Cool Stuff Thread

[Null]

http://gameranx.com/updates/id/3743...y-valentines-day-chocolates-spotted-in-japan/

 

[Fzero]

^ Nature is great, and so is a lot of that videography. Looks nice there

 

[vcoleiro1]

ARM chips printed on plastic

 

[Ian J]

Very tempted.

Ghosts 'n Goblins Game Classics Volume 01 EX Arthur Figure

 

[ible]

saw this open-spec low-power linux audio server, thought it looked cool!
https://voltastream.com/product/voltastream-zero/

also this minty pi (raspberry pi zero in an altoids container), wiki for parts:
http://www.sudomod.com/wiki/index.php?title=MintyPi
and youtube for a build video:
probably shouldn't be my first electronics/soldering project, but very tempting

 

[vcoleiro1]

I remember when this was on Kickstarter

 

[ible]

http://halbrad.de/


apologies for the vomit-inducing video transitions, but the concept is very cool and well executed.

 

[levi]

I'd like to see them doing a hard stop from 35mph as they approach the lights. There's a reason why top-heavy bikes fell out of favour back in the days of the penny farthing.

 

[ible]

sure, but at least you're mostly in a standing position, so you'd just be flung forward onto your feet. at least in theory .

here's a guy doing a similar bike (but cheaper??) at hackaday.io:
https://hackaday.io/project/27378-bellcycles-a-new-take-on-the-bicycle

and he has a pretty interesting video of "eating it":

Hello Pete, riding in NYC i get lots of opportunities to test emergency stopping ( cab doors, etc) and its similar to a regular bike. The riders weight is pretty far back about equal distance between the two wheels. If you are leaning forward and really slam the brakes you can tip forward but I have done that on my regular bike also so I would say about equal.

that is a video of me hitting a traffic partition with the rear wheels which is about as sudden a stop as you can get. You can see that the bike just stops and I go running forward.

link: https://hackaday.io/project/27378-bellcycles-a-new-take-on-the-bicycle/discussion-94760

 

[Caine]

I'd like to see them doing a hard stop from 35mph as they approach the lights.

You can bike 35 mph? Respect.

Well, I suppose it is possible when you are going downhill (that is barely possible in the Netherlands).

 

[levi]

My fastest recorded speed heading downhill was about 45mph. Sure I can touch 35mph on the flat for brief periods in top gear. It's not like the netherlands here, I'm dicing with traffic doing 40-60 mph a lot of the time, so it makes sense to be as close to their speed as you can. Of course, as soon as I hit any sort of incline I have to change down and hog the gutters as the traffic streams past me.

 

[Caine]

Typical biking traffic in the Netherlands would be 10 to 15 mph. The more fit ones would go up to 20 mph (that is what I used to do).
I could peak up to 25 mph but only in short burst (on a fairly crappy bike). The occasional sports cyclists may go faster, but they are in the vast minority.

 

[comradekingu]

http://mntmn.com/reform/

 

[ible]

http://mntmn.com/reform/

ooh, like the mechanical keyboard switches.

 

[Binky]

My fastest recorded speed heading downhill was about 45mph. Sure I can touch 35mph on the flat for brief periods in top gear. It's not like the netherlands here, I'm dicing with traffic doing 40-60 mph a lot of the time, so it makes sense to be as close to their speed as you can. Of course, as soon as I hit any sort of incline I have to change down and hog the gutters as the traffic streams past me.

I've clocked up some similarly high speeds, you know...

Like this:

http://www.wastedtalent.ca/sites/de.../comic_full/comics/2014/wt_688_SpeedRacer.jpg

 

[WizardStan]

On level pavement with no wind to fight my record is 42km/h (26mph). I can maintain that for all of about 20 seconds and then I'm dead; typical is only 25km/h. My downhill record was 72km/h and I never, ever, ever want to do that again.

 

[rygD]

My fastest recorded speed heading downhill was about 45mph. Sure I can touch 35mph on the flat for brief periods in top gear. It's not like the netherlands here, I'm dicing with traffic doing 40-60 mph a lot of the time, so it makes sense to be as close to their speed as you can. Of course, as soon as I hit any sort of incline I have to change down and hog the gutters as the traffic streams past me.

On level pavement with no wind to fight my record is 42km/h (26mph). I can maintain that for all of about 20 seconds and then I'm dead; typical is only 25km/h. My downhill record was 72km/h and I never, ever, ever want to do that again.

I recall hearing about someone on a gravity bike getting a speeding ticket going down a mountain. If I remember correctly they worked up on the mountain and had a coworker pick them up in the mornings. This got me curious and I ended up watching some really cool videos showing some pretty impressive speeds. I don't think I would risk it.

As per the thread title:

 

[levi]

I don't think you can get a speeding ticket for anything human-propelled in this country. There are various rules you can break on a bike, but speed limits only apply to motor traffic.

 

[Binky]

At least in the UK, if you don't have to have a speedometer, you don't have to obey speed limits.

On the other hand, section 7 of the Road Traffic Act says:

Dangerous cycling.

1. A person who rides a cycle on a road dangerously is guilty of an offence.
2. For the purposes of subsection (1) above a person is to be regarded as riding dangerously if (and only if)—
   • the way he rides falls far below what would be expected of a competent and careful cyclist, an
   • it would be obvious to a competent and careful cyclist that riding in that way would be dangerous.
3. In subsection (2) above “dangerous” refers to danger either of injury to any person or of serious damage to property; and in determining for the purposes of that subsection what would be obvious to a competent and careful cyclist in a particular case, regard shall be had not only to the circumstances of which he could be expected to be aware but also to any circumstances shown to have been within the knowledge of the accused.

There are also cases where cyclists have been convicted of "wanton and furious driving", after causing serious injury to other road users.

 

[rygD]

I just did a search for gravity bikes and supposedly they have been clocked at over 90mph. That just seems risky, regardless of legality, unless the road is blocked off from any other traffic.