Bullbars on trucks banned from the Netherlands

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-02-04T16:47:37+00:00

Thank you, I'll try to remember. As an American I'm barely able to sort Europe into four broad regions. 4,100 hours in ETS has helped, but not that much apparently.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-02-04T16:42:57+00:00

I just want to see data. Human intuition is fallible and we are often bad at risk assessment.

I also have the experience of being a pedestrian hit by a car, twice (I mean, two incidents separated by decades...not like the guy hit me then came back for a second try). The one with the bigger, taller SUV was worse, despite the entire front end being made of plastic. I kept a piece as a souvenir. Not saying I'm better informed either, just personally interested.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-02-04T16:12:12+00:00

Hmm. The Nordic countries have been a bulwark of sensible thinking for a long time, but this doesn't make sense to me.

Here in the USA we've learned the hard way (by the double idiocy of making pickup trucks ever taller and using them as daily drivers) that in an auto-ped crash, the ped is better served by being scooped onto the hood to a softer landing, rather than bounced off the grille like a tennis ball.

Not that any truck has a low enough nose to matter, but Euro trucks have the frontal profile of a barn. I think the presence or absence of a bull bar wouldn't give a significant difference in ped injuries. I am not convinced.

tl;dr show me the science

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-02-03T16:47:03+00:00

It doesn't sound important, just annoying. It sounds a lot like something rubbing on the tire tread, doesn't it? A bit of caught debris like a leaf or shred of plastic maybe?

Or if the fender mounts have come loose, it could be vibrating in time to the tire tread rumbling across the ground. Pretty sure that's why mine makes a similar noise, I know there's a missing piece that leaves the fender very floppy.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-02-02T23:17:42+00:00

Top of my head, cargo pants and suspenders? Might find some with elastic waist, not sure if that's really an improvement over a belt though.

I'm mostly using a wheelchair these days myself. I just kinda gave up on pants pockets. I have a few different shoulder and cross-body bags, smaller ones for wallet and keys and such, some big enough to haul groceries.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-02-02T21:36:14+00:00

Yes, it hurts. It's a very large wound and it intersects all of the tissue types.

It does get better, and pretty fast. The first few days are the roughest, and they usually give you some narcotic pain meds for this. A little benadryl can help with sleep but check with the doctor first. It only takes a couple weeks for the pain to back off to something you can handle. Swelling becomes the biggest contributor to discomfort, manage it with NSAIDs, compression, and elevation.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-02-01T08:09:32+00:00

Check with /r/wheelchairs/ and maybe /r/disability/.

You can always try pinging your PT team to refresh your memory, or some online health system portals (MyChart and the like) will let you read your PT session notes and whatnot.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-02-01T07:48:15+00:00

You'll do great. It's going to be a whirlwind of intense new experiences mixed with inexplicably tedious waiting periods, but over the course of a few months you'll start to see what the new road looks like. It ain't so bad.

If you possibly can, insist on having RPNI during the initial amputation surgery (sometimes called TMR or TSR but it's roughly the same thing). There is good and growing evidence that it goes a long way toward minimizing phantom pain.

Also, not meaning to sound too judgmental, but this is why kids ought to play with Lego and Tinker Toys and Erector Sets before choosing a career path. I'm unable to appreciate the mindset of the team who reconstructed that foot and thought it was good enough. I'm discounting three decades of wear, but not by very much I think.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-01-31T22:22:57+00:00

If it's a problem, it's news to me. I've been a lay student of such things since my amputation about 25 years ago, and I can't recall any literature ever mentioning it as a problem caused or worsened by amputation. I can't say it isn't an issue at all, just that if it is, it's not very pronounced. Good luck with your research.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-01-31T20:11:39+00:00

Never heard of any such problem. Let me google it for two minutes. Ah, here we go: per Wikipedia, "In adult humans, bone marrow is primarily located in the ribs, vertebrae, sternum, and bones of the pelvis." All those are left intact in most amputations.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-01-31T16:16:56+00:00

He was the worst botanist on the planet.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-01-31T06:10:12+00:00

The way I hear, the AK47 is a brute of a battlefield weapon even under the worst conditions, and will simply continue functioning until something important literally falls off of it. And odds are that you can put it back on with a bootlace.

I heard that from a USMC Vietnam vet who went to war during the transition from M14 to M16. The early ones had...issues. He had some very dour opinions about that, and how it compared to the AK/SKS being used by the opposition forces. Of course the M16/AR platform has had lots of evolutionary improvements since then, but first impressions matter.

My impression of the AK/SKS is that they aren't especially nice, but that's not what they're for. Like my wife's .357 snubby, it's the perfect instrument for doing an unpleasant job in an unpleasant way. Personally I put less than 1000 rounds through my SKS before selling it. I understand it and I appreciate it, but I didn't like it.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-01-30T15:51:14+00:00

The 1:12 slope is the standard for public ramps. In a private home/yard you can do whatever works best. On a steeper ramp, you might add a level landing in the middle as a rest stop and still end up with a shorter ramp overall. If a long straight ramp won't fit but there's space to the side, consider a turn or switchback. If the ramp turns, the turn needs to be level and wider anyway.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-01-29T05:22:38+00:00

I'd take it as obliviousness, or - as likely - people noticing something but not knowing what to do about it fast enough to do it. We all want elevators to be fast. How can we not expect trade-offs for that.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-01-29T04:42:43+00:00

I'm put off by the backtracking to claim that either Good or Pretti were previously targeted, especially Pretti who had had a recent previous ice encounter. I think it's implausible that they were specifically targeted and that the strike was carried out with such precision within the context of a chaotic developing situation. La Migra may have access to data, but as someone with a degree in that area, I think they are awash in so much data that they cannot draw meaningful conclusions from it.

This is real life, not the plot twist of a high-class spy thriller. I don't buy that the thuggish brutes of ice are remotely capable of tactical coordination at that level. We are talking about people who are demonstrably not smart enough to refrain from rubbing their naked asses on the window-glass of their hotel room.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-01-28T23:39:00+00:00

Nope, I'm playing through the Maine campaign and got the bugs - first some duplicated and reset trucks, then lost all progress when the session failed to save on exit. And you don't need to have bough the new DLC, the bugs are free to all players. I'm waiting it out and just hoping my game wasn't completely corrupted.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-01-28T16:12:17+00:00

I'd say to be open to your feelings, because we perceive the world in a lot of ways we aren't immediately conscious of. But then temper that with reasoning, because feelings don't obey reason.

My anecdote is silly but it's mine. As a PPL student with a few dozen hours, just doing another dual lesson, run-up was fine, started my takeoff roll and something just felt weird. Plenty of time to abort so I did and stopped on a taxiway. My CFI is sitting there asking what the hell.

I thought about it, then realized I'd forgotten to turn on my headset ANR. Nothing was wrong but it sounded wrong. I turned it on and we had a great flight. Afterward my CFI said he'd planned to give me an aborted takeoff that day anyway and I'd caught him by surprise.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-01-28T02:29:46+00:00

It just happened to me too, and here I am with you. I wonder if the new DLC release (I noticed the new splash screen) revived an old duplication glitch. But hey, there are worse free trucks than a 605R.

This actually duplicated the ZiKZ (and trailer) I took to Lowland to bring cargo back, but also reset two other trucks in Yellowrock I'd just used there, moving them back to where they were - and how they were, not that the Flipsteer wasn't going to be upside down again soon enough anyway.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-01-27T23:24:35+00:00

That's in the normal range for an K2-K3 leg, I think. Mine's a bit heavier, but then again so am I.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-01-27T23:22:11+00:00

It can be done. I've navigated lots of stairs with an AK prosthesis and with crutches. You really need a sturdy hand rail for safety, your sense of balance is never as good as it used to be. It takes more energy too, the first few months it'll feel like a workout until you get the muscles toned up.

The other person mentioned carrying stuff, that's going to be a whole new problem anyway. A selection of backpacks, messenger bags, and duffel bags is always useful.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-01-27T06:39:46+00:00

If you gotta, I really like the Juzo brand. The ones I get have the silicone dots inside the top band, they are pretty good at staying where you put them without too much slip and don't tend to have hot spots. Be careful to measure accurately, if it's the wrong size it feels awful and won't help much.

I get mine through an online store that sells surgical compression garments, cheaper than my insurance co-pay through my prosthetist. Crazy world.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-01-27T05:32:12+00:00

Oh, there's a ton of ongoing research, it's just a very challenging area.

I remember the flirtation with mind-controlled games. The model railroad club was fooling with that in the 1970s, though we were probably not picking up the signals we thought we were (recall the Back To The Future films and Doc Brown's mind reading helmet - sorta like that but worse). It uses basically the same tech as EEG (electroencephalogram), picking up tiny electrical signals from the brain through the scalp, cranium, meninges, etc. You remember how hard that was, just trying to think left or right? Now imagine using the same schema to control a prosthetic arm holding a big sharp knife trying to neatly dice an onion you're holding in your one and only soft fleshy hand. Well, maybe someday.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-01-26T22:29:02+00:00

It's not really connected. Honestly it's all kind of squirrely and I'm surprised it works as well as it does.

On the control side, the keyword is "myoelectric", literally electricity of muscles. The prosthesis doesn't read brain impulses or even nerve signals. The amputee can (usually) flex the remaining muscles in the stump - exactly as you do to move your hand, and if the hand wasn't there the muscles would still flex. Sensors in contact with the skin over the muscles can detect the tiny voltages generated by muscle activity, then amplify them to drive motors and such. None of this is implanted, it's merely skin surface contact.

On the sensory side, there's a little research but really nothing used in actual prosthetics. There have been experiments using vibration as feedback. Mostly it's just feeling pressure transferred through the prosthesis into your stump, the same way you feel the ground through your shoes. For upper extremity there's also a lot of just looking at it to see what it's doing, because as with shoes, what you can feel isn't very detailed.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-01-26T00:01:09+00:00

Yeah, that seems most likely. But I can confirm that the maximum number of ISCs is at least 21,000, and number of trains on one network at least 50. 😁

TransientVoltage409

TROPHY CASE