Convert a Bird Scooter to a personal one with $32 kit
scootertalk.org
scootertalk.org
> There are cities that are selling Bird scooters at police auctions. Planning on picking one up once the eBay parts show up.
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If you think you'd get worthwhile bug reports / don't want to implement log analysis or whatever, take whatever errors, stack traces, etc. you'd like, encrypt and base64 encode them, and print that.
Printing any hints about the nature of errors should be regarded as a security risk.
Thank you for checking out Scooter Talk. Hope you enjoy!
Http will queue connections if over the limit and everything will just work without errors. You won't even have an overloaded server (although some users may have a long wait).
I see not much has changed in web dev since the late '90s
Sorry for bringing your site down scootertalk!
English group names for birds are funny:
Except cars, for some reason.
Right, so just dumping cars wherever isn't tolerated either.
They also frequently sweep up any tents put up by homeless people.
I used to frequently see a meter maid waiting by a car parked right outside the office, until the hour turned and he could ticket the whole row.
This is patently false, as not only public entities (i.e., law enforcement and local governments) but also private companies (private tow operators) create and invest in specific services to address the problem.
So,once a whole industry emerges to tackle a problem then obviously something is being done.
In both cases, it's part of your civic duty to report cases like these. There must be a phone number in your city that you can call when you see someone parked a car (or a scooter) in a place where it's a) illegal, and b) is causing troubles.
There's fairly strict rules on what public space can be used for that, and by whom, and in what manner; it's not a free for all.
If every other block has enough room on the curb, for 30 cars to be parked for free, then surely, there should be room for one or two scooters to do the same.
Further, public parking is rarely free, it’s being payed for somone and often that’s not the city.
It’s the travesty of the commons.
And is still regulated, though enforcement tends often to be complaint based, rather than active patrol. Leave a vehicle a few days with moving it and someone complains and it gets tagged and, if left a little while longer, towed as abandoned.
I can't just throw my bicycle on the sidewalk in front of my office when I get there, either, right?
Edit: While writing another comment it occurred to me that these scooters are exactly like the shopping carts you see abandoned around stores. Either the stores collect them or the city does - but either way they're basically large bits of litter for anyone not in need of a shopping cart at the moment.
I'm sure Bird wouldn't appreciate this analogy, because it's deeply unsexy.
Exactly. Specific places to put your bike. Not just a random spot on the sidewalk.
If getting hundreds of scooters impounded and auctioned off is a good strategy for Bird, their business strategy is too subtle for me to follow.
Then...lobby your city for scooter parking. Car parking is supported because people very much want it, and politicians no there is a cost to not having it.
That's pretty much irrelevant as the business model of these scooter services is based on the concept of riders dropping them off wherever they feel like it.
Not all cities have street parking; in those places you park in private lots/structures or not at all.
The one thing they all have in common is that they are all wealthy suburbs.
You can check pretty much all cities which designate no-traffic neighborhoods.
IIRC while ago there was a HN submission on how the city of Santiago de Compostela (Galicia, Spain) had banned all cars from its city center.
[1] https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/permits-and-services/...
[1] https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-el-cajon-aims-clea...
[2] https://www.mississauga.ca/portal/services/reportabandonedsh...
They're not! They're private goods meant for private profit.
Irrespective of who owns it, I can walk up to a scooter and use it. I cannot do this to your bicycle tied up to a post. From the general public's perspective, the scooter has vastly more utility than your bicycle.
Unlike the nuisance bikes and scooters now littering sidewalks and parks which are typically designed for pedestrians anyway.
We all pay theses taxes, cars or not, are you talking about license plate? Here it's a few hundreds buck a year, if that's all what's needed, I'm sure they would gladly pay it.
We already pay for the privilege of using the side walks, we are already able to lock our bike outside.
Alright, let's treat them like cars then :-)
Scooter riders should be licensed. They need to take an exam, including a road and written test.
Need to pay city parking fees. Respect parking zones. Only park in designated areas. Areas change in a complicated pattern depending on weather, time of day, day of the week or scooter type and color.
If they violate that they get confiscated and need to pay a fee to get it back.
They also need to be insured in case they hit a pedestrian.
Riders who speed get mailed speeding tickets from speed cameras
Getting caught inebriated on a scooter on a sidewalk should be a serious offense, with points taken off and a corresponding insurance fee hike. Possibly court appearance as well.
Only if they want to ride them in roadways next to cars and trucks, because not knowing how to drive can get a lot of people killed.
Otherwise, if they are riding on bike lanes then they are only a danger to themselves, and mostly risk getting bruised knees.
I’d actually take that deal.
If we did the same as we do with the scooters right now, we simply wouldn't have cars. Instead we made the right decision and added all theses requirements one by one when it was needed.
Sure scooters have needs to and we need to define theses needs and regulate them, but can we actually discover theses needs first? China has shown that we need designated space, so let's start with that. They also shown that we should have ways for carriers to quickly move some, so let's add that too.
Massive bans are stupid and just stop innovations.
Parking zones being provided sounds good, and based on size they'd be very cheap. All these scooters are the same type too.
I'm sure a ticket is fine for most offences, just like cars.
Liability insurance for such a low power device is very cheap.
The most common devices can't speed, so whatever.
You can already get a DUI on a horse so screw it, won't make the law any dumber.
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So overall you're suggesting extremely small new burdens, and you're promising parking spaces. No need to imply it would be a bad thing!
The reason, in the UK at least, is the tax (and additional parking fees for some spaces) that motorists pay that covers this. Also when and where cars can be parked is highly regulated and enforced.
I don't know of any other tax on parking per se?
Lets see VED: £0. Fuel:15p per 100 miles. Consumables (tyres etc), maybe £20 a year in VAT?
Land cost in say Ealing is £30m a hectre, or £3k per sqm. A parking space that's about 3m by 2m of the road is worth about £20k, and thus costs about £1k a year to provide.
1) that's not a minor infraction in some circumstances
2) the goal is to remove the vehicles from where they shouldn't be in the first place.
Great! I assume cars are next?
(1) When used illegally, and (2) As nuisances based on where and when they are left, and (3) As part of an illegal operation, where there is a permitting requirement the firm isn't complying with.
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2018/may/01/unexp...
Same issue with scooters...
https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/2018/10/02/mi...
Like cars? That doesn't seem to bother anyone.
But to answer: Because people pay taxes for their vehicles, so the government uses a portion of that to pave roads, and provide some parking spaces. Also some parking spaces are paid for by the hour.
So if you are willing to pay scooter taxes, then Im sure that they would also provide scooter spots.
* Two-lane road with no shoulder? Fine to park.
* Pull it up on the sidewalk? Fine to park.
It's a pro-car, it's-okay-unless-the-curb-is-yellow shitshow.
The previous poster was being slightly flip, but even in the US, there are places where you can put your car almost anywhere.
TL;DR it’s not the same thing, but a lot of people do feel cars are a problem.
https://www.govdeals.com/index.cfm?fa=Main.Item&itemid=68&ac...
A lot of these bird drops don’t seem regulated at all. I’m not even sure they are really bird’s property anymore.
Incidentally when someone just dumps a couch on the curb it isn’t full of hard to dispose hazardous materials, unlike these scooters.
I guess most people here infer that I hate these scooters, but I actually think they are mostly a public good. Just like uber is. Doesn’t mean it is legal though.
You're arguing against about 2000 years of legal history. Theft is defined as the taking of another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it.
Note how nothing in that definition requires the property to be secured.
You also don't get to hit people over the head with a hammer only because they have turned away from you.
In general, law abhors your principle of "might is right". In fact, law and morality are entirely unnecessary in the cases where an otherwise unlawful action is successfully prevented by protections.
I guess all the moral gymnastics to justify copyright infringement are now having spillover effects. It's one way to get back to a coherent moral code, I give you that. But I hope you can afford bodyguards to accompany at all times of day, and no enemy of yours ever becomes rich enough to pay more muscle than you can.
I like electric scooters, actually. But it does seem strange that suddenly there's an expectation that things can just be left on the sidewalk while enjoying the full protection of the law. I don't think that if I left my bike sitting unlocked in front of someone else's apartment building indefinitely, I'd have much of a case against the kid that walked away with it. But companies can do it and because they are companies, it's a different story.
In England: Probably, yes. You have appropriated something that belongs to someone else; you intend to permanently deprive the ower of it. The only other thing needed for theft is for the appropriation to be dishonest.
You know the couch doesn't belong to you, and there isn't a sign saying "Free couch", so there's a strong argument that this is dishonest unless there's a sign on it saying "free couch".
Here's an article about stealing rubbish: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13037808
Here's some commentary about a story of people stealing out of date food from a bin, being charged for it, and then the CPS dropping the charges: http://ukcriminallawblog.com/stealing-from-a-bin-and-the-vag...
I found a sign that said ‘FREE - WORKS’ and was putting on things for amusement until I realized that might be a very bad idea.
When taking something that says ‘free’ how does one verify the sign was written by the owner?
You could protect yourself from inadvertently depriving the owner by leaving a note - "thanks for free stuff, me@example.com".
As for the first, It’s the same as someone uploading a stolen photo with a CC0 license, i. e. none. If the true owner finds you, they are highly likely to be entitled to get their property back.
As for criminal charges, a reasonable assumption of permission should usually work as an excuse. This will depend on the specifics, such as the item’s value, local customs, etc.
I actually found a rather valuable chair (the rietvelt) on the street, and did leave my phone number because I could not quite believe my luck. The previous owner called and told me to enjoy it.
Very much case by case.
I used to live in a street that had tons of stuff left outside of buildings (think chairs, shelves, mattresses etc) as tenants moved in and out a lot.
I got loads of useful stuff from that practice.
You just wait or ask around a bit before taking. Realistically a sofa left outside on a London street for a few hours is _at best_ temporarily awaiting disposal.
Vehicles - of whatever size - have a distinct treatment from other forms of property; you can station them beside the highway without being deemed to have abandoned them.
That's not necessary here. Taking of property requires explicit or clearly implied consent. The latter includes depositing something in a trash can. But just leaving it on the streets clearly does not.
I ordered this off eBay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/for-Xiaomi-MIJIA-M365-BIRD-Scooter-...
What are the chances these are coming from someplace doing the conversions for Bird and now they're coming full circle?
These companies companies seems to have exploded in valuation, driven I guess by VC money. I wonder how much of the rider-growth fueling that is just people trying out an electric scooter for the first time.
That's what I use it for. They're great for situations where I want to get somewhere that's 1-3 mi away and don't want to be responsible for the object I used for transportation once I get there (be it car, bike or scooter).
I saw they have Lime in Madrid and a few other Spanish cities, and that was my impression for their usage here. For a 10 minute ride the cost is comparable to what you would pay for car-sharing scheme like Car2Go - but that's for a car where you can fit a passenger and shopping. It's also priced in USD here, which suggests it's not aimed at the local market.
If they had pricing similar to bicycle sharing schemes (X minutes free, then pay per minute + daily/yearly subscription fee) I could see them being a lot more popular with commuters, but as it is now, my impression is it's too expensive for the European market.
I’d say shared electric motorbikes (also present in Madrid) pose a more direct threat to scooters: they accompdatr 2 people, speedier, safer (comes with helmet), easily parkeable, not affected by traffic jams (but dependent on traffic lights - in strictness)
I can imagine someone passing by, picking up one of these and dumping it into a garbage can.
Maybe the margins are so high they can just effort to replace them ?
Yes.
http://www.foxla.com/news/local-news/electric-scooters-accus...
Ugh, I feel bad for poor thing and people who have to clean this mess up.
If you don't like the scooters petition your gonverment to regulate it.
It's also possible that these companies are taking the loss to gain market penetration, hoping to find a solution to the vandalism problem before the VC money dries up.
I think a lot of people are being quite optimistic about the economics of these. That said I really hope they are successful. Anything to reduce car traffic.
They've disclosed that an average scooter does 5.5 trips/day ($5.50), assuming everyone rides at max speed nonstop, that still ~$14.50/day. Pays for itself in under 2 months.
Bird probably manages to get a further $25-30 off that, so perhaps as low as $120 per scooter, plus perhaps $10 for the bird brain modification and shipping by container, another $10-15.
So theoretically, a scooter could pay for itself in 10-20 days if used that heavily. I'd say that they are very capable of absorbing the cost of the occasional one going missing
But, in general, people tend not to destroy stuff just because they can, just like they don't kill old people just because they can't defend themselves, and don't consider "soft paywalls" meaningless just because they can easily fool them.
Cars can also easily be scratched, and it's not one of the major problems of humanity. Dockless bike-sharing has been a thing for over a decade. And while there is some vandalism, it's not prohibitive. In fact, people have left their bikes in public spaces for decades.
Society would brake down if everything required physical defences against any possible threat. Luckily, people tend to be more Russeauean than Hobbian.
Also, the website does a horrible job of explaining what it is in the home page.
I had got to know about the scooter boom in USA via youtube video. It says anyone can put scooter anywhere in the city and can pick up any other scooter anytime they want from anywhere?
Is this really true?
The scooter companies hire somewhat of bounty hunters to charge them. They are paid roughly $3 to 8 per scooter.