i use jmp.chat and love it but be aware that they have a list of banned words, and any outgoing sms (meaning that you send out, incoming messages aren't blocked) containing the banned words will be blocked.
vomitaur
joined 11 months ago
the children STILL AWAKE running around upstairs
there are a few cycling helmets that have magnetic visors. Mine is a Rock Bros, and I have a darkened visor for daytime use, and a yellow visor for nighttime (the helmet came with a clear visor). It's done just fine in snow and medium-heavy rain, but I have worried about it in very heavy rain.
I also have a pair of goggles made for motorcycling that are made specifically for wet conditions - there's a foam gasket around the visor and air vents on the bottom. They're also large enough to wear sunglasses or prescription glasses underneath. I think they were about $30 on ebay a few years back, and looking now, similar items are pretty common.
geet a couple of dry sacks too. Those are the waterproof bags that the open end rolls up and clips shut. I keep spare clothes in a smallish 2L dry sack on my bike.
as an ex-IT currently working at Lowes, they don't really give a shit about your qualifications, and probably won't even ask. passing the drug test and background check is about the only qualifications that matter to them.
I commute every other week (I still use a car for the weeks i have my child with me, though the plan is to go 100% car free soonish). I've been using both my ebike and an old mountain bike. The last week I rode was about -2C, on this coming monday it's projected to be -10C. My commute to work is at 4:00 AM, and I return at 2:00 PM. So, it's dark in the mornings.
For the bikes, I use my mountain bike exclusively when there's snow or ice. I've got studded tires on it, and it's slow enough to not make it sketchy if I hit a patch of ice and need to stop. My ebike is a small frame cargo bike with 20" x 3" tires and I have a set of home-made studded tires (with screws) but I haven't installed them yet, so I'm using the ebike only on dry days. Aside from the tires, I have a pair of bar mitts I use on both bikes.
For clothing: I have a skull cap to block the wind that I wear under my helmet, and a neck gaiter to cover my lower face (my helmet is the kind with magnetic visor on it, absolutely a game changer in the cold). Regular clothes, including jeans and on the coldest days I add a base layer under my jeans and that cuts out the wind. I have a cycling jacket and a pair of insulated gloves (in addition to the bar mitts). I keep a wool sweater and spare work clothes in a dry sack on my rear rack. My cycling jacket seems thin, but when you're pedalling (even with an ebike) it's plenty warm enough because it blocks the wind. I still get sweaty on sub-zero days.
Regarding the ebike: i only really use it on the lowest pedal assist level. Maybe bumping it up for a left-hand turn at an intersection, or when I'm crossing the major highway when there's traffic during the day. Though I'm commuting, the journey is part of the enjoyment for me, there's no damn point to blaze down the street the fastest i can go. So far, the battery has held up really well in the coldest days, though I will keep it fully charged in the winter since everyone says higher charge levels keep it healthier in the cold. In the summer it needs to be charged once a week.
I've yet to experience riding DURING the snow, I've been really lucky. 100% of my commute is on roads with no sidewalks, most of it is a state highway, and I'm dreading the day we get a major storm as I'm not likely to have enough of the shoulder cleared of snow to safely travel alongside cars/trucks. But, that's a wait-and-see scenario.
I get the impression you're not commuting so I realize only some of my details are relevant to you, but I figured oversharing in this case might be more helpful than otherwise.
I'd highly recommend staying active on your bike over the winter, there are so many reasons why it's a good idea, and the preparation you need to keep cycling through the cold really isn't that much.
funded quick because of an absurdly low funding goal coupled with a high entry price point, and somewhat deceptive marketing.
blitzkrieg bop by the ramones
we can leave your friends behind!
it's plenty fast. i have a usb-attached nvme for the stuff i download to watch that I don't intend to keep, and my main collection on a separate NAS. the microsd I run coreelec from is a samsung evo, i think it's an A2 and it's plenty fast. I haven't installed coreelec to the emmc because i'm running nightly so it's a decent fallback when CE breaks which does happen once every few months - and allows me to easily make a backup using dd.
there was an issue with x265 playback being out of sync slightly (which could be remedied by seeking back or forwards one step, i used to just do it at the beginning of playback), which persisted for more than a year, but that was resolved about two weeks back, so aside from the occasional av1 issues, I'd consider the X4Q+ the best CE device i've ever tested. i had also used one of the homatics boxes that CE supports, but gave it to a friend.
One more note, I have this connected through an hdmi switch (that's shared with a steam deck and a ps5) to a usb-powered 4k hdr display. CEC works fine, passthrough audio works fine, color depth displays exactly, it's just a butter smooth experience.
i'm no ugoos evangelist, but the hardware is really solid and fairly cheap and hasn't failed me yet. i've been running this setup for about 2 years (iirc) and probably won't be needing to upgrade for a while.
edit: for clarification on speed and image caching, my library has roughly 1600 movies, 140 shows with about 5200 episodes, and everything is scraped. there's never any image loading issues like there is on slower hardware like the rpi and odroid.
+1 for Ugoos. I use an X4Q Plus, which has av1 support, but other than that I did the same setup: coreelec nightly (I like living on the edge). I have a complicated setup due to my networking paranoia and coreelec handles that without issue. I loaded coreelec onto a micro-sd but haven't used the default android that it came with since day one.
My only real complaint is that SOME av1 files have playback issues, and some play flawlessly. I'm no expert so I haven't any way to figure it out, and I've been too intimidated by the community to try to seek help or report a bug.
That being said, av1 isn't meant to be an archival format and realistically only excels at network streaming, so it's better to look for x265/hevc content rather than av1 if all you're doing is playing locally (or even playing from a NAS on your local network). and, of course, x264 is still pretty much the standard, with the downside being higher filesizes for the same level of quality.
someone the other day posted a link to CT Fletcher talking about willpower and in that video he says something that resonates with me here (and I'm paraphrasing): when you do your best, it's never a failure, it's a victory. because you did your best. that you didn't achieve some (possibly unattainable) goal is irrelevant, because the success is determined by the efforts you made. (and there are MANY ways to interpret those wise words and make them applicable to yourself).
as a single father, i'm constantly struggling with similar thoughts you describe. I often feel like i'm struggling to just survive. but when I see that my kid is happy, and that he's following my advice (like: 'never be afraid to speak your mind' and 'cleaning your room makes your life better', etc) and I realize that yeah I'm absolutely doing the best for him that I can, then the whole rest of this shit sandwich doesn't suck so bad.
there are many measures of wealth, and only ONE of them is by how many dollars are in your pocket. collect those smiles and those 'i love you, dad' and they'll keep you going when money won't.
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that's some typeface, i'm sure of it because each letter is identical.