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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 20th, 2023

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  • I can see those kinds of things working in or near cities, but out where I am - fairly rural - there’s just too many miles of road to install a bunch of speed humps or similar things. It would take a monumental amount of money. They don’t even have shoulders on most of the roads. I admit even I speed when I’m driving them, although I’ll slow down for bends in the road so as not to clobber a deer, cyclist, pedestrian, etc. that might be lurking out of sight.

    (I got into a fun argument here on Lemmy a few months back with someone who insisted horse and buggies should have lights, and I was like, “What happens when you come around the bend too fast and there’s a tree laying in the road?” He just couldn’t accept the problem is the driver, not the horse and buggy. Basically, that’s what’s wrong with drivers in the US: We, as a group, have a bizarre expectation that things will always go to plan.)

    I’m also nervous about these solutions for another reason - I’ve seen towns install those kinds of calming measures in a way that hurts cyclists. In one example, they extended the curbs out to the lane, which does slow down traffic - but it forces cyclists who could previously ride on the shoulder into the lane, thereby further enraging drivers. I had one asshole pass me in that very narrow section some years ago, so now I make sure to ride in the middle of it, so they’d actually have to hit me. They won’t do that because they don’t want to damage their precious car, so I’m safe.

    And I say this as someone that lives in an area that’s actually pretty good for cycling, that is, most drivers are actually pretty good about passing safely and all that.


  • Interesting. Mostly what I see is people slam on their brakes near the camera, then take off again after it.

    My theory: There’s so little enforcement of the traffic laws here, they might as well not exist. You’re almost certain NOT to get caught, so people will do whatever they want and will practically always get away with it. I don’t really want to argue for more cops, but when I’ve driven in areas with more traffic enforcement and visible police presence, people tend to drive much more sedately.

    I drive and ride bicycle, and I would LOVE if the cops came riding with me some time. I see some of them doing the 100 mile ride for charity in our county, so I know they have people on the force who ride fairly seriously. Join one of our regular group rides wearing cycling clothes (not police gear), get another cop stationed ahead in a car or motorcycle…and start pulling over some people who buzz us or roll coal. Word would get out very quickly.



  • Man I want to put LED bulbs in my 1999 model year car, but I don’t want to start blinding people. The last thing I want is for someone to hit me because they were blinded. It seems many LEDs do intend to have similar beam patterns to halogen bulbs, but I’m not sure how well they actually do.

    Our 2020 Mazda has LED headlights, and I gotta admit, they are much better for seeing. We live off the beaten path, not a ton of traffic, but plenty of deer and other animals.

    On the other hand, my headlights in the 1999 had gotten really hazy, and I recently did one of those headlight restoration kits to it, and it worked stunningly well. Since then, I haven’t driven at night very much to get a feel for how much it helped. So maybe I won’t need LEDs. (The halogens in there are relatively new.)





  • limelight79@lemm.eetoLinux@lemmy.mlThe Dislike to Ubuntu
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    9 days ago

    Every time this is asked, I post the same comment. I used Kubuntu for years and liked it, but more recently they started doing things that annoyed me. The biggest was related to snaps and Firefox. Now, sandboxing a browser is probably a great idea, but I wanted to use the regular deb install, so I followed the directions to disable the snap install and used the deb. However, Ubuntu overrode that decision several times - I’d start browsing, then realize I was using a snap AGAIN. Happened a few times over a couple years. If it happened once, eh, maybe an error, but it happened 3 or 4 times. I came to the conclusion I wasn’t in control of my system, Ubuntu was.

    I switched to Debian and am happy with my choice.



  • Milk crates. I was trying to come up with some way using wood blocks to hold propane tanks in the truck bed, then I discovered the milk crates the previous owner of our house left. They work GREAT for 20 lb and 30 lb propane tanks. Easy to strap in, as well.

    I don’t know why someone would want to carry a propane tank in the cab of their vehicle, unless they absolutely had to. I know I did it many time before getting a pickup, putting the tank in my car, and making the trip as short as possible.


  • limelight79@lemm.eetocats@lemmy.worldattachment syndrome
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    17 days ago

    My office was having a problem with mice, so some maintenance people were walking around looking for sources of food that were left out, etc. I offered to bring my cat in, and they looked at me like I had three heads. I knew which one of ours I’d bring, and I would have been happy to keep her in my office during the day and take her home every night. She would have LOVED it!






  • I kind of like having that layer of someone who knows what they’re doing. House purchasing and selling isn’t something we do often, so a knowledgeable person seems like a reasonable investment. Same reason you shouldn’t be your own lawyer.

    I do have some qualms about how they get paid. The commission I pay my own agent doesn’t really even bother me that much, although they’re obviously incentivized to get us to buy the most expensive home we can afford. But the commission that the seller pays to the agent for the purchasers disturbs the hell out of me - it’s a pretty clear conflict of interest.

    We had a “Buyers Agent” for our last purchase - this is someone that only does buying; they do not sell homes. The idea being there’s less conflict of interest because they’re not trying to sell you a home they have listed (the company he owned did not list homes at all). Great idea, but they still take the commission from the seller, so it’s not perfect. We worked with another agent from a different company for selling the old house.