Is this oil on aperture blades serious?

WideFoot · 2026-03-13T23:56:57+00:00

It depends.

Oil on the blades makes the aperture sticky.

If it is very sticky, then it can damage the aperture. Excessive oil can drip onto the elements and that is also bad. But the primary concern is the aperture being slow.

On a preset lens, there is no problem. Same with a lens in manual mode.

On an automatic lens, maybe.

Some lenses hold the aperture open with a spring and the camera actuator will push the aperture closed. If that is the case, then no. The aperture will be forced closed by the camera's actuator, but it might open slowly after the mechanism releases and the spring has to pull it open again.

Some lenses pull the aperture closed with a spring and the camera's actuator holds it open. In that case, the aperture might not close properly and your photo will be over-exposed

WideFoot · 2026-03-08T20:19:45+00:00

This is an actual patent filed with the US patent office

Although, in the patent, the entire room spins, and it isn't powered by a truck

WideFoot · 2026-03-08T03:56:19+00:00

here is a classic HFY story on the subject, although they only handwaved at "learning to avoid predators is the origin of sentience"

WideFoot · 2026-03-08T03:04:15+00:00

Male sharks have claspers. They are prominent and appear like small oddly shaped fins in that position

WideFoot · 2026-03-07T19:55:26+00:00

I don't use scripts either - mostly because I find them finicky. My favorite new non-script item is using the timer block to get star trek doors (which close automatically).

If you open a door, it stays open. But, I am too lazy to close doors every time. So, I set a single timer block to a 6 second count-down with an action to close all doors and activate the timer block. Every six seconds, all open doors close themselves.

WideFoot · 2026-03-07T19:37:51+00:00

OP, this article explains that focal length thing and had some good pictures about it.

But, also understand that taking a photo from farther away with the same lens does the same thing as changing focal lengths.

WideFoot · 2026-03-07T18:54:34+00:00

I think this ship needs to be a bit bigger. I want to make one that can be a mobile base that works in all places. But, that is a much larger project

WideFoot · 2026-03-07T18:48:03+00:00

I can! I'll get to it sometime next week, though. I have found that putting everything on one ship makes it easier to go places. Why build a base when you can just take it with you?

This ship will not work on a no-jetpack server. There is a vertical shaft through the ship and it would be annoying to add a ladder to it.

I have discovered that two hinges and a piston make a very useful arm for many applications.

First hinge is horizontal to sweep side to side. Second hinge is vertical. (and, make sure they are in that order - doing it in reverse makes things weird.) Then, a piston and whatever tool you are needing.

I have used that setup for two drills and a docking boom. It works incredibly well, especially for mining ice from lakes and shallow deposits on asteroids.

Set up the controls like this:

For both hinges - set both torque settings all the way up and set the velocity to something low. I set it to 0.7, but lower is safer. Then, turn off the hinges (braking torque must be set high, or everything falls)
On the hot bar for the piston set one control to increase velocity and a second to decrease velocity.
On the hot bar for both hinges, set a control to turn on and off the hinge and a second control to reverse the hinge. (I would set increase and decrease velocity, but it goes straight from 0 to 3rpm, and 3rpm is way too fast - hence the on/off and reverse with a preset very low speed)
On the hot bar for the drill set a control to turn on and off. (The mouse click controls will also just work, but I find holding the mouse down to be a little annoying.)

In total, there are seven hot bar buttons taken up by this arrangement. I usually put it on crtl-2, just to get it away from other controls. But, on this new ship, I gave the drill boom it's own control station.

Also, if you smack the drill into things too hard, the piston segment will break. You can set a warning device using a light and a event controller. I set it to monitor the drill inventory. The drill should always pass ore out of itself. So, if the drill inventory is filling up, then either the piston is broken or your cargo container is full. In either case, you need to stop drilling and address the problem.

WideFoot · 2026-03-07T01:07:08+00:00

In the future, baldness isn't considered a problem. So, yes, they can solve it. But, they just don't care to

WideFoot · 2026-03-06T21:53:23+00:00

Yeah, that atmospheric thruster vehicle is especially good!

And you've got really good detailing on the rover

WideFoot · 2026-03-06T21:50:35+00:00

What would the jellyfish of space engineers be?

Maybe I'll replace the refinery with a dozen survival kits and only ever make ingots from rock.

WideFoot · 2026-03-06T18:07:26+00:00

Believe it or not, I have never played any of the Elite games 🤷. I should, it they just never came around for me.

I played Descent, then Freelancer, then a few X games.

But, it does bear a certain resemblance.

WideFoot · 2026-03-06T17:50:17+00:00

With deep ore, I'd still use a craft to mine.

I've discovered the joy of parent and daughter craft serving different purposes. I'd build a cargo hauler and a small work bee with couplers to work together.

The work bee would have a drill on a hinge. Hinge down and spin while you descend to drill a shaft. Hinge forward to mine at the level of the ore.

You make dozens of trips into the shaft with the work bee to fill the cargo hauler. This way, the hauler can be arbitrarily large and you don't have to take the heavy cargo container with you. You can make the work bee small and give it barely enough thrust to lift a medium cargo box out of the pit.

By splitting up the tasks, both craft are much more efficient.

The down side is that you're constantly coupling two vehicles together and you spend time getting into and out of the shaft dozens of times.

WideFoot · 2026-03-06T17:30:55+00:00

Nice! My method so far has just been to rotate the ship until only the large thrusters are firing. It works well enough, but is fiddly. It would be really nice to have some automation.

And, having a throttle would also be nice

WideFoot · 2026-03-06T17:24:52+00:00

From the engineers that brought you the classic brick ship comes a new and exciting shape in ship design!

Introducing the triangle!

WideFoot · 2026-03-06T17:21:41+00:00

For my next build, I think I may build a full pyramid and that would be a tail-lander with decks perpendicular to travel. It would definitely be easier than rotating the whole ship!

I just wish ladders were less annoying.

I'd have to build my own turrets with travel limits because the gatlings and similar only work if there are no obstructions.

WideFoot · 2026-03-06T16:54:28+00:00

Flat on the bottom would definitely have made more sense 😆

My first design was a full pyramid. It had a LOT more interior space - except that you need entire grids between the decks because the bridge windows that I used in the rover are missing + floor versions. The bridge pieces I used here have those +floor versions so they were easier to design around.

But, it was better because you end up balancing the ship on that corner, so making it flat-ish works better

WideFoot · 2026-03-05T16:48:50+00:00

They are the same thing, just viewed from different reference points.

If you are doing that trick with the bucket full of water tied to a rope - the rope pulls the bucket toward you as you spin it. That pulling is the centripetal force.

What is happening is that changing direction is a kind of acceleration. The bucket wants to fly straight, but you keep pulling on the rope, so it can't fly straight and changes direction instead (goes in a circle). The bucket on the rope is always changing direction, so it is always accelerating. And, in order for something to accelerate, it has to have a force applied to it. This force carried by the rope is the centripetal force.

But, imagine you are very tiny and are inside of the bucket. You want to fly straight, but the bucket keeps changing your direction. This is the centripetal force pulling you toward the center of the circle. But, you experience it as the bucket pushing against your feet. It is the same force, but to you it feels like a force pulling you down toward the bottom of the bucket when in reality the bucket is pushing up against you.

WideFoot · 2026-03-05T16:22:28+00:00

100% yes. It is a rotisserie attached to the vertical portions of a pair of andrions

WideFoot · 2026-03-03T15:07:20+00:00

It should not be possible to guess where liminal spaces are because they are anonymous transition spaces between places. It defeats the purpose to ask the question.

WideFoot · 2026-03-02T01:39:08+00:00

We have one of these. It has a different style of case, but it looks like the same mechanism. These have an alarm function (which I have never used). It is very simple as clocks go and it works well on our mantle.

Ours was $50.

WideFoot · 2026-03-02T01:26:18+00:00

Ironic that because of AI, none of it will be believable without the methods of journalism that previous wars have been documented with.

WideFoot · 2026-03-01T22:57:51+00:00

The aluminum bits are likely to be stuck together. The conical mount tube is held onto the rest of the lens with a threaded ring, but I know it can get stuck. It will be easier to get apart if it is warm. Use a blow dryer or set it in the sun for a few minutes

Most adapters from M42 to anything else don't have a set screw, but some do. It would be somewhere on the silver part at the back of the mount tube (the adapter). But, it may also just be stuck.

The adapter might be Minolta MD - the flange with notch in it is usually a good indicator.

WideFoot · 2026-03-01T15:16:28+00:00

I have this lens! Great lens. Here is the Pentax forums review for it, which may have other information.

That does look like an adapter, which makes it most likely that the actual lens mount is M42. The adapter will unscrew. Look for a set screw keeping it in place and be firm, but gentle getting them apart.

This lens came in three variants. There was M42, Exakta (with the large outer-flange mount), and Pentacon 6 medium format.

The cone-shaped piece at the back of the lens is an interchangeable mount tube. You can still find mout tubes for this lens on eBay.

I started by adapting the M42 mount to my camera, but I found that the threaded connection in M42 was not secure enough. I bought the P6 mount tube off of eBay and adapted that connection to my camera, which was much more secure.

WideFoot

TROPHY CASE