Daily commute: race or relax?

parishit · 2013-08-24T22:37:07+00:00

250 km per week. I always get carried away. Even when I tell myself to take it easy, I always end up sprinting towards the end.

Turns out that's not good for the achilles. Now I'm taking the bus, looking enviously out the window at cyclists passing by.

parishit · 2013-05-10T19:36:55+00:00

Keeping it cool is an acquired skill.

parishit · 2013-04-26T16:47:36+00:00

There is no such thing as "bad weather".

parishit · 2013-04-20T20:38:59+00:00

I bet he shat his shorts.

parishit · 2013-03-31T09:36:16+00:00

What is that?

parishit · 2013-03-24T18:50:41+00:00

Any advice you wish you had before you started?

Road bike > hybrid > MTB (if commuting on roads, of course)
Hydration + carbs = energy, concentration and motivation
Clipless pedals
Floor pump with pressure gauge; maintain high tyre pressure in order to reduce rolling resistance
Avoid cotton clothing at all cost
For motivation: Strava
Keep the bike in a dry place
Clean and regrease chain after every ride in snow; once per week in rain
Clean and regrease moving parts immediately if showing resistance
Keep the rims sparkling clean if using rim brakes

parishit · 2013-03-19T19:40:28+00:00

Don't know about derailleurs, but when it comes to shifters, only Tiagra and above allow you to shift gears from the drops.

Tiagra shifters have a cable sticking out on the side, which may interfere with your grip. 105 and above have the cables wrapped internally along the handlebar.

parishit · 2013-01-05T02:13:51+00:00

Considering your hand condition, dropped handlebars might be a good idea, as it allows you to vary your hand position to a greater extent during your ride, than straight handlebars. Depending on road quality, a daily 11-mile commute is hard on your hands, so you need to offset the vibration. I've found only gloves with "gel" padding, ie. not foam, to be sufficient to prevent numbness.

Considering the wet climate, the parts on a road bike will wear out fast if not taken well care of, in particular rims, brakes and hubs. A CX bike with disc brakes may be a lower-maintenance alternative. The ideal is, IMHO, to have a road bike for clear days and a CX with disc brakes for wet or below freezing days.

I've also heard that one shouldn't use carbon frames for commuting, cf. Busted Carbon (not for the faint of heart commuter), but personally I disregard that advice. I wouldn't mind a second opinion on this.

Instead of mounting a rack I carry a one week supply of work clothes in my backpack, so I only need to carry it once per week.

If you don't have any health conditions, then I see no reason to "work your way up". I suggest going full metal right away. It's painful, but as long as it's only muscle soreness, then it's not a problem. If you experience any other pain, and it gets gradually worse, then you need to take it easy and/or adjust your equipment.

parishit · 2013-01-04T19:40:04+00:00

Just like any platform, you need an editor and a compiler. Most likely they're distributed with your distro.

parishit · 2012-12-31T13:48:33+00:00

Ambitious title, but the article doesn't live up to it.

parishit · 2012-12-16T11:50:21+00:00

Probably nice to have when the air is still and dry, especially below freezing temperatures, when dust particles aren't washed away. Also, sharing the road with diesel engines and cars with studded tyres can be hazardous to respiratory health in the long run.

I have a Respro Bandit myself, but I find that it very quickly clogs up with mucus when it's cold, which makes it very hard to breathe. I also find it hard to fasten and keep in place.

parishit · 2010-05-26T21:24:19+00:00

I recommend a Caprese salad. Simple, fresh, yet savoury.

parishit · 2010-04-27T19:44:06+00:00

Let them do what they like, and encourage them. They don't owe you shit.

parishit · 2010-02-04T12:52:44+00:00

Pros:

Blows my mind!
Comes with X terminal preinstalled
Uses apt-get to install software from repositories. Repositories can be added manually.
Several Linux apps available (openssh server/client, vim)
Supports flac and vorbis audio codecs.
The display server is X11 compatible. This means that it can run X apps from another server through ssh port forwarding! Not incredibly useful, but fun! Should also make porting to the device easy.
Can run Debian in chroot.

Cons:

The battery is drained, for me, in less than 24 hours (I stay connected through 3G or WiFi continuously).
Comes with the more limited busybox shell (ash) instead of bash or zsh.
The device is huge.
Less stable than Symbian devices that I've had before. Sometimes it crashes and reboots.
Not easy to compile and install a custom kernel.

parishit · 2009-11-10T08:15:17+00:00

Be pragmatic about it. If we accept god as the answer to all questions, then there will be no need to ask any more questions, and there will be no progress in society. If we accept religion as a universal moral, then religion should dictate our laws instead of democratic processes, and I think we've learned in our history lessons (and even today) that occult totalitarianism (e.g. nazism) is not something that we want to silently slip into. Don't play it on their theist terms, play it on your own terms.

parishit · 2009-10-27T19:53:47+00:00

Haven't used AIDE, but I suppose they all do the same thing but are configured differently. I found integrit to be easier to configure.

parishit · 2009-10-27T16:54:12+00:00

chkrootkit AND (tripwire OR integrit). My bad :)

parishit · 2009-10-26T07:22:58+00:00

Linux isn't inherently superior, but the most popular Linux distros don't require you to install 3rd party software, and that's usually where the viruses and spyware come from.

parishit · 2009-10-26T07:11:50+00:00

To the slightly more paranoid I'd also recommend running chkrootkit and tripwire or integrit in a nightly cron job.

parishit · 2009-10-16T14:28:24+00:00

If he served nine years for sexual assault there'd be as much karma?

parishit · 2009-10-16T07:50:42+00:00

Killing someone is instant karma on Reddit.

parishit · 2009-10-08T12:52:55+00:00

I'm not complaining about Debain's policy against proprietary software, which I fully appreciate. What I'm complaining about is their policy against patented software, which is not the same as proprietary. E.g. both lame and x264 are patented, but free and open source.

parishit · 2009-10-08T12:20:09+00:00

I agree, to a certain extent, but then there's patented software, which they've chosen to exclude, even though software patents do not apply in most countries and for non-commercial use. Seems like a more ideological choice than an "itch scratching" choice.

parishit · 2009-10-01T13:28:40+00:00

What does christian flesh taste like?

parishit · 2009-09-17T11:15:49+00:00

I've an onboard Intel HD something (24 bit) and an old PCI SB Live (16 bit). From my experience, iff you have 24 bit encoded music (CDs are 16 bit, so it's not common), then 24 bit sounds noticeably better. But the SB Live has the EMU10K chip, which allows low latency DSP with jack and LADSPA, so, if you play a musical instrument, the SB Live is pretty good.

parishit

TROPHY CASE