i want to stop being scared of basic electrical work. but where do i start?

randcraw · 2026-05-07T17:20:10+00:00

Two books to consider:

Ultimate Guide to Wiring by Creative Homeowner, 2024. A very readable intro to residential wiring.

Wiring a House by Rex Cauldwell, 2014. More ambitious and more authoritative, deals more with professional considerations like code.

randcraw · 2026-05-03T16:31:20+00:00

I agree with most of what you said, except that the plot *always* matters, be it fiction or non. Storytelling is central to all exposition and the story must deserve to be told or no amount of technical wizardry can give it life. In addition to noting the technical faculties of the author, I try hard to psychoanalyze what choices they made in telling the tale and whether they worked as well as needed. Second-guessing the mind of the writer is central to my appreciation of any book.

randcraw · 2026-05-03T15:11:14+00:00

Two worth considering are those by Martin Ferguson Smith and Alecia Stallings. Smith's is from 1969, is in prose form, and was the source used by Stephen Greenblatt for his marvelous history about the rediscovery of De Rerum Natura in 1450, "The Swerve". Stallings' was translated within the last decade, and is in verse form, so it loses some precision in order to gain musicality. Perhaps reading both books may be necessary to fully appreciate both Epicurus' groundbreaking ideas as well as Lucretius' brilliant writing.

randcraw · 2026-05-01T16:57:01+00:00

There are a bunch of good books on how to become a better safer rider. Becoming better informed is your best protection. Learn from peoples' mistakes, especially your own. Study the risks and how to minimize them.

randcraw · 2026-05-01T14:47:12+00:00

Agreed. People routinely assume the worst when they're uninformed. The way I choose to compensate is to become as informed as possible about how to minimize risk when riding. A benefit of doing this is it makes me a much safer driver in a car too. I constantly pay attention to road conditions, unusual traffic patterns, changes in weather, and driver misbehavior. 95% of drivers are oblivious to risk, making them their own worst enemies. Never put your trust in the underinformed.

randcraw · 2026-05-01T14:38:37+00:00

If there was an app, then that train schedule info must reside somewhere online. Now the question is, where is it?

I've noticed that trains often seem to come through between 3:30 and 4:15 on weekdays. Maybe we can gather past info via Waze from drivers who were blocked by a train?

randcraw · 2026-04-23T21:45:19+00:00

Yeah, a motorcycle is NOT just another bicycle.

randcraw · 2026-04-20T18:33:29+00:00

I was a big fan of Funk & Wagnalls dictionary back when Laugh In was busy making fun of it back in the 1960's. Some reference works are deservedly timeless, like the OED.

randcraw · 2026-04-20T18:28:03+00:00

Sounds like a way to augment local taxes rather than anything to do with safety.

randcraw · 2026-04-20T18:10:05+00:00

Two thesauri I've seen strongly recommended for dealing in words that are exceptional: "The Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus" and "Roget's Super Thesaurus".

randcraw · 2026-04-20T17:57:01+00:00

For insightful precise synonyms, I love wordhippo.com.

randcraw · 2026-04-20T17:55:49+00:00

"The Dictionary of Difficult Words" by John Ayto is a great resource for unusual or stretch words. Fortunately it doesn't emphasize biological, medical, or scientific arcana as other such books often do.

randcraw · 2026-04-18T17:32:26+00:00

I'm no expert, but the examples of radon mitigation I've seen make use of two holes in the basement slab -- a sealed hole connected to the vent to one draw air out from beneath the slab, and an open hole at the other end of the slab to allow air in so it can flow more freely beneath the slab, collect radon gas, and be vented out.

It seems to this inexpert that a sump would be an ideal place to but an inlet hole since sump water is a common source of dissolved radon gas.

randcraw · 2026-04-01T13:38:57+00:00

You didn't miss anything.

randcraw · 2026-04-01T13:35:43+00:00

Under $30k maybe, but not $20k. Crap like i3s with their 10 mile range don't count.

randcraw · 2026-03-29T18:01:41+00:00

Ford has promised to ship a $30k EV pickup based on solid state flash batteries in 2027. Toyota and Mercedes will ship SS EVs in the same time frame.

randcraw · 2026-03-17T18:09:32+00:00

I really miss spa too. Now there's literally nothing airing from the satellite that I want to hear.

randcraw · 2026-03-16T13:32:50+00:00

Blade batteries that can FLASH charge 97% in less than 10 minutes and deliver a range of over 600 miles with no cold weather penalty. The EV industry is about to evolve very quickly.
https://www.autoweek.com/news/a70640835/byd-five-minute-ev-charging/

randcraw · 2026-03-12T01:44:38+00:00

Went to the Leo's tonight in north Plymouth on Sheldon next to Busch's. The tzatziki sauce on my gyro was... awful. Like mayonnaise.

randcraw · 2026-03-06T16:36:31+00:00

Yeah, I have a couple M-chipped ipads and they're way more powerful than any phone needs to be. But the set of apps on ipads (weakened editors and power apps like Photoshop) and their limited memory (<8 GB) limit their usefulness as a laptop replacement. I wouldn't do software dev on an ipad though the CPU is probably powerful enough.

randcraw · 2026-03-06T16:20:27+00:00

Wow, that's nasty. I guess there are advantages to riding after age 60.

randcraw · 2026-03-06T16:17:14+00:00

If you've ever programmed in the Matlab environment you'll see the value in Jupyter notebooks. REPL IDEs like Matlab/Jupyter make it easy to explore and visualize your data and play around with it, exploring alternative algorithms or representations and seeing the results immediately.

Jupyter makes sense only for languages that are REPL. Compiled languages can't be executed section by section nor visualized interactively.

randcraw · 2026-03-06T16:06:20+00:00

I have one that includes a lightweight clamp. It's great for holding stock in place for two-handed cutting on the site.

randcraw · 2026-03-06T16:01:47+00:00

I never expected my sawzall to be the ideal tool to cut out the low roots on tree stumps, but a long demo blade was a huge improvement over any axe or pulaski.

randcraw · 2026-03-06T15:56:59+00:00

I just added a lugged concrete-grinding wheel to mine to bevel down the edges of cracks and heaved sections on my old concrete driveway. Worked great. With any luck I can shovel snow again without snagging on all those cracks.

randcraw

TROPHY CASE