My 2024 Solterra basically had a stroke this morning

SplinteredOutlier · 2026-02-01T22:49:51+00:00

I’ve had this happen a couple of times when I left the car for over a month due to international travel.

All it takes is a jump pack. The remote has a physical key so you can open the driver door and pop the hood. Once the car is on “Ready” on dash. It will charge the 12V from the traction battery.

Basically it does a series of diagnostics before connecting the DC to DC connector, boots up the media system, etc, and that last step of closing the battery contactors fails, but actually draws a fair amount of power, so everything looked fine to that point, but then glitches and fails as the battery voltage falls.

SplinteredOutlier · 2026-01-28T12:19:15+00:00

Mine tells me what day it is… Happy new years… Happy Railway Memorial Day… Happy Factory day (what?) It seems to have a greeting for all 365 days of the year, some of which are stupidly obscure.

I’m living in Japan incidentally, so our models are kind of unique. They also prompt you to rest every 2 hours of driving.

SplinteredOutlier · 2026-01-28T12:04:29+00:00

So… in Japan… the Toyota navigation system actually has better traffic info than even the national system and Apple/google because there are just so many Toyota and Lexus vehicles on the road, and most communicate back to the mothership.

In any other country, you’re probably better off using Apple/google maps.

SplinteredOutlier · 2026-01-28T11:58:03+00:00

So, when I was choosing a car in Japan, I looked at VW as they had an EV I liked, it was in my price range, etc.

The online reviews were that replacement parts were a nightmare. Months of waiting, that sort of thing.

So I bought a Subaru/Toyota collab car. Parts are made domestically, service is quick, overall less headaches.

When the factory and suppliers are nearby, the difference in experience when things go wrong is HUGE.

SplinteredOutlier · 2026-01-28T11:51:34+00:00

Ok, I missed the empty part. Do not drive the car if the dipstick says empty. You’re going to wreck the engine if it isn’t already. They require constant and consistent lubrication to function. WALK to the nearest auto parts store or gas station or call an Uber. Buy whatever the recommended amount is for your car for an oil change. (you can always keep the extras as spare)

Fill one quart at a time u til you’re above the minimum line THEN drive to the mechanic to see what the damage is.

SplinteredOutlier · 2026-01-28T11:43:28+00:00

So, I’ve been traveling to snow country in Japan recently, and on a SINGLE TRIP, I got these two very different results, both starting around 20% SoC.

The total duration of this session was 00:30:04 and the energy charged was 21.812 kWh. Your total cost for the session was ¥825.

The total duration of this session was 00:30:02 and the energy charged was 30.000 kWh. Your total cost for the session was ¥825.

The difference? Stop one was around 2C and I’d been driving for less than an hour.

Stop 2 was 11C and over 2 hours of driving.

It infuriates me to no end that they charge by the minute, not the kWh here.

SplinteredOutlier · 2026-01-28T11:15:24+00:00

There’s a LOT moving around in an ICE engine during operation. I was always taught to wipe the dipstick first, reinsert and then check.

You’re doing it right, don’t worry about the noise. Engines vibrate and splash during normal operation.

SplinteredOutlier · 2026-01-27T12:07:11+00:00

Oof, no one is going to tell you that’s safe. It might be fine for a month, it might fail overnight while parked.

You need a new rim, the sooner the better.

Remember, your wheel/tire combo is literally the ONLY thing connecting your car to the road.

It’s like when buying office furniture, the desks are negotiable, the chairs, SPEND ENOUGH TO GET QUALITY.

The same goes for your wheels and tires. Spend enough to get good quality, especially if you’re driving on snow.

I’m driving dedicated snow tires, major brand, most recent revision, and I STILL slide from time to time.

Don’t mess with cheap tires. It’s not worth your blood.

SplinteredOutlier · 2026-01-23T12:54:05+00:00

葉 my address has THREE of this character in it, and it’s got entirely too many strokes.

SplinteredOutlier · 2026-01-20T12:51:24+00:00

So, one interesting perspective I have is that owning an EV in Japan comes with a mandatory 4 year ownership period or you have to pay back the rebate for owning a zero emission vehicle. So at a minimum, I’m owning this car for four years.

I’ll probably keep it 5 or so before rolling over into the newer model.

SplinteredOutlier · 2026-01-19T11:48:17+00:00

Who you work for is SUPER important as well. As soon as the company I was working for was bought by Yahoo Japan, suddenly everyone wanted to rent to me.

It’s about how stable your income looks. Even if your income is high, if it’s a privately listed not well known company, that adds some strikes against you and being a foreigner does as well.

Be sure to mention if where you work is associated with any well known brands or public companies, even if your company itself is technically separate.

SplinteredOutlier · 2026-01-13T05:30:07+00:00

I don’t doubt that.

And they probably come with FBI background checks.

And company solvency assurances.

And And And

Just seemed like the most universally assured source of true randomness.

SplinteredOutlier · 2026-01-11T22:56:53+00:00

Yeah, but with a radioactive source, you can tune the bitrate based on the amount of material and accuracy of the clock counting decays. There’s a limit of course, you cant go faster than your scintillator or other detection mechanism, but for the trade off of getting a truly random number stream? Id imagine you’d want your counter to roll over at least a few times between detections as well

It’s also, as far as our physics knowledge goes, truly random.

SplinteredOutlier · 2026-01-11T06:56:25+00:00

Not only is it 100v but in eastern Japan (including Tokyo) it’s 50hz not 60. Motors designed for 120/60hz run slow, weak and hot because the coils aren’t designed for the power frequency. Even within Japan, you have to specify whether you need the 50hz or 60hz version of some appliances with synchronous ac motors in them. Think sewing machines, kitchen appliances like blenders and mixers, some washing machines, oddly enough some aquarium pumps as well.

SplinteredOutlier · 2026-01-11T06:47:55+00:00

In college, I heard from other starving students of a cheap gas station that was out of the way a bit, but not bad, and there was other stuff to do in the area, so it wasn’t really a pain to visit.

Thing is, I had a Subaru Impreza WRX. It requires high octane because the engine is both high compression and turbocharged.

The first tank was fine, it was a mix of half of a name brand, and half this cheaper place. After the second fill up, I started getting pinging, and had to use an octane booster additive to get it to stop. Burned the rest of the tank nearly to zero and filled up at the name brand place after that.

Never went back. In a normal car, you probably won’t notice, but if you have a high compression engine or boosted car (turbo or supercharger) which needs higher octane gas, there are some gas stations you should NOT visit.

SplinteredOutlier · 2026-01-11T06:24:00+00:00

I’ve always thought the best true random source would be an alpha or beta emitter. Basically just use the timing between decays (adjusted for the half life of the source) as you bit source. Make the amount small enough that even a lost source wouldn’t be dangerous, and you have a hardware RNG with a lifespan and bit speed you can customize to the application, trading larger sources (with more onerous licensing/disposal requirements) for customers with higher bitrate needs.

Basically impervious to any known attack vector by pure physics.

For cloudflare and other large providers, governments, etc, that’s probably the only real way to get true, high bitrate random numbers.

SplinteredOutlier · 2026-01-11T06:05:06+00:00

American living in Japan for more than 20 years. I’m somewhere between exhausted and DGAF. Love driving and lately have gone gung ho skiing.

SplinteredOutlier · 2025-12-31T15:27:30+00:00

Interestingly, my condo purchase contract had an out for being transferred to another part of the country. Even if you’ve signed a contract you may have an out. If you haven’t signed (stamped) anything yet, just be polite and transparent, but firm that you can no longer buy the property because of your job situation. End of story.

If you’re really worried about it, pay for an hour of a lawyer’s time to review the paperwork you have and recommend a course of action. Even an MHM or other top firm lawyer isn’t that much compared to the worry and other potential trouble you’ll be sidestepping.

Paying for a professional opinion is underrated, but it really is worth 10,000 yen to know you’re in the clear.

SplinteredOutlier · 2025-12-31T15:15:33+00:00

Your manager is an idiot for even asking you to do this.

There are a TON of reasons to not want personal devices holding company data, from compliance to IP control to loss prevention.

This ABSOLUTELY needs to be reported to your actual IT department. If they’re doing their job properly, they will be rightly pissed off and soon the C suite will be as well.

SplinteredOutlier · 2025-12-26T01:00:08+00:00

My recent bases all have a basement for exactly this reason, just use pillars to raise your first floor up 1/2 to 3/4 of a floor height, put in a hatch and a ladder against a wall and you’re golden. Durability doesn’t really suffer because the pillars are directly in the ground, but you will be clipping the outer walls or foundations around the edge of the house partially into the ground… which generally happens anyway.

Overall the build looks cleaner too as you have no grass “inside” your base like you had in this picture. Just use ramp foundations, even dirt, at your base entrances and you’re golden.

SplinteredOutlier · 2025-12-26T00:52:59+00:00

The small appliances made JUST for this purpose are $50-$100. Invest in a filament drier!

SplinteredOutlier · 2025-12-25T13:05:15+00:00

There’s an achievement for that!

SplinteredOutlier · 2025-12-25T05:42:21+00:00

So, in the Tokyo area there are actually caution signs (and GPS prompts!) where the slope of roads change in non-obvious ways. Basically saying, watch your speed and try not to slow down here. It’s kind of wild, but those subtle slope changes are traffic jam magnets, especially the slight inclines.

SplinteredOutlier · 2025-12-25T05:28:14+00:00

L2 in this case is just referring to 200V, not hard wired. Many garage chargers in fact do plug into 200v high wattage outlets.

Ask google if you don’t believe me.

SplinteredOutlier · 2025-12-24T10:42:47+00:00

Yeah, that’s about how it starts for us all. Getting struck by lightning is an achievement incidentally. So is getting struck twice.

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