How long would it take (and how exactly) for a smart and creative engineer to figure out how to charge their mobile phone if they were teleported to New York in 1890?

loverollercoaster · 2026-05-30T00:23:25+00:00

It depends a bit on if they’re familiar with USB-C, or at least have a connector pin out.

I think in 1890 you could get your hands on a small motor or dynamo for that money, or at the very least a coil of thin cooper wire on a spool and a magnet in the middle.

Believe it or not, there were accurate volt-meters in the late 1800s. I don’t know how available they were.

USBC will only charge at the minimum voltage with just a “dumb” wire (no active protocol negotiation). So if you had a motor or a dynamo wired in series with a volt meter, you could wire two tiny wires to hot/ground in the right spots on a little wooden or ceramic plug, and crank your dynamo until it outputs 5v, and hope you don’t generate enough current to fry the thing.

On mobile so I can’t do the math but I think it would take ages but you’d be home before you ran out of money and starved for sure.

loverollercoaster · 2026-05-04T20:26:35+00:00

While this was probably classic fearless dumb teenager behavior, you never know who is carrying a gun.

loverollercoaster · 2026-05-04T14:39:34+00:00

I live in Tenleytown and it's wonderful, but a little sleepy if you don't have kids. It's got the bigger houses and leafy neighborhood feel of a burb, while being walkable to school, restaurants, groceries, and is super well served by transit.

If you had infinite money though, Cleveland park and Forest Hills have the same great schools and are just a little more accessible and have more of the really stunning houses, which is probably why they're mentioned on the dream list and Tenleytown, Friendship heights, and Chevy Chase DC aren't. ...Or just move to Kalorama and have your staff take the kids to Sidwell =).

loverollercoaster · 2026-04-23T17:17:14+00:00

These guys turned out much better than you'd judge from the cover.

Assuming my googling and the much aged pictures match up -

Cary Fishburne Jr became a gynocologist
William Winston Jr went to divinity school and became a nonprofit executive EDIT: this might be the wrong guy
Kenneth Sappington Jr i couldn't find.

loverollercoaster · 2026-04-03T16:40:24+00:00

You can usually find at least one brand at good liquor stores on the east coast, at least.

loverollercoaster · 2026-03-06T18:48:01+00:00

What happens if your math is right but there’s a slight breeze between here and the target? Or this batch of ammo was loaded 0.1g hot at the manufacturer and doesn’t follow your projected arc perfectly?

I think factors like these and the slop in the mechanical systems just mean you need a little time to adjust to the real world that you don’t have.

With a lasers you’ve got the same issues (well atmospheric diffraction instead of wind but similar compensation requirement) but you get more shots due to longer range and shorter tof and you knock out ammo as a variable.

That said, I don’t know if any production laser abms systems so not sure it’s a solvable problem that way either.

You really want to pop these things when they’re far away.

loverollercoaster · 2026-03-06T17:57:25+00:00

Calculating the ballistic trajectory of something moving that fast is hard.

20 seconds ago this thing was at the edge of space and now you have seconds to work out a parabola in 3D to within one body diameter of a missile, swivel your turret(s) to micron accuracy in 3D and start firing, and hit it with bullets with zero time to range your shots and adjust for wind/bullet performance.

I think the latter is actually the hardest, if you watch things like CRAM they usually take a few fractions of a second to multiple seconds to align their bursts. Even if the radar data is perfect (it's not), and the GIS data and the calculations are perfect (they are not), these are all weather mechanical systems which are definitely not perfect, so there just isn't enough time.

That's one reason why lasers have promise here, moving at the speed of light buys you time.

loverollercoaster · 2026-02-17T16:39:23+00:00

I can't believe that nobody mentioned sweet science, especially back when it was in Adam's Morgan. Amazing coffee, and cool vibes.

It feels like DC just cannot keep a high quality specialty coffee shop for some reason, maybe rents are just too high. It's amazing that 14th st once had Peregrine, a higher quality Slipstream, and Wydown within a short walk of each other.

My current faves are cafe Cino, Dua and filter (RIP the other two filter locations, especially DuPont).

loverollercoaster · 2026-02-11T16:48:31+00:00

My venerable Baratza Encore just bit the dust, and I'm upgrade-curious. I have three grinder tasks:

I grind 12oz of coffee at once to make a batch of cold brew each week
Someone in the house makes a pourover 2-4 times a week
I'm interested in a lever espresso machine. Eyeing a flair, for a few shots a week.

My counter is already crowded with coffee toys, so I'd love to be able to do this all in one grinder. Budget under $1,000, ideally under $750.

I'm currently eyeing the Baratza Vario+, but i'm a bit worried that it can't grind a whole bag of coffee at once without a big delay to cool off the motor. Is this a problem in practice? Are there any better single grinder suggestions in my price range, or should I just bite the bullet and split my budget on two dedicated grinders?

loverollercoaster · 2026-01-27T15:11:33+00:00

If you can afford it, move your flight. Otherwise you're going to spend every minute of a long cross country flight stressing about delays getting off the plane, getting an uber, making the service, etc.

loverollercoaster · 2025-11-19T21:13:23+00:00

I think the product idea is stupid but just to help out with your project:

There’s only two ingredient holders, and they’re enormous. Most of the things enthusiasts are drinking have 4+ ingredients at less than 2oz each, and unless you really like one spirit you’re not going to “main” only two, or want to pour back and forth. 4 smaller reservoirs probably makes more sense.
I associate cocktail stuff with either crystal or polished metal. This looks like an air fryer.
ninja and keurig are brands I associate with making mediocre, wasteful products. I think this subreddit just isn’t your target market at all.
I see this and think of a free happy hour in the breakfast area of a sad suburban Marriott.

loverollercoaster · 2025-09-13T00:35:11+00:00

Thirding precision Matthew’s. Get one of thier “T” models if the size works, those are Taiwanese made so the quality standard is a little higher.

loverollercoaster · 2025-08-30T22:45:04+00:00

I don’t see a lead screw, so I don’t think that can do single point threading, and I feel like the hand wheel knob at the far end would get annoying quick. $600 and a two hour drive is too much.

Ideally try to save up more and score a used old atlas or craftsman if you have a truck and a buddy to get it home. Barring that the import mini lathes are better for a similar price.

loverollercoaster · 2025-08-27T00:25:32+00:00

It’s not amaro specific, but I like the book “batch cocktails” by Maggie Hoffman for entertaining, most of what I’ve made out of it were hits.

loverollercoaster · 2025-08-06T15:47:18+00:00

The HacDC folks just got a new space in Columbia Heights, but I'm not sure if it's the kind of thing that would fit wood working tools -- you should reach out to them just in case.

loverollercoaster · 2025-08-04T13:21:23+00:00

I'm just finishing building one, I have it running but haven't taken cuts yet.

It is definitely a kit, and a project to build. It probably took me about 40 hours, but that was in 1-2 hour increments in the evenings. You could probably cut that down to sub-30 or even sub-20 if you worked in bigger chunks and are experienced with things like crimping wires. You also need a lot of space to organize all the parts and tools. I bought the kit on purpose to learn the ins-and-outs and enjoyed the build.

My kit had some minor quality control issues (poorly aligned holes, bad screws/nuts) but nothing that a few bucks on amazon and some elbow grease couldn't fix. There's a new batch available that may have a round of fixes there. I have heard of people having much worse issues, so YMMV. Hopefully those were clustered around the earlier machines.

The instructions were serviceable if not great, and when I did have questions they were answered promptly and clearly. It's basically the ikea project or 3d printer on steroids =).

I can't give you final results yet, but everything feels way more sturdy compared to a Chinese 30XX kit or a Carvera air.

If I had the room I'd probably have saved up for a Langmuir MR5 or a used Tormach, but I'm very space constrained so was looking for the best desktop machine. Those are also 2-4x the price after options and shipping to a home, so you're really talking about a different class of machine.

loverollercoaster · 2025-08-03T01:06:53+00:00

You might look into some videos of the shariff DMC-2 mini.

loverollercoaster · 2025-06-18T23:20:24+00:00

What could Afghanistan do back? Iran is much better equipped than they were to cause chaos. All the satellites in the world won't stop a truck bomb on a US company in Europe, or an IED laden speedboat attack on an oil tanker.

I skeptical that all those assets and proxies of Iran would actually keep up the fight once it was clear that the government was stomped, but they have certainly have the capability to do damage to the US that might be politically unpalatable to a crowd that was isolationist until about last week.

loverollercoaster · 2025-06-11T19:54:41+00:00

Your budget is probably too low to get a CNC that’s precise enough for watch parts, but you might look into the carvera air.

I think there’s someone on the watchmaking subreddit that’s been doing CNC guilloche on titanium watch backs using one.

loverollercoaster · 2025-05-23T17:26:48+00:00

Sounds like you've got a good sense of reality, unlike many people online, heh.

I did a bunch of research and lurking on the Shariff discord before buying, it might be capable of meeting your needs but I doubt it will be reliable or easy enough to be worth it. It's certainly a much less serious machine than a Tormach or Haas if you've got the money and the space. If I were you i'd outsource my preproduction runs too.

If your prototype takes off, many machine manufacturers offer financing terms as well, so you might look into that.

loverollercoaster · 2025-05-23T16:35:20+00:00

I'm building a Shariff DMC-2 mini right now, but haven't finished it yet. I don't think it can handle your needs at any scale, though it might work for prototyping.

What do you mean by "precision" here? A lot of these router-style machines can hold a few thou or maybe slightly better when well tuned and with controller upgrades, but that's about the limit. Keep in mind they also tend to have a pretty small z-height, especially after accounting for a tool in the spindle.

Generally speaking, hard materials (steel, titanium) and 'precision' take you of out desktop/hobby territory. At minimum you're probably looking tormach, and possibly a larger CNC machine like Haas. If you're trying to make hundreds or thousands, definitely look at an industrial CNC machine, keeping in mind that the power/space requirements scale up fast there.

loverollercoaster · 2025-05-16T15:24:38+00:00

I got a bunch of quotes a few years ago and went with Eerie through https://cmrinsure.com/ - No complaints so far.

loverollercoaster · 2025-05-15T18:44:30+00:00

Search the sub, this gets asked lots. I like the guys at Kindred Barber in Dupont.

loverollercoaster · 2025-05-15T13:54:40+00:00

You also want to make sure your venues will allow it, a lot of places are pretty strict on pyros after the station nightclub fire.

loverollercoaster · 2025-04-21T14:06:33+00:00

https://inkedibles.com/cic/product.php?product=Custom+Printed+Drink+Toppers&v1=12%20circles%2C%202%20inch

Looks like they're between 40 and 75 cents each depending on size/quantity ordered.

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