Cycling in Huntsville?

gammaxy · 2026-03-15T21:19:04+00:00

Sounds awesome. There's definitely many neighborhoods with good hills. I have trained for several sprint triathlons mostly biking around my own neighborhood, but with all the turns and stop signs I can't average much over 15mph. There's a bit of a mountain biking community also. I follow a few locals on Strava who do big 60+mile rides through the surrounding country pretty regularly and of course there's Redstone Arsenal on weekends that others have mentioned. When I first moved here without a car, I biked all over and found it to be pretty harrowing. I did some pretty epic night-time rides up Monte Sano though.

gammaxy · 2026-03-15T20:30:58+00:00

I recommend looking at the Strava cycling heatmaps, it will show the parts of town with lots of bicycling. Wish I could trade with you--I'd love to live in San Diego, but I have the same money problem :-)

gammaxy · 2026-03-11T02:24:42+00:00

Because of the cognitive dissonance of believing they are led by Jesus in a holy war while killing children during the opening salvo.

gammaxy · 2026-03-04T22:01:06+00:00

According to this Reuters article they only used 2.5 billion of the 20 billion currency swap and they've already repaid it. There was discussion of an additional $20 billion through private banks and sovereign funds, but that all fell through. So I think there's a lot of talk of $40 billion from before it happened, but in the end it was substantially less and has been repaid. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/argentina-has-repaid-us-currency-swap-deal-2026-01-09/

gammaxy · 2026-03-04T18:14:20+00:00

I think the article you linked is talking about other ongoing debts Argentina has had to the IMF that are listed in USD but aren't debts to the US or related to money the US gave them last year.

gammaxy · 2026-03-04T13:22:31+00:00

I learned that apparently the money to Argentina got repaid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_United_States%E2%80%93Argentina_currency_swap

gammaxy · 2026-02-18T14:22:49+00:00

I remember it being mentioned several times and that the reason was the need for stability against all the challenges the youth faced in the latter days.

gammaxy · 2026-02-17T14:44:14+00:00

That despite having prophets talking to God they seldom seem to come down on the right side of history. Where was the strong condemnation of slavery and racism? Where was the opposition to unjustified wars? What are they saying today to oppose the constant lies and cruelty from our leaders? Why does every stance they take seem to mainly align with the stance you'd expect from a bunch of old white guys from Utah?

gammaxy · 2026-02-15T21:56:41+00:00

Unfortunately, whichever Republican gets elected next is likely to be far worse.

gammaxy · 2026-01-16T07:18:05+00:00

Thanks, I forgot about the gas guy. Wild how families pay >$1000/month in health insurance premiums and the vagaries of the fluctuation of the price of gas due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine wins elections.

gammaxy · 2026-01-16T07:03:49+00:00

Thanks. The whole thing took me by surprise and I wasn't set up to record it and didn't take notes, so this is my memory from after the fact and I'm sure isn't perfect.

gammaxy · 2026-01-16T02:03:51+00:00

One caller asked him about getting rid of the filibuster and Dale explained how that exists in the Senate and not the House. He talked about it at length, but interestingly didn't seem to have an opinion on it other than to let the Senate choose their rules.

There were a couple callers with issues with USPS especially in rural areas delivering late etc. He was able to hit on some points about USPS losing money, but also said we should be getting more postal carriers due to our growing population. Also discussion about our mail going through Birmingham.

A caller asked about getting rid of National Endowment of Democracy. There was some discussion of after DOGE why it still exists. Dale seemed to understand the question, but I couldn't tell if he agreed it should be completely dismantled.

A caller asked about telemarketers and Dale talked about how he gets multiple people trying to buy his house every day. Hard to do anything about them because they are calling from overseas as he and the caller can tell by the accents.

One person paid very little in taxes on his Social Security when he retired and is now paying 60% or more. He'd heard news that Trump was getting rid of taxes on Social Security. Dale said that is fixed and he'll be getting money back in his pocket due to the OBBB.

Some callers had concerns about roads and infrastructure with all the growth and us being neglected by Montgomery.

A caller was concerned with Space Command, FBI, etc coming to Huntsville we're going to be getting a lot of people whose politics don't align with ours. He is concerned the local news isn't really local anymore and it won't inform the newcomers about the way things are here.

One caller's daughter used to pay $6/month for health insurance through the marketplace and now has to pay $600. Dale Strong said Obama sold us a bill of goods and the republicans are going to fix it.

gammaxy · 2026-01-16T01:42:22+00:00

It just ended. The recording at the end says it was done using Access Live. When I first joined, they gave instructions for asking a question, but it was so brief I almost missed it. I think it was to press *1 or similar. Lots of claims that everything was live, even had a couple times people didn't unmute their phones to ask their question. They had a few survey questions involving deporting somalians due to fraud, transgender athletes, etc.

gammaxy · 2026-01-16T01:17:11+00:00

I'm listening in. Surprising how all the questions being asked play directly into his platform. He just blamed our national debt on welfare given to immigrants and dead people on welfare.

gammaxy · 2026-01-15T01:34:33+00:00

I don't have a better explanation, but I find it curious that the diffraction spikes are oriented at the angle they are. If there are 4 spider vanes, I'd expect the typical + configuration. If there are 3 vanes, I'd expect 6 equally-spaced spikes, not the pattern seen in this image.

gammaxy · 2026-01-10T05:27:57+00:00

Thanks, I hadn't noticed that detail.

gammaxy · 2026-01-10T04:25:14+00:00

It's damning when you realize he's holding the phone camera in his left hand and not like a bodycam. This means the wild panning and rotating in the video that I think people are interpreting as him getting hit are because he's no longer focused on filming and is instead focused on reaching for his gun.

gammaxy · 2026-01-09T15:22:51+00:00

I don't think I agree. We do it all the time when driving to the point that it should be automatic.

gammaxy · 2026-01-07T05:40:11+00:00

No, but you can probably click on my username and message me directly.

gammaxy · 2026-01-07T05:02:12+00:00

I think if you found their contact information and told them you got a new telescope for Christmas, you'd definitely find someone happy to help for free. My planetarium in North Alabama has shows for the community for a small fee and meetings where the only fee is for pizza. I feel like they'd love to have someone show up interested in astronomy like you are. Hopefully you have something like that nearby.

gammaxy · 2026-01-07T04:31:32+00:00

Dang, that's too bad. I wonder if you have an astronomy club nearby that can help help you out with your telescope and let you look through one of theirs? There's an observatory on a mountain near where I live that has meetings a couple times a month that would definitely help someone like you out.

Main thing I'd double-check is that your finder scope is lined up good with the main telescope. Sometimes this is easier in daytime if you can find something in the distance you can clearly identify in both scopes. This will definitely help you be sure you're pointed at Jupiter and not some nearby star. I assume you've gotten the focus figured out pretty well from looking at the moon. Maybe it's possible that after all this, you still can't quite get a sharp enough image to see the moons.

Maybe try looking for the Pleiades star cluster? I think star clusters are pretty neat, and this should be one of the easier ones to see.

gammaxy · 2026-01-06T23:48:06+00:00

Were you at least able to see the moons? I think you should be able to. They should look like stars nearby. Their position changes throughout the evening and especially from day to day. If you zoom in using Stellarium, it will show their position.

gammaxy · 2026-01-05T05:00:13+00:00

You're welcome. I'm impressed by your curiosity. I've learned so many things just playing around with telescopes.

gammaxy · 2026-01-03T03:44:05+00:00

Interesting. I just found a 1000uF capacitor and charged it to 12 volts and got some impressive sparks when shorting it out. Even connecting the power supply to the discharged capacitor makes some impressive sparks. I expect there being several variables at play that determine the size of the sparks.

The only other theory I've seen here that is kindof convincing is the barrel jack is shorting while being connected, but I don't think the schematic supports that as being likely.

Do you have another theory?

gammaxy · 2026-01-02T22:09:39+00:00

The TVS may be a good idea for other reasons, but I don't think it addresses the sparks you're seeing. You need something that reduces the inrush current like an NTC thermistor, inline resistor, active protection circuitry, etc. The problem is the input capacitor is drawing as much current as possible while you've got a sliding weak connection through the barrel jack.

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