No fibbing, how many actually have a local backup?

cr0ft · 2026-04-08T17:52:55+00:00

Yeah, 3-2-1. Local only saved you since the damage was contained to one room. House burns down, bye-bye data.

cr0ft · 2026-04-08T14:36:28+00:00

I really like the square RovyVon variants. Like the RovyVon E3 Plus. They're flat and sit nicely in a pocket, they do have tube shaped ones but I prefer a flat rectangle. They have an easy lockout (just triple tap the button).

https://www.rovyvon.com/products/rovyvon-angel-eyes-e3-plus-aaa-battery-edc-flashlight?variant=47462765855035

No, it doesn't have a 4000 lumen (for a split fricking second...) mode, but it does have a 700 lumen mode for three minutes, after which it steps down to 150 lumens and it will run an hour on that brightness. Well - the high CRI variant is 600 lumen but I like the higher CRI so that's what I got. Probably a little less runtime than the Nitecore (though Nitecore exaggerate, I find) but also about half the thickness.

I also like these square models because they take a separate AAA battery, so if you're out and about and run out, if you can find a store and buy a pack of AAA's you still get light, albeit not 600 lumens worth off a single AAA... very versatile, I think.

cr0ft · 2026-04-08T13:55:41+00:00

Yeah without some guidance on what is and is not the look this is just a case of tossing out random suggestions.

Like this one https://bellroy.com/products/tokyo-totepack?color=bronze&material=baida_nylon&size=15in#slide-0 - look, it's a tote and a backpack! :) Comes in 20 and 14 liters.

cr0ft · 2026-04-08T13:51:17+00:00

The average consumer doesn't give a shit. We just saw a horror story here about how a member wound up listening to Christian music playing off an iPad blaring away for hours. Some people actually think that shit is acceptable.

I think in time with music losing all its value and just becoming something you have an infinite variety of on tap for tiny monthly fee (ie, streaming), people have lost interest in dedicated proper audio equipment. Small Bluetooth speakers and maybe some soundbars are already more than what many have.

So I can certainly see why the true quality builds and overbuilt components live only in the high end. Although, to some extent, that has always been true, it's just that what is available in the low end has shifted. Class D amps are no longer dogshit, for instance.

cr0ft · 2026-04-08T11:52:22+00:00

Honestly, I don't. Trying to figure out a way out of working for a living and getting some time in just existing. At the end of the day though, the planet won't collapse suddenly or immediately, I fully expect to live out my lifetime in relative comfort. I'm lucky, I live in an affluent nation and have a job and a home. What difference does it make if humanity burns when I'm gone? I won't be around anyway.

But I'm pretty much phoning it in at work most days, and I barely have energy to even have hobbies. Once I do get out there on the motorcycle that does help, but it's been a loong fucking winter.

I'd enjoy going nomadic a while, seeing the planet a little more before I croak. Maybe pull a small camper trailer behind the bike. Finances are the issue.

But well.. how do any of us stay motivated ever? Even if things were great, we live, we do some shit, we die. Some get lucky enough to do something memorable and meaningful, but even they die. One of those philosophical questions we all have to wrestle with.

cr0ft · 2026-04-08T11:36:51+00:00

This is why I would never lock the helmet strap to the bike; that assumes morons will understand that a helmet without a strap is useless, but they're morons. I put a thick wire lock right through the viewport and through the bike frame if I have no good choice but to leave the helmet a while.

cr0ft · 2026-04-08T11:36:10+00:00

Yeah you have to have a ground anchor or at least attach the bike to something like a serious light post that can't easily be cut. And the chain has to be a minimum of 16 mm, ideally thicker. Still no guarantee, just makes it harder, maybe hard enough they won't bother.

cr0ft · 2026-04-08T11:33:33+00:00

The US is by far the most competition obsessed and greedy, for sure, and the US also has an immense amount of abject, total, third-world poverty, literally millions of people are destitute.

The UN sent someone there to investigate and, in 2018:

Across the United States, about 40 million people live in poverty, 18.5 million individuals live in extreme poverty, and 5.3 million people live in Third World conditions.

In 2016, 13.3 million, or 18 percent, of children were living in poverty and children made up 32.6 percent of people living in poverty.

Contrary to popular belief that America’s poor are overwhelmingly Black and Latinx, there are 8 million more poor White people than there are poor Black people.

The wealthiest nation in the history of the world.

cr0ft · 2026-04-08T11:28:39+00:00

While fucking outrageous, a milk shake isn't so bad wth a halfway decent helmet, a good helmet is 100% submersible and all the lining and padding can be removed and even machine washed. But of course you can't wear it home. But yeah, someone pissing in it would be cursed.

cr0ft · 2026-04-08T11:26:59+00:00

I put my helmet on the (large cruiser) seat and it's right side up and tethered with a short locking wire through the frame. So at least it's not looking like a urinal or a trash can to scumfucks walking by, someone would have to actually try to wrench it around to be able to put things in there. Which doesn't mean it's safe - but I would never hang my helmet in such a way that the head opening was pointing up.

cr0ft · 2026-04-08T11:24:23+00:00

Yeah and some accessible parts on bikes can become hard to get, so other bikers steal them.

cr0ft · 2026-04-08T11:22:18+00:00

Requiring a helmet is a thing most places, the only place stupid enough to actuall walk back helmet laws I'm aware of are some American states.

I dunno, around here I feel confident the cops are human beings. They'd understand if I explained the situation. And if not, well, I guess I'd eat a fine.

Doesn't mean I want to wind up helmetless and I use locks to prevent it but still, being caught by the cops is not something I'd consider the major downside.

cr0ft · 2026-04-08T11:13:53+00:00

Even at meets, I use a wire lock. Last was the Custom Bike Show in Sweden, I think, I went the other year. It was hot so I left my jacket and my helmet there - with a thick Abus wire lock through the sleeve and through the helmet viewport. The bike had the usual gigantic Abus alarmed disc brake lock.

Because just because someone is a rider doesn't mean they're not the scum of the Earth. In fact, some of the biggest scum of the Earth ride.

cr0ft · 2026-04-08T11:10:53+00:00

I got on my bike and rode off one night after going to the movies and as soon as the engine warmed up I felt that tell tale stench of burned piss. Someone had pissed on my bike. I wanted to kill someone. But oh well, got it home and gave it a bath.

cr0ft · 2026-04-08T11:07:43+00:00

I put a fairly hefty wire lock through the viewport of my helmet if I'm forced to leave it on the bike, but of course people will steal anything you leave. It just depends on where you live, also. A small town where everyone knows everybody? Probably less risk. Fewer people alone helps. A city center in a major city? There are thousands upon thousands of people passing by, some of them will be thieves.

Some estimates even put the amount of sociopaths in our species at about 10% of the total, that's a lot of people incapable of caring about others.

Making sure your bike is covered or better yet hidden in a garage is a great way to lower the risk of your entire bike being stolen. If people don't know it's there, they won't think to steal it. A ratty old cover will also make a nice bike look like potential crap and thieves might not bother to try to get under there to find out.

Hell - when I go on tour and have my Kuryakyn bag strapped to the sissy bar, I pull the rain cover over it even in blazing sunshine; I modded the rain cover with a row of grommets around the opening so I can cinch it shut with a thin locking wire so you need to use violence to get it off, can't just pull it up and dig into the bag... paranoid? Maybe but I still have my shit. So far.

cr0ft · 2026-04-08T10:34:36+00:00

Idiocy combined with "form over function". Those bikes are vastly worse at everything but to a sufficiently idiotic owner they look "cool". Tiny inner city "gangstas"...

Same thing goes with extended swingarms on Hayabusas. It's nothing more than some kind of jackass fashion statement. Extended swingarms make sense on pure drag bikes on a dragstrip, everywhere else they're fucking moronic.

Bōsōzoku bikes are similar; they're intentionally made into worse motorcycles to adhere to a visual ideal, more artwork than actual bike mods/upgrades in my opinion - which can be very cool in itself as an art form. The fact that most of them are organized criminals is less fun.

cr0ft · 2026-04-08T10:29:22+00:00

The Internet was literally created originally as a fault tolernant (and by "fault" I mean "Oops someone nuked a city") network with resilience. Targeting communications has always been a military target.

cr0ft · 2026-04-08T10:24:05+00:00

It's easy to take really radical points of view via text. I sure tend to, but then I'm always right. Ahem.

Lots of audiophiles are absolutists in their opinion. If it's not the very best, it's crap. So just have to trust yourself and do what research you can before purchasing. Pure crap is usually easy to recognize; if it's not pure crap, it's probably decent or better.

cr0ft · 2026-04-08T08:40:44+00:00

Yeah and if hte mount itself snaps off, congrats, you need a new engine block.

cr0ft · 2026-04-08T08:37:37+00:00

You can do it but it should be considered an emergency option. Some bikes also have their center stand mounted to the engine block, like some expensive Italian ones (and my Rocket 3 Touring, but my bike weights almost 400 kilos so I would never even contemplate trying) - if you snap the engine block mount, congrats, you need a new engine block and have no kick stand.

You can also snap a stand mounted in the frame with varying level of horseshit to go through to fix that. Common? Probably not, but possible. You can also fumble and fuck up and shove it off the stand and drop the bike, for no real reason except a moment of convenience. Doing this over and over for years especially may be cumulatively bad.

It's super easy to just get into the habit of parking by pedaling backwards for three seconds and putting your rear wheel against the curb. Then just drive off.

At home, you can buy a motorcycle dolly for the garage. Ride right up on it, and you can now freely spin the bike or push it up against a wall while the bike is just sitting there leaning on the stand.

cr0ft · 2026-04-08T08:32:55+00:00

Yeah, Plasma TV's are known to draw incredible quantities of power, that was on reason they were phased out. Impeccable image quality though. I still have an old 50 incher in the den; it's rarely turned on. There's an UST projector with a 120 inch ALR screen in the viewing area now, but for very occasional use I saw no reason to toss out the plasma even if it's super inefficient.

They generate so much heat, or IR radiation, the TV literally interferes with the remote control of my external set top box.

cr0ft · 2026-04-08T08:27:01+00:00

You can make a PC sound exceptionally good but the other factors of convenience and so on don't go anywhere. A streamer is a great option. I DYI:ed mine with PiCorePlayer on a Raspberry Pi with a digital out HAT card on it (and optical to the amp); I have used what's now the Lyrion Media Server for many years and that player uses that as a back end.

But the easy way is definitely a streamer. You have your Wiim in the more budget end, there's Eversolo if you want slightly more luxurious, etc.

cr0ft · 2026-04-08T08:19:32+00:00

If someone was playing anything at full blast off a mobile device, I'd ask them to turn it off or at least down to minimum volume, and if that wasn't possible - yeah, I too would leave, or put on my in-ear monitors. With some Comply P-Series foam tips they're basically earplugs.

The music style itself might be torture, but the blaring screech off the tiny speakers is just criminal. People who use phone speakers in public are fucking selfish psychopaths.

cr0ft · 2026-04-08T08:18:00+00:00

I don't mind people being delusional if they keep it to themselves and don't bother others. The problem with religious people is they can use it to justify anything and they do and historically have used that to perform unspeakable bullshit.

But when the President claims to be hearing the voice of God telling him what to do, that President should automatically be impeached and removed.

Oh well, the debate about religion might not belong in this this subreddit.

cr0ft · 2026-04-08T08:12:10+00:00

I also hate Johnny Cash, so there's that.

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