While I agree it’s mostly an unwise place to buy real estate or leave your possessions (just like any flood plane) I’m curious what makes it worse for EVs than for any other car (all of which are now rife with electronics and made of the same metals). Flooding will ‘total’ just about any car.

Or paint it red so it can go faster. With enough boyz inside all believing as hard as they can, that thing should be zipping around the galaxy. Don’t have to be sneaky if you’re fast.

https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-244-fine-art-and-meat-cleavers/

That’s kinda what I was thinking, yeah.

That’s interesting - this is the first I’m hearing of them doing that to jets.

I’m just getting into bookbinding. It requires surprisingly few tools and not a ton of space (though like all hobbies it can always grow to consume whatever space is available). Its a good option if you have access to a printer with free or cheap prints.

Balcony gardening can be satisfying but might not be what you’re looking for.

If you already have a project (or lots of them) in mind, a 3d printer can be great to have around. Depending on your fillaments of choice (determined by what you want the print to be able to do) you might need good ventilation or an enclosure. If you have a spare bedroom that’s a good start.

That’s awesome and I’m totally going to do this. I’d been looking for some kind of basket or other hard pannier I could just drop the regular grocery totes inside, I should have thought of this.

This isn’t the original, but I took the photo and cleaned it up a bit:

Yeah I’ll swap it for something smaller/lighter, and the set of panniers I already have (though I think their current strap/hook configuration seems like an accident waiting to happen so I’ll probably mess with that too)

I think a milk crate is a good call.

I’d thought about doing something like that with the basket - to modify it so it hung on either side like panniers/saddlebags, and I could just drop the regular grocery totes into it. I wouldn’t mind the welding practice, though I’ll probably start with the secondhand cloth panniers first and go from there.

I’ve seen similar, I’d never had trouble just running the drill till the sides were smooth before, but some of these sticks were still pretty live, and no matter how long I let the drill cut into the sides, or what speed I used, it still produced fluffy sawdust and left those splinters along the inside of some. I’d been planning to wait a year on those and drill them again but it took more sticks than I’d planned to fill it. For what it’s worth, they’re pretty soft, but they might harden as they dry? If it’s a legit risk for the bees I’ll definitely pull those tubes. I think cardboard tubes are probably the better way long term, certainly they’re less work which would make replacing them easier. I just prefer to make things myself when I can.

So far, we haven’t noticed any issues with birds or other critters. If we do, I’ll add a screen, but I didn’t want to risk making things easier for spiders, or helping water splash the holes if I didn’t have to.

We did have carpenter ants climb up behind the sticks so I need to figure out our solution to that. I’m really hoping thats new and that they didn’t get into the bee holes or take any eggs. The tree seems healthy so I’m thinking the bee house was what appealed to them?

I’ll update if I learn anything else.

And seven years seems quite optimistic considering how effectively local governments and committees of concerned NIMBYS have been blocking any new nuclear construction for like, my entire lifetime, at least in the US. Apparently nobody wants a nuclear power plant going up near them and they find a lot of creative ways to jam up the works. I’m not sure we have the time to try to ram dozens of nuclear power plants through those folks while the world is burning.

Update:

If “Bicycle Pickup Truck” was a good idea, people would probably be doing it already.

Don’t worry, I have actual panniers to put on it, I just wanted to see how my pre-advice plans would have worked. After that, I’ll try the Koolstop Salmon brake pads, then maybe a removable basket for the front and a frame bag.

Step 1 in the cargo bike transition is complete! I have some secondhand panniers to try out with some groceries, and I’ll see about adding better brakes, a rear basket and eventually a front basket, options like that.

(I mentioned in another comment that I’d had to modify the rack to get it to attach since the right seat stay is crowded, that’s the blue part in the picture.)

This is really cool! I’d always thought this was done with molten gold, I had no idea that it was mostly done with resins. I might give this a try someday.

Thanks! I’ll start slow with adding weight and I’ll look at better brake pads next, to help deal with it. I had to modify the rack a little so it’s wrapped around the seat stays at three points, and where it gets crowded with the rear derailer cable and it’s attachments, I modified the back right post to use a longer rod so I could attach it to the little bolt above the gears the way the bike designers intended. Not sure what that does, if anything, to it’s weight capacity but I’ll be careful.

Thank you! This is really good advice! I’m definitely not counting on the claimed 310 capacity (especially since I had to replace one post with a longer one I made from a 3/8" rod, so I could attach it to the little bolt above the rear gears instead of wrapping it around the seat stay). I’ll definitely post my progress soon, and I think brakes are going to be my next step. Supposedly there’s an adapter kit to add disc brakes to this bike but everything’s so cluttered back there I think better pads make more sense and are more achievable. The pads on there now might be some of the only original parts left, not sure.

Well, brakes and one of those wrap-around-the-chain-stays kickstands. So I’ll have a kickstand. It’s a work in progress.

That’s a good idea! I’ve got the rear rack attached, I’m going to add a kickstand and then some kind of front basket. I think these will work with my front fork.

Thanks!

I’m thinking about it - I have access to a laser cutter that can do steel etching. If I planned it carefully I could get it to match to inches between the points of the jaws to each tick or something. But I think I’m leaning towards leaving it origional-ish for now, since this setup still allows you to open and close them without losing your place, so you can measure the opening accurately and that’s probably how they’ll be used.