Brics is basically an alignment against the west, rather than for something. Each of the members has ambitions that are, at best, completely different from one another, and in some cases, contradictory. It reminds me of the cold war era non-aligned movement.

I’ve had one as my main bike for over a year. I’m not sure what your needs are but here are my thoughts:

• It’s generally well suited for everyday city life. I rode mine through the winter and never washed it. The belt doesnt care.
• The gear range is great unless you have steep hills.
• Weirdly, the fork doesn’t have the mounting hole at the bottom for a fender, but it does have one at the top. I use their recommended fenders with the Velcro straps and they’ve been great.
• Be sure to practice taking the wheels off. The gear cable attaches at the back in a weird way and you have to disconnect that to take the wheel off. Make sure you know how to do it.
• The hub really doesn’t want you to peddle while you shift. If you do, it will feel like you shifted just fine and then a few seconds later your drivetrain will jolt as it actually gets into where it’s supposed it.
• They say you can’t use a front rack but it has all the mounting points for one. I suspect this is because tightening a bolt too hard on the carbon fork crown could cause safety issues. I have a rack there anyway and it’s been fine.
• The hub has a sprag clutch which means it doesn’t click. It’s truly silent while pedaling and coasting.
• The rear sprocket is a Gates Surefit. This requires a special tool to take on and off. I had to buy one off Italian eBay. Your bike shop almost certainly won’t have one.
• The bike is pretty heavy. Not that big a deal for most things but it is what it is.
• I’ve changed the oil once but otherwise never messed with the drivetrain. It’s very low maintenance

My follow up questions:

1. Do unhealthy food options lead to obesity, or do lifestyles drive demand for food options (or some mix of the two)?
2. Regarding the income relationship: does income drive lifestyle or are unhealthy foods cheaper to offer?

I personally believe the first option in both of these questions, though I’d love to see some formal research on it.

I live in Chicago and this city feels so full of energy in the summer. There are constant festivals, events, people are hosting cookouts, everyone’s outside. It feels like a constant party. You pay for it in the winter though.

I lived most of my life in South Carolina. Last year, I made the mistake of visiting SC in the summer. I had to say no to so many plans in Chicago and leave beautiful weather to visit the hottest, muggiest, no-wind-est place on earth. In Columbia, SC the pride festival is held in October because if it was held in June, people would just die. I told my friends and family that they visit me during the summer and I’ll be around for the holidays.

I want this read at my funeral

So true. Hope you’ve been able to make some more deep connections with people who aren’t crazy. Thanks for giving me the space to vent about this.

You did the right thing too. I hope you’ve made some new friends since all that. I’ve cut off the one friend and had to distance myself from other friends that enabled him. You invited both of us to your birthday party? Guess I’m not going. The good news is that this has pushed me to value my friends that aren’t crazy and make more deep connections with new people. I hope you were able to make the same shift.

Tangent: I swear the best way to break down the narratives around trans people is to just make casual friends with a trans person. You naturally want to respect your friends and see them as normal people and then all the talk about bathrooms, grooming, etc just seem so silly. Years ago I felt like the bathroom arguments held water. Then I watched my trans friend just walk into the bathroom and it seemed like such a non-issue after that. Now she’s one of my best friends.

Yep. My guy is also “getting more christian” (aka christo-fascist) despite not going to church since he was a kid. Turns out, thinking a specific ideology is not only correct, but ordained by God, allows you to dehumanize anybody who isn’t completely falling in line.

I have a special syringe for this. I had impacted ear wax a few years ago and I went to urgent care to get it rinsed. Turns out my other ear was also impacted, just not as bad. After the rinse, I could hear in 3D. I felt like I shouldn’t have been allowed to drive home because it felt like I was on acid it was so overwhelming. On the drive home I heard a crappy Honda with a bad exhaust drive by and I was scream-laughing at how visceral it was.

Now I rinse regularly in the shower and don’t get to have free acid trips :(

That’s why we’re seeing this phenomenon of MAGAs waiting for their opinion on every breaking story. They don’t seek knowledge, or do a single ounce of fact checking.

It’s worse than that, I think. From my experience with my guy, critical thinking, reason, and evidence are enemies of truth. Any authoritative voice on a subject is evidence of falsehood. The entire establishment is meant to hypnotize us into submission of the elites. The frustrating thing is, that’s kind of correct. Capitalism has pushed mainstream media to be spun into propaganda. Elites (the rich) are holding increasing levels of control over society. Maga is taking this grain of truth and telling a compelling narrative about elite democrats using immigrants to get more votes. All of academia is left-wing propaganda, etc. It conveniently shifts the focus from class issues to demographic and anti-intellectual issues.

Come to Beehaw. In my experience, discussions there are more thoughtful and respectful than in some of the bigger instances. ML in particular is straight cancer.

Slaughter it’s was a short film several years ago that predicted exactly this outcome.

Honestly, I’d rather him say that than just lie. The problem is that it still is a lie if he does know but is deflecting blame.

No. That would be doing things. He doesn’t do things. Except one time he drove two hours to visit our friends for the weekend. Except he was actually just crashing at their place so he could see Jordan Peterson live. He didn’t tell them that until he was there. He’s been super cagey about his politics. I got hints over the years but I figured he was starting to mellow out after the pandemic settled. Turns out he just learned not to talk politics around his friends. In January I finally confronted him about his beliefs on specific issues, hoping that I was over-extrapolating and actually he just had a few mixed views. Nope, full on fascist. We used to talk on the phone every couple of weeks. I’ve completely cut contact since. Sorry for venting.

Read my mind. The can being pink is nice too though.

Do we know the same guy? My guy bought a bass and a bunch of music production equipment and never learned to use any of it. He’s got dreams of being a writer and he hasn’t written anything.

Overall he’s lived in several big cities and never made friends, eventually moving back to where we used to live to be closer to his college friends (he’s 30). He has struggled in his career, love, and social life and turned to Jordan Peterson. He likes reading. I think if he just joined a book club 7 years ago all of this could have been avoided because he would have made some friends.

Same. I lost my 15 year best friend over this earlier this year. It still hurts and it sucks but I’m not friends with fascists

Plank length: usually 10ft for 2x4s. Though, you can get them cut to length.

I feel like we already have the solution. The reason hijacking a plane is attractive for a terrorist is because you essentially have a precision missile. There’s little security for buses or trains because you can’t do the same thing. If you make the cockpit basically bulletproof and have strict procedures about entering the cockpit during flight, then it’s not nearly as attractive. Those changes were already made after 9/11. Hijacking a plane only allows the hijackers to kill the people on board, which isn’t as useful. Literally eliminate TSA and I think we’re good.

Question coming from complete ignorance: are you picking through a big pile of stones to find the ones that fit a gap or are you cutting them to fit (or both)? Also, are you a Mason (like a member of the illuminati group)?