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The Vespa at 80

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Re: The Vespa at 80

#171

Post by Sam6late »

lostlogin wrote: post #116
Sam6late wrote: post #79

I hated our Vespa when I was a kid in the seventies but their calendars were cool. You know that instinct you get when you're slowing down or coming to a stop, where you just want to stick your feet out for balance? Well, every time I did that, I felt like those sharp metal edges on the Vespa were just waiting to scrape my leg or catch my ankle. It wasn't a bike to me; it was a hazard on two wheels. So when the oppor…

Air strikes? Where was this?

Homs, Syria https://www.ebay.com/itm/376362709347 What is interesting is that our Volkswagen car is still running til today by the guy who bought from us, in a village there, this car escaped the so called planned obsolescence.

Re: The Vespa at 80

#172

Post by mdp2021 »

esrauch wrote: post #169
mdp2021 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean the three: -- the additional alarms you mention; -- the noise from the engine (according to the assessment of mates, it should be that): it whines; -- the additional noise made to increase their "presence" which is typically an unnatural synth chord. All of that is absolutely unbearable to us.

There is literally any noise from the engine, whine or otherwise. Whether a noise is bad or not can be subjective but silence is objective. So at least for that one it kind of draws into question your overall conclusions here. You might be hearing an ICE and thinking it is electric, or some specific badly tuned vehicle or something.

I am very certain I am talking about electrical and hybrid vehicles. The first one that had me aghast was a Nissan Leaf. Today, too many. Obviously I cannot confuse them with ICE ("brooom").

The point about the "whining possibly-engine" comes from a chat with a friend, where I said that they had decided to really use the most annoying overlapped noises to make the cars audible: he replied, those are not the additional noises, but the "noises from the engine" (probably from the whole system). I don't know.

> silence is objective

The electrical and hybrid vehicles I witnessed are very far from silent (save for the bicycles - I can't assess them, too little experience). As expressed, to us those noises - running noises and operational noises - are annoying to a whole new level.

Re: The Vespa at 80

#173

Post by boomskats »

joe_mamba wrote: post #130
boomskats wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a great solution but it's the best one I've got, and it's still more ecological than driving the (electric) car for the same one-person trip. And audible != loud. Anyway, don't most places legally require nearly silent electric vehicles to emit some kind of artificial noise?

>And audible != loud People who sleep with the windows opened in summer at night(most Europeans) facing the street where vespas are driving would beg to differ. Then there's the separate issue that some(many?) owners either rev their vespas for more power(maybe due to worn belt) or they just fuck with their exhaust to squeeze more power at the expense of noise. Either way, there's plenty of good reasons people find m…

I agree with all of those points, and none of them are relevant to what I was talking about.

Re: The Vespa at 80

#174

Post by MomsAVoxell »

moeffju wrote: post #167
MomsAVoxell wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Unu/Black Tea (no Vespa) do have honks, but they’re quite whimpy, and the Viennese will scream extra bloody murder at you for honks as well, especially if they’re the ones standing foolishly in the middle of the road with their mobile phone plastered to their faces, and you’ve just added a new black line in the road, braking not to hit them .. I keep thinking I should upgrade my honk to make it beefier (although h…

You should join our unu Community Discord, we have someone who upgraded to what is basically two fog horns at ungodly decibel levels ... but we can also reactivate the builtin speaker and add the spaceship noise maybe?

Great ideas on all accounts, thanks for the tip about the Discord, I’ll look that up soon .. need to get my Unu classic back on the road, has been idle for 2 years after quite some action since it was released .. lovely moped, all things considered, for the city…

Re: The Vespa at 80

#175

Post by rldjbpin »

pmontra wrote: post #43
amarcheschi wrote: post #33

Piaggio also designed a car (well, more than one including bad prototypes), which unfortunately wasn't sold in italy due to a gentleman's agreement with fiat (fiat being much bigger basically went if you start selling cars, we'll build motorcycles). The English Wikipedia doesn't include this snippet of history, the Italian page does though https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACMA_Vespa_400

Piaggio also designed the Ape (bee) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_Ape a 3 wheel tiny pickup. It was hugely popular, but of course not as much as the Vespa because of the smaller market. I still see some of them especially in country areas.

i lived in an interesting time and place combo where i'd see more apes around than vespas. primarily because we have local alternatives for vespas, which were also levied a lot of import duties to begin with.

while vespas came earlier and had the advantage of interchangeably calling scooters "vespas". however, did not figure out that they both shared the same parent company.

Re: The Vespa at 80

#176

Post by odiroot »

MomsAVoxell wrote: post #148
odiroot wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBQH from my experience people in Vienna are quite oblivious to single-track vehicles. No idea why but even cycling here is often scary.

Precisely because of the sentiment expressed in the message you’re responding to - Viennese are quite comfortable with the idea that no matter what they do, the person with the expensive transport device is to blame, 100%. Even when I am in pedestrian mode I find myself cursing those smaller electric moped riders who qualify to ride the bike lane (my bikes are only for the roads) and zoom around like they own the bik…

> Even when I am in pedestrian mode I find myself cursing those smaller electric moped riders who qualify to ride the bike lane

Well yeah but they're another league of recklessness. Especially the food delivery people.

I was talking more about an average bicycle commuter.

Re: The Vespa at 80

#177

Post by esrauch »

mdp2021 wrote: post #172
esrauch wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is literally any noise from the engine, whine or otherwise. Whether a noise is bad or not can be subjective but silence is objective. So at least for that one it kind of draws into question your overall conclusions here. You might be hearing an ICE and thinking it is electric, or some specific badly tuned vehicle or something.

I am very certain I am talking about electrical and hybrid vehicles. The first one that had me aghast was a Nissan Leaf. Today, too many. Obviously I cannot confuse them with ICE ("brooom"). The point about the "whining possibly-engine" comes from a chat with a friend, where I said that they had decided to really use the most annoying overlapped noises to make the cars audible: he replied, those are not the additiona…

Nissan Leaf motor is silent, there's really just objectively not a noise from the motor itself which could offend you.

There's still some possibilities here: maybe you came across someone with a broken car and believed that to be representative.

Most other explanations here just involve some form of confusion on your part to be honest: that it was the backup-alert noise that it makes _because_ the car is otherwise too silent, that it wasn't actually a Leaf but an ICE engine that you saw, or something else.

Re: The Vespa at 80

#178

Post by mdp2021 »

esrauch wrote: post #177
mdp2021 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am very certain I am talking about electrical and hybrid vehicles. The first one that had me aghast was a Nissan Leaf. Today, too many. Obviously I cannot confuse them with ICE ("brooom"). The point about the "whining possibly-engine" comes from a chat with a friend, where I said that they had decided to really use the most annoying overlapped noises to make the cars audible: he replied, those are not the additiona…

Nissan Leaf motor is silent, there's really just objectively not a noise from the motor itself which could offend you. There's still some possibilities here: maybe you came across someone with a broken car and believed that to be representative. Most other explanations here just involve some form of confusion on your part to be honest: that it was the backup-alert noise that it makes _because_ the car is otherwise to…

I insist. It cannot be about broken cars, because there would be a large number of them.

The Nissan Leaf cars I experienced are not silent at all - it does not matter if it is the motor or another part of the system, or if it is the additional noise that was mandated legally because they were deemed too silent. Similarly, its Peugeot "twin" is "whaaa" whining, and so are the hybrid Jeep Renegade, and many others (as I was writing another reply nearby a Lexus) that had me turn in the street and address the drivers with impatience.

Is it possible instead that you have no noise sensitivity for that noise? Or maybe - that makes no sense but - if I pointed you to that noise you would be surprised that some find that a foreground in perception? Because it is really bewildering that you call those cars silent - they are the opposite. A large number of electric or hybrid cars produce a whining "whaaa", a sort of synth chord, loud with a filter-pass in an abominably annoying band. I think I even heard one with a fake ICE noise (an imitation), but still a coloured timbre (not a natural noise but a synth with a perceptible note) in that same band.

And the explanations you mention really make no sense: the beeps of the backup-alert noise - which we all know were mandated because the vehicles were supposed to be too quiet - are intermittent, whereas the whine is continuous.

(The vehicles were supposed to be too quiet, so they mandated extra noises. Some of them are guessed to be nerve wracking - which is also normal in societies that have lost their natural sense.)

But look: it is absolutely impossible that I can confuse an electric car noise with that of an ICE - and it is out of question that you can allege that.

Maybe ask other people whether they hear noise from electric or low-speed hybrid cars. Really, ask other people.

Edit: at this point I thought I could sample one - but I am sure they could be found on YouTube etc., there should be no need. ... I checked: it's full of them samples.

Re: The Vespa at 80

#179

Post by anal_reactor »

bootlooped wrote: post #136
mulmen wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a big advocate of two wheeled transportation. The differences between bicycles, e-bikes, mopeds, and motorcycles are important and meaningful. The misuse of terminology by entitled car drivers and the ignorant public literally kills people every day. Yes, I am aware people are wrong. No, I don’t care to compromise.

I'm not sure the difference between moped and scooter is killing people everyday. I don't think it is. Can you give an example?

I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.

Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called Linux, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.

There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called Linux distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux!

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