obligatorycoffee

I’ve been checking hardware stores the last couple of weeks, mostly because there are things I need, but a little because I’m watching their stocks fall.

Smaller hardware stores are having a harder time covering the stock gap than larger ones. That makes obvious sense; they have less to begin with, so the duplications and outright gaps are more clearly visible. Hand tools in particular are getting pretty thin on the ground at this point; screwdriver bit replacements – well, lots of particular varieties are no longer available. Stuff like that. It’s been a multi-week process, not all-at-once – though it will probably look that way in retrospect.

Today, though, I had a somewhat more pointed experience.

Yesterday, Home Depot had 34 of a particular China-made mini circular saw available. It’s inexpensive because it’s corded; it’s from WEN, who make very basic but generally adequate enough kit for people on a budget. A chonkier Ryobi, perhaps. And last night, they had 34 of these saws available for store pickup or delivery.

This morning, when I woke up, they had 17.

An hour later, they had 15.

I was going to buy this with credit union rewards points, but it seems that was going to take too long. So I shelled out the cash, buying it immediately instead. It’s not a big deal for me, we’re still within our current tight budget this month.

So now they have 14.

Maybe that big drop was a one-off, a fluke – an organic surge, rather than someone grabbing a set for their employees while they could. Maybe Home Depot’s remaining 14 are enough that they’ll still have 10 in another month.

Or maybe it was scalpers. I don’t know how quickly these things sell, as a rule.

But that… that was a surprise.

Most people won’t notice stock thinning, I don’t think. Not quickly. I don’t have a reason for that other than recent experience shows that most people don’t notice a single goddamn thing until it punches them, personally, in the face. They to go get a thing, and it won’t be there, and then they notice.

A lot more people are probably pretty close to that moment of noticing.

They’ll notice it even more when their Medicare gets its $350 billion dollar cut.

It’ll be a moment of awareness, a moment of panic. It won’t last long – the fascist noise machine will do everything it can to patch it over – but it’ll be there.

Are you ready to take advantage of that? Particularly with your Trumpy relatives?

Maybe you should be.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

Holy fucking hell, people are reviving the “the Trump shooting was staged” crap again, fuelled this time by ChatGPT slop.

I refer you to this writeup I posted the last time this was going around. We have a picture of the bullet as it’s going by his head. It wasn’t fucking staged.

jesus fucking christ

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

Greater Northshore Bike Connector Map 1.6.1 – 3 May 2025 – is now available on github, as is MEGAMAP 1.6.1.

This release wasn’t supposed to happen yet – arguably at all, the next was supposed to be 1.7 – but I mislabelled a couple of blocks of split sharrow/bike lane in Snohomish County as full both-sides bike lanes and that’s not okay. I had to get that fixed, and I have, so: new maps drop. Corrections are in all latest maps, of course.

Additions and changes since 1.6:

• Correction of errors on 48th West in Snohomish County, where sharrows had been incorrectly shown as full bike lanes across a couple of blocks where only one side has full bike lanes
• Added bike lane markers for Forbes Creek Drive in Kirkland
• Further cleanup of the trail situation in and around Crestwoods Park, Kirkland
• Added Old Market Street Trail in Juanita
• Added continuation notes showing how far infrastructure continues on the MEGAMAP’s northern border

All permalinks continue to work.

If you enjoy these maps and feel like throwing some change at the tip jar, here’s my patreon. Patreon supports get things like pre-sliced printables of the Greater Northshore, and also the completely-uncompressed MEGAMAP, not that the .jpg has much compression in it because it doesn’t. If you have an iPhone, please use the website interface and not the app, because Apple takes 30% if you use the app. I’ll keep doing this regardless, but you know. Thank you! ^_^

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

2 Line Eastside Bike Connector updated their map to include the new train stations opening today! If you’re seeing this on May 10th, you can go to the opening events!

Naturally, we’ve picked up the new version, and Greater Northshore Bike Connector and MEGAMAP 1.7 – 10 May 2025 – are now available to download.

Move Redmond have also expanded their core area further north. Online, they’ve started doing the Seattle thing where they have some infrastructure information outside their region.

I’m not including their extended area at all, and I’ve also only extended their core map very slightly further north. There are a few reasons, the biggest of which being that we have features they don’t, and I think those features are important in lower-density infrastructure areas like north Kirkland and north Redmond. Without them, Briar wouldn’t have any markings at all.

They’ve also left me with a bit of a quandary: they’ve changed their map key on me. The markings are different, now. Fortunately, only a little, but it’s still a change.

In their area, fully separate bike paths are now dark green, rather than red. Given that I specifically used their key system – before expanding upon it – for consistency, I should probably go along. But to be honest, I don’t like the change. I think it adds confusion, because before, all bike infrastructure was red. Now most is red, but some is dark green, instead.

All one colour was simpler and easier.

On the other hand, having now three different systems – two of which are only very slightly different to each other – is more confusing than having two, and I could fix that.

Any thoughts on what I should do? Should I move to theirs, despite not liking the change? I’m genuinely uncertain.

Anyway, additions and changes since 1.6.1:

• MAJOR EASTSIDE UPGRADE with the freshly dropped 2 Line Eastide Bike Connector Map. There are several updates, but the biggest are the two light rail stations opening today, 10 May 2025. If you’re reading this on the 10th, there are opening day celebrations and you can go join them.
• Notes about infrastructure continuance off-map now appear on both Greater Northshore and MEGAMAP, with the notes and arrows relocating as appropriate.
• Same for the two major directional notices to Alderwood Mall and City of Snohomish, both of which are too far north for this map.
• Addition (with reservations) of a short section of what are technically bike lanes in Woodinville. I don’t like them and have marked them as undermarked, because they are.
• Construction on NE 132nd has extended bike lanes! And made the crossing of I-405 more confusing and probably slower! But also maybe safer despite that. It’s a tradeoff, and it’s on the maps now.
• NE 116th in Redmond has extended bike lanes now, but without the added complexity of 132nd.

All permalinks continue to work.

If you enjoy these maps and feel like throwing some change at the tip jar, here’s my patreon. Patreon supports get things like pre-sliced printables of the Greater Northshore, and also the completely-uncompressed MEGAMAP, not that the .jpg has much compression in it because it doesn’t. If you have an iPhone, please use the website interface and not the app, because Apple takes 30% if you use the app. I’ll keep doing this regardless, but you know. Thank you! ^_^

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.