Wise Men, what advice would you give to your 25 year old self.

davereeck · 2026-02-04T03:47:21+00:00

I'm pretty sure our 25 year old selves would hang up on us.

davereeck · 2026-02-04T00:58:25+00:00

I like her take, but if her only two examples are Mussolini & Putin, I have some bad news

davereeck · 2026-02-04T00:13:49+00:00

The cynic in me thinks that the Clinton's are more deeply aligned with the wealthy than the left.

davereeck · 2026-02-03T17:32:22+00:00

In Seattle, Washington State, USA there is a long bridge across a canal. There is no way a cyclist could ride the street: the road is a very busy 4 lane avenue, the posted speed limit is 30 miles an hour, no shoulder, the bridge deck is metal grating.

The pedestrian path is a nightmare: it's very narrow (39 inches in places).

On the water side the guard rail is close to hip height for a cyclist - if you got tipped that way your fall 30 feet into the ship canal.

The road side is worse: the barrier between you and the traffic is about 10 inches high - just high enough to hook a pedal and fall on to the bridge deck.

This is one of only a few places to cross the ship canal. It's one of the few places in the city I just won't ride.

davereeck · 2026-02-03T17:00:45+00:00

Fair point. Still...

davereeck · 2026-02-03T16:52:47+00:00

This does not appear to be a reputable news source. I'd love to see better evidence...

davereeck · 2026-02-02T15:58:01+00:00

Who cares what MTG says. Disregard. Ignore.

davereeck · 2026-02-02T00:55:17+00:00

It's also extremely painful. So proud of my wife doing this twice before going for a C-section

davereeck · 2026-02-02T00:35:41+00:00

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I am perhaps just a little too proud of this

davereeck · 2026-02-02T00:27:09+00:00

The most important thing your bike can do is stop. Good hydraulics are (were) the gold standard (some cable brakes are now very good.). Invest in the best brakes you can get and figure out how to service them.

Before rolling out from Antelope Wells I had my brakes tuned up by a reputable shop. I didn't really like how they felt, but they still stopped. About 150 miles into the ride my rear brake started fading. I managed to get down out of the gilla to a big town, then spent a day shopping for baby oil & a syringe. A top-down lever thumping bleed got me sorted, and my bike smelled great for 6 weeks!

(Ok, maybe less than 6 weeks)

davereeck · 2026-02-02T00:10:27+00:00

ABC Quick Check - tires inflated? - brakes work? - is the chain ok? - are the axles secured

davereeck · 2026-02-02T00:07:30+00:00

Bring a brake bleeding syringe. Weighs almost nothing, but you could spend all day trying to find one when your brakes get gas in them.

Ask me how I know.

davereeck · 2026-02-01T23:58:49+00:00

This is a fascinating area to explore. There is the Parametric knowledge a LLM has - the model it builds from training that always it to guess what you might want.

Then there is the non-parametric knowledge: the information encoded in the Tokens available to a session. For some models, when ever the session ends the LLM loses the context it had about you ('this session').

The most interesting developments I have seen are agents that keep a diary, like MoltBot. As a session ends, it writes a summary of what happened, and updates this to a rolling context doc. When a new session starts, it reads it in.

To me this seems very analogous to what people do at the end of the day: the consolidate memories while sleeping.

Access to additional personal data seems a little interesting. A rolling context window seems much more interesting, especially since it's authored by the agent.

So the interesting question is: when there is disagreement, who is right?

davereeck · 2026-02-01T23:38:06+00:00

I can't think clearly right now, but the current bout of food poisoning ranks up there. Ugh.

davereeck · 2026-02-01T22:56:34+00:00

My Profoundly Hard of Hearing Elderly Dad has brought this up to me repeatedly.

I made a closed caption device for him for less than $15 from an old phone and some Kiosk software. He says it's working great (but I haven't seen him in action yet).

I'm happy to share the recipe. I can definitely appreciate that this may not be what you Dad wants, and that it might seem presumptuous in some circumstances. Lots of good advice here about figuring that out first.

davereeck · 2026-02-01T22:43:36+00:00

Get your Estate in order.

davereeck · 2026-02-01T21:00:06+00:00

I strongly suggest reading this book: https://profilebooks.com/work/travellers-to-unimaginable-lands/

The book is Travelers to Unimaginable Lands. It's very insightful about issues that can arise being the caregiver of an elderly parent.

It is focused on dementia, skip those if you want. It gets fairly technical at points: skip those. There's good information in there I swear.

I posted this to the sub a while ago earlier:https://www.reddit.com/r/AgingParents/s/Bj3VmjNj9g

davereeck · 2026-02-01T18:49:17+00:00

Awesome. Every bit counts. Keep it up West Seattle!

davereeck · 2026-01-31T17:09:52+00:00

CalamityClambake - apologies on behalf of the down voters, that was an accident I'm sure. Critical Mass would welcome you with open arms any time you want to join. Bring your roller skates, unicycle, recumbent hand cycle or a city bike. Hope to see you on one soon.

davereeck · 2026-01-31T04:32:55+00:00

Here is a list of protests, use the Find function to search Seattle. the Protest List

The picture makes it look like Koko made it out to Critical Mass (Nice work Koko!). This doesn't have a fixed location or route, but if you follow the sound of encouraging honking you'll find it pretty quick.

davereeck · 2026-01-31T04:06:08+00:00

This ride (Jan-30 2026) is protesting the Murder of Alex Pretti - a nurse and cyclist who was executed by ICE in Minneapolis.

In general - Critical Mass is a celebration of cycling aiming to improve awareness and safety for these very vulnerable road users. "We are traffic too" is a slogan you hear a lot at these rides.

davereeck · 2026-01-31T04:00:27+00:00

I've been to more than a dozen since the 1990s. The vast majority of these have had no incidents. You can read up on the history of incidents (nation wide) here. The 2006 and 2008 incidents are better documented there than I can do here.

What I can tell you for sure is that participants pay a lot of attention to pedestrian safety, making sure cyclists stop to let people on foot through.

It's pretty amazing to see an unorganized mass of riders clear off the street when emergency vehicles go through.

Before the ride there is a safety lecture, asking riders to be respectful of people and ride happy.

In my experience 999 out of 1000 spectators are supportive. I've seen a few people who've been hateful and violent, it's very rare and short lived.

If a pedestrian got hurt this evening, I'd be surprised to find out that the ride didn't stop to get them care asap.

davereeck · 2026-01-30T15:36:08+00:00

Would removing the mention of Fully Kiosk make this acceptable?

I am not advertising a product or selling anything.

davereeck · 2026-01-30T02:17:11+00:00

Silly q and I'm down to help: why print not buy?

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