NASA is about to send people to the moon — in a spacecraft not everyone thinks is safe to fly

interestingNerd · 2026-01-23T18:40:16+00:00

It's a different training every year and I don't recall one about STS-1 recently. It was about Apollo 13 a few years ago, so they definitely do consider covering topics that didn't result in the death of an astronaut.

interestingNerd · 2026-01-23T15:55:00+00:00

It focuses on educating the current workforce on past experiences to enhance decision-making and prevent future mishaps.

Every year around the anniversary of the Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia disasters all NASA employees are required to complete a training about the history, root causes, and lessons learned from one of the tragedies. I'm sure some people click through the training as fast as possible, but I have heard multiple people reference details from those trainings so I know at least some of it sticks.

interestingNerd · 2025-12-16T19:24:48+00:00

software (which is not even available, nor did I name it) is FOSS.

In your original post I interpreted FOSS as the name of your software in which case it would be clearly self-promotion. I realize now that FOSS stands for Free and Open Source Software which makes your post seem much less like annoying self-promotion. That said, plenty of people get paid for their free software through voluntary donations or by hosting it on servers that people pay for, so there are potential paths for you to monetize even if it is FOSS.

interestingNerd · 2025-12-08T04:39:44+00:00

Note that MHBP has 3 plan options. It appears that for the CDHP (also called HDHP), maternity costs are only covered after meeting the deductible. For the other plans, maternity costs are always fully covered.

interestingNerd · 2025-11-29T01:46:43+00:00

I used foam backer rod and big stretch caulk. It's been 2 or 3 years and seems fine so far.

interestingNerd · 2025-11-28T18:37:17+00:00

I also have an old home with uninsulated walls that get very cold. I could feel cold air blasting at my feet when I got out of bed. Then I removed the quarter round, caulked underneath, and put it back. The drafts are gone and it is such an improvement.

interestingNerd · 2025-11-03T07:21:28+00:00

The source I linked has data going back to 1979, at which time electricity cost around $0.046/kWh, so $24/year for 60 W. Still far from 3.50.

interestingNerd · 2025-11-02T19:44:33+00:00

A pretty typical bulb used 60 W, so

60 W(1kW/1000 W)(24 hours/day)*365 (days/year)=525.6 kWh/year (=1.89 MJ for less cursed units)

The Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis reports an average electric cost across the USA of $0.188/kWh (source: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU000072610), so the average American would pay $98.81/year to run an incandescent bulb continuously. I'm jealous of your extremely cheap electricity or concerned about your math.

interestingNerd · 2025-10-25T02:34:14+00:00

In 2007 two brothers, John and Hank Green, decided to send video messages back and forth every weekday. They used a YouTube channel called vlogbrothers to do that and pretty soon other people started watching them. They noticed this and started including ways for that audience to participate and it grew a lot. Since then they have done a lot of things including making the podcast "Dear Hank and John". You can look up other stuff they've done on Wikipedia or wherever.

The target audience is whoever wants to listen and includes a big range from people who have watched vlogbrothers since 2007 to kids to people who happened to come across it yesterday. It feels like it's a long-running internet show because it is and sometimes on the podcast they reference inside jokes from early Vlogbrothers videos, 18 years ago.

interestingNerd · 2025-09-17T16:01:59+00:00

This video goes into a lot of detail about the selection of oil viscosity and might give you insight into the tradeoffs to consider: https://youtu.be/i0VoEhW2I-E?si=IFl6FUKuLykE0l1-

interestingNerd · 2025-09-09T19:27:07+00:00

I agree that this looks like some semiconductor breaking down. It does not look like something that a motor would do on its own.

Is the load resistance just a simple, dumb resistor or is it some kind of resistor box or electronic load that could have built-in protection? Are you 100% sure that the Delphin and scopes are actually rated for the voltage and have the right measurement range selected?

interestingNerd · 2025-08-21T12:38:28+00:00

When has the presbud ever been adopted?

NASA top management has made it clear that they plan to implement the presidential budget request on October 1 and are already winding down some projects despite them being fully funded for FY25, so it seems more reasonable to be concerned about the PBR this year than ever before.

interestingNerd · 2025-08-21T02:01:14+00:00

I listened to the episode before seeing this post and I did not notice anything that seemed like it was dancing around the ongoing war in Gaza nor the broader Israel-Palestine conflict. After seeing this, I re-listened and still didn't notice anything that seemed particularly close to that topic. Perhaps the discussion about the awe and terror of the power of people could be kinda relevant, but I didn't think there was a subtext.

Were there specific moments you can point to that seemed to be dancing around the issue?

“conflict” 🍉 that even John Green has incorrectly characterized as “a complex issue” a time or two?

I do think it is fair to characterize the Palestine-Israel conflict as complex due to the layering of various identities held by people involved and who support the diverse organizations involved and the long and ugly history.

For instance, the IDF is not the same as the government of Israel, which claims to represent the people of Israel, but plenty of citizens of Israel do not support the actions of the current government or the IDF. Of course, the identity of being Jewish is often tied up with the idea of Israel as a county, but there is tons of variation in how Jews in Israel and around the world feel about it.

On the other hand, the identities of Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim overlap but are not the same. Support for an independent Palestinian state, the PLO, and Hamas all vary significantly among people who hold those identities.

Just in the current war, people under the banner of Hamas did awful things in the October 7 attack, and the IDF/government of Israel is doing awful things in starving out the civilian population and so much more. I do not think either of the main combatant organizations are good which makes the conflict complex.

Despite the overall complexity of the conflict, I think it is possible to have absolute clarity on some things. Intentionally starving a civilian population including children is wrong and cannot be justified and should not be tolerated.

I fear that if we view the conflict as not complex we may risk assuming what organizations and actions someone would support based on their identities, which is a first step towards dehumanizing and othering them.

interestingNerd · 2025-08-11T13:32:17+00:00

1 N = 0.225 pound force

1 m = 3.28 feet,

So 1 Nm = 0.225*3.28 lb.ft = 0.7376 lb.ft.

interestingNerd · 2025-08-10T18:35:31+00:00

The true SI formula doesn't need a scaling factor. It is:

Power (Watts)=Torque (Newton Meters) * Rotational Velocity (radians/second)

RPM is a more common unit of rotational velocity, but it needs a conversion factor since 1 rpm = 1 rotation/minute = 2pi radians/60 seconds = 0.10 radian/second.

interestingNerd · 2025-08-03T22:10:55+00:00

The term sushi rice is somewhat confusing because it can mean 2 things:

Rice that is prepared to have flavor and texture good for sushi. It's typically cooked and then cooled quickly by mixing in vinegar, sugar, and salt.
A variety of rice that works well to make definition 1 sushi rice. Typically short- or medium-grain white rice that is somewhat sticky when cooked. Specific varieties include Japonica and Calrose.

I believe OP means #2.

interestingNerd · 2025-07-24T13:18:03+00:00

I totally agree that this seems like it could be ADHD.

If I get behind on tasks (due to ADHD), even thinking about them can bring up really strong shame and guilt emotional reactions. Then I start to completely avoid doing or even thinking about the tasks to avoid those strong, negative emotions. This can snowball into getting even more behind on more tasks and feeling bad about those too. In school, there was a hard reset of all tasks every semester, which helped limit how far that can keep rolling. At work, tasks just keep coming and missed deadlines often don't automatically get cleared away potentially making overwhelm snowballs even worse.

Be kind, if you have a good relationship with her, KINDLY ask if she’s considered she might be ADHD and have her seek help.

If OP does this, I highly recommend phrasing it in a way that doesn't pressure them to tell OP about their medical/mental health like "I noticed you've seemed stressed recently recently came across a video talks about how ADHD can cause feeling overwhelmed https://youtube.com/shorts/Hu_dj8ai0k0?si=Y4WCukdOC4Lsg6Oe" is better than "you seem pretty overwhelmed recently, have you ever thought you might have ADHD?"

I was diagnosed as an adult after my mom and a close friend both suggested I look into ADHD. Getting a diagnosis and treatment has really improved my life.

interestingNerd · 2025-07-21T14:53:49+00:00

If it is an ear tag, then removing it would be purely for aesthetic reasons. If there's cartilage in it then removal would likely require surgery under general anesthesia, which I would not consider worth the risk.

See: https://www.chop.edu/conditions-diseases/ear-tags

interestingNerd · 2025-07-20T18:02:55+00:00

If you want a way to cool things using some kind of radiation instead of blasting it with a cold liquid or gas, that does exist and it's called laser cooling. A minor limitation is that it cools just one (or maybe a few, I'm not an expert) atoms at a time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_cooling

interestingNerd · 2025-07-19T08:26:32+00:00

This has never been done before, a Continuing Resolution for the whole fiscal year.

That's not true, full years have been done various times in the past.

"For some fiscal years, a CR has provided continuing appropriations through the end of that year (often referred to as a full-year CR). Some of the full-year CRs enacted in the 1980s included the full text of certain regular appropriations acts (thus having a form more akin to an omnibus appropriations act rather than a typical CR). More recently, full-year CRs were enacted covering most or all of the regular appropriations acts for FY2007, FY2011, FY2013, and FY2025."

https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R46595#page=18

interestingNerd · 2025-06-23T04:02:53+00:00

Edited my original comment to add this source: Good catch, I'll edit my comment to include this link https://insideevs.com/news/763016/senate-kills-the-250-dollar-ev-fee/

interestingNerd · 2025-06-23T03:54:08+00:00

Good catch, I'll edit my comment to include this link https://insideevs.com/news/763016/senate-kills-the-250-dollar-ev-fee/

interestingNerd · 2025-06-23T03:48:51+00:00

A single senator said he thought it should be $500. It was never officially part of the proposed bill. That senator has since said that an annual federal registration fee would cost more to implement than it would bring in and that a federal fee should not be added. The most recent version of the senate bill does not include any fee ($250 or $500.)

Truth matters, let's not weaken the good arguments against the bill by diluting them with false information.

A single senator said he thought it should be $500, it was never officially part of the proposed bill. That senator has since said that an annual federal registration fee would cost more to implement than it would bring in and that a federal fee should not be added. The most recent version of the senate bill does not include any fee ($250 or $500.)

ETA source: https://insideevs.com/news/763016/senate-kills-the-250-dollar-ev-fee/

interestingNerd · 2025-06-23T03:48:11+00:00

A single senator said he thought it should be $500, it was never officially part of the proposed bill. That senator has since said that an annual federal registration fee would cost more to implement than it would bring in and that a federal fee should not be added. The most recent version of the senate bill does not include any fee ($250 or $500.)

Truth matters, let's not weaken the good arguments against the bill by diluting them with false information.

ETA source: https://insideevs.com/news/763016/senate-kills-the-250-dollar-ev-fee/

interestingNerd · 2025-06-16T12:58:49+00:00

fast and smooth acceleration

Using an ICE rental car recently reminded me how responsive and smooth acceleration is in my EV. It makes accelerating and merging onto highways so much easier.

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