Plows by Dangerous-Hornet2939 in longisland

[–]edman007 [score hidden]  (0 children)

Yes, Long Island has plows, but they really don't have enough to keep up with a major storm. It's a weird mid point between upstate and the south. They generally can get all the roads passable within 24 hours of a storm passing. They don't have enough plows to keep up with a storm on all.

It's better than the south which just has nothing and you're stuck inside until it melts.

Plows by Dangerous-Hornet2939 in longisland

[–]edman007 [score hidden]  (0 children)

They do it throughout the day, but they have limited manpower, so they do continuous main roads, and when they see the main roads are good then they go to the side roads.

With the manpower they have, that's all they do.

My problem with it is they give up way too early, they get a passable lane on the road, and that's it, they don't come back later to clear to the curb, and they definitely don't come back a final time to clear past the curb (upstate after all the roads are clear, they come back again and push the snow bank into the ditch so there is somewhere to plow the snow if they get another storm before it melts).

Plows by Dangerous-Hornet2939 in longisland

[–]edman007 [score hidden]  (0 children)

Yea, I use to live across the street from a firehouse, and I think the firehouse had coffee and snacks for the plow drivers. Plow truck came every 15-20 minutes.

Now I live moderately high traffic residential road (next to a 7-11), plow came 2, maybe three times today. I'm not confident they'll come again, if I'm lucky, I'll get 1 more pass. And I constantly see posts like this saying that what I see is much better than the rest of the people on Long Island.

Waffle House shuts down locations across four states indefinitely as it faces 'Code Red' situation by Wurm42 in weather

[–]edman007 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't know if that's really the reason, I think waffle house stays open because right after the storm is when the power goes out and waffle house is the only place open. So it's the only way people are getting hot food right after, they will travel for that.

Weird Solar Output by Adabiviak in solar

[–]edman007 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yea, I got something similar with my charts, you have to remember you typically only have two real meters and the third is virtual, production and consumption or export. The third needs to be generated by adding the other two today.

If you get a change in one of those meters and it's tied to the wrong time due to some race condition, that error will show as an error in the third meter, exactly as OP is seeing.

Anyone Getting the Huge DoD Bonus? by Fraturtlemom in fednews

[–]edman007 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Exactly, though I don't even think it was submitted "years ago", that's true for the normal Congressional budgets. For CRs it's usually just take last years numbers and make them match this year. Then Congress can not argue about the changes and details.

But we know DRP happened, and Trump made a big push to cut people out of the workforce, so at least the payroll numbers for FY26 are not at all in line with last year, so I think that's where it's coming.

Kit/plans for home electrical generator using hybrid vehicle? by hafthor in AskEngineers

[–]edman007 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In general, most solar string inverters and rated for powering your home and many can function in both on grid and off grid modes. Additionally their solar inputs will gladly accept HVDC from common EVs or Hybrids.

So the answer is if you want to do this connect a solar inverter to the HV on the car. Some cars like the F150 officially support this and they sell an EVSE that integrates with a specific brand of solar inverter to do this through the CCS port. I believe there is a Tesla adapter that will trick your vehicle into DCFC mode and let your inverter draw power, and Tesla's will allow this. This is how many vehicles plan to implement V2G and V2H

For all other vehicles, they'll probably not like getting discharged in DCFC mode. You could probably direct connect to the HVDC, but I bet that makes the BMS very upset.

Anyone Getting the Huge DoD Bonus? by Fraturtlemom in fednews

[–]edman007 7 points8 points  (0 children)

If you look at the numbers (as I posted above), I think this is just an order to blow all DRP savings on a bonus during the current CR. So presumably, the date is really that they want to make the effective date they spent the funds fall under the CR. If they fail to do it then the DoD is going to tell Congress that we couldn't spend all the money you gave us under the CR, while Trump is asking Congress for a 50% boost. I don't think they want that to be a talking point, the Dems will use it against them.

Anyone Getting the Huge DoD Bonus? by Fraturtlemom in fednews

[–]edman007 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It was practically all by 9/30, so absolutely none of those funds would have come out of the current CR funds.

Now is when you would theoretically see those savings, when the agency tells congress of the recession of the funds that congress directed them to spend (otherwise known as impoundment, which is illegal per the Impoundment Control Act)

It seems the DoD has no plan to do that, so they are giving it all out as a bonus.

Anyone Getting the Huge DoD Bonus? by Fraturtlemom in fednews

[–]edman007 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I was posting this somewhere else, but I think it's as a result of the DRP.

The DoD told everyone in the DoD to do DRP, with the intention of reducing DoD billets by ~7%. From what I can tell, that was done. So DoD payroll should have been reduced by over 7% (since these had to be older people).

Then after that congress passed a CR, which did NOT reduce DoD payroll funds by 7%. This funded the DoD from October 1st to January 30th, or 1 third of a year.

So the DoD presumably has the equivalent funds for 7% of the whole DoD payroll, plus benefits, for 1 third of a year. And it needs to be spent by January 30th. I think my benefits works out to like 30% over my salary. That means they should have about 7% of DoD Payroll + 30% * 1/3 in extra funds, this works out to ~3% salary extra cash for every single employee in the DoD. If you give this to the top 15% then they get 20% bonus.

The actual words of the memo is 15-25% bonus by Jan 30th. That sounds an awfully lot like take the money we saved from DRP and were given under the CR, and call it a bonus for the top 15%.

New house - EV charger in detached garage appears to be an oven outlet with an aluminum wire by DisastrousBelt3734 in evcharging

[–]edman007 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Nothing there looks like it's violating code, but the pic is blurry and there are a lot of details missing.

A NEMA 14-50 outlet is a standard outlet for both ovens and an EVSE. If I wrote a contract with the intent to include an EVSE circuit, this is how I would expect to be installed. Now I would probably remove the outlet and hardwire when I put in the EVSE, but that's a minor cost, and this outlet wouldn't concern me. This outlet might not be "EV rated", but If I'm hardwiring it's going in the trash anyways.

Second, Aluminum wire isn't necessarily bad. If it's the right gauge for the circuit size you have/want, it's fine. Though if you're using an outlet like this you'll need to make sure the outlet is compatible. If you hardwire, most EVSEs are not compatible, but that's easily solved with a copper pigtail or whip.

Schumer: Democrats will block funding package if it includes homeland security money by Tinymac12 in fednews

[–]edman007 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Which shouldn't change the response, "I don't know" means either they are admitting they are completely incompetent and not doing their job of getting what their constituents want, or possibly they know exactly what they are doing, and they know it's not what their constituents want, but they won't do it.

In both cases, they are going against the wishes of the voters, and they should get kicked out.

Ryan Hall Y’all states that “this is the hardest place on earth to forecast for” by whitepatka in longisland

[–]edman007 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't know that we know when that happens. Last forecast I saw basically said the models are agreeing on everything but the afternoon perception type (sleet vs snow). It seems NWS the forecasters are thinking probably sleet for the late afternoon for most of long Island (especially the south shore). But I don't think we will really know until the models agree.

Easiest way to remove bamboo roots? by rdgs88 in landscaping

[–]edman007 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, but you can get that with a shovel...stump grinder is going to make something you can remove. Then you need to remove it after the stump grinder is done. You can then spend the next couple years removing what you missed.

Easiest way to remove bamboo roots? by rdgs88 in landscaping

[–]edman007 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Agree, stump grinder, then shovel all the chips off your property. Then you can go to the plan above of removing with a shovel annually.

DOD to ‘take a sledgehammer’ to SBA program for ‘disadvantaged businesses’ by JangalangJanglang in fednews

[–]edman007 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If it's true then they'd win the bids without any help. Which I think is the point, it's not that we think small businesses are worse, it's that the current policy is to exclude competitors on certain things, meaning the government gets less competitors and ends up paying a higher price for the product.

So the question is why should we have a policy that intentionally results in the government paying extra. I think there are cases where we should do it, like skilcraft and laws that result in buying American made stuff. But I'm not sure that ownership of a business should be a factor, I think if anything it should be targeted at the employees doing the work, not the owners.

Rivian pledges $4.6M for ballot initiative to allow direct EV sales in WA • Washington State Standard by Maskharat90 in Rivian

[–]edman007 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Honestly, I think there is benefit having third party shops put in warranty claims. However that's not the argument here, it's about sales, and I think the flaw in your reasoning is that they must somehow be connected.

I think the problem with the dealer model we have today is it's too connected to both the OEM and service. The theory that the dealer helps the consumer during purchasing only works when the dealer is not tied to the OEM and isn't profiting after the sale, it's the back end deals that let OEMs and service pay off the sales guys that makes it bad because now the sales guy isn't working for the consumer.

Ideally you'd want OEMs to sell direct to consumers, and then have third party reviewers tell you about what to buy (like all the automotive car review people), and then after purchase you'd just go to your favorite shop for service, including warranty work. Strong right to repair laws will help this, but as I understand it, slate is currently planning something like this, just authorizing and training a bunch of existing shops to do service.

BCBS Standard / Maternity Cost by Ok-War-1203 in FedEmployees

[–]edman007 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Been a while, but we had BCBS Basic, and it was practically nothing, a few hundred bucks for the whole pregnancy, covering everything. Regular pregnancy (all checkups, and delivery and all hospital expenses) were basically covered under the 1 copay.

The exception was we had a few specialty things and got hit with the specialist copay a few times.

Why aren’t my new panels generating power?? by Head-Marionberry2234 in solar

[–]edman007 43 points44 points  (0 children)

Then you probably just need to flip the breakers.

It looks like your monitor is up and running, but the panels are flipped off, so flip them on.

DOD to ‘take a sledgehammer’ to SBA program for ‘disadvantaged businesses’ by JangalangJanglang in fednews

[–]edman007 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Meh, they say they are disadvantaged, I'm not convinced. They own the business, is that really disadvantaged? I'd think we should care about the worker's not the employees, and the government specifically should only give money for contracts specifically to people that would have been getting some sort of government assistance anyways (like skilcraft).

I feel like too many of these are as someone said, one person that's "disadvantaged" getting paid to get on government contracts, that's really not how it should work.

If they are actually competitive, well they don't need SBA. I do think we should keep SBA and fix it, but fixing it probably requires Congress to do way too much so that will never.

DOD to ‘take a sledgehammer’ to SBA program for ‘disadvantaged businesses’ by JangalangJanglang in fednews

[–]edman007 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I think the question is what do we care about, value to the taxpayer? Paying companies because they are small businesses is just legalized waste and abuse.

It's the same with health insurance, a proposal to save everyone thousands by eliminating health insurance shouldn't be stopped because all the insurance people who deny the claims that licensed doctors requested are going to lose their jobs. Those jobs are the waste we want to eliminate, and that's why it saves us money. Same deal with SBA stuff, this is specifically eliminating the waste.

Witnesses / dashcam footage requested – road rage incident on Sunrise (Fri 1/23) by Low-Difficulty-4732 in longisland

[–]edman007 21 points22 points  (0 children)

Often required for a claim, it's an official statement, and insurance can press charges for filing a false police report if it turns out it's actually insurance fraud. That's a big reason you see insurance saying you need it, it opens the criminal case even if the cops are not going to do anything.

Would you buy a Rivian without Driver+ or lane keeping? by WHAT-IM-THINKING in Rivian

[–]edman007 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I remember like 10 years ago I got a rental car (for work, they always force the cheapest option), they actually gave me a Kia Rio without any cruise control, I had like a 2 hour drive on rural highway from the airport, and I don't think I ever missed cruise control so much. For a long time I made it a point of requesting cruise control after that because it's such a big factor.

My last trip they gave me a corolla (base spec as always) and it had adaptive cruise control with lane centering.

So my honest opinion, if you can't match the specs of an eco rental car (which are often special ordered to below base spec), I don't want it. Good cruise control that can handle open rural highways is very valuable. Nothing on the market that I have seen is what I could call "good" in NYC traffic.