fr0sty
Joined 17 years ago
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Member since
Dec 29
Recent submissions
Comment · 2 years ago
Comment · 2 years ago
I'll put in a vote for: https://lcwo.net/ (Learn CW Online)
If your goal is to be "conversational" in CW I suggest you crank up the character speed until you are not able to count individual dits/dahs anymore. This will probably be somewhere in the 25-35WPM range. The goal is "instant character recognition" where you hear the sound/shape of the entire character rather than counting elements, assembling them in your head, and doing a mental hash lookup on the result.
If you have trouble receiving or copying down the 5letter groups at this speed resist the temptation to add "farnsworth" spacing (extra gaps between letters). Instead increase the word spacing until you have enough down time in between to get everything copied.
Comment · 2 years ago
> most insurance won't cover DIY electrical work
You have a good source for this? I see claims like this every time a discussion of this sort and they rarely come with any citations.
Comment · 2 years ago
My understanding of the system is that the plug is physically locked in the charge socket while the car is drawing current through the cable. Thus it is impossible for there to be arcing at disconnect.
Comment · 2 years ago
> Assault charges but not physical violence? What in the world?
"The legal definition of assault is an intentional act that gives another person reasonable fear that they'll be physically harmed or offensively touched. No physical contact or injury has to actually occur, but the accused person must have intentionally acted in a way to cause that fear."
https://vindicatelaw.com/assault-vs-battery-are-they-the-sam...
Comment · 2 years ago
More recent minivans will still fit sheet goods in the back, but they have started rounding off the lift gate (and consequently the opening it fits into) for stylistic reasons and while the maximum width is still >48" along the bottom edge you only have 42" or something before the trim starts angling up.
Comment · 3 years ago
On the subject of the Derby, this was originally published as "The Kentucky Derby: An Oral History": https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/20/the-kentucky-d...
Such "Oral History" articles were quite popular for a time* and the fist time I encountered this article it still had its original title. I'm sad that it was not retained since the url now gives away the punchline.
* https://www.vulture.com/article/an-oral-history-of-disney-th...
Comment · 3 years ago
A document I saw yesterday claimed that SVB had ~$160B in uninsured deposits.
Comment · 3 years ago
PHEVs are certainly more complex, but a series hybrid like the BMW i3 only involves finding space for a small genset and some additional control software/electronics. I'm having trouble finding good numbers but this[0] article says the option added only ~$4k to the price.
[0] https://insideevs.com/news/317236/first-bmw-i3-electric-car-...
Comment · 3 years ago
That appears to be "road freight" not "rail freight".
Comment · 3 years ago
I'd love to find a good number on the daily mileage of the median passenger car in the US. The average looks to be around 30-35mi/day but the median is probably a small fraction of that. Why would you want your battery pack to be 10x oversized for your typical day?
I think a more efficient solution would be series-hybrids with small onboard generators for range extension. Minimize weight/cost of the battery pack while maintaining the ability to drive cross-country without frequent charging stops.
Comment · 3 years ago
Where did you find those EU-27 numbers? I am seeing something around ~400B ton-km.
> "Rail freight activity in Europe, measured in tonne-kilometers, grew from 339 Billion tonne-km in 2003 to 398Billion tonne-km in 2019" Page 14
https://erfarail.eu/uploads/The%20European%20Rail%20Freight%...
Comment · 3 years ago
Some light googling gives me 390B kilometer-tonnes[1] in Europe and 1.6T ton-miles[2] in the US for 2019. So that is 6x the freight movement.
The US rail network also >2x longer than Europe[3] (360,000km vs 151,000km).
[1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/198443/us-class-i-freigh...
[3] https://www.floridarail.com/news/6-key-differences-between-a...
Comment · 3 years ago
https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2023/why-train-derailm...
Most derailments are in train yards. Few cause injuries, fewer cause deaths, and only a handful involve hazardous substances. I don't say that to downplay the mess in OH/PA, but just to make sure the base-rate is understood.
And if you want to compare to europe it looks like US freight rail volume is at least 6x as large. Also no idea if/how they count "fender bender" derailments in switching yards. US standard is >$12k in damage according to TFA.
Comment · 3 years ago
Amateur radio is for 2-way communication only. No "broadcasts" allowed (with some _very narrow_ exceptions).
Implementing a mental dit/dah decoder + lookup table is the shortest path to being able to decode written CW ` _ . ___ _ ` but it will cause you problems trying to receive faster CW since you can't count, assemble, lookup fast enough to receive at more than 5-8WPM. And even then you are generally doing "keyboard copy" where you write down the letters as you hear them and then go back to actually read the message you received later.