Modern Vespa

Give them a year. They will be stealing actual jobs by then.

It's sad because there is no curry.

All of those scooters might have a flywheel. That's three.

Maybe we should establish the "Scooter Test" for AI, to be run occasionally on MV. When we finally see one that looks both functional and aesthetically pleasing, we head for the hills.

Or the dealer.

When Robot makes a video showing how to fix an AI engineered bike will the universe collapse on itself?

I think my answer to that is contained in the obligatory XKCD.

Maybe Robot is trying to tell us something with the name he has chosen for himself?

He's been protecting Eddie Furlong this entire time from the evil R-2000.

Or the HPE.

Kind makes me even happier to have left the working world behind.

Indeed, though for me it's for a subtly different reason. In my last 4-5 years at Apple, we were doing a lot of ML (Apple's preferred term -- "Machine Learning") on a variety of groundbreaking technologies. FaceID for iPhone was a huge ML project, for instance.

But I was just a generalist programmer, with no particular experience in ML. Had I continued working, I almost certainly would have had to come up to speed on it. I could feel the pressure then, and I'm sure of it now.

And I really just can't be arsed.

But I won't have a job...

True!

Brain's kind of fuzzy this morning, but the whole tech taking jobs thing has me rabbit holing.

It's always been the case. Recently - ok 25 years ago - I worked in a die cast manufacturing facility that was designed in the 1980s to be almost autonomous. I think the original designs were nine people running the whole plant from management to floor workers. Pretty cutting edge stuff. Metal ingots go into the breakdown furnace which transports molten metal through a launder system to each die cast cell where it's automatically poured into the mold and subsequently pulled and trimmed by robots and transported via conveyor to a bin. To a degree it worked.

We had four rows of five machines. Because of the nature of the product, we did have an inspector / operator at the end of each line for rework, inspection and sorting. Because quality. Someone had a great idea to tie a conveyor between two machines, have one operator manage them both and eliminate one employee. But they comped them with a 50¢ raise. THEN someone had a great idea to tie FOUR machines together and eliminate one more employee. With no extra compensation.

So there's one thing. I wouldn't say it "worked" beyond parts were still dumping out of machines.

So, another example, and this goes way back, is tractors. One of my favorite little known songs from the '80s is a tune by Dream Academy (fantastic) called "(Johnny) New Light".

I'm a big fan of the James Herriot "All Creatures Great and Small" series of books, as well as the 1980s versions of the BBC TV series, at least the first three seasons. There was an episode where there was a farm and a caretaker of one of the last draft horses ... yeah and I'm getting choked up already. But it was a running theme of tractors taking over the work horses did back in the late 1930s. And the farmhands. Because machinery and automation made the workers redundant.

So, it's been going on for a long time. I think AI is the next iteration, but I agree that it brings with it its own set of issues.

More coffee.

New intercooler and piping are in the GTI. I have audible whistle and slight diverter valve noise now that the restrictive OEM stuff is gone. Love it.

The Unitronic IC is still in the OE location, twice as thick, and fully aluminum (oem has plastic end tanks). It's also bar and plate as opposed to the tube-fin oem core.

Car also has a Unitronic downpipe and stage 2 tune with the is38 off a golf R (my wg actuator on the original turbo went bad and is an absolute beast to calibrate--car has to be RUNNING which is ridiculous--so i went is38 as well) and it goes, to channel my inner James May, "like the clappers".

What's really cheering me up is my first ride of the season that I took yesterday! I ride on back country roads at my own chosen speed (30-35 MPH or less), enjoying the scenery and just being on my Vespa. I saw very few cars, maybe a dozen, during my 33 mile ride. The weather was great, around 65ºF, and sunny. I intend to do the same today, but in the opposite direction. Life is good!

If AI can't manage three wheels, whatever important stuff can't it do?

This is loudly cheering me up today. Maybe not the others in my office though.

My SO just became a Nana for the 4th time yesterday.

Wow! Congratulations! Lovely, both of them!

Picked up a pile of scoot parts, topped up the oil, booked accommodation, planned my route and organised a neighbour to feed the tiger.

I could probably post this either here or in the 'what's pissing you off today' thread, but I'm playing the optimist today.

Darling Bride and I raced mountain bikes for 20 years, so we had mountain bikes appropriate for the task. About 10 years ago, when we started buying motorcycles, the bicycles got hung up in the garage and haven't been touched since. This year we pulled them out planning to start using them again, and found hydraulic brakes and forks deteriorated beyond use. Due to their age we can't find parts, meaning full replacements. The price far exceeded the current value of the bikes, so they're being donated to a charity that will use the remaining parts to teach poor kids how to fix bikes, by letting them use the donated parts to fix their own bikes. It's a good program I'm happy to support, but those were two damned good bikes, and it pisses me off to be disposing of them.

To soothe my hurt feelings, this morning we're going to pick up Darling Bride's new Cannondale, and next week I'm going shopping...

Yesterday was a 5 mile hike then went up the Pub for food and a catch up with a Mate.

Today was an 8 mile hike and then a ride out on the RT for a couple of hours.

Back home for cleaning and polishing motorcycles and scooters.

Tuning into IMSA TV for the Sebring 12 hours later on. Perfect.

I had a pair of TCX Street Ace boots that fit perfect and were comfy, but the lacing was hopeless: there was a lot of friction, making them hard to open after riding and hard to get on in the first place, something that I found deeply irritating. The laces themselves were also prone to breakage. In the end, they moved off into the closet where I forgot them...

...until I recently had a "well duh" moment and got a quicklace kit for hiking shoes. I am loving these boots once again--instant on and instant off

A friend called our 500e "A living Emoji".

When your 4 year old granddaughter starts wrenching to get her scooter ready for riding season!

This is so awesome!

My wife is away on a girls trip this weekend. Just us boys, hanging out in the garage. 😂

My old American Lab (13 years) is a happy boy as long as he's with his people. He always cheers me up.

I have been scrimping and saving and made arrangements with my college financial aid office... and was finally able to afford buying a power-assist for my wheelchair about a month ago. These suckers are obscenely expensive for what they are. Like, I could get a nicely accessorized Primavera 150, fees and all, and probably have change left over for the MSRP of this little wheel with 2 batteries and bluetooth attached to it.

But silly me, I tried to be frugal.

I found one on eBay being sold as new. Friends checked the listing for me, everything seemed on the up-and-up, and it was $3k off from the manufacturer price. I asked the seller to send me a video confirming it powered up and charged, which they did.

The first drama came when it turned out to be one of those packages that USPS just plain didn't scan until it was several hours prior to delivery. The seller and I were both freaking out for an entire week.

This is the sort of item that can't be cleaned up and pawned off as new when it isn't--it starts getting micro scratches the moment it gets used. The seller was truthful. They'd gotten it through a workforce program, but almost immediately ended up with a WFH job, so the unit just sat unopened in a closet. It was just a few months shy of being out of warranty, but the warranty is non-transferrable anyway.

The next drama was when I got the thing. I've trialed one before, so I know how to set it all up. Charged everything, installed the brackets, connected it to its app... and right away, I could tell something was wrong. It had a physical fault that was so bad the entire thing was unusable in 3 days. I think my trying to use it actually made it worse than it was to begin with. It was fishtailing even when everything was 100% powered off.

The seller, despite having fulfilled their end of the transaction, was horrified. I emailed the manufacturer who basically confirmed it was a defective unit, and told me to go through the original selling business to file a warranty claim (I didn't tell them how I got it). The seller tried to get in touch with the person who made the original purchase order--who's business had been bought out with a name change, and who had subsequently quit and got hired elsewhere--and somehow did manage to find them. They got the warranty claim filed, the seller said, "Hey, I moved, here's my new address," and forwarded me a return shipping label. Either the manufacturer didn't piece together what we were doing, or didn't call us out on it. But somehow it all actually went through.

I finally got a replacement unit shipped directly to me (with the eBay seller's name) on Friday, and by gods, the thing WORKS. I can go up a steep slope without breaking a sweat. I can go all over the place all day and not want to collapse when I get home. My arms don't feel like they're constantly about to fall off.

I don't know much about the seller (other than our mutual disdain for the DME industry), but they're getting a damn nice thank you card in the mail next week. If there's anything after this world, I imagine they've racked up several positive points in it. Talk about going above and beyond!

Rode across a river today

I honestly wasn't sure which thread I was reading, so I didn't know how this was going to turn out.



Glad you got it sorted!

YAY! Me, too! I stopped a few paragraphs in to check if I was in the Things That Piss Me Off thread.

It required a bit of context as far as why it's such a good thing. The drama, shitty as it was, made it all the better in the end.

Though I absolutely could have done without the drama. I guess that's what I get for saving $3k, lol.

Jess is cheering me up.

I have been having an awful time with my IP address causing internet problems. I've been getting blocked on many of the websites that I like to visit, including this one. A quick PM to Jess from my phone, not connected to my wifi, and he has instantly gotten get back to me to help me with my problem.

Thanks again, Jess.

Everything is en route to get my scoot repaired from the drop. ADHD salivating already to start self-learning light bodywork.

You are most welcome! I hope you get things sorted, and I'm happy to help in any way I can.

My wife has been out of work since January 2023. She went into a fairly deep depression due to the loss of her job. Her job was both her dream job and her identity - she was the web developer for the local Catholic Diocese - she liked to say she Tweeted for Jesus. When it was abruptly taken from her after 12 years, she was devastated. I was also stressed about it, due to suddenly being the sole source of income for our household.

Due to this depression (and my stress), a lot of the little things at home got left undone. When we dirtied all of our dishes, we simply bought paper plates and plastic utensils. Wasteful, I know, but sometimes ya gotta do what you can just to make it through the day. We also don't have a dishwasher, so we can't just load it up and run it, we have to hand wash everything.

The pile of dirty dishes had been overwhelming my wife. She is very ADHD, and that one aspect of the house was stopping her from doing anything else. I tried to help her as much as I could, but didn't want to do it all for her and end up resenting her for not doing anything.

On March 8, she washed all the bowls, and some of the glasses.

That weekend I washed some more glasses, and some plates.

This past Sunday, I finished washing all fo the dishes, wiped down the counters, and put almost everything back up (the last load of dishes was still in the drainer, drying).

Having a clean kitchen counter is cheering me (and my wife) up.

Thanks. Per your recommendation, I uninstalled all the virus protection software and also traded in my Xfinity modem/router for a new one this morning.

Long story short:

AI made music for me - I made a music video so bad, it's kinda good

Long story long:

I started writing a dumb song about a guy making motorcycle videos, set to an old Beach Boys tune, as a bit of a joke for some fun.

I came across some AI website that would make music for you, as long as you prompted it with stuff like what genre of music you wanted, what the lyrics were, etc.

I was really pleasantly surprised with what it came up with, so I decided to lean in to how silly it was and make an accompanying (bad) 22-second music video:

I regret nothing

For any other (bad) song writers out there: check out suno.ai

Last night, Mrs Syd and I went to a show at the MIM (mim.org). Richard and Linda Thompson's son Teddy, With Maria and Geoff Muldaur's daughter Jenni Muldaur. Teddy and Jenni made an album of 60s/70s Country duets.
Now I hate hate h8 contemporary country, but I do like the older stuff, so this was a fun show. It's still cheering me up today.

Mrs. mpfrank and I just returned from a couple of days in Ventura, CA celebrating our 50th anniversary. Not a big trip - only an hour away - but a good one. The weather was perfect. We had our anniversary dinner on Saturday evening at a favorite restaurant, Capriccio, and again last evening at a new favorite, Limon y Sal.

Mrs. mpfrank and I are different from each other in many ways, but the Venn diagram of our selves has a large overlap full of wonderful things. That we still share them after 50+ years is a wonder and a joy.