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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 9th, 2023

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  • For years, I worked in a large building that required all employees and visitors to back in for a few safety reasons, with approximately 600 spaces and an almost full lot most weekdays. It was stated in our safety training that it was easier to see other people and vehicles when exiting facing forward and faster evacuation in times of extreme emergency. It had the benefit that it did seem to quicken flow of traffic when everyone left around the same time at the end of the day.

    If a parking spot is straight, I tend to back in for those reasons, but if it is an angled spot, it typically denotes a singular directional flow, and it makes more sense to pull in and back out.




  • I certainly don’t advocate people driving under the influence of any mind altering substances, and I believe if someone is found impaired at the time of an accident, the law should account for that.

    However, and this is anecdotal, I grew up in a house where I knew from a very young age that my parents were smokers. There were far fewer days that my parents were not high. They performed all necessary driving without issues. They maintained focus and followed all (other) driving law and never got into accidents. I don’t partake at all now, but when I did, I drove regularly and never felt unsafe. There were instances where quick reaction time was necessary (swerving to miss an unexpected obstacle on a dark windy road in the rain, accidents involving other vehicles in front of me, etc.) and my conscious effort to focus on the task was way more important than whether or not I was high.

    Now I ride a motorcycle and am much more aware of what is going on with drivers around me. The amount of people I see in their cars on their cell phones or busy talking to their friends or just generally not paying attention, I want to say that is the bigger issue. Alcohol disables your ability to choose that focus, and at least for me or the people I’ve been in a car with, cannabis does not. I’ve ridden in cars with friends that touch their phones while behind the wheel and it has always made me feel much less safe.

    But this is just my experience, and I wanted to share. You aren’t wrong and I know it makes more sense advocating driving without influence, but to say it is just as dangerous as alcohol seems a stretch in my eyes.


  • Organize/join an org. Talk to your neighbors/family/friends/coworkers. It’s slow going at first. You may not see results for years, but building a community that resists takes effort. I see people doubt the efficacy of protest/organizing all the time, or they are discouraged by lack of numbers in the streets because it doesn’t happen overnight or because there isn’t absolute 100% alignment with what they think should be done, but we need to remember that these things are built over time and more important than complete alignment on prescription is agreeing that the direction we’re going is wrong. The best time was yesterday, the second best time is now. There are people across the US in all states organizing to resist. I’m in a very red state and each subsequent meeting we have nearly doubles in number of people.


  • That I hate television and actually enjoy working. Jobs suck, “work” sucks, but getting things done around the house or finishing a project or even just getting into a flow on a task is rewarding. 10 year old me would ask, “What happened to us?!” But I guess I enjoyed it then, too. I just defined it differently. Building with Lego for hours in my room, being creative. I didn’t define that as work until my adult hobbies expanded into making things with my hands and I had real world job experience.


  • I appreciate it!

    I’m still very much in the placing pieces as I go phase, and haven’t had to deal with many inclines. However, I am aware that vehicles can handle the 2m slopes and not the 4m slopes. As long as I approach any height difference with that in mind, my slope blueprints will clear. I’m also giving myself plenty of ground clearance and will place my supports under the road to appropriately blend. Then it doesn’t much matter if I’m a little higher up off the ground, but would generally like to keep it at around power tower height unless needed for the incline’s sake.

    I also have bottom and top slope transition blueprints as well as slopes. I can use beams from there to gauge my distances to start or properly position the slopes direction.


  • I originally tried using power towers for supports and building around them, but it just did not look great. A lot of fooling around with beams and frames, I got something that actually worked for me. I might still somehow integrate power towers at different intervals on blueprinted platforms that match the design but it just will be redundant and another way to get around with zip lines. I just imagined an all in one transport network infrastructure plan, but just sticking with platforms for roads and trains was enough of a foundation to work off of, and really the best core to function while while extras can be worked out later.



  • The bends were easy. I did both left and right directions a single deck, one tighter turn, one wider turn. Then stacked those prints for the second deck. The hard part was getting everything EXCEPT the foundations to line up and be coherent. I’ll add homebrew light posts from blueprints to slopes and turns after placement.

    It will be more of a struggle when I start figuring junctions and merges/splits into the design, having to make one item, like a t-junction, between two different prints. Even the 6x6 blueprinter may not be enough. All of my current prints were done in the 5x5.