Hi all, hope everyone's future is good. Welcome to Cloud Bites #4!
tl;dr
Rec 10: Buttondown Email
Rec 11: FreeTaxUSA
Rec 13: Velomobiles
You'll notice this newsletter is now hosted on Buttondown! It's fantastic. The user interface is cleaner and substantially less buggy than Tinyletter's. If you're looking to start a newsletter, I'd highly recommend it.
My search for a Tinyletter replacement started when its owner Mailchimp got acquired by Intuit, the seriously repulsive company that owns TurboTax.
If you work in the US, use TurboTax, and are just now hearing about its faults, let me tell you: I love FreeTaxUSA. It's easier to use than TurboTax and substantially cheaper for the things that aren't free, like filing in multiple states.
The last thing I want to recommend is the velomobile.
A velomobile is a recumbent tricycle with a hard shell that greatly improves aerodynamics and protects the rider from the elements. Since they're so much more efficient, regular cyclists can maintain speeds of 25 miles per hour (40 km/h).
Low-tech magazine on velomobiles:
If you normally commute by bicycle, you can do two things with a velomobile: Retain the same speed as you normally do, but use 3.5 times less energy, or arrive at your destination twice as quickly with the same effort.
While velomobiles can reach much higher speeds than bikes, they are heavier so require more effort to accelerate or climb hills. Adding small electric engines to velomobiles can help a lot here here. So yeah, e-velomobiles are very cool and will be highly featured in any solarpunk fan art I make.
If you want to check out a "large scale" velomobile producer, see Velomobile World.
Here's to touring around Europe with a velomobile and a backpack!
Charles
P.S. Low-tech magazine is a wacky website about "solving high-tech problems with low-tech solutions". Perhaps a good example: the website itself is hosted by a computer that is running off-the-grid on solar panels and a battery, so if it's rainy for a few days in Barcelona you might not be able to access it!