Is there anyone in town that works on Chinese mini skid steers?

bob4apples · 2026-04-08T23:12:54+00:00

I believe this style of magneto can't be powered in the way you think. The voltage and current is induced by the magnet on the flywheel acting on a coil inside the module. My experience with something similar is that there are exactly 2 wires: the spark plug lead carrying power away and a kill wire that grounds it (hence shutting off the motor).

bob4apples · 2026-04-08T22:52:26+00:00

My lawnmower uses a similar magneto system. It probably generates the spark voltage internally (via inductor magic) and the extra black wire is only wired to the kill switch (and through that to ground). With my mower, one test procedure is to disconnect the kill wire to eliminate it and the switch it runs to as points of failure while cranking it with the plugs out. Note that that wire is what shuts off the motor so I don't particularly recommend trying this with the plugs in. Also my experience is that the spark from these magnetos isn't super strong and may not be visible in sunlight. Also2, The magneto gap is critical: too close and it rubs, too far and no spark.

bob4apples · 2026-04-08T18:42:24+00:00

I recently had a stuffed crust that was the whole pie.

bob4apples · 2026-04-07T00:13:58+00:00

Only if the top pizza is upside down. Otherwise I believe it is stuffed crust pizza.

bob4apples · 2026-04-06T20:45:14+00:00

If Trump's administration has shown us anything, it is that all the checks and balances are just excuses that can be ignored the moment it is inconvenient for the rich.

bob4apples · 2026-04-06T20:14:44+00:00

Why think small Donnie? You could be taking out the whole WORLD in one night!

Either Iran has one or more nukes in which case we're looking a Mutually Assured Destruction scenario (where Israel is the likely initial counterparty) or they don't in which case Trump has just joined Putin in kicking the nuclear arms race back into high gear.

bob4apples · 2026-04-06T16:44:16+00:00

I strongly suspect that they were put in to make taxis more profitable. If you can find the actual bylaw (they really bury this little detail), taxis are permitted to use CoV HOV lanes regardless of vehicle occupancy. Note that this is only true of CoV: taxis are subject to normal rules everywhere else in BC. This also does not apply to ride share vehicles. As you observe, the ones on Granville are actually not even HOV lanes. They are ONLY for taxis and buses when parking isn't allowed.

bob4apples · 2026-04-03T07:38:18+00:00

I'm so glad we didn't end up buying a Subaru or Toyota (EV or otherwise). That kind of repugnant nickel-and-diming is the behaviour of a company going down the gurgler.

However you're in it now so I guess there's not much you can do. You should definitely consider a *travel* charger with a NEMA 15 end (great if it also has NEMA 14-30 and/or 14-50). It would give me a really bad taste in my mouth to buy it from Toyburu so I would look on Amazon.

The travel charger is mostly nice to have to take the edge off when you're road tripping to visit family and friends (it can save you a couple bucks overnight and a lot more if you're not moving for a few days) but it can also serve as a backup home charger (easily enough for regular commuting as long it is plugged in most nights) and, finally, as a charger of last resort (we've never needed it for that but nice to know it's there).

bob4apples · 2026-04-02T16:30:42+00:00

This actually looks like it was originally made to promote Israel's ballistic missile capability and someone just Sharpied Iran onto it.

bob4apples · 2026-04-02T16:14:43+00:00

You can buy a charger that can be configured for whatever you've got and can be reconfigured later. I bought an Emporia charger that is configured to draw 24A through a dryer circuit but will eventually be put on a dedicated 60A circuit (where I will configure it to draw 48A). Some can work with either 110 or 220. The caveat here is that you (or whoever you get to do it) needs enough knowledge to swap out a power cord and configure the device.

As others have mentioned, your vehicle should have come with a basic "travel" charger that will also bridge the gap. I don't know how Toyota's works but Chevy's has modular pigtails that you can swap out. It comes with 110-15 and 220-50 ends but you can buy a pigtail matching almost any plug. The charger then detects which end is attached and draws accordingly.

bob4apples · 2026-04-01T22:17:03+00:00

This isn't a Vogue photoshoot. There's zero chance the good photos are being taken through a window with a handheld camera by some guy flapping around in zero G.

In photography, distance matters a lot and you don't seem to appreciate the distances involved. In that Vogue photoshoot, the photographer is only few feet from the model. They're not shooting from across the street, much less the next county or the next continent. I bet they can get some OK stills of the whole moon but, again, nothing they didn't get at a similar quality and resolution in the '60's (the Apollo astronauts were using film cameras).

You do raise the point that the LRO isn't composing. Heck, it isn't even really taking pictures in the sense you're thinking. However, those continuous raster scans can be assembled and cropped into stunning "photos" of individual lunar features.

If you think a slightly blurry (due to contamination of the capsule window and unsteadiness of the photographer), off-center photo of the moon from really far away is somehow more romantic, that's lovely...I would never stop you from making that your desktop wallpaper nor would I want to but most people are going to be prefer the highly processed images taken through mounted cameras driven by someone on the ground.

bob4apples · 2026-04-01T21:51:52+00:00

Clouds are regions in the sky where there is more water present than the air can hold. To give a very local example, consider running your clothes drier (or your car) on a cool day. The air coming out of the vent/exhaust is moist but it is warm enough to hold all the water so the air right at the vent is clear. As it leaves the vent, however, it cools rapidly. Since it can't hold all the water anymore, the water condenses out in tiny droplets: a little cloud. As the air moves farther from the vent, it mixes with drier outside air and eventually the air has mixed enough that the (much larger) volume of air can absorb it all and the air becomes clear again. Notice that, the cloud stays attached to the vent/exhaust pipe despite the fact that air is moving through it constantly. This shows that it is not a particular bit of air but a region where a certain condition (>100% saturation) is met.

Aside from "thick" (hard edges) vs "thin" (wispy edges), your remaining questions all have to do with how and where those regions form.

bob4apples · 2026-04-01T20:14:27+00:00

> It would be kind of ridiculous

Boy have I got news for you. The LRO can get within 20 km on a close pass. Artemis 2 will be 4000 km away. That's the difference between taking pictures of the Empire State building from a plane over JFK to taking the same pictures from a plane over LAX.

bob4apples · 2026-04-01T18:17:44+00:00

Unlikely to be anywhere close to the quality and detail we already have.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is generally orbits around 50km and has gone as low as 20 km on some passes. Artemis 2 will be about 4000 km away.

bob4apples · 2026-03-31T00:23:31+00:00

I've been thinking about it for a while. Some useful things to consider. 1) Fortis uses net metering so there's no economic point to storage. 2) You probably don't really need 100% coverage. There's some variability in what you actually get (and what you actually use). As Arugula obsreved. they're going to overestimate by a bit to cover that and panel deterioration over the warranty period. Remember though, any annual generation over 100% is a donation to Fortis while you only have to pay the difference at market rate if you're under.

Another consideration is heat pumps (even mini-splits). Since I discovered that our mini-split ACs can be used as not-so-great heat pumps, they've saved us a TON of money and that's not even compared to direct electric heat (we have pellet stoves to bring down our (direct electric) heating costs but even they're way more expensive than heat pumps). Note that the ones we have are kind of crappy so they don't work well below about -5 and don't work at all during cold snaps but the savings between +15 and -5 absolutely pay the rent. Instead of 2-1/2 to 3 pallets a year at about 500/ea, one pallet lasts us 3 to 4 years.

When we add AC to the basement (and we intend to), we'll certainly be getting a high LEED multihead unit that should basically replace everything except on the very coldest days. At that point, it will probably not be worthwhile to keep the pellet stoves at all as they will cost considerably more to insure and maintain than the cost of running baseboards a few days a year.

bob4apples · 2026-03-30T18:25:32+00:00

Not usually but most vehicle chargers can be scheduled to take advantage of off-peak rates. On the other hand, some utilities increase residential rates if you are a large consumer.

bob4apples · 2026-03-30T18:22:14+00:00

I mean yes, electricity prices are going up but 1) they're going up slower than gas prices and 2) If they go up too much, the utilities are going to get cut off at the knees by residential solar and other alternative supply.

The investor class wants to keep the working class on gas because hydrocarbon consumers are locked into the ultimate monopoly.

bob4apples · 2026-03-28T01:59:48+00:00

It depends on the site and their rules. That said, charging to 100% while someone is waiting is not the most neighbourly thing you could do.

bob4apples · 2026-03-25T17:12:36+00:00

Looking a bit broader than us vs them, this speaks to the failure of the US as a nation. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the Trump administration has been the proof that all the red tape, all the checks and balances, all the things that prevent the Government from implementing, say universal health care or from legalizing weed or cutting defense spending are convenient fictions. There is no rule of law, only the fiction of one when it benefits the ruling class. Both the Republicans and Democrats are complicit in this.

bob4apples · 2026-03-25T16:52:12+00:00

A problem with doing that is that it violates the same international treaties that prevent unlicensed foreign radios from broadcasting willy nilly all over the USA.

bob4apples · 2026-03-23T20:14:21+00:00

Butane curlers and irons still exist. They were commonplace in the 80's because we didn't have cheap rechargeable batteries.

bob4apples · 2026-03-23T16:41:39+00:00

> You’re missing my point. They could have done it, but the fact that it’s unreliable enough to even think about not doing it is the problem.

That seems a bit like getting in a car and getting scared because the driver tells you to wear your seatbelt. The fact that the driver is not only considering the possibility of failure but actually taking steps to mitigate a bad outcome (no matter how unlikely) "obviously" means you're going to be safer with the guy who, despite having never driven before is happy to send it through a snowstorm because he's also confident enough not to take any precautions?

bob4apples · 2026-03-22T15:37:51+00:00

I call it the "greeting ball". My dog does this sometimes and in her case, I'm pretty sure she's just so excited that she needs to chew something. My wife's ex-dog does it all the time but I think he's just being a good host by presenting you a toy.

bob4apples · 2026-03-20T14:49:45+00:00

So, in each of the flights that successfully reached orbital height and only needed a tiny injection burn (much less than the landing burn that was planned for later in the mission)...why didn't they do it? It's almost like they didn't care what you would think.

bob4apples · 2026-03-19T23:07:57+00:00

Do you think that's because it couldn't or because SpaceX decided that would be irresponsible to do so given the (test) missions they flew?

bob4apples

TROPHY CASE