There’s a pretty good chance that you can get a bit of wire or a fine pick and push the key through from the other side, I’d be trying that first.

Aside from that the next easiest solution is likely to just disassemble the lock and replace the cylinder as others have suggested.

This particular video was from a few years back so it’s not a current thing, but I believe at least one of these squabs survived to adulthood. What normally prevents successful nesting there is movement of the shipping containers before the pigeons have time to hatch anything, this particular set got lucky in their choice of location (long term storage at the back of the stack so it didn’t move for months).

Apart from that rather major downside shipping containers make for pretty good pigeon habitat - multiple gaps like this and rats/cats find it hard to climb up to get to them (these pigeons are nesting on the roof of one hi cube container and covered by the floor of another container stacked on top). Unfortunately one does have to keep moving them around and in/out of the yard so the pigeons get thwarted in their efforts.

Yes, you can. I guess I should have been more specific because I was thinking of a complete kit when I wrote that (so including helmet, boots, gloves, etc) and you do need to set your sights a bit lower to make the budget work for that.

A mid range set of motorbike gear (dirt or road) or a very cheap registrable motorbike.

Alternatively a number of interesting secondhand cameras/lenses, the number ranging from one to many depending on what exactly. I’ll admit I have actually spent near that much on two backs for my 1960s era Hasselblad so you don’t even necessarily get a whole camera…

Just pirate the books and read them now if you want to read them but don’t want to give him money. Don’t feel like you need to pass a purity test when it comes to your reading list, even more so when it comes to books he only co wrote like Good Omens.

I don’t think they were saying you shouldn’t ever look at the tacho, but that you should learn to be able to pick your shift points without having to look at the tacho.

As you say you do want to figure out what revs works best for a particular vehicle (having driven/ridden vehicles with redlines between 2500 and 19000rpm there I can say there is a little bit of variability to be found out there) but it shouldn’t take long to figure out what this sounds and feels like for regular use.

When you get the hang of driving stick, which you will pretty quickly, you can try matching revs on downshifts to smooth things out and then you can try heel toe with matching revs.

This I definitely do recommend once someone is comfortable with the basics, particularly the rev matching on downshifts. It both makes driving smoother and makes clutch wear once moving negligible so in the long run you save money too. I consider rev matching an early intermediate level skill - not something I’d trouble a raw beginner with due to information overload but something that should be learnt before they start thinking it’s too hard (because while it is not hard an unfortunate number of people will tell others it is).

Heel toe shifting can wait until people are comfortable with driving in general but I think is something one should learn if one enjoys driving - if only because it’s just plain satisfying to do. Again this is a technique made out to be difficult but it’s really not that hard (though how much foot manoeuvring is required does vary between vehicles).

When you get really good you can shift gears without engaging the clutch just by rev matching, but don’t try that til wayyyy later. Can mess up the gears.

This one however I recommend people keep in mind is possible (in case one ever loses clutch movement) but keep to a bare minimum on synchro boxes. Try it a couple of times to show yourself it works but you do have to be very familiar with the car to do this without putting wear on the synchros (keep in mind that if it didn’t slip in like butter you didn’t get it quite right and the synchros had to pick up the slack for you). It’s more easily done with a non-synchro box as these both give obvious auditory/tactile feedback when you’re doing it wrong and tend to have wider engagement points for the gear dogs to slip into. Motorbikes for example run non-synchronised gearboxes and are typically very easy to clutchless shift as long as you’re upshifting while accelerating and downshifting while decelerating.

Lots of people talking about clutch work so I’ll mention something else - how to use the gearstick. Sounds a bit of a silly thing to talk about but how you do it can actually help.

I’ve seen various inexperienced drivers shift by grabbing the gearstick tightly and pulling it around in that same tight grip until it’s where they think the next gear should be. This usually works for getting around but it makes it hard to know what gear you’re actually shifting into and when it’s properly engaged - particularly on boxes that don’t give much feeling through the gearstick. One person in particular was repeatedly struggling with hitting the wrong gears (particularly when other things were happening) until I suggested they change this behaviour.

I recommend instead keeping a relatively loose grip on the shifter and considering changing gear a quick three part motion instead of a single one. Say for example that you’re shifting from second to third in a typical 5 speed H pattern - the three parts are you pushing up to move out of second (which you don’t need a tight grip for as it’s just pushing the shifter with your palm), centring the gearstick to below third (where you only need a loose side grip - there’s minimal force involved and keeping loose lets you feel the springs pull it where you want to be), and pushing upwards into third. Your grip should be changing a bit depending on what part of the shift you’re in and what gears you’re moving in/out of, I find this does help with improving feel and accuracy.

The real shift patterns are like this:

They look complicated but it’s not too bad when you get used to the idea. In normal use it’s basically a four speed H pattern with two different ways to increase the number of gears. You have a range selector to give you 8 main gears (you shift 1 through four in low range then flip to high range and move back to 1 position to give 5 through 8) and then you have a splitter that gives every gear a high and low ratio (in order you’d go 1st low -> 1st high -> 2nd low -> 2nd high -> etc). Normally you don’t need to use all the gears so you can skip some of the sequence - particularly when lightly loaded. Lo position is a particularly low ratio, and reverse is as per normal except you can split it to have a somewhat faster or slower reverse gear.

I’ll admit I haven’t driven a full 18 speed but I’ve driven 9 speeds with a range selector and a 10 speed with a splitter and both were easy enough to learn so combining the two doesn’t seem as daunting as it might be to those who haven’t tried either.

In terms of actual daily use the oldest thing that I can actually date would be the table my computer sits on - that’s been in the family since at least the 60s (when one of my uncles scratched his name into the drawer). It’s just a basic solid wood desk, still holding up fine and unless abused will continue doing so for quite some time yet.

Aside from that some of my dinner plates are over 30, the motorbike I usually commute on is a '97 model, and the butter knives I like are not dated but I believe could be anywhere from early 1900s onwards (faux bone handles, made in England with various Sheffield makers marks).

I do have a few tools, cameras, and telescopes around which are also reasonably old but they aren’t daily use items.

Focusing on the reverse camera probably does make you worse at reverse parking because it puts your attention on a small part of the overall situation. They’re a nice thing to have as an additional viewpoint in tighter spaces but it’s better to use your side mirrors primarily while also checking regularly on the front of the car and the reverse camera.

With all of them I’m at a real disadvantage due to not speaking any local languages, considering you basically need the locals for long term survival that puts one on the wrong foot to start off with.

Surviving A would require a lot of luck, B would be a bit more achievable as that would give me some clothes and a multitool but still very hard going as I know nothing substantial about the local bush food and dangers.

C is where I might actually have a chance as I have a lot of tools, camping gear, some food, and some books which might help (albeit nothing specifically on Peru except whatever’s in the Encyclopaedia Britannica). Given luck I could probably manage solo for a while with this. What’d probably happen is the locals come along and make off with everything though so I wouldn’t give good odds on long term survival.

Brake fluid is hygroscopic and will accumulate water over time despite being in a nominally sealed system. Water in solution with brake fluid noticeably lowers the boiling point which leads to issues under repeated braking (e.g. down long steep hills) as the fluid boiling means you lose braking capacity in that circuit.

You should ideally be changing the brake fluid every few years (2-3 being the typical recommendation) and that applies even if the brakes are used less often.

Electric cars do have oil that will ultimately need changing but it’s less exposed to contaminants than the engine oil in a internal combustion engine and therefore will last a lot longer. EVs typically have a reduction gearbox and differential and these will require oil changes in a similar fashion to a manual gearbox or differential in a ICE vehicle - i.e. barring exceptional circumstances it will last long enough to get out of warranty but don’t believe it will never need changing.

Best if one develops the habit of putting the drink in the freezer then immediately starting a timer on the phone for half an hour or so. Doing that before you do anything else means you actually get to have the nice chilly drink after the inevitable distraction.

Depends whether you think it has the rope coming in on the far side (to the viewer) or the near side. If it’s wrapping from the far side then old mate is raising the block, otherwise he’s lowering it. The picture is ambiguous enough that it could be seen either way IMO.

Signalised lead ins are helpful to solve flow issues caused by an imbalance in traffic direction at certain times of day. When you get too much traffic building up that can’t enter the roundabout due to no gaps you activate the red light before the entrance dominating traffic flow to give a period where the other directions can move through. The actual roundabout works as per normal and you don’t have to deal with lights during non-peak periods.

Lights on a roundabout make it not really a roundabout but an unholy mishmash of intersection design. I’ve got one near me and the only thing going for it was that converting a roundabout was significantly cheaper than the flyover intersection it really should be made into.

One of the work trucks used to have one that said “Go straight through the roundabout”. It was pretty tempting sometimes to take it at its word…

I have one in my wallet - they are quite handy for cleaning lint out when the phone charging port inevitably collects enough to be annoying.

The basics are easy - half an hour with someone who knows what they"re doing should be all you need to get out and about. Getting to the point where it’s instinctual and you don’t have to think about shifting is probably beyond the limits of a short trip but depending on how much driving you do you can be fairly smooth within a few days.

The main risk you run with learning manual is that once you get the hang of it it spoils automatics for you - you might end up having to buy yourself a manual car to avoid being annoyed by the missteps autos tend to do.