Reading

Entry tags:

links

Link: the dangers of e-bikes and e-motos

The Shocking Crash That Led One County to Reckon With the Dangers of E-Bikes by David Darlington. This is an unlocked New York Times article (posted to the Grizzly Peak Cyclists mailing list) about a bad e-bike crash in Marin County and the political fallout from it. Content note for description of the injury and medical treatment, although the teenager did survive.

The article sparked quite the discussion on the mailing list about reckless e-bike riders on multi-use paths, the pleasures of riding an e-bike and being able to go further and faster without a car, the differences between e-bikes (pedal assist) and e-motos (no pedaling required), and the disingenuousness of the concern about e-bike injuries when cars and motorcycles are far more dangerous to drivers, pedestrians, and the environment.

The person I ride with regularly rides an e-bike, and that has led me to appreciate them more. I look forward to owning one someday when I can't get to where I need to go on my acoustic/manual/regular bike. It's nice to know I have an option other than getting a car or taking lots of taxi rides. And, I still don't appreciate being passed without warning by people on silent fast vehicles who haven't learned bike manners.

Entry tags:

music

Music: Nazdrave Ti

Here's another song we're singing this time, Nazdrave Ti, Chorbadžijo, "Cheers to You, Master of the House." This is a caroling song with a strong dance rhythm, and I took to it much more happily than Otče Naš. Koleda is the Bulgarian term for the Christmas season. And I love the design of this album cover!

Cheers to you, master of the house!
Oh, Koleda!
We sing to you, we praise God.
As much sand there is by the sea,
May you have as much grain in this house.
As much water there is in the sea,
May you have as much wine in your barrels.
As many leaves as there are in the forest,
May you have as many sheep in your pens.

Watch on YouTube

Hyperacute Interdynamics

https://xkcd.com/3178/

Our models fall apart where the three theories overlap; we're unable to predict what happens when a nanometer-sized squirrel eats a grapefruit with the mass of the sun.

https://xkcd.com/3178/

Entry tags:

music

Music: Otche Nash, Lord's Prayer in Old Church Slavonic

The Balkan choir I sing with performed at a center for adults with disabilities on Friday, and we were vocally and enthusiastically received by the audience in their power and manual wheelchairs. It was stressful to prepare the songs for it, but fun once we were there, and I hope we'll do more like that.

One of the songs we sang is Otche Nash, a 4-part setting of the Lord's Prayer in Old Church Slavonic, which is like a mix of Bulgarian and Russian.

When someone proposed learning the song at the ad hoc monthly group a year ago, I was grumpy about having something so fundamentally Christian shoved down my throat, and we put it aside. In this weekly choir we learn whatever the teacher gives us, so I had to make my peace with it. Another singer said she doesn't mind it because it's asking the Universe for good things. I guess so...

Eva Quartet recorded it, and here's a live performance.

Watch on YouTube

For a cat, with love

Gina posted this lovely photo of a ramp her dad made for their 18 year old cat. The comments on the original post are worth reading too. <3

( Photo of a ramp for an elderly cat )

Entry tags:

links

Links: Nora Samaran's new post

Nora Samaran made a new post! On Conflict and Community Fabric. When we value community, we work through conflicts with them not because the individual relationship is important to us, but because the whole community is important to us.

In healthy human community, the kind that so many people say they want, and the kind study after study suggests people living in Western countries feel is missing in their lives, human beings are often in community with people with whom we aren’t individually or personally close, but who nonetheless form part of the larger circle of human bonds that forms the anchor and soilbed of our belonging.

I'm not sure I had read her prior post from 2021, Coercive Persuasion and the Alignment of the Everyday. In it she mentions "How We Show Up" by Mia Birdsong, which I got from the library. I loved the book, about all the different ways we can weave connections with each other rather than focusing on isolated little nuclear families. And it turns out Mia Birdsong lives right here in Oakland! My review.

She also linked to Be careful with each other by Rushdia Mehreen and David Gray-Donald. "How activist groups can build trust, care, and sustainability in a world of capitalism and oppression."

Collective care refers to seeing members’ well-being – particularly their emotional health – as a shared responsibility of the group rather than the lone task of an individual. It means that a group commits to addressing interlocking oppressions and reasons for deteriorating well-being within the group while also combatting oppression in society at large.

I loved her article The Opposite of Rape Culture is Nurturance Culture and I can't believe that was back in 2016. Nine years ago! Anyway, it's great to keep someone's feed on the list even if it seems like they'll never post again, because sometimes they do!

Chessboard Alignment

https://xkcd.com/3177/

Luckily, the range is limited by the fact that the square boundary lines follow great circles.

https://xkcd.com/3177/

Scrambled eggs and ham in an enamel pan

jesse_the_k asked what's the first thing I enjoyed cooking.

My father had a small enamel pan, cream colored on the inside and orange on the outside, like this one. I don't know where it came from. We didn't have any other pans like it, and it was definitely his, unlike the rest of the pots and pans that just belonged to all of us. It was brought out of the cabinet for scrambled eggs, which in our Germanic household we had for supper, not breakfast.

One of the first things I remember being able to cook on my own was scrambled eggs and ham in that enamel pan. First swirl around a generous pat of butter until it's bubbling hot. Add the chopped ham and stir it as it browns. Then break the eggs directly into the pan and keep stirring. (Don't pre-mix the eggs, and definitely don't add any milk.) When the eggs are softly cooked through, dish up with toast.

Wonderful book: Kitchens of Hope

runpunkrun asked if I've read any good books lately, and I've been lucky enough to find several. Ongoing booklog at Curious, Healing.

The one I want to highlight today is Kitchens of Hope by by Linda S. Svitak and Christin Jaye Eaton with Lee Svitak Dean
Subtitle: How transforming ourselves can change the world

This book out of Minnesota is a celebration of immigrant success stories and food from around the world. I haven’t tried any of the recipes yet, but I loved the photos and stories of how people connected with each other and found new places to thrive.

Highly recommended – I’m giving copies for the holidays this year.

Photography of the cooks and their dishes by Tom Wallace

Inverted Catenaries

https://xkcd.com/3176/

Some tires are marketed as 'all-shape tires,' but if driven in a climate with both inverted catenary falls and triangle falls, they wear out really fast.

https://xkcd.com/3176/

Entry tags:

links

Link: Gladys West made GPS possible

Mother of GPS, Gladys West, Finally Gets Proper Recognition by Judith Fogel. Did you know GPS was made possible by a Black woman (who is still alive)? I sure didn't!

Gladys West and her husband Ira were both mathematicians at Dahlgren Naval Base, then called Dahlgren Naval Proving Ground. West was hired in 1956. Her extraordinary contributions to the geodetic modeling of the earth became the foundation for the Global Positioning System (GPS). But few knew how much this Black woman changed the way we navigate.

Website Task Flowchart

https://xkcd.com/3175/

Tired of waiting on hold? Use our website to chat with one of our live agents, who are available to produce words at you 24/7!

https://xkcd.com/3175/

December posts invitation

It doesn't seem like posting every day in December is really a thing anymore on Dreamwidth, but I enjoy the challenge of it, so I'm going to try it again this year. I may miss a day here and there.

As is traditional, if you have questions or topics you'd like me to write about, please drop them in comments!

Look! I remembered to post before December started this year!

Hello, friends! It's about to be December again, and you know what that means: the fact I am posting this actually before December 1 means

karzilla reminded me about the existence of linear time again. Wait, no -- well, yes, but also -- okay, look, let me back up and start again: it's almost December, and that means it's time for our annual December holiday points bonus.

The standard explanation: For the entire month of December, all orders made in the Shop of points and paid time, either for you or as a gift for a friend, will have 10% of your completed cart total sent to you in points when you finish the transaction. For instance, if you buy an order of 12 months of paid time for $35 (350 points), you'll get 35 points when the order is complete, to use on a future purchase.

( The fine print and much more behind this cut! )

Thank you, in short, for being the best possible users any social media site could possibly ever hope for. I'm probably in danger of crossing the Sappiness Line if I haven't already, but you all make everything worth it.

On behalf of Mark, Jen, Robby, and our team of awesome volunteers, and to each and every one of you, whether you've been with us on this wild ride since the beginning or just signed up last week, I'm wishing you all a very happy set of end-of-year holidays, whichever ones you celebrate, and hoping for all of you that your 2026 is full of kindness, determination, empathy, and a hell of a lot more luck than we've all had lately. Let's go.

Bridge Clearance

https://xkcd.com/3174/

A lot of the highway department's budget goes to adjusting the sign whenever the moon passes directly overhead.

https://xkcd.com/3174/

Satellite Imagery

https://xkcd.com/3173/

Every weekend I take an ATV out into the desert and spend a day tracing a faint "(C) GOOGLE 2009" watermark across the landscape.

https://xkcd.com/3173/