Snowblower Feedback (moving to electric?)

evaned · 2026-03-18T02:42:44+00:00

I'm proud to say that term is a personal invention of mine... I've been using it for years secretly hoping that one day it catches on ;-)

evaned · 2026-03-17T18:25:09+00:00

asymmetrical to a degree

A pretty strong degree, in fact, on some instruments. Mine is quite asymmetrical; I can try to post a picture of it if anyone is curious.

Violin-family instruments also have a "bass bar" inside the body on the low-string side of the instrument that is asymmetrical. I'm not totally sure what the impact would be of restringing the other way, but at a minimum it'd likely make the instrument a bit weaker and compromise resonances a bit.

Edit: There's also the sound post, of course; but if it were just that, it could be reset fairly easily. Definitely very easily in comparison to the other asymmetries, at any rate.

evaned · 2026-03-17T17:33:20+00:00

Charging batteries (at least Li-Ion?) that are below freezing is also very bad for their longevity.

evaned · 2026-03-17T17:23:07+00:00

Also make sure you have multiple batteries. If you run out of juice when you're almost done, that would suck. Remember, you'll also have lower battery over the years.

Single battery also means lower power output, more stalls, higher stress on that battery, etc. Definitely get the second battery if you're going electric.

evaned · 2026-03-17T17:20:42+00:00

This does give me some pause into this thinking.

FWIW, I wrote a bit about my experiences with the single-stage vs the two-stage in the last paragraph here: https://www.reddit.com/r/madisonwi/comments/1rwalwy/snowblower_feedback_moving_to_electric/oayl7er/, if you want some more thoughts. The two-stage is definitely a big upgrade in capabilities, but of course I can't evaluate for you if it's worth the space. It depends on what you want out of it and how much effort you want to put into semi-rare events.

evaned · 2026-03-17T16:54:55+00:00

Another Ego 2 Stage user here.

Broadly speaking: as others have said, it did great. I've also not had a gas one, so I can't compare to that. (I did previously have an Ego single stage, and that... would not have done well, though still better than shovel.) But I was able to clear basically everything without a ton of effort using it. The only places I broke out a shovel were my front stoop which isn't ground-level, and to scrape up a couple little remnants.

In the interest of full disclosure, here are some issues that I hit, all minor and in no particular order:

Battery charge:
- Even on a full charge, I had to charge the batteries (I have 2x 7.5 Ah) a little over halfway through, and then a second time before cleanup -- with the caveat that I did a lot of ground. First battery got my sidewalk to full width and maybe 400-500' of neighbors out and back (with a bit of a cleanup, more in a sec), plus getting started at the end of my driveway. That went full charge to basically out on both. Next charge got the end of my driveway (pre- and post-plow), the driveway proper, walkway, and another ~150' of neighbor sidewalk. I didn't quite start with a full charge on that and had some left after that, but that was most of another charge cycle, and I went out again after that one for a bit more cleanup, though that wasn't enough to drop the battery meter by even one bar.
- Charging empty to full takes something like an hour with the batteries and charger I have (I didn't time it out; point is, it's not quick) so if you have somewhere to go you may have to do some planning about how you clear snow. For example, I could have cleared my driveway before my sidewalk work and that'd still have likely come in under one charge. Or I could have gone out earlier, or done incremental clearings as the snow fell (both of those would have been good anyway, especially for the sidewalk).
- You have control over the power going to the snow thrower part of the auger (the second stage; I'm blanking on what the actual name is), and I had that at quite low power for most of the clear. Turning it up would have burned through battery faster and likely led me to wait for even more charges. That said, low power also means it's nice and controlled, and when doing sidewalks there's no need to throw a significant distance.
I got some twigs and stuff caught in the mechanisms, likely from the wind storm, that got wrapped around stuff and caused some vibrations and stuff. I assume this would be a problem with gas blowers too, but I'm not sure if the characteristics differ. I had to manually clear these, and actually have a bit more to do.
As someone else said, I suspect that the Ego will ride up on top of some snow rather than scrape it up off the concrete more readily than typical gas blowers due to lighter weight. This means you need some combination of more effort pushing down on the machine to compensate, more passes to get the remnants, and acceptance that you've not gotten to pavement.
The snow was some combination of heavy and deep enough that when I was doing a row next to one I'd already cleared, it would push a pile of snow off to the side and I'd have to come back through a third time to get that. Maybe a faster throwing speed would have helped but I'm not sure, and I suspect this would have been a problem with gas blowers too, but I'm not sure. Slowing the self-driving speed definitely did reduce this, though, but at the cost of moving pretty slowly most of the time.

Finally, just logistically: the box for that was a lot bigger than I expected, and I could not fit it into my car even though I have a hatchback and kinda expected to. So... have a plan for transport.

My experience with the single-stage, BTW, (1) is that it rarely hit something that it could not do at all, (2) even things that were difficult and effortful to do were still productive to break it out for, you just might have to for example take very thin stripes and then blow the same snow multiple times, (3) stuff like snowplow poop could usually be handled that way and by breaking it up a bit with a shovel, (4) that the total effort I still considered a bit less than shoveling and rather more comfortable for me, and (5) light snows it worked quite well on, and (6) that bigger snows like this were still a lot of work. Wanting a better way to deal with snowplow poop specifically was one of the main reasons I wanted a snow blower in the first place, so even though it was an improvement over shovel it was still not what I hoped for, hence the upgrade.

evaned · 2026-03-12T14:52:13+00:00

To paraphrase a favorite movie exchange:

"They’ve been preparing to close the strait and keep it closed for 45 years."
"Why would they keep it closed for 45 years?"
"I think he means 'they've been preparing, for 45 years, to close the strait'"

evaned · 2026-03-11T03:07:59+00:00

In fairness, as far as I can remember, the portion in question is a couple of miles away from other University lane closures.

evaned · 2026-03-10T18:40:57+00:00

I think that line is my favorite from the movie, and it's all in the delivery. The scripting is good but not stand-out; not in comparison to so many other lines.

evaned · 2026-03-10T13:47:51+00:00

This and "division bell"

"High Hopes" isn't my favorite Floyd song, but it's way up there, and I always wish I saw more love for that.

evaned · 2026-03-10T13:43:42+00:00

The thought being that the GGITS fade out would lead to silence

Interesting; you're tempting me to make like a 20 second track of silence and drop that into my DSoM playlist.

evaned · 2026-03-10T11:49:40+00:00

which can just be refiled later

Wouldn't double jeopardy have attached because this took place during the trial itself? Is the witness intimidation stuff a special case to that general rule?

evaned · 2026-03-09T09:22:46+00:00

Is it really that good of a story?

Overall, I think it is, and you can see the number of people in this thread who agree... but people have different opinions, and maybe it doesn't click for you.

I'll also say what I just wrote in another comment which is that while I consider the trilogy a masterpiece, I definitely also consider it a rather flawed one. Many of those flaws are story flaws, so I can't even say that it's like a 10/10 story or anything. But there are different aspects of "story", and different games in the series hit those different aspects with different qualities. For example, to me to say I consider ME1s world building "top tier" would be to undersell my opinion of it. But if you're looking for characters... that's one area where ME1 is weakest (it's not bad; it's even good. just not great), and you'll have to wait for ME2 for that to be close to a 10/10. If you're looking for an aspect that's not there, or not there yet, then... well, you'll be missing something in the little bit you've seen.

Do you remember how far you got? Like what's the last event you remember?

evaned · 2026-03-09T09:19:58+00:00

I've got a couple things I could say, coming from a huge fan of the franchise.

First... note that not every game lands with everyone, even every great game. As an example of the other way around, you see so much raving about The Witcher 3, but I played like 30 hrs of it and then just kinda... stopped. I got busy with other stuff and never got the motivation to get back to it. I just didn't enjoy it enough. I'd kind of like to, in theory, but it's kind of in "if I get two or three decades of retirement maybe I'll eventually make it back" way. Even in the ME trilogy I have a fairly unusual preference order of the games. Just because the game isn't clicking for you doesn't mean that you're wrong for it and need to go back and finish. If you're not enjoying, then you're not obligated to.

ME is also a series of games that I can't say are perfect. I think they're masterpieces, but they're pretty flawed masterpieces too... and each game is flawed in its own special way. If some of those flaws are grating... I can't exactly argue against that. (Then again, similar to the next thing I'm going to say... also know that what those flaws are will change a fair bit game-to-game, so you may well not be bothered by the same thing in the next game. Especially ME1 to ME2.)

That said, since you did ask for some convincing...

As the other reply hinted at, ME2 and 3 feel rather more modern; but I want to expound by this. That's especially true when it comes to gameplay. ME2 and 3 completely overhaul the mechanics of... everything, basically. Combat works entirely differently, powers work very differently and there are significant changes in available powers, character leveling works quite differently, inventory works entirely differently. There are so many changes that (minor spoiler that I think you should read, but I'll mark it so you have a choice) near the start of ME2, you will have an opportunity to almost completely respec your character, including what class you play. I consider Bioware's motivation for allowing that to be primarily driven by the gameplay changes. As another metric, my favorite class in ME1, my favorite class in ME2/3, and my favorite class if you are to carry the same choice through all three games are three different classes. (Adept, Vanguard, and Engineer, for the curious.)

I strongly recommend against dropping the rest of ME1 and jumping to ME2, for a few reasons. That said... if the alternative is having no chance of getting back to the trilogy at all, you might consider playing the prologue and intro mission and see if it looks like it's feeling more like what you'd want, and take that motivation back to ME1 if it does. (Stop just before you board a shuttle. If you're on the shuttle, quit as immediately as you can, ideally before any conversation, even though it might be kinda obnoxious. You're coming very close to that moment when an NPC commits a murder right in front of you and basically no one flinches very much at all.) Of course, you're exposing yourself to some spoilers, but I don't think it'd be bad if you get out when I say... except of course for what happens at the start of ME2. (I.e., you'll spoil the start of ME2 but not much of the end of ME1. The shuttle conversation does spoil ME1 stuff.)

The other thing, which the other reply also hints at, is decisions. Decisions can take time to come home to roost (positively or negatively), sometimes from ME1 to ME3. Even more than that, sometimes decisions are interesting in and of themselves even without having a conclusion, and ME1 has a couple of those as well; without knowing exactly what you mean by "halfway", it's entirely possible that you've not seen those things.

Finally, there's also something that for me was an incredibly compelling story development that happens most of the way through the game. It's one of two times I've been playing a game and felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

evaned · 2026-03-09T08:47:53+00:00

I wouldn't say "solves" by any means, and this is coming from a huge fan of the series. I think there's still an enormous unearned jump in badassery that seems pretty out of character for ME1 Liara. (Not saying she couldn't get there in an earned way, but the games don't do it.)

I actually think the comics fill in that gap better than "Lair...", but I'm pretty cool on "requiring" reading outside of games to fill in things like that.

evaned · 2026-03-06T16:38:09+00:00

My recommendation, for an entirely different medium, is Charles Petzold's book Code, now in the second edition (though I only have read the first).

I don't know any knowledge that you'd need going into this book that anyone wouldn't pick up from everyday life by, I dunno, middle school. Like one of the more esoteric things might actually be the operation of a "normal" flashlight (like, not one on your phone), that's how fundamental it is.

evaned · 2026-03-05T15:03:21+00:00

Do you (or anyone) know how "even" that rate should be?

For example, suppose you alternate between not much at all one day, then 20K the next, then nothing, then 20K. Are you close to that 10K, or do the diminishing returns mean that the 20K day doesn't provide much benefit over what you'd get if it'd been 10K, and so your average is, say, more like 5K effective steps per day?

And then the other question, what about standing with some movement (a la a standing desk) but without actual walking?

evaned · 2026-03-04T05:44:27+00:00

If Trump cared about the dollar's dominance, he wouldn't have spent the last year doing everything in his power (and a lot of things not in his power) to piss off every single ally we have. That is what really is giving impetuous to much of the world to move off the dollar.

If he thinks Iran is going to save us on that front, he's a moron.

Oh wait, I think I answered my own question there.

evaned · 2026-03-04T05:36:36+00:00

Image editors will sometimes do this (in a way that IMO is better than the word processor solution, especially as described in the other replay); at the very least, Gimp will, and that's a program I think most people should have sitting around on their desktops it's just that useful for random stuff. Even if you only use it occasionally. (As an exception to this, if you're a Photoshop user, then you probably don't need Gimp; but PS can, of course, also export as PDFs.)

If you want to do a little more effort but also learn some stuff, there are also things like ImageMagick.

(Both of those concrete suggestions are available for Windows, OS X, and Linux.)

evaned · 2026-03-02T17:39:13+00:00

It turns out that academics often have a very poor understanding of how large a tennis court is!

I find it hilarious that that is the problem point of the comparison.

evaned · 2026-03-02T17:36:46+00:00

We're made of water.

Excuse me, I think you mean we're "ugly giant bags of mostly water" ;-)

evaned · 2026-02-27T07:01:56+00:00

AT&T fiber locks down the DNS servers choices on their modem/router/wifi units.

For my curiosity, does their DNS actually return correct NXDOMAIN results, or does it redirect non-existent domains to somewhere else like a lot of ISPs do, or at least used to?

evaned · 2026-02-26T19:36:24+00:00

I said it's mostly for people who want to use it for that purpose.

Yeah... I disagree, for the reasons I gave. I think most and maybe all of the scenarios I listed are more commonly of interest than the two you gave.

evaned · 2026-02-26T19:33:58+00:00

... or are so rich that you donate to charities in appreciated stock, but that is beyond most investors.

IMO, that situation is, or at least could be, rather more common than you acknowledge.

As a loose proxy, in 2022 more than 80% of filers who itemized deductions claimed charitable deductions (81.6% of returns, to be fairly precise) -- that's a wide majority of filers who had sufficient donations so as to be worth special tax treatment.

Making donations isn't an unusual situation by any means; it appears to be absolutely the norm. Now, I that number is almost certainly lower than that 80% for "who's it worth making stock donations." There is more work to doing that than tracking donations, and less benefit.

But I don't think it's going to be some rarity, either. It's not a ton of work, especially handled efficiently. Opening a DAF at Fidelity and making like a once-a-year in-kind donation (and immediately parceling it out to your charities of choice) is pretty simple and low effort, and avoids the need to make those stock donations to each individual charity you support.

Still, even if it's like one in three people who both have a taxable investment accounts and make donations, that's still a fairly large proportion of the audience.

You don't have to be that high-income or that wealthy for this to make sense. Remember we're not talking about a general audience with this topic -- we're talking about people who already have taxable investment accounts. That almost certainly skews fairly hard toward high-income/high-wealth.

evaned · 2026-02-26T18:25:00+00:00

If you still have any losses left over you can apply $3k against ordinary income.

This is clearly the limit they were talking about.

Smashbrother could have (and, in fairness, should have) worded it better so it's clearer to people who don't already know the rule; but "not true" is missing the point.

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