overview for litchralee

Why do personal knowledge base applications like Obsidian have all these bells and whistles for querying and parsing metadata/frontmatter but nothing similar for the actual content of notes? in c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world

[–] litchralee@sh.itjust.works 2 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

I recently learned about Obsidian from a friend, but haven't started using it yet, so perhaps I can offer a perspective that differs from current users of Obsidian or any of the other apps you listed.

To start, I currently keep a hodge-podge of personal notes, some digitally and some in handwriting, covering different topics, using different formats, and there's not really much that is common between any of these, except that I am the author. For example, I keep a financial diary, where I intermittently document the thinking behind certain medium/long-term financial decisions, which are retained only as PDFs. I also keep README.md files for each of the code repos that I have for electronics and Kubernetes-related projects. Some of my legacy notes are in plain-text .txt file format, where I'm free-form record what I've working on, relevant links, and lists of items outstanding or that are TODOs. And then there is the handwritten TODO and receivables list that I keep on my fridge.

Amongst all of this chaos, what I would really like to have the most is the ability to organize each "entry" in each of their respective domains, and then cross-reference them. That is, I'm not looking to perform processing on this data, but I need to organize this data so that it is more easily referenced. For example, if I outline a plan to buy myself a new server to last 10 years, then that's a financial diary entry, but it would also manifest itself with TODO list items like "search for cheap DDR5 DIMMs" (heaven help me) and "find 10 GbE NIC in pile". It may also spawn an entry in my infrastructure-as-code repo for my network, because I track my home network router and switch configurations in Git and will need to add new addresses for this server. What I really need is to be able to refer to each of these separate documents, not unlike how DOIs uniquely identify research papers in academic journals.

It is precisely because my notes are near-totally unstructured and disparate that I want a powerful organization system to help sort it, even if it cannot process or ingest those notes. I look at Obsidian -- based on what little I know of it -- like a "super filing cabinet" -- or maybe even a "card catalog" but that might be too old of a concept lol -- or like a librarian. After all, one asks the librarian for help finding some sort of book or novel. One does not ask the librarian to rehash or summarize or extract quotes from those books; that's on me.

How long until we can start shorting years to 2 numbers again? in c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world

[–] litchralee@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

In the English-speaking world, you can always shorten the year from 4 to 2 digits. But whether: 1) this causes confusion or 2) do you/anyone care if it does, are the points of contention. The first is context-dependent: if a customer service agent over the phone is trying to confirm your date of birth, there's no real security issue if you only say the 2 digit year, because other info would have to match as well.

If instead you are presenting ID as proof of age to buy alcohol, there's a massive difference between 2010 and 1910. An ID card and equivalent documentation must use a four digit year, when there is no other available indicator of the century.

For casual use, like signing your name and date on a holiday card, the ambiguity of the century is basically negligible, since a card like that is enjoyed at the time that it's read, and isn't typically stashed away as a 100-year old memento.

That said, I personally find that in spoken and written English, the inconvenience of the 4 digit year is outweighed by the benefit of properly communicating with non-American English users. This is because us American speak and write the date in a non-intuitive fashion, which is an avoidable point of confusion.

Typical Americans might write "7/1/25" and say "July first, twenty five". British folks might read that as 7 January, or (incorrectly) 25 January 2007. But then for the special holiday of "7/4/25", Americans optionally might say "fourth of July, twenty five". This is slightly less confusing, but a plausible mishearing by the British over a scratchy long-distance telephone call would be "before July 25", which is just wrong.

The confusion is minimized by a full 4 digit year, which would leave only the whole day/month ordering as ambiguous. That is, "7/1/2025" or "1/7/2025".

Though I personally prefer RFC3339 dates, which are strictly YYYY-mm-dd, using 4 digit years, 2 digit months, and 2 digit days. This is always unambiguous, and I sign all paperwork like this, unless it explicitly wants a specific format for the date.

If you had too, how would go about running a Instagram account? in c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world

[–] litchralee@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

For the objective of posting photos to an Instagram account while preserving as much privacy as possible, your approach of a separate machine and uploading using its web browser should be sufficient. That said, Instagram for web could also be sandboxed using a private browsing tab on your existing desktop. Certainly, avoiding an installed app -- such as the mobile app -- will prevent the most obtuse forms of espionage/tracking.

That said, your titular question was about how to maintain an Instagram account, not just post images. And I would say that as a social media platform, this would include engagement with other accounts and with comments. For that objective, having a separate machine is more unwieldy. But even using a private browsing tab on your existing machine is still subject to the limits that Instagram intentionally imposes on their desktop app: they save all the crucial value-add features for the mobile app, where their privacy invasion is greatest.

To use Instagram in the least obtuse manner means to play the game by their rules, which isn't really compatible with privacy preservation. To that end, if you did want a full Instagram experience, I would suggest getting a separate, cheap mobile phone (aka a "YOLO phone") to dedicate to this task. If IG doesn't need a mobile number, then you won't even need a working SIM account. Then load your intended images using USB file transfer, and use an app like Imagepipe (available on F-Droid) to strip image metadata. Turn off all location and permissions on this phone, and when not in-use, turn the phone off or in airplane mode.

What are your honest thoughts about cryptocurrencys? in c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world

[–] litchralee@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

For the blockchain technology at the very core foundation of cryptocurrencies, it's a reasonable concept that solves a specific challenge (ie no one can change this value unless they have the cryptographic key) and the notion of an indelible or tamper-evident ledger is useful in other fields (eg certificate revocation lists). Using a blockchain as a component is -- like all of engineering -- about picking the right tool for the job, so I wouldn't say that having/not having a block chain imparts any sort of opinionation or qualities of good/bad.

One step above the base technology is the actual application as currency, meaning a representation of economic value, either to store that value (eg gold) or for active trade (eg the €2 Euro coin). All systems of currency require: 1) recognition and general consensus as to their value, and 2) fungibility (ie this $1 note is no different than your $1 note), and 3) the ability to functionally transfer the currency.

Against that criteria, cryptocurrencies have questionable value, as seen by how volatile the cryptocurrency-to-fiat currency markets are. Observe that the USD or Euro or RMB are used for people's salaries, denominate their home mortgage loans, for buying and selling crude oil, and so on. Yet basically no one uses cryptocurrency for those tasks, no one writes or accepts business-to-business contracts denominated in cryptocurrency, and only a small handful of sovereign states accept cryptocurrency as valid payment. That's.... not a great outlook for circulating the currency.

But for fungibility, cryptocurrency clearly meets that test, and probably exceeds the fiat currencies: there's no such thing as a "torn" Bitcoin note. There are no forgeries of Etherium. It is demonstrable that a unit of cryptocurrency that came from blood-diamond profits is indistinguishable from a unit that was afforded by wages at a fuel station in Kentucky. There are no "marked notes" or "ink packs" when committing cryptocurrency theft, and it's relatively easy to launder cryptocurrency through thousands of shell accounts/addresses. To launder physical money a thousand times is physically impossible, and is way too suspicious for digitalized fiat currency transfers.

And that brings us to the ability to actually transfer cryptocurrency. While it's true that it should only be an extra ledger entry to move funds from one address/account to another, each system has costs buried somewhere. Bitcoin users have to pay the transaction costs, or currencies pegged to other currencies have to "execute" a "smart contract", with attendant verification costs such as proof-of-work or proof-of-stake. These costs simply don't exist when I hand a $20 note to a fuel station clerk. Or when my employer sends my wages via ACH electronic payment.

Observe how cryptocurrency is traded not at shops with goods (eg Walmart) or shops for currency (eg bureau de change at the airport) but mostly only through specialized ATMs or through online exchange websites. The few people who genuinely do use their cryptocurrency wallets to engage transactions are now well in the minority, overshadowed by scammers, confidence/romance tricksters, investment funds with no idea of what they're doing except to try riding the bandwagon, and individuals who have never traded financial instruments but were convinced by "their buddy's friend" who said cryptocurrency was a money-making machine.

To that end, I would say that cryptocurrencies have brought out the worst of financial manipulators, and their allure is creating serious financial perils for everyday people, whether directly as a not-casino casino or to pay a ransomware extortion, or indirectly through the destabilization of the financial system. No one is immune to a breakdown of the financial system, as we all saw in 2008.

I used to like discussing with people about the technical merits of ledger-based systems, but with the awful repercussions of what they've enabled, it's a struggle to have a coherent conversation without someone suggesting a cryptocurrency use-case. And so I kinda have to throw the whole baby out with the bathwater. Maybe when things quiet down in a few decades, the technology can be revisited from a sober perspective.

Audited my home electricity consumption; found two "phantom" loads in c/Dullsters@dullsters.net

[–] litchralee@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Alas, there is no such option on my TV. The TV takes about maybe 10-15 seconds to turn on, which suggests that it's actually booting up its embedded processor.

Audited my home electricity consumption; found two "phantom" loads in c/Dullsters@dullsters.net

[–] litchralee@sh.itjust.works 16 points 2 days ago

I used to have one such power strip for my computer, but it quickly became infeasible for the following use-case: computer goes into sleep mode, power strip shuts off power to other accessories, those accessories drop off the USB bus, the computer wakes up from a change in USB state, the power strip turns everything back on.

The Bose speakers were one such USB device that caused this behavior, and it's hopefully the last such device that needs its own power.

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Audited my home electricity consumption; found two "phantom" loads (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by litchralee@sh.itjust.works to c/Dullsters@dullsters.net

12 comments fedilink

Every so often, I think about how much electric power my house consumes at all hours, even when it's the dead of night and nothing is really being used. So this morning, I went out and flipped each breaker off, one by one slowly, while watching the instantaneous kilowatt reading on the electric meter and taking observations.

This took about 20 minutes for all circuits, and then I honed in on the suspicious circuits, the ones which don't have a known appliance like a fridge which should always be running. Years ago, when I moved into this house, I drew out a map which describes which outlets and appliances belong to which circuit.

The two suspicious circuits were the living room and bedroom circuits, and armed with a Kill-o-watt, I ended up finding that my very old Bose Companion 5 desktop speakers will draw 23 Watts doing absolutely zilch. And my 2018-era Roku TCL so-called "smart" TV draws 20 Watts when it's "off".

I've been meaning to replace the Bose speakers -- due to a separate issue where the mute button only works half the time, and horrific Linux support -- and a friend recently offered to sell me some reference speakers that I can pair with a Class D amplifier, one which has a physical on/off switch.

For the TV, I'm not exactly sure what to replace it with, since I was going to wait until it died and replace it with a commercial-spec display, one that has no remnants of "smart TV" anything. I don't allow my TV to even have a network connection or WiFi, so it really shouldn't be doing anything. So I guess in the meantime, I'll just pull the plug when I'm not watching; at least it's easy to reach.

EDIT: the TV is now showing inconsistent results. It will occasionally drop down to a more-reasonable 0.1 Watt. But it might also remain at the aforementioned 20 Watts. Not entirely sure what it's doing, whether just sitting there or staying on for a while after turning "off" the TV.

Hello! in c/LowSpecGaming@lemmy.zip

[–] litchralee@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Hi! My low-spec gaming rig is primarily a product of: 1) ~~cheapness~~ frugality where I want most of the same PC to last 6-10 years, 2) not upgrading my GPU because the whole situation with 3070 GPUs, and 3) not being too much into gaming, except for Cities Skylines, American Truck Simulator, and MSFS2020.

Cities Skylines is more CPU intensive, so my few-years old Ryzen can handle that. I'm sure ATS and MSFS2020 could look better, but ultimately I get more value out of the feel of the gaming wheel and joystick than what I can see on-screen. To each their own.

Finally implemented encryption in Jotty <3 in c/selfhosted@lemmy.world

[–] litchralee@sh.itjust.works 7 points 5 days ago (4 children)

If I understand the Encryption Markdown page, it appears the public/private key are primarily to protect the data at-rest? But then both keys are stored on the server, although protected by the passphrase for the keys.

So if the protection boils down to the passphrase, what is the point of having the user upload their own keypair? Are the notes ever exported from the instance while still being encrypted by the user's keypair?

Also, why PGP? PGP may be readily available, but it's definitely not an example of user-friendliness, as exemplified by its lack of broad acceptance by non-tech users or non-government users.

And then, why RSA? Or are other key algorithms supported as well, like ed25519?

Does each country have a book/library of the laws of the land that a commoner can consult to check if they're about to do something illegal? in c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world

[–] litchralee@sh.itjust.works 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Directly answering the question: no, not every country has such a consolidated library that enumerates all the laws of that country. And for reasons, I suspect no such library could ever exist in any real-life country.

I do like this question, and it warrants further discussion about laws (and rules, and norms), how they're enacted and enforced, and how different jurisdictions apply the procedural machine that is their body of law.

To start, I will be writing from a California/USA perspective, with side-quests into general Anglo-American concepts. That said, the continental European system of civil law also provides good contrast for how similar yet different the "law" can be. Going further abroad will yield even more distinctions, but I only have so much space in a Lemmy comment.

The first question to examine is: what is the point of having laws? Some valid (and often overlapping) answers:

Laws describe what is/isn't acceptable to a society, reflecting its moral ideals
Laws incentivize or punish certain activities, in pursuit of public policy
Laws set the terms for how individuals interact with each other, whether in trade or in personal life
Laws establish a procedure machine, so that by turning the crank, the same answer will output consistently

From these various intentions, we might be inclined to think that "the law" should be some sort of all-encompassing tome that necessarily specifies all aspects of human life, not unlike an ISO standard. But that is only one possible way to meet the goals of "the law". If instead, we had a book of "principles" and those principles were the law, then applying those principles to scenarios would yield similar result. That said, exactly how a principle like "do no harm" is applied to "whether pineapple belongs on pizza" is not as clear-cut as one might want "the law" to be. Indeed, it is precisely the intersection of all these objectives for "the law" that makes it so complicated. And that's even before we look at unwritten laws.

The next question would be: are all laws written down? In the 21st Century, in most jurisdictions, the grand majority of new laws are recorded as written statutes. But just because it's written down doesn't mean it's very specific. This is the same issue from earlier with having "principles" as law: what exactly does the USA Constitution's First Amendment mean by "respecting an establishment of religion", to use an example. But by not micromanaging every single detail of daily life, a document that starts with principles and is then refined by statute law, that's going to be a lot more flexible over the centuries. For better/worse, the USA Constitution encodes mostly principles and some hard rules, but otherwise leaves a lot of details left for Congress to fill in.

Flexibility is sometimes a benefit for a system of law, although it also opens the door for abuse. For example, I recall a case from the UK many years ago, where crown prosecutors in London had a tough time finding which laws could be used to prosecute a cyclist that injured a pedestrian. As it turned out, because of the way that vehicular laws were passed in the 20th Century, all the laws on "road injuries" basically required the use of an automobile, and so that meant there was a hole in the law, when it came to charging bicyclists. They ended up charging the cyclist with the criminal offense of "furious driving", which dated back to an 1860s statute, which criminalized operating on the public road with "fury" (aka intense anger).

One could say that the law was abused, because such an old statute shouldn't be used to apply to modern-day circumstances. That said, the bicycle was invented in the 1820s or 1830s. But one could also say that having a catch-all law is important to make sure the law doesn't have any holes.

Returning to American law, it's important to note that when there is non-specific law, it is up to the legislative body to fill those gaps. But for the same flexibility reasons, Congress or the state or tribal legislatures might want to confer some flexibility on how certain laws are applied. They can imbue "discretion" upon an agency (eg USA Department of Commerce) or to a court (eg Superior Court of California). At other times, they write the law so that "good judgement" must be exercised.

As those terms are used, discretion more-or-less means having a free choice, where either is acceptable but try to keep within reasonable guidelines. Whereas "good judgement" means the guidelines are enforced and there's much less wiggle-room for arbitraryness. And confusingly so, sometimes there's both a component of discretion and judgment, which usually means Congress really didn't know what else to write.

Some examples: a District Attorney anywhere in California has discretion when it comes to filing criminal charges. They could outright choose to not prosecute person A for bank robbery, but proceed with prosecuting person B for bank robbery, even though they were working together on the same robbery. As an elected official, the DA is supposed to weigh the prospects of actually obtaining a guilty verdict, as well as whether such prosecution would be beneficial to the public or a good use of the DA office's limited time and budget. Is it a bad look when a DA prosecutes one person but not another? Yes. Are there any guardrails? Yes: a DA cannot abuse their discretion by considering disallowed factors, such as a person's race or other immutable characteristics. But otherwise, the DA has broad discretion, and ultimately it's the voters that hold the DA to account.

Another example: the USA Environmental Protection Agency's Administrator is authorized by the federal Clean Air Act to grant a waiver of the supremacy of federal automobile emissions laws, to the state of California. That is to say, federal law on automobile emissions is normally the law of the land and no US State is allowed to write their own laws on automobile emissions. However, because of the smog crisis in the 70/80s, the feds considered that California was a special basket-case and thus needed their own specific laws that were more stringent than federal emissions laws. Thus, California would need to seek a waiver from the EPA to write these more stringent laws, because the blanket rule was "no state can write such laws". The federal Clean Air Act explicitly says only California can have this waiver, and it must be renewed regularly by the EPA, and that California cannot dip below the federal standards. The final requirement is that the EPA Administrator shall issue the waiver if California requests it, and if they qualify for it.

This means the EPA Administrator does not have discretion, but rather is exercising good judgement: does California's waiver application satisfy the requirements outlined in the Clean Air Act? If so, the Administrator must issue the waiver. There is no allowance of an "i don't wanna" reason for non-issuance of the waiver. The Administrator could only refuse if they show that California is somehow trying to do an end-run around the EPA, such as by trying to reduce the standards.

The third question is: do laws encompass all aspects of everything?. No, laws are only what is legally enforced. There are also rules/by-laws and norms. A rule or by-law is often something enforced by something outside the legal system's purview. For example, the penalty for violating a by-law of the homeowner's association might be a revocation of access to the common spaces. For a DnD group, the ultimate penalty for violating a rule might be expulsion.

Meanwhile, there are norms which are things that people generally agree on, but felt were so commonplace that breaking the norm would make everything else nonfunctional. For example, there's a norm that one does not use all-caps lock when writing an online comment, except to represent emphasis or yelling. One could violate that norm with no real repercussions, but everyone else would dislike you for it, they might not want to engage further with you, they might not give you any benefit of the doubt, they may make adverse inferences about you IRL, or other things.

TL;DR: there are unwritten principles that form part of the law, and there's no way to record all the different non-law rules and social norms that might apply to any particular situation.

is it normal for smart thermostat to rotate very often for no appearant reason? in c/selfhosted@lemmy.world

[–] litchralee@sh.itjust.works 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Please explain what you mean by "rotate". The thermostat is physically turning in-place, as though a wall clock?

Kinda proud of this python script I wrote in c/programming@programming.dev

[–] litchralee@sh.itjust.works 17 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

One way to make this more Pythonic -- and less C or POSIX-oriented -- is to use the pathlib library for all filesystem operations. For example, while you could open a file in a contextmanager, pathlib makes it really easy to read a file:

from pathlib import Path
...

config = Path("/some/file/here.conf").read_text()

This automatically opens the file (which checks for existence), reads out the entire file as a string (rather than bytes, but there's a method for that too), and then closes up the file. If any of those steps go awry, you get a Python exception and a backtrace explaining exactly what happened.

Replaced the sink garbage disposal baffle today in c/dull_mens_club@lemmy.world

[–] litchralee@sh.itjust.works 24 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I bet this repair job was... baffling.

[looks at community name]

Oops, wrong community. What I meant I say was: veritably dull, good sir/madam.

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I made a "dial wheel" to try all 26^3 combinations on this mystery lock-box (europe.pub)

submitted 3 weeks ago by litchralee@sh.itjust.works to c/Dullsters@dullsters.net

10 comments fedilink

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/50842014

When I moved into my home many years ago, there was this lock-box mounted to the water main on the side of the house. I figured it was one of those used by real-estate agents to store the house key for viewings, but months passed and it still remained there. No one from my buyer's agent's office had a clue what this was, and the seller of the house had already moved out-of-state.

Recently, I had some plumbing work done, and that also included replacing the main water valve for the house, allowing this lock box to come free from the plumbing. Now inspecting it up close, and looking up the model online, I realized that it has an alphabet wheel and uses a three-letter combination.

As it happens, Thanksgiving weekend was upon me, and since I was bored, I figured I'd try all the possible combinations. Just 17,576 possible combinations, how bad could it be?

The most immediate problem was that due to being out in the elements, the dial did not turn easily. It would move, but was rather rough. And since the knob is only ~1 cm diameter, this is an incredibly un-ergonomic endeavor. I had to stop after the first 100 tries, due to the finger exhaustion.

Knowing this would be untenable for the long-run, I decided to build my way out of this problem. Since a combo lock involves making rotations that almost go all the way around, I drew inspiration from rotary telephone dials, where one's finger starts with the intended number and then swivels the dial around.

But whereas a rotary telephone dial only needs 10 positions, I needed to fit 26 positions, one for each letter. I decided on each hole being 17 mm to comfortably fit any of my fingers, but that also dictated the overall diameter of the wheel. But that's good, since a larger diameter wheel means more leverage to overcome the rough lock movement. It also happens to be that this wheel has a diameter of 180 mm, which is just enough to fit in the 200 mm bed of my 3d printer.

Using FreeCAD, I designed this wheel so that it fits around the splines of the lockbox dial, which held remarkably well. I had thought I would need Blu Tack or something to keep it together.

Using this wheel, I'm able to "dial" combinations much quicker using one hand, while holding the lockbox with my other hand to press the lever down to test the combination. This should be good.

(note: some parts of this story were altered to not give away identifying details)

187

3D-printed PLA "dial wheel" to manually brute-force a combination lock-box (lemmy.zip)

submitted 3 weeks ago by litchralee@sh.itjust.works to c/imadethis@lemmy.zip

40 comments fedilink

When I moved into my home many years ago, there was this lock-box mounted to the water main on the side of the house. I figured it was one of those used by real-estate agents to store the house key for viewings, but months passed and it still remained there. No one from my buyer's agent's office had a clue what this was, and the seller of the house had already moved out-of-state.

Recently, I had some plumbing work done, and that also included replacing the main water valve for the house, allowing this lock box to come free from the plumbing. Now inspecting it up close, and looking up the model online, I realized that it has an alphabet wheel and uses a three-letter combination.

As it happens, Thanksgiving weekend was upon me, and since I was bored, I figured I'd try all the possible combinations. Just 17,576 possible combinations, how bad could it be?

The most immediate problem was that due to being out in the elements, the dial did not turn easily. It would move, but was rather rough. And since the knob is only ~1 cm diameter, this is an incredibly un-ergonomic endeavor. I had to stop after the first 100 tries, due to the finger exhaustion.

Knowing this would be untenable for the long-run, I decided to build my way out of this problem. Since a combo lock involves making rotations that almost go all the way around, I drew inspiration from rotary telephone dials, where one's finger starts with the intended number and then swivels the dial around.

But whereas a rotary telephone dial only needs 10 positions, I needed to fit 26 positions, one for each letter. I decided on each hole being 17 mm to comfortably fit any of my fingers, but that also dictated the overall diameter of the wheel. But that's good, since a larger diameter wheel means more leverage to overcome the rough lock movement. It also happens to be that this wheel has a diameter of 180 mm, which is just enough to fit in the 200 mm bed of my 3d printer.

Using FreeCAD, I designed this wheel so that it fits around the splines of the lockbox dial, which held remarkably well. I had thought I would need Blu Tack or something to keep it together.

CAD design for lockbox dial wheel

Using this wheel, I'm able to "dial" combinations much quicker using one hand, while holding the lockbox with my other hand to press the lever down to test the combination. This should be good.

(note: some parts of this story were altered to not give away identifying details)

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heckin_sick: "my wife left her battery back in her car for 3 years" (europe.pub)

submitted 1 month ago by litchralee@sh.itjust.works to c/spicypillows@lemmy.world

10 comments fedilink

Reposted from heckin_sick (on IG) after DMing him for permission.

1

FortNine: How e-Bikes are Killing Motorcycles - Aniioki A9 Pro Max Review (youtu.be)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by litchralee@sh.itjust.works to c/micromobility@lemmy.world

0 comments fedilink

FortNine as a YouTube channel mostly covers motorbikes but on-and-off will do some bicycle and ebike content. Being YouTube, the clickbait-esque title is customary but the video is a look at where the fastest, heaviest, not-strictly-legal "ebikes" blur into the low-end of motorbikes.

The specimen in question is, from all that was pointed out in the video, rather abysmal by motorbike standards but par for the course by consumer goods standards. This includes:

An obnoxious startup introduction to remind you that their brand name is pronounced Aniioki
Illogical rear suspension design
Complete disregard for Canadian and British Columbian ebike classifications
Questionable chain design that keeps falling off the chainring
A throttle with huge delay before reacting
And more!

But the paltry nature of this particular ebike wasn't my main takeaway. It's that ebikes at-large are filling a gap in the market, where young people want mobility without the expenses and licensure of motorbikes. Here in California, the chasm between legal ebikes and motorbikes is so wide that I would imagine the same statistics could be found here as FortNine found in Canada. And it makes perfect sense: cheaper, lighter, electric, nimble, and unencumbered by frivolities like highway roadworthiness. For getting around town or to work, it makes perfect sense.

That said, they also touched upon the very real problems faced by faster ebikes (legal or not) today. Motorists -- because let's face it, most problems of micromobility are caused in large part by automobiles -- might expect to see a motorbike doing the speed limit, but not an ebike doing 2/3 of the speed limit. A USA Class 3 ebike can legally do 45 kph (28 MPH) and while that's slower than typical speed limits here of 35 or 45 MPH, the problem arises when there's enough motor vehicle congestion that slows motorists to about the same speed. And that's where the conflict shows up, such as when a car enters the road from a driveway.

Do I think it's a bit silly to bring a 150+ lbs "ebike" onto the ferry, or dangerous to ride along a multi-use trail on the side of a bridge when there are also pedestrians? Absolutely! But again, I think the takeaway is that the times are changing and preparations must be made in anticipation.

The absolute worse-case would be if these overpowered two-wheelers unlawfully dressed up as ebikes were to proliferate to the point that it's total chaos on the roads. At that point, Pandora's Box cannot be closed. Thus, it behooves us to mitigate that situation by, among other things:

Build actual infrastructure for riders on bikes and ebikes, that isn't doing double-duty as pedestrian or recreational paths
Incentivize legal, battery-safe ebikes to stave off a glut of illegal, shoddily-made "ebikes"
Make existing bikes more useful with destination improvements, like bike lockers or secure/valet bike parking
Seize road space currently used for motor vehicles, and do anything else with it. Parklets, public toilets, bioswale, donut shop.
Expand public transportation options, for anyone who can't/won't ride a bike, but also as range-extension for anyone who wants to do bus+bike

The premise of a well-built city is that it shouldn't require a two-ton automobile just to buy milk. I would further the sentiment with the opinion that a 160+ lbs two-wheeler also shouldn't be necessary to travel across Vancouver in a timely fashion. We can, in-fact, build our way out of this future problem but only by starting right now.

49

Seeking hand plane recommendations (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by litchralee@sh.itjust.works to c/woodworking@lemmy.ca

31 comments fedilink

Hi! I've only posted here maybe once, but I'm looking to change that and have been working to improve my joinery.

Specifically, I recently had the geometric realization that adjusting the horizontal angle on my miter saw is one of the least precise adjustments I can make, when trying to make two cuts that add up to 90 degrees. So instead, I now set the angle for the smaller angle, make the first cut, then set the workpiece for the second piece using a square against the fence. Basically, I'm rotating the piece so it's 90 degrees to the saw fence, and that lets me cut the complementary angle without realigning the saw angle.

The new problem is that because I'm still using slightly-warped and slightly-twisty stock, the surfaces aren't terribly great for gluing up. In one case, I glued up one end of a diagonal brace but the other end was lifting up, off-plane. Hand sanding with a block helps, but more often than not, I end up rounding off the edges and glue leaks out. So I'm now seeking recommendations for a small hand plane, so that I can have better, flatter surfaces to glue together.

Is this the right approach? If I'm mostly working with narrow stock like 1x4-inch, is there a correct-sized hand plane to smooth out an end-grain on that small of stock? Apologies in advance for not really knowing all the right wood terminology. I'm still learning.

Ideally, I'd like to buy something that will be versatile and serviceable for a long time. So cost isn't too important, but ideally it'd be proportional to my (few) other tools. If I know what to look for, I'll keep my eye out for such a specimen while at the thrift store.

EDIT: To clarify, a use-case would be if I'm gluing a diagonal brace at mid-height of a post. If i had a plane, I could work the post so that it has a flat face, so that the brace won't deviate left/right. For the diagonal brace itself, I can mostly trust my miter saw to cut the angle reasonably plumb.

EDIT 2: Might I actually want a card scraper instead?

EDIT 3: y'all are awesome and I now have a fair number of suggestions to consider. I guess there goes all my disposable money for September, once I go visit the nearby woodworking shop.

34

Re-greasing a mid-drive ebike motor yields noticeable improvements (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by litchralee@sh.itjust.works to c/bikewrench@lemmy.world

11 comments fedilink

I've put off the overhaul of my ebike's Bafang G510 mid-drive motor for so long that it has never actually been serviced since I bought it 3800 km ago. Over the past weeks, I slowly pulled the motor off the bike, carefully disassembled it, and found the rotor shaft gear in a poor state. Metal flecks were visible within the blackened grease, making a mess within the housing.

To get the sprockets off of the motor, I did have to obtain a deep-socket YC-29BB tool to remove the "spider" from the crank shaft. A standard wrench for the Bafang lock ring will not work, because the spider itself is in the way.

This motor has an all-metal gear arrangement, consisting of the primary gear axle which is coaxial with the cranks, a secondary gear axle, and a tertiary gear axle which is driven by the rotor shaft gear. It was the gears where the tertiary axle and rotor shafts meet which were substantially ground down, resulting in play between gears that causes additional wear every time the motor accelerates or decelerates.

top down view of dismantled Bafang G510 motor, showing the three reduction axles and the motor axle. The secondary axle has been removed for clarity

Note: some references online say that the G510 pre-2023 had a nylon gear. I could not locate any images of this, and my motor appeared to have all-metal parts. So idk.

Part of the issue is that the tertiary axle used a gear which isn't as deep as the rotor shaft's gear, resulting in wasted gear-to-gear surface area. A newer gear design for both the rotor and tertiary axle came out in 2023, and can be swapped in but requires recalibration of the motor.

So with the motor half disassembled, I figured the only sensible way forward was to order both the new rotor shaft and new tertiary axle, plus the CAN bus-specific Bafang dealer tool to perform the recalibration. I purchased these from greenbikekit.com, which didn't have the most intuitive ordering process but they did deliver in the end.

Perhaps the most arduous process was cleaning out all the old grease, which requires some solvent to shift. And even then, some crevices were unreachable without a very long cotton swab. In any case, I then re-greased using Permatex 80345 white lithium grease, since this has a higher temperature rating than typical white lithium grease, according to its data sheet. I obtained this from the local auto parts store, and this was the best I could get locally; Mobilgrease 28 was not available near me.

For the recalibration procedure, I knew that I wouldn't have -- nor would want to register for -- the Bafang dealer software to use with the programmer tool. Also, I'm a believer in the right-to-repair and having to beg for software is antithetical to this notion. Fortunately, someone has a FOSS project that can control the programmer and issue the recalibration command, among other neat features.

After dealing with a file permissions issue for /dev/usbhid2, the programmer was able to issue the calibration and the motor was set for reinstallation into the frame. This was basically all the earlier steps in reverse.

During testing, it is notable how much the new gears add the characteristic "whirling" sound of an electric motor. However, because the play within the gears was reduced and with new grease added, I found that the overall noise signature of the motor is substantially reduced. Also appreciated is how much less current the motor draws when riding at speed, compared to before the overhaul.

While it did take a while to assemble the parts and procedure for this endeavor, I am pleased with the results and would suggest periodic re-greasing for ebikes in regular service.

19

Removing the stock grease inside an ebike motor (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by litchralee@sh.itjust.works to c/Dullsters@dullsters.net

15 comments fedilink

After some 3000 km, this mid-drive motor is grossly overdue for some maintenance. I can see the specks of eroded metal mixed in the dark, gunky remains of whatever factory grease they used in here.

I don't know where locally to get the Mobilegrease 28 that everyone recommends, but I did find some high-temp white lithium from the auto store. But just removing the old grease has already consumed half a roll of paper towel. And I can't exactly dunk a motor into gasoline as degreaser.

I'll carry on wiping.

1

First ride of my Segway Ninebot G30LP, recommended from this community (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by litchralee@sh.itjust.works to c/micromobility@lemmy.world

0 comments fedilink

From my earlier post, y'all helped me fill my micromobility niche with a refurbished Segway Ninebot G30LP. So I wanted to give my first impressions after having it for a week.

To start, the scooter arrived in a fairly sizable box, some 100cm by 50 cm by 25 cm. There was a small hole in the cardboard box, but it looked like typical handling and broke into a void, rather than impacting the scooter.

Opening the carton, I removed the scooter itself, the charger, manual, Schrader valve extension tube, and the recall-related maintenance kit. The latter consisted of various sizes of hex wrenches and a rather-long screwdriver. As my first (electric) scooter, I figured I should RTFM before getting ahead of myself.

That's when I realized that I am missing some parts: the six screws needed to secure the handlebar component to the stem. So already, I could not perform the singular assembly step. Oh dear.

From the manual, I sent an email to Segway support with my scooter's model and serial, and they replied the next day for my mailing address. The day after, they had a tracking number for me for that parcel, which reached me three days later. So five days after writing to them, I had the screws in hand. Not bad at all.

That said, I did notice that these screws are slightly out of spec. From what I could gather online, the six screws for the stem should be countersunk M5 screws with length 16 mm. However, I measured these closer to 18 mm, and given the angle of how the screws insert, I think the extra length is causing the left-side screws to collide with the right-side screws.

While I could leave the screw protruding by about 1 mm, I figured I'd cut the screws to length, as that's within the capabilities of my metalworking. They did, after all, send me a pack of ten screws, so I could cut the four spares down. Now they sit flush with the stem.

Anyway, with the handlebars attached, I could continue through the manual, which basically had other advisements for safe operation. Separately, I had seen advice online that the air pressure for these tires should be closer to 40-50 psi (~3 bar), to avoid flats but would trade off some springyness. From the factory, I measured 37 psi, which is what the manual recommends. I tend to run my bicycle tires closer to the sidewall rating, so I wanted to shoot here for at around 45 psi.

The Schrader valves on these tires are quite something. The front is workable, but the rear has a very short stem, meaning only my digital air gauge could be attached to read out the existing pressure. But to add pressure with my manual floor pump for the rear tire, I needed the extension tube. Note: this tube does not have its own one-way valve. So once the tire is pressurized, some air will leak out when unscrewing the tube from the tire stem. And of course, it's a cramped position. But hey, at least I can check the air pressure without the extension hose.

Out of the box, the battery has a state of charge around 60%, so I was able to test basic operation by gliding around my driveway. But it does beep persistently, due to not being activated with the app. I personally don't like devices which must be chained to an app -- which might disappear one day -- so I was pleased to find that there's a community app that can do the same.

Using this app, I was able to activate the scooter and confirm other parameters about the its manufacturing, the battery pack, cell voltages, and the odometer reading, which is precise down to 0.01 km. What I couldn't figure out is how to commit the global or eco speed limits, as I have no need to run faster than 13 kph (8 MPH).

During testing around the neighborhood, I resolved to wear at least the same gear I would wear (helmet, goggles, gloves) for riding my acoustic and electric bikes, and found that with cruise set at 15 kph (9 MPH), this was a reasonable saunter through the quiet streets, with bumps amplified by the short wheelbase. But still manageable. Kinda like a brisk walk.

When discovering that switching from Eco mode to S mode permits the full 25 kph (15 MPH) limit, I decided to try the top speed after doing a few loops. But already at 22 kph, I stopped, being unable to understand how anyone can ride a scooter at this speed without 100% focus and both hands on the handlebars. And I've seen riders on shorter electric scooters with smaller, non-pneumaric tires. It's utterly terrifying, and I say that having negotiated 45 kph, lumbering ebikes through harrowing city traffic.

But my own sensibilities aside, it's fairly capable with large -- but still jarring -- dips in the road surface, and does not bottom-out at sidewalk ramps or turning into driveways.

Here in California, the laws on electric scooters are substantially nerfed, prohibiting sidewalk operation or even just making left turns in the street. They intend for electric scooters to operate in the bike lane, though most riders I see will use the sidewalk anyway. As a long-time bike rider, I fear the poor running surfaces of sidewalks and prefer the smoother asphalt surface of the bike lane. Though I grant you that the motor vehicle traffic whizzing by is not exactly totally comforting, especially when I intentionally operate at a lower speed.

But taking the scooter out for its first ride, it was mostly uneventful and I met up with a friend, who later took me and the scooter home in his car. It fit perfectly in the trunk, which proves the multi model credentials of this scooter. So far as I can tell, the odometer is fairly accurate and while I've only done 11 km so far, the app suggests a range of 40 km at my speed.

I'm still figuring out how to ride this safely, but seeing as my needs are very specific (see prior post), it's likely I can optimize to a high degree.

1

Hiding 24/7 live streams from "What's New" tab (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by litchralee@sh.itjust.works to c/newpipe@lemmy.ml

0 comments fedilink

(fairly recent NewPipe user; ver 0.27.6)

Is there a way to hide particular live streams from showing up on the "What's New" tab? I found the option in Settings->Content->Fetch Channel Tabs which will prevent all live streams from showing in the tab. But I'm looking for an option to selective hide only certain live streams from the tab.

Some of my YouTube channels have 24/7 live streams (eg Arising Empire), which will always show at the top of the page. But I don't want to hide all live streams from all channels, since I do want to see if new live streams appear, usually ones that aren't 24/7.

Ideally, there'd be an option to long-press on a live stream in the tab, one which says "Hide From Feed", which would then prevent that particular stream ID from appearing in the feed for subsequent fetches.

From an implementation perspective, I imagine there would be some UI complexity in how to un-hide a stream, and to list out all hidden streams. If this isn't possible yet, I can try to draft a feature proposal later.

1

Anti-bite freehub on mid-drive ebike: long term complications? (europe.pub)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by litchralee@sh.itjust.works to c/bikewrench@lemmy.world

0 comments fedilink

In the thumbnail is my freehub after running a new set of wheels for 1700 km. From how I understand the "anti-bite" feature, it should prevent the cassette from gouging further into the soft metal of the splines, by taking up those forces on the strip of steel on one of the splines. And that seems like a reasonable idea, since further gouging beyond a cosmetic issue would prevent removal of the cassette.

My question is whether the higher torque caused by a mid-drive torque might one day overwhelm the steel strip, resulting in a locked cassette to the freehub. So far, I don't see any evidence of the strip giving way, and I'm normally under the assumption that the allowable torques of standard bicycles -- although tested by ebikes -- should still tolerate this sort of application.

Does anyone know of scenarios where the anti-bite strip fails in-situ? Note that this isn't a particularly pricey freehub, and I mostly built up this wheel as a long-term test to see how long it would last. For when it does fail, I plan to rebuild with a DT Swiss hub, finances allowing.

2

First attempts at cast iron restoration: Wagner skillets (europe.pub)

submitted 1 year ago by litchralee@sh.itjust.works to c/imadethis@lemm.ee

0 comments fedilink

(Does this community allow posts about product restorations? I didn't forge these skillets, but I did make them usable and appealing again.)

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/30170080

(long time lurker, first time poster)

A few months ago, a friend convinced me on the benefits of cast iron skillets. Having only used Teflon-coated non-stick pans, I figured it would be worth a try, if I could find one at the thrift store. Sure, I could have just bought a new Lodge skillet, but that's too easy lol.

So a few weeks pass and I eventually find these two specimens at my local thrift store, for $5 and $8 respectively. It's not entirely clear to me why the smaller skillet cost more, but it was below $10 so I didn't complain too loudly. My cursory web searches at the store suggested that old Wagner skillets are of reasonable quality, so I took the plunge. My assumption is that the unmarked, smaller skillet is also a Wagner product.

10-inch skillet ($5) 9-inch skillet ($8)

It's very clear that both these skillets are very crusty. Initially, I tried to remove the buildup using a brass wire brush. This was only somewhat successful, so I switched to a stainless steel wire brush. That also didn't do much, except reveal some of the inscription on the bottom.

Some research suggested I could either do an electrolysis tank, a lye bath, or try lye-based oven cleaner. For want of not over-complicating my first restoration attempt, I went with the oven cleaner method, using the instructions from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Pvf0m9jTeE

For both skillets, I had to apply the oven cleaner six times to finally shift all the crud, each time leaving the skillets in the garbage bag for a full day-and-a-half in the sun. In between applications, I would brush off more buildup, with the handle root and the skillet walls being the most stubborn areas. The whole process smelled terrible and hunching over the garage utility sink to brush pans is not my idea of a pleasant time.

Nevertheless, having stripped both pans, I proceeded with six rounds of seasoning with very old corn oil -- it's what was handy -- at 450 F (~230 C) using my toaster oven. This happened over six days, since I wanted to use my excess daytime solar power for this endeavor. I wiped on the oil using a single blue shop towel, to avoid the issues of lint or fraying with paper towel.

I don't have a post-seasoning photo for the larger skillet, but here's how the 9-inch skillet turned out. I think I did a decent job for a first attempt. And I'm thrilled that these are as non-stick as promised, with only minimal upkeep required after each use.