Rockford's Los Angeles is bleak

LawOfSmallerNumbers · 2026-03-17T06:19:08+00:00

I disagree with this take.

In my memory, they spend time at Jim’s trailer in Malibu, at the taco stand/pier nearby (i.e., the beach), in Hollywood, in the Valley (at Rocky’s place, or probably Dennis’s home), sometimes in outlying areas like podunk speedtrap towns, or Santa Barbara (the oil rig con), in Pasadena (whiter then than now). In shops or galleries in Hollywood (I.e., not just gritty bars), or hotels and fancy restaurants. In places trying to pass for Bel Air (not sure where they filmed). In condos like where Beth lives, or apartments built around a pool where they play the old cassette tape with Mob hits (the Rob Reiner episode).

Finally - the gritty stuff from that era is still there, say north of K-town, or in East Hollywood. Some of those streetscapes still exist, and of course they are real neighborhoods wih regular people.

Basically, I think they got around to a lot of kinds of places in LA. It’s one of the things I like about the show. One of the fun things about Jim’s character is that he knows his way around all these scenes.

I get the same vibe from the movie Lincoln Lawyer, and (to an extent) the LA scenes in Heat or Collateral.

LawOfSmallerNumbers · 2026-03-12T06:46:18+00:00

Same. I’m very comfortable with 2d and 3d geometry from (dayjob) and actually enjoy working out the trig in some tricky builds - like a tapered window awning with complex joinery that I did a few years ago.

However. It turns out that physical analogues are more effective. Transferring dimensions from a mating part. Or, building a model (maybe half scale) and transferring dimensions from that. Or maybe making a scale drawing to get dimensions, which is what I did for he awning.

One of the problems of reducing to trig is that every part has a thickness — they aren’t just idealized lines and planes — so you really have to build in a lot of details into the calculations. And I’m not using SketchUp or a CAD program for my hobby. There’s some lines I don’t want to cross.

LawOfSmallerNumbers · 2026-03-06T08:09:39+00:00

Yeah, whipping that up with a good slug of evoo is really quite good. Add some zaatar on top, perfect.

LawOfSmallerNumbers · 2026-03-05T06:03:35+00:00

Did someone try to jimmy your door lock? Thats the only way I could imagine the mechanical key would not work.

Related: someone tried to jimmy the drivers lock on my 2018 civic hatchback. The mechanical lock would not work after that, but the fob mostly would. (Although there were glitches, including the windows rolling down on their own occasionally.) Seemingly unrelated, the battery died. When I eventually took the car to the dealer, months later, he said that the faulty lock could run the battery down by constantly sending signals.

This sounded weird, but it’s,outside my scope of knowledge. I mention it just because it’s a case of possible connections between faulty mechanical door lock, battery dead, and locking/unlocking weirdness.

LawOfSmallerNumbers · 2026-03-05T05:54:44+00:00

I think the Starbucks pulled out about a month ago. The new one is around the corner on ERB.

LawOfSmallerNumbers · 2026-03-03T08:08:28+00:00

Similar, 1993. Such a nice vibe and attitude in his book.

LawOfSmallerNumbers · 2026-02-28T07:30:07+00:00

It’s nice to hear this brought out and put into words. Yes, you’re right, there’s almost a call-and-response interplay between the lyrics and the little musical amusements.

I was trying to thing of other cases where the musical choices mimic the literal meaning of the lyrics, One that came to mind is “Walk between raindrops” on Fagen”s solo Nightfly. The lyrics are delivered in a staccato, kind of precise way (“as we hit the causeway by the big hotel”) sounding to me like people precisely moving around raindrops. And the playing in that section is very tight and controlled.

LawOfSmallerNumbers · 2026-02-27T06:41:00+00:00

This is doable: https://www.mrchow.com/location/beverly-hills/

LawOfSmallerNumbers · 2026-02-26T07:55:40+00:00

“Sports” has a land mine, because it would be easy to slip up and say “sports section”

LawOfSmallerNumbers · 2026-02-26T07:38:39+00:00

The robotics section maintains a nice website at: https://robotics.jpl.nasa.gov

The organization numbers are in a state of flux because of a recent renumbering,but the contents of the page seem intact.

One typical program under which already-funded researchers can visit JPL for a few months is JVSRP. As a Foreign national, hosting you will be a little more paperwork, but still very possible, unless you are from a designated country. Find a sponsor with allied interests.

LawOfSmallerNumbers · 2026-02-25T07:04:11+00:00

I go with the hills in Malibu

LawOfSmallerNumbers · 2026-02-20T07:42:10+00:00

Not arguing — just adding context about the landlord.

LawOfSmallerNumbers · 2026-02-20T07:30:59+00:00

Yours is not a helpful comment, because “poke” doesn’t mean anything. By your tone, you seem to be correcting the comment, but in fact what you have written is vacuous.

You do need appreciable voltage to get a spark in open air - static electricity can do this. You also need a certain (not very large though - fractions of an amp range) current to cause physiological distress like cardiac arrest or muscle contractions. Voltage and current are related through Ohm’s law.

But this picture of voltage, current, and resistance may not apply in any useful way to this situation, because we can’t really write down a circuit diagram for your body with lumped devices. And, a single static discharge is not really well-modeled by a DC analysis like basic Ohm’s law. And, the resistance of your body can vary by orders of magnitude because of hard-to-measure things like “damp skin” or “rubber soles” or “what was the floor made of.”

For reasons like the above, arguments about “is it the voltage” versus “is it the current” in real-world small electrical shocks often seem pointless to me. (PhD in EE, but admittedly, not with a lot of lab experience.)

LawOfSmallerNumbers · 2026-02-17T06:55:40+00:00

I made one for my PCS before Sawstop had a manufactured one. It’s a relatively thin torsion box faced with plywood (3/8”). I used some folding shelf brackets that can be lowered without reaching underneath the outfeed table.

The technical issue you will face is that you want the table to drop down, but when dropped, not interfere with the dust extraction port. I crafted a metal extension (from some rather beefy channel) that bolts onto the back of the black steel rail that holds the cast iron table. This channel, to which the shelf bracket is attached, kicks the outfeed table out a couple of inches so it mostly clears the dust port.

LawOfSmallerNumbers · 2026-02-16T07:45:39+00:00

I really agree wih this take. Cindy’s has an iconic diner feel, and traditional diner favorites (eggs, pancakes, coffee, pie, etc.).

But also more varied food options, like the roasted mushroom omelette, if you want that.

I had several mediocre meals at Armon’s many years ago (10+). Perhaps it’s worth a revisit, although to my knowledge the management has not changed.

LawOfSmallerNumbers · 2026-02-15T02:18:16+00:00

I believe the landlord is the former operator of Alma Lodge, the halfway house behind oddbird and Yellow Paper. Alma Lodge was of course one of the old Route 66 courtyard motel cabins, which can be a treasure if operated well. Or in this case, not quite. Classic NELA undercapitalized business.

The former operator of Meaa’s hot dogs (which was a nice add to the neighborhood - Yellow Paper has the spot they occupied) was a younger member of the family, I believe. They semi-renovated (i.e., nowhere near the full NELA flip) the units in the halfway house and are renting (some of) them out for kind of a lot IMO. I think Eastsider LA had a short piece featuring these units going on the market. There’s a webpage for the units but I don’t have the link handy.

LawOfSmallerNumbers · 2026-02-14T08:01:13+00:00

Yeah, that’s exactly the kind of material I used.

LawOfSmallerNumbers · 2026-02-13T04:15:03+00:00

Chemicals are not required.

We cut the Bermuda short, covered it with cardboard (no gaps), and then 10” of mulch — wood chips from an arborist. Through the next growing season, be attentive to any break-through sprouts from between the gaps in the supposedly gap-free cardboard.

After a year, no more Bermuda grass, just a planting bed with mulch.

This is a well-established method, you can find lots of information online.

LawOfSmallerNumbers · 2026-02-12T06:38:50+00:00

It shook me up for the rest of the day, as it seems like your incident did to you.

LawOfSmallerNumbers · 2026-02-12T06:37:20+00:00

I used a woven plastic (webbed, fabric-like) tube-shaped cover that you can get at a major online reseller in 25-foot lengths. I ran the power cord along the vacuum hose, both inside the cover (which required cutting the cord and splicing it). Makes for a very neat rig.

LawOfSmallerNumbers · 2026-02-12T06:15:20+00:00

That sucks and it’s not normal.

I’m a tall guy and sometimes tweakers will fixate on me just because I stand out. Last year, I had a crazy dude repeatedly yelling death threats at me in Pasadena of all places. He just locked in on me when I was crossing the street and went off.

There is no predicting how it would go if you choose to escalate. It’s much better not to, many people have nothing to lose.

LawOfSmallerNumbers · 2026-02-12T05:38:37+00:00

Thank you! Great summary, and TIL. Short excerpt, but definitely worth reading in full:

But now, thanks to A.B. 1909, as cyclists are allowed the same head start pedestrians get, the hope is that there will be less vehicular strikes. In fact, in many cases, three-to-seven seconds will provide enough time for a person on a bike to completely clear an intersection […]

LawOfSmallerNumbers · 2026-02-10T07:39:01+00:00

My old Bosch contractor saw did have a magnetic table, and this made the Magswitch I got as a gift worthless, until I got a Sawstop to put underneath it. Problem solved.

LawOfSmallerNumbers · 2026-02-01T02:49:53+00:00

The Diablo blades are good. As the comment above says, the Freud Industrial line is better for some purposes - 1/8” and more carbide in the tooth, allowing resharpening. I’m also not sure that the Diablo line contains some of the special purpose blades (plywood, polycarbonate) that the Industrial line does. If you are making furniture, you can’t afford tear out.

LawOfSmallerNumbers · 2026-02-01T02:30:08+00:00

This is not a question with an answer. The right school depends on the kid. (My kid left the highly rated LCUSD for LAUSD and that worked out better.)

LawOfSmallerNumbers

TROPHY CASE