mindstalk | stuff (Reply)

I previously mentioned seeing the lowest recumbent trike I'd ever seen. A day or two later, I passed the highest recumbent bike I'd ever seen. Definitely a bike, 2 wheels, which looked about as big as the 20" wheels of my folding bike. Obviously they're usable, but I have no idea how you mount or stop such a bike, at best it looks like you'd have your leg at a very awkward ankle.

I've been indulging in hot chocolate recently, and realizing it actually costs money. Like I just got some peppermint hot chocolate form Trader Joe's, and it's $6.50 for 8 servings (not counting any milk added), something like 80 cents a serving. An earlier variety was maybe $5.50 for 10, still 55 cents each. On Amazon I see other expensive ones, even over a dollar per.

I also see Swiss Mix, "milk chocolate flavored", for 10 cents a serving. I guess the difference is whether the ingredients list goes "sugar, cocoa..." or "sugar, corn syrup, whey, cocoa..."

Chocolate can counteract the bitter flavor of Bitrex in mask fit testing. I plan to see if sipping hot chocolate works as well, or better.

I now have a new Tdap shot. I'd accidentally gotten a Td shot 2 years ago in Canada; I hadn't known there were different blends, so went in asking for "tetanus" or maybe even "Td", in all ignorance until afterwards that I wasn't getting a pertussis booster. Finally fixed that lack.

Not very deep, but a short video on the virtues of garbage/beater bikes. I'm in the category of people who have only owned a fairly cheap bike, though not garbage. I am reminded of advice I saw once on how to get bikes while moving around between cities: just buy a really cheap one, and sell or abandon it when you leave... Though safety, or having luggage baskets, are another matter.

Place vs. non-place in urban design.

OSP history videos on Cyprus and Sicily. Apparently Cyprus stayed literate through and after the Bronze Age Collapse, and Norman Sicily was a great ferment of multiculturalism, with Muslim scholar in court and coins with Arabic as well as Greek or Latin text.