I’m not so happy with the default Thunderbird layout on this Eee pc screen, though. The fonts are clearly designed for a much larger screen, and they take up much more space than is necessary. There’s no preference setting that allows you to change the font size, but I found a curiously obscure CSS hack that makes it work. If you create a file named userChrome.css inside your Thunderbird profile directory, you can override all the factory style settings, whether they have options in the preferences box or not. Point size 9 works really well on this 1024×600 screen.

Looks like most people are running these motors at around 100 volts, and getting speeds up to about 75 mph. Not bad! I’ve been thinking about setting a 72 volt system, so my top speed would be more like 55 mph. There’s nothing “wow” about that but it would be plenty for a city commuter.

While I could probably get a more powerful non-hub motor, I’m tempted to go this route because it would make the project simpler – no more custom motor mount to design and fabricate, and no more chain and sprockets to spec and install (or maintain). I don’t really want to engineer the drivetrain anyway; I’d rather focus on the electrical components.

The Lito Sora has a similar shape but more of a high-tech style; they use a CVT and claim 300km range. The design is a little too widgety for my taste, overall, but I really like that taillight. They have not shipped yet and are not advertising a price.

Zero comes at it from a more off-road background with their Zero S, which is clunkier in style but actually exists here and now; for $14k you get a bike with ~100 mile range and an 88 mph top speed.

Brammo seems to be stuck in development hell; their web site has been offering pre-orders for the Enertia Plus and Empulse models for over a year, but they are out of stock of everything but the older Enertia, in green. If the Empulse ever ships it will be a nice, fast, 100 mph sportbike costing about $14k.

This conversion is almost built from scratch: Jeff Patterson’s “ShocKing” is a 72-volt with a clean, classic chopper style. I like the way it features the batteries and makes them look good, instead of wedging them awkwardly into a motor’s shape or hiding them behind fairings.

The UI can be confusing and inconsistent for newbies. In fact, even after three years of using git, there are commands I still find confusing (do I want git revert or git reset… and does it need –hard, HARD, –cached, HEAD, –, or something else?).

An interface should never be a by-product of the implementation of the system. This is where the Git UI goes wrong.

The dress for Jeanine is coming along slowly; I’ve been pecking at it in small bursts. I finished up the lining today and sewed it on to the body material along the neck line. I made a mistake I’ll have to go back and correct but it’s a simple thing. I doubt there’s more than an evening’s work left to finish the project.

Today I went over to West Seattle and picked up an industrial serger for ALTSpace. It’s made by some no-name Chinese factory, but it was priced to move – some guy who was the non-sewing half of a small fashion business ended up with all the gear, and after it took up space in his garage for a year he just wanted it gone. I tried it out and it works well; it’s very, very fast.

Ava eventually noticed that the lock-up happened when the machine connected to the network. After poking at it for several hours and going through a handful of reinstalls, I found this page which explains the problem and offers a simple fix:

In fact, every time you try to connect to a wireless network, your netbook may freeze, the only option being a hard reset !

It seems that this bug comes from a conflict between the ethernet and the wireless adapter.

But the good news is that there is a very simple tip to avoid this bug : you need to setup a specific boot order, where the network boot is used first. With this setup, the ethernet adapter will be configured in a way that there won’t be any conflict with the wifi adpater at the time of wireless network connexion.

Ah, what a relief. The fix works perfectly.

This is pretty far out in “well, duh” territory, but after a couple decades watching law enforcement agencies get everything they ask for in the name of various imaginary wars on various imaginary bogeymen, it’s awfully satisfying to see them take a rebuff for once.