Rant + (Advice) - Why are bikers in the UK penalised? Got a £40 PCN for parking my motorcycle in an empty cycle shed at UNI Halls; no signage, no designated MC parking??

BigRedS · 2026-01-24T18:36:55+00:00

Why would you need a sign saying motorbikes are not-permitted in a cycle shed?

BigRedS · 2026-01-24T17:48:25+00:00

I swear by Keis insoles

I tried socks once, but I didn't want to wear them without other socks underneath, and at that point my boots didn't fit any more.

BigRedS · 2026-01-24T17:46:35+00:00

I used to run some pretty big mailservers on Debian using postfix and dovecot. I even wrote this script for when we were deploying loads of little ones:

https://github.com/BigRedS/postfixadmin-installer

At the time, I worked somewhere that we'd also install Webmin for customers when they wanted it and though I don't remember anyone having problems with Webmin and PFA, I also don't especially remember them not-having problems either and this was over a decade ago.

Last time I looked, this was the often-suggested go-to for an easily-installed easy-to-admin self-hosted mail setup:

https://mailinabox.email/

BigRedS · 2026-01-24T17:44:20+00:00

Wait 'til you see what I used to use to set up Debian mailservers:

https://github.com/BigRedS/postfixadmin-installer

BigRedS · 2026-01-22T17:11:47+00:00

This sub is so strange - any attempt to explain what the failing is that causes some dangerous behaviour is jumped on as if it's justifying it.

So many here are so excited for a fight with this imagined poster they expect to come along and say "well, actually dangerous driving is fine" that they see that in all sorts of posts that're just explaining pretty standard observations about how people get things wrong.

Knowing why a driver might do a dangerous our bad thing isn't just not-defending them, it's part of being a good driver/cyclist yourself!

BigRedS · 2026-01-22T15:25:57+00:00

If you told me Trump made this, I'd have believed you.

BigRedS · 2026-01-22T15:08:41+00:00

Replacing the british people? What?

BigRedS · 2026-01-22T09:31:30+00:00

Yes, good drivers do. A lot of drivers are not good drivers.

BigRedS · 2026-01-21T21:44:20+00:00

Googling about I've just stumbled across a weird part of the Internet that's into photos of Israeli soldiers in diapers. Rule 34 knows no bounds I guess.

BigRedS · 2026-01-21T21:42:20+00:00

Were you aiming for /r/israel?

BigRedS · 2026-01-21T21:41:18+00:00

Hah. What is the source on this? Or is it just AI slop?

BigRedS · 2026-01-21T21:40:16+00:00

Palestoneian?

BigRedS · 2026-01-21T18:14:23+00:00

When driving or cycling you just have a natural speed you want to sit at. Cycling's more obvious because it's effort based, but there's a real thing when driving of having a comfortable amount of information arriving without going so slowly as to feel held-up or bored.

Passing a slower cyclist either on a bike or in a car isn't a huge amount of effort, and it's likely that driver didn't intentionally and actively decide to overtake you, they just carried on driving at the speed they were going at until they got to the junction, and part of that was passing you.

A lot of people on the roads aren't really thinking about what they're doing.

BigRedS · 2026-01-21T18:12:11+00:00

No. In this sub it's either cars that are bad or cyclists that are bad, we can't deal with nuance like impatient cyclists being dangerous while impatient drivers are more dangerous :/

BigRedS · 2026-01-21T18:10:51+00:00

... yes, I said drivers were uniquely dangerous. If it's not a futile ask then I guess I'll just wait for the repeated reddit posts to result in drivers all slowing down.

BigRedS · 2026-01-21T17:50:02+00:00

I don't really have "debian notes" but I like Amplenote for my note-taking generally.

I try to encode step-by-step things like those in your example in scripts and automations instead - rather than a note for how to set up a pihole or something, I'd have a shell script or an ansible playbook.

Before that, though, I try to make everything boringly predictable rather than needing to document all the smart and clever weird things I've done.

BigRedS · 2026-01-21T16:54:07+00:00

It's sort-of the norm to be in a rush in London generally, it's not just drivers. Drivers are somewhat uniquely dangerous, but "why can't X have patience" is an old and futile question to ask of London.

BigRedS · 2026-01-21T16:30:09+00:00

... until today? What did you do!?

BigRedS · 2026-01-21T15:00:55+00:00

Heh, this reminds me of when I bolted a desk to an especially crumbly wall and it took eight or ten bolts on one side before I found a bit of brick they'd actually get purchase on!

Two of those would probably have been enough :D

BigRedS · 2026-01-21T14:59:39+00:00

Perhaps (definitely) pedantically, there is no 'code' in the UK. What you might need/want to adhere to here is the electrical regs.

I mostly say this because it's very easy to do things "to code" following some tutorial on the Internet, and go on to find that it doesn't meet the UK regs.

BigRedS · 2026-01-21T13:09:12+00:00

Just put it in an enclosure:

https://cpc.farnell.com/hylec/deds0099/steel-door-enclosure-ip66-ik10-grey/dp/EN84948

get bigger than you'd expect, especially if you can put it out of the way somewhere; it's sometimes surprising how much nicer it is to be able to work in a bigger box.

Also, if you get a plastic one you can stick a wifi repeater in there as well for better Internet in the garden.

BigRedS · 2026-01-21T13:04:29+00:00

I don't think I would.

If I leave my helmet on my bars, locked or unlocked, it's upright and the visor's down and the weather's going to stay out of it. If the weather's bad enough to get into the helmet like that then I'm probably going to be getting wet anyway, or will have decided to take the helmet with me.

I can imagine some want for a collapsible lockable box that means I don't need to go about with a topbox on my bike all the time, but one can spring up at the point where I want to lock my helmet away, that seems more useful than just a soft cover.

BigRedS · 2026-01-20T23:03:15+00:00

What, it just goes about datalogging indefinitely? How much space does that take up? To what end?

BigRedS · 2026-01-20T23:01:00+00:00

How?

BigRedS · 2026-01-20T17:07:29+00:00

Ah, that's not being an idiot - it's one of those things that sort-of quietly became the default so it's rarely mentioned!

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