u/Ajrt

I have been dismayed at the amount of AI generated messaging I have seen around the municipal elections. I'm seeing clearly LLM written posts from candidates, and also large amounts of AI-generated "analysis" from local residents commenting on municipal affairs.

Two of the worst places for it are the Facebook groups "Squamish Speaks", and "Squamish Residents for Responsible Development" (SRRD). I listened to the Sea to Sky Elections podcast which the SRRD admin was a guest on, and he spent a fair amount of time singing the praises of AI for research and messaging.

Anyone who has used AI extensively knows that it is no substitute for expertise. I believe it can be used effectively, but only when combined with astute subject matter understanding. What I find most concerning is how sycophantic it is. Users are convinced that they are doing important and valuable work, and uncovering revelations.

There has been a lot of talk over the past decade about the negative impacts of bots and manipulation on elections. It's disappointing to see that these bots no longer need to be mysterious entities hiding in the darkness; now they are brought directly to us by people within our community. Handing over so much of the political discourse to AI models is incredibly dangerous.

Hi, I'm having some major trouble getting my DRZ running again. Here's a full walkthrough of the issues and what I've done to address them. I've tried to include any possible relevant details so I apologise for how long it is. If you have any suggestions about next steps or fixes I would deeply appreciate it.

My bike has been out of action for ~6 months since I began having issues with it dying while riding. It would fire up no trouble, but after riding for 15-20 minutes, particularly at higher highway speeds, I would hear a loud pop, lose power, and then the bike would die. It wouldn't fire back up straight away. I tried opening the gas tank cap in case there was a vacuum in there, tried with the choke, but nothing would get it to fire up. After letting it sit for a while, it would start back up, but again after a short time riding at higher speeds it would die again.

I eventually took a look inside the tank and found a significant amount of rust. I used some rust remover and shook it up with chain inside, and managed to clean it up a bit. It then sat until I had time recently to try fixing it. I found more rust inside, so I filled it with vinegar and some chain again, left it for 24-48 hours, and shook it up to dislodge the rust. I repeated this twice more, and after dumping it out for the last time I blasted the inside with WD40 to prevent it flash rusting. The bike has a manual petcock on it, so I attempted to clean and flush that out and cleaned the screens on it.

I then put the bike back together and fired it up. It started, but would only run with the choke on, and if I gave it any throttle it would die. I removed the carb, gave it a clean, and used a wire to clean out the pilot jet which was blocked. I cleaned all the other jets and blasted carb cleaner in all the passageways I could see. Once I put it back on the bike, it fired up well, the throttle worked, and it would run without the choke. But fuel came flowing out the overflow valve. Took the carb off again, and replaced the float needle and float needle seat, which fixed this issue.

I then took the bike for the first ride since trying to fix it, thinking my problems were over. I managed a 25 minute ride with the bike feeling good. It sat for an hour or so, then I rode back, but went a little faster and did some pulls where I got the revs up. Just before home, while riding slower, the bike died again. I figured that perhaps there is still some debris in the tank that is causing a fuel flow issue. I added a universal fuel filter https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/universal-in-line-fuel-filter-0799035p.html and hoped that would stop debris and possibly fix the problem, and went for another ride. It felt like it was hesitating a little and not running as smoothly, and then I had the same problem with it dying after about 25 minutes after some higher speed riding. When it died, I immediately unscrewed the float drain screw and fuel flowed out, so it at least wasn't totally empty. I did observe a couple very small bits of debris inside the fuel filter.

I waited around 15 minutes and was able to start the bike again. I tried riding at lower speed and took a dirt road home, figuring maybe at lower speeds there wouldn't be such great demand on the fuel and the bike wouldn't die. It died again after about 10 minutes. I then let it sit for about 10 minutes, and it died again after maybe just 2 or 3 minutes riding. It sat another five, then died after a minute. I then waited a little longer, and was able to make it all the way home without it cutting out, which took about 5 minutes.

I'm really puzzled about what to do next. Fuel is certainly making it to the carb, since the float bowl isn't empty, and I can see that there is fuel in the filter, which is made out of glass. I also feel it's unlikely that the mesh under the float seat is all blocked up with debris, since I replaced it and only rode it for about 40 minutes before adding the inline filter. The float height also seems to be within spec - I measured it, and the metal tab is unbent, which suggests it's at the default setting. Other relevant details are that I'm using a model E petcock, and there doesn't seem to be any major kinks in the fuel line.

Thanks so much if you read all that.

AI and the Squamish election

At war with my DRZ