Perhaps this is why I particularly didn’t find the locomotive physics that strange

The reason why you didn’t think it strange is because you don’t know how one works, because there’s multiple things which don’t make sense otherwise.

The drive wheels are not the ones at the back but the ones with the connecting rods and piston rods (the pistons provide the drive force). The rods are placed in a way which would prevent the wheels turning if connected in those positions and would typically be placed on the largest wheels of the locomotive (i.e. that big wheel should be the drive wheel if it’s going to be there).

The smoke should be coming from the very front of the locomotive as the output from the firebox needs to run through the boiler (most of the front of the machine) in order to generate the steam needed to actually drive the locomotive. Having it come from the back makes no sense unless the whole boiler arrangement is also reversed and it isn’t.

I paid $12 (USD) for a .in and $32 for a .nu with Namecheap, $20 (AUD) for a .au and $59 for a .email with VentraIP.

I can’t really recommend Namecheap though because you can’t count on getting support if you need it. A couple of years back I needed to change my account email with them due to Google being an arse and locking me out of my primary gmail account (namecheap required an email code to log in to the domain dashboard but I couldn’t view the email), put a support ticket in while logged into the same account in their support portal and they ignored me for close on a month. At that point I managed to get back into the gmail account so didn’t need their help anymore, I sent Namecheap back a message saying I was unhappy with their lack of help. About six months later they sent their one and only reply to my ticket, basically saying they were sorry I was unhappy but they didn’t see a problem with the time they took.

I must admit I still have domains with Namecheap because sometimes it’s just hard to get around to changing things, but I was reminded of their lack of competence literally this morning. They sent me an email saying I needed to update my domain contact info so I logged in and went to change it only to find their contact update form is broken and won’t submit…

VentraIP hasn’t given me any issues so far with either their domain or email hosting but I haven’t had to rely on their support so I can’t say how good they are with that.

How does one even start to make a self-propelling machine that cuts wheat stalks at ground level?

You look at a horse-drawn mowing machine like this and start thinking about how you could do something similar without the horse.

Adding a bunch of unsprung weight is a poor decision when it comes to handling though, and that’s something pretty important in a motorbike that’s trying to do more than just low speed commuting. Such a design will also be putting a lot of vibration through the motor components which is not good for longevity. It’s more a case of going for the (admittedly distinctive) aesthetic rather than being sensible.

Do you have to apply or is it automatic? If automatic I can see potential for another round of eligibility issues in Australia’s parliament coming up - you can’t be a member of parliament while holding another citizenship and unknown/forgotten citizenships have caught people out before.

Between photography, motorcycles, and tools (woodworking/metalworking/automotive) this does seem accurate for me - I have ended up spending a fair chunk of money between these over the years. The tools do mean I can do stuff myself though rather than paying someone else so they at least are less of a money pit.

Every now and then I think paragliding would be an interesting thing to try but I have to tell myself another expensive hobby is hard to justify when I’d like to actually own a place to live some day.

No, I’d need to think about it. I don’t have a pre-chosen opposite gendered name (it’s not something I’ve thought I needed to consider) and my name is not one that can be easily adapted so the easy option is out.

Not everyone - Christmas trees have always been real ones in my family. If you don’t live near where pines grow you can get a nice Christmas tree from a she oak.

The primary factor is that 120mm is not the actual focal length of the lens in the phone, that will be a considerably smaller focal length that happens to give the same field of view as a 120mm lens on a full frame camera (i.e. the same sensor size as a 35mm film frame). The phone uses a much smaller sensor than this hence the smaller focal length for the same FoV.

Another thing that helps is using a telephoto lens design - including this lets you create a lens noticeably shorter than its focal length.

When the lens would still make an overly wide phone despite all this that’s where the periscope lens design as others have already mentioned comes in.

All the sounds get mixed together as they approach you (as they compress the same air), by the time it gets to your ear it can be represented by one complex wave.

I could see the benefits of using Arch just so almost every function my system has is near-perfectly documented in Arch Wiki.

That is literally the main reason I started using it - over time I kept running across helpful Arch wiki articles while looking for info on stuff so when I got a new computer I figured I might as well go with Arch.

People have lived in what is now Italy considerably longer (tens of thousands of years) than in North America and we know there were broad scale maps showing Italy’s boot shape at least 2500 years ago so I would be very surprised to find it was not Italy.

200 lbs won’t be walking out so easily

Unless it’s bolted to something solid a 90kg safe could be walked out pretty easily by two people or one person with a trolley.

I already do this and it works fine - as long as you take the critical step of not putting food waste in the bin.

I had an old Series era Landrover as a paddock basher when I was a kid, that had a manual choke. It also had a backup crank handle for starting the engine which I had to use occasionally as I was using starter batteries which had been retired from usage in the family cars, a gearbox with no synchro on first/second, and the foot brake didn’t work. Would recommend, I definitely had fun.

That’s one with big potential but not one to lead off with, best to wait until you’ve ‘invented’ a few obvious game changers and established your philosophic credentials before attempting to introduce basic medical hygiene…

Electricity is a hard ask to even attempt to do in ancient times. Luckily there’s a variety of other simpler things to establish yourself as a genius inventor - strirrups, wheelbarrows, magnetic compasses, the idea of a crank handle, and how to use triangular bracing to make a strong truss would be good options.

Knife, keys, and pen go into left pocket, phone goes into right pocket, wallet goes into back right or right cargo pocket depending on what I’m wearing.

Bags and jackets don’t change the base config, they just allow for more stuff. The exception is motorbike gear - then things move to the jacket pockets for comfort/accessibility.

I don’t have the issue of only having two pockets because I simply don’t buy regular pants/shorts with such a poor pocket selection.

They often do come with monitors, and at least in office installs they often get thrown straight back out again as the monitors are put in (the bases commonly get tossed as well due to fitouts using monitor arms).

Gen Z, or those born between the late 90s and around 2010.

It can be applied more broadly to mean youths in general though, just as boomer gets used by the younger crowd to mean anyone older than them.