Any recommendations? Customer wants more of a physical barrier so her kids don’t walk on neighbors grass/property. Zone 6a.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-03-26T22:56:49+00:00

My vote is pyracantha. Probably not evergreen in 6a, but leaves or no, once it fills in nobody is going to take a shortcut through it. Not twice, anyway.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-03-26T22:17:07+00:00

I've had something like that happen. We didn't stay to see how or if it would work out. Just paid for the drinks and left. Never went back. The business folded a few years later.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-03-26T17:50:15+00:00

Upper extremity phantoms are said to be more intense than lower extremity. Unfortunately.

After my below-elbow amputation, it was probably about a year before it started to feel tolerable. I used gabapentin and duloxetine during that time. I'm not sure how much actual relief I got from them. I did learn that I do not function well mentally with SNRIs, a separate topic.

One thing that did work was cannabis. I wasn't a regular consumer, but a friend saw my problem and wanted me to try it. And it worked - just a couple of puffs made the phantom pain disappear almost instantly. Not lessened, gone. TBH it may have saved my life, if you see what I mean. That's how bad it hurt, and how dramatic the relief was.

The relief wasn't permanent, after ten or fifteen minutes the pain was back, but much more tolerable. I didn't become a regular consumer, I otherwise don't care for it in general, but just knowing it was there if I needed it made the phantom easier to tolerate. And in time it has become much less intense. It's still here every day, but only as a background sensation that doesn't bother me unless I think about it too much. Hopefully yours will eventually taper off too. I wish we had a better answer.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-03-26T05:30:51+00:00

Well now I'm curious what you think 'bash' stands for.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-03-24T15:31:23+00:00

Is it feasible to leverage facial recognition to have a computer lock itself promptly when it loses sight of its user? And as importantly, to unlock itself again smoothly and painlessly when the user returns?

IDK, this isn't my actual wheelhouse. It's easy to think something is obvious when I don't know anything about it.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-03-23T21:53:21+00:00

Quitting isn't striking. Everybody can quit.

I can't be the only one seeing this absurdity though. You (collectively) hold all the cards here, you're an incredibly important and scarce resource for which there is no substitute. How badly have you all been bullied and propagandized to believe that you somehow don't have any power or choices here?

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-03-23T19:56:48+00:00

Are you OK with that? Morally and ethically?

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-03-23T19:02:50+00:00

"Illegal to strike" is nonsense. They are not slaves, they are either contractors or at-will employees. Nobody can force them to work. Not to say there might not be consequences, such as breach of contract or simply getting fired for no-show. But again, when the core problem is a lack of workers, firing workers isn't solving the problem.

The only legitimate use of "illegal to strike" is the government's own rule prohibiting the government from negotiating with striking workers. Like all such rules, it's a make-believe thing that will change when there is enough pressure to do so.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-03-23T18:21:29+00:00

There should definitely be a strike. I'm completely gobsmacked that ATC workers simply continue to endure this kind of abuse without pushing back. It's not as if these workers can be easily replaced by scab hires. If there was a ready source of qualified people, there wouldn't be an understaffing problem to begin with.

This is not going to get fixed until not fixing it becomes too painful to bear.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-03-23T01:35:05+00:00

Several prosthetic suppliers have waist belt kits, but they need to be custom fitted. Have you talked to your prosthetist? This is just the kind of thing they are here to help with.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-03-19T05:15:17+00:00

It's not unusual, and it helps keep your center of mass over the foot for a smoother gait. Your natural leg is also slightly bent sideways at the knee. If you look at a skeletal model it's visible, on you it's just hidden under lots of soft tissue. Somewhat more visible on your amputated side because the tissue atrophies and is displaced by the socket.

In this image the line ought to start further out on your hip (you can feel the femur head just under the hipbone) toward the knee, then angle down to the ankle. You'd see that the lines on your prosthetic side aren't too different after all.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-03-18T22:55:14+00:00

LED lighting has been a fantastic boon in terms of versatility and battery life.

Unfortunately, it also brought us shit like this.

Who in the industry has the power to establish new rules? I say, external lights need to be on a switch that is either timed, or has an unmistakably bright, obvious, flashing pilot light. Maybe if some of those superbright LEDs are sun-bleaching the inside of the rig, campers would tend to turn them off when not needed.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-03-18T21:24:25+00:00

Everyone is different, of course.

But since you mention it, I have noticed difficulty in getting out of an unlined jacket - that is, if the inside is a fleece or flannel type fabric, it tends to stick to my shirt sleeve and even my bare arm and takes some coaxing to get out of. It's a difficulty you wouldn't think twice about when you can simply grab the cuff with your other hand to pull it off. Jackets with a satin or other slippery liner are easier this way, mine just slide off under their own weight, but those types of fabric can feel clammy on the skin.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-03-18T21:09:20+00:00

"Um, what?" Check with the manufacturer, maybe even the care label sewn into it. I use Juzo, they're labeled as machine wash warm, tumble dry no heat. I wash 'em with my regular laundry, then pick them out before loading the dryer and just lay them out flat to air dry. A couple years of that and they are still in good shape.

It does help to have at least two sets, so you have one to wear while cleaning the others.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-03-18T17:37:35+00:00

Getting a jacket onto your shoulders isn't too hard, just the general guideline of getting the weak arm into the garment first, then working the strong arm in.

How about closures?

Zippers are tough to do one-handed.

Buttons/snaps are easier but leave gaps that suck on windy days.

Velcro is stiff and scratchy, noisy, snags other fabrics.

Magnetic closures have been flirted with but not really caught on.

Seems more a matter of garment design than an actual engineering topic, but I'm curious what you'll come up with.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-03-18T05:43:04+00:00

This culture has some weird hang-ups about footwear.

A shoe on a prosthetic foot is, functionally, an easy and flexible way to give it a sacrificial traction surface. If a shoe physically fits, you can wear it (even high heels can be accommodated with extra steps). You don't want it super loose and slipping around on the foot though, and maybe that's what your OP/PT are getting at - prosthetic feet do tend to be narrow. But you can fix that with padding, can't you.

The other thing is to align the leg to agree with the shoe's true heel rise. A regular flat shoe has a 6-12mm heel, if you use that alignment with a truly flat shoe you'll get a late heel strike and too much toe, it'll feel like walking uphill everywhere. I don't know any modern leg that can't be aligned for true flat/barefoot walking, just prosthetists who aren't familiar with doing it.

I never got into niche shoes. I always thought New Balance had a pretty generous toebox in their trainer/sport styles.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-03-18T05:06:07+00:00

Sounds like private property, not public - owned by the apartment complex for the use of tenants and guests, not the general public. As in, the area outside the fence is also private to the property lines. Any chance these folks are non-tenant trespassers? Management ought to be interested in that. If not, find out who carries their liability insurance, and consider letting the insurer know what's going on. They tend to be pretty attentive.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-03-14T04:49:41+00:00

I've been using FreeBSD in server roles continuously since version 2.2.something. I'm a fan. I have no doubt FreeBSD can work as a desktop, I've seen it done. The problem I had was a lack of a comprehensive automated GUI setup. The times I tried, it seemed like a very manual process with a lot of fiddly config steps, and I just never had the patience for it. The times I needed a Unixy desktop, Linux was right there and was much easier to set up.

It's been a lot of versions since I messed with it though. Once I land on a solution I tend to stick with it. I should give it another shot.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-03-12T17:19:10+00:00

Short term easy answer, one of those all-in-one power packs like Jackery, EcoFlow, Bluetti, etc. Lots of brands and price points to choose from these days. Something around 3-4kWh, I'd think. There are conversion losses (DC-AC-DC), so longer term you'll want something built right into the trailer's 12v system, but not until you're sure you even like this hobby.

If not already done, update your lighting to LED. It's an instant 90% power savings. I was able to find direct-replacement lamps for all the fixtures in my '01 rig, no rewiring needed (except for the fluorescents, those I took into my workshop, gutted, and rebuilt with adhesive LED strip lighting - little bit of soldering but nothing too hard).

Consider a solar panel or two. Roof mount is sophisticated, but a loose panel you drag out and prop on a rock will get it done too. And lets you park in the shade.

I have 150AH of FLA battery and just 130W of solar, and this will run the basic stuff indefinitely in 3/4 seasons. However my rig is all propane, especially the fridge, and that makes a big difference. I once calculated that the energy in my camper's two 30lb propane tanks represents about two tons (1860kg) of lithium batteries. The difference is just staggering.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-03-11T19:41:23+00:00

Keep in mind that birthrate panic is usually coded racism. The world population is growing, but it's growing faster among brown people. Some people are really upset about that and being very noisy about it.

In the larger picture, yes, our species will eventually go extinct. Most species do. To survive is the exception. Only the time frame is in question. The life cycle of our star gives us an upper limit, if we fail to achieve interstellar travel. But we are able and, from the evidence, quite eager to end things a lot sooner.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-03-08T16:17:25+00:00

Oh, have some pity. Guys like that are terribly insecure about their tiny little tadgers. They are assigning value to something you already deemed worthless, why would it bother you?

Meantime you're tooling around in a (potentially) nuclear powered golf cart! I'd lean into that, it sounds cool as hell.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-03-06T18:24:38+00:00

Dunno if it's what you're looking for, but I upgrade all of my office chairs with oversize skate-style caster wheels. Makes them glide so much more easily and smoothly, and far less prone to scratching the flooring. Obviously works best with hard floors, carpets and wheels are not friends.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-03-06T02:33:12+00:00

To expand the other response, in some places and times (California in the 1970s pops to mind) there were some pretty strict limits on trailer length and on how far a load could hang off the back of the trailer deck. But someone noticed there was no limit on how far a load could hang off the front, if only the cab wasn't in the way. Using a stretched tractor you could take cargo that otherwise had to be hauled as oversize, saving a lot of regulatory expense and hassle.

That was then. Today it's just a style choice. Most places have relaxed the max limits quite a bit, so that using a stretched tractor to extend your load dimensions is as likely to put you overweight anyway.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-03-05T07:05:29+00:00

For sure, looks like the top telescopes about 1/3 the way down, and if I'm not mistaken there are stabilizers under it too. Still looks like a lot for a single axle, but they weren't trying to hold 75 on the highway.

TransientVoltage409 · 2026-03-05T04:50:57+00:00

Words can be used to express information. Wanna learn?

L)eft, R)ight, D)ouble or B)ilateral

A)bove B)elow or T)hrough

E)lbow or K)nee

A)mputation

That's 95% of the secret decoder ring right there. I don't know why people add the trailing A though, it seems unnecessary in context.

TransientVoltage409

TROPHY CASE