby as an adult with disposable income, the first thing that struck me is how obsessed the sport is with hyper-specialization and gear fetishism. My first few rides were in a T-shirt and shorts, with a crappy water bottle on an incorrectly sized machine. I swore to myself I would never stoop to certain levels of nerd-dom and then caved on every item, sequentially:
- Padded shorts/Chamois
- Special chain oil
- An aftermarket saddle
- Specialized tires
- A second bike/Drop Bars
- Heart Rate monitor
- Butt Cream
- Cycling Jerseys
The list goes on. Anyway, Bike #1 was (is?) a "Dual Sport". It tried to sit in the very middle of what a bike can do, with unopinionated tires, a crappy and gruesomely heavy front fork, no rear suspension, and flat bars. I appreciated its ability to roll on pavement and still hop a curb without complaining, but it definitely felt like a compromise everywhere.
I then purchased a carbon fiber gravel bike. This is a controversial product segment - as the definition of what it means happens to be very squirrely and marketer-driven. To me, it's a suspension-free road bike with room for bigger tires and, ideally, a generous gearing range (with an emphasis on the low end). Effectively, this destroyed Bike 1's utility on pavement, urban exploration, and gravel.
Therefore, I started shifting Bike 1 to be more of a mountain bike. The crappy stock wheels that broke spokes under my fat ass were replaced with superior ones and wrapped in beefier, knobby tires. I added racks and attachment points to create a hideous bikepacking rig that's gone through multiple sub-evolutions, and tacked on a trailer hitch to tug my kids around town.
Then, a few weeks ago, I got an itch to try and see how much my handling capabilities had evolved. The irony of the gravel bike is that there's also a school of thought suggesting they should be able to do what modern MTBs do - if only you're good enough! I happen to live closely to some excellent trails, so I dropped the pressure on my tubeless tires and hopped over some singletrack.
In my second lap, I was rewarded with a catastrophic blowout on fresh tires. I rolled down a gulley with rocks at the bottom and the thinner rubber folded under the pressure of ~200 pounds of meat without any fork to back it up.
My initial reaction was to be pissed off. This machine was mostly made of space-age carbon fiber, from the frame to the wheels. It cost plenty of money, and I'd gotten top-tier rubber and was still only on a Blue trail segment. This bike was still supposed to be for adventuring into the unknown, and it's survived multiple 100-mile trips over ugly gravel and fire roads. What gives?
I started reflecting on this year journey of gradually specializing, tweaking, and making parts of my equipment suite more purpose-driven. There have been real benefits that I can track statistically, thanks to Strava, not to mention how much joy I get out of this type of locomotion. Maybe I'm not so much a victim of marketing jargon - instead, I need to have more realistic expectations when taking my sleek and stiff rocket into the mountains and expecting it to perform.
Anyway, another reason I took the thing out there at all was that I was getting an upgraded fork for Bike 1. I took it out this week, and holy shit was it different. Even with such an upgrade counting as lipstick on a pig, it felt like I was floating over everything. I'll be heading out to the nearby trails a ton more than I did before.
But under no circumstances will I ever get a dedicated Road bike.
yofuckreddit
1mo ago
How much of the corruption would remain with such a huge IQ jump?
IQ and morality/high-trust societies are.... loosely correlated? Graft is easier when nobody is smart enough to design an anti-corruption process or correctly call out falsified invoices. African Corruption is astonishing not just in its persistence but also in how stratified the whole thing is. If everyone under the tip of the pyramid is smart enough to demand more fairness, plan for the long-term, etc., then this level of corruption would surely collapse within 16 years.
yofuckreddit
1mo ago
I'll counter this a bit - they're still strongly influenced by ex-members who are much older.
The whole racial kerfuffle at UA a couple years ago was exclusively from the older generation. Current members are more than fine with race-mixing (as long as there's still broad conformity) - the old guard sees it (correctly?) as a road to ruin through dilution of standards in the name of wokeness.
yofuckreddit
1mo ago
Even fathers who abandon their family will at a minimum come back and put on a show for the boyfriend if he knocks her up.
yofuckreddit
1mo ago
First, I'm surprised even more than one person on this board went to UA at all.
The consequences of not being Greek at UA are significant. Higher than any other university I had first or second-hand experience with, and it's not close. The GDIs, from my experience, had far more serious problems with hardcore drug use and graduating on time or at all. Such a huge percentage of people are in a sorority or Frat, or perhaps a hanger-on just one degree removed, that those who aren't in a greek org have a tough time.
The madonna-whore complex of sororities and their purposeful submission to degenerate predators in every frat has always been fascinating to me. On one hand, every single sorority girl I "got involved with" or simply knew truly as a friend had some sort of borderline-rape or outright rape experience. Frats with too high of a concentration of rapists would get a reputation that would be passed around campus.
...But then women would still show up at the parties. And there was a lot of consent to go around. Being tag-teamed or serially fucking members of the same frat - sometimes multiple in a night - was common enough. The bottom line is that once you give sexuality the cover of secrecy by controlling the dissemination of information about it, both men and women in their sexual prime will act radically differently than the baseline. Pretending to be Madonna lets you be a Whore, and lets your mom pretend she wasn't pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable way back when while mailing in the checks.
For what it's worth, there's some utility to be gained from running through an org of prospective partners that already coalesce around a certain personality type. When you're getting your Mr/Mrs degree a lot of these people were able to fine-tune their taste and lock down a high-quality partner early on. There's a role of the "Old dating couple" in Greek Life as eyes in the hurricanes of drama around them.
But in many ways, this was all downstream of the culture of the romantic southeastern culture writ large. An average SEC couple is a beauty queen and a beer belly with a job in logistics. The first time a sorority girl slept over and was fascinated by my bookshelf and gaming computer, it was flattering. By the 5th or 6th time, it was just kind of a bummer.
yofuckreddit
1mo ago
It's hard to set up a sorority for those groups (excluding blacks) because they don't exist except as a rounding error at this university.
yofuckreddit
1mo ago
He's most often scanning the headline, trusting the shitposters, and then hitting repost. I did follow him at some point, but you can tell that he's starting to panic and resorting to just filling up feeds with a repost of Wow and This is insane instead of adding even a lukewarm take or analysis to anything.
As you said, he's busy. I sometimes have to just punch out a link to a thoughtful article to my reports at work instead of warming it up for them in the microwave with some Thought Leadership. But yeah, he's not a high quality source of information.
yofuckreddit
1mo ago
I'll counter @Rov_Scam here. The studies (admittedly that bike companies have done) suggest that people with e-bikes burn more calories and go further. I know with a high-class e-bike I'd feel more comfortable on the road to connect non-road sections for instance and open up my total range.
I also know that the appeal of a top-end E-MTB is fucking huge. Going downhill is 10/10 on the fun scale, but masochism is required to go up. An E-MTB lets you... double? the number of runs you get in a given day or carb bucket, so even very serious mountain bikers I know either have or would consider one.
From my perspective E-Bikes let people with a tiny fraction of my fitness level come with me on journeys. That's reason enough to consider them compelling for other people and me as a second-order effect.
I also would be able to use one as a substitute for my desire for a motorcycle. I can pedal very fast but only rarely get the experience of controlling the turning and maneuverability of a cycle which is super fun on its own. An E-bike would let me do that, so I've definitely thought about getting one.
yofuckreddit
1mo ago
Pro tip: Don't put the bag down until it already has a heavy item in it (Canned/Frozen food). The scale is more forgiving with heavy items.
yofuckreddit
1mo ago
I could 100% see fresh sliced deli meat being unique enough in a barcode (Item, weight to 1/100th of a pound, timestamp down to a second) that simple double scanning logic would catch you messing with this.
For pre-packaged anything meat with similar package weights, though, you'd doubtless be able to double scan.
The most I steal is exotic peppers being coded in as jalapenos or white onions as yellow, and that's 90% convenience of fast scanning and 10% the price difference.
yofuckreddit
1mo ago
THey have the technical ability to be very precise, but any modern store is going to have them calibrated to allow some gratuitous shifting.
You need only look at the difference between plastic and reusable bags to see how generous they must be by default. If you put a reusable bag down without an item, they're heavy enough to register as one, so there's a bit of technique to putting your first item down.
yofuckreddit
1mo ago
The other throwback from that article is the listing of the ingredients without sneering at them as a contemporary journalist would - Hydrolyzed Soy, Corn Syrup, Sodium Benzoate, and a metric fuckton of dye.
yofuckreddit
1mo ago
These folks do have the answer. The cycle in every American city has been:
- Pedal Bikes - The obese and the stylish simply won't use them.
- Electric Scooters - Cheap to produce, but a friend who works for the CDC has mentioned these are a public health nightmare. The fast-twitch nature of scooter handles, no suspension, and the tendency to be on the sidewalk meant cracked skulls everywhere. Plus they're easy to steal.
- Electric Bikes - These can be made heavy and difficult to steal, store bigger or auxiliary batteries, and are far more stable than a scooter. We'll see if they stick.
As a cyclist I can say that the risk of thievery is high enough there's no way for me to justify ever leaving my nice, light bike out of my sight. I'd rather outsource the risk to someone else, and they're great mobility enablers for tourists who misjudge the relative risk of public transport vs being on their own two wheels.
yofuckreddit
1mo ago
While consuming a succulent chinese meal last night, I decided to do a little research into the company who produces the duck sauce packets. Hidden businesses like this are always interesting to me, even if I find the quality of soy sauce in these packets to be so far below par I can't stand to use them. The NY Times had a great little article from 1994 on the same corporation. Interesting to see single serve packaging as a somewhat recent innovation instead of so ubiquitous as to be background noise.
As any article would, the footer was packed with items to read next, which led to an expose on the hustlers "gamifying" the load balancing algorithms for Citi bikes. That's a bit too polite of a way to put it. The TL;DR: is that some folks have figured out the precise algorithm used to pay volunteers, including timing intervals and calculations behind the scenes. Volunteers of a high status get unlimited bike unlocks, and have formed gangs that empty whole racks, move them a trivial distance, then move them back, to pull down up to $6,000 a month.
A small group of people purposefully wiping out whole bike racks for commuters, all day every day for their gain is about what you'd expect in 2024. I respect the reverse-engineering and black-hattery of it in many ways, but it's not what the system needs or what the algo was built for.
The comment section is perhaps even more enlightening than the article. The "journalist" spent quite a bit of time running interference for the gang, with the classic playbook of repeating how much money Lyft makes and bitching about the downsides of the gig economy. To Lyft's credit, they basically said this is a rounding error and they don't care, but I think that has more to do with the pragmatism of any reasonable algorithm being exploitable in some way. How do you stop this without punishing poorly paid volunteers who are already a huge step up over contractors? Not easily, and solving problems for the 1% of troublemakers is often a road to hell.
yofuckreddit
1mo ago
Sorry - this is my personal list of what I've curated from random threads about books over the years. A suggested reading list would be interesting, but I can't help but think it would be sprawling.
yofuckreddit
1mo ago
My Californian cousins came to visit a few years ago and expressed nervousness about driving down a gravel road with ammunition. My first thought was "These fucking people think they're qualified to have an opinion about who should own guns?"
Please believe me when I say I'm not trying to be rude, but even without understanding the mechanisms deeply of how guns or cartridges work, start with "Common Sense". If cartridges fired when dropped on a table (or transported in a truck), could war be possible in any meaningful sense?
You can set a round off with a nail and a hammer, but cartridges are designed to require significant, focused force. In fact, the most common failure I see in firearms (by like an order of magnitude or two) is what's called a light primer strike, when the firing pin does not hit the primer with enough force to trigger an ignition.
If you'll forgive one more point of pedantic education: The bullet is the projectile itself. The Cartridge is a combination of the (generally brass) case, primer, propellant, and bullet together, which is what you load into a weapon. So slamming a bullet into a table would also do nothing, since it's just a lump of lead/copper/whatever.
In any case I mean this seriously: Thank you for learning about guns. I think they're fascinating. Are you doing so just for the heck of it, or as required for something else?
I did finish Surface Detail, which I mentioned a bit ago.
The book picked up a bit in the middle for me. I still considered it enjoyable. Maybe a 3/5?
One thing that really hit me after the completion is one thing that attracts me to this series overall though and I think will get me through Hydrogen Sonata, is that there's a comfort in knowing that The Culture will always win. Always. Yes a main character (or two, or three...) will die at the end, but the Minds and the Ships will triumph in the end. A story has a catch-22 where the consequences have to seem real and significant, but if the book ends with the bad guy getting off scott free then I'm left unfulfilled, or at least a little twinge in my adolescent morality tummy.
Even with that attitude, I found the end of the novel cloying and the characters more obviously good and evil than before. It was published in 10, so of course, it was tainted by the CW.
In any case, I probably have another 6 hours of reading to at least knock out the complete series. I think that's worth the investment before I pivot back to the Goodreads list full of great suggestions from here and a stint of "good for me" nonfiction.
yofuckreddit
1mo ago
Hospitals had to shut down elective procedures. They had ophthalmologists and dermatologists managing critical care patients. Routine medical activity and screening shut down in a way that will increase mortality and morbidity for decades. Medical education, which is expensive, complicated, and slow was paused or had quality go down for years.
Every single one of these consequences were because of the massively extended lockdowns and the medical/governmental apparatus refusing to lose any face. No shit the industry wasn't doing as much routine medical activity when going to urgent care required multiple tests, staying in your car, poorly-developed ass-covering questionnaires, etc. etc. etc.
hospitals are shutting down all over the U.S. and it's becoming increasingly impossible to get certain types of care
And this is explained by some mythical massive death toll in the medical industry, instead of giant healthcare conglomerates and regulatory capture? Come on man. This is just the Obamacare nightmare 14 years in. Buckle up, it's not going to get any better.
I can't take this seriously after seeing the rock-hard erections in the pants of every petty tyrant nurse, doctor, or administrator that lasted 2 years instead of 4 hours. The sanctimonious slow the spread shit that got jettisoned the moment some race riots needed to be sanctioned by the entire industry. Miss me with this gaslighting.
yofuckreddit
1mo ago
I was on Toptal for a bit as a dev/technical writer. Generally commanded $100/hour (but am American) and have no idea what I was billed at.
You can find part time gigs on there, though for coding they typically want something close to 40. The interview process is (was?) annoyingly strenuous compared to just making an upwork profile.
yofuckreddit
1mo ago
I always assumed RB was low tier. My parents only did Tombstone when I was a kid which is disgusting. However my in-laws have turned me onto the Classic Red Baron crust. For sometimes as low as $2.50/pizza (normally $3.50-$5.00) it's legitimately the most insane taste and calorie/$ ratio on the planet.
Home Run is too fatty for my taste, Screamin Sicilian is better than almost all of them but too expensive.
yofuckreddit
1mo ago
I definitely believe you. For a 1-2 night thing in good weather especially.
The meals I use are like so and require only a spork and boiling water, no cleanup. However you can see the price is... Not great and they can be bulky. After a 4,000 calorie day in the cold they're a treat for me.
The inflatable pads I've used do not leak in the many nights I've used them, but are also expensive and I HAVE destroyed one quickly with a rolling bike tire while bikepacking. I don't think a $200 model is necessary, my $70 equivalent was more than up to the task even if it didn't pack down as tightly.
In any case each person's camping gear journey is their own. Camping enough with basic gear and food will lead you to appreciate the improvements you make in the future, if any. Today's compact comfort technology is absolutely insane.
yofuckreddit
1mo ago
I pooh-poohed inflatable mats for a while, but they're a significant upgrade. Weirdly expensive, however. They both insulate and cushion. An inflatable pillow is also an amazing luxury.
A hot meal during a cool night in shoulder season is amazing. I splurge on the dehydrated foods bags that are like $14US, but provide an immense amount of calories and protein for multi-day treks. You can also just do Ramen or instant mashed potatoes.
yofuckreddit
1mo ago
I have had success doing exactly what you described. Small projects and scripting that would previously take 4 hours now take 30 minutes. For a collection of small problems that's compounded.
I haven't used it for greenfield projects but I suspect scaffolding my database schema is going to be similarly faster, along with shared utilities for problems and great unit tests.
I am not an IC anymore but it would have taken me from a 3x dev to 5x, and I'm constantly hammering my guys to use it.
I've been pretty underwhelmed on the fun aspect of trunk or treat so far. Kids only having to walk 200 feet for 20,000 calories of corn syrup seems like the societal own-goal of the century.
Sometimes I worry I romanticized my childhood too much, but the experience of going door to door with your friends and collapsing, exhausted, to trade candy on the living room floor after such a long journey was consistently awesome. I don't see how this can really compete.
More options
Context Copy link