Week 391: lawyer lips
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In the technology news, companies keep donating to a bad man’s Linux distribution. It will be recalled that I spend lots of money on DigitalOcean services – pale and insignificant to them, I’m sure, but it’s more than I spend on rent or yoghurt or anything. Given their tacit endorsement of hatefulness, it’s incumbent on me to migrate to somewhere else, which is a vexing pain in the arse. But let’s see this as an opportunity to build in more resilience and sovereignty and stuff.
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Taken custody of a Brompton, you know the folding bicycle, an old one that had been fitted with an electric motor that eventually went berserk and tried to maim a loved one – if it was a horse, it would have been shot. I thought I’d simply remove the electric bits, and well we do these things not because they’re easy, but because we thought they were going to be easy.
I’ve been hacking away at the twist throttle, but to remove it properly I think needs a hairdryer to soften the glue, or a hacksaw – if I needed to buy either of those, not sure which one would be most enduringly useful. Removing the front wheel, with its heavy hub motor, was a big win, but now embarrassingly late I realise the front fork had been widened to accommodate the motor. I worry that bending the prongs back will weaken them dangerously, so I’ll get another fork.
So rather regretting getting involved – I could’ve bought a new Brompton, or accepted that maybe bikes, like phones, aren’t meant to fold – but I’m learning new things e.g. what lawyer lips are.
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Had the back wheel stolen off my normal bicycle, which caused me to miss a train, but on the bright side the spare back wheel that I’ve been tripping over regularly now has a bright future. I’d actually hoped someone would steal the headlight – I’d like to replace it with a USB type-C one – but they didn’t take the bait.