Yeah I'll swap it for something smaller/lighter, and the set of panniers I already have (though I think their current strap/hook configuration seems like an accident waiting to happen so I'll probably mess with that too)
I think a milk crate is a good call.
I'd thought about doing something like that with the basket - to modify it so it hung on either side like panniers/saddlebags, and I could just drop the regular grocery totes into it. I wouldn't mind the welding practice, though I'll probably start with the secondhand cloth panniers first and go from there.
I've seen similar, I'd never had trouble just running the drill till the sides were smooth before, but some of these sticks were still pretty live, and no matter how long I let the drill cut into the sides, or what speed I used, it still produced fluffy sawdust and left those splinters along the inside of some. I'd been planning to wait a year on those and drill them again but it took more sticks than I'd planned to fill it. For what it's worth, they're pretty soft, but they might harden as they dry? If it's a legit risk for the bees I'll definitely pull those tubes. I think cardboard tubes are probably the better way long term, certainly they're less work which would make replacing them easier. I just prefer to make things myself when I can.
So far, we haven't noticed any issues with birds or other critters. If we do, I'll add a screen, but I didn't want to risk making things easier for spiders, or helping water splash the holes if I didn't have to.
We did have carpenter ants climb up behind the sticks so I need to figure out our solution to that. I'm really hoping thats new and that they didn't get into the bee holes or take any eggs. The tree seems healthy so I'm thinking the bee house was what appealed to them?
I'll update if I learn anything else.
That's interesting! It definitely has some of the visuals often associated with solarpunk (I'm not really a fan of the sleek plastic metropolis look personally, I much prefer solarpunk to be punk and emphasize stuff like creative reuse, but the visual art in the genre is lousy with this stuff and the game makers executed it well from what the trailer shows). I think there's still room for this to be cyberpunk depending on how real or widely available this area is - if it's some company park or an enclave of the rich, and wealth disparity still exists, I could see it being cyberpunk in content if not aesthetics at least. It does look very cool, thanks for sharing it!
One of the things I really like about the 40k universe is the incredible scope of the setting. You really can tell just about any story and it fits somewhere in the setting.
I don't actually know much about necromunda, though I used to love the art and articles about it as a kid. I'm hoping someone else will kick in some recommendations
And seven years seems quite optimistic considering how effectively local governments and committees of concerned NIMBYS have been blocking any new nuclear construction for like, my entire lifetime, at least in the US. Apparently nobody wants a nuclear power plant going up near them and they find a lot of creative ways to jam up the works. I'm not sure we have the time to try to ram dozens of nuclear power plants through those folks while the world is burning.
Yeah, similarly, I don't see it as terribly practical, but it does feel like something that would fit the setting's high tech, endless Saturday. I could picture hermit-ish nomad types on a long term camping trip who like knowing they'll wake up a mile down the road, or just someone trying to get around the 'no permanent structures ' criteria in a beautiful spot by having it take one step every two weeks.
I think these things have potential for drama and disagreement, which might make them useful to DMs. You could build a story around a convoy of them and the locals trying to stop or divert it, or a mystery around why they keep falling into this one canal. Or it could just be neat flavor text for a character they interact with.
Update:
If "Bicycle Pickup Truck" was a good idea, people would probably be doing it already.
Don't worry, I have actual panniers to put on it, I just wanted to see how my pre-advice plans would have worked. After that, I'll try the Koolstop Salmon brake pads, then maybe a removable basket for the front and a frame bag.
Step 1 in the cargo bike transition is complete! I have some secondhand panniers to try out with some groceries, and I'll see about adding better brakes, a rear basket and eventually a front basket, options like that.
(I mentioned in another comment that I'd had to modify the rack to get it to attach since the right seat stay is crowded, that's the blue part in the picture.)
Almost a year ago I started trying to write solarpunk fiction and got daunted by the amount of research I needed. Writing scifi had always meant extrapolating current trends and pointing out problems. To do solarpunk I had to be able to offer solutions and that meant lots and lots of reading to learn from the folks who've been talking about and trying out alternative ways of doing things (from agriculture to infrastructure to anarchy) and thinking through their answers.
For awhile I did a worldbuilding art/essay project focusing on very small glimpses of a solarpunk future, trying to emphasize things like creative reuse, industry, and seasons/weather that didn't show up much in solarpunk visual art. The narrow focus helped a lot.
I think I'm finally comfortable trying to write something, though instead of a short story I'm working on a campaign for the solarpunk TTRPG Fully Automated, where the players are on a treasure hunt for tons of industrial waste which were illegally dumped sixty years before. The waste is valuable because it's a useful input in the production of geopolymers, and the stakes are high as the largely-abandoned rural town they're searching is in the process of being deconstructed and rewilded, so nobody else is likely to notice it in the future.
I've had a lot of fun building a wide swath of locations, communities, and means of travel for the players to possibly explore, along with the rough outline of the decades-old conspiracy and coverup murder.
My goal is to build out the characters, build out the past/conspiracy, and to start seeding people and locations in the present with clues for that mystery.