pc486

This is a good, and quite common, question regarding congestion pricing. The fact of the matter is those with less means often cannot afford a car. It's usually not their car if they're driving into a city (e.g. a work truck).

But let's say we have low-income people who do have a car and need to drive for whatever reason. There's programs for that. Two of them.

• If you're a low-income car owner, you get reduced congestion pricing. It's 50% off the normal fare. They can drive in and pay less than affluent drivers.
• If you're low-income, you would qualify for the Fair Fares program. It too is 50% off for subways and busses. That prices trips to well below the cost of fueling a car into NYC.

Congestion pricing is also funneling money into metro services, meaning the affluent drivers are actually making low-income access to transportation cheaper while also improving reliability and service levels to those riding transit.

Low-income residents stand to win the most with congestion pricing. Personally, I would focus more on how to better help businesses with legitimate car needs, like dog groomers, mobile mechanics, delivery workers, etc. For example, zero fare for businesses licenses at nighttime periods (to encourage shifting delivery schedules). Programs like that could help small business, which in turn helps boost the income of low-income employees.

You're not off the mark. Honestly not a bad overview to squeeze into a few sentences. Here's some extra detail for those who remain more curious.

The circuit complexity reduction happens by changing the math behind the radio signal. Much like how you can describe a vector in cartesian coordinates (a point in x, y) or in polar coordinates (a point in angle and length), choosing how to represent the radio math allows for different techniques to arrive in the same answer. That's what the author did: he picked a polar modulating scheme over a quadrature modulation scheme. (Note, there are even more mathy ways to modulate a radio signal, but those are what the author is presenting to us.)

The author's choice avoids generating unwanted frequencies that must be filtered out before amplifying. That's components on the board that don't need to be designed nor exist. A solid win.

The drawback? Polar modulation is non-linear in frequency space. What that means is certain frequencies are over-represented and others are under-represented. Imagine playing notes on a piano where some keys are very loud and others you could hardly hear them. That's the unwanted non-linearity.

Herein lies the trick: what's bad can be turned into good. Power amplifiers typically need to be linear. Imagine a piano that works fine but the auditorium's loud speakers make it sound terrible. Those loud speakers would be a non-linear amplifier. The trick is that it's possible to match the modulator's non-linear behavior with a power amplifier's non-linear behavior to end up with a clean signal! A non-linear piano and a non-linear loud-speaker can produce beautiful music! This engineering trick unlocks all kinds of non-linear power amplifier architectures (that's the "C/E/F" described in the article) which are drastically more energy efficient than linear ones (linear designs max out around 65% efficient).

Given the username, I'd say that is the case: https://terptheatre.org/

"TerpTheatre is both a source of information about theatre interpreting and a tradition of theatre interpreters in the shadowed strategy. "

As long as the aquafaba is salt-free, it makes an awesome substitute for egg whites in mixed drinks. Whiskey sours are absolutely elevated with this substitution.

And this comes from a guy who isn't a vegan. Try it out, folks. You won't regret it.

I've thought about tube vs tubeless with regular riding, like commuting, and have a slightly different conclusion. For the record, I'm 100% tubed and still haven't managed to give away sealant that I got for free.

Tubeless has two nice commuting/regular-riding benefits. First is when there are frequent encounters small punctures, like thorns or steel wire. The maintenance time benefit of tubes disappears quickly in this case. Minor punctures with tubes can be mitigated with puncture resistant tires or liners, but that compromises ride quality and speed.

Second, every moment of your time isn't created equal. Time when traveling is not as fungible as maintenance time. I can schedule tubeless maintenance. I cannot schedule when I get a puncture. Tubeless is zero delay or just a quick pump-up compared to patching a tube. Even catastrophic punctures are a wash; both setups need a new tube.

What setup to use really does come down to "it depends." Are you always cutting it close to get to where you need to go, but are good with routines? Consider fast tires in a tubeless setup. Do you struggle to maintain your bike or are always early to your destination? Marathon Plus tires with butyl tubes would be a solid choice.

As for me? I only carry patches for most of my rides. It works on every one of my bikes and I'm not usually riding somewhere with less than 15 minutes of buffer time. Although it does suck to patch a tube when riding at night. That's a suck I'm willing to take.

I'm unconvinced. The LBS can still work on Buffalo bikes. They can still repair tubes, true wheels, fix pedals, replace spokes, fix chains, change brake pads, etc. They may not have unique parts, like the AK2 freewheel, but it's far from being unable to repair most bicycle failures.

I think Evan found an upset businessman who's in the business of selling Black Mambas. They're in that same situation as a local doctor that's been displaced by Doctors Without Borders. And they're upset that they have to compete with WBR. The complaint is understandable yet it doesn't absolve them of their own failures.

No bicycle donation program is going to survive on a single LBS or two near a city. If I were to buy a kid a Black Mamba and it breaks down, then the kid has to take it into the city to repair it at that one shop with high repair prices. What's far more likely is the kid will stop using the bike and sell it. Kids-in-school objective failed.

Note, this is also why WBR only operates in places where there is insufficient bicycle support. There's no need for WBR to donate and sell bikes if there's already a healthy local bicycle market. You can't buy a Buffalo Bicycle and WBR doesn't want you to have one. Instead go buy a Surley or a SOMA or a Rivendell. We have a robust LBS network. WBR operates where there's nothing.

And, IMHO, the Black Mamba isn't a great rural bicycle. It'll work but it's far from ideal. By donating to WBR, I know it's the best bicycle that will go to some kid. I know that it'll survive long enough for that kid's few more years of school. I know that it'll be strong enough to be passed down to their little brother or sister. And I know their village has a dude with a wrench to fix a flat and adjust a pedal. Such robustness is worth the extra $50 over a Black Mamba.

I'm not a fan of this article, mostly because Evan Christenson contemplates the darker side of charities working in underdeveloped countries without actually exploring them beyond criticizing WBR. It's, likely unintentional, FUD propaganda.

It should not be a shock to find out that charities have overhead and many of them have unfortunate side effects. For example, Evan brings up Doctors Without Borders as a charity with lower overhead and a leader less compensated. That's true, but did you also know they sell your personal information when you donate to them? That's part of how they lower their costs. Also they provide doctor services for free. What does that do to the doctors who are there trying to make a meager living? DWB is undermining what little medical infrastructure the country has.

Is that a bad thing? Is it a good thing? That depends on you, the donor's, perspective. Selling my data to provide more doctor is fine with me. Same with undermining the countries' medical market because it's a temporary thing and usually in a crisis where not providing help is definitively worse.

I'll continue donating to WBR because their expense ratio is acceptable, even good, for physical good imports given the shipping overhead (aka bribes) in Africa. Admim is ~15% and fundraising is ~23%. Everything else goes into the bicycle and into families with kids who cannot afford one. That's a lower margin than buying just about any good from your local shops, and it's lower than many other charities working in Africa!

Vietnam is a counter-example with quite effective bicycle troops. Their army and insurgency was supplied with bicycles on the Ho Chi Minh trail.

I don't believe the machine gun is intended to be fired while on the move. You'd have to be grabbing that grip at your crotch, aiming without the sights, all the while peddling and steering. That's quite the tall order. Even under ambush conditions you'd want to get out of the area ASAP, something a bicycle would do better at than on foot.

My presumption is this is intended to be a fast and light machine gun placement. Speedy deployment and movement of machine gun nets without needing to carry all that weight, let along carrying a machine gun's diet of ammunition, on your back is quite an advantage. Dismounting to get behind the gun isn't a high bar nor particularly slow. I'm sure a soldier could be sending lead downrange in a matter of seconds. Essentially the same role as light infantry support vehicles today.

The recoil wouldn't be that bad. Apparently the M1895 was loaded with 6mm Lee Navy at around 2,200J muzzle velocity and a cyclic fire of 450/min. That's quite manageable. In comparison, the M249 is a shoulder mounted gun of 1,800J, 850/min. That's 50% more recoil to manage without a bicycle frame to support the firearm.

I upgraded my license when my grandfather had to move in with my parents so I coul help him setup a smaller shack and assist in operating the radio with him. He deeply appreciated the family time, and I'm sure your Uncle wouldn't mind spending time with you too.

For whatever it's worth, these web interfaces are great at listening and cost nothing. Ask him to help you operate (finding signals and how to listen to them) using a KiwiSDR online. If you find out he's also having fun, then perhaps look into remote radio station equipment. There's a wide selection of transmitting capable SDRs, like FlexRadio, and DIY solutions (e.g. https://www.remotetx.net/). You can even rent remote operation time with incredibly nice hardware in amazing locations (e.g. https://www.remotehamradio.com/). Perhaps he'll be come interested in another side of ham radio that he hasn't done before either, like working satellite passes. That doesn't take more than one nice, or two very cheap, handheld radios and a small handheld yagi.

Ham radio can be used as voice chat with friends, but that would be a pretty limited view of it. Here's some things that a Discord Voice Chat cannot do that radio can:

• Chat without internet (e.g. places without cell towers).
• Chat without voice. (digital communications of all kinds; email/text, keyboard-to-keyboard, pictures, etc).
• To build an internet (e.g. building WiFi meshes with extra power [AREDN], AX.25 packet, WinLink).
• Used as a tool during emergencies (see ARES/RACES/CERT).
• Chat completely randomly (it's just one big discord channel, but you can only hear some people).
• Chasing the challenge of unusual radio propagation (earth-moon-earth, meteor bounce, tropospheric ducting, aurora).
• Chasing the challenge of collecting the most point-to-point contacts (contests).
• Chasing the challenge of difficult radio propagation (microwave links).
• Constructing and using radios that you cannot buy off the shelf parts with (usually with those funny microwave guys).
• Higher power versions of things unlicensed folks cannot do (RC toys, Meshtastic/LoraWAN, WiFi, etc).
• Historical preservation (restoring old radios, keeping ship-shore coastal stations running [e.g. Maritime Radio Historical Society]).
• Conducting scientific experiments (HamSCI, and I conducted one listening to the ionosphere during the recent total eclipse).
• Building and controlling satellites (AMSAT).

And there's even more. The way to view ham radio is the government grants you a license to operate on many pieces of radio spectrum so long as you can show your technical ability to not cause harm (interference, safety, and things that will prevent you from blowing up your radio as well as find success in using it). What you do with that spectrum is up to you!