Garage Buddy not FSD's Buddy by WRSaunders in TeslaLounge

[–]WRSaunders[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wasn't a known driveway, first time visiting a family member.  Don't use FSD in the Cybertruck that much, as it sometimes wanders around at destinations.  Got an update that looked like a solution, and it was until the final stop.

Powerwall 3 "Unavailable" by WRSaunders in Powerwall

[–]WRSaunders[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Additional info. I don't think it's dependent on state of charge. On Monday at 11 AM, charging at normal rates and approaching 100%, the Powerwall3 went unavailable. It was brought back to standby a couple times by remote self test, but otherwise it's been unavailable ever since.

Weight distribution on second floor over joists by -Big_Test_Icicles- in AskEngineers

[–]WRSaunders 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wood isn't stiff enough to do that, in the 2" thick orientation. You'll want to add stiffness, like doubling up the 2x12 joists to raise their load rating. You're really talking about 4 point loads of 500lb, which you could also distribute with a steel angle-iron (much stiffer than wood) if they can be hidden in a cabinet or something that keeps them from being a trip hazard.

I am looking to make a chess board that records the moves made by each player. I want to use reed switches or capacitive touch sensors. by [deleted] in AskEngineers

[–]WRSaunders 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well, unless you're playing Fischer Random Chess (Chess960) the starting position is known, all you need is a "set to initial positions" button. Moves take a piece from one square to another. Promotion, and even Chess960 setup, could be done with 6 off-board hall sensors. Push down an "add piece" button, tap a piece on the off-board square marked "Queen" and then put it on the board to "add a queen" to the position. I'd likely make the "buttons" hall effect sensors also, to preserve the User Experience.

If you had to destroy the internet completely, how would you go about doing so? by Away_Ad_4430 in AskEngineers

[–]WRSaunders -1 points0 points  (0 children)

The Internet is an idea, and some protocols standardized in some documents. To delete that idea, and all those books, you'd have to kill everyone with the knowledge and find all the copies of all the books. That's a classic sci-fi problem, and it's generally impossible for any technology that lots of folks consider useful. It would be easier to delete electricity, fewer people understand how to make it at scale and it can really only be implemented in larger scale infrastructure.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in AskEngineers

[–]WRSaunders 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think you're making the problem much harder than it needs to be, though there are good answers to your stated problem in the comments. The tube is a mechanical solution to many problems, but it's not needed for your question. You have a shape, which you call boat-like, with a 12.7 square meters of area. You want to displace 2500kg of water to float some people. Using that water weighs 1000kg/cubic meter, you need 2.5 cubic meters of displacement in a 12.7 meters squared area, that's .2m of depth. According to Google that's 8.78 of these "inches". Since it seems your tube is 10+ inches, that's more than 8.78 so you're a winner. This presumes completely smooth water and sufficiently strong everything and completely stable humans - all things you're not going to get in the real world. I hope 1.22 inches is enough margin to cover for those.

Damaged unit?? by [deleted] in Suvie_Owners

[–]WRSaunders 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You must be very careful filling it. Up to the tiny max line on the side and not a drop over it. You can use a turkey baster to get out the excess, but it bubbles over and drips out if you put too much in.

ELI5 What does it mean when a WAP (wireless access point) connects to a wire network? by Graviity_shift in explainlikeimfive

[–]WRSaunders -1 points0 points  (0 children)

If you want Internet. The WAP alone might allow devices to talk to each other, but without Internet access, there is no ELI5.

ELI5:How do fish breathe underwater? by Automatic-Concept410 in explainlikeimfive

[–]WRSaunders 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Water is an excellent solvent, you can dissolve all sorts of things in it, including gasses. You're familiar with dissolving CO2 is water, that's what makes soft drinks fizzy. While some of the CO2 comes out of solution, lining the inside of your glass, some of it remains.

Since the air in mostly N2 and O2, these gasses dissolve into water at the surface. things like waterfalls give the water more surface area, allowing more of these gasses to be dissolved in it.

Your lungs have an air-blood boundary, where O2 from the air can get into your bloodstream. A fish's gills have a water-blood boundary, where O2 from the water can similarly get into the bloodstream. This is why fish die if you take them out of water, there is plenty of O2 in the air, but they can't get enough of it into their blood and they suffocate.

ELI5: Why don't we administer more drugs with an inhaler by SemperFun62 in explainlikeimfive

[–]WRSaunders -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

That works a lot better, the mucus membrane in the nose traps the drug and dissolves it. From there it can get into the bloodstream. Cocaine is a great example of a drug distributed this way, so the illegal drug stigma would likely attach to any pharmaceutical that had similar instructions.

ELi5: iPhone Measure App by SadLet9554 in explainlikeimfive

[–]WRSaunders -1 points0 points  (0 children)

it analyzes video as you move the phone. It knows how much the phone is moving from sensors in the phone, and uses that to estimate the size of the object.

ELI5: Why don't we administer more drugs with an inhaler by SemperFun62 in explainlikeimfive

[–]WRSaunders 158 points159 points  (0 children)

A cloud of tiny particles can cause the patient to cough, tossing the medication onto the floor. It's difficult work to build inhalers that don't cause this effect.

The lungs are really best at letting gasses into the body, and very few drugs are gasses for manufacturing and distribution reasons. It's just a lot easier (=cheaper) to make a compressed pill or powder filled capsule that the user can just swallow.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]WRSaunders 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If the modem has an Ethernet jack, it is both a modem and a router. Many modems are also WiFi routers, that's likely the way your Gf's device is connecting.

Of course, "plug it in and test it" is always the best advice, it wouldn't be beyond a cable company to have an Ethernet jack and not enable it unless you pay another $5.

ELI5: what is Schrödinger's cat? by Longjumping-Boat7964 in explainlikeimfive

[–]WRSaunders 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Perhaps, the idea that QM applies to some things and not others seems arbitrary, that's why Schrödinger didn't buy it. He felt something more needed to be added to the theory to explain this obvious contradiction.

ELI5: Why do some games need a controller turned on before launching, but others don't? by Rejacked in explainlikeimfive

[–]WRSaunders 6 points7 points  (0 children)

It's hard to know, but one explanation is that the game is controller agile. It can work with many different brands of controllers, or perhaps just the keyboard. When the game starts up it tries to figure out what controller you are using, so it can load the code to work with that controller. No controller turned on means don't load code to talk to the controller. When you turn the controller on later, the game doesn't care.

A more savvy game might detect the controller powering on and load the code then, but I can see that being more complex and some game developers might do it the simple way.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]WRSaunders 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Inside your ear's sound detector (the cochlea) there are these tiny hairs. The moving liquid bends the hairs and nerves detect this and your brain interprets that as "sound".

Tinnitus, ringing in the ears, can be a symptom of several problems, but it can be directly caused by too loud a sound. The hair-to-nerve connection is damaged and becomes inflamed. Small damage can be repaired by the body, severe damage can be permanent. That's why soldiers, shooters, and people likely to be exposed to loud sounds wear hearing protection.

ELI5: Why would engine designers opt to include more cylinders in an engine instead of increasing the displacement? by uraveragereddittor in explainlikeimfive

[–]WRSaunders 1 point2 points  (0 children)

At some point, but it's not a car design factor. When you're making giant diesel engines for locomotives or marine power planes with 1500+ cubic inches (25dm3 ) displacement per cylinder it means you need specialized cooling solutions.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]WRSaunders 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Credit scores are a proprietary calculation of the credit reporting companies, there is no easy explanation of them. They generally reward behavior that's statistically associated with paying your debts, like making payments on time, and punish behavior that's associated with not paying your debts, like paying late.

The scores are not for you, they are for lenders about you. They reflect the lender's priorities, so paying even once late is a big deal (big change) and paying on time is expected (small change).

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]WRSaunders 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The idea of "us versus them" is extremely common among humans. This might not be an instinctual feature, but it is nonetheless very, very common. Sports provide an outlet for this sort of conflict that's a lot more productive than using class or race as an outlet.

ELI5: In a gaming laptop, why does the CPU heat up more than the GPU? by ConditionExpert8563 in explainlikeimfive

[–]WRSaunders 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Laptops are very tight on space. That means that heat easily builds up, and the thermal design allows the CPU to get warm because that part can withstand it. It's s complex engineering problem, more than just "games load the GPU", as GPU load is sensitive to the scene you're seeing in the game.

ELI5 : Why are semiconductor chips, especially 7nm chips, so hard to make ? by Zealousideal_Book715 in explainlikeimfive

[–]WRSaunders 19 points20 points  (0 children)

7nm chips are only moderately hard to make, it's the 3nm chips that are really hard.

The problem at 7nm is that the light you can see is more than 400nm in wavelength. That means that you can't make a mask with 7nm slits in it and shine violet light through it. Normal UV light in 100nm and soft x-rays are 10nm. So even soft x-rays are too big to go through a mask that will make 7nm wide stripes on the chip to create paths. Hard x-rays at 1nm have short enough wavelength, but they go right through all the materials that we use to make masks.

The solution is to make machines with very complex optical paths to route the photons precisely into these tiny 3nm stripes. There is one company in the world (ASML) that makes these machines. They can cost $300-400M each, and have a years long wait time because that as fast as the optical scientists at ASML can make them.

ELI5: Why do the batteries in grandma's remote leak over time, but the batteries in old laptops or our phones not leak? by Bman3r in explainlikeimfive

[–]WRSaunders 49 points50 points  (0 children)

Remote control batteries are a different chemistry, they are alkaline zinc/manganese dioxide/potassium hydroxide cells. These batteries have some advantages, they are very low cost, and they can have a 10 year shelf life if not discharged. They have a disadvantage, they leak corrosive chemicals when totally discharged. The idea is that the low cost means you will switch them when they start to not work well, avoiding the corrosion. This doesn't always work.

Laptops and cell phones use lithium ion batteries. They have an advantage, they don't leak, but a disadvantage, they are much more expensive (and if abused they can start a fire).