I added a MIK rear rack with pannier rails. I bought a seat post collar with screw holes in order to attach it, only to realize the bike doesn't have a seat post collar! And the collar was 1/4 inch too wide for the seat post. I wedged some green tire protection strips in there and it works great. I biked home two full panniers and a watermelon in a basket from a farmer's market. Bad idea in retrospect as the whole bike wobbled from being back-heavy. And the kickstand cannot handle even the slightest amount of weight. I might invest in front pannier rails. So I guess I'm going in the touring bike direction!
My ongoing midlife crisis vehicle swerves in a different direction: I bought a 1988 Nishiki 1207 at a yard sale for $40. Mostly stock save for a new seat. With the wheels out of true, the stickers plastered over with garbage, the brakes loose, the front tire visibly cracking, the rear cassette visibly rusted, and the rack mounts stripped, the bike needs some work. I am motivated to finally really learn bike maintenance after putting it off for 30 years
The amount things you can map in OSM is impressive. However I ran into two things that have no formal tags: time capsules (historic=time_capsule), and camera obscuras (camera_type=obscura). You can add the values, but they are not official. Time capsule is in the work [0].
I had been using mapcomplete to add images of artwork, which in turn used panoramax. However I saw someone else use Wikimedia Commons, and to me that makes more sense. Wikimedia ties into more systems, so if you wanted to create a Wikipedia page about an artist, there will be readily available images to use.
On the flip side, panoramax can be used as an open source StreetView. Different sites for different purposes I suppose
I got into OSM and StreetComplete to flesh out intersections, stop signs, and sidewalks in my area. I always felt like I was doing something wrong though. I created crosswalks, then OSM would prompt me to connect the crosswalk to the road via a crossing. In StreetComplete, it felt like I was filling in duplicate data. I had to add whether the crossing had crossing lights not only at the middle crossing, but on the sides as well. This probably doesn't make any sense.
Basically, I am never confident I am editing OSM correctly. Am I supposed to manually draw out sidewalks, or tag the road as having a sidewalk? After adding sidewalks in my area, StreetComplete is now asking me if roads have sidewalks, which I clearly see on the map. Reminds me of editing the various Wiki pages. There's several ways of documenting something, only one way is correct, and it's undocumented.
edit: after playing with StreetComplete more, I noticed you can mark sidewalks as displayed separately. This is tagged as "sidewalk:both=separate" on the road. Whether this is the right way to do things I do not know
There's been some recent developments with removing batteries glued to the device: use floss or some other thin string and saw through the glue. The string won't pierce the battery and can fit in tight spots.
I love looking at historical photos of Southern California if only to re-enforce this exact phenomenon. At one point the largest vineyard in the world existed in Southern California [0]. Just a small patch of green and some abandoned buildings remain [1].
The differences in engineers for space versus the ocean are fascinating. You'd think space stations and submarines would be interchangeable because they both deal with pressure differentials, right? Wrong. They'd fail in fascinatingly different ways within minutes or hours in the opposite environment
In California, property tax can only go up 2% every year based on the original purchase price (prop 13). For my neighbor who bought their house in the 60s, this must be peanuts.
My dream is to one day own a Curta. I want to find an algorithm to approximate pi, one crank at a time. I had a chance to hold one at a vintage computer festival once. Smaller than I expected. Truly pocketable.
I just had a thought. Why hasn't a Curta simulator come out for the Playdate? I guess I am cursed with creating it
To be more effective, all drink prices should be reduced by 10 cents, then a 10 cent surcharge added for every disposable cup. The price remains the same for all customers, but the extra line item reveals the external costs.
The point is that we may not have plastic forever. Oil is a finite resource. An easy, cheap replacement hasn't been found yet. Either we abide by reducing and reusing (where we should be focused), or we should actually recycle.
I uploaded a PDF to archive.org that auto-OCRs with plenty of mistakes. I have found no way of updating the entire stack of documents produced. I wonder if Project Gutenberg is similar
Cory Doctorow recently published a history book on the topic [0]. Sorry you were left out. I am merely qubits floating in the void. Just finished reading Shakespeare's First Folio translated into Catalan for the tenth time. Wondering what to do next