totm aug 2023 What funny/interesting thing happened in your life today?

[Delay]

1 minute ago, tater said:

EVs already have this—regen braking.

I pointed that out to him as well (we both already knew this kind of recharging existed because it was used in F1 since 2010.).

He meant recharging a battery analogously to how a lead battery is recharged in an ICE car. So he very much meant to use electricity to spin a thing and that thing would then generate electricity.

[tater]

1 hour ago, Delay said:

He meant recharging a battery analogously to how a lead battery is recharged in an ICE car. So he very much meant to use electricity to spin a thing and that thing would then generate electricity.

If the battery turns the motor, it's a motor. If the wheels turn the motor, it's a generator. That's regen on an EV. Stop providing power to the motor(s) used to propel the car, and the KE of the car rolls the wheels, turning the motor(s), energy is extracted, and sent to the batteries.

In the case of a tesla, the brakes are barely used. Coming off the accelerator pulls KE from the car, because that's how generators work. It's taking energy of motion, and turning it into electricity (and heat).

Adding an additional generator would as you said above, constantly be extracting KE from the car, and turn it into electricity, and heat. Even with a highly efficient generator, it would be constantly taking KE from the car—requiring you to press down on the pedal, using more energy from your battery. It would necessarily lose net energy even if it was just as efficient as the motors—the energy lost to heat would happen twice, once for the motors, once for the generators.

[TheSaint]

Watched The Hidden Fortress tonight with the wife and Thing #1. (Things #2 and #3 couldn't hack the subtitles.) I love Kurosawa.

[steve9728]

Days ago, I bought a PHL-03 1/35 scale model. Just learn the drive mechanism of the truck

[SunlitZelkova]

On 6/5/2023 at 9:32 AM, steve9728 said:

Days ago, I bought a PHL-03 1/35 scale model. Just learn the drive mechanism of the truck

Damn, what company makes this? Even Tamiya doesn’t go that detailed with ground vehicles.

[steve9728]

9 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Damn, what company makes this? Even Tamiya doesn’t go that detailed with ground vehicles.

Trumpeter. Have to say I'm also surprised they give such detail. But they didn't make a rocket part for it

But it doesn't look that difficult to make a 3D model of this rocket - I suppose I could try to make one and then go to an online 3D printing shop and place an order. My idea is to make a launch scene with cotton and small lights.

Edited June 6, 2023 by steve9728

[Geonovast]

Had a bit of an "Oh, huh" moment.

Today I learned that the space shuttle fired its forward nose RCS thrusters during booster separation to protect the windshield from the booster separation motor exhaust.  With all I've watched/read on the shuttle, surprised I'd never heard of this before.

https://www.nas.nasa.gov/assets/nas/pdf/staff/Rogers_S_CFD_Assessment_of_Forward_Booster_Separation_Motor_Ignition_Overpressure_on_ET_XT_718_Ice-Frost_Ramp.pdf (page 3)

[LHACK4142]

I've been getting into video editing lately, and I just finished my first project that I think came out decently:

What do you guys think?

[MythicalHeFF]

Went go karting with friends, go kart broke down mid-race and they had to put it on hold to get me a new one. I still had a blast though, and would definitely recommend trying it if you haven’t.

The place I raced at records results and other data for every race you participate in, and here you can see my lap times in red, with the huge jump to above the top of the graph being caused by my kart running out of power/ breaking down and the race being stopped.

Another consequence of this was my hilariously long average lap time, at more than 88 seconds, compared to a typical value of about 45. I actually stopped three times throughout the race, leading to my time being the most by far. Luckily, the positions are determined by your best lap time, meaning that I didn’t immediately fall into last place.

(last names not shown for privacy reasons)

Another fun thing to look at is your position throughout the race. I’m also denoted in red on this graph.

 

[Nuke]

pi tablet mark VI is alive! no magic smoke deletion, no exploding lithium ion.

still needs outer casement, but the subrame all the parts bolt to is all one piece.

Edited June 9, 2023 by Nuke

[steve9728]

On 5/14/2023 at 2:22 PM, steve9728 said:

NIO ET7 is my dream car.

A week ago, my dad asks me to drive the old Peugeot 408 back home for "maintenance". I don't really need to drive from my rented flat to where I work. Just "a little crowded" on the metro. Then two days later he told me he had sold this 408 and bought the ET7. I think he was joking until I just saw the screenshot about he was chatting with the NIO's new car delivery assistance: Congratulate, your car is in production now and the frame number is out. The car will be produced in 2~3 weeks and will be delivered to the delivery centre within 3~5 days.

"Dad, fun fact, this car is more expensive than my boss driving..."

[Nuke]

i had to reinstall linux again. i think i changed the wrong setting and broke my display driver. trying to configure the power system to start up and shut down correctly. told it to rotate the display into portrait mode, since the gui for the power board wouldnt fit on the display (really need to see if they have a newer one with more pixels). i think i screwed up the power settings and hard power cycled it when i wanted it to halt first, and that bad reboot resulted in the display not working. i could still get into ssh but i didnt know how to fix the screen from the command line. so reinstalling linux was the way to go. linux is like that. it works when it works, getting it to that point is a different matter.

the next step i guess is to print the outer casing. but i wanted to install controls and speakers, which will take some modeling work, printing, and some code. ive already modeled the base panels, so it shouldnt be too much work once i decide what i want on the thing. joysticks, a trackball, some buttons. speakers are in pre-engineered enclosures and the dacs/amps are i2s. the mkIV had too much digital noise in the sound and this should clear it up keeping them away from the pi. i got some 12-bit i2c adcs for the joysticks, port expanders for buttons (though i may just use gpio for those, i2c bus is already pretty cluttered with power management chips). big problem is finding a layout that fits on my printer bed. 

[TheSaint]

So, when we moved into this house, over ten years ago, we landscaped the back yard and planted a bunch of fruit trees. My own personal requirement was that we plant two cherry trees, because cherries are my favorite fruit. It took a couple of years for them to start fruiting, but after they did the birds ate all the cherries every year. It was enormously frustrating. We tried netting the trees, hanging reflectors, doing all sorts of things. Nope, the damn birds ate all the cherries every year. This year we had a bumper crop of blossoms and Mrs. TheSaint was bemoaning the loss of another crop of cherries on one of her gardening forums, and someone suggested buying a couple of plastic owls and setting them up around the trees to scare the birds away. We thought, "Well, what do we have to lose?" Bought a couple of plastic owls on Amazon for $25 and set them up a couple of months ago.

I think the owls worked.

[steve9728]

1 hour ago, TheSaint said:

I think the owls worked.

I never understood the purpose of the plastic owls in the neighbour's yard across the road when I was studying in England, but got it now finally!

Edited June 10, 2023 by steve9728

[TheSaint]

Just got done sorting/grading that entire batch of cherries.

Grade C - These were ones that had bird bites, rotten spots, were overripe, etc. Not as many of these as we thought, about a gallon and a half. We went through and cut off the bad spots, pitted them, and Mrs. TheSaint is currently in the process of converting them into cherry syrup.

Grade B - This was the vast majority of them. Whole and intact, but smaller, or misshapen because of frost damage or some other cause. We have about three gallons of those. These are eating cherries, I actually just finished a whole bowl of them. They'll find their way into other uses as well, such as preserves, pie, etc.

Grade A - These are big and perfect, just as good or better than the cherries you'll buy at the store. We have just over a gallon of these, over six pounds. These are going to get made into cocktail cherries.

[AlamoVampire]

Starting to think spectrum knows exactly when i need my internet working… flying from atlanta to reno and about an hour and a bit into a 4.5 hour flight spectrum pushes an update to my cable modem and poof internet, poof live traffic, poof live weather…. Im cursed. I know it.

005506112023

with an hour until top of descent spectrum decides to return to service and my data returns in full. Next thing i hear after the sim chirps to alert to data restoration is a buzzer in my aircraft telling me i have 1000 feet or so until my MCP set altitude is reached… uh ive been cruising at fl360 for about 3 hours and change… so i guess the real world weather over Utah is pretty wild. 494nm to reno, 382nm to top of descent!

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024706112023

<cries> internet goes. Stays gone some 2 hours. Internet comes back. Stays back 10 minutes. Internet goes. <cries> i just want to fly. I just want stable internet. 
030906112023

Edited June 11, 2023 by AlamoVampire

[CatastrophicFailure]

11 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

cries> internet goes. Stays gone some 2 hours. Internet comes back. Stays back 10 minutes. Internet goes. <cries> i just want to fly. I just want stable internet. 

Can you run your own cable modem with them? That would at least give you the control over when it updates. 

[AlamoVampire]

1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Can you run your own cable modem with them? That would at least give you the control over when it updates. 

Sadly i dont think i can  the update turned into a 10+ hour full service blackout  everything looks back on now. I woke at 1030 and was still full service blackout, went back to sleep only waking up just now to seeing my internet back (assuming cable is back too) via an ookla speed test on my phone locating my provider as i opened the app.

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[GuessingEveryDay]

Today, I couldn't locate my driver's license, which was bad as I needed to go on a flight in a month. So I started looking through the house. Couldn't find it. I look carefully again 2 times, find 3 USB-C cables, and still couldn't find it. So I go ahead and order a replacement. After I finish and pay, the sunlight bounces off the monitor, and I shift it. Right behind the monitor, which is very hard to see behind, is my driver's license. 

[kerbiloid]

5 hours ago, GuessingEveryDay said:

the sunlight bounces off the monitor, and I shift it. Right behind the monitor, which is very hard to see behind, is my driver's license. 

Spoiler

 

[CatastrophicFailure]

6 hours ago, GuessingEveryDay said:

Today, I couldn't locate my driver's license, which was bad as I needed to go on a flight in a month. So I started looking through the house. Couldn't find it. I look carefully again 2 times, find 3 USB-C cables, and still couldn't find it. So I go ahead and order a replacement. After I finish and pay, the sunlight bounces off the monitor, and I shift it. Right behind the monitor, which is very hard to see behind, is my driver's license. 

The surest way to find any item, and directly proportionate in surety to said item’s value, is simply to buy another one. 
 

Your move, St. Anthony. 

[kerbiloid]

There is an old traditional way to find a lost object, described in Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Quote

But it occurred to him that he might as well have
the marble he had just thrown away, and therefore he went and made a
patient search for it. But he could not find it. Now he went back to his
treasure-house and carefully placed himself just as he had been standing
when he tossed the marble away; then he took another marble from his
pocket and tossed it in the same way, saying:

“Brother, go find your brother!”

He watched where it stopped, and went there and looked. But it must
have fallen short or gone too far; so he tried twice more. The last
repetition was successful. The two marbles lay within a foot of each
other.

So, if you have lost your driver's license, you should order another one, and follow the described protocol.

[AidenMakram]

Today, as I roamed through the digital realms, I stumbled upon a mischievous bug. It decided to play a game of hide-and-seek, concealing itself within the lines of code. With each attempt to catch it, the bug would move, leaving me scratching my digital head in confusion. Eventually, after a comical chase, I outwitted the cunning creature and restored order to my algorithmic kingdom. Oh, the joys of being a language model!

[Nuke]

pi tablet hulk has been in the desk for several days and has only lost 1% charge on standby.  thats an order of magnitude better charge retention than my previous power solution. thats what i get for using a simple schottky diode for power oring instead of the complimentary mosfet you are supposed to use. i guess next i got to measure idle run time, leave it up for 24 hours with some burn in load. i can also save some power by disabling ethernet and usb, but thats for later experiments. 

Edited June 13, 2023 by Nuke

[steve9728]

Surfing on Chinese social media and found one guy who said that there's a new "Panda Express" opened in Beijing. And that guy said that it tasted totally like in the US... wt...

Our country is still too tolerant