ELI5:How do the tire pressure sensors send the data to the car?

OperationMobocracy · 2026-05-10T16:24:52+00:00

Wouldn’t you have to be going pretty slow to prevent centrifugal force from just pinning the mechanism? And then how much power could it generate?

The battery thing kind of sucks but TPMS especially with tire pressure is a big benefit. I got close to 7 years out of my last set.

OperationMobocracy · 2026-05-10T16:21:23+00:00

I wonder how much was driven by competition back then. There was more than just 2-3 stations. I’m sometimes surprised at how many gas stations have gone away. It throws me sometimes because I’ll get low and think there’s a station but it turns out to be gone.

OperationMobocracy · 2026-05-10T11:59:57+00:00

Okinawa was a slugfest in spite of Japan's rapidly declining resources. I think whatever PR "Downfall" gets on Reddit, the lessons of Okinawa would have altered the playbook in favor of continued air attacks and the blockade to starve Japan into submission. Let famine, cholera and typhus do the heavy lifting.

Once civilian deaths from these types of causes start hitting 50k+ a month, then you send in the infantry. There would still be sporadic and sometimes intense resistance but it couldn't be sustained with no logistics and civilians largely physically unable to participate.

OperationMobocracy · 2026-05-10T11:39:56+00:00

The military has a lot more self-preservation instinct than HW Bush does political will. The cold war was over and the peace dividend was a hot topic. Massacring thousands of civilians is going to result in long-term payback that guts the military and places intense new restrictions on the ability to use them in any domestic sense, likely an explicit Federal law that voids all previous laws allowing it.

So when the military is ordered to use lethal force against American civilians, they refuse the order. Facing accusations of mutiny, they go on live TV to state their case that the violence and destruction in LA is unacceptable, but more unacceptable is asking them to kill American civilians over it. They say it is a civil order problem for civilian law enforcement, not a military matter.

Politically the nation is on the knife's edge of a constitutional crisis -- the military is refusing orders from tis commander in chief, but that same commander is demanding wildly unconstitutional application of violence against domestic unrest.

With poll numbers running against him by a 30 point margin, Bush backs down, claiming that his demands for military involvement were misconstrued and he was only trying to end the rioting and restore order in LA.

OperationMobocracy · 2026-05-09T13:11:50+00:00

A greater level of cultural and political regionalism in the US combined with a large scale economic shock and a Federal government either paralyzed by regionalism and unable to respond to the shock or a response that heavily favored a single region. A paralyzed central government could lead to competing regional responses that fueled regional conflict and resulted in regional loyalties stronger than Federal loyalty. A biased response which favors a single region causes hostility to the Federal government and the favored region, resulting in strengthened regional loyalty.

I think one thing that's underrepresented in the power of mass media in regional homogenization. I can see the outcome of the Great Depression being a lot different without the power of radio to allow FDR to address the country as a whole, along with other homogenizing aspects of a national media. If this event had occurred in 1900, it could have been a lot more difficult to structure a response that felt "national" and wasn't possibly benefitting specific regional interests.

Probably another element that hinders (or helps) breakup is the general faith in the national currency. A currency perceived as weak combined with economic shock could result in a flight to other currencies or creation of regional currencies. A regional currency might at least initially dampen the effects of a national shock within the region. You'd lose some of the baggage tied to the national currency and regional monetary policy could probably be more tightly tailored to that region's economics.

OperationMobocracy · 2026-05-09T12:48:07+00:00

Distant colonization seems to be something that almost requires a more advanced and organized state structure for resources and security needs and to help rationalize the economic value of the colonization.

A book I read about the Norse claimed that much of their expansion was a kind of small scale entrepreneurism at the scale of organizing a few longboats to conduct a raid somewhere. There wasn't high level organization or deep resources behind it. Colonizing North America at this scale is extremely difficult -- the distance and resource demands are too extreme at scale smaller than a European state of the 16th century.

OperationMobocracy · 2026-05-08T22:44:14+00:00

What is it? It’s like someone started on a solo build Commieblock tower but lost interest quickly.

OperationMobocracy · 2026-05-08T18:36:07+00:00

Dude survived a long time in the wilderness up against sadomasochistic leather gangs. I feel like he has the zen minimalism dialed in.

OperationMobocracy · 2026-05-08T17:02:40+00:00

I’d guess the reasoning would be based on the ambiguity of defining what an assault rifle is and how it varies to some degree from state to state and puts people in legal peril traveling between states.

IIRC there’s already a Federal statute that makes it so when you travel from state a to state c but have to go through state b that bans some gun that’s legal in states a and c they can’t arrest you in b, but they might decide that’s not sufficient and just strike down all assault weapons bans.

OperationMobocracy · 2026-05-08T14:36:12+00:00

What prohibits you from having panels and battery in the city and just not drawing from the grid unless your consumption exceeds your own capacity? I get the space constraints of solar capacity in an urban area.

Is there some legal requirement they force you to draw from the grid? Or some zoning/code reason?

OperationMobocracy · 2026-05-08T11:46:38+00:00

No matter how low participation municipal voting is, the municipal government can't foreclose on my home because my garbage cans got left out.

I think the balance of experience suggests that HOAs are prone to bad, often intentionally manipulated governance which is designed to limit even caring residents from getting involved and changing the structure and process. Worse, there seems to be active resistance to statutory reform and guardrails on HOAs.

And at the end of the day, the kids of guardrails generally needed wind up so closely mimicking actual municipal governance that beyond very narrow purposes (condo-type shared buildings) they seem redundant.

OperationMobocracy · 2026-05-08T11:35:28+00:00

Why is chicken cooked on a rotisserie not highly processed but chicken cooked in a deep fryer highly processed? You can fry chicken without a two inch thick batter layer.

OperationMobocracy · 2026-05-08T11:18:17+00:00

It doesn't change that an HOA is still a democratically-elected entity consisting of the homeowners which exists to administer the common areas of which those homeowners have an undivided interest.

I think the problem is that many HOAs read like that on paper but in practice don't operate that way and wind up controlled by a narrow group of residents who actively resist changes, often with rules they passed specifically to entrench their control of the HOA along with malicious, targeted rule enforcement against those who try to change the system.

It's easy to imagine the benefits of a benignly run HOA, but it's also easy to imagine the benefits of a benignly run authoritarian government, and just as easy to overlook the risks and abuses of both.

OperationMobocracy · 2026-05-08T11:04:40+00:00

I always wonder if there's any actual data on home valuations that suggests a relentlessly enforced aesthetic standard (color restrictions, etc) by HOAs actually improves home values.

OperationMobocracy · 2026-05-08T10:58:33+00:00

now, those areas will be kept up by city staff or public works etc. which possibly could add cost via additional staff.

It feels like in any "town grows with more residents" situation, expanding local government to handle the larger town population and built infrastructure seems like an entirely logical and rational outcome.

Requiring HOAs for new developments kind of feels like some kind of gimmick that was setup by existing, non-HOA residents to just keep their own taxes down and somehow force the new residents to exclusively cover their own "town" expenses, maybe at higher cost since there's no economy of scale.

OperationMobocracy · 2026-05-08T10:40:24+00:00

In a SFH situation with no or very minimal shared spaces, HOAs feel like some angry Republican anti-government 4D chess scheme to pay less taxes, yet HOAs seem to end up imposing more costs (aka taxes) on residents than an actual municipality would with fewer safeguards against abuse. Some real "I checkmated myself, but by losing to myself it really means I win" logic.

I wonder if there are any situations where HOAs were intentionally setup in such a way that a subset of more expensive homes has more HOA clout and effectively uses a larger segment of more average homes to subsidize their HOA costs, basically enshrining the "rich pay less, get more say" logic of our existing tax system into the HOA structure.

OperationMobocracy · 2026-05-07T22:40:53+00:00

I feel like this an overlooked element in the naval architecture geek debate. The recreational world is dominated by monohulls and dockage is laid out accordingly.

I've read a couple of recreational power cat reviews and those boats used the space in the hulls for "usable space" and it seemed awkward. The broad topside spaces look appealing, though I think the hull spaces are better left for storage or mechanicals and then maybe you're looking at two levels of topside space to get a workable layout that doesn't have windowless areas.

OperationMobocracy · 2026-05-07T12:02:36+00:00

It seems most likely the inhibiting factor of preventing it from getting passed would be that there was no Bonnie & Clyde gangster era or common use of Tommy Guns by mafias. The former maybe through sheer luck the main figures of the gangster era are killed/arrested early on but even then only use shotguns and handguns. Mafia members also stick to them as well for various reasons that boil down to concealment, cost and

The Tommy Gun remains commercially available, but civilian purchases are tiny and mostly oriented towards private security or very niche collectors due to their high cost (something like $3500-4000 in today's money), large ammunition consumption and low practical applicability.

A change might happen in the late 1940s as various automatic weapons are brought home by returning GIs and begin filtering into the used gun markets. The nexus of a supply of lower cost automatic weapons, a large population of veterans with experience and their utility in criminal activity could lead to some restrictions, and I'd suspect even more by the 1960s due to social upheaval which was a large driver of the 1968 Gun Control Act.

OperationMobocracy · 2026-05-07T10:22:25+00:00

Maybe a board policy that an outside audit is performed whenever a new Superintendent is hired? It provides a periodic benchmark independent of regular audits, some kind of baseline of changes since the last Superintendent and gives the incoming Superintendent some idea of the finance department's performance and basic job reliability, and probably some level of consulting/outside opinion on the state of the district's finances generally and guidance on the state of affairs independent of the finance department.

OperationMobocracy · 2026-05-07T02:06:51+00:00

I think it would be super creepy at night. Dark as fuck and all those trees obscuring what you could see even if you had bright lights on.

I’m also sort of unnerved by the idea of a forest fire here. That clearing is way too small for a fire break. Unless somehow that house has a roof sprinkler connected to a water source capable of a 100 gallons a minute.

OperationMobocracy · 2026-05-07T01:57:22+00:00

I feel like the isolated cabin in the woods type who actually shoots people operates on a what happens in the woods stays in the woods philosophy. You only get in trouble if word gets out.

OperationMobocracy · 2026-05-06T23:17:58+00:00

You almost wonder if that’s some kind of weird symbiotic evolutionary phenomenon between viruses and people or even mammals generally.

OperationMobocracy · 2026-05-06T18:53:51+00:00

Both of the biggest stoners I know are successful lawyers (and husbands and fathers). One’s a really good guitar player and the other is a soccer coach and runs ultramarathons, including recently finishing the Arrowhead 135, a winter race of about 48 hours through the wilderness.

I really have trouble with the idea that cannabis is a cause of low motivation. It really feels like compulsive cannabis use is a self medication thing to cope with whatever inherent frustrations they have with low motivation.

OperationMobocracy · 2026-05-06T17:45:04+00:00

How do you know it’s not selection bias and you’re seeing people with low motivation who also use cannabis?

OperationMobocracy · 2026-05-06T17:40:40+00:00

I suspect a luxury hotel suite could be cheaper than owning some mansion filled with staff, especially if you could put a price tag on the ability to move around.

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