[HN Gopher] Winnebiko
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Winnebiko
Author : tosh
Score : 187 points
Date : 2021-08-02 07:51 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (microship.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (microship.com)
| LeonB wrote:
| I saw about this on a TV show - long ago. I have no idea what the
| show was but I remember the bike and the idea very clearly.
| timbit42 wrote:
| You're probably thinking of Donahue. The video used to be on
| YouTube but I can't find it now.
| thoughtpalette wrote:
| Love their side story about a historic tow path and his chance
| meeting of some convicts in the woods. The writing style is
| excellent.
|
| https://microship.com/towpath/
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Sun started sponsoring "WORDY" in 1990, and his bike ran FORTH,
| of course: In article
| <65315@newstop.EBay.Sun.COM>, wordy@Corp.Sun.com (Steven K.
| Roberts) writes: |> Hi... |> |> Are you
| interested in ongoing reports from the bikelab here at |>
| Sun? I am working around-the-clock on BEHEMOTH (the successor to
| |> the 16,000-mile-old Winnebiko), a 350-pound recumbent bicycle
| with |> satellite earth station, GPS satnav, handlebar
| keyboard with |> thumb mouse, ultrasonic head mouse,
| SPARC IPC for CAD and mapping |> and file-serving,
| Hypertalk user interface to the trio of FORTH |> real-
| time systems, heads-up display on the PC LAN, biketop |>
| publishing environment, complete ham radio station, micro
| security |> sensors, 54 speeds, regenerative and
| hydraulic braking, |> refrigeration and active helmet
| cooling system, speech synthesis |> and recognition,
| audio crosspoint network, MIDI, CDROM drive, 82 |> watts
| of solar panels, amateur television station, portable R|> &D
| |> lab, RF packet data link between manpack and bike, stereo,
| |> extensive camping gear, and so on. |> |> Sun
| has become a major sponsor, providing workspace and |>
| facilities here on the Mt. View campus, and my job is to
| |> disseminate diverse information on bizarre human interfaces,
| |> portability, packaging, wireless networking, and the
| underlying |> nomadness that has kept the whole project
| alive for 7 years. |> |> To facilitate
| publication of technical reports on the project, I |>
| have started an alias called Nomadness. If you'd like to receive
| |> ongoing updates, subscribe by sending a note to: |>
| |> nomadness-request@bikelab.Corp
| |> |> Thanks, and cheers from the unixycle lab!
| |> Steve Roberts N4RVE |> x65037
| dont__panic wrote:
| Solar panels on a bike? Curious choice. Seems like a lot of
| weight to lug around and a lot of downsides any time it isn't
| sunny when you could just use a dynamo to generate power instead.
| Though maybe in the late 80s dynamos were inefficient enough that
| it wasn't worthwhile?
| Johnny555 wrote:
| I don't know how much the old bike generators weighed, but a
| modern dynamo hub weighs a pound or more. A cyclist will use
| around 100W of power to ride 12mph, so a 50% efficient 10W
| dynamo will cause 20% extra drag.
|
| I'd rather have the solar panels, even though they only charge
| in daylight, they charge whether I'm moving or not, and I don't
| have to supply the energy from my legs.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Dynamo makes sense on the downhill.
|
| But yeah, overall, way to much weight. But 80's, 90's tech
| probably needed the current.
|
| A modern nomadic bike would just be a touring bike + iPhone?
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| My brother (who also reads HN) has spent long periods living
| "on his bike", and still opts to pull a trailer with a small
| flexible solar panel on top of it in order to provide power
| for his laptop. He has a dynamo hub too, which is generally
| fine for recharging his phone, but since he tends to want to
| do work too, having the laptop be charged also is important
| and I don't think that the dynamo is capable of that.
| robin_reala wrote:
| There was some discussion on HN about BEHEMOTH a year ago:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24440163
| iseanstevens wrote:
| This set of projects have been life long inspirations to me.
| fredcy wrote:
| His "Behemoth" bike had such low gearing for hill-climbing that,
| as I recall it, the bike had two retractable small wheels, one on
| each side, that worked like training-wheels to stabilize the bike
| at very low speeds.
| aaronax wrote:
| Wow I love this guy's content (immediately got sidetracked away
| from the linked page and started reading at a frenetic pace). It
| is the sort of treasure trove that I am lucky to stumble upon
| once a year at most.
|
| In fact, reading this stuff really stirred me up. It makes me
| think of the C.S. Lewis book "Surprised by Joy" which I think
| described this sort of feeling, but with the feelings in the book
| sourced from fiction/fantasy works. At least that is what I
| remember from reading it 7 years ago.
|
| Edit: Trying to think of other websites that I loved like this:
|
| AfroTechMods.com like 20 years ago
|
| Ludens.cl about 10 years ago
|
| ...these are hard to think of, but I'm sure it is not a once-a-
| decade event.
| nemo1618 wrote:
| For me it was folklore.org
| tosh wrote:
| here be rabbits
|
| https://100r.co/site/home.html
| jareklupinski wrote:
| oh no... http://afrotechmods.com/doom1.htm -> 404
|
| this was the Doom Monitor project
| [deleted]
| jtbayly wrote:
| Man, what a depressing story. From the "Amy" part of the story
| (https://microship.com/amy/):
|
| ######
|
| Suddenly Amy snuggled against me and asked if I had come back to
| stay with her forever. I held her and glanced over at Kay, but
| there would be no support from that quarter: she looked at me as
| if to say, "Tell her, Steve. Tell your daughter you'd rather ride
| a bicycle than be with her."
|
| I nuzzled Amy's hair. "No, sweetheart, I have to leave soon."
|
| "I want you to stay here." She wiggled and hugged. "I love you,
| Daddy."
|
| "Oh, Amy, I love you too." My voice was on the edge of breaking.
| "But I'll have to go in a couple of days."
|
| "Why?" She looked up at me, her face perfect and innocent, warm
| in the soft light of the living room. I had a sudden image of a
| winter night years before, cuddled with Kay before the antique
| fireplace of that old Victorian house in Louisville. We had gazed
| into the flames while sharing popcorn and hot apple cider, drawn
| together in the warm security of our endless love -- the sense of
| family. Now I awkwardly held my little girl and tried to figure
| out how to explain the lure of technomadic adventure. They both
| waited for my reply.
|
| "Honey, I have to travel -- I have to... oh, I don't know how to
| explain it. I'm riding my bike around the country and writing a
| book about it."
|
| "Why?"
|
| "Well, it's exciting. It's fun." I almost launched into a whole
| explanation of the freedom versus security trade-off, but I was
| talking to a three-year-old.
|
| She smiled up at me and gave me another hug. "OK. I'm going with
| you!"
|
| "My bike's not big enough for both of us, Amy."
|
| "Then I'll ride my bike." She started to cry.
| legrande wrote:
| This is the Opportunity Cost of entrepreneurship. You should
| read `No, You Can't Have It All`[0] by Mark Manson. Sometimes
| you just have to forgo certain things to follow your dream
|
| [0] https://markmanson.net/you-cant-have-it-all
| ridaj wrote:
| Maybe more the opportunity cost of being an egotistical
| douchebag? It's amazing to see the stories in the magazines
| talk about the tech and the future of work, but gloss over
| the world of hurt this guy appears to be leaving in his wake.
| llampx wrote:
| Not to discount this passage, but fathers being absent is
| almost a trope until very recently. Many generations since the
| Industrial Revolution have grown up barely knowing their
| father, unless he had a job that allowed him to be around the
| children more than the usual.
|
| Long days at the factory were the norm, not the exception.
| However, to leave them entirely for months at a time was
| definitely not normal. I think most men would not want that.
| wott wrote:
| > Long days at the factory were the norm, not the exception.
| However, to leave them entirely for months at a time was
| definitely not normal. I think most men would not want that.
|
| Maybe in urban context, but in the country it was common to:
|
| * go to the summer pastures for several months;
|
| * go for agricultural seasonal work for 1 month, 2 months
| (nowadays it is about picking fruits and vegetables, it used
| to be about cutting hay and harvesting corns (scythe works));
|
| * the same for mining work; so basically in agricultural down
| times at your place, you'd go and work as a hired hand
| somewhere else; agriculture as mostly a mean of subsistence,
| not much as a mean of income, income would come from the
| salaries brought back during those "down" times; it is still
| like that in less developed countries/areas.
|
| And I am not sure that, in those days, all kids were
| extremely happy to see the return of the fathers when they
| returned, for they had heavy hands and sturdy belts :-)
| nradov wrote:
| Prior to the Industrial Revolution, during the Age of Sail
| fathers who worked as sailors were frequently absent for
| months or even years.
| laumars wrote:
| That hit me hard too. It's the kind of action that stays a
| child for their whole life and casts a totally different light
| on this guy and his adventures.
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| The moral of this story is, don't have a kid until you're a
| grown up
| klik99 wrote:
| This hit me so hard - and I appreciate the honesty in this
| chapter. Life is choices, and I certainly wouldn't have made
| the choice he made, but I'm glad he doesn't gloss over the
| impact of the choices he made. Very well written
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| I wonder how his relationship is with Amy today.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > "Well, it's exciting. It's fun." I almost launched into a
| whole explanation of the freedom versus security trade-off, but
| I was talking to a three-year-old.
|
| Selfish asshole is an apt term to apply here. Imagine telling
| your child "I have more fun riding my bike than being with
| you."
| neilv wrote:
| At least he's aware and honest about the decision he was
| making.
|
| Maybe circumstances unexpectedly got him into the situation of
| having kids yet not ready to prioritize the kids over other
| things he wanted to do.
|
| Or maybe he didn't think kids would benefit from a parent
| around as much as I and many others think kids would.
|
| My own parents seemed to put the kids first, then other duties,
| very selflessly, so that's my default assumption and feeling
| for what I'd do. And effectively why I don't yet have kids,
| since career isn't yet where I want it to be.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Yeah, I remember seeing his exploits covered back in the day.
| Seeing now that he had a kid he had left behind put him and the
| decisions he made in a different light.
|
| Still fascinated by what he did but I'm sad to see the people
| he hurt.
| swader999 wrote:
| Similar to Justin from Ebikes.ca who chronicled his trip and the
| electricity cost to go across Canada 13 years ago on his ebike. I
| think he did it for less than $10.00 CAD. https://www.endless-
| sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5652
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(page generated 2021-08-02 23:03 UTC)