Hmmm. I’ve been known to hit the junk yard for replacements for a Ford LTD, way back in the Oelden Daiz, but a) I’m not sure about trusting second hand parts in a motorcycle, and b) I’d probably be unsuccessful at rewiring it.

By the Nighthawk, we’d started entering the phase where vehicles were becoming essentially solid-state devices. There was no space, and to do anything serious, you had to basically take the whole thing to pieces; and I’m not mechanically inclined. If I can reach in with my hands, I’m fine, but multi-part disassembly and - more critically - correct reassembly challenges me.

Also, motorcycles are death machines. At least if a professional works on it, it’s one less thing for me to worry about going wrong on a ride, and taking me out. A sudden loss of power at 65 might not be guaranteed fatal, but I still wouldn’t want to risk it, or something falling off because of my own incompetence putting it back together.

It can be done, in novels at least, and there are some authors who not only do it well, but it’s just their style. Neal Asher is particularly good at this; I just think it wasn’t JRRT’s strength as writer.

My least favorite book of the three.

Between 12 and about 24, I read the entire quad every summer. Religiously. I always dreaded coming to The Two Towers; it felt like such a slog, and I don’t think jumping between parallel story lines was Tolkien’s forté. Return of the King got better as everyone (well, except the Ring Bearer) started gathering together again and there were fewer threads.

IMHO.

And for that cost, you could just buy a new bike.

I had a Honda Nighthawk 650 once. The perfect bike, for me, if a little underpowered. But it was comfortable to ride, not too heavy, and looked good.

But it always had electrical problems, and I could never figure them out myself. It would just sporadically have a phase where the starter wouldn’t turn over. I had it in the shop off and on for about 6 years, and finally gave up on it. Never replaced it, didn’t keep up my license, and haven’t ridden in years.

If I ever do take up riding again (which will be an epic fight with the wife who’s mom was a nurse, and is dead set against me riding motorcycles), I want something in that form factor again. I keep looking at Ducatis.

Anyway, electrical issues are the worst.

I’m being absurd. Nobody would ever say that, because it’s stupid.

Zero three hundred am o’clock in the morning daylight savings time PGT

It’s zero-three-hundred PM.

It was a PITA to change the battery in my 2012 Volvo, and I dread the battery change in the 2016 BMW. I can’t imagine doing anything more complex than that.

I love those old engines I see at the state fair, where the fuel is literally in an open pan on the top, sloshing around. They look like something you could put together yourself with enough effort, but the trade-off is efficiency.

I’d be happy with a fully solid-state car. I’m not a mechanic, or mechanically inclined, so I have no romantic attachment to gas guzzlers.

Good chess players, though, exhibit some common traits which are shared with “smart people”: the ability to think in abstract terms, and a good memory.

Your success at chess is often based on how far in advance you can plan a game at any point on the board, greatly supplemented by your ability to remember entire games of famous matches. These skills are frequently exhibited by people considered smart. However, as you and OP point out, you have to play, practice, and memorize to get good; merely knowing the rules and being smart doesn’t get you there.

so you could pirate games

What‽‽ I never used my dual drives for that.

I think you misread their comment; they weren’t saying people they know are putting on new parts in old cars, they were saying people they know are maliciously putting leaded gas into new engines, presumably to “stick it to the libruls”.

Thank you. All my knowledge of ICEs has been through osmosis via a friendship with a guy who used to be a mechanic; I don’t care about them myself, and I appreciate the extensive added information you took the time to write. It’s really the only way I learn about ICEs.

but you would need new parts rather than OEM.

Yeah, that was ultimately my point. OEM is so important to that crowd; it’s both a status and a real value factor for them. They’re not just being contrarian: they do it because the cars they’re driving run better on leaded.

The end result may be the same, but I think the motivation matters for stuff like this. One is based on hostility, the other on a hobby passion.

I think they’re good for “common” areas, but my wife hates highlights of all kinds. We have a low-key war going on where I’ll randomly put a nightlight somewhere, and she’ll find it after a week or so and remove it.

Not in bedrooms, though; I agree on that. Although, I put one of this motion-triggered light bars in her walk-in closet, and she likes that enough to keep it charged herself.

They make switches with built-in LED lights along the bottom for this.

It’s a risky investment. Many people hate having lights glowing when they’re trying to sleep.

Look for LED wall switches on Amazon. They come in a dozen versions: light shines up, lights in the faceplate, the switch itself glows… Any version you could possibly want.

Old car drivers drive cars that need additives in the gas. The lead was a lubricant, and old engines ran better, and longer, on leaded gas.

They didn’t just add lead because it made the gas prettier; there was a reason. I would suppose that today there are other additives that can reproduce the lubricating effects for those old cars, but old car hobbyists are niche and you’re not going to find those products at Walmart, whereas there’s always a local airport somewhere nearby.

I’m not defending leaded gas, but I think vintage car enthusiasts do it not because they’re being stupididly misinformed and contrarian, but because they’re trying to keep their engines running well.

This is a good shower thought, and I’m not knocking it.

A rock is a tool. A stick is a tool. Some rocks are naturally sharp (flint and obsidian) and are different kinds of tools. Any physical object found in nature could be a tool, and other animals exhibit tool use.

Taking two different kinds of rocks and carefully hitting one with the other can improve the naturally occurring tool, and I think that’s why your thought is insightful (although, not unique). Knapping isn’t rocket science, and it doesn’t require anything more than one of several special kinds of rocks and a second rock, but it does require skill, and that comes through practice. I don’t think it was probably a deep thought to think “I could make this sharp-edged rock more useful with a little chipping,” but it certainly qualifies as “inventing inventing tools.”

̶:̶ ̶.̶ ̶|̶ ̶:̶ ̶;̶

And red baseball caps

I think that companies tend to print country-specific labels anyway, don’t they? I know larger Mexican company products can often be found in two sections is some stores: in the “Juice” section, with an English label, and in the “Foreign” section, with a Spanish label. Same product, just different labels. I’ve seen American company products in Germany, and - again - large companies have country-specific packaging. Sometimes it’s pretty drastic differences; not just languages, but entire style and color schemes.

It’s usually EU products where I see them trying to cram, e.g., the ingredients list in 5 different languages on the same package. I don’t know why Frito-Lay wouldn’t just only print metric units on their French-labelled bag of Doritos. It wouldn’t have any impact on their domestic labeling.