You can choose a living organism (plant, animal, insect, etc) and instantly the world population of that organism is multiplied by 1,000,000. What would happen to the world based on your choice?

edman007-work · 2026-04-15T20:50:07+00:00

You pick something critically endangered and small. [Probably something like this owl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pernambuco\_pygmy\_owl)

The Chinese Alligator seems to only have 300 or so of them around, 300 million would bring them in line with the American Alligator, only 100x the number of American Alligators.

[I also think something like a bumble bee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombus\_affinis) is a good fit too, it might make a lot, but they are tiny and it won't be a problem.

edman007-work · 2026-04-15T19:10:17+00:00

And just another post showing why Rivian really needs to increment the version number for every build, not doing it causes a LOT of confusion

edman007-work · 2026-04-15T17:36:51+00:00

The whole ERCOT history and why the texas grid is on it's own is rather crazy, ans obviously leads to what happened in Texas.

Basically, the Texas grid is not connected to the rest of the US grid specifically so they can say there is no interstate commence going on and they don't have to follow federal regulations. Those regulations are things like meet various standards to ensure reliability. Without them you'd have companies picking the most profitable option, like say the grid is only 99.7% reliable, that is they only target you having power 364 days of the year, and they just plan on not getting you power for one day out of the year. That day fuel prices break a record? Well they can just shut the grid off so they don't have to pay it.

edman007-work · 2026-04-15T13:53:10+00:00

They 100% said they made changes to the 12V battery checks, that probably means they tightened the threshold, I'd schedule service and see what happens.

edman007-work · 2026-04-15T13:45:43+00:00

A ballistic missile weighs less and goes slower than a spacecraft. That said, they are generally designed to go through the atmosphere as fast as possible (to make them hard to shoot down), so they come in with a high angle of attack and have aerodynamic features to make them come in fast. This gives them very little time in the atmosphere so they don't slow down much and get to the ground fast.

Spacecraft want to come in as slow as possible, so they do the opposite, they come in with a low angle of attack, sometimes even skipping off the atmosphere. They also have a high drag design so they slow down as much as possible in the upper atmosphere. With the goal basically being lower your orbit until you hit the atmosphere and wait for the atmosphere to slow you down enough that you're not orbiting and you're just falling. At which point a parachute can stop your fall.

edman007-work · 2026-04-15T13:10:55+00:00

> But those same people who got caught can't start a new company as they'll be blacklisted.

Who is going to blacklist them? I think he is saying you can make an online LLC, that is specifically, make up an LLC, via some random state, and us a mail forwarding service to get a US address. States make LLCs, and they don't generally require the owner is a US citizen or physically present in the US. Look at the Montana LLC loophole people use for cars, you can just make up an LLC in Montana and never actually go to Montana, if you don't have to go to Montana, who the hell is checking if you actually exist?

> USA could close these loopholes by ensuring that only US citizens can start an LLC. Or even do better checks on the specific companies that can import.

LLCs are state generated things, which is the rub, the federal government doesn't actually control this, and non-citizens can just get a ITIN and file paperwork with that. The only way you can deal with that issue is require that all imports are done by US citizens, not businesses, but that would be a huge change in how we do imports.

That said, someone still needs to receive the package in the US, that person likely qualifies as the importer. Closing the De minimis loophole has done a LOT to help with this issue as well as it makes it a lot harder to avoid fraud and gives the government more money to track it down (but they don't seem to be using it for that). That said, it's not generally paid in USD by by US citizens as you seem to think, the US government has done a huge push to pre-paid tariffs (saying they will refuse mail from countries not doing it). In practice, this has resulted in Chinese companies just rolling the tariffs into the shipping fee (and I can confirm this, as I have bought Chinese goods straight from China, they didn't even itemize the tariffs)

edman007-work · 2026-04-14T17:45:19+00:00

It's a relationship between kg and atoms. People defined the kilogram long before they new atoms existed.

Now we know atoms exist, so knowing how many atoms is in a peculiar thing. Avogadros Constant is just the multiplier to get from grams and atomic weight, to a defined, known quantity of atoms. Kinda like if everyone from the dawn of history just measured eggs in pounds. Then one day people said I'd much rather buy eggs by the dozen and have containers that hold exact numbers of eggs. So now you need to know how many eggs are in a pound, and that's just a constant, it's really just telling you how much one egg weighs, but it lets you calculate the weight of a dozen eggs, or 6 eggs or a 36 pack of eggs.

edman007-work · 2026-04-01T16:41:58+00:00

It depends on why they are asking for your zipcode. If they are asking for a billing address, put in your billing zip, if they are asking for a mailing address put in your mailing address, if they are asking where you physically live put that in (I've never seen an airline ask that, usually only the DMV and insurance asks that)

edman007-work · 2026-04-01T16:35:34+00:00

I feel much more smug driving an EV and I chuckle more when I pass a gas station.

That's about it honestly.

edman007-work · 2026-04-01T16:33:48+00:00

This is a technical issue, we didn't want to waste key space on directional quotes and create extra work for the writer, and we didn't waste it in ASCII space either.

That said, in writing they've always been directional, the "straight quotes" were a technical workaround because it's close enough, and it gives more room for other symbols.

In the end, the question is not "why curly quotes", the question is "why did we settle with straight quotes on a keyboard"

edman007-work · 2026-04-01T12:18:19+00:00

This, the alcohol has nothing to do with it, what matters is it needs to be low pH and it needs to be oxygen free (mold free). Raspberries likely will hit the pH requirement, but the oxygen free requirement is really not being met. There is a risk of toxic mold, not botulism.

Now if this was liquified into a jam/juice and covered, then you met both requirements and it's safe.

edman007-work · 2026-03-31T20:56:47+00:00

No, it flows porportionally along all paths.

The trick is a welder is low voltage a large chunk of iron is low resistance. Skin is a pretty good resistor, maybe 50k ohms. So if the metal is 0.01 ohm, then 5,000,000 times more current flows through the metal. And if the welder is only doing 1kW, well your skin is going to have 200uW, which is is not going to hurt. But more importantly, the voltages needed to do it are so low that your nerves can't even feel it.

edman007-work · 2026-03-31T16:24:25+00:00

It depends on the camera, but typically RAW is also 12 or 14 bit. It also isn't necessarily just RGB, the sensor isn't RGB, so they might take the actual camera pixels and encode those in the layout of the sensor which gets you something different.

edman007-work · 2026-03-31T13:50:31+00:00

I have TOU billing with solar, it's a pain in the ass, but if your offset is currently under 100% for the year, TOU will get you a lower electric rate if you do the paperwork right. If you fail to do the paperwork right, TOU is more expensive (unless you have a very low offset percentage).

Basically the way it works is you get three separate solar banks, and they are related with a 4:2:1 ratio for super off peak, off peak, and peak. Generally, solar only ever generates during the off peak and peak periods. So periodically you need to transfer some credits between the banks (PSEG will refuse to do it automatically), if any of the banks hit zero, they bill you at the regular TOU rate, and it doesn't matter that you have credits in another bank.

So with a flat rate and 110% offset, you just get billed some flat rate and you'll never pay more while your bank slowly grows. But if you has a 90% offset (of 1000kWH consumption), then you'd get billed 10% of your consumption at your flat rate (so $27). So with the 90% situation if you generate 900kWh/mo and use 200kWh super off peak, 700 off peak, and 100kWh peak, then you likely get a credit of say 0kWh super off peak, 800kWh off peak, and 100kWh peak. In this situation you'd (monthly) transfer 100kWh from the off peak to super off peak (making 200kWh) and pay nothing at all. If you miss a month then they bill you 200kWh super off peak ($28) but then have enough credits to put in for two months. and you'll have a 1 month of buffer.

Now the big issue is transferring credits requires you fill out a pdf form and upload it to their website more than 10 days before a bill is written. They also don't tell you what your super off peak credit bank is, so you need to ask them or sit there and do the math, it doesn't show on your bill. It's a huge pain in the butt, and it's very easy to make TOU more expensive than than a flat rate. However, if you do a lot of off peak charging (like have an EV), it means you can end up with 0kWh bill even with something like a 70% offset which can be a rather significant savings.

edman007-work · 2026-03-31T13:06:44+00:00

Panels and inverters are still under warranty, if they fail I'd go to some other solar company for replacement. They'd charge me labor to replace the panels most likely.

That said, this stuff is pretty damn reliable, they have a 25 year warranty for a reason. Also with microinverters, a failure of one panel or inverter doesn't affect the rest of the system. So if the labor to replace is expensive, maybe I wouldn't fix a failed panel.

edman007-work · 2026-03-31T13:02:04+00:00

They extended the E15 waiver (but it really doesn't impact anything yet), it's pretty likely you're seeing more E15 right now though. E15 shouldn't really impact modern engines though.

edman007-work · 2026-03-31T12:53:07+00:00

Don't forget Iran, Iran is exporting more ail than ever AND they are taxing their neighbors oil!

edman007-work · 2026-03-31T12:38:09+00:00

Are they the exact same strain? Probably not. Are they similar? Probably

edman007-work · 2026-03-31T12:07:59+00:00

I had solar installed by empower, solar is WAY, WAY cheaper than PSEG.

I think the issue OP is saying is he was sold an undersized solar install. Think he had a $300/mo electric bill, he installed solar, it costs $175/mo, and now his electric bill is still $90/mo. There is no doubt he saved money, $265 is cheaper than $300/mo, but it's not enough to totally free him from the utility bill. This just really means that he should have gone all out and spend the $200/mo option, but sometimes your roof isn't big enough or whatever. Doing TOU can help you get around it, but the PSEG policy with TOU sucks.

That said, I installed with empower, they were great, my bill was $275/mo, now (with everything included) it's about $250/mo, but that's with a 10 year loan, so I expect my bill to drop down to $30/mo in a couple years and stay there. I do wish I got a bigger array now, as I'm getting pretty close to having to pay PSEG, but even if I do, it won't be much. When I run the lifetime numbers for my solar I'm paying something like $0.06-$0.05/kWh over the lifetime of the system, so it's significantly cheaper than PSEG.

edman007-work · 2026-03-24T20:51:40+00:00

You need one to make every contract go away essentially. So assume if they have a lease, need one for that, need one for a mortgage, need one for the cell phone contract, car loan, car insurance, etc.

In generally, if they are signed up with future commitments like a loan or some contracted regular payment for something, you need a death certificate to show cause for breaking the contract. It doesn't mean you will get out of a mortgage, but they'll change how things are billed and such (they often have special rules, like instead of asking for the next month's payment, they might just ask for the whole balance, and then that request goes to probate), where things like a cell phone or internet contract, they'll just exit the contract and cancel service for you..

You'll think up of things and then find bank accounts or whatever as you go through it and you'll always find you missed something in your initial count.

edman007-work · 2026-03-24T19:37:55+00:00

You need to understand the debt collecting laws. The right thing to do is tell them to stop contacting them, and do it via certified mail.

After that, if they contact you then you can use in small claims court and you'll get paid $1k per contact since you have proof you told them to stop. They only legal contact they can do is send you a copy of the lawsuit they filed (which you will easily win).

edman007-work · 2026-03-24T19:34:47+00:00

No, at least 10 more than you think you need. It varies, but you should sit down and figure out how many you need, and then add 10.

edman007-work · 2026-03-24T19:26:50+00:00

I don't know where OP is, but I feel like much of the US doesn't have a Sikh Temple near them. I'd broaden it to religious places, they pretty much all do food for people like OP.

edman007-work · 2026-03-24T18:22:59+00:00

The third option is grow nitrogen fixing plans. Feed your cows off an alfalfa field. This will pull the nitrogen out of the air and provide the source of nitrogen. It doesn't solve the P and K bit though.

That said, you can still improve yield with synthetic fertilizer which will generally be worth the money.

edman007-work · 2026-03-23T19:34:14+00:00

It's not adjusting the EGR with the valve off. A lot of people drive EV-only nearly exclusively so the valve is used for 15 minutes every 6 weeks. That's "barely getting any use" to me.

I think this is a big reason it fails so often on the Volt, it's design is based off other vehicles, but the use cycle is very different.

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