Zagorath @ Zagorath @aussie.zone

Formerly /u/Zagorath on the alien site.

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To be very clear: the case study I provided is on an exceptionally steep hill. Very few people need to climb something this steep, ever. The 350 W you get from a currently-legal ebike plus a lazy casual amount from the legs (I'm seeing varying numbers, but every number I'm seeing suggests that even a slow walk on foot uses significantly more than 100 W). And on a non-cargo bike, the sorts of normal hills many people climb every day on their daily commute can easily be climbed at a good pace at 350 W. Heck, at 300 W, even.

It's not about investment, it's about ensuring the power numbers stay low enough to reduce the potential for abuse. It's got nothing to do with purity, and nor did anything I say provide even the vaguest implication that "purity" has anything to do with it. If it was about purity, I wouldn't be starting from the standpoint of assuming 70% of the power is coming from the motor, or using 100 W as my presumptive minimum even when climbing. I wouldn't have provided the evidence with data for why even for people who don't want to put in a lot of effort don't actually need that much power, and explained how the fact that my rides do contain more power are precisely because they're an outlier.

Most people are not going to be at your level of fitness or investment in cycling (in both the physical and mental sense) and just want to get places without needing a shower afterwards. I can see why you want to keep a purer form of something you have an interest in

Sorry but, what part of everything I wrote makes any of this relevant?

NSW finally changed their laws to a more sensible 500w

Personally whatever the regulation is, I'd prefer it be nationally consistent. That goes for more than just this. NSW and Vic being the only places where cyclists can't use the footpath is absurd, and they need to get with the time. Queensland allowing cars to park in a bike lane is absurd and we (and any other states that might allow it) need to get our shit together. NSW's even more backwards restriction on escooters and PMDs also needs updating (though at least this one appears to be in the works).

I actually have my own bugbear with EN15194, and it's the speed. I think the 20 mph (32 km/h) limit used in the US is more reasonable than 25 km/h. It's very, very easy to get up to 30 km/h on the flat with an analogue bike, and it's incredibly safe. I see no reason ebike users shouldn't be allowed to do that.

Interestingly, I checked the laws in all three east coast states and all have another category separate from the main one we're discussing. It seems mostly identical, but Vic and NSW call one "power-assisted pedal cycles", and it has a limit of 200 W. NSW mentions that this type must have an adjustable seat and weigh no more than 50 kg, requirements that have no equivalent in the main type of ebike. The main type, called "electrically power-assisted cycles" by all three states I checked, mentions a 6 km/h "walk mode" speed limit for throttles, and Vic & Qld have a 250 W limit but no other stipulations. NSW has a 500 W limit, but also says that its power must be "progressively reduced as the bicycle’s speed increases beyond 6km/h". Which, if enforced at point of import or sale, actually could perhaps be a good compromise; a way to get the increased power output for heavier vehicles without giving an unnecessarily high amount of power to lighter ones.

250w limit in EN15194 is overly low

I just don't agree. Remembering that that limit is continuous output, and brief spikes above that are permitted, and that a throttle-operated vehicle is illegal, so some power from the legs is always to be expected. I've got a power meter on my analogue bike, so I can tell you how much power my legs are putting out at any given time. A very light, easy cycle, my legs are probably doing about 100 W; that would be 350 W if you put the same easy effort with the battery of an ebike.

The most power I have ever put out for 2 minutes is 303 W. Bring it down to 1 minute and I've done 400 W. But that was during a power test on an indoor trainer. Even climbing up an incredibly steep climb, I can manage with about 500 W for about 30 s. Now, what exactly EN15194 means by continuous output is left vague, talking only about how the motor is thermally limited. It seems reasonable that 30 s might be an acceptable amount of time to exceed the 250 W continuous limit by 150 W...or for a cyclist to put out more than that miniscule 100 W.

Just for reference, here's a 25 second section of my most recent ride on an extremely steep section:

At 39:30 it's exactly 350 W, and at 39:50 it's 351 W. That's 20 seconds above the limit I set, where the cyclist would only be putting out 100 W. And a cyclist could definitely do this section with less power than I use. I have a psychological thing where I hate going slow up hill (even if I'm fine cruising casually on the flat, and I actually go way, way slower than most downhill), so I put in more effort than most would.

The counterpoint to my reasoning is that I'm a fairly light dude, riding a carbon bike. A heavier person with a loaded cargo ebike would necessarily need more power than me. The riposte I'd give to that is that this is a route that roadies use for the sake of training. There are multiple alternatives that are less steep. And there's still the option to just go slower, or put out more power from your legs. Still, all that aside, I would be ok with allowing up to 500 W for cargo bikes. A bike not towing children or lugging large amounts of cargo absolutely doesn't need more power, but people should be able to take their kids to a weekend sport club, carrying their kids' sporting gear, in a bike instead of requiring a family car. And they should be able to do that regardless of where they need to go. So 500 W, sure. There's zero case for anything above that though.

Absolutely horrid feature. Supposedly it's to protect vulnerable people's privacy if they post in certain communities, but if they truly wanted that to be how it's used, they'd have limited the ability to apply the feature only to subreddits where mods have specifically coordinated with the admins to get approved as places where vulnerable people are posting. Or, and here's a shocker, they could just rely on the tried-and-tested method of using alt accounts. Instead, bots and trolls just hide their entire post history from people.

Now, supposedly, mods can see the full, unhidden history of any user who has recently posted in their subreddits. Which is good. But the number of other good-faith users being obstructed by this change is huge. It's overall a massive failure from Reddit.

Ah ok. So in a way it's kind of like Pathfinder to D&D? Pretty similar mechanically (I noticed in the Drivethru page that it's dice pool d10 skill+attribute), made by a former third-party publisher.

Being designed for crossover from the start is interesting. They've obviously got Vampire, Werewolf, and Mage equivalents, but I'm not sure what the Outcasts or Dead are. Wraith and Mummy? (Or vice versa?)

I also wonder about theme. Each of the WoD games have pretty strong themes. Vampire asks: what does it mean to be human? It deals with human-like political and interpersonal conflicts through the lens of the supernatural. Werewolf is about protecting nature and deals with topics like ecoterrorism vs industrialism. Mage is more esoteric and about what reality is, and how our sense of the real is created. Wraith is about death and what it means to our lives. Etc. Each game has its own unique and quite strong theming that makes it stand out from the others. Not saying that a competitor needs to have the same themes, but for me the appeal of all these is that the themes are so strong. Does Curseborne manage to keep strong themes while also enabling cross-play?

I think being allowed to bring them is important because they're much more likely to explode when in use, but it's still possible when not in use. If they were forced to be put in checked baggage, that could be very bad. But if it's on hand and readily accessible, it can quickly be placed into an emergency fireproof bag (which I assume these flights will now be carrying).

So, step one: minimise the chance bad thing happens in the first place; and step two: be ready to react if bad thing does happen.

I agree with you re. inflight charging. Not to mention USB C to USB C cables being increasingly common means the old USB A charging ports are less and less useful.

Sorry, this post is the first I've heard of Curseborn. What is it exactly?

I'm broadly familiar with Vampire: The Masquerade, and aware of Vampire: The Requiem as a failed attempt at rebooting/simplifying that game's universe but I don't really know any of the specifics.

It does, thanks.

For those out of the loop, there have been a spate of deaths caused by people riding illegal, unregistered electric motorbikes recently, including children. These are vehicles being sold as "ebikes", and many in the media are still calling them that, but they are not ebikes. By definition, an ebike must be pedal-assist only (with allowance for up to 6 km/h with a button or throttle, to assist starting or walking the bike), and to be a legal ebike in Australia it must have a motor which cuts out at 25 km/h. You can pedal above that speed, but cannot receive motor assistance.

The problem exists in part because of a regulation change by the Morrison Government. Prior to the change, all ebikes being imported into the country had to meet the EN-15194 standard. Morrison removed that requirement, allowing the import of vehicles that are illegal to ride on roads and bikeways. That created a glut of illegal vehicles on the street, being bought for kids by parents who don't know better or don't care. That import regulation is apparently being put back in place.

https://puzzmo.com/play/circuits/j62c921dcj/share

oh and Loki spawn MUs more often

My highlights:

• Siege nerfed across the board (but not siege-like units like war elephants & destroyers)
• Ra monument empowerment now empowers other monuments in zone (again)
• Kuafu train time increase
• Huge Bushido nerf
• Fixed World Tooltip positioning to no longer flicker to the top left corner of the screen. You can now hover relics and reliably read the tooltip! [emphasis not mine!]
• Improved behavior when bumping into units by not prematurely swapping attack targets. When bumping into enemy units, and there is a recently commanded attack target nearby, the player’s target will still be preferred over the bumped unit.
• Town Center placement can no longer be used to check under the fog of war if a Settlement is already occupied.

And the camera thing! Which is not useful for players, and barely useful for casters, but is a really fun thing to have all the same.