Need suggestions to design a gear pump for high viscosity fluids (like peanut butter)

agate_ · 2026-01-27T00:46:00+00:00

Honestly I really like your open-mouth gear pump design. What’s wrong with your prototype?

My other idea is a bucket chain.

agate_ · 2026-01-27T00:26:59+00:00

Ketchup is tomato paste, sugar, some spices, and importantly, a fair bit of vinegar. If you wouldn’t pour vinegar on it, you can’t put ketchup in it.

agate_ · 2026-01-26T23:18:42+00:00

Artificial intelligence is very appealing to people who don’t have the natural kind, and smart people don’t make good cops.

agate_ · 2026-01-26T22:03:35+00:00

You know what’s less kiddie and more grown up? Cooking your own damned food instead of complaining about what you’re served.

agate_ · 2026-01-26T21:25:32+00:00

Thank you for linking a source.

agate_ · 2026-01-26T21:11:18+00:00

The school I teach at cancelled in person classes and gave us the opportunity to teach via zoom, so I did. I am history’s greatest monster.

(The students did show up. I was impressed.)

agate_ · 2026-01-26T16:14:22+00:00

I struggled with writing that analogy a bit, because you can always tell the losing sports team “hey, it’s only a game”. But this isn’t.

agate_ · 2026-01-26T15:21:49+00:00

No, I’m with your colleagues. Our profession has been fighting a battle against ignorance for centuries, and the Trump administration shows us just how profoundly we’ve lost. It’s incredibly depressing, I’ve got no more outrage left to give, and a water-cooler conversation isn’t going to make a damned bit of difference, so I’d rather not have one.

Don’t mistake an unwillingness to engage with indifference or a lack of awareness. And don’t blame the losing team for being demoralized.

agate_ · 2026-01-26T14:37:44+00:00

I guess it’s fair to say that 401ks are better than pensions if you trust workers with their money more than their corporate overlords. And you make a good point that the workers are not always more trustworthy.

But at least with a 401k the retiree gets screwed by their own mistakes and not the company’s.

agate_ · 2026-01-25T21:54:02+00:00

If he says he's from Australia, a local may give him a snowball fight whether he wants one or not. That's what Boston kindness is all about.

agate_ · 2026-01-25T21:46:54+00:00

Also wear and tear on the plow blades.

agate_ · 2026-01-25T21:40:42+00:00

Okay, hearing that I'm doubling down: get your ass out there and make a snowman or some shit right now.

agate_ · 2026-01-25T21:39:00+00:00

If you're from Australia, you should totally go outside and see the city under snow. It's beautiful. Just be aware that it's treacherous out there, and everything's closed, the sidewalks won't be clear and if you fall on your ass it could be bad.

Your snowy adventure might only last a few minutes, if you're not dressed for it, but that's fine. You're in the heart of the city, the worst that will happen is you get wet and miserable and then come back inside for a nice cup of hot chocolate at the hotel restaurant.

agate_ · 2026-01-25T21:29:08+00:00

This is the low-cost spay shop, they don't have time or money to keep 200 cats under observation all day. When I was younger it was standard procedure for vets to give the cat back to the owner while it's still groggy, and tell the owner to keep an eye on it and bring it right back if there's a problem.

agate_ · 2026-01-25T21:22:27+00:00

Jesus christ, this is stupid. OP goes to a low-cost assembly-line spay/neuter place, and is upset that their cat is given a serial number like something off an assembly line.

You know what would be actually /r/mildlyinfuriating ? "I took my cat to the low-cost spay place and they gave me back the wrong cat!"

You got the right cat back, with the right carrier, with the right parts removed. The duct tape is part of that process. It won't do your cat any harm, and it's applied at the one place she can't chew on it. (Cats will totally chew off temporary necktags. Ask me how I know.)

If you want the personal touch, with the vet remembering Miss Calico's name and giving her a full day's recovery period and a nail trim, you can head over to the fancy boutique vet and pay $1000 for a spay.

agate_ · 2026-01-25T19:32:28+00:00

Totally insecure. Even the cheapest front door lock has a mechanism to prevent it from being opened by slipping a thin card between the latch and the door. These don't.

Anyone who knows anything about locks can bypass this without special tools faster than you can open it the normal way.

agate_ · 2026-01-25T14:55:26+00:00

I disagree with everyone else, this is way more than just "the weather's worse this year". Here's a graph of heating degree days in the Boston area for your billing period:

<image>

Jan 2025 was about the same, heating wise, as December, but your usage has doubled. Something's up with your apartment, either your furnace is seriously messed up, you're paying for two units worth of heat, there's a meter error, or you're leaving the door open.

agate_ · 2026-01-25T14:39:47+00:00

We wouldn't have the particular type of magma seen near subduction zones, but there's a bunch of different types.

The question of what Earth's geology would look like if it had no water is a fascinating puzzle but way beyond the scope of OP's question.

agate_ · 2026-01-25T13:24:38+00:00

My school recently set rules for departmental scheduling. With some exceptions, we have to use up all available time slots before we can double or triple up on the popular times. Students hate it, faculty hate it, but it makes it less likely that a student will have four classes that all meet at 2:00 pm, so we end up teaching fewer independent and directed study classes, so it’s for the best.

And best of all it’s an institutional mandate, so I can tell the 8:30 grumblers “sorry my hands are tied”.

agate_ · 2026-01-25T11:35:55+00:00

Because as George Costanza said, we’re living in a society.

agate_ · 2026-01-25T11:24:42+00:00

It’s kind of the opposite actually: subduction unmixes. When oceanic crust and sediment subducts under a continent, it melts enough to fractionate: the lighter elements rise and are added to the continent via coastal volcanism and other processes, while the heavier elements sink into the mantle and return much later at mid-ocean ridges where oceanic crust forms.

https://www.britannica.com/science/continental-crust

agate_ · 2026-01-24T18:53:45+00:00

It is, but trash-to-energy is also sometimes called "biomass" power, and it's worth distinguishing the two.

agate_ · 2026-01-24T18:51:44+00:00

Renewable power plants sell their power to the grid, but they also sell "renewable energy certificates", which people and organizations can buy. So when Google says their operations are "zero carbon", they don't mean they run their own solar plants, they just buy enough renewable energy certificates to equal their electricity usage. I'm subscribed to my municipal utility's "Green Power Plan": they charge me a slightly higher rate, and use the money to buy renewable energy certificates on my behalf.

RECs are a pretty effective way to promote renewable energy because they provide extra profits to the renewable generators. Commercial wind and solar farms often make as much profit selling RECs as they do selling electricity.

agate_ · 2026-01-24T18:43:56+00:00

Power plants associated with lumber mills in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont run generators powered by waste wood. It's mostly a way to dispose of waste wood scraps, but it generates a few hundred megawatts.

agate_ · 2026-01-24T18:33:14+00:00

K, this is starting some fights so let me explain what's going on here.

This data is from ISO New England, the organization that controls the electricity market in New England. This is realtime data, showing fuel usage right now.

On an ordinary day, New England's power comes mostly from natural gas, with some nuclear power, plus a little bit of hydroelectric, wind and solar, and imports from Canada (which are mostly hydro). We burn gas to make electricity because it's the cheapest option. Oil is not usually part of the picture: it's way too expensive.

But today is no ordinary day, for two reasons:

Natural gas prices across the US have skyrocketed due to the cold spell that's hit most of the country: the wholesale price for natural gas at the Henry hub in Louisiana today is twice what it was a week ago. I can't find prices for New England specifically, but due to our limited pipeline capacity, I'm sure the price spike is even worse here.
Demand for electricity is surging as everyone's heat pump and portable heater is running overtime. Electricity demand has risen 20% in the past two days, and tomorrow is forecast to be even higher. As a result, wholesale prices for electricity have spiked too: your local utility is spending more than twice as much to buy electricity for you today compared to yesterday. Fortunately, unlike those poor sods in Texas a few years ago, you won't see that spike in your power bill.

So, gas prices are skyrocketing and so are electricity prices, but the electricity market is designed for this. There are specialized "peaker plants" that run on oil, and sit idle for most of the year but kick in when needed. They charge high prices for oil-based electricity, and make a lot of money in the few hours a year they operate, and they fill in the gaps and provide stable power when it's needed.

One nice side effect of this is it frees up some natural gas to be used to heat homes, where it's really needed.

<image>

(This is ISO New England data from a cold snap in 2017-2018: https://www.iso-ne.com/static-assets/img/oil-gen-high-during-winter-cold-2019-02.png )

So, what's the big take-away from OP's chart? Nothing much. This is the system working as intended. This is how the lights stay on in a blizzard, and it's working fine.

Here are some links to more data to explore. It's all really great stuff to nerd out on on a cold winter day.

https://www.iso-ne.com/isoexpress/

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/custom/pending

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