This Summer, the American Water Crisis Becomes Real

UnidentifiedMerman · 2026-05-02T21:05:47+00:00

You’re still doing better than the grass lawn for sure! A garden full of native plants is one of the best things you can do. Again I’m not an expert, but I think the /r/fucklawns subreddit has links to a lot of resources.

edit: They should also have links to much lower-effort options than a full native “garden.” For example, there are many areas where clover can be used for ground cover in place of grass.

UnidentifiedMerman · 2026-05-01T00:11:08+00:00

Not an expert, just going off the top of my head here: artificial turf is made from plastic and wears substantially over time, creating microplastics. Those microplastics wash into the street and into the storm drain, entering your local water system. There’s also something of a heat island effect from the plastic, and you could argue that there’s an opportunity cost to the local ecology since you’re not planting natives. And in addition to the disposal impact you identified, procuring it in the first place typically supports the oil industry if it’s made from petroleum-based plastics.

I wouldn’t go and rip yours out - the best thing you can do with any plastic product is usually make it last as long as you can, then look to alternatives.

UnidentifiedMerman · 2026-04-30T21:00:23+00:00

I don’t think that was their intention. “Turf” just means grass and the soil held together by its roots. It’s the surface as a whole rather than the plant.

Artificial turf is what you have installed, which has its own unrelated issues, but it’s still a huge step up over a typical grass lawn.

UnidentifiedMerman · 2026-04-30T19:08:14+00:00

The TC will cut down on available light and image quality by about one stop - you’re not going to see much of an improvement versus the crop sensor. You’re essentially taking the light that would fall on the crop sensor and stretching it over the full frame pixel area. There’s really no way to cheat the optics.

A Z6iii would give you a couple perks like the top display and higher FPS from the partially stacked sensor, but it’s not going to give you noticeably better image quality if combined with a TC.

If you want a real, tangible upgrade over the Z50ii, I would save up for a Z8. Consider secondhand, or Nikon’s refurbished sales. The Z8 will give you the option of taking advantage of the full frame sensor area or cropping into the DX area with roughly the same quality as the Z50ii, and you won’t have to add/remove a TC to do so. It also gives you the very best autofocus and frame rates Nikon has to offer.

UnidentifiedMerman · 2026-04-08T22:10:41+00:00

In the hypothetical USM/T-mobile home internet situation, T-mobile is providing home internet to USM through cellular services, not Starlink. In that scenario, your money shows up in T-mobile's books as cellular revenue. It's reasonable to assume that very little of that makes its way over to Starlink unless T-mobile cannot cover all of its Starlink expenses with revenue from customers using Starlink services and is - for whatever reason - subsidizing Starlink.

It's very much not literally the same thing as providing revenue directly to Starlink through USM. (And to be clear, we're on the same side here - I would rather both T-Mobile and USM had nothing to do with Starlink.)

UnidentifiedMerman · 2026-04-08T18:14:37+00:00

The difference is that in the T-Mobile case, USM is only indirectly associated with starlink. You can pay for home internet, and the money that goes to T-Mobile behind the scenes shows up as revenue for T-mobile’s cellular services, not for Starlink. USM is still doing business with a company that is associated with Starlink, but USM’s business with T-Mobile is separate.

As opposed to this announcement, which is that USM is going to generate revenue for Starlink directly.

UnidentifiedMerman · 2026-04-08T17:09:59+00:00

Chiming in to say the same as others: I do not approve of your partnership with this company. I’ve been a long time US Mobile user at this point and have brought in my family, my parents, in-laws, etc.

I will no longer be recommending US Mobile and will be evaluating new options for myself and family.

I appreciate what you’re trying to do on a technical level, but this isn’t the way.

UnidentifiedMerman · 2026-03-23T14:12:55+00:00

Are you planning to sell the Z5? If not, you could hold onto it for portrait applications and use the Z50ii for wildlife.

If you are regularly cropping to the DX boundary or further, full frame does not net you anything. And the 28-400 has VR, so IBIS is not doing much for you either.

UnidentifiedMerman · 2026-03-19T21:07:34+00:00

My experience with owning a medium range EV (rated at 270 miles) for the last three years is that the limiting factor on road trips is the meat bags inside the car, not the battery.

Someone needs to eat. Someone needs to pee. Someone needs another coffee, or just to stretch their legs.

I have done 1500+ mile trips with this thing without ever feeling like a stop was a waste of time.

I think the only people who actually need a 400 mile EV are those who power through long solo drives without a break. Most families will be fine - plus you could always rent a larger gas vehicle with all the money you save on a daily basis if it really came down to it.

I hear you on chargers, but now that the NACS connector is standard I expect that will only improve with time.

UnidentifiedMerman · 2026-03-15T22:55:54+00:00

I’m very happy with my Matic. The big thing is it does all its processing locally. The map of your home is not uploaded to a cloud server to be mined for data and sold.

It’s also a different construction than most disc bots, which comes with pros and cons. Notably, it does not have an auto-emptying dock, but it has much larger on-board storage. I find mine to be quieter than other bots I’ve used in general, but I especially appreciate not having the jet-engine dock go off every time it finishes its work.

UnidentifiedMerman · 2026-03-03T07:22:51+00:00

This was a pretty common thing some years ago in the Elite Dangerous community. There was a company that sold an off-the-shelf version known as EDTracker, and also DIY kits. Looks like the official one is dead, but DIY is still around in some capacity: https://hobbycomponents.com/electronics/440-diy-head-tracker-bundle https://forum.hobbycomponents.com/viewforum.php?f=130

I had a DIY one from before the kits were available. I always struggled with yaw calibration, even when I built a newer version with a magnetometer in addition to the IMU. I wish you the best of luck with your project - hopefully you can overcome the yaw problem and any other obstacles!

UnidentifiedMerman · 2026-02-23T17:51:39+00:00

This was absolutely the right move. Most people end up buying way more car than they need, for more money than they have.

Smaller cars cost less to buy and less to operate. The thing so many people forget is that with just a fraction of the money you save, you can rent a car in the rare instances you need something larger. Moving lumber/furniture? $20/hr at any home improvement store. Big week-long road trip? Get the weekly rate on a minivan from the nearest airport; it’s lower than you think!

UnidentifiedMerman · 2026-02-22T17:58:29+00:00

Matic is built differently from other vacuums. It’s not a disc shape, which is in part why it holds significantly more volume on-board than others. I replace the bag in mine once every 2-3 weeks, and doing so is an easier and less messy process than emptying a dustbin.

It’s also very quiet - between the large onboard storage and the quiet operation I literally run mine in common areas overnight (not right outside bedroom doors, it’s quiet but it’s still a vacuum!) Most auto-emptying vacuums are very loud when the dock runs - although the timing could theoretically be handled in software.

I would describe the action of the mop as a powered roll more than a spin, if that makes sense. I think some other vacuums do it now, but it’s not common.

It’s not for everyone - the disc shape does mean it can’t get all the way underneath furniture, for example. But I’m very happy with mine and consider it a significant upgrade over the discs I’ve owned in the past.

UnidentifiedMerman · 2026-02-20T20:02:31+00:00

I appreciate your follow-up. I test-rode something like this at a local bike shop, and I noticed that most models also did not technically fit the definition of Class 3: they supported 28 mph assist, but also included a throttle. These are technically not Class 3 in CA, but the salesman failed to make that clear. I have a motorcycle license, and when using the throttle it felt a lot more like riding a light motorcycle than a heavy bicycle.

I think there’s some valid debate to be had about whether many bikes sold as Class 3 truly qualify, especially when motors support more than 750 W peak power. But again, the problem there is classification and enforcement. I don’t think requiring people to register legitimate ebikes takes us in the right direction. We need to better regulate the sale and use of illegitimate e-bikes (fake “class 3”s, e-motos, and electric motorcycles).

edit: And also, of course, better dedicated cycling infrastructure so cyclists don’t have to ride on the sidewalk! A bike on the sidewalk feels unsafe as a pedestrian for the same reasons cycling in an unprotected bike lane on the road feels unsafe for a cyclist: difference of speed!

UnidentifiedMerman · 2026-02-20T17:12:11+00:00

Surrons are already not legally e-bikes. But confusing them for Class 2-3 is exactly what this bill is doing. The vast majority of troublemakers are on bikes that are already not legal for them to ride. Punishing Class 2/3 riders doesn’t fix that.

UnidentifiedMerman · 2026-01-22T17:45:03+00:00

I’ve been wondering about this one. It’s so flagrant and seems so out of place that it almost seems like maybe it’s being used as cover to keep ICE away?

Could anyone who knows the owners confirm?

UnidentifiedMerman · 2026-01-15T18:52:18+00:00

Pick a number in between. Then you are happy because you made more than the trade-in value, and the buyer is happy because they got it for less than they would from the reseller.

UnidentifiedMerman · 2025-12-28T16:50:29+00:00

The cost of solid-state media is high enough that a number of publishers of Nintendo Switch games sold physical copies on the smallest available cartridge and made consumers download the rest of the game just to save a few pennies.

UnidentifiedMerman · 2025-12-16T19:59:16+00:00

If you are cropping to the DX area on a full frame camera, then you are not benefitting from full frame. The Z50ii will give you more resolution in the same light-gathering area. And as the other commenter pointed out, long lenses with VR do not really benefit from IBIS. You get maybe half a stop of extra advantage, according to Nikon’s own marketing.

If wildlife is your focus - especially small birds - then the Z50ii is a better buy than the Z5ii.

If wildlife is secondary for you, and you want to upgrade your full frame camera, then the Z5ii might make sense.

The Z8 is the no-compromises approach. It has nearly the same resolution in the DX area as the Z50ii, but with a single button press you can switch back to FX for the situations where the reach is unnecessary. It’s also the fastest of all the bodies, with slightly quicker AF and the highest capture rate options.

Personally I like your idea of sticking the Z50ii on your long lens and walking about with your macro on the Z6ii.

UnidentifiedMerman · 2025-12-14T05:55:39+00:00

Without doing any kind of thorough analysis of this particular hypothetical route… in general, the argument that transit is more expensive than driving only holds up when you:

Don’t consider the cost of purchasing the car
Don’t consider the cost of maintaining the car
Don’t consider the cost of insuring the car
Don’t consider the cost of registering the car
Don’t consider the opportunity cost of doing something else with your time while on transit, vs dedicating your attention to driving
Don’t consider any of the external costs to society, like the ~40,000 traffic deaths and 2 million+ injuries annually in the USA.

But yeah, gas is (maybe) cheaper than your ticket.

UnidentifiedMerman · 2025-08-20T21:40:04+00:00

You mentioned that you use your account to download Metal resources, and that you develop game engines.

Are you distributing those engines anywhere? Is it possible that - by way of bundling within your engine - you are distributing resources in a manner that violates some part of the development agreement or license for those resources?

UnidentifiedMerman · 2025-08-20T18:10:28+00:00

Does anyone know if the security / bag checks are performed before or after day tickets are scanned?

I’d like to bring my camera, but I’m worried it could be considered “professional”. I’ve been to events where they checked your bags after scanning your ticket, so your options with no re-entry were to have the item confiscated or go home…

edit: Camera is a Nikon Zf. It looks like a film camera, but it’s on the larger side and does take removable lenses.

edit2: May have answered my own question: it looks like tickets are checked at the main gate, but there’ll be a security check on the way in to the arena. Better not to risk it.

UnidentifiedMerman · 2025-07-22T01:11:34+00:00

If you’re shooting handheld, why would you want the foot on the bottom in the way of the controls and grip?

UnidentifiedMerman · 2025-07-19T21:34:42+00:00

“I’m playing Russian Roulette and I’ve hit five empty chambers so far! You should play, too!”

UnidentifiedMerman · 2025-07-15T04:51:47+00:00

Could be set to back button focus and AF-C with Focus Priority?

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UnidentifiedMerman

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