D&F 6/20/21

Hoo boy, I am tired. This week was full of meetings, and helping a beloved friend move (hi Lena!). I kept choosing a book over going to bed at a reasonable hour, and my “sleep bank” app tells me I’m quite in the red. Next week at work is relatively meetingless, so I hope I can convince my body to sleep earlier and longer. Fingers-crossed.

How are you holding up? Are you also over-scheduled as the pandemic winds down in the states?

If you want to be a writer, practice is important, and it also doubles as a nice way to process your feelings and thoughts. Even though newsletters are the hot thing of the week, I’ll be excited if more folks blog, because my favorite thing in my RSS reader is whenever friends write cool and strange posts.

Lately I’m a bit fascinated by the world of degrowth and living more simply, especially in light of the extreme energy use per capita that the United States has compared to even places like Japan. As with many things, changing regulations and policies will be more effective overall than individual choice, but even convincing folks that triple-paned glass is an important improvement that reduces reliance on heating and cooling is a start.

On the note of energy consumption, I guess folks who decorate for winter holidays often find themselves in an easily-remediable outlet conundrum, but instead of restringing their lights they try to burn their house down. Truly, this is the only ill-advised male-on-male action, and regardless of what folks want, you should never buy a double male plug.

Up there with a desire to buy a deadly plug is a misconception about the speed of different wheel widths on bicycles. For years, racers rode around on wide tubular tires, but they also often smoked during races. As cycling became a science-informed sport, lab testing led teams to choose narrower and narrower width tires, due to lower rolling resistance in controlled settings. Luckily we now know that wider tires are often faster, depending on tread and surface, so you don’t need to throw on 23s if you’re more comfortable on 45s. With disc brakes becoming standard on bikes, the only real reason to choose a narrower tire is if you prefer the bouncy, harsh road feel, or if you regularly are racing at high enough speeds to lose efficiency due to aero. Unless there is a pro cyclist reading my newsletter, you’re not traveling that fast.

Finally, my dream of being thrown out with the garbage once my body is an empty husk comes closer to reality. Between composting and euthanasia, Oregon is one of the better places in the world to die these days.

Links

• This link leads to pure, bizarre joy.
• TL;DR if you’re obsessed with being a shitty contrarian, you might just end-up as a conservative.
• I know I’m not the only person who misses the delightful world of the minidisc:

Closing

Well, I’ve finished a cup of coffee while writing this edition of D&F, and I’m feeling a little more human than when I started. My plan after sending this out is to have a relaxing shower, and go on a chill bike ride somewhere in the east bay. I hope your weekend is equally relaxing and refreshing and you stay safe and cool as it heats up around the globe.

I can’t believe it’s nearly July! My alphabet gang is planning a backpacking trip somewhere we can swim, and I can’t wait. However you choose to spend your summer, I hope you have a blast. HAGS, space cowgirls~