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The Star Trek Economy and the _Art_ of Engineering

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Update 08/11/2025: So, the bike this is for, according to some Googling this afternoon, is a 1995 Giant Sedona in their mid 1990s elegant "Green Olive" with gold lettering. I used to have a 1993 Iguana in the same colour but silver lettering. It's gorgeous in the light and so much of the times. I've also redesigned the disk brake bracket for sleeker lines, but I won't be ordering that print that until I'm sure the rough proto fits. Might even do the V. 2 print in titanium if it's not absurdly expensive. As an art project, largely to prove all the things I've been told about cycling are more often than not empty opinions (more on that stuff later) I'm deliberately engineering a classic 90s mountain bike into a modern "flyable" touring bike cum 1 "all terrain" bike. The frame is "too small" for me, at 40cm (16") but this is fixable with a riser bar, a long seatpost and shortish cranks. It has cantilever brake b...
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iOS 26 Has Ruined iPhone

Touch is broken, like seriously broken, touching the button onscreen, square in the middle, will lelect the button to the left. If that weren't trash enough, Liquid Glass toolbars hover over links and obscure stuff which, on short output dynamic pages, often makes progressing through some forms impossible. It's not as bad as Android yeat, but it's definitely #enshitification by Apple standards. Was thinking of a new iPhone 17 in the new year, it might be a new "dumb phone" instead.
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A Pain In The Neck

So, last week, I got the all clear to return to my Greenspeed after spinal surgery 6 weeks ago. Australian winter had begun reducing my riding, then surgery happened (laminectomy and fusion, C# and C4), then a known complication happened on my birthday, and passed the day after. And while I've been walking a lot, I haven't been able to lift the trike out of its storage location... the cycling equivalent of "There's dust on my guitar, you f***..." This week, I get back on the road, with 12 days to build for a 50km social ride with other trikies in and around Trisled's customer base. Not the first one I've wanted to do, but hopefully, the first I can actually get to. Also making Gippsland social rides more accessible, the Lovely Linda has a new car, so I have the old one. I well mannered glow plug turbo deisel Hyundai. Very torquey, very fuel efficient, barely large enough for a folded GT20, but it'll get me to the rides on time. I'd prefer an elec...
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5 Reasons Why (the United States of) America Can't Be Saved

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Yeah, look, sorry, this dude is right, but you can't fight capitalistic/militaristic colonialism with colonial language. It feeds Trump's fanbase. That said, with the bracketed correction to the title, every word this guy speaks is absolute truth. We can't save the world while capitalism has a chokehold. We can't save the world while while "Growth Fetish" fills our lives and nostrils with the fear of poverty. FOMO is a neurosis designed by capitalism. There is a need for all of us of middle class, working class or unemployed class to join the "Millenials" in their uprisings. A young woman, while still a literal child, Greta Thunberg, had more courage than any President or Prime Minister in the world today, and Greta, still, today a young woman, is inspiring her generation in places like Nepal or Morocco or Singapore. It's time to reverse history and follow young women instead of old men * , but yeah, The Capitalist States of the Americas cannot ...
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Building a Xmas List Where Nobody Will See It Until I Send It To Them

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One last crack at old school, as in really old school, film photography Lomo Mod No. 1 120 Film Camera - DIY from Ted's Cameras Plus... Ilford XP2 Ultra 400ISO, 120 format roll film Ilford FP4 Plus, 120 format roll film Ilford HPS+, 120 format roll film ...all from Ted's Cameras, as per this search. Also... "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies" ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky, Nate Soares (non-fiction)
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Fascists Can't Dance

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The Last Mixed Tape, a YouTube music production commentator has summed up the situation where forces of the right wing stea; and corrupt the arts and oppress those who express differently - Fascists can't dance. They can only steal, pervert and corrupt. Check out his video...
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A Bracket to Change the World

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Editors Update ~ 21 October, 2025 The brackets arrived, along with a lighter, redesigned version that was more art deco in look, with cylindrical fastening points and swept eliptical profiles for the risers from the fram mount up to the rack mounts. While more stylish, I suspect it might be a bit underated, structurally, although it does look beautifully like a classic, early 20th, industrial piece, almost like a high quality, "iron" casting! So, it may find its way onto a commuter bike project I have in mind, where it won't be loaded to the degree my trike is. I may be being precious, choosing the flat bracket, because they're both really quite incredibly strong, but a luggage rack break could seriously damage the Greenspeed, where a commuter bike isn't likely to be loaded as heavily. I've known about JLC3DP's short run printing services for a while but, until recently, hadn't had the right project for them. They do steel and and titanium selective...
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