Monday, Monday...

First up, call the clothes washer repair guy.  No, on second thought, make that second.

Yeesh.

Sorry Man, It's a Motor Scooter. Or Maybe a Motorcycle.

In the news this week, Gov. DeSantis vetoed an e-bike regulation bill.  I have to side with the Gov. on this one, because that bill seemed to be a morass of unenforceable namby-pamby minutia.  Here's a simpler solution.  On road:

If it's got a motor, it's either a motor scooter or, above 746W / 1HP, a motorcycle.  Apply existing laws accordingly.

Yeah, that's right, I said it, I mean it.  Below I'll paste a list of relevant news links and an AI summary of FL motor scooter laws.  But first, what should be done off-road?  Here's what:

With a broad medical exemption (requiring a physician's determination followed by a visit to your local DMV or county tax office for a durable license card & license plate), no e-bikes off-road on public bicycle trails.

Harsh?  Nah.  You weren't dogged by a couple of yo-yos in the 2023 Santos Fat Tire Fest Epic 50.  They weren't pedaling at all, but had the boom box cranked to 11, yacking above the din the whole time.  I finally took an extended coffee break and flagged them by, just to get some peace.  At the trailhead they were snapping selfies with their finisher medals and generally acting like they'd accomplished something.

OK, rant over.  Here are the promised links and the AI summary of FL scooter rules:

• My previous thoughts on the matter off-road (includes much discussion about needed & reasonable medical exemptions) and a short follow-up.
• DeSantis rejects e-bike bill
• A description of the bill (with TLDR summary at the top)
• South Florida's e-bike boom (blood! scars! Darwinian selection of tweenagers!)
• E-bike vs. e-moto (at SingleTracks; mostly off-road applicable)

Are you confused at all as to whether these are actual bicycles suitable for 11 year olds?  If so, consult your friendly biologist specializing in natural selection today.  Yes, it's brutal to discuss children's lives so bluntly, but that's the parents' choice, not yours or mine.

Now for the AI cut-and-paste summary of existing Florida law:

Florida distinguishes between motorized scooters (no seat/saddle, stand-up style), motor scooters/mopeds (with seat), and motorcycles based on engine size and specs.

Key Categories and Rules (as of recent statutes)

• Mopeds / Motor scooters ≤50cc (with seat/saddle, ≤2 brake horsepower, ≤30 mph on level ground):
  • License: Valid Class E driver's license (regular car license); no motorcycle endorsement needed. Minimum age typically 16.
  • Registration: Required in most cases (as a moped).
  • Helmet: Not required for riders 16+ (but required under 16). Eye protection often recommended or required.
  • Other: Cannot operate on interstates or certain high-speed roads. Must follow traffic laws. Insurance not required (but recommended).
• Motor scooters >50cc: Classified as motorcycles.
  • License: Class E license + motorcycle endorsement (or motorcycle-only license) required.
  • Registration/Title: Required.
  • Helmet: Required if under 21, or if over 21 without qualifying insurance ($10,000 medical benefits coverage). All riders need eye protection. Under-16 rules are stricter.
  • Insurance: Not strictly required by state law for mopeds/scooters but highly advised (liability coverage recommended).

General Rules

• All riders must obey traffic laws, signals, and have lights/reflectors where applicable.
• Passengers: Limited; specific rules apply (e.g., proper seating).
• Local ordinances: Cities/counties may have additional restrictions (e.g., on sidewalks, speeds, or rental scooters).
• Electric versions often fall under similar categories depending on power/speed.

Laws can be nuanced by exact vehicle specs and may change—check the official FLHSMV site or Florida Statutes (e.g., Chapters 316, 320, 322) for your specific scooter, and verify with local authorities. Always wear protective gear for safety regardless of legal minimums.

Rant off, and now I'm off to catch a mullet for supper.

Ma & Pa Osprey say "Hi!"

Osprey nest at the Hole, taken from a passing car on the river bridge.  Cool pic, not much after that.

BBC Mid-Winter Broadcast Results

Well I was going to post this yesterday.  However, I was attacked by a fiend with a torque wrench and a laser, who made off with nearly $600.  Yes, that's right, I had a dental appointment to have a crown re-attached to its implant.  And I was damed glad to get that emergency appointment too, I might add.  Mostly painless.  So... on with the post.  Blog post that is, not the dental kind.

As noted and described two days ago, Sunday just before 5:30pm EDT I drove down to Lafayette Park in Apalach and within minutes had a sort of half-assed inverted-V random wire antenna up (no, I didn't follow my own advice and string it vertically; I was rushed by the start time, and this was good enough) and plugged into my Tecsun PL-660 shortwave receiver (see inset – actual action picture).  Then... I listened.

Propagation condition numbers are on the left; click to embiggen.  Here's the short and sweet SINPO (signal, interference, noise, propagation, overall; each on a 1–5 scale):

9460 / 31m band Woofferton (UK):  nothing heard

9510 / 31m band Ascension I. (S. Atlantic): 35422 – very wavery signal, barely usable

12070 / 2m band Woofferton (again, UK):  35433 – not bad, not great, but perfectly useable; best of the bunch

Most of the half-hour transmission consisted of families sending well-wishes, interspersed with short musical clips.  It concluded with a short clip from the Bangles' version of Hazy Shade of Winter, and then ... silence and static.

As a small technical note for the non-technical, notice those frequencies.  They're about ten times higher than typical AM broadcast band frequencies – think of WWL at 870 kHz or WLCY at 1380 – and wavelengths go as the reciprocal of frequency, i.e., the waves will be about ten times shorter.  Hence, shortwave.  There you go.  So why do they travel so much farther than say regular broadcast AM or FM?  Short answer, just as different colors of light will refract differently in glass, different frequencies of radio waves will refract differently in Earth's ionosphere, high up in the atmosphere at the fringes of space.

So what was the point of all this trip, gear, and analysis?  Because it was there, and it was fun.  Oh, and pretty easy too – total prep time, maybe 10 minutes; set-up, maybe 5.  And oddly for Florida this time of year, no bugs.

Summer Solstice... Already?

Yeah, right now, 4:24 am EDT.  Guess we're in high summer now.  Well, you probably missed the exact moment, being at awful-oh-24, but you can still get in on the BBC's midwinter transmission to Antartica from 5:30 pm – 6:00 pm EDT this afternoon.  That's 21:30 – 22:00 UTC if you're confounded by EDT.  Here are the frequencies;

• 9460 kHz (Woofferton)
• 9510 kHz (Ascension – always wanted to visit that place, might get there yet)
• 12070 kHz (Woofferton)

More details can be found over at The SWLing Post, including after-action reports and recordings eventually now up over at another post at the SWLing Post.  ps: Decent reception here on the northern Gulf. I'll have something interesting up tomorrow.

Definitely not summer solstice weather in Florida

Tick Tick Tick – but no Tock

Short and sweet, How to Remove a Tick Safely and Avoid Lyme Disease at Outside magazine.

It's very short so read the whole thing.  However, just in case, here's a refresher:

• Get it off ASAP, preferably with tweezers grabbing the head.  Don't delay for a trip to the ER!
• SNAP A PICTURE of it.  Hadn't thought of this one, but it'll help if follow-up treatment is needed.
• Wash the bite with soap & water, hand sanitizer, or similar.  Whatever you've got.

There are a few more twists and turns at the article, so go read that, but those are the basics.  I'll add two more:

• Always carry suitable tick tweezers when in the outdoors.  Way better than fingers, but if that's all you've got, get the bug off ASAP with your fingers.
• Take some form of B vitamin before heading into the woods.  Pill or a B-heavy energy drink will do.  Ticks, along with many other bugs, don't seem to like the smell.

Sorry, no pictures here.  That may come as some minor relief.

Return of the (dramatic music please) Steamroller

Surly is bringing back a limited run of their Steamroller fixie bike.  Frameset only, $699.  Drops on June 23rd at 9am CDT.  Take note of that and get your order in, because there may be a (small) run on this re-introduced classic.  Personally, my running will be more of "away" than "toward," but that's OK, you do you.  I have the greatest respect for fixie riders, but it's just not my thing.  Even the fans of fixies think the whole niche is stupid.

Here are some links: at Surly, news at Bike Radar, an old review.  Not quite sure where to order one; left as an exercise for the student, you'll figure it out.

Right now though, I'm fighting a bad jones for a fat bike.  With the relative lack of trails here in FL, having something to navigate beach sand is beginning to show its appeal.  More than anything else, it's a lack of a place to keep it that's holding me back.

And Here We Go...

TS Arthur.  Not expected to greatly affect us – or anyone else, for that matter.  Still, it is the first named storm.

source: weathernerds

"Though we don't anticipate any significant turbulence, the captain requests that you leave your seatbelt buckled."

Our Counter-Cyclical Ways

Article at The Times: Local tourism defies state decline

It's not long, so no TLDR needed.

It's always been a thing here, and I have it on good authority that bucking widespread economic trends goes back at least to the Great Depression of the 1930s.

I'd Watch It

Too bad it's not for real.  Meh, I'll be on my bike.

Take Care of Your Own Neighborhood... Dogs

Florida Woman Mauled to Death by Dogs that Had Allegedly Terrorized Neighborhood, Owner Charged in Killing

First, go read the whole thing.

OK, we all know that some individual dogs are just plain mean, and some breeds are generally more inclined so than others.  The woman who owned these dogs wasn't properly fencing them, and evidently not properly training them either.  But what ticks me off is that other neighbors had previously been attacked, but refused to cooperate with law enforcement to counter this threat.  Look people, this is Florida.  Call the cops if you can, or pepper spray or shoot the damn dog if there isn't time.  The main thing is to break the immediate assault then to get the continuing threat off the street.

A couple of years ago while riding my gravel bike I was jumped by a pit bull.  For his trouble, he ended up with a face full of pepper spray.  From then on he was always fenced, and when he'd see me passing he'd lay down turn his head as if to hide, so I guess the pepper spray counted as a form of "training."  But the part that bugs me?  I later learned that the same dog had been previously terrorizing neighbors, and they'd done nothing.  What's more, this was adjacent to a school.  What if that same dog had decided to eat up one of the kids who'd stepped out the back door?  Yes, the responsibility is on the owner, but there's also a degree of responsibility for those neighbors who'd previously turned their heads.

Anyway, returning to the case in the news item above, because of the owner's negligence and a neighbor's reluctance, a woman is dead.  Don't be that neighbor, and don't shove the problem off on someone else.  Deal with the dog problem as it comes around.  A dead 50-yo is bad enough, but you really don't want a dead kid on your conscience.

ps: 10 Internet Points if you can ID the semi-famous photo in the figure.

And So It Begins

Won't turn into anything, but on the other hand it's not nothing.  Stay tuned.

Movie Review: A Scanner Darkly

I finally got around to this one last night, and kind of liked it, kind of didn't.  The funny thing is, though I like the point of Philip K. Dicks' works, I seldom enjoy his mode of storytelling.  It's a twenty year old movie at this point, so I'll let Wikipedia tell you as much of the plot as you care to read.  I will say though, it is beautifully made and acted, and all the plot loose ends are wrapped up by the finish, and of course and as usual, I agree with the societal commentary PKD was making.  The rotoscoped animation over the live action was a lot of fun to watch as well, and it really worked with many of the plot elements, especially with the "scramble suits."  It's just that a lot of the movie made my skin crawl (yeah, check that opening scene!) for no real payoff.

Three out of Five Stars, and that's knocked down one star from what would be four if I liked PKD's storytelling manner better.  You may care for his style though, so add that one star back in if that's case.  So... conditionally recommended.

Re-Read for the Nth Time: Protector by Larry Niven

After last week's slog-fest, I had to clear my mind with some actual science fiction, and Larry Niven's 1973 novel Protector is always a good choice.  You can find others' plot summaries and spoilers elsewhere, but here's why it's so good.  In a scant 217 pages it tells one hell of a story, but the first 100 pages cover:

• humanity's status on Earth in 2125
• humanity's status in the asteroid belt as well
• a glimpse into the friendly but slightly strained interplanetary politics of the era
• an alien first contact story
• everything you need to know about the aliens' motives and their unusual life-cycle
• how this all ties into one big package
• and finally, several tidbits to link the story into Niven's larger future history universe.

And that's just the first half of the book.  There are many more thrills, chills, and chase scenes in the second half, before the ride comes to a graceful halt with the gas tank nearly empty and all four tires smoking.

You see, this is how a good science fiction author does it.  None of it is forced or rushed, and Niven never, ever resorts to the tired "Well professor, tell us how it all happened" trope.  The whole book is just one big cavalcade of interesting ideas strung together with believable characters and competent prose.

Four point five out of Five Stars,  Recommended.

On This First Day of Hurricane Season

Got new flashlight batteries?  Rotated your gas?  Canned food that you won't mind eating for a few day?  Backup drinking water options covered?  Got FRS walkie-talkies (local option, cheap serviceable option)?  Got an AM/FM radio (good & local, really amazing good, total nerd-out options)?  No?  Then get the hell on the stick.

When the chips (and the internet) are down, you can get the news from WOYS 106.5 FM.  When the chips are really down, try WHBO 1040 AM (Tampa) daytime, WWL 870 AM (New Orleans) day or night, or WSB 750 AM (Atlanta) nighttime.  If the storm is so big it shuts all four of those down, sorry man, not much I can do to help.

If phone service is down, FRS is your easy, license-free option for talking around the neighborhood.  (You did set aside an extra one for the widow lady next door, right?  Good.)  Don't believe the range numbers on the box, marketing departments lie.  Around here, figure on a half-mile on channels 1–7 and 15–22, or a quarter-mile on channels 8–14.  Why?  Because those blocks channels are limited to 2 and 1/2 watts respectively.  If that's not enough info, go over to wikipedia and read up..

Also, if the power goes out, use battery camping lanterns rather than candles or oil lamps.  Last thing you want is to start a house fire when everything else is going wrong.