klum (u/klum) - Readit News

klum commented on Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Technical Info sheldonbrown.com/... · Posted by u/ostacke

keithjl · 9 days ago

This website is such a treasure. When I was first getting into bicycles in 2013, it was a mix of Sheldon Brown and the local volunteer-run co-op that taught me everything I need to know. He is himself a generous spirit, advocating for DIY tooling, repair, and reuse.

I would highly recommend anyone into bicycles to try building their own wheel using his article.

klum · 9 days ago

This is my favorite kind of website. An individual going into depth on a topic they're passionate (in the true sense of the word) about. Another example is Dan's Motorcycle Repair Web page [1]. A collection of such websites would be awesome.

[1] http://dansmc.com/

klum commented on Allow me to introduce, the Citroen C15 eupolicy.social/@jmaris/1... · Posted by u/colinprince

wrigby · a month ago

This is my exact same sentiment. I’m cautiously excited about the upcoming Slate Pickup[1] - I can see it being my go-to if I leave NYC, but it still won’t hit like the XJ Cherokee I drove before I gave up cars for the city.

1: https://www.slate.auto/

klum · a month ago

Looks interesting, I wonder to what extent they really want to make cars DIY-able again (as they state). On the one hand, they mention servicing is "easy" — just turn to their partner repair shop chain! On the other hand, there's Slate University and mention of repairability. I haven't followed development of this at all, so I'm genuinely curious. Hope it's not just "you can swap in and out our proprietary modules".

klum commented on Allow me to introduce, the Citroen C15 eupolicy.social/@jmaris/1... · Posted by u/colinprince

Fiveplus · a month ago

That would be the absolute dream engineering brief. If I actually sit down and design that vehicle, it would have something like this. List, off the top of my head.

1. You keep the modern metallurgy and the crumple zones. You keep ABS and basic traction control because they are solved problems that save lives without needing cloud connectivity.

2. Instead of a 2000 USD proprietary touchscreen that will be obsolete in 3 years, the dashboard could be just a double DIN slot and a heavy-duty, universal tablet mount with a 100W USB-C PD port. The car provides the power and the speakers and my phone provides the maps and music. When the tech improves, you upgrade your phone, not your dashboard.

3. Nobs and buttons instead of touchscreens like VW has done recently, if my memory serves me right.

The tragedy is that regulations in the EU and North America make this incredibly difficult to sell. The sane environmental stuff you mentioned has morphed into a requirement for deeply integrated electronic oversight. But I genuinely believe there is a massive, silent majority of drivers waiting for a car that promises nothing other than to start every morning and never ask for a software update.

klum · a month ago

I have a theory that these environmental regulations at least to some degree defeat themselves. They make engines more complicated, so more fragile and harder for an amateur (edit: or any professional who isn't their own brand repair shops) to service. They encourage smaller-block engines with turbos and compressors which makes the engine more short-lived. They produce stuff like throttle-hang and gear selection recommendations optimized for driving economy, not engine longevity (or driving experience, for that matter).

On the whole, they seem to be contributing to this movement of taking power away from the end consumer and making your product more and more like a subscription (this goes further than the car industry, of course). I do realize that it's important to cut down on pollution! And maybe this kind of stuff has been studied... although I imagine it would be very hard to do accurately.

Imagine if a car manufacturer would provide service guides, easily-accessible part diagrams and competitively priced spare parts. Imagine if they optimized for longevity and if the handbook that came with the car had more technical details than it had warnings about how doing any kind of maintenance yourself will result in a) your death and b) a voided warranty. That would be pretty nice.

klum commented on What We're Fighting For wheresyoured.at/what-were... · Posted by u/dzogchen

klum · a year ago

I agree with this article. I just want to add one thing: the author mentions companies in general, CEOs and the media as culprits. I'd like to add the people working at those companies.

Few of those might be actively looking at graphs and deciding to make the product worse for the sake of short-term revenue increase. Yet every act of enshittification takes people to make it happen. Those who "just work here", who may be slightly uneasy with adding another popup or displaying more ads but still do it, actively contribute to the problem. That's a decision they make. Even if those employees feel they are doing this only to keep a roof over their children's head or something along those lines, it's worth pointing out there's a choice being made.

This is especially worth mentioning as I think there are rarely actual evil masterminds — most enshittification is a result of tens, hundreds, thousands of people incentivized to repeatedly do things that are just a little bad.

klum commented on Why is it so hard to buy things that work well? (2022) danluu.com/nothing-works/... · Posted by u/janandonly

dartos · a year ago

This subject is interesting to me, sorry for the rant.

Writers could try to split up their work to better appeal to an audience that does quick scans, then reads where it matters.

This article may be great, but there’s not even any section headings, so I’m not able to gauge my own interest.

In our era where there is so much content to consume and where so much of it is just hot garbage or advertising, I don’t want to spend time deeply reading everything in hopes that I care about it.

I need to be able to asses that at a glance, then dive in if I deem it meaningful enough.

Writers should probably change their style to accommodate their audience (if they care about really wide reach)

klum · a year ago

Speculating here but I'd say a big part of the reason Dan Luu has as big a reach as he has is that he isn't the kind of writer who'll change his style to accommodate the audience that just wants to do a quick scan.

klum commented on New Mac Mini with M4 apple.com/newsroom/2024/1... · Posted by u/victorbjorklund

klum · a year ago

Somewhat unrelated but Apple are mainly focusing on Apple Intelligence in these new announcements.

The first version of OS X I used was Mavericks. In hindsight, that was the last great version of OS X for me — the last version where it seems the priorities of the people deciding the direction of development where somewhat aligned with mine.

Many have written about the decline in usability and attention to detail in OS X since then — I guess Apple Intelligence represents this shift in focus perfectly: a black-box interface that may or may not do something along the lines of what you were intending.

klum commented on The internet is slipping out of our reach injuly.in/blog/darker-int... · Posted by u/injuly

klum · 2 years ago

I agree that the mainstream web is becoming increasingly useless, but at the same time, there are counter-movements: search engines like Marginalia, decentralized communities and federated protocols, open-source projects and businesses, "the indie web".

"Small Discord servers, Telegram groups and mailing lists" aren't the only places good stuff happens on the internet, though it might take some deliberate effort to find the right ones.

klum commented on A writer skewered the Formula One scene, then her article vanished washingtonpost.com/style/... · Posted by u/coloneltcb

Solvency · 2 years ago

Here's my problem with it.

F1 is a sport for elites + billionaires, but even the racers are all incredibly wealthy/fortunate nepo babies. It's one of the most inaccessible sports in the entire world. It takes an average of $2M+ for a person to enter F1 as a driver.

Imagine if every kid in the US alone had the privilege/fortune to race carts/cars since they were children, growing up immersed in the scene. Now imagine the equivalent of the US basketball or football system, where hundreds of thousands of kids start the sport young and are gradually filtered out all the way up to college and then pro leagues, ensuring the absolute best of the best are ultimately selected.

The F1 candidate pool represents a rounding error in comparison.

Sure, the drivers who make it are great. They started young and they worked hard to get there. But we're fundamentally BARELY penetrating the global potential here. The greatest possible drivers in the world will statistically never enter the sport. They won't even be able to afford a ticket to watch F1 in person.

klum · 2 years ago

Yeah, and it's not just the drivers. It's that everything is about money first and foremost in the sport. That seems to be what happens with any sport once it grows big enough.

The drivers, incredibly skilled as they are, will also frequently do things like go on the radio during races and complain about their car to their team, i.e. the persons responsible for said car. Not offer any constructive input, just... complain. Often. On the other hand, that's one of the few times they actually show any emotions or say what they think, with all the media training and endless PR events and making sure the sponsor logo on their hat is clearly in view in interview after interview after interview... Yeah, I'm ranting. But it's all just so incredibly blatantly commercial. Again, like any sport once it grows big enough.

(Another commenter wrote about the interesting technical side of the sport: I agree that there would be so many more interesting stories to tell there: about car development, strategy, manufacturing... but whenever these things are touched upon, it's done in a very shallow way, to prevent people quitting their subscription in horror at having to digest some actual information. Instead we get things like PR events with drivers having to pretend they enjoy whatever ridiculous competition they're put in against their teammate as part of their contractual obligations. It seems there could be so much more there... but perhaps this way is more profitable.)

klum commented on Why We Can't Have Nice Software andrewkelley.me/post/why-... · Posted by u/_DMN_

swagasaurus-rex · 2 years ago

What would happen if we actually made things to last?

If our appliances would break on average once in a hundred years?

If our tools were so durable it could survive generations?

If our furniture and our building materials could be reused almost endlessly?

Would the economy shrink? Would the manufacturers go out of business? Or would all the money saved go towards other, better things?

klum · 2 years ago

I agree with the article, but was thinking along the same lines.

What if a business actually takes a long-term view: investing in standards and fostering it's ecosystem instead of trying to outmaneuver competitors using any short-term tricks available? What if a company makes a great dishwasher and only change it when they can improve it? Will they inevitably be driven into extinction or bought up by more short-term profit-hungry enterprises? Maybe... but is that really inevitable?

klum commented on Why I Like Obsidian ddanieltan.com/posts/obsi... · Posted by u/ddanieltan

behnamoh · 2 years ago

> Unlike VS Code, Obsidian is (for me) an actual example of an Electron app that feels fast. The quick open/command palette features are more responsive than similar features in native Mac apps I've tried.

Dude, VSCode is a freaking IDE, running all sorts of processes in the background (at least one terminal, language servers, type checkers, linters and formatters, possibly extensions, etc.) whereas Obsidian is just a text editor.

klum · 2 years ago

Not arguing with that. In discussions about Electron, there are often comments along the lines of "Electron apps can be fast if done right, just look at VS Code" and that just doesn't hold true for me.