*banned 4 MarkDown love* @design_RG@qoto.org

@Kovaelin Yes, you need to create an account. A free account is quite a nice offering from them, other providers and paid service tiers can offer more options, multiple devices, etc.

@Kovaelin I have not used or heard anything about Bitmask VPN, but did use other providers in the past. Most recently Proton VPN which even has a FREE account that works quite well - after a week trial (with access to all their servers), a free account will be limited to servers in 3 countries -- USA, NL and Japan.

But it works reasonably well with these, in my experience. Their software is outstanding, so fast to connect.

Recommend.

@ujcmtgs4n4jqza It's an interesting and unique design indeed. All the complexity of the gearing is on a sealed box, mounted in a strong area of the frame. The chain only carries the proper RPM for the wheel drive, so it's much easier for it.

Very uncommon but some people swear by it.

...and just looking at that photo makes me wish to be out there, in the road, at this location. ❤️ 😄

I have traveled with my fully loaded Touring bike, similarly to the one on the photo (but lower tech and affordable, built it myself), and it's a great way to see and experience new places.

A similarly high end product with internal gearing (and all the advantages thereof, but this time mounted at the front end, near the bottom bracket and shifted there before transmission to the rear wheel) is the Pinion gear boxes.

Also a German product, these require frames specially built to accommodate them, but have a good reputation as well.

Here's their page for Touring bicycle gear boxes : https://pinion.eu/en/travel/

@freemo Bon Appetit!

Was this originally produced in Japan? The price is high there, and if it crossed the seas to America I can only imagine it becoming even higher.

Quite a bit of Marbling, as they are famous for. A little too fatty for me, but people rave about the flavour. Enjoy!

I was just talking to a friend this morning and mentioning the beauty of the technology of the fancy internal gearing hubs for bicycles.

Simpler ones with 3 gears have been around for more than 100 years (the Sturmey Archer. a British brand, has been around that long), and more recent and higher tech models from Rohloff like the one in the photo are wonderful pieces of Engineering.

They are high quality, pricey but a peace of mind confort for a Touring cyclist -- as they are strong, functional and require much less care and maintenance than regular derailleurs during long trips.

Throw in some sandy roads, mud, and they shine even more - as they are all sealed and much less damage by the grit and mud.

Wikipedia has a good page for Rohloff : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohloff_Speedhub

And Sheldon Brown as usual has a pristine page for the more mechanically inclined : https://sheldonbrown.com/internal-gears.html

User impressions about Rohloff hib bicycles: https://www.sheldonbrown.com/harris/rohloff-impressions.html

#Touring #bicycle #cycling #QotoJournal

A personal letter in reply to a local user I just sent.

How can a new user in the Fediverse start finding interesting people and making connections?

Some ideas and suggestions, maybe they could be useful to others.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello and welcome to Qoto.

I would suggest you look at my profile, any info I intended to share is posted there, along with most of my toots, done in public mode.

For a new user in Mastodon, it's a good thing to post some info about yourself. This can be done in your profile itself, and also with an "Introductions"post which is specifically done for that; tell people what you do, what you are interested in, maybe hobbies and a general idea of your location (don't need an exact location, best kept private).

Usually, these posts are done and "pinned"to the user's profile so any visitors can see and find them easily. And we use a hashtag #Introductions so it also gets indexed and easily found that way.

Mastodon and the Fediverse are quite interesting, but it takes a bit of time and patience to make friends here. Replying to people's posts does help, any posts that you find useful or have an opinion on, adding a comment will get the poster to become familiar with you.

Right now there's been very little social posting here at Qoto.org, we used to have some frequent users and friendly chatter (all started in the same manner I suggested above, by commenting and reacting to each other's posts).

Sadly, people come and go; I have been very active and am a moderator here, but have done very little posting for the past month or so.

Any posts you make here are seen by many people out in other servers as well. It's also a good idea to find interesting conversations in the Home (the little House icon) feed or the Federated feed (much busier, the Globe icon). I have responded and got involved in great conversations in these places, and you start making friends in other servers as well.

Hope you enjoy your stay, and find many interesting conversations to be part of. The Fediverse is quite interesting, although for a newcomer it might feel less welcoming than Facebook, for example. But it's much richer and more interesting once you start getting to know people and places around here.

Have a good day! 😄

@freemo An interesting part of the article is the information that the first rumblings about resuming economic activity came from those people, all billionaires, and later the same day the US president posts his famous, ALLCAPS " the solution cannot be worse than the disease"tweet, and stats pushing for a reopening "by Easter".

"Boris Johnson has spent decades preparing for his lead role, honing his adopted character, perfecting his mannerisms, gauging the reactions to his performance and adjusting it for maximum effect. Now he has the national stage and the rapt audience he always craved. His speech this week announcing a lockdown drew the biggest television audience in Britain in this century.

The problem is that he has been preparing for the wrong part. The man came to power playing Falstaff, a double-dealing, comically entertaining, shameless rogue; now he is suddenly onstage as Henry V, the wartime king whose solemn judgment, intense focus, charisma and conviction must lead his nation in a time of crisis. Mr. Johnson does not know how to play that part, and it shows."

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/opinion/coronavirus-uk-boris-johnson.html

"Lloyd Blankfein, who ran Goldman Sachs Group Inc. until 2018, helped kickstart the calls to get back to work on Sunday when he tweeted that “extreme measures to flatten the virus ‘curve’” were sensible “for a time” but could crush the economy: “Within a very few weeks let those with a lower risk to the disease return to work.”

His longtime deputy, Gary Cohn, who left the bank to become Trump’s top economic adviser, asked if it was time “to start discussing the need for a date when the economy can turn back on.” Without clarity, businesses “will assume the worst,” he said."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-25/billionaires-want-people-back-to-work-workers-aren-t-so-sure

From the same article above, an interesting fact -- that Medtronic is open sourcing their design plans for some simpler models of ventilators, to allow any interested parties to produce them.

This is good news on a sorely needed item in this pandemic.

"Medtronic CEO Omar Ishrak told CNBC on Wednesday that it is increasing capacity of its critical care ventilators and partnering with others such as Tesla. He said Medtronic is open sourcing one of its lower-end ventilators in less acute situations for others to make ventilators as quickly as they can. These lower-end ventilators, which are easier to produce because there are fewer components, can be used as an intermediary step in critical care."

'Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Wednesday that the company’s factory in Buffalo, New York will open “as soon as humanly possible” to produce ventilators that are in short supply due to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

His comments, which were made Wednesday via Twitter, follows previous statements by the CEO outlining plans to either donate ventilators or work to increase production of the critical piece of medical equipment needed for patients who are hospitalized with COVID-19, a respiratory disease caused by coronavirus."

https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/25/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-new-york-gigafactory-will-reopen-for-ventilator-production/

Dyson has received an order from the UK government for 10,000 ventilators to support efforts by the country's National Health Service to treat coronavirus patients.

James Dyson, the company's billionaire founder, confirmed the order in a letter to employees shared with CNN on Wednesday.

'Desperate' shortage of ventilators for coronavirus patients puts manufacturers on wartime footing
"A ventilator supports a patient who is no longer able to maintain their own airways, but sadly there is currently a significant shortage, both in the UK and other countries around the world," Dyson wrote.

Dyson said the company had designed and built an entirely new ventilator, called the "CoVent," since he received a call 10 days ago from UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/26/tech/dyson-ventilators-coronavirus/index.html

@IOcase I could also suggest you look at my blog post about choosing an instance, which has a number of descriptions of some I participate in and like.

https://write.tedomum.net/rgx/is-it-important-which-instance-you-are-in

@IOcase Hello, and welcome to Qoto.

Enjoy the network and all it has to offer. If you are new to using Mastodon, there's a good guide here: https://lifehacker.com/a-beginner-s-guide-to-mastodon-1828503235

We also have another new users guide, posted here : https://write.tedomum.net/rgx/suggestions-and-guidelines-for-new-users-written-by-mastodon-art-administrator

@rinakra you can send a direct message to @freemo and make the request. He will ask you to confirm and eventually process the request.

#humour #linux #unix

"The global oil market has been hammered this month by an economic slowdown and a price war between major producers Saudi Arabia and Russia. Canada’s storage situation mirrors that across the continent. U.S. crude prices are down 60 per cent since the start of the year, and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) settled at US$24.49 a barrel on Wednesday. Western Canada Select heavy oil blend was priced at US$8.84 a barrel, according to NE2 Group.

With economic pain spreading, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday to “rise to the occasion” and bring stability back to oil and financial markets that are reeling because of the novel coronavirus and resulting pandemic."

It would certainly make sense to pressure the Saudis to stop dumping oil as they are, which is hurting badly producers here in North America and elsewhere. Excessive production, at a time when demand collapsed.

Soon many small players will be broke. Canadian heavy oil at 9 USD per barrel?? US fracking can't be economical at the current WTI level either.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-canadas-oil-industry-facing-deep-production-cuts-as-demand-dwindles/

A liv epidemic model at the New York Times = you can see numerical estimated results of changing various parameters on the current pandemic situation. #QOTOJournal

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/25/opinion/coronavirus-trump-reopen-america.html