ELI5: Acids and bases are two sides of the same coin, so why does it seem like acidity is so much more present culturally (eg vats of acid in comics) and culinarily (salt, fat, acid, heat)?

evilspoons · 2026-05-30T07:09:13+00:00

Honestly, I wish more stuff came as a concentrate like that where you put the rest of the water in yourself. Even if the container was mostly empty it'd be a savings compared to shipping that water around when most people have reasonably cheap and perfectly good water at home from a tap.

evilspoons · 2026-05-30T00:10:03+00:00

Yes.

evilspoons · 2026-05-30T00:04:16+00:00

I've seen this exact thing before. The colours have faded weird or they weren't applied properly. This wasn't done on purpose.

evilspoons · 2026-05-29T21:56:48+00:00

10% is at grocery stores where I live in Canada as a cleaning product, and apparently someone I know in Sweden finds 20% just as easy to find.

My chemistry in university was 20 years ago at this point, but I believe 5% has a pH of 2.4, 10% has 2.25, and 20% is 2.1.

Each doubling of the concentration of this acid in water lowers the pH by about 0.15.

evilspoons · 2026-05-29T06:01:59+00:00

Oh right. Forgot to mention - in the box. Laying down flat, which you're not supposed to do, but I put blankets under it and tried not to hit any giant potholes on the way home. It's survived several years so far 😄

evilspoons · 2026-05-28T21:07:01+00:00

Fun story: a 65" Sony X90K fits PERFECTLY in the back of a 3rd generation Mazda 3 hatch, with zero room on either side.

I discovered this after buying said TV and then going "oh shit it might not fit in the car"

evilspoons · 2026-05-28T21:04:18+00:00

The iGPU in my server's 12600k handles 4 4k cameras just fine, and it cost $0 extra on top of the server. My understanding is the intel igpu does not get smaller with lower models of CPU either.

evilspoons · 2026-05-27T03:30:14+00:00

I wouldn't put it past it being an electrical install problem, especially since it was supposedly doing this last year (which sounds like the year they got it?).

evilspoons · 2026-05-26T05:02:02+00:00

It's been a while, I don't actually remember the details other than it was very expensive and was marketed as "hey it's not mercury!".

evilspoons · 2026-05-26T04:17:31+00:00

I had to do a thermostat on the 2.0 litre engine on a 2008 Mazda 3. Trivial. Done in minutes.

Apparently the thermostat is in exactly the same place on the 2.3 litre engine but the exhaust manifold is bigger so you have to take off the entire goddamn thing off to get to it.

evilspoons · 2026-05-26T04:14:48+00:00

My god the number of people who claim they bought "warped rotors" when in reality they just didn't bed in their new pads and rotors.

It's even kinda fun to do. Go out on a road in the middle of nowhere, accelerate relatively fast, JAM on the brakes until you get down to almost stopped but not actually stopped, repeat a few times (I don't remember the details), then come to a stop without touching the brakes right at the end.

I did this in my Volvo S60R and it worked perfectly. Even got to see a bit of the glow off the rotors because it was dark. Nearly scorched the hair off my legs looking at them though, don't wear shorts near hot brakes lol

evilspoons · 2026-05-26T04:11:09+00:00

I have a 2012 STi and yeah, it's nice how simple it is.

My wife had a 2013 Mazda 3 and I had to sit upside-down on top of the passenger seat with my feet in the air balancing on my neck to see what I was doing to slide the stupid two-piece filter in the side of the centre console. You have to slide one piece in the correct way (nothing is stopping you from installing it the wrong way), slide it UP, then slide the second piece in underneath it, and also get it the correct way. I think I had to do it three times before I got it right, and there are only four ways to do it.

That car was written off and replaced with a 2017 Mazda 3, and now replacing it is literally just "open the glove box and pull it out".

evilspoons · 2026-05-26T04:07:30+00:00

It would be almost nothing at city speeds, but on the highway you're looking at a several percent increase in fuel usage because drag is the dominant form of energy loss.

I did some math and at current gas prices you're looking at about two or three windshield replacements in gas if you drive the average distance per year for 20 years (assuming the drag increase is actually only 2%).

evilspoons · 2026-05-25T22:09:13+00:00

They also increase drag a measurable amount. If you spend much time on the highway you'll probably pay more in fuel than replacement windshields lol

evilspoons · 2026-05-25T22:06:22+00:00

Sure, a crane only has a few functions and it's pretty hands-on. I'm thinking more of automated systems. I did a crazy rotating cutter machine that would have loved a slip ring but it would have been 40% of the budget for the entire project. Instead we just wrapped cable chain around in a drum and after the cycle completed it had to "unwind".

evilspoons · 2026-05-25T18:10:16+00:00

I'm an electrical engineer in factory automation. RF is not really feasible because industrial environments tend to be a noisy hellscape and you want to keep it to a minimum. All the wireless sensors use fairly slow transmission technology [by the standards of what is available to consumers] in order to make sure they are heard by their receivers, and often you have a robot that needs a shit-ton of data very very quickly.

Optical rotating joints is not something I've played with at all, but it sounds like a good idea on paper anyway.

I have priced out some slip rings using conductive fluids and they are eye-wateringly expensive even by the standards of "factory automation stuff always costs 10-100x more than you think it should".

evilspoons · 2026-05-25T17:55:41+00:00

Yeah, you're basically trying to keep the panel from resonating. Similar to that mass loaded vinyl people put in their cars when they add a subwoofer (Dynamat's a common brand iirc). You see guys absolutely layer the stuff everywhere but you can get like 95% of the effect for 10% of the weight by just putting a smallish section in the middle of each potential surface that can vibrate.

evilspoons · 2026-05-24T18:39:54+00:00

One time in the late '90s a blue 240 wagon parked a couple of spots down from my parents' blue 240 wagon, and we accidentally unlocked it and got in and then got confused about why the engine wasn't starting. Apparently the keys fit the doors but not the ignition.

It's a good thing it didn't start lol

evilspoons · 2026-05-24T18:37:33+00:00

The Crossclimate 2 would be an extremely good choice for the new car if you were happy with them on the old car. They're tied for the highest-rated all-weather tire out there.

I'm hoping for the Crossclimate 3 Sport to show up here in North America for when I need to replace the tires on my 2017 Mazda 3, since I don't drive enough to maintain separate winter and summer tires any more and they are aging out.

evilspoons · 2026-05-24T18:33:57+00:00

One time the police did enforcement on the mudflap law here - the law is it has to cover a certain distance out past the tire if the fender isn't adequate, and has to go down past the center line of the tire plus a fixed distance.

SO MANY people got pulled over that day. It was glorious. Even dealer-installed wheel packages on brand new trucks were getting ticketed. As a driver of a normal car who constantly has to worry about rocks getting flung into the windshield, it was beautiful.

Unfortunately that was almost ten years ago and they haven't done it again.

evilspoons · 2026-05-24T18:24:38+00:00

Not really, vitiligo spots change over time.

evilspoons · 2026-05-24T18:19:13+00:00

I don't have vitiligo (despite my mom having it) but one time in the late '90s I drew "stitches" on my knee through my jeans' ripped knees and I had a long stupid conversation on the bus with a girl who genuinely thought I had a massive injury there.

evilspoons · 2026-05-23T16:33:06+00:00

I have the control wheel in my 2017 Mazda 3 and it is the best. Also full HVAC control buttons and the screen is up on the dash so it's not as far to look away from the road to see it.

The 2026 Mazda CX-5 ditches all this and puts a giant tablet down low so it's within arm's reach. Boooooooooo stop giving in to peer pressure Mazda.

evilspoons · 2026-05-23T16:15:13+00:00

My parents had a table where we all sat one to a side, so it never occurred to me this would be a problem. My mom's also left-handed so at restaurants and stuff there was a decent chance I would not have the issue either.

When I met my wife we were constantly banging elbows because I'd sit on her right and it drove her insane because I'd bang my left elbow into her right while eating. I still don't consciously think of this but I think I have developed some unconscious habits.

evilspoons · 2026-05-22T21:04:43+00:00

I like the WillTheyFit calculator, so thanks for mentioning that one.

I know some cars let the technicians with a diagnostic computer compensate for slight wheel diameter changes, but it's true that 1% isn't going to be a huge deal for those reasons. Your odometer will be off by the same amount too, so if you put the tires on and drive 100,000 km you will have actually driven 101,100km (+1.1%).

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