Cool-ish and damp to start the day. Some chance of rain. We got a few drops last night around 11pm but nothing major. 62F and dropping slowly when I went to bed.
I got some stuff done yesterday, most notably I tilled the garden patch. Weed whacked it first, added some fish parts, then tilled. Tiller started right up after sitting in the garden for a year. It’s how the old man stored it, and it works. It does have a big bucket covering the motor and it’s in the shade.
I also almost caught a fish. One hit the lure, but I lost it trying to bring it in. That’s the closest I’ve come. I spent a bit of time messing around with poles and bait, with no further success. My fisherman neighbor gave me a couple of pounds of fish fillet in sympathy for my failure. HE catches fish…but he’s been fishing this lake for over 50 years. I’m learning everything I can.
Like gardening, fishing has a surprising learning curve. Start climbing the curve if you are thinking to supplement your protein with fish. Get your garden in too.
Didn’t meet with the tree guy. I guess he ended up being too busy. Got my new chainsaw out and it fired right up. Didn’t move the chain though. Spent some time troubleshooting that. It was a “open box” store return and was very cheap. Someone screwed up the chain so it couldn’t slide in the bar. No idea how you could do the damage they did. A new chain should solve the problem, but that will have to wait until the next trip up. I’ll have to remember the bar oil too. I had a random spare chain up here but it was too long. I’ll buy two this time. Two is one and one is none.
Plan for today depends on the weather. I will work on something though, rain or shine.
And I’ll be stacking. Always stacking.
nick
May not solve the problem. Check the bar carefully for crimps in the chain track. Pay particular attention to where the chain enters the track. Might not be a bad idea to keep a spare bare along with the chain. Bars can be easily damaged based on my experience with chainsaws starting when I was 14 years old. I have taken down 50 foot trees that were 30” in diameter. Scary. The saw we used on the farm had a 30” bar. Heavy, powerful, dangerous and no kickback chain stop.
63 F and kinda muggy on the wild west side of the Brazos River this morning. The dog and cat liked it outside, the cat looked like a white Siberian tiger walking through the grass. He is a tough 14 year old guy who is very into comfort now.
@Lynn
you can read a lot of things into the preamble
”secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,”
sounds like a right to run moonshine and shoot revenoors in some parts of the country
others might find the right to jack deer from their pickemup trucks
We as a church practice communion every Sunday. The church has a disposable communion cup for us to pick up on the way in to the auditorium but I buy a higher class version for us. The unsalted unleavened cracker is about ½ inch by ½ inch and very crunchy. The juice is good.
https://www.amazon.com/Communion-White-Wafers-Cross-Design/dp/B00KOGC0Y4?tag=ttgnet-20/
Get a deep depression going and those deer will be hunted right, left, and sideways. The feral pigs too. Meat is getting expensive, another doubling of the price that I expect and good old boys will be taking wild game home to feed their kids despite the game wardens and laws.
Now that the big spoiler about what is in “Hangar 12” is known at your house, go watch the first segment of this behind-the-scenes show. I don’t think it is an overstatement to say that Mike Okuda’s work 35 years ago changed the way people interact with technology in RL.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tORCy199hI
No Mike Okuda and LCARS. No iPad.
Multiple sources say that Eugene was not paid beyond whatever he received for Season Two and the whole scene shot in about half an hour at the end of a day when Paramount had both actors on the lot and Ed Speeris in costume.
A ton of DVDs, BluRay discs, and vinyl soundtrack albums are going to get sold this Summer.
I know the actor works the con circuit, probably fetching $100+ an autograph.
Gates McFadden did steady business from what I saw in Orlando at the first of the month, but timing of that show was unfortunate. She would be mobbed now.
BTW, I regret not stopping for an autograph, but, beyond having a blown budget to get Cleese’s, I unfortunately sold off most of my “Star Trek” fan things paying rent in WA State and didn’t bring anything to sign.
I had no idea the nice books in particular would be something I could never recover since the publisher has switched to an absolute garbage POD system for current production runs.
Baker City in my rear view mirror nine years ago is the last I ever want to see of OR/WA State. Unfortunately, funerals are coming.
It will be interesting how the cut scene at the end of Picard plays out. I’m always up for Star Trek. Even, ugh, “Discovery” and SNW going woke.
I was 11 when ST:TOS started. A remember a friend and I were so excited for it. We couldn’t even pronounce Nimoy’s correctly. I forgot which day it aired, but we were front and center at the TeeVee.
I have a scan of some ST devices and the three legged camel boy character from the animated series a friend scribbled on the corner of a burn bag where we worked at the scooper-secret facility in SA. I tore it off the bag and pocketed it on the way to the incinerator. I am bad.
A sort-of-nice evening, with a gem of a crescent moon near Venus and the Hyades in the west. Orion is still visible at astronomical twilight.
Sadly quite a bit of haze to the S and E, to the point where even major constellations were fuzzed out. So it goes.
I did bag M41 and M50 in the 10×42’s. Globular clusters and nebula aren’t very impressive in small binoculars, but are a good way to learn your way around the sky.
ps. I ordered a pair of 15×70 LW binoculars from Oberwerk, and they arrived around 6pm. I didn’t use them last night because I have to get the tripod and mount ready, but they seem nice, MUCH better than the used Celestron’s that I gave up on.
Pournelle would be snickering:
Tranissaries: The Trans Movement’s Striking Parallels to a Dark and Forgotten Practice in the Ottoman Empire
Zoomers and Millenials all want to be LBGTQWERTY because it is cool. The vast majority are still “straight”.
I’m tired of tRump attacking DeSantis. He will lose my vote in the primary. I will still hold my nose and vote tRump if he gets the nod. Another four of plugs is a no-go.
We finally got a call that our new Ioniq 5 can be picked up on Tuesday. Looking forward to it!
For the programmers out there: I need some examples for the new courses I have coming up. So I’ve been creating a backend to read the data out of our solar system, store it in a database, and offer it up via a web service. Yesterday, I started on an Android app to call up the data and display it as a pretty graph: power generated, power used, power fed into the grid, and – I hope – power used to charge the car.
I hate using external libraries, so all the database work, the networking, the JSON parsing, and the graphing is done by my code. For the courses, I’ll probably do a second version using things like Jackson (for the JSON), and Spring Boot (for the database and web service).
Why I hate external libraries was demonstrated by one of my students just a couple of days ago. He wanted to use a library for mail processing, but it had some dependency he couldn’t resolve. We found that dependency, tied it into his project, and…it had a further dependency. Sure, you can automate that stuff with Maven or Gradle, but in the end your project uses piles of code that you don’t know anything about. Gives me the willies…
—–
I see that Lynn’s crazy neighbors are still crazy. It’s been quiet with ours, but I’m sure there will be more insanity in the future.
The neighbors have hired a Portuguese crew to do the outside work. I expect their wages are low, but there are 4-5 of them, they’ve been mucking around for about two weeks now, and so far they have some rough landscaping done and half a patio laid. Not very productive…
—–
Seconded. I cannot imagine how you could mess up a chain to make it stick. A bar and chain are a good investment anyway… I have three chains at the moment, mostly so I can take two in to be sharpened while still using the third one.
—–
Given the amount of wood we went through this Winter (actually, mostly this cold and dreary Spring), I need to chop a tree or three. I still have enough wood for next Winter, so the new stuff can season for the year after. Most of the trees that grow here are larch, which does doesn’t produce a lot of heat, and does put a lot of carbon on the window of the fireplace. The birch I had puts out at least twice as much heat for the same amount of wood, and burns a lot cleaner.
DeSantis’ “Kenny Boys” are still not clearly known, even with the entire Florida media working against the Governor for five years. He should be carefully vetted lest we end up with a repeat of the Shrub mistake and another 20 years of “wars” along with Medicaid For All.
Still, any of the potential Republican candidates beyond Trump would present a clear contrast with Biden, with the added possibility of flipping a few Senate seats given the current math.
The Senate would be in doubt with Trump at the top of the ticket, and I think Rafael Edward here in Texas and RINO Rick Scott in Florida would both be in trouble for reelection.
The cost to sharpen is almost the cost of a new chain. At least for my Ego chainsaw. I never sharpen the chain, I just replace.
On the farm we would sharpen our chains. Mostly because the closest place to buy a chain was 25 miles away and a 30″ chain is expensive. It was tedious work and something I don’t want to do again.
Dreary rainy morning. Coffee and scrambled eggs are good though. Gonna be indoor work today.
n
re: going to theater unarmed
I did my research first. Wortham Center doesn’t require you to be naked, so I brought my pipsqueak .380 pocket pistol. 9mm Kurz or 9mm Corto in other parts of the world. 9×17 to distinguish it from the other 9mm cartridges.
re: chainsaws
I used to cut my own firewood, and I bought one of those Harbor Freight bench mounted electric chain sharpeners. It worked ok and let me keep a supply of sharp chains handy. I left that, and my chainsaws, and my peavey, for the new owners when I sold the farm. I stuck by the rule I set for myself: If it wouldn’t fit into my 10×15 foot rental storage unit, I wouldn’t keep it.
The National Weather Service in the US has some interesting XML feeds for alerts with lots of potential to play with database tables for tracking active situations and even drawing maps of trouble areas. I’m sure something similar exists in your country.
@Greg: Thanks for the suggestion 🙂
The temperature has dropped to 53 F here west of the Brazos River and it has been raining since 9am. Just a nasty day.
The wife and I went to Olive Garden for lunch after church and Bible class. We both got soup and salad. And 1.5 breadsticks each. I was proud of us, we held ourselves to just those 3 breadsticks even though the lady offered us more.
I bought my first chainsaw used, many years ago. The old gent who sold it to me only used it for bucking, and he had built a 36” gas powered circular saw with a tilting rack, so he no longer needed it. I figured he was pretty smart, and the saw I bought looked to be in great condition in spite of its age. I think it was at least ten years old, and that would make it about a 1960s model. It was also cheap.
I took it home, tore it down to inspect it, and found it in excellent condition. I learned how to use it from some more experienced friends. I found out it didn’t cut very well. The sawdust was just that: dust. I bought a little clamp-on filing jig with a couple of round files, which I still have today, 40++ years later. This gem holds the chain cutter to be filed, so the filing is easy and angles are precise. He had only sharpened the cutters, not the depth guides, which were at least 0.02” high. The jig helped me correct all that. Tried it out, and what a difference!
I usually touched up the cutters with about three strokes every time I used the saw, and the original (?) chain still cuts well today, although it is nearing end of life. I used to take it up into the mountains to cut firewood, and it didn’t need sharpening during a typical session. I only had to cut the depth guides about every fifth sharpening.
I now only cut small stuff, so I don’t need it. I use my worm drive Skil saw with a cutting table. I have lots of dimension scrap from our old garage. However, we cut down some volunteer brush, and there were a lot of 2-4” round pieces. Cutting such with the circular saw is very cumbersome, so I decided to get a Harbor Freight plug-in electric chainsaw. I figured that, for $40 it was a good buy, and if it lasted only long enough to clean up that brush, money well spent. it was easier than using the gas saw. There was a lot of start-stop work, and constantly starting the gas saw would be inconvenient. That little saw is a gem. It cuts well enough, and I haven’t worn it out yet, in spite of using it quite a bit. The only downside it is that is surprisingly noisy. Also, HF doesn’t sell a chain or bar for it, but I figured that the chain will probably be the last thing to fail on this plastic wonder. Oh, it is pretty lightweight, a plus. Sometimes cheap tools have their place.
“Judge Rules Chicago Employees Fired For Not Getting Vax Must Be Reinstated, Repaid For Lost Wages And Benefits”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/04/judge-rules-some-chicago-employees-fired-for-not-getting-vax-must-be-reinstated-repaid-for-lost-wages-and-benefits/
Good.
What absolute frackery:
Instagram star Bri Teresi severs ties to lingerie firm Honey Birdette after bosses hired non-binary, biological MALE model to promote its women’s underwear
Try not to vomit on seeing the male model.
What absolute frackery:
Instagram star Bri Teresi severs ties to lingerie firm Honey Birdette after bosses hired non-binary, biological MALE model to promote its women’s underwear
Try not to vomit on seeing the male model.
What in the world ??? Something be seriously wrong with that boy.
Mandola’s Italian Kitchen has really evil foccacia instead of breadsticks if they open one near you.
The chain started here in Austin but jumped to Tampa.
By going to Tampa first with expansion, I believe Uncle Damian is giving the middle finger to OSI, the company that bought Carabba’s, the last chain he founded.
Same food, less emphasis on bar profits, with partial DIY service.
“‘OHHHHH!’ Bill Maher Audience Recoils At Stunning Tucker Carlson Text From Bombshell Fox News Case”
https://www.mediaite.com/entertainment/ohhhhh-bill-maher-audience-recoils-at-stunning-tucker-carlson-text-from-bombshell-fox-news-case/
Never, ever, write anything in a email, text, postit note, etc, that you do not want to see on the front page of the New York Times in the morning. Tucker should know better.
What absolute frackery:
Instagram star Bri Teresi severs ties to lingerie firm Honey Birdette after bosses hired non-binary, biological MALE model to promote its women’s underwear
Try not to vomit on seeing the male model.
What in the world ??? Something be seriously wrong with that boy.
Now here is bravery. Cheech Marin was wearing a pink tutu and tights on stage back in the 1970s. “Cheech & Chong – Earache My Eye”. I wore this cassette out. KILT used to play this song at 7am every morning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJW67QN24SA
Thanks, Jake’s looks like a fun place. My track record meeting you is still zero for too many, but I might try. I wonder if you will be coming past Inyokern? You might want to pick up some Indian Wells Brewing Company beer. The brewery also has limited food if that works for you, although I haven’t been there since they added food. We haven’t been there for years because we can buy their beers and some of the 100 flavors (!) of soda pop in local stores.
Hang on to that Hemi. Chrysler xxxxxxxx, Daimler Chrysler xxx xxx, FCA xxx, Stellantis (?!) is rumored to discontinue all V8s. The replacements are fuzzy, but their Global Medium Engine Turbocharged 6 (GME T6), the apparent new name (what a great name, /sarc) for the Hurricane, might be the replacement. Apparently, the new-ish Hurricane is pretty good, and can make ~500 hp in top-option output. It would likely replace the Pentastar V6 in the Jeep and other longitudinal installations. This is all about gov regulations. Still no firm commitment to polluting batteries, at least.
I don’t know. Never had a Hemi, although my parents had a first generation 341 in a 57 DeSoto. Interestingly, that first generation was never officially called a Hemi. Internally, it was called the dual rocker shaft engine, with various names applied by marketing, such as the FirePower, Red Ram, and FireDome. The first generation had several versions, which shared almost no interchangeable parts. Cost killed it in 1959. It was also heavy. Only a few made serious hp per cubic inch. Probably the most successful from a performance standpoint was the 392, rated at 375 hp, pretty heady (!) in 1957. In 1958 there were a few 392s released with Bendix electronic fuel injection and a rating of 390 hp; these are now extremely rare, and are in just a few serious collections. The end of an era.
The trademarked name Hemi started with the second generation 426 released in 1964. This was based on the RB engine block with new heads, and built by Chrysler Marine. It was actually a race engine in street trim the first year. Although they put out lots of power, they were never practical for street use with mufflers. They dominated the circle track until they were effectively banned by rules changes. Now cars with them are also collector items. Subsequent years were made more civilized at the expense of output.
The real advantage of the hemi is in supercharged applications, where the big valves can flow some serious air, and the low compression ratio keeps the piston top out of the way of the valves. The top fuel dragsters are 500 cu in versions of the second generation 426, but share only the bore spacing. The blocks and heads are machined from forged aluminum, and gain strength from the elimination of water jackets. Cooling is by the incoming charge and oil. They can produce over 8000 hp and can rev to 10k rpm. This is two valves per cylinder and cam in block. Dinosaurs, but very impressive. Everything about Top Fuel is impressive: <3.75 seconds, >330 mph in 1000 feet. Peak acceleration of >5 g.
Probably a standard bar and chain. Probably cost more than just buying a new machine.
Excluding warm up and shut down, the engine has to only turn less than 650 revolutions during the run.
“Probably a standard bar and chain. Probably cost more than just buying a new machine.”
Bar yes, chain, no. It has about half the cutters per foot, probably because the power is limited. It cuts very well. Yes, I doubt the rest of the saw can wear out the chain. Time will tell, although I don’t have much more use for it.
Yup. This is why I am skeptical about some turbocharged engines meant for the street. Toyota has a three cylinder engine that is rated at 300 hp net. Quite impressive, but don’t try to tow anything that would require sustained high output (especially with a Corolla chassis). Getting 200 k miles life out of one might be reaching, although I am impressed with materials advancement, so who knows. This is an EPA gimmick.
>> I bought my first chainsaw used, many years ago. The old gent who sold it to me only used it for bucking, and he had built a 36” gas powered circular saw with a tilting rack, so he no longer needed it. I figured he was pretty smart…
Here “pretty smart” equals no missing finger parts.
I tried turning the firewall off. Oh, the pissing and moaning from Windows Security/Defender… hey, I’m behind a router. Isn’t a router supposed to be like a firewall? I do have SMB1 installed. I just found how to change from a “Public network (Recommended)” to a “Private network”.
And there’s no “Apply” button to click. Strange after years of having to click OK.
I’ll see how it works tomorrow. I need to get busy making supper.
I wonder how Harold is doing? He just popped into my thoughts.
Yup. This is why I am skeptical about some turbocharged engines meant for the street. Toyota has a three cylinder engine that is rated at 300 hp net. Quite impressive, but don’t try to tow anything that would require sustained high output (especially with a Corolla chassis). Getting 200 k miles life out of one might be reaching, although I am impressed with materials advancement, so who knows. This is an EPA gimmick.
Today’s gasoline engines are rated at peak horsepower. They cannot sustain this power level for very long, not more than a minute or two. Modern gasoline engines will automatically start derating themselves to keep the engine from shotgunning itself.
If you buy a Ford truck with the Max Tow package, you get a five row radiator instead of a three row radiator. You also get a transmission fluid cooler and a transmission temperature gauge. I am wondering how far the 3.5L dual turbo V6 375 hp engine in my 2019 F-150 4×4 will last, I am betting on 150K miles. It has the same block that the 475 hp Raptor engine has, the difference is 14 psi of boost versus 18 psi of boost. My F-150 also has electric louvers in the grill to let the engine heat faster, I wonder if they use them during normal operation.
If you buy a Class 4 – 9 truck with a diesel, the engine and transmission are rated for sustained power. Cooling, oil flow, everything. I am not sure if the sustained power level is for ten minutes or ten hours. And ambient temperature matters.
In the steam turbine power plants, we could rarely run at 100% power for more than an hour in the summer. All of our coolers would start rising temperatures unless they had been recently rodded (fresh water clams in the tubes) and acid cleaned. But back off the power to 90% to 94%, we could run all day. Winter time, generally no problems unless we ran out of fuel. Unfortunately, most of our coolers were sized from 85 F to 95 F lake cooling water and then 99% clean. We used to routinely push one of lakes to 99 F, 1 degree below our 100 F lake thermal limit.
In the gas turbine power plants, they are severely limited by ambient air temperature. We put huge water coolers on the air inlets which could drop the inlet air from 110 F to 65 F and provide 20% more power. At full power, they are subject to air surges that can cause compressor blade failures after hours of operation. We call that corncobbing.
More playing.
My little fanless “Intel(R) Pentium(R) Silver N6005 @ 2.00GHz” quad core critter with 32 GB RAM running Win11 Pro 22H2 is pretty slick. It’s faster and smoother than my old i5 Win7 box.
Yeah. File sharing has some annoyingly stupid quirks. I think your internal network should be on NetBEUI. Easy to use, can’t be routed. TCP/IP is for Internet aka WAN. But…. I wasn’t asked.
The box has a micro SD slot. So I got a 64 GB card. Pushed it in. Then used a toothpick to make the latch click. I don’t understand that little design feature myself.
Anyway. I was expecting ReadyBoost to at least offer to help. Even with 32GB RAM, hey, pop-up and say Hi Handsome! at least. So I googled a bit and the Borg says:
“If you have an SSD then Windows will disable the ReadyBoost option, because data access on the SSD will be much faster then data access on the SD card, and so, Windows will use a page file on the SSD instead of ReadyBoost to make your PC as fast as possible.”
Ok. Cool. I don’t need ReadyBoost. I have 32GB RAM and the most I’ve seen used via task manager is 6 GB. So I suppose I’m not using much of a page file anyway.
Took The Child up to my dad’s today so she could get a lesson on MIG and stick welding. Went well, considering the electricity challenges; see below. She enjoyed it and wants do more.
We got the welder over a month ago. Took a while to find protective gear that fits her; the hardware and welding supply stores stocked men’s L, XL, and XXL. A 5’4″, 115# girl couldn’t practicably wear anything in stock except the self-darkening mask. Ordered an apron and hair/shoulder hood from Amazon; they aren’t much too big. Small gloves are too big but she can use them. I forget to tell her to wear boots today and a small bit of splatter landed on her sneaker and scorched it but didn’t burn her foot. Lucky.
Slight problem with muscle. Or, as you might guess, lack thereof. She had trouble holding the trigger of the MIG handle for more than a minute or two at a time. She wasn’t strong enough to clamp down with vice grips to hold two pieces of metal together, nor to release them afterward. We’ll see what we can do about this. Lack of muscle, and weight, might be an issue if she goes into either automation engineering or industrial engineering, which is her current plan.
Electricity was a nuisance. This is an auto-sensing 110/220V unit. Fine. I built a 20′ cable with a “welding” socket on one end and a plug on the other end, and I had an adapter for (one kind of) four-prong grounded plug to go into (one kind of) three-prong ungrounded socket. But there are so stinkin’ many standards for 220V plugs and sockets that there might as well be no standard. None of the three plugs I had available will fit into the 220V outlet in my dad’s shop. Grr. Now that she’s had her first lesson, we can plug the welder into the 220V outlets here and she can work with more power. Meanwhile, I’ll make an adapter to go into the plug in my dad’s shop.
I understand wanting different standards for 30A and 50A plugs/sockets, and grounded vs ungrounded, and even locking vs unlocking plugs. Beyond that, I’ve never found anyone who can give me a good reason for straight vs bent vs round ground prongs or parallel vs angled power prongs.
There was also an issue with getting the plugs needed to make my 220V extension cord in the first place. No local hardware stores had “dryer” plugs, either grounded or un-. No electrical supply stores had them in stock and the one store which could order one said it would be $100 and take three weeks to come in. The first several vendors on Amazon which I tried to order from took the order and then canceled a day or two later. I eventually got the plugs but they were considerably more expensive than the last time I ordered such things, and took a couple weeks to arrive. No idea what’s going on here and the electrical supply guys I talked to had no idea, either. Strange.
Anyway, despite the issues, it was a successful day. If The Child sticks with it, I’ll get a better welder and pay for her to get lessons which can lead to a certification or apprentice status or whatever. Fallback career in case engineering doesn’t work out or the expected economic disruption hits hard.
>> Even LC-39B at Kennedy isn’t rated for that much thrust.
“Oops,” says Tony, as he reaches for his checkbook.
The thrust totally destroyed the concrete under the launch mount, all the way down to the sand. It blew protection panels off the launch mount, and concrete debris damaged the tank farm and destroyed a bunch of cameras belonging to various youtube channels. It seems likely the engine failures were due to concrete hitting the engines before lift off.
It’s going to be VERY expensive to fix.
“VERY expensive” is still relative when your (Forbes current estimated) net worth is $175B…not to mention any under the table manila envelopes stuffed with cash from the .MIL to help fund SpaceX.
>> I forget to tell her to wear boots today and a small bit of splatter landed on her sneaker and scorched it but didn’t burn her foot. Lucky.
“Lucky”?? Foot burns will heal…those sneakers are now trashed 😉
>> I know the actor works the con circuit, probably fetching $100+ an autograph.
I wonder what an A-list autograph goes for these days. Nice work if you can
get itput up with your diehard fans. Or don’t they show up at cons?@SteveF, I’m jealous. I took a one-evening MIG class at the local Makerspace, and barely got started.
When I get a rural property, a welder is on my list of shop tools to buy.
“how you could mess up a chain to make it stick.”
When it jumps off the bar and kinks sideways.
Rosario Dawson was getting $140 an autograph in Orlando three weeks ago.
The big draw was Chevy Chase and Christie Brinkley doing photo ops with fans in front of a Wagon Queen Family Truckster replica. IIRC, that was well north of $200.
Based on first hand experience, I would say that everyone in line for John Cleese was a diehard fan with really personal things for him to sign.
>> For the programmers out there: I need some examples for the new courses I have coming up. So I’ve been creating a backend to read the data out of our solar system, store it in a database, and offer it up via a web service. Yesterday, I started on an Android app to call up the data and display it as a pretty graph: power generated, power used, power fed into the grid, and – I hope – power used to charge the car.
Okay, once I read the whole thing and realized that “out of our solar system” wasn’t the ‘royal our,’ then this made sense. Ain’t English a wonderful language (he says to @Brad who ain’t in the good ‘ole US of A.)
The launch and explosion was a relatively cheap distraction from the bad news about TSLA which broke later on Thursday during the TSLA earnings call after the bell.
I was on a divided 4-lane highway headed home this afternoon. I could see three cars on the entrance ramp from the interstate so I moved to the left lane. Late model Mustang in the middle tried to punch it and swing to the left lane in front of me. There was enough room and I had no problems with him goosing it to go from 20 to 60, but Ford’s finest shelled the engine–huge clouds of smoke out of both tailpipes–and he pulled back over and went to the shoulder immediately. Nice decisive driving. Hope warranty covers it, and hope there weren’t any rubbernecking accidents or collateral damage from bits on the road. I have to wonder if a turbo was involved.
Ford has a problem with the Hecho en Spain EcoBoost 4 cylinder engine in the last generation of Mustang.
I believe warranty replacements use the Hecho en Ohio engine which is going into the new generation, but that isn’t going to be a DIY job with a crate kit.
Picard? meh.
https://todsworkshop.com/
Scroll past the eye candy to “Arms vs. Armour II”
a 45-minute film with Kickstarter funding.
We know the result of Agincourt, but the why is more than “the English longbow carried the day”.
FYI, Armour I:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBxdTkddHaE
Yes, wimps*, that is a 160-lb draw English longbow with no let off.
*The English army fielded that day was reduced by campaign and disease by roughly 20-25% compared to the army that had taken the field more than two months earlier. Compare and contrast to our own troops, the result of lowered PT standards.
Sneakers and welding are a real safety
issueproblem. Steel toed boots are what she should be wearing. And a thick leather jacket and leather coveralls.I’ve got small hands and have some extra small leather gloves.
She’ll need to improve her hand strength; if vise grips an issue use clamps.
Where are you located?
@brad, @alan- I too read that as “our solar system” meaning the sun, etc. Given, the comment before it was about observing the heavens, so it put it in my mind. 🙂
The chainsaw chain has burrs on the guide parts of pretty much every cutting and depth limiting tooth. I spent some time with a file, on both sides, and got it moving ok, but one link also has some pinching on its rivet/pivot point, and so it won’t go around the corner. That was the deal breaker. No obvious mechanism for the damage I can see. I did check the slot to be sure there weren’t any pinch points. Even with a new chain, it’s a seriously cheap purchase. (craftsman saw, 16″ bar)
Rained most of the day so I got all the plumbing work in the attic done. Hose bibs are all connected, have valves and can be drained for winter. I am waiting for the foam to set, so I’ll know if I need to do more to secure the hose bibs in place.
It stopped raining in the afternoon, and around 3pm I went down to the dock to start putting stuff away,and maybe fish a little.
That’s when my neighbor came over, helped me get a couple of rods properly set up, with reels matching the purpose to the rod, and to the line, and then some proven bait… and I caught TWO fish this afternoon, and got a bunch of nibbles. They were little, not keepers, but one breem, one bass. I CAUGHT FISH. Finally. And I know some proven ways to set up a couple of different lures, and learned more about the rest of the rigs too. There is a LOT to know to be successful.
Given the rain today, and a chance for clear tomorrow, I decided to stay over while everyone else went home. Unfortunately for me tonight, I didn’t put the firepit under cover last night, so the ash is soggy wet. I might not have a fire tonight, just sit with the radio and a patio heater. On the other hand, I can dump the ash and be good to go… and it is CHILLY.
53F now that the sun went down, and wet, equals pretty unpleasantly cold. I’ll need some kind of heat to sit out.
I better get started on that, or I’ll be up half the night.
n
“The company has also hired two consultants “with experience in Washington, D.C.’s conservative circles to advise the brand moving forward.”
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2023/04/23/bud-light-puts-another-exec-on-leave-of-absence-takes-more-action-in-bid-to-get-customers-back-n735789
Dear Bud Light: Here’s your “No Charge Pro Tip of the Day”:
Ask the person(s) who signed off on these new hires how much Bud Light is sold inside the beltway. If they can’t answer immediately, fire them and the consultants.
Yes, the miracle of sophisticated engine controls; I have never stress tested my cars with computer controlled engines. Even when I had VW Beetles, I would lift to about 80% pedal travel when going up a long hill: it didn’t make much difference in speed, but probably made a difference in exhaust valve head temperature. I always sold my Beetles with less than 100k miles, so no real longevity test. I have said this before: limit wide open throttle to 20 seconds to protect exhaust valves. I learned this from a Chrysler engineer who developed carburetion and timing, and who did durability testing. On a high performance car, this is practical. My old cars with 440 engines would get to scary speeds in that time.
Towing is another matter. I have only done light towing, so again, maintaining good speed up a hill seldom required anywhere close to WOT (Wide Open Throttle). Another thing that protects valves is a slightly rich mixture. Most pre catalyst cars were shipped with ~12:1 air-fuel mixture at WOT at sea level. This makes a huge difference in peak temperatures. It can also suppress high rpm detonation, a quicker killer. With a catalytic converter, this can’t be done because the cat will overheat. Another gift from the EPA.
Another thought. Chrysler used to make some “truck” (and motorhome) versions of their gasoline engines. Two were the 318-3 and the 413. Both were based on the corresponding small (LA) and big (RB) block pass car engines. They had several subtle mods for durability. These included wider valve to seat contact surfaces, increased cooling in critical areas of the heads, probably sodium filled exhaust valve stems, and other things. They could probably run wide open for extended periods without trauma. This was without any modern (computer) engine controls. I believe GM and Ford had similar programs.
Chrysler also made gasoline marine engines. These were probably similar to the truck engines, but with various marine add-ons, such as water cooled exhaust manifolds and water resistant ignition. They could be run at WOT all day. I would bet they had some other differences, such as camshafts that limited output somewhat.
Finally, the California Highway Patrol had an acquisition program in the 1960s that included running 20 minutes at 140 mph. The car could not show any signs of distress such as overheating or tire failure during this test. They bought Dodges for several years, with one year exception, the 1964 Oldsmobile. Apparently no other makes passed, but I don’t know who submitted proposals and test vehicles. I know a guy who bought one of the retired Oldsmobiles, and another who bought a retired Dodge. Both were solid cars, but the guy who had the Dodge said it had a top speed slightly slower than the civilian version. Maybe true, but I have read that that was also caused by a light bar that was common in those days. Removed from his before sale, of course. Those cars were exempt from emissions specs, but political correctness prevailed. I think the 1975 Dodge had four catalytic converters. Even so, it could not even go 140 mph. Another era ended.
None of this includes hot rod modifications. Even back then, ordinary people could easily increase hp with simple mods like camshafts, intake manifolds, porting, and low restriction exhaust systems. Many cars could easily out accelerate and outrun any stock vehicle, but not a radio.
“Another Non-reassuring Report On New York’s Energy Future”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/04/23/another-non-reassuring-report-on-new-yorks-energy-future/
New York is going to install 80,000 battery units at 150 MWH each for $37,500,000 each by 2040. Does anyone have $3 trillion to give to them to pay for the battery units ?
Good for you. She (and, admit it, you) will treasure these times.
And, good for the protective equipment. Wish I had been that smart. I started with oxy-acetylene welding by learning from a book. I had good eye protection and good gloves, but little else. I eventually covered bits that got sparks on them. I then moved to stick with an AC buzzbox. One thing I need is a good apron. I do a lot of my work sitting at a bench or kneeling on the floor. Kneeling without an apron exposed my knees to sparks, and that was surprising. Anyway, getting good coverage makes for comfort, and relaxation. It sure improved my welding. I now have a MIG setup, but have not started using it. Next project.
That shoulder hood looks like it would be great for overhead work. I don’t do much of that, but might get one. Even with some hoods, please wear good safety glasses with tight side shields, or even full goggles under the helmet. I have seen sparks go completely around inside my helmet. Fortunately, I had read about this in a welding book, so always used them.
I saw somewhere that scale for apprentice lineman at SCE is north of $60k these days.
College may be for suckers now…
Most college is for suckers.
50% of the kids don’t graduate with ANY degree after 5 years. 40% of college grads are working in jobs that don’t require a degree.
Unless you get a STEM degree, or want to teach at the university level in the Liberal Arts college, there doesn’t seem to be much reason to go. And university teaching isn’t the easy path it used to be either.
Our school district acknowledges that with a commitment that every student will be equipped on graduation from high school to either attend a 2 year AA program, a trad 4 year degree program, or technical school /military. Real world, I’m sure not everyone actually makes it, but at least they ack that there are other viable paths besides trad 4 year degrees.
Had a nice little fire, once I got it lit, and the stars came out. Some haze but much nicer than cloudy and it was a dark sky. Didn’t get out any of the ‘scopes, just chilled. (53F by the water, so without the fire, I’d have been literally chilled.)
Headed to bed.
n
Excellent. Well done.
>> “Another Non-reassuring Report On New York’s Energy Future”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/04/23/another-non-reassuring-report-on-new-yorks-energy-future/
New York is going to install 80,000 battery units at 150 MWH each for $37,500,000 each by 2040. Does anyone have $3 trillion to give to them to pay for the battery units ?
Those EOL Tony battery packs need to be “recycled” somewhere.
>> Unless you get a STEM degree, or want to teach at the university level in the Liberal Arts college, there doesn’t seem to be much reason to go.
At the last job when I had to hire FTEs the request got created online and minimum years of education had to be 16 (four year degree). Changing it to allow a *cough* preferred *cough* applicant into the mix required an okay by our exec director.
Good catching, Nick. Soon you will be enjoying fish for breakfast. I have known some good fishermen. I was mediocre, but could do OK with good conditions. I swear a friend who fished streams could catch fish from a dry sand wash. Keep trying, and get more coaching from your neighbor.
Annoying. I’m not small, at 5’11”, but I’m not overweight.So I tend to be between an M and an L. Nowadays, with many manufacturers “upsizing” their sizes, I even take an S in some things. Even in Europe, where weights are lower than the US, these sizes often don’t exist. Just taking an L anyway is a poor solution: baggy clothes are unsafe, because they can get caught on things.
Lack of muscle can be fixed, if she really wants to.
Ungrounded plugs should not exist. If your equipment doesn’t require a ground, it can leave off that prong, but the plug should offer it. Honestly, 30A/50A is pretty irrelevant as well. One plug for each voltage, done.
Oof… I speak enough German that I sometimes screw up English. I reckon I was thinking “Solaranlage” and just did a literal translation.
Plugging into Jupiter, now *that* would be a power source.
Re Tod’s Workshop mentioned above, I can recommend his youtube channel, many experiments with arms and armour, fascinating, but, I warn you, you can be sucked in for hours if you’re not careful 🙂
You should watch the videos of him playing with his trebuchet – now there is a man enjoying himself!
Regarding his reproduction weapons, they are absolutely gorgeous and well made, I have an Anglo-Saxon seax from him, a lovely object.