Billions of people have a motorcycle globally... Some anecdote from a chronically motorcycle adverse culture (US) doesn't mean a whole mean of transport is invalid...
A fairly large % of those people--I would wager most, personally--would probably rather have cars, but can't afford to.
And thank God for it.
If every scooter rider in Taipei had a car, the city traffic would move a meter a day.
It's also about convenience, btw, not just cost. It's basically impossible to park a car here. Scooters are also difficult but at least possible.
A huge chunk of people here just take public transit now, as it should be.
Ironically saying "isn’t just smart— it’s important" (complete with em-dash!) and "No shortcuts. No filler. No excuses." sounds very AI-generated. Not saying it is, just pointing out how messed up the world we live in now is. But... was it?
that's the joke
Aw, poops. It got flagged :-(
Even LLMs have better sense of humor than HN readers.
Have you ever been on a motorcycle? Closest feeling you can get to flying and a helluva lot cheaper. Bike costs are line noise, (cheap!) planes I fly are better part of $200 an hour. I get what you're saying though. Barely been on bike since latest baby and wondering if I should just sell them for now. As much as I miss riding and wife misses riding with me, if the worst were to happen, yikes.
> Closest feeling you can get to flying and a helluva lot cheaper. Hah, that's funny for someone who got into FPV quadcopters recently and just passed his motorcycle license. I might have a problem.
I fly RC planes. I've done a bit of RC FPV with monitors never tried goggles or quads though.
Had similarly unorthodox path to tech, albeit without the drug addiction or prison. 90s early internet/BBS punk rocker/computer nerd. Hated school angry. Dropped out to work as a bike messenger for 5 years before packing a bag and moving west randomly. Couldn't sit still. Rode freight trains around the country for a few months. Washed dishes and landscaped to cover my cheap rent till that fell thru. Discovered shop l…
That is an absolutely crazy story, I hope you have it written down somewhere besides HN comments lol
I lost a good friend, a cycling partner, when she was hit by a car. I think she was a Cat 3 or 4 racer. Talented rider. I haven’t ridden on the road since. Just no joy in riding anymore if it just takes one careless individual on a cell phone… Every so often I think about linking up with a group ride again or even going to a spin class, but I just don’t see the fun in it anymore.
>I haven’t ridden on the road since. It's laughable how proud some cyclists become when they think a painted stripe will somehow protect them from cellphoned sharks. Obviously US bicycling infrastructure is laughably dangerous , and nobody deserves full-blame for exercising their legal rights upon roadways -- but e.g: biking up Lookout Mountain's shoulderless 2-lane highway is. stupid.ly common. These are tourist roa…
Perhaps we could move away from victim blaming, the same way we've moved away from blaming assaulted women for dressing a certain way.
Had similarly unorthodox path to tech, albeit without the drug addiction or prison. 90s early internet/BBS punk rocker/computer nerd. Hated school angry. Dropped out to work as a bike messenger for 5 years before packing a bag and moving west randomly. Couldn't sit still. Rode freight trains around the country for a few months. Washed dishes and landscaped to cover my cheap rent till that fell thru. Discovered shop l…
Did you ever bounce around the crackmonkey list? nick and friends seemed to know people with similar backgrounds.
Extreme mental clarity in "Eventually, she told me that it made more sense for me to quit my job while she worked, so that I could spend all of my free time trying to get another tech job". I could've never imagined long-term-thinking like this from a former addict.
> I could've never imagined long-term-thinking like this from a former addict. I know a couple people who recovered from addiction (and lost a few who sadly couldn’t). They’re just people from all walks of life. There are a lot of stereotypes about addicts, but drug addiction can hit anyone. The first few people I knew who became addicts were actually from good families, were educated, had good career prospects, and…
I grew up solidly middle class, even went to a good private school. A couple of my friends got ripped off by an addict that ran in our social circle who had the same background. They couldn't find the person, but they were so angry that they looked up the parents' address and went to confront them, assuming they'd be like bad people or something or had failed to raise their kid right. Instead both parents were incredibly mild and apologetic, and basically said, "We don't know what happened to our child and where it all went wrong." My friends felt very ashamed, apologized and left them in peace. It's a really tragic thing, and it's not just a cliche that it can happen to anyone.