7bicycles

joined 4 years ago
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Drama in the freemasons' subreddit in c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net
[–] 7bicycles@hexbear.net 30 points 10 hours ago

The Freemasons are functionally a country club and honestly they're pretty transparent about it all. Like not the internals, that's all chattenham house rules, but like you can just ask them about it

I think the only earnest political stance Zero Parades has is "Fukuyama has got it entirely wrong" in c/games@hexbear.net
[–] 7bicycles@hexbear.net 7 points 1 week ago

If DE hadn't existed this'd be a 9/10 game easily but as it stands that shadow looms over it at all times. It genuinely has its moments when it's not trying to be Disco Elysium but since it tries to do that a lot it runs into a lot of issues.

Take the aforementioned example: even the fact that Fukuyama has got it wrong isn't explored.

Spoiler for the worldbuilding and politics:

spoilerIn-Universe the End of History wasn't just Fukuyama thinking of it, it was straight up ratified internationally by the major global players. In the roughly 100 years since then La Luz, which didn't sign on because it was a geopolitical nonplayers nobody took seriously, has become a fascist empire that seems to want to take over the world and worse. It's them, your communist superbloc and then EMTERR - the Worldbank, IMF and CIA all rolled into one - that are now the major players.

Nowhere does the game ever interrogate why this was signed in the first place or how in the 100 years since then with a fascist empire building up for world domination that they have a reasonable chance of getting has thought to change anything about this. Your Statehood skill will occasionally chime in on this, but since it's basically one flat joke about FOLLOWING THE PARTY LINE AGAINST REACTIVE BOURGEOISIE NONSENSE that doesn't really tell you anything about it either.

I think the only earnest political stance Zero Parades has is "Fukuyama has got it entirely wrong" in c/games@hexbear.net
[–] 7bicycles@hexbear.net 5 points 1 week ago

This might be the influence but my read on it wasn't that they even tried to actually interrogate anything political seriously. It feels like there's politics in it because a discolike has gotta have the fascist, the communist, the centrist and the neollib (here combined with the ultraliberal) options to react to things and with little more understanding to it than as a sort of Fallout 3 esque moral system it becomes basically flavourtext, especially since nobody believes in anything anyways.

Spoiler for the spies and major story points:

spoilerBasically non of the spies you meet has any allegiance to anything resembling an ideology and will often flat out tell you this. But then most of them also hate spywork, they're not even thrill seekers or anything. The best motivation anyone has for getting (back) into it is Karoline, who wants to revenge murder fascists for torturing her which is understandable. The rest all seem to want to do suicide by cop and that's about it.

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I think the only earnest political stance Zero Parades has is "Fukuyama has got it entirely wrong" (hexbear.net)
 

Everything political in the game otherwise is ironic nihilism except for

spoilerHauzmann, who is an unironic nihilist and as such at least one of the funner characters, albeit not exactly interesting

Except of course at every opportunity everyone including your own thoughts and the narration keeps bringing up that the explicitly in-universe End of History is untenable bollocks. That's kind of a funny bone to pick.

Games you can play with just a mouse in c/games@hexbear.net
[–] 7bicycles@hexbear.net 1 points 1 week ago

I think Cloudpunk would be feasible with one hand, albeit more on the keyboard than the mouse. You drive a skytaxi through a cyberpunk city. The story is a 5/10 for a videogame but the vibes are cool, so maybe she'll be into it.

So how do you replace a station wagon in 2026 in c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net
[–] 7bicycles@hexbear.net 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

good call but personally, lacks the length of cargo space I require or if it does have that is way out of budget

So how do you replace a station wagon in 2026 in c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net
[–] 7bicycles@hexbear.net 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

If the frame rails aren't Swiss cheese, the engine is in good mechanical condition, and it isn't such an oddball model that parts are all but impossible to procure I'd be inclined to keep it running. Maintenance isn't a guaranteed monthly requirement, but a car payment is.

Oddball model, really. Parts are getting impossible to procure through official channels. I got a cool repair guy who says he'd do it if I bring them in but since cars aren't exactly my world that'd be a lot of time spent I'd rather spend doing something else, even if it costs.

I'd never finance a car anyways, which might be part of the problem, in a way? I'm looking for that ~5000€ station wagon where the AC knobs fall off, what do I care, that I then run for 10 years on basic maintenance until it ejects a piston through the hood. It's a utility machine for when I can't use my bicycle, but there don't seem to be many left of those.

Do manufacturers even make station wagons anymore?

This is in the EU so I guess they kept on with those for a good while after the US from what I understand. Hell, the Opel Astra Sports Tourer EV would be basically my perfect car if not for the fact that it's a new EV so it'd lose like 300€ of money every day it's parked in my driveway.

So how do you replace a station wagon in 2026 in c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net
[–] 7bicycles@hexbear.net 4 points 1 week ago

This is a good car no doubt, a friend of mine had one but at the same time I'm reasonably certain for the distances I need to haul shit I could fit whatever I could get into a Fit or Jazz into a cargobike + trailer. Plus sadly these aren't exactly common around here

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So how do you replace a station wagon in 2026 (hexbear.net)
 

I do most of my trips by bicycle obviously, but for anything requires hauling lots of shit or people I own like a 30 year old station wagon. It seems to be on its way out so I looked for a newer one and they either all suck or seem so clapped out I might aswell try to keep this baby going. Is that really the only options? Like I look at reasonably priced SUV and sure it seats five but the amount of cargo space available I might aswell buy 2 compacts and rip the seats out of one or whatever.

Also bonus questions what the fuck, does nobody use their cars for anything but personal transport and maybe some groceries anymore?

My car had a dent in the bumper too from backing up into a building, lmao in c/memes@hexbear.net
[–] 7bicycles@hexbear.net 11 points 1 week ago

I say again if I become dictator we're just revoking drivers licenses on this alone. Normalize learning how to fucking drive

Talk to me about proletarian (drip) coffee! in c/chat@hexbear.net
[–] 7bicycles@hexbear.net 13 points 1 week ago (4 children)

I wonder if the coffee back then was just less potent, kind of like with weed

Disco Elysium studio announces layoffs after new game flounders: ZA/UM says Zero Parades: For Dead Spies failed to perform commercially in c/games@hexbear.net
[–] 7bicycles@hexbear.net 5 points 1 week ago

that does make way morre sense

Disco Elysium studio announces layoffs after new game flounders: ZA/UM says Zero Parades: For Dead Spies failed to perform commercially in c/games@hexbear.net
[–] 7bicycles@hexbear.net 11 points 1 week ago

I disagree but for DE it's such a central theme to the game it's basically the bit of plotline that exists with only on options how to attempt it and not not do it. You could possibly argue the perpetuity of it - Harry used to be good as a cop - but then spy lady starts off a spy in ZP, she must've gotten there somehow.

Disco Elysium studio announces layoffs after new game flounders: ZA/UM says Zero Parades: For Dead Spies failed to perform commercially in c/games@hexbear.net
[–] 7bicycles@hexbear.net 33 points 1 week ago (6 children)

When it’s not trying too hard to retrace Disco Elysium’s signature, Zero Parades excels as a complicated story of a perpetual fuck-up desperately searching for redemption.

how is this not retracing disco elysium

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Updating some internet history: Derek Savage's Cool Cat has embraced the AI (hexbear.net)
 

Internet fame via the legendary YMS review https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C67thOEtVNQ

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Trump may pardon P.Diddy for the 250th (www.independent.co.uk)
 

the arc of US history is long and confusing but it apparently the inevitable end result is pardoning aremoved and honestly, yeah, probably

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Unusual Bicycles: Cargo Waggons / Riskha Bicycles (hexbear.net)
 

Pictured here is a Musketier Radkutsche because it's one you could buy as a consumer, everything else with this config or similar - i.e. space in the back - is mostly those last mile logistic cycles and you can only really get them on a B2B contract.

This here fits an euro pallette in the back and has about ~200kg give or take maximum cargo load given a rider on the heavier side. pricepoint is ~6000€ upwards on account of they hand make this in the south of germany because seemingly nobody wants to do a factory for cargo bikes.

Over the similar in idea longtail cargo bikes that are loads more common this has the upside of giving you a flat, stable base to work from so you can throw on a big box or a café or whatever, like this:

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admittedly this is bragging (hexbear.net)
 

did you know your run of the mill internal gear hub is only spec'd to 50nm? Gotta buy like a fucking Rohloff to get that up to 130nm. ride derailleurs if you want that fat ass

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Much to unpack here (hexbear.net)
 
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I was sober (hexbear.net)
 

If the reddit comments are to be believed: straight from the parking lot into the drink

I was sober except for the part where I maybe wasn't except in a legal sense and then on top of that suffered a bunch of other ailments that made me drive into a pond, over a curb and some other shit

On good will I hand it to this person that this sounds american-with-no-alternatives as fuck and they didn't frame it as a sort of passive "I got into an accident" but like still

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Another libertarian gotten by the bicycle, this one's sort of famous, too (hexbear.net)
 

Every 1 in 1,000 libertarians seems to realize bicycles are good even according to their principles and then you get a post like this.

If you don't know Hickman, I think he'd best be described as a sort of primitivist-nostalgic liberterian for settler times in the USA. To fulfill his dreams he moved out into the boonies of upstate new york and ever so often hates how it's full of uncultured swine, by his definition.

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Tandem (Hierarchical) (hexbear.net)
 
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It has been so long....I thought it was over....alas, the fixie riders have mounted their back-at-it-ing (hexbear.net)
 

I freely admit from an manufacturing perspective it is somewhat impressive

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Weird Bicycles: Velomobiles (hexbear.net)
 

Picture from the german wiki article

Being fast on a bicycle has a lot to do with aerodynamics so you go build an aero chassis around a recumbent and bam, fast as fuck boy.

If you do 200 Watts on a regular bicycle on a windless flat and a regular road, you're looking at going about 30kph. With this? 50kph. Obviously generalizing a lot here but you get the point.

They suck ass on hills though, because they weigh ~30kg with the chassis. not so much a problem in motion on the flat, kind of sucks uphill where aero doesn't matter. From my experience you don't see a lot of e-bike variants so far because with EU regulations the motor'd cut out at the speed you'd go for a leisurely ride on a normal bicycle, but maybe it'd be interesting to make them more hillclimbing capable.

Fun fact: in 1968 some dude did 100kph in this with by himself with no outside help.

Chassis are usually some sort carbon fibre or fiberglass and built monocoque, which means you better not ding them babies because repairs are gonna be expensive as fuck.

Prices run around 10k€ and then up to whatever you feel like paying for a new one. But they do look like old timey racecars which is fun. From personal experience of having chatted up a few of the local velomobile riders I feel like there's about a 50:50 split between buying one and somebody going fully "dad in the shed" and just building the entire thing from scratch

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