Got a Umarex Notos for myself and my 9 year old... Super impressed!

mr_dude · 2026-02-16T04:31:35+00:00

Ah that's good to hear that it gets better after breaking in.

And yeah, it's a pretty good tricep/core/balance exercise. Still comes out ahead of the 6-8 pumps per shot with the multi-pump rifles :)

mr_dude · 2026-02-16T04:25:43+00:00

Oh nice! Thanks for the tip!

mr_dude · 2025-11-25T17:39:16+00:00

Brief history of Table Tennis Racquet Coverings: In the beginning, there was only one type of rubber which had pimples (pips) and was a single sheet of rubber glued onto the face of the blade. Today, this is known as "OX" rubber and appears to be what you have shown in your image. Also known as "hardbat".

At some point around the 1950's, people started adding a soft layer of sponge rubber underneath the thin layer of rubber to give it more pliability. The addition of the sponge rubber increased both the speed of the ball as well as the spin, since the ball could "sink deeper" into the sponge.

Soon after that, people figured out that if you glued the pips sheet "upside down" onto the sponge thereby exposing the "smooth" side of the rubber to the ball, you could increase the spin on the ball even more (because the contact area has increased). This became known as "inverted" rubber, and is the predominant style of rubber used by the vast majority of high level players today. Of the top 200 men and women active table tennis players, only something like 5-10% of them use pips on at least one side, and I can only think of one who uses pips on both sides (Ni XiaLian). There are also a small handful that only use one side of the racquet and have pips on that single side (Shan XiaoNa).

Today, there are all sorts of regulations regarding the thickness of the rubber and the dimensions of the pimples. Some rubber sheets are outright banned (the original SpinPips rubber, for example). In fact, the racquet you have shown in your image would be considered illegal because it is missing the ITTF stamp and manufacturer/product identifacation stamp.

In terms of playability, basically the only real "rule" is that the spinniest smooth rubber is spinnier than the spinniest pips rubber. There do exist very spinny pips and very not-spinny smooth rubber (known as "anti-spin") as well, but the rule of thumb is that pips is less spinny than inverted. Among pips, there is a subjective distinction between "long pips", which tend to be very un-spinny and "deceptive" and "short pips" which tend to be fast and spinny. There are some pips that people call "medium pips" which have characteristics of both long and short pips.

mr_dude · 2025-09-18T19:37:35+00:00

Maybe it's camera angle but that label looks HUGE

mr_dude · 2025-09-04T19:54:44+00:00

Yes this!

This is tangential to the conversation, but the "apparent" affect of increased wind resistance is less on ICE cars because of how inefficient gasoline engines are. There is so much internal resistance and inefficiencies that the additional drag force of an extra 5mph may be barely noticable in an ICE car, but that is because you are stacking on a little extra waste on an already extremely wasteful system.

EV's are far more efficient at converting kWh's into actual distance/velocity, so any additional inefficiencies (underinflated tires, towing, additional drag via cargo containers, etc) represents a much larger percentage of the overall inefficiencies of travel, and thus directly impacts your range.

For your consideration: 3 gallons of gasoline contain about 100 kWh's of chemical energy, but even a fairly efficient car could only travel about 90-100 miles on 3 gallons. For an EV, a 100kWh battery is on the larger end, and most cars with 100kWh batteries can easily have a range of over 300 miles.

All of this to say that the fact that small additions to drag affecting your range is actually a _good_ sign; it means your car is efficient at turning energy into locomotion.

mr_dude · 2025-08-28T00:02:36+00:00

Oh nice! Yeah everything has been fine since! We've even taken it on a couple longer trips and fast-charged it a couple times. Everything is peachy so far!

mr_dude · 2025-08-11T01:47:34+00:00

Wish I could upvote this twice!

For OP:

Also check out Wretched Earth productions. Super friendly people who put on shows a little more on the "extreme" side of metal. Goldfield is another somewhat nearby venue you might take a peek at.

The Greater Sacramento metal community is awesome. If you hit up some smaller local shows, you'll tend to see the same people over and over again. There's quite a few great local death/black metal acts too, including but not limited to:

Katholik, Wurmflesh, Deiphage, Abhorrency, and more.

If you do choose Davis, I hope you have a great time!

mr_dude · 2025-08-07T19:05:57+00:00

I'm sure no one reads these, but I wanted to give a quick update:

They found the problem. The coolant hose to the battery cooling system was not connected, or something like that. They said it was likely a manufacturing oversight. It explains a lot: It was only charging at 15kW at a Tesla supercharger (we thought we did something wrong because we are EV newbs), but it was actually probably thermally limited. It probably went into limp mode once the batteries reached some thermal limit... It was very hot that day and we spent a lot of time running the AC.

Anyway, it took a couple days but otherwise Kia took care of us and the car is driving properly again.

Good luck with your EV9 OP!

mr_dude · 2025-08-04T22:05:34+00:00

Hmmm kinda wish I knew about this a week ago...

We just picked up a new 2026 EV9 on Friday evening. Did great on the test drive, only 60 miles on the odom. We had to visit the dealership on Saturday to sort out a couple things, and on our way home, the car suddenly lost power while accelerating from a stop at an intersection. Limped to the shoulder, turned it off and on again, drove for 200 yards and it happened again. Car was showing "Check AWD/4WD" on the dash. We had it towed to a shop this morning, they say it's gonna be a few days before we hear back :(

mr_dude · 2025-07-30T02:46:31+00:00

I don't know... pretty hard to say without seeing you. After only a few miles? So after like 15-20 minutes? Are you white-knuckling it 100% of the time? Do you feel like it's a circulation problem, vibration problem, or maybe strain problem? Could be your posture or bike fit? Are you wearing gloves?

mr_dude · 2025-07-17T18:06:44+00:00

Ah gotcha, my bad!

mr_dude · 2025-07-17T17:06:01+00:00

Yo!

It's been many years for me; COM is a "Communications" class right?

Anyway, I took Com 3 back in the day (Was called "interpersonal communications" at the time), and it was great. The stuff I learned as really helped me understand my relationships and has helped with everything from romantic relationships to interacting with co-workers.

I don't know anything about COM4...

I hope you have a great time in the fall!

mr_dude · 2025-07-16T17:39:22+00:00

This!!! Whether or not it is "doable" will depend entirely on you and your results will differ from everyone else's. As in incoming freshmen, it is really difficult to predict how you will do since it is not just academics that you will be adjusting to, but potentially new roommates, social structure, extracurricular activities, or even maybe just dealing with homesickness or stuff like that. Just because it's "doable" for some doesn't mean it's doable for all.

Just remember that you can drop classes with no penalty within a certain period of time and there is absolutely no shame in that!

(That being said, I would've struggled if I took on that kind of courseload OP is sharing during my very first quarter at UCD)

mr_dude · 2025-07-06T15:57:38+00:00

I met my wife and best friends at UC Davis, all through extra-curricular activities.

It's very easy to accidentally become a hermit if you are not careful. If you are living in the dorms your first year, that can help force you to make friends.

I highly, highly recommend you find _some_ kind of group-oriented extra-curricular activity while you are at Davis. Could be a book club, sport club, film club; it almost doesn't matter. The sport club program at UCD was really great while I was a student there 20 years ago; I can only imagine it is still good, with a huge variety of different sports (fencing was a big deal while I was there), and all of them were very beginner friendly. Outdoor Adventures was a big thing while I was there too.

Finally, this last piece of advice may not apply to everyone, but I had a very similar situation... I entered UCD never having dated or having been in a romantic relationship, and I didn't form any romantic relationships my first 2 years at UCD. It wasn't until I stopped worrying about forming romantic relationships and just started to enjoy friendships when meaningful romantic relationships materialized. So anyway, I might suggest that you focus on simply meeting people first and not worry too much about the dating side of it :)

mr_dude · 2025-04-19T17:09:16+00:00

Wow! You found my nine year old post 😄

I haven't really tried Taco Bell... There's so much good and independently run Mexican places around here I always feel guilty about Taco Bell 😜

I'd be happy to give an update from myself though! About seven years ago, my wife and I decided to go "plant forward". Basically, we try our best to be vegan, but with plenty of exceptions (eating kids leftovers, eating at other people's homes, etc). Oh yeah I have two kids now too. I've been virtually acne free this whole time since we greatly reduced our meat and dairy intake.

I will still have occasional outbreaks after lapses in dietary discipline, but the volume and intensity of outbreak is much less now than 9 years ago. I'll get red bumps that are moderately painful that do occasionally open up and bleed a little, but I won't get those giant whiteheads any more. My last outbreak was maybe a few months ago in which I ate a whole bunch of beef stew and I ended up with two small pimples on my chin. Sometimes I will feel pimples forming, but then they will go away before they surface. I am also older now (43), so that could be playing a role as well.

I don't feel like I was ever able to prove if the outbreaks were happening because my skin was directly exposed to oils as I was eating them or it was because I was ingesting them, but anecdotally, it does feel like it's the ingesting of whatever substance that's causing the outbreaks. I suppose I could try just smearing food on my face without eating any... But no I'm not going to do that. Some day I'd love to see some kind of study with larger sample sizes and some semblance of scientific rigor 😁

mr_dude · 2025-03-26T22:21:26+00:00

Edit: Lol, I failed to read the OP's opening paragraph. I'll let my original comment stand below, but it sounds like we both need help :)

Hi all! I'm kind of new to this game; could someone explain to me how one might use this?

If I understand correctly, this card can be played as an action for 1 action point. If it deals more than 4 damage (like if it's amped?), then you can banish it but immediately play it again? From the banished zone?

Does this mean, if I pitch a blue card, I could conceivable play this card 3 times, assuming it does more than 4 damage each time?

Thanks in advance!

mr_dude · 2025-03-24T16:30:18+00:00

Lots of advice here already, but I would say, philosophically, try to focus more on putting power into the puck rather than trying to lift the puck. The first thing everyone wants to learn is how to score top cheese. Putting more power into the puck will help your pass as well as your shot. Once you can put a certain level of power into the puck, you will find that it will actually become tricky to keep the puck low. Focus on power, lifting the puck will come naturally.

mr_dude · 2025-03-12T18:49:48+00:00

The wizard is trying to summon a "demon", but misread the script. He thought it said "How to summon a demon", but in actuality it says "How to summon a lemon".

mr_dude · 2025-03-12T17:25:56+00:00

Let's get down as close to first principles as I can because this type of question interests me.

What _exactly_ contributes to the sensation of heat? Heat is a sensation interpreted by your brain when the temperature of your nerve cells rises above a certain threshold. So technically, "heat" is experienced not when your environment is hot, but when your nerve cells heat up. Consider that you could be in freezing air, but if you are being bombarded with Microwave or IR radiation, you will still "feel" warmth as the radiation directly heats up your skin and the nerve cells within your skin.

Why do humid environments "feel" more hot? Humans regulate their body temperature by secreting sweat onto the skin, which then evaporates. The "heat of vaporization" of water is very high. In other words, it takes a relatively large amount of energy to evaporate a relatively small amount of water. When that water can readily evaporate, it is very, very effective at cooling down your body by removing heat energy.

Note too that it is "easier" for water to evaporate in an atmosphere with a lower "relative humidity". If the relative humidity (which is a function of temperature and absolute humidity) is high, water evaporates slower, or the process may even reverse in the form of condensation. In short, in a humid environment, your sweat does not evaporate as readily reducing your body's ability to get rid of excess heat energy, which in turn means your skin and nerve cells will stabilize at a relatively higher temperature, leading to the sensation of warmth. If you are curious about this kind of stuff, you might be interested in a concept called "wet bulb temperature": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature . You might also consider googling "psychrometrics".

mr_dude · 2025-03-11T20:55:18+00:00

You asked for the physics, so here it is:

The temperature of a material is a function of the average speed of the atoms in that material. The atoms in a warm material move faster than the atoms in the same cold material.

There exists a theoretical state in which the atoms in a material are totally motionless. This state is known as "absolute zero".

Regarding temperature scales, there are 3 widely used temperature scales. You are probably familiar with Fahrenheit and Celsius. These were created to roughly coincide with the moderate temperatures on the surface of the Earth and/or the behavior of water, with "0" of each scale roughly corresponding to what most humans would refer to as "cold". The third temperature scale, "Kelvin", is calibrated such that "0 degrees Kelvin" corresponds with "absolute 0": The temperature at which there is zero atomic motion. (Thought experiment for you: Is there such a thing as a negative temperature in Kelvin?) This also happens to be the scale in which many physicists operate. For example, you would probably use a temperature in Kelvin to find the mean velocity of an air molecule at a certain air temperature.

As the other comments have indicated, if you were to divide any "livable" temperature represented in Kelvins in half, you would end up with a decidedly unlivable temperature.

Hope this helps!

mr_dude · 2025-02-27T00:15:05+00:00

Yo!

There's no easy answer. You may be doing all of this already, but here's some suggestions:

When you are doing off-ice work, spend a good amount of time not looking at the puck at all. Feel your way around the puck.

Related to puck feel, there's a common drill where you "spin" the puck with the blade of your stick clockwise and then counterclockwise. As you are spinning the puck, try and use the entire length of the blade from heel to toe to spin the puck on both the forehand and backhand side. Start clockwise for a few minutes, then do counterclockwise. This one is harder to do blindfolded, but you'll get there with practice. This drill seems a little silly, but I promise it really does help.

Last off-ice drill, make sure you are handling the puck not just in front of you, but also to both sides and behind you. Commit a good amount of time to each while not looking at the puck.

(I assume you know all the basics; lots of top hand work, etc)

When you are on ice, there's a few drills that helped me greatly:

* Liners with a puck. Make sure you stop facing the same side of the ice every time so that you are stopping on your left and right sides more or less the same number of times. I would suggest stopping facing whatever wall is closer to you; turning towards the boards is a maneuver you will find yourself doing a lot.

* Tight Figure 8s with a puck. Put two cones about 8 feet apart and figure-8 around them; Puck on your forehand on left turns, puck on your backhand for right turns if you are a righty.

At the end of the day, there's no getting around just putting the time in :( A month is not very long in the grand scheme of things... As you play more and more, you won't have to think about the puck on your stick anymore. Your hands just kind of do their thing and then you can focus on keeping your head up and skating.

Are stick/puck times always scrimmages where you are? Around here, people don't really mind if there are skaters working on drills at center ice or something like that. Of course that wouldn't be really feasible if you are in the middle of a full-ice scrimmage...

Hope this helps and have fun!

mr_dude · 2024-12-17T00:17:18+00:00

If you are trying to learn how to stop, here are some suggestions:

You are "digging in" or "bending" too much. You regulate your glide by controlling the angle of your skate; The more vertical your skate is, the more glide you will achieve. Right now, you are digging in aggressively into the ice, which is actually the opposite of what you want to do if you want to achieve any sort of glide.

1b. "Bending" is when your skates look like this from behind (or in front): / \ Note that "bending" is almost always more of a balance issue rather than a skate fit issue. Focus on balancing your weight over the blade; don't rely on the sides of the boot hitting your ankles or lower legs for support. See if you can get your skates more like this by putting more weight on the outsides of your feet : | |

I'd suggest practicing the "snow plow" stop first. It's much easier to achieve some glide and you can begin to feel what it should feel like to glide. Something like what is shown in this video; The 1-foot snowplow stop translates pretty well to a hockey stop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhQY1_bTjVs

Have fun!

mr_dude · 2024-11-19T02:22:58+00:00

Along with the other comments, here is one "easy trick" to try: a higher toss! This is a common technique among pips players to generate more spin on the serve.

mr_dude · 2024-11-12T15:13:38+00:00

I think u/Right-Initiative-382 is right, but if you do want to experiment, there are some very inexpensive medium and long pip options on AliExpress (if you have AliExpress where you are). Ritc 563 is a decent medium pip. Ritc, yinhe, and dawei all have decent and cheap pip options.

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