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<p align="right"><font size="6">[[Transition|<font face="Consolas, Courier new">claytoncastle.com</font>  •  T R A N S I T I O N]]</font></p>
<p align="right"><font size="6">[[Transition|<font face="Consolas, Courier new">claytoncastle.com</font>  •  T R A N S I T I O N]]</font></p>
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=[[2021.03.05 E-Bike Babbling]]=
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BEHOLD!  The (tentatively titled) VANTACULUS Splinter Van!
Reactions to this vehicle usually fall into two basic categories: "AWWW!" and "What the hell?"
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Revision as of 03:55, 17 March 2021

claytoncastle.com • T R A N S I T I O N



2021.03.05 E-Bike Babbling

3A4BC9E0.jpeg

BEHOLD! The (tentatively titled) VANTACULUS Splinter Van!

Reactions to this vehicle usually fall into two basic categories: "AWWW!" and "What the hell?"


2021.03.05 E-Bike Babbling

IMG_3481.jpeg

So, way back before the pandemic, I rode some e-bikes. I've been curious about electric motor assisted mountain bikes for a while. That interest, to be clear, is because I spend most of my time riding with people who are both more skilled than I am and in better physical condition. There had been a running joke that I was "allowed" to get an e-bike when I turned 50 - or if I had some permanent ride-impairing injury.

The concept of it being allowable itself come from some stigma that e-bikes have in the mountain biking community. And I myself had some doubts about whether I should give up the level of effort typically required, for fitness sake. The way in which I too-often was over-tired grinding up the hill so that I was unable to ride down technical trails cleanly, at least not without an extended period of gasping and draped limply against a tree. So, the allure, while obvious, has for a while been greater for me than many of my decades-younger-than-I riding crew.

The first test ride was an eye-opening revelation full of giggling, and deeply planted seeds of desire.

A second test ride was a more focussed investigation of capabilities, and a goddamn handful of nails in the coffin of my reluctance.

Part of the confluence or capability and desire is my riding style, which I sometimes refer to as "aggressively mediocre" and "old man fast". My riding lacks much finesse, so I have gradually leaned towards the full-enduro end of the bike spectrum in order to get enough plushness and stability to accommodate my need for speed and inability to avoid rocks. So not only does the thrust assist help my increasingly feeble ability to climb, but the extra heft of e-bikes doesn't significantly impair any light poppy skillful line choices.

As a tangent - I have a wee rant about the Specialized Level SL. It's a low-power small-battery e-bike that is an attempt to be as much like an acoustic trail bike as possible. It's awful. If you really want to have a light, playful bike to float down trails... yeah, no. It's still has a motor and batteries. But that motor and battery are incapable of creating the same quality of giggles, and of annoying less quantity.

Bada-bing bada-boom - I became the proud owner of the Commencal Meta Power pictured above. More, and more specific, riding impressions to come. Hopefully soonish.


2021.01.27 Clearly Not Doing This Right

The whole point of being all reclusive for the pandemic is to have to find things to do while stuck at home. Which in my case should have involved a fuck tonne of writing and drawing.

NOPE.

My life is pretty full, though, with working from home and having the homeschooling kids during most of the weekdays. Any time not spent productively being an engineer or parent I while away being a boyfriend. And I cherish this time, even though there's not much to mark it by.

Life is good.



2020.11.27 "Come on guys, it's OK."

"Come on guys, it's OK."

A terrible idea occurs to me as I listen to the professional goon begging in the airlock. It is most definitely not OK, and I repress a grin as I slip out my tool kit.

There's a reedy inflection in comm that I'm not sure is accurate or affectation. "You sure didn't look like things were OK back there."

You could almost hear the goon's shoulder's slump. "Yeah, it was pretty tense."

"You're, ah, looking pretty zarking unscathed. You know. Considering."

"...Yeah. I don't know how I'm not dead."

This pause in the conversation sure sounds like other people conversing off-circuit. I wonder if it's accessible...

"Guys....?" Ooop, sounds like the goon is thinking the same thing as me.

"Just hang on a moment, Garvek." Ah, goon's name is Garvek. Or, at least that's what the reedy-voice being calls the goon. Might not be a reliable source.

"Not to be too pushy, guys, but I think we should get out of here before my luck catches up with us."

Oh, I think they're over there...

"...and it's bad for recruiting if we just ditch a crewman." Don't recognize that voice.

"Recruiting? Are you zarking with me? Potential security personnel on another planet aren't going to give a flying zark about what happened to this idiot." Well, at least reedy-voice is just as unpleasant with others, and not just poor Garvek.

"For any old lump of cannon-fodder while we're still making a name for ourselves, sure. But once we start needing really top-notch people, this sort of shit will stain us for a long-ass time to come." Hm. I think I like this guy.

"Shut the zark up, Krunks." Ouch. Someone knows they're wrong. Wonder if Krunks is going to stuff a fistful of righteous insight down Reedy-Voice's throat...

"As you wish, captain." Disappointing, but I guess I don't know the circumstances here.

"Orders?" That's a third voice, reptilian, who sounds like they were having trouble with the awkward pause.

"Gah! Let the impossibly-lucky goon in."

There might have been a grunting noise, but immediately afterwards we can feel and hear the heavy ship bulkhead door cycle. I wish we could get a peek into that big central corridor...

...in process...


2020.11.27 Time Machine

Hello future-Simon and future-Violet when you're (a bit) older and reading stuff your dad wrote to find out what he was like outside of the interactions that formed your memories.

Well, life is really fucking¹ good, honestly. It's horrific to think that maybe it takes 9 months of hiding during a pandemic and almost 4 years of racist/fascist Tumpocalypse to really appreciate where I am and what I have. I like to think I would be thankful anyway, because I'm insightful and zen... but whatever.

Being able to hole up with you two for homeschooling in our airy little condo is just fantastic. I love this time with you, and will cherish it always. You are both adapting and overcoming this strange time better than I could possibly have hoped.

Hearing you giggle while you melt your brains with youtube videos is one of my favourite sounds ever. Having you joining Amy, my Vampire Queen girlfriend in her anti-running rebellion was also amusing, but going for our group PE runs feeds my soul. And the best part of getting a robotic vacuum wasn't the automatic floor cleaning, but sharing your delight with watching it charge slowly about and piling your stuffed toys on it.

I've just gotten a new mountain bike, this time with an electric motor. Which I'm looking forward to using to tow Simon on his mountain bike up the hill once the weather gets nicer.

Oh, and the hilariously annoying VAN, Volkswagen, snotty Volkswagen, and I-can't-believe-it's-not-a-van game everywhere we go these days.

And it's so fun for me to watch the new episodes of The Mandalorian with you. You both make great little nerds.

You probably saw bits of my work during this time, and mostly just saw me as being stressed by it. Especially all the meetings. But you should also know that I really love developing all these new truck systems and mentoring new engineers. Plus also helping out with the new electric trucks, and the autonomous truck project. Being fulfilled by work is a satisfaction that I hope I can model for you well, so that you can find it for yourselves.





¹ Yeah, you probably remember that your dad swore a fair amount. But he liked to think it was just nicely seasoned for emphasis, even though you thought it was too much at the time.


2020.11.13 United States of Assholes

The deep and profound relief at the (eventual) election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris is thankfully still salving the past four years of horror. Emotional, philosophical, spiritual, pragmatic utilitarian horror. But the gestalt horror is not forgotten. And, worse, the visceral terror of the implications of the numbers of the election cannot be un-discovered.

People looking at the title of this post might be triggered, classifying this as just more of Clayton's typical pro-Canada elitism finding an opportunity to gloat. And it's a fair comment. But the United States really is magnificent, and Portland in particular is full of all kinds of awesome. I've been here for almost 2 decades now, and have a lot of important roots, and that deepens how significant what goes on in the US is to me.

With that in mind, the fact that about 70 million people voted for Donald Trump in 2020 is... sad.

Even acknowledging the extreme polarization, it still means that almost twice the population of Canada worth of people were willing to at least "put up with" a fascist racist lying failure of a president. And why would they do this? Well, last month I speculated that it functionally makes them bad people - but virtually nobody does anything with the specific intent to be bad people (Mitch McConnell excepted).

I think the reason comes down to how the US is systemically structured to facilitate assholes.

It has gotten better over the centuries, but fundamentally it's still about harnessing the power of assholes. It's not that everyone in the US is an asshole, or that only assholes thrive. It's more that being an asshole is a distinct advantage in most aspects of living in the US. And even further, the pitting of people's stoked avarice against each other allows for considerable achievements. It just so happens that those achievements are usually at considerable human expense. This every-asshole-for-themself individualism was key for expanding through a wild continent. But it is now very much out of step for the interests of living with ourselves in civilization.

The divide politically is most obviously displayed with the geographical results - urban versus rural. Many of the conservative people I know all have worries about reality where the only solution they can conceive of is raw independent self-sufficiency. Even when I snarkily suggest adjusting shared societal factors to eradicate the selfsame problems. However they insist such ideas are impossible - because there are too many assholes. Which, inevitably, means that they have to pre-asshole to out-asshole the hypothetical assholes.

The trouble with assholes, aside from the inherent assholery, is the tendency to assume that everyone else is an asshole too. Perhaps more than just a tendency for some, but a full blown paranoia that the world is stuffed full of dicks out to fuck the unwary. This causes them to forgive all sorts of crazy shit for the purpose of supporting political forces they think will be the right kind of assholery.


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Some people need to find the edges of things, instead of assuming what they might be. I like your style.