(this is a log scale)

at a local middle school one of the students threw a container of cream cheese at the math teacher after she used an AI generated image in her lesson. from what we heard the students were mocking the teacher incessantly for that. this is definitely a phenomenon in the real world, at least where we live.

still, demographics vary!!! the people we know in real life are reasonably technical, and are thus more in the “internet” camp. depending on how you meet the people you know, they may have a higher or lower probably of having one opinion or another. this is certainly an interesting topic, so please do feel free to go more in depth into your own experiences! :)

plan 9 when

the technical term is “buttering the brick”, and as an added bonus, mortar is colloquially called “mud”! hehe

public works projects are interesting. while the citizens of a municipality should have a say, in this situation business owners perceive an advantage to this change and are willing to more aggressively lobby for it than those citizens. this does not exactly even mean it will truly advantage them, perhaps the bike traffic does help their business more than the parking (this is the case where we live). or perhaps they are right. regardless, the typical bicyclist will have much less motivation to voice their opinion(s), as they can be encouraged to just take another route or contend with the traffic, as annoying and dangerous as it is. advocating for this stuff often requires going to meeting halls and so forth, which takes time, social effort, and the courage to disagree with very motivated business people!

still, if you want stuff to change where you live, do go to your city/county/other local meetings relating to the problems you want to provide your perspective on. it’s definitely some effort, frequently a lot of it! but its often not a case of “someone will voice this opinion in the meeting, so i don’t gotta go”, and you attending really can make a difference. different municipalities of course have their own attitudes. maybe they won’t listen to you at all, or maybe the meeting has been widely advertised and many are attending it!

regarding this proposition in particular, what we will say is that where we live, the expenses this project would result in could equate in value to the funds that our city’s fareless and very awesome bus transit system uses to maintain their fleet over the course of years! of course it’s not as simple as that, but 1.2 million dollars is still a lot of dollars.

p.s.: we bicycle everywhere if we aren’t walking or taking the bus. where we live there is one of these three lane downtown roads. it sucks. the other downtown areas are a lot better but three lanes is very uncomfortable to bike through. please support your local bicycle infrastructure!

for extra hallucinations simply assume the consumption of one (1) early 1900s fire extinguisher’s worth of carbon tetrafluoride as part of your scribe’s daily fluid intake

every time we see AI mix up *U* and *V* we just imagine it not as a machine, but instead as a european renaissance-era writer who accidentally time traveled into the current year and promptly got locked up in a cubicle with a real-time brain scanner wired up that interfaces with chatbot programs seen online

mm our font renders them basically the same hehe

screenshot:

we just went to that area yesterday!! its very rocky and lots of cliffs on the coast, and super super hilly and forested in the interior.

many absolutely do live there, and those municipalities marked on your map there are reasonably populated. but the terrain is not super great for building large stuff, and they really do not like deforestation either. it is also farther away from freeway I-5, where most stuff on the west coast is freighted by truck, and is more expensive, at least from our experiences.

the sunset on the coast is SO pretty though :)

the microchips in the equipment you are using to view this are merely rocks with magical runes carved into them.

managed to find this other image (taken by Eric Schultz)

you look to be right!! they do not look to be able to accommodate a hinge. we weren’t able to find a photo of the area of interest unfortunately.

our two cents on this:

if there are hinges on the rear of the hood, it may just slide up the windscreen, as the screws (or whatever fastener) used to attach them might simply rip out. the planks used as the frame of the hood look to provide a very convenient load path directly towards said hinges, and the not so strong looking mounts they are on. as you said, wood can withstand much compression along the grain, meaning those mounts would be put under very high loads, and probably fail.

and if those mounts did not fail, the actual sheet of plywood or OSB used isn’t super thick, maybe about three eighths of an inch, or about 10mm if it’s metric? its failure mode would likely involve buckling or it just crumbling into pieces… cars are heavy!

either way, the windscreen is very strong, and the wood used here is a lot weaker, at least as far as loads on the broad surface go. the most pertinent hazard here seems to be of the hood catching air, flipping up, and obstructing the view of the operator. there do look to be tie-downs here to stop that, but even the non-modified hood of a regular passenger vehicle can absolutely flip up if it is not closed properly! again, the windscreen would likely still protect the occupants, and in the latter case has for many.

of course, this is all conjecture… much more information would be needed about this setup to come to a decisive conclusion. happy engineering! :)

maybe a hair tie or marker pen. sometimes tools (mainly wrenches). uhh not really any specific pockets we use for stuff, ,

meow mrrrp mroww

tyy, the socks seem to be a favorite among the crowds. yesterday at protest, we also wore them and received no less than fourteen compliments about them. further ones are still VERY welcome though hehe :D

they are also so so super comfy. if you haven’t any knitted stuff, do get some!!

us testing out a fender we designed for our go-kart a couple weeks ago

the fender on the left wheel is the third iteration. the second iteration was on the right wheel but was ripped to shreds (this is why we test stuff).

the instance i use does not have downvotes. i personally like this, as if someone disagrees with something, they must express that via their own words, which i find to be a lot more productive and useful!

my basis is, if the comment contributes meaningfully/helpfully to the subject at hand—whether that is via explanation, personal storytelling of something relevant, something funny or kind that makes other people smile/feel joy, among many others—then i elect to give an upvote.

if it is unintelligible to me (like a reference i don’t get), overly provocative, actively harmful (anti-vaccination stuff etc.) or otherwise not made in a real effort to contribute anything useful or interesting, then i elect not to give an upvote.

that is just my reasoning though :)

the compass set at my drafting desk has the marking

GERMANY

U.S. ZONE

it predates even west germany! i’m pretty sure the desk itself is even older.

i may perhaps take a photo sometime :)

from what i’ve gathered, many earlier EVs were more so “luxury” vehicles, and a lot of them were made by tesla, notorious for shoving wireless connectivity in vehicles. those other luxury EVs decided to follow suit with that!

but note that “many” i sneaked in there. there were absolutely some that weren’t spyware machines! the first that come to mind are the earlier models of the nissan leaf and chevy volt (well, there is onstar, but it is not so hard to disable), but there are certainly others. there is no valid reason for the spyware, i mean these cars easily did without it (minus again, onstar…)!

as for an electric van, i knew a (ex-)teacher who did just that! from what she said, she pulled a couple of the major drivetrain components (motor, battery, differential etc.) from a crashed nissan leaf, hooked up an aftermarket controller, and from what i heard the most fiddly parts were the charge port and getting the axles dealt with. i don’t know if she got custom axles made or if she just mashed together the axles from both vehicles, but she said it was ultimately a nice vehicle to drive around.

i have! the fun part is while the malfunction lights weren’t lit up, neither was anything else :D