Good points. I don't recall having the same experience about getting too cold or too warm, but it seems like an experience that'd make sense for a lot of people to have, so now I'm wondering why I am not recalling them. I probably either don't remember or am more resistant to getting too hot or too cold.

My waterproof pants go over my regular pants and have buttons to make them relatively easy to take on and take off. It's definitely a little annoying though.

I'm pretty into biking. I live in Portland, OR, bike as my primary mode of transport (I don't have a car), am sorta involved in the biking and urbanism communities here, read Bike Portland almost every day, think about bike infrastructure and urbanism whenever I visit new cities, have submitted pro-biking testimony, watched more YouTube videos about biking and urbanism than I'd like to admit, spent more time researching e-bikes and bike locks than I'd care to admit, etc etc.

I've been wanting to write up some thoughts on biking for a while but haven't pulled the trigger yet. I'd like to start by just spitballing some stuff in bullet point format here. Maybe I'll write posts in the future.

• The thing that most attracts me to biking is the safety. There's debate about whether biking is actually safer than driving. Per-mile, the statistics seem to indicate that biking is less safe, but proponents will turn around and point out that once you start biking you won't be traveling distances that are as long.
  
  Anyway, I'm an "interested but concerned" rider who only rides on infrastructure like greenways, protected bike lanes, and off-road paths and I'm pretty confident that I am a fair amount safer doing this than if I were to live a car-centric lifestyle.
• Cost is probably the second most attractive thing about biking to me. Mr. Money Mustache has a fun post on this topic: Get Rich With... Bikes.
  
  One important point is that people tend to underestimate the cost of cars. In particular, they don't weigh things like gas, repairs, insurance, fees and parking enough. With those things considered, driving gets very expensive.
  
  OTOH, to be able to bike you'll need to live somewhere that is dense enough, has good enough bike infrastructure, weather, etc etc. to justify biking. There aren't a lot of good options for this if you're in the US, and you'll probably have to pay more for housing to be somewhere that is bikeable. I'm happy with Portland.
• I really like the exercise-induced mood boost that biking provides. It's a little less now that I have an e-bike, but it's still pretty notable and important.
• The act of biking is also fun. I think this is a separate point from the point about the mood boost that persists after the ride.
• There are probably some decent health benefits. I know they're supposed to be quite large for regular biking and other forms of active transit like walking, but I'm not sure how much the pedal-assist from the e-bike cuts in to this. My guess is that it's pretty comparable to walking, and decently large.
• Weather isn't too big a deal.
  • For maybe a few weeks of the year it's uncomfortably hot, but when I'm riding I find that the wind is enough to make me comfortably cool whenever it's under, say, 100 degrees. The problem is when I have to stop at a stop light or something and don't benefit from this wind. That's tough, but it's also relatively brief.
  • The cold is fine. Just bundle up and dress appropriately. I've never really understood people's issue with the cold. If you're dressed appropriately you won't actually be cold, so I think the issue is that either they're not dressed appropriately or don't like the inconvenience of bundling up. I too don't like the inconvenience of bundling up; it's a notable cost of biking vs driving.
  • The rain is a little more annoying. A rain coat, rain pants, boots and a ski mask basically solve that problem, although sometimes it's annoying if the wind blows rain in my eyes.
  • Overall I will often just avoid biking on days where the weather is bad enough to be annoying, and this is fine with me.
• The possibility of bike theft is... because I'm weird... almost a positive. I spent a ton of time doing my research and arrived at a setup that I'm pretty happy with. When I lock my bike up I'm confident that it will be safe, and that gives me a sense of pride and joy that makes me happy. Like I said, I'm weird.
  • For my primary u-lock I have a chemical Skunklock. Every other lock can be cut through in a matter of minutes with an angle grinder. The chemical Skunklock, well, it can also but cut through in a matter of minutes, but like a skunk, it will spray you with nasty chemicals that will make you vomit and ruin your angle grinder (and your shirt). There isn't good data available to determine how much of a deterrent this actually is, but I'm pretty optimistic.
  • For my secondary u-lock, which I use in my apartment complex's bike room and when I want to be extra safe when I'm going out, I have the carbon Skunklock. This one doesn't spray you but it is fancy enough to screw up the discs of an angle grinder such that you have to be prepared with and be willing to use up a bunch of discs. I feel like a lot of thieves either won't be prepared or will give up after a few discs break.
  • Based off of the advice of TheBestBikeLock.com, to secure my wheels, saddle, seat post, handlebars, fenders, and back rack, I use hexlox. Basically, they are little magnetic things that fit into hex nuts such that a hex wrench can't fit into the hex nut and unscrew it. Brilliant. A little pricey, but I love the feeling that everything is pretty safe.
  • In the past, before I got my e-bike, my approach was to get cheap hybrid bikes that I don't really mind getting stolen. At least not too much. That worked pretty well for me.
  • For a lot of people the possibility of bike theft is a huge problem though. It'd be nice if cities and law enforcement were able to solve this problem.
• Biking does sometimes take meaningfully more time than driving. Most places I could get to within 20 minutes or so which is fast enough that I don't really care about time savings, but some destinations are 45 minutes or so away by bike, and it'd be nice if the commute wasn't as long.
• My girlfriend isn't as eager to bike as I am, especially in bad weather. This sometimes leads to us not going out when we otherwise would if we had a car, but it isn't a big deal. She doesn't like going out too often and I usually don't mind staying in when that's her preference.
• Groceries aren't an issue. I live one block away from a grocery store and walk there. I can carry maybe $150 worth of groceries without much of a problem. I also have two panniers on my bike that can also carry maybe $150 worth of groceries if I want to go to a different grocery store. I could also get them delivered.
• Similarly, shopping more generally isn't an issue. I order pretty much everything online and for in person stuff the panniers are usually sufficient.
• The thing about not owning a car is that you still have easy access to cars. Primarily through ride share. There are times when, for whatever reason, I want to use a car as my mode of transport, and then I'll just call an Uber. For something like a trip to the Oregon Coast we can always rent a car.
• The bike infrastructure in Portland is pretty solid but there are parts of Portland that aren't really accessible for an "interested but concerned" rider like me to get to. It's a little annoying, but honestly, not that annoying. I usually just avoid those parts of town and I don't think I'm missing out on much. When I have a stronger reason to go there I'll either take a bus or an Uber and it's fine.
• I don't love the idea of biking at night when it's dark. Somehow I rarely finding myself needing to do this. I guess I'm almost always home by 9pm or so. Huh, I didn't realize that until writing this. Anyway, since it happens infrequently, when I do need to bike at night I just accept it as being "in my safety budget". I also have strong lights, a reflective helmet, and a reflective vest.
• There's been some "human-level" encounters I have when biking that you just wouldn't really have when you're in a car. Sometimes I'll pass someone I know and wave. I've stopped at lemonade stands a few times. It's fun.
• With my e-bike, sweat isn't really an issue. It was before the e-bike though, and that was annoying. What was especially bad is when I'd wear my backpack. My back would get soaked. Then I learned that panniers are a thing.
• When I've lived in other cities (Gainesville, Vegas, and Culver City), bike parking was pretty terrible. There often wouldn't even be a pole or something that I could lock my bike to near my destination and I'd have to walk around in search of something. In Portland, the bike parking is fantastic. There's racks everywhere.
• I get a sort of warm and fuzzy feeling when I bike, like I'm doing something good for the world. Like I'm cooperating in a game theoretic sense. I'm not sure how much I actually endorse those feelings, but hey, I'll take it.

Externality god

I was just walking my dog and there was this parked car that pulled out. As it did it's motor was crazy loud and I along with my dog got a big whiff of exhaust.

The first thought that came to my mind was something like, "Ugh, what a negative externality. It's so annoying that we can't easily measure these sorts of things and fine people accordingly."

But then I thought, "What if we could?". What if, hypothetically, there was some sort of externality god that was able to look down on us, detect these sorts of events, and report them to the government.

Would that be a good thing? How should we use this information? I think we'd have to incorporate the fact that if people got taxed all the time for random little things, it'd have a sort of transaction cost that'd need to be taken into account.

Similar for payments for positive externalities. Knowing that at any second you could do something that produces a positive externality and get paid for it makes me think back to when I did freelance web development. Knowing that I could spend one hour making $50 or whatever made me feel guilty for sitting down and reading a book or something, so the opportunity to freelance imposes a cost onto me. Same with positive externalities, I think.

But beyond these transaction costs I'm not sure what other issues there'd be with paying/taxing people for positive/negative externalities.

I'm also not sure what society would look like. I'm not really imaginative enough to paint a picture here, but I'd love to hear from others who want to take a stab at it in the comments.

Do you primarily bike to work or to other places as well?

Personally, like other "Interested but concerned" riders, I only feel comfortable using relatively safe infrastructure like greenways, protected bike lanes, and off-road paths. Looking at this bike map of Seattle, that infrastructure isn't available east of Lake Washington. In the downtown and university areas it looks like there is some of that infrastructure available but that it is disconnected enough to make it difficult to get to many destinations by bike.

This all makes me think that Seattle is a difficult place to get around by bike for even an "Enthused and confident" rider and that you'd need to be "Strong and fearless", but I'm not sure.

Gotcha, thanks for the investigation and info.

Yeah it seems plausible to me that sources recommending things like 100ms or 150ms latency are being conservative in a sense, and that there are meaningful gains to be had with lower latency.

And I definitely buy that high enough latency that leads to interruptions is annoying. As an anecdote, I've been listening to The Prancing Pony Podcast recently. The co-hosts interrupt each other unintentionally all the time, I suspect because of poor latency. It's really bad.

So with wifi, it sounds like you should be good if the routers are positioned such that there isn't much interference, and if there's plenty of capacity. Like at home my girlfriend and I don't have too many devices straining the router, but if we had a party with 15 people around then it'd be problematic?

As for coffee shops, I work from coffee shops a lot (but almost always avoid taking video calls there). A lot of them are pretty calm and don't have too many people there using the wifi. And the bigger ones with lots of people on their laptops, that's the demographic they're targeting so I suspect that they pay for good internet stuff. I've definitely been to coffee shops where the connection is bad though.

This is one reason I am typically eager to proceed with rail lines and other mass transit, even when the direct case does not seem to justify the cost. You have to start somewhere. If for example we do hook up a point in Los Angeles to Las Vegas via a new high speed rail line, then there is hope that this provides impetus to go further, also most of the gains are impossible to capture. So given a private group is remotely considering doing it, we should be ecstatic.

Since writing Beware unfinished bridges I've come across what I think is a better model: S-curves. The idea is that:

1. In the introduction phase, you invest in something and don't get much in terms of results.
2. In the growth phase you hit some sort of threshold where marginal investments pay huge dividends.
3. In the maturity phase there is some sort of saturation where marginal investments aren't really going to do anything anymore.

Using this language, I think what you're saying is that in the context of transportation infrastructure, you're typically eager to proceed along in the introduction phase because doing so makes it more likely that we then invest even more, enough to reach that coveted growth phase. Or something like that.

I'm not sure what to think here. At least in the context of bike infrastructure, I'm skeptical.

I've been involved with some urbanism and biking communities recently and I think it's largely accepted that in North America, connectivity is pretty poor. I don't think that movements along the introduction phase have gotten us meaningfully close to the growth phase. Surveys show huge gaps between how much people want to bike and how much they actually bike, so I think we're definitely still in the introduction phase. And in Portland OR where I live, the city has a goal for 25% of all trips to be taken by bicycle by 2030. Right now we're at 6-7%. Given the upcoming projects and pace of development, I don't think anyone thinks the 2030 goal is at all realistic.

I'm not very knowledgeable about mass transit. Maybe in that context your expectation is more likely to play out. I feel skeptical though.

Yeah. Unfortunately I only learned about them after writing the post, but I think S-curves are the right way to model these situations.

Some questions:

1. Latency:
   1. When you mention latency, are you referring to the time from when person 1 speaks to the time that person 2 hears it?
   2. Do you have any recommendations for what latency one should target? I looked into it briefly and it looks like under 150ms is recommended, but maybe it makes sense to target an even lower number.
   3. Do you have any recommendations for how to measure what your actual latency is on video calls? Fast.com tells me I have a 4ms unloaded latency, but I think it'd probably be different for video calls.
   4. Claude is telling me that each router adds about 5-15ms in latency. Like going from 0 routers by plugging directly into the ethernet port to 1 router adds 5-15ms, and adding a second router if you live in a big house would add another 5-15ms. That doesn't seem bad to me. Do you think it's bad because you think one should target a lower latency? Because you expect a router to add more latency? Something else?
   5. As for bandwidth, I'm seeing recommendations for something like 5 Mbps for video calls. Do you have any thoughts on this?
2. Whenever I use my headphone's microphone for audio input rather than my laptop's microphone, people always tell me it's hard to hear me. But when I use my laptop's microphone people say it sounds fine. They also say it sounds fine when I use the microphone on my webcam. Do you have any thoughts on laptop or webcam mics?

Gotcha. Yeah with that line I indeed meant that I have more trust in Taylor's judgement than my own instincts.

Hmm.  I'm not sure how to resolve our disagreement on this.  When you say "roughly", you're acknowledging the lack of precision in your criteria, which is exactly the place I think your and Ben's criteria differ.

Hm, yeah. It does seem a little tough to resolve.

My position is that Ben and I are using very similar criteria and when my model outputs a different ranking of Draymond than Ben's ranking of 22, very little if any of that is because Ben and I are using different criteria.

It sounds like your position is that you worry that the criteria Ben and I are using differ in a pretty meaningful way, and that a big reason why we are ranking Draymond differently is because we are using different criteria. Does that seem correct?

If so, I suppose the way to resolve this would be for me to speak more about the criteria I am using and, since Ben isn't here, for me to speak more about what I think the criteria is that Ben is using. Then try to diff them. I think that'd be diving relatively deeply into the domain of basketball which I find fun discuss but I'm not sure how interested you would be in that. What do you think?

Does it feel like if you built the calculator / trained the ranking model such that all the weights were visible, and all the inputs about Draymond Green's (and all other players') performances were agreed, and if your counterparts did the same, you'd be able to actually WANT to change your mind to be more correct, or at least identify the places where you disagree on definition/methodology?

If I'm understanding this correctly, yeah, I would want to change my mind. I think two people with the same inputs and weights would only disagree on things like criteria and definitions, not on anticipated experiences.