• 2 Posts
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Joined 8 months ago
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Cake day: February 1st, 2024

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  • this was always bound to happen as we expand our presence in space.

    Yes and no — from a different article:

    Radiation associated with Starlink satellites was detected at observing frequencies between 110 and 188 MHz, which is well below the 10.7- 12.7 GHz radio frequencies used for the downlink communication signals.

    (The original article said 5M radiation, which should be around 60MHz.)

    So Starlink is emitting RF in spectrum where they shouldn’t, which is avoidable, but takes effort.

    My guess, and I could be wrong, is that this could be related to something other than the radio(s), such as switching power supplies finding opportunistic structures from which to radiate.






  • Track stands! Not a contradiction to your statement at all though: you need to be moving just ever so slightly.

    With a fixie it’s easy, because you can pedal forwards and backwards in tiny amounts. With a freewheel, it’s trickier but you get the hang of it with practice. Ideally you’ll have an incline, so you pedal forward to go forward, and ease up to slide back. After some practice I can use the raised reflective paint from e.g. crosswalks as the “incline.” This miniscule motion is enough to balance — and like you said, it ain’t the angular momentum that does it.


  • I think you need to include energy cost in the preparation stage. Bread requires a hot oven, which is a real amount of electricity — it’s close to $0.40/kWh where I live. From this link it says that a bread maker uses only .36kWh, but an electric oven would be more like 1.6kWh. So bakita single loaf of bread, you end up with a not insubstantial fraction of the total cost going to heating the oven.

    Of course, many bulk foods require heat, so it gets a little sticky this way. Oats/oatmeal probably wins out here, as you can just soak them overnight.




  • Right. But I think it’s a mischaracterization to represent the EC as a “technicality,” as it’s very central to the way voting in the USA works. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s stupid and should be abolished, but it’s very much ingrained in the voting system.

    I think I’d counter your example — keeping the sports theme — by saying it’s like the World Series: it doesn’t matter if there are three absolute blowouts, all the matters is who wins four games. So you could easily win the World Series, but have fewer total runs across seven games (game = EC votes, runs = popular).

    (Again, I think the EC should absolutely be abolished.)


  • Ended up with the Yaesu FT710, with a G5RV Jr. in the attic. Internal tuner tunes 40-6 with the exception of 15m and 17m. Very pleased with it so far! Several digital DX so far (Australia, Brazil, Samoa, Japan, Alaska, Hawaii — I’m at CM87/California).

    To-do list includes low loss coax (100ft run of who-knows-what currently); debug intermittent Ethernet issues (Ethernet runs parallel to feedline — choke balun/better choking of feedline?); possibly get remote tuner (one step at a time…). Fun stuff!







  • Yeah, I wanted Harris to completely eviscerate Trump, which didn’t exactly happen. But I don’t think that’s because she did poorly — it’s because I know who I’m voting for, and I’m not the target audience.

    Had it been the proverbial bloodbath that I wanted to see, it might not have played well with independents/those on the fence (which I blame largely on sexism — a ruthless woman is “a bitch,” but a ruthless man is “strong,” etc.).

    Judging from the headlines and conversations I’m seeing, I think she really threaded the needle — came across as strong, intelligent, leader-like, all the while giving Trump enough rope to hang himself. More might have alienated voters, and less might have come across as too soft. Really good stuff from her and her campaign.