Non-grocery shopping

[Sebastian Cobb]

After bread makers and hair clippers people are now panic-buying bikes:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53023552

Glad I already had one but I am struggling to get it serviced because all the bike shops have a massive backlog to work through right now.

My old bike has been taking up space wherever i put it. It was in the bathroom leant against the bath but then I needed that for homebrew so I had to move it to the hall so I walk into it all the time.

I wanted to dump it with a local place (bike for good) that do bike maintenance and repair and resell donated bikes but also let you rent a stand and use their tools and get help fixing things (I would never have been able to get my bottom bracket out on my own, it took two blokes heaving on it and me keeping the stand upright to free it) since they have helped me replace all the mechanical parts that have gone wrong - which is most of them but they have presumably been shut.

It had been pissing me off so much I considered offering it to a neighbour downstairs who left a note on the front door telling people to not leave it on the snib because her bike got nicked just to get rid of the fucker, but in the end didn't bother.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Feel I should be buying more pointless PC hardware just for the sake of it. Didn't know 2.5 Gb ethernet cards existed, although they don't appear to be much cheaper than 10 Gb ones. For a grand you can get a 100 Gb one. 100 Gb!!! Also you can get a PCI card you can stuff with 8 SSDs. So you can have a 32 TB SSD on a single card.

As mentioned in the techology thread, I've bought a load of wifi modules that can run very basic arduino code, or can be connected to arduino's to give fuller functionality.

Cool, I've ordered 4 modules, a relay module and some powerbank enclosures that can take 1 or two 18650 cells and some ams1117 regulators.

The idea being I can put a button or multiple buttons and the module in the housing where the second cell can go (the enclosure charges the cells in parallel) to make some IOT buttons that make http requests to either an IOT service or my own api's and can play with the relay for controlling some lighting or my chromecast audio's.

Although the module doesn't expose much in the way of GPIO pins, I think I can use a resistor network to pull down the voltage on the ADC line and trigger a transistor on the signal line to figure out which button was pressed.

My main goals are - turning on lights automatically after sundown if my phone is present on the wifi.
Push button streaming of internet radio with my chromecast(s), change station and possibly sync (if chromecast A is streaming a station and I push a button, the second chromecast joins the 'group' and streams it also to enable multi-room audio).

https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,80815.0.html

I'm not sure 'order a load of cheap shit of aliexpress' is what they had in mind when they said #shopforbritain though.

Those wifi modules were £1.40 each. The USB powerbank enclosure that'll take two cells and charge them was $0.50.

[Blue Jam]

I shall investigate aliexpress, cheers. I meant to do more Arduino stuff during lockdown. Got two Uno boards and a few expansion boards, some of which are all connected together in my Arduino robot car kit. Was going to attach a robot arm to it and make it into a little crane. So far I have just dusted off my copy of The Arduino Cookbook and been pissing about with a breadboard and lots of little wires. Haven't used my soldering iron yet, will wait until I actually own a flat and have more room so I can set up a little workshop in my man cave.

In other news my bike is now roadworthy! Was tempted to buy a second bike while I was at the shop today, a folding bike, but I wouldn't be saving any space unless I also got rid of my current, non-folding bike.

Might buy a new helmet, it's probably time.

[Cuntbeaks]

I've had a go on a Brompton, and it was fucking terrifying. The tiny wheels afford no confidence whatsoever, even going off a kerb was horrible.

[Head Gardener]

shop in Scarborough

[Blue Jam]

Scarfolk, more like.

Got some fingerless cycling gloves coming tomorrow. Thought I had a pair but found them and they're knackered.

[Cloud]

Last Friday afternoon was literally like Christmas (if not worse) in town

This Friday afternoon - almost as dead as during the peak of the pandemic

I guess people have got their pent up shopping out of their systems so that's good, but a little worrying for those who were hoping for a bounce back

[Sebastian Cobb]

Scarfolk, more like.

Got some fingerless cycling gloves coming tomorrow. Thought I had a pair but found them and they're knackered.

Get one of these (cheap as fuck on alixpress and possibly also ebay).



In seriousness it's really well engineered as a thing. And it automatically turns on/off based on movement and ambient light, and can tell when you're decelerating and acts as a brake light. None of those are the reason to buy it though; it's less than a tenner and mounts really nicely under the saddle, covert enough not to get nicked and doesn't use rubber bands or shitty brackets to stay in place.

[Blue Jam]

That looks good SC, might order one, cheers. Could be very handy for the bit of my commute where I go from bright airy countryside to a long and dimly-lit tunnel.

Sock update: at least eight of the 20 socks I ordered from Tu at Sainsbury's now have holes in and have been added to the recycling bag. You get what you pay for, I guess. Don't buy your cheapo socks from Saino's, kids.

In other news I managed to do a bit of clothes shopping on Tuesday. I wasn't going to bother but people on Twitter were saying Princes Street was still pretty dead and there were hardly any queues so I got me some much-needed new trousers for werk. The only places that had queues were H&M and Zara, and even then there were only about four or five people queuing. Most places were deserted, it was less stressful than doing a normal, non-Covid shop tbh. It was reassuringly unlike Black Friday- there are lots of sales on and lots of b@rgains to be had but no-one wants any of it.

I am genuinely quite gutted that every branch of TK Maxx in Scotland is still closed though. I had been looking forward to my fix of crab bells, bumhole pasta and gold trainers with Karl Lagerfeld's cartoon South Park face on them.

[Blue Jam]

TK Maxx has reopened! That's my afternoon sorted.

[Blue Jam]

Maxxed out now. Fucking magic. Just threw out an old Farah hoodie and today I replaced it with the exact same one, except instead of £25 it was £7. Got a nice long Hurley lumberjack shirt for a fiver and some posh make-up marked down from £40 to a tenner. Got a smart Trespass raincoat marked down from £120 to £12. Also got a lipbalm in a metallic pink case shaped like Karl Lagerfeld, the mad fucking dead bastard. Had to be done.

[seepage]

Got a smart Trespass raincoat marked down from £120 to £12.

I believe similar reductions are available in the Trespass shop itself. Have you been to the TK Maxx in/near Fenchurch St. with proper designer stuff in? mrs. seepage elbowed a load of random garments into her basket as per, before I had to point out each one was about £200 (reduced from £1000)

[Blue Jam]

Yes, Trespass has a constant half-price sale on but £12 for a smart waterproof coat I actually needed still seemed pretty good.

I think I have been to the Fenchurch Street branch actually, I have definitely been to one somewhere around there which seemed to have more designer stuff than most.

[Ferris]

Gave in and bought some legit LPs and a Summit Ice tshirt* but it's all being shipped from California and I'm moving out of this apartment end of the month. The race is on!

_{*deny nothing!}

[Blue Jam]

Those Summit Ice jackets are actually quite smart. A bit more than £12 of course.

Dammit, now I'm worried I might have inadvertently bought an antisemitic waterproof.

[Head Gardener]

[Cloud]

*THALE

[Dex Sawash]

*THALE

^ #CANTHELLED

[Sebastian Cobb]

Got ££££ back from the taxman, so because I'm going to be working from home for the forseeable and also because I've got a few bits of stuff I want to get along with as well, I treated myself to a 32" 1440p monitor.

[Blue Jam]

Just went for a browse in my local independent bike shop and walked out with one of these muthas:

https://www.moorelarge.co.uk/etc-f500-500-lumen-front-light-2.html

You could blind a kestrel with it.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I ought to get a new pannier rack as mine's fucked but between getting shopping delivered and it looking like us only having to go back to work once a week (and I've got trousers in a locker at work) It seems like I might be able to go back to a rucksack.

Stops me getting a wet arse in lieu of a mudguard though.

I've abandoned 'don't order too much stuff to take the strain off the postie' now tbh, not consciously, just sort of happened.

[Blue Jam]

I also got a new rear light which while not quite as bright as the headlamp could probably also be seen from space:

https://www.moorelarge.co.uk/etc-mira-20-lumen-front-light.html

Noticed my old rear light has been playing up and doesn't always want to switch on, and my headlamp isn't really bright enough for the big dark tunnel I cycle through, so after ten years of loyal service I thought it was finally time to get a new set of lights.

My old battery-powered lights were also just a bit crap compared to these new USB lights you can get these days. I'm very impressed with my ETC set but slightly pissed off that they are actually brighter than the lights in my house. I might make like Alan Partridge and attach a load of bike lights to a wheel rim and hang it from the ceiling.

[Blue Jam]

Placed an order for some house stuff on Amazon. Order arrived late and was the wrong item. Saw the original was out of stock and wondered if the seller had thought "Fuck it, this other one will do".

Requested a refund and got "Sorry, but this one will also do the job, would you be alright to keep the item with a partial refund?". Looks like my hunch was correct- and they knew the specs of the item they sent me "by mistake". Fuck's sake, I thought all sellers lived in fear of shit feedback these days. I certainly did, that's why I stopped selling stuff online.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I've been trying my best to actively avoid amazon, used worldofbooks/hive and The Box to side-step them so far. All seemed to get me things for more-or-less the same price even if they charged delivery separately.

This place is a good starting point: https://ethicalrevolution.co.uk/amazon-alternatives/

I just used Worldofbooks to buy this:


Partially because it's mentioned in Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, but also because I could probably do with it being explained to me like I'm an infant.

[imitationleather]

That For Beginners series is actually pretty good. I used to have the Freud one as a child but it was still massively unsuitable for me at that age.

[brassmonkey]

Nice one on the Amazon alternatives. I'm finding it difficult to justify buying anything other than food at the minute- ordering some poor fucker in to the warehouse to get me some comfy slippers while I hunker down in my house feels perilously close to sending them over the top for the sake of The Economy. Also dovetails quite nicely with me being a massive tightwad, so I get to both save money and feel morally superior. Highly recommend.

[buttgammon]

If you're after books, see if your local independent bookshop has a website - there's a list here, and a website you can buy through here.

[Sebastian Cobb]

If you're after books, see if your local independent bookshop has a website - there's a list here, and a website you can buy through here.

If not Hive will donate a percentage to a (local) bookshop of your choice.

[Blue Jam]

Nice one on the Amazon alternatives. I'm finding it difficult to justify buying anything other than food at the minute- ordering some poor fucker in to the warehouse to get me some comfy slippers while I hunker down in my house feels perilously close to sending them over the top for the sake of The Economy.

But if you order from Amazon your ordered will be picked by a robot and robots don't get the 'vid, job's a good' un.

[seepage]

I think the pickers are human, and robots sort the parcels to be delivered.