keverets @keverets@librem.one

There’s No Good Reason to Buy a Carbon Bike

The pro racers who do need carbon fiber bikes get them for free. Only the people who don’t need them actually pay for them.

Carbon fiber is light. It’s strong. It can be used to build everything from frames to seat posts to handlebars to cranks. And it’s one of the worst things that’s happened to bikes.

Now, to be clear, carbon fiber makes perfect sense for professional racing. Because it’s basically a fabric, builders can mold it into all sorts of aerodynamic shapes. Moreover, they can tune ride quality and maintain strength while simultaneously keeping the weight to a minimum in a way that’s not really possible with metal tubing. It used to be that racers had to choose between a light bike and an aero bike; now they can have both, all thanks to the miraculous properties of carbon fiber. At this point, there’s no reason for elite competitors to use anything else. Gift Yourself More Adventure

But here’s the thing: you’re not them. I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you, but you’re almost certainly incapable of milking the handful of seconds a wind tunnel-sculpted pro-level carbon fiber race machine might theoretically net you in certain situations. Moreover, the pro racers who do need carbon fiber bikes get them for free; only the people who don’t need them actually pay for them. This means that, ipso facto, if you’ve purchased a carbon fiber bicycle, you’ve made a mistake.

“Okay, fine, I may not be Jonas Vingegaard,” you may be thinking. “Maybe I didn’t need a carbon bike. But how does that mean I’ve made a mistake?”

Simple: while you’re not able to extract carbon fiber’s small performance benefits, you are in an ideal position to experience its many drawbacks—and for normal people, carbon fiber bicycles have only drawbacks.

This is Bike Snob NYC writing for Outside Online, by the way.

@biketooter @cycling @mastobikes #cycling #bicycle #mastobikes #biketooter

#CANADA TO TRANSFER BANNED #FIREARMS TO #UKRAINE: Canada is negotiating with Ukraine to transfer some of the 324 firearms recently banned in the country. The Canadian government believes these weapons belong on the front lines rather than in the hands of hunters or sport shooters.

https://apnews.com/article/canada-firearms-ban-ukraine-81ccaa341badb74bb27d34fc4bb29b17

Over a year ago, I wrote ”A month using XMPP (using Snikket) for every call and chat”.

For something like 15 months now, Sandra and I have used XMPP via @snikket_im for probably 99.9% of our calls, messages, and video chats, running on an Intel NUC.

We both use the Snikket mobile app, and I also use @dino and @profanity in Linux.

Perhaps a fun holiday / weekend project, if you want family-friendly, self-hosted, #E2EE communications?

#XMPP #SelfHosting #FOSS #Linux

TIL those flickering LED tealights are often made with music chips from old greeting cards as the source of "randomness" https://www.instructables.com/Listen-to-a-led-tea-light/

‘A new report on foreign interference in Canada has confirmed that a Russian disinformation operation has been producing content with the purpose of “boosting support for Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre and undermining support for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.”’

Foreign interference: Playing dumb doesn’t keep Canadians safe | CultMTL

#cdnpoli #canpoli

https://cultmtl.com/2024/10/foreign-interference-playing-dumb-doesnt-keep-canadians-safe/

Open source router firmware project OpenWrt ships its own entirely repairable hardware

'Forever unbrickable' Wi-Fi 6 box from Banana Pi comes packaged or in kit form Open source Wi-Fi router project OpenWrt and the Software Freedom Conservancy have delivered their first jointly developed hardware platform – the OpenWrt One – and are trumpeting it as a triumph of the right to repair mov…
#theregister #IT
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/12/02/openwrt_one_foss_wifi_router/

SFC and its OpenWrt project just released the OpenWrt One: the first router built from the hardware up by OpenWrt community. We begin today a new era in software-freedom-focused hardware design. The One puts your rights and freedoms first and an unbrickable device that will last.

OpenWrt One is available today for US$89. For every purchase of the One, a US$10 donation will go to the OpenWrt earmarked fund at SFC. If you're looking to shop for gifts today, as many in the USA are, we encourage you to put the OpenWrt One on your list!

https://sfconservancy.org/news/2024/nov/29/openwrt-one-wireless-router-now-ships-black-friday/
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007795779282.html

Time-lapse of the Sun circling the horizon at the South Pole during early March.

Video credit: Robert Schwarz
Source: https://vimeo.com/208466944

Yes, you can host your own PDS. You can also host your own blog. But try hosting your own PDS and NOT hosting a relay or AppView and you can't do much.

Blogs are decentralized, Google is not.
PDS'es are decentralized, Bluesky is not.

How Decentralized Is Bluesky Really? https://dustycloud.org/blog/how-decentralized-is-bluesky/

A technical deep-dive, since people have been asking me for my thoughts. I'll expand a bit on some of the key points here in a thread. 🧵

A thermostat using the #esphome climate platform.

Gets temp data from a #homeassistant entity that is the average of many temp sensors. If that's unavailable, it uses the on-board temp sensor.

Could be minimized to just the #esp32 and relay, and use home assistant's interface but I want a device that can also be used if my #homeassistant is down.

Parts: Lolin C3 pico, a relay, SHTC3 temp sensor, OLED display, buttons.

yaml: https://gist.github.com/tkroo/014696aeb0e760bbe80b2a31aa90603d

If you're on BlueSky and want to bridge to Mastodon, follow @ap.brid.gy

That's it. Nothing to install, no terms of service to sign, no complicated garbage. If you want to stop, just block @ap.brid.gy

Details here: https://fed.brid.gy/docs

If you want to bridge your account to BlueSky, simply follow this account: @bsky.brid.gy

Why am I encouraging this? Because when BlueSky inevitably goes bad, people there will have friends in the Fediverse to help them move here.

Boost this toot if you're planning on sticking around Mastodon whether or not it's more popular than Bluesky.

can’t win them all i guess

New* on the blog: “Privacy, Why?” https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2024/11/14/Why-Privacy

It argues that a lockable front door is a key benefit of civilization. And I think it offers useful talking points for anyone who finds themselves having to defend their desire for privacy.

[*Well, not *that* new; it’s adapted from a piece I wrote in 2013 but published elsewhere.]

#Privacy

"It took 68 years for the world to reach 1 terawatt of solar PV capacity. It took just two years to double it"

#solar #ClimateChange #renewables

https://reneweconomy.com.au/it-took-68-years-for-the-world-to-reach-1-terawatt-of-solar-pv-capacity-it-took-just-two-years-to-double-it/

anyway, "world standards day", to celebrate international standards, was on october the 14th

unless you're in america, in which case it's next week, the 14th of november

@dangillmor My experience is that any article with Twitter embeds isn't an article at all, it's a "some people are saying" listicle. I might as well be watching a local weatherman doing man-on-the-street interviews about how wet the rain is.

"Nothing of value was lost", in other words.