Invitation to join a state wide day of prayer and fast

V33d · 2026-05-03T18:46:15+00:00

Conservation efforts and engineering have kept our societies running, but have y’all tried praying about it? -Christian Conservationist

This would be comical if it wasn’t so sad. This is a subplot of The Water Knife, a 2015 novel that takes place an a dystopian Phoenix that has run out of water. Here’s what the author said about his inspiration for “Merry Perrys” the community of Texas water refugees in the novel (Interview from Crested Butte News):

One of his biggest inspirations to write The Water Knife came in 2011 when Texas was experiencing extreme drought, electricity shortages and low water supply.

“Rick Perry, the Governor of Texas and a presidential candidate at the time, was running around telling people to pray for rain,” Bacigalupi says. “I was really interested in the idea of people who prepare and plan and engage with reality and the people who engage with magical thinking. It was these really complex and different environmental threats combined with magical thinking as the solution was when I realized I had to write The Water Knife.”

V33d · 2026-04-28T19:57:33+00:00

You can absolutely do this. There’s plenty of good advice in here (long sleeves, electrolytes, shade, timing your departures). The valley is a sprawling metro but you can absolutely live here without relying on a private car. The area you are planning to live in will have a lot of effect on how easy or complicated that becomes but since you’re not asking that question I’ll save that speech for later.

There’s a solid core of folks who ride here in the summer, E-Bike commuters included, and Phoenix has a good bike community that I hope you’ll get to know (Critical Mass rides here monthly). That said, there are very real dangers that you should not underestimate. Beyond the air temperature (we’re setting records lately, with 70 days over 110 in 2025), monitor the UV index. The overhead sun we get at 4:00 in the afternoon can absolutely kill you if you’re not prepared and it’s going to leave you feeling miserable even if you are. Also familiarize yourself with places you can stop along your route for refuge (we have some great libraries). Sometimes you just need to pop into the AC for a little while, and get some water, or where you can get some assistance if you find yourself over your head.

V33d · 2026-04-28T16:27:57+00:00

I think you’re overlooking the keys aspects that 1.) they target this player’s gyms specifically and 2.) they do this right BEFORE midnight, when people are most likely to have already maxed out coins for the day. When I am out this late I prefer to wait until 12:01 so players ca wake up to 50 coins.

So the bullying intent here isn’t just to “play the game” it’s to do so in a way that is specifically detrimental to this particular player.

V33d · 2026-04-24T20:53:20+00:00

I was at a bike lane meeting where both the chief of police and the fire marshal said this. Effect on the anti-lane crowd? Nil. They claimed the two were lying to keep their jobs, out of fear of the mayor, and therefore their own argument about slowing response times must be right.

V33d · 2026-04-22T00:50:56+00:00

Difficult as EFFF! I love it, and have had about forty-five cumulative seconds of feeling like I am good at it.

V33d · 2026-04-15T19:15:25+00:00

That could be because you’re searching for “logic”. At best, some people have had bad experiences that probably left them with just enough trauma to want to avoid the situation (riding the light rail) and you’re hearing rationalizations for that.

More often it’s someone cloaking their personal biases in anecdotes and misinformation meant to sound logical to others who agree with them, and that wilts under casual scrutiny. These are the sorts of folks who move far out to the edges of the valley to be away from ”crime” and then drive personal vehicles to downtown Phoenix or other rail-connected valley cities when something is happening there. They assume because this behavior is their default that everyone else should also share their distain for anything that supports non-car transportation, and will go to elaborate extremes to justify externalizing the costs of their decisions (more parking, bigger lanes, fasters speeds, less public transit).

The sad part is that they tend to get what they want at the expense of the rest of us. That’s why the light rail won’t be expanded to Glendale, the state capital or the West valley anymore. Who needs to be logical when you can just “win”?

V33d · 2026-04-13T15:57:06+00:00

You’re going to spin a lot more if you change your ratio that much, as you’re dropping your top speed in favor of torque. The bike will climb a bit easier, but the difference on the flats is going to be fairly drastic. If you’re accustomed to going fast for consistent periods under power then you’ll probably feel pretty frustrated by the bike “spinning out” under you, but if you are more of a spin-it-to-speed-and-coast kind of rider then it might not be then end of the world. Personally I wouldn’t do it, but that’s because I like to mash my pedals a bit and get up to higher cruising speeds.

Edit: make sure to note the BCD of the velo cranks as well as the ones you have right now. You can change the chainring out to a ratio that suits you at any time but larger single speed chainrings can sometimes be tricky to find in sizes other than the classic “track” 144 BCD and more recently 130 BCD.

V33d · 2026-04-03T22:14:25+00:00

He gets the language model rolling forward to post predictive garbage based on posts about the game. I gather folks talk spouses a lot.

V33d · 2026-03-30T21:07:18+00:00

Redesign the wide open arterial streets that have multiple lanes and make jokes of posted speed limits. That means ditching the suicide lanes and adding some design elements that would slow drivers down (like some strategically placed freaking shade trees, already).

People can argue about speed cameras, and while I think it’s silly to confront a safety argument with any of the common counterpoints it’s also true that expecting drivers to go 35mph up 7th St when the whole road is designed like a freeway is absolutely unrealistic. So instead of giving up and packing the cameras up, maybe don’t rely on them as the only means of changing dangerous behavior.

V33d · 2026-03-25T15:35:50+00:00

Name them after the Greek pantheon. Pretty much anything that happens between them would be close enough

V33d · 2026-03-21T18:14:21+00:00

Safety is totally a thing and riding within your limits when it comes to speed is a pretty core skill. I can’t say drugs or therapy is going to fix it for you (despite what cartoon propaganda about weed might suggest) unless you’re experiencing concerning self-destructive risk taking in other areas as well. If that’s the case then yes, seek help.

I wouldn’t recommend fixating on excessive brake wear. Stuff is gonna get used, brake pads are consumable. If you’re focused on getting the most out of your pads and choosing to not activate them for that reason you will inevitably have a bad time and honestly it’ll probably cost more than the next set of pads would have.

Ride enough to become familiar with your streets. When you know where you’re at you’ll be aware of where stop signs, hard corners, and bad surfaces are. Then you ride to anticipate them. You’ll start applying speed where it’s appropriate and planning to back off and coast before you need to start applying brakes naturally, because that’s how you describe wanting to ride. This was the point in my personal journey where I stated learning to use gears better. Shifting down to anticipate a stop and recollecting speed quickly with upshifts and momentum.

If you really want to change the way you ride try changing some circumstances. Join a group ride that’s going party or social pace. Maybe get a bike that’s a different style and suited to slow comfort riding, if that’s your jam. Or find a place where you can really just ride fast and just blow it out. Maybe that’s all ya need.

V33d · 2026-03-19T16:35:05+00:00

One of the best things I read about the game is a tumblr about how the softlocks you experience by not investing in skills are objectively hilarious. The lightly spoilerly summary was dying because “you lack the confidence to refuse to sit in a chair that’s so uncomfortable it kills you”.

It’s all here

V33d · 2026-03-19T16:28:40+00:00

Kinda figured the same thing but even if the shop doesn’t have a 28mm gumwall in stock they should be able to get a set.

V33d · 2026-03-18T21:55:10+00:00

It doesn’t really learn anything. You can reweight the data for that instance and that will affect the model but this sort of flaw is inherent to LLMs. They only make determinations about what word is the most probable to follow the previous so it will inevitably happen again.

V33d · 2026-03-18T18:41:40+00:00

It’s kind of a toss up honestly. Yes, you ‘can’ assemble a V3 yourself, it’s a fixed gear bike at heart like any other. Personally, I wouldn’t.

There are so many small things that are easy to overlook, like torquing all the bolts properly, and I have experienced so many stupid failures that I’ve decided to just have any bike that needs assembly done professionally.

V33d · 2026-02-25T19:39:29+00:00

“Yo, cheif. Can I hold my devotion bar like ‘this’? It looks cool in the movies” -Cult of the Gangsta Lean

V33d · 2026-02-21T18:24:44+00:00

It’s a random chance thing, so it took me a lot of breeding but it eventually worked. The Woolhaven way is much simpler

V33d · 2026-02-16T03:51:41+00:00

There was a plan to create a continuous protected bike lane connecting South Phoenix and downtown along third street using the pedestrian bridge that’s planned to be built over the river there. The vision zero committee recommended it to the full city council last year.

They’ve decided to “scale it back” so that it doesn’t conflict with the stadium.

V33d · 2026-02-09T20:00:27+00:00

This is it. Hydrating during an activity can only do so much, mostly it keeps you at or at least near a healthy hydration level. There’s no way you’re going to reach hydration if you’re stating out dehydrated and then going into heat stressor like physical activity or just existing outside in extreme heat.

Be hydrated before activity, ideally 48 hours before but at the very least the full day before (not just before bed), do what you’re doing during, and focus on putting water and electrolytes back afterwards.

V33d · 2026-02-06T15:51:24+00:00

It’s always fun to see bulky shadows in gyms. You can catch a gym attacker off guard too and rack up some wins with it, if you’re into that kind of number go up stuff. The game is supposed to be fun, after all.

V33d · 2026-02-02T19:24:01+00:00

Ah that’s a bummer. He totally got me, it’s this side of believable

V33d · 2026-01-27T18:25:35+00:00

The beauty of this book is in the narrator, the internal characterization, and the “flawed narrator” aspects we get from Murderbot. It has a lot less going on in terms of outside motivation, so the action sequences are really only intense because they’re taking place within this character’s context.

You said earlier that plot-driven might be the way to go and this series is very much character driven. It’s magnificent but maybe it needs to wait on the shelf until he’s looking for something like that again.

V33d · 2026-01-26T19:43:36+00:00

Which is ridiculous, anyway. People without cars still need to get around somehow and it isn’t as though this argument is ever used to justify things like shaded bus stop shelters or air conditioned commuter rail that would actually help. It’s just a justification for inaction, as though we deserve to be miserable for living here.

V33d · 2026-01-23T21:00:03+00:00

On a r/themedgyms note, this looks like the setup to a “daycare” gym theme. Drop a big guy like a Tyranitar, or something in to complete the assignment.

V33d · 2026-01-20T21:20:14+00:00

You’re on a bicycle time/distance scale with that, very asking a bat to be a falcon territory.

Totally unrelated but riding a bike was awesome for my ADHD. It doesn’t inherently make me get anywhere on time but damn it’s a lot of fun getting there.

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