Forum Federato

@smellsofbikes @enobacon Do I want to know why you know this?

@enobacon Yeah, I have some good interactions from the past few weeks, including the guy at a four way stop who waited longer for me to go (when someone else sort of jumped my turn and he could have gone next, but he realized what happened and didn't) and signaled he would wait by flashing me a thumbs up out the window.

I want to make some statement—either pithy or profound—about the fact that in the last two weeks I've had two incidents where people have yelled unpleasant things at me from their vehicle while I was riding my bike. But I really don't have anything to say other than it sucks.

If you like hearing about the science behind wine & beer & just happen to live in Copenhagen: a friend has one of the speaking slots at this (free) event: https://food.ku.dk/english/food-research-and-education-for-a-sustainable-society/ucph-food-alumni-network/alumni-calendar/2025-events/decoding-taste-scientific-approaches-to-wine-and-beer-quality/

If anyone who sees this attends say high to Professor Wang for me, she'll probably get a kick out of it (in college many years ago we lived down the hall from each other and did a big senior non-class project together).

Anyone know if there is a way that eBay won't notice to tell the seller you want to pay cash in person and that you'd like a discount?

(seller says local pickup available, and since they have "free" shipping I'm assuming that's rolled into the buy it now price, so I'd sort of like the money they would have spent on shipping back to me and they also make a bit more by not paying the fees)

(it's a pair of sneakers, not a high ticket item)

Today's "someone lost it and I found it while riding my bike" was a pair of airpods in their charging case. In the road, but near the entrance to the MUP so probably from a jogger. The nature learning center wasn't open yet this morning so I ended up bringing them to work and then emailing the center. And they have a protocol for this! (as in valuable items I guess?) You put it in their "incoming mail" box at the end of the driveway and send them an email so they know to check their mail. I don't mind leaving keys just on the door, but if they have a reliable way to get things in to lost & found that's so much better than my "well I hope they got it" when I tape a key in a plastic baggie to the door before they open in the morning.

I see at least one other XKCD bot with alt text (that isn't Munroe's title text), which is neat. And I think at least one of them must have a similar set up to us where where someone is writing it by hand (Hi, whoever you are!), but I just saw one that might be AI generated? I'm not sure. If it wasn't the writer clearly didn't familiarize themselves with the work much because recognizing the little stick figures as people (even if you don't use their "canonical" names) is kind of crucial to the comic in general. Weirdly off.

But maybe I'm accidentally slandering another writer, in which case, I'm really sorry! I had to zoom in a lot to figure it out myself!

(And I checked explain XKCD and the transcript isn't up yet there, so it's not just getting pulled from that, which I do occasionally reference myself, particularly for very, very long lists or if the subject isn't one I'm familiar with and I need a term that google isn't helping me figure out)

I can't be the only person who every time someone uses the phrase "the horrors" has a mental image of Munch's The Scream can I?

If you have a middle school student who takes physical education class and want to earn yourself & your kid each a $50 gift card UCI is doing zoom interviews with kid/parent pairs about it for some study.

I assume residing in the US is required, but not 100% sure.

https://start.emailopen.com/publicfiles1/client_1123/files_cl1123_ca578709/SBFT_Flyer_August_2025_08112025R1.pdf

Second advice question of the morning, though maybe more likely to have answers on here: anyone ever made watermelon syrup?

I used the juice for my last batch of watermelon ice cream and I sort of want to try concentrating it so that the ice cream isn't as icy. But the internet has wildly varying views on if heating watermelon juice will make it taste gross or what.

I don't particularly want to soak chunks of watermelon in sugar since I try to limit how much sugar I put in the ice cream and I'm not sure I'd really get any improvement over using the juice and just adding the sugar I want to that.

Anyone have a digital vacuum gauge they like? Needs to monitor down in the 5-10 mTorr range for roughing pumps. The only one the lab has doesn't do precision < 1 Torr, which is obviously a problem when a roughing pump with issues might still be pulling down to 100 mTorr.

The one the technician had for the lyophilizer was a digivac 100h, which is maybe overkill for us. Their "bullseye precision gauge" seems like an option though. I'm open to other brands (the one we have that won't work for this is VWR), etc, it just needs a good adapter on the end to fit to standard size tubing (minimum inner diameter of 7 mm, but most of the direct connections to the vac pump are probably > 1 cm).

#Chemistry #Science

(as usual this is for fellow readers, I don't think either author is on here, but if they are do not share this with them)

Finished the later book (A Gentleman and His Vowsmith) last night and was disappointed. I finished it, so clearly not bad, but I was promised very queer and based on the description I expected some interesting poly dynamics and it was instead a very conventional m/m romance with an ace female sidekick. And the ace-ness was written as an "unusual" thing (also her being sex-repulsed AND possibly having a horror of pregnancy made her more than a bit of a caricature). I get that allo people don't always understand, but the writing made it seem like the characters couldn't comprehend that ace even existed in their "queer" world. And somehow while gay relationships were ok in their society we got zero mention of either lesbians or bisexuals (that I noticed anyway).

I think because I went in with expectations that it would be queer in a way similar to how The Naturalist Society was written (poly relationship between three people, but neither a standard V or triangle type thing) I was also expecting a similar quality of the writing and was disappointed. There was far too much "we met the principle subject of our suspicions and they explained things to us in detail". Maybe that's a standard gothic locked room mystery trope, but I really didn't care for it.

Also a kind of big flaw where "stud clauses" in marriage contracts existed in a highly patriarchal society that clearly cares about "blood lines", which started driving me to distractions every time it was mentioned. It was just a problem with the world building where it was never explained how that made sense.

If you live in Orange County CA and are a caregiver for a person with dementia UCI health is doing a study aimed at improving support for caregivers.

"We are looking for family caregivers of community dwelling persons with dementia to participate in an NIH/NIA-funded study at UC Irvine’s Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing. Our study explores the use of a home-delivered intervention, which includes stress reduction techniques by mindful breathing, compassionate support/listening and caregiving education to improve the caregiver’s health, well being, and positive interactions with the person living with dementia."

Please call the Caregiver Study Team at (949) 903-3355 or

Email ucicaregiverstudy@hs.uci.edu for more information.

Tiếng Việt : (949) 649-9514 한국어 : (949) 690-8861

Español : (949) 750-9359

Lead Researcher: Jung-Ah Lee, PhD, RN, FGSA, FAAN

Email: jungahl@uci.edu • Phone: (949) 343-5333

I was riding straight on a through street, no stop signs for a few blocks. Car was approaching at a normal speed on the other side and as we get close together some fool enters the intersection from my right because he was looking at his phone and didn't see myself or the giant approaching SUV. I slammed on the brakes, the SUV accelerated out of danger (he was angled to go left in the direction the SUV was traveling, though there was no blinker on obviously), and the fool went right back to his phone after hitting the brakes, didn't even look around. Oh and his car was half way into our side of the road, blocking traffic. If I hadn't hit the brakes he would have hit me and probably the person on the ebike who was in the process of overtaking me.

I've had closer calls (there was probably 2-3 meters between the nose of his car and my bike when I stopped), but it wasn't exactly a fun experience.

If you must drive a car the very least you can do is to put your phone down and keep your eyes on the road when you do.

Sincerely,
That cyclist you almost hit earlier today

Me: Can I get a key to the department storage rooms in X building (where our lab has stuff stored)? I don't know the room number.

Department admin: Can I get a room number?

Me .

So I went and back tracked my steps from 3 years ago to figure out where the rooms where and find the numbers.

I would have thought the department administration would know the room numbers for the storage rooms? Or have the keys labeled as "storage rooms in X"? But that's too much organization I guess...

Anyone ever convert a bike (26" wheel cruiser-ish) from v-brakes to caliper/sidepull/linear pull type using the fender mounts? It should be doable, I'm mostly stuck on the fact that finding brakes with a long enough reach is difficult. What brakes did you use?

The reach looks like it needs to be 101 mm (unfortunately the pair of tektro R559's I picked up for $8 have a max in the 80 mm range).

I wanted the tektro "cruiser caliper" ones, which looked very sturdy but it seems like they aren't made any more so finding the front on in stock anywhere is basically impossible (unless I want to pay $30 each and whether they would ship is questionable).

#BikeTooter