smells of bikes

electron rancher, bicycle medic. Colorado. Ex-G+ user. Femtoinfluencer. I build stuff and ride bikes. 少し日本語を話します。

Public Key

npub1fjjhp87carafyjrnvuaj6um537k64ype9at7u8kv95rv6hk472rsgk67ht

NIP-05 Address

smellsofbikes_at_mastodon.social@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsyeftsnlvw375jfpekwwedwd6gltd2jquj74lwrmxz6pkdtm2l9pcpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dskvvuqh

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relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1fjjhp87carafyjrnvuaj6um537k64ype9at7u8kv95rv6hk472rsgk67ht

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Last Notes

2026-03-28 21:40:13 UTC

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I'm interested in what model! (I don't need any: I work for what may be the world's largest op amp manufacturer, but it's still interesting to hear about.)

2026-03-28 19:08:56 UTC

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or a 5v actual DAC.
When I was trying to make an adapter so I could draw graphics on my scope I made a resistor DAC and that worked better than I expected, whereas the filtered pwm was terrible. The 500mhz scope definitely could tell the difference.

2026-03-28 02:53:08 UTC

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this is so cool

2026-03-07 16:12:59 UTC

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they grew up quite near each other, in the grand scheme of things: boulder/nw denver

2026-03-06 21:27:58 UTC

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the lead singer sounds like such an aggro intense guy but he's really nice and will talk at length about all the cool music his kid has introduced to him and how much fun that is.

2026-03-06 16:07:20 UTC

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dead pioneers are amazing.

2026-01-13 05:08:09 UTC

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I've seen how darkly their teeth are colored but didn't realize it was just the front surface. That's neat.

2026-01-08 02:27:56 UTC

Anyone have any ideas?
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/857/113/357/210/101/original/c73b0c1e48422f2d.jpg

2025-11-27 16:16:20 UTC

Tradition!
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/622/551/754/434/875/original/2077c432531be8da.jpg

2025-11-17 05:51:52 UTC

We watched https://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/twelfth-night-about/17254/ tonight. It's free until the end of the month. It is a hilarious, beautiful, fabulous version of Twelfth Night. They do an unusually good job of a dialog-accurate production.

2025-11-17 00:02:05 UTC

There's a coyote on the couch in the backyard. I got this pic from inside when it had just settled down. Now it's sound asleep. I guess this answers why there have been so many little animal bits in the back yard lately. I vote for this because neighbors are having rat problems.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/562/090/465/480/329/original/8b914fc385936eb7.jpg

2025-11-16 19:34:33 UTC

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Oh this is cool. One of my best friends is from Bihar and she has oodles of frustration about it, but I bet she doesn't know this and she'd enjoy hearing it.

2025-11-13 23:05:31 UTC

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thinking about how Stalin let Beria rape and sometimes kill random Moscow women for years right up until Beria struck up a conversation with Stalin's daughter, at which point Stalin assigned her a bodyguard, but did nothing more to stop Beria. Fascists consider this entirely a problem for women to deal with.

2025-11-08 04:06:41 UTC

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Maybe we both need better antennas.
(Did you hear about the two antennas that got married? Kinda boring wedding but the reception was awesome.)

2025-11-06 22:18:08 UTC

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maybe tomorrow!

2025-11-06 21:19:07 UTC

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I got my Tdap yesterday and have noticed zero changes in radio reception. Maybe it was a fake!

2025-11-01 01:02:35 UTC

Halloween "candy or potato" is going really well this year because we got king sized candy bars so the choice is even more difficult.
But it's an institution now, kids are running off "I got another potato can we have hash browns dadddyyyyyyy"
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/471/736/128/537/849/original/c5f2ec7ed30b52df.jpg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/471/736/536/617/379/original/36a5942d7e9ba6ea.jpg

2025-10-30 21:28:01 UTC

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that book was amazing. I just finished it yesterday. Someone said he'd been training his whole life to write that and I can't argue.

2025-10-20 20:38:07 UTC

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such a good book and it was so sad learning about her passing

2025-09-27 15:35:47 UTC

She says we should hike more often
#dogsofmastodon
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/276/993/516/818/962/original/efb363fa50966871.jpg

2025-08-29 04:47:33 UTC

Lumpy zopf tonight.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/110/237/795/268/296/original/eabc66536bc82445.jpg

2025-08-26 04:11:03 UTC

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a friend's pet peeve is the phrase "more unique"

2025-08-06 01:08:02 UTC

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all the light between the shadows is orange. I think it's interesting how much more color shows up there than when looking through the sky.

2025-07-22 04:22:16 UTC

I sent this picture to [@MLE_online](https://social.afront.org/@MLE_online ) and she said I'd better go find out more about this band, which I'll do. She also thinks it has strong @npub1h7a…m2up vibes. It had a bunch of cool music oriented bumper stickers and looked like it had nonstock suspension so I bet it's even more fun than it looks.
You could fit a medium sized drum kit in this. (I can only fit a small one in mine, well along with the band.)
edit wooiee does this need a #weirdcarmastodon tag
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/894/965/175/522/945/original/1336921c085249b3.jpg

2025-07-08 01:09:18 UTC

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microSD as microRAID?

2025-06-23 03:35:37 UTC

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part of the higher-pitched is that people got obsessed with engagement angle and they started making tiny pawls with 67974957 teeth rather than the traditional three big fat pawls with about 36 teeth. Some of the new ones have multiple out of phase ratchets.

2025-06-12 04:17:26 UTC

TIL: I had some arduino code
loop()
{
turn display green, rotate it 90;
while(1)
{
do the actual stuff, like calculating speed and displaying it
}
}
It ran terribly: slow and the display stuff only briefly displayed.
On a hunch I moved the display init stuff up to setup (where obviously it belonged anyway) and it worked great.
So the arduino compiler can AND WILL optimize out while(1) so don't rely on it.
Maybe while(volatile bool foo=1) would work.

2025-06-05 16:27:59 UTC

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yeah I cargo cult myself by spending a week getting something working and then completely forgetting the whole process and just copying that code and using it unchanged forever afterwards.

2025-06-05 05:09:14 UTC

I'm characterizing an Arduino's ability to make precise pulses. If I bitbang it (yellow trace) using timers and direct port operation, I get, for example, 63.3uS when I want 64uS. If I set up a hardware pwm (red trace) I get 64uS. Pretty similar. But look at the sigma. The bitbang variation is about 7uS. The pwm variation is 10 _nanoseconds_. Like 500x better. This project needs <4uS jitter so I have to slog through the math for precise single shot pwm.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/629/019/781/534/311/original/fa678ef7d587c504.jpg

2025-06-03 02:13:19 UTC

Suzy the chaos goblin managed to pass intermediate training class.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/617/009/890/878/480/original/380e34433ac2eb36.jpg

2025-06-01 19:04:32 UTC

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though tbh my main interest is in one that can use flash photography to find near-specular reflections from lenses (there was a 2014 paper on this) and then spray the lenses with paint.

2025-06-01 19:03:29 UTC

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I've messed a bit with this, and yes, long stem on the nozzle just like WD40 cans seems to be able to get the spray outside the area where the rotor airflow is the worst. Other people have talked about using enclosed rotors, but you could make an interesting quadcopter that's really long, two rotors on either end and a half meter between them where there's no real airflow from the rotors.
A BIG one with something hanging down could do dot-matrix printing in a hurry.

2025-05-24 20:55:52 UTC

Cactus flowers are so cool
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/564/800/858/846/013/original/afa3798448c41b89.jpg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/564/800/904/745/370/original/a6a4e377ede1f12b.jpg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/564/800/906/337/505/original/c5dcbe8ef68e60d0.jpg

2025-05-24 16:45:07 UTC

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Sometimes it's not even obvious which is which, so it's a goofy terminology. I like muffin/pan. I usually use pin/non-pin side, because on ones like DB9, where one side has pins and the other side has something that sticks into the enclosure where the pins are, I don't think there's any reasonable mapping to sex organs.

2025-05-23 01:16:55 UTC

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I submitted a development proposal for Fire over Internet Protocol at work and they said it wasn't feasible, those cowards

2025-05-14 01:26:47 UTC

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Oh that's really good!

2025-05-12 04:48:13 UTC

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I would *love* to see more details about this. I'm fine with doing some manual tune, although several other people with this engine are using a specific tune table and have years of good results with it so I'll probably copy what they've done.

2025-05-12 04:37:32 UTC

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i would love to see what you did. Here's mine running a 10x10 rpm/throttle position table. Red is (conditioned) tooth pulse, yellow the SAW. I set up a timer as a one-shot and load in the table value and it fires, and the width is right, but the LUT delay is about 100uS and that needs to be smaller.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/493/003/550/821/320/original/604d6ceb5f5eab80.jpeg

2025-05-11 23:29:19 UTC

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Yeah. I got one for dirt cheap from a salvage yard and it'll do what I need while I'm trying to get a more complete system working.
Based on stuff you've written I kinda want a pressure carb next!

2025-05-10 22:34:15 UTC

This is not much to look at (but firmware isn't.) This blip of code measures the period of the incoming signal (engine tachometer, red trace) and the throttle position (pot, not shown) and fires out a response (yellow trace) whose width in microseconds determines the ignition spark advance, picked from a lookup table I found for this engine. I set up a timer as a one-shot, with 1uS resolution from 1-5000uS, and it seems to be working, based on the scope measurement.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/485/915/774/822/478/original/ffefbcb70ab61179.jpeg

2025-04-30 01:00:23 UTC

We have this 50 year old curve tracer which could easily kill you by accident, so nobody used it, and finally someone asked me to make it safer. I did, and now everyone uses it, and last month it broke from overuse and I just got around to fixing it.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/424/204/444/003/564/original/c9078484f5720d15.jpeg

2025-04-21 04:23:58 UTC

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I'd like access to my gmail.

2025-04-21 03:07:17 UTC

I'm posting this for a friend and in case I forget. If you wreck your android phone, when you get a new one, Google wants you to use 2FA to set up your acct on the new one, and the 2FA options require access your old phone.
Go to your google account on desktop (log in, click on user icon, go to Manage Your Google Account, go to the Devices tab) you can log out of your dead phone. Then Google offers to send you confirmation information to your new phone number.
#AndroidRecovery

2025-04-19 16:28:27 UTC

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Yesterday was just nonstop snow in west denver but today is really sunny so everything's melting off. Yesterday was the wrong day to hike up north table mountain, though.

2025-04-10 19:42:00 UTC

Some springy bits happening in the front yard
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/315/369/003/176/192/original/d24293d08de0b625.jpg

2025-04-07 17:42:41 UTC

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this does throw the onus for checking intent onto people who aren't well qualified to do so, and as usual, this means the rich get access while poor people with diabetes get turned away.
This sucks.

2025-03-28 19:46:56 UTC

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I'd never heard of sealing current! And I have some deoxit but had no idea it would work well in this context. I'll try it.

2025-03-27 14:09:17 UTC

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I'm making a smaller, stiffer version of this:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5198913
You can see the geometry of the kinematic coupling in one of the screenshots. This is how most touch type 3d probes are built, and they all rely on steel-on-steel contact between the elements.

2025-03-27 02:20:54 UTC

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Yeah, if my main point was measuring the resistance of steel, I'd clamp this between two sheets of annealed copper. Unfortunately, my use case for this is reading the resistance of a hard steel cylinder touching two ball bearings (or more accurately, the system of bb's and cylinder consistently measuring less than 10 ohms.)

2025-03-26 02:50:41 UTC

Hive mind here's a weird problem. If I measure the resistance across what I believe is a carbon steel ball bearing, that I've scrubbed with steel wool and then washed with acetone, the resistance between the probe points is a rapidly fluctuating number between 30 and 800 ohms. If I do the same thing with a carbon steel file it's steady at about 0.5 ohms. Any guesses about why a ball bearing acts like this?
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/226/456/752/569/583/original/ec5db732c3a87204.jpg

2025-03-24 16:17:14 UTC

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this is visually very pleasing

2025-03-22 02:28:44 UTC

I don't usually complain about things like this but every single time I try to use inkscape it is an exercise in extreme frustration.
I'm watching a YouTube video of a guy. He types in "text" and stretches it and clicks on a color and the text turns that color.
I type in "text" and stretch it and click on the same color in the same color picker and nothing happens. I have clicked in every single rational choice of options on the screen.
Something like this happens every single time I use this.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/203/721/769/443/317/original/1c5cb62d71b78483.jpg

2025-03-04 04:13:59 UTC

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It's more complicated than it looks. I made a crucible out of silicon carbide and sodium silicate binder that absorbs all the nukrotronic waves and heats up, so it's radiatively (and a little bit conductively) heating the aluminum and also shielding it.

2025-03-04 03:05:05 UTC

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Unfortunately I needed more aluminum for what I was trying to cast
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/101/942/233/491/639/original/9a782c2c962e3ed3.mp4

2025-03-04 03:03:55 UTC

Microwaving aluminum again
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/101/939/005/715/481/original/94a25f9b074d955c.jpg

2025-02-16 04:53:35 UTC

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We could get them to go on subs to see the titanic if it's too expensive to launch them.

2025-01-21 04:19:20 UTC

Dogs using pillows edition number 4847367
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/864/417/668/542/053/original/ab85c4e5c1a38109.jpg

2025-01-20 17:26:26 UTC

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I haven't seen foxes here in a year or more. I hope they stay.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/861/849/341/846/784/original/7b2316e8ca7c8a7b.jpg

2025-01-20 17:25:01 UTC

Hey y'all I have fox babies wrestling in the back yard.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/861/839/499/683/593/original/63a97d5673e88f66.mp4

2025-01-03 18:59:53 UTC

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one alternative is to unmount the work and chop it in the bandsaw and then reverse it and reface it, but that's unsatisfying.
But yeah parting is sorrow. Not sweet sorrow either. The really bad accidents I've had, where pieces of metal get launched hard and stuff ends up broken, were parting accidents. Blade grabs, twists work, blade shatters and shoots crescent shaped bits of hss that stick in the wall.

2024-12-31 16:47:10 UTC

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it's the first step in making mercury fulminate.

2024-12-19 04:15:09 UTC

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I'm now idly dreaming about a little cover that drops down over the rear plate right at the moment when I pass that specific toll camera, since it's always the same one. None of the others ever tag me.

2024-12-19 04:01:18 UTC

It really, really annoys me that about every six months I get a bill for using the toll lanes on the highway up to work, although I've never used them. It's three lanes side by side, one being toll, and the best I can figure is the camera is picking up my license plate in the next lane.
It costs about 3x as much to merely file a dispute as it does to pay the stupid fine.

2024-12-10 03:28:42 UTC

If you are in the boulder area I _strongly_ recommend you don't drive anywhere tonight. The roads are about the iciest I have ever seen, like even taking your foot off the throttle makes the car lose traction and start sliding.

2024-12-05 05:55:54 UTC

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Full length graphite condom on the thermocouple probe. Now I'm ready for molten metal.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/598/667/701/351/758/original/4215123aaf0caf50.jpg

2024-12-05 05:53:41 UTC

High aspect ratio drilling in graphite. Don't use full length twist drills like this for a deep hole. Drill maybe 1cm with an undersize drill, then drill to size with a gun drill. These seize in deep bores because they're too flexible
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/598/656/236/326/004/original/ea0e33448708b951.mp4

2024-11-26 06:36:50 UTC

I had this stupid part of a wetvac that had a rubber stopper that came out and I couldn't jam the tiny tapered plug back through the hole. So I whipped up a little arthroscopy tool: doubled wire through a tube. It can reach through a tiny drain hole, 20cm down into the container, and loop around the end of the plug taper, and pull it into the container hard enough that the taper stretches out and fits through the hole.
I really needed this to work. Whew.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/547/865/931/996/580/original/74672c71dc04dc63.jpg

2024-11-24 16:55:28 UTC

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noooo persist!

2024-11-05 04:44:19 UTC

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I feel like this is a type of object permanence problem. My dog knew she could walk around the table but when she got excited she ABSOLUTELY HAD to go through the middle where all the chairs and legs were and she inevitably got stuck. Eyes on the prize kinda fixation.
She didn't make cow noises, though: she sounded like a worn alternator v-belt on a cold morning.

2024-11-04 23:09:00 UTC

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I think there is a reasonable dilemma here in how to maximize the good you do: the interest from $100M of investments would sustain a lot of long term aid projects. I don't see many people with that kind of money doing this, though. It's what I aspire to.

2024-11-04 22:23:46 UTC

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my mom is a Christian who doesn't believe in heaven. She says the afterlife is how people remember you because of what you have done for the world. I think about this a lot.

2024-11-04 22:16:14 UTC

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srs this is why the rich are rich. People who are smart and hard workers but don't obsessively hoard wealth aren't rich, but their communities are improved.

2024-11-04 03:10:13 UTC

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Well, some pluses and some minuses. One of the manifolds is probably usable with some minor welding. I didn't pour hot enough. But the shell casting ideas works ok. I used to pour the investment into a plastic bag with the mold hanging in the middle and then strip off the bag. This time, by [@MLE_online](https://social.afront.org/@MLE_online )'s suggestion, I poured into a metal enclosure and left the mold in the metal to support it. Result: no cracks in the mold during burnout.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/422/484/304/879/306/original/fbdfbe33e509f11c.mp4

2024-11-03 20:05:37 UTC

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Some probable successes and one definite failure
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/420/812/883/504/105/original/04811d2d60afb367.jpg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/420/813/021/303/436/original/db160a143a858c16.jpg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/420/812/935/989/608/original/adf723c03c2f71ce.jpg

2024-11-03 20:03:25 UTC

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Hot metal!
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/420/807/606/435/402/original/04c12736e96a754d.mp4

2024-11-03 19:27:58 UTC

It's casting day. I'm doing two experiments in shell investment and one big casting that's the fuel injector intake headers for the Datsun engine. I had an initial fuel flow problem because there was a dead wasp in the propane regulator.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/420/669/835/649/859/original/3fa551b6e3961576.jpg

2024-11-02 03:29:04 UTC

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"history | grep 'ls'" is far easier than all those up arrows. ;p

2024-11-01 16:34:10 UTC

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TBH it _was_ satire when we first tried it and kids kept picking potatoes and now it is, I dunno, post-satire? Everyone thinks it's great, particularly their parents. Legit 30 potatoes got rehomed last night.

2024-11-01 01:28:20 UTC

A surprising number of kids choose "potato" and then go running down the front walk to the street screaming "I got a potatoooooo!"
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/405/097/660/792/717/original/21673290467d6146.jpg

2024-10-26 16:02:59 UTC

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I'm pulling all the tomatoes tomorrow. It was a great tomato year, but all things come to an end...

2024-10-15 05:19:57 UTC

You know that hair standing up on the back of your neck feeling?
I had a pretty solid bike wreck today, trying an aggressive line on a downhill trail, and now have an area of pretty much my entire right shin that has most of the skin scraped raw. And every time I think of almost anything interesting or scary, I can feel it hurt as all the little hair-stand-up muscles do their thing, at far below my normal threshold of awareness of that feeling. Weird.

2024-09-17 17:52:06 UTC

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which raises the question why none of these pagers were detected, apparently. Like, it's hard to believe that not a single person with one of these flew recently.

2024-09-05 17:10:11 UTC

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heh I love that a 5 year old bike is an antique.

2024-08-30 19:31:09 UTC

@npub1vhp…cqle presentation of the barbed wire phone project: full duplex over bare wire with just a 9v battery. One phone is circa 1915.
This is one of the coolest art/tech demos I've ever gotten to see/try out.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/052/628/343/578/217/original/a02bb987f7fda310.jpg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/052/628/325/307/776/original/02e775c6174d62d8.jpg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/052/628/332/614/058/original/1ef131c398bdc9d6.jpg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/052/628/368/703/928/original/53373ca327c80074.jpg

2024-08-26 15:48:32 UTC

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I think we need better names: I've spent a lot of time trying to explain a hot/cold heat pump as distinct from a cold-only.

2024-08-25 23:12:05 UTC

All that stuff they say about Portland slugs: it's true! Aieee!
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/025/188/021/355/544/original/01bbbaf871d8ec28.jpg

2024-08-25 21:52:39 UTC

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these are what I was thinking about: IC has heat to spare but in an EV everything is valuable.
I honestly don't know: is a dedicated AC more efficient than a heat pump at cooling?

2024-08-25 21:00:18 UTC

Thinking about a tiny heatpump for automotive temperature control applications, specifically for a DIY electric, coz why not?

2024-08-17 16:22:36 UTC

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that's spectacular!

2024-08-10 22:07:27 UTC

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I worked in a bookstore for a short while, writing an early database system for inventory management, and was reading a lot of 80's scifi/fantasy, so I enjoyed walking in and saying "I want dick and moorcock" to the guy working the counter.

2024-08-06 04:14:05 UTC

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And some digging on reddit indicates this is a long term annoyance for a lot of people

2024-08-06 01:34:58 UTC

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Well that's dumb in multiple ways.

2024-08-06 00:49:44 UTC

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I didn't realize that's what it was trying to do when it was underlining things. I thought it was just being a weird annoying OS.

2024-08-02 02:47:17 UTC

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That's kinda fabulous but I feel like that hairstyle was last spotted in the wild in rural Oklahoma in about 1983.

2024-07-02 20:50:28 UTC

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your histamines are all "boss fight!"