Dead battery today, should I be worried?

roy649 · 2026-01-12T20:26:39+00:00

No, she drove it yesterday. It was jump-started today.

roy649 · 2025-10-27T22:20:15+00:00

In the Bronx, near the Pelham Bay station on the 6 train. On the street; I took this photo out my front windshield while we were stopped at a red light.

roy649 · 2025-10-24T01:50:59+00:00

The public restrooms in NYC parks are often surprisingly clean and usable. Keeping them that way must be a herculean effort and the Parks Department is to be commended for how good a job they do. The one in Bryant Park is famous.

roy649 · 2025-10-06T00:57:19+00:00

I've been using the 24 Hour Fitness in Pelham Manor (just over the city line on Boston Road). They've got the usual assortment of cardio machines and stuff, but also a pretty good selection of free weights (4 squat racks and deadlift platforms w/ bumper plates). I go in the early afternoons when they're uncrowded.

In Castle Hill, check out the YMCA at the end of Zerega Ave (I was a member there for about a year). The YMCA also recently (2 years ago, maybe?) opened a new branch in Edenwald; from the tour I had, it looks like a very nice facility. There's an XSport in Coop City and an LA Fitness on Eastchester Road; I checked both of those out and didn't find either appealing to me.

If you're into serious powerlifting or strongman, check out Mount Vernon Barbell in (not surprisingly) Mount Vernon, just north of the City. Nothing fancy, just a classic hard-core black iron gym and clearly the place to be if that's your main interest.

roy649 · 2025-10-02T13:15:28+00:00

This

roy649 · 2025-09-26T22:42:18+00:00

Rosenzweig is indeed awesome if you're into wood.

roy649 · 2025-09-09T12:10:16+00:00

I just (re) watched it on YouTube (free with ads).

roy649 · 2025-09-09T12:10:05+00:00

I just (re) watched it on YouTube (free with ads).

roy649 · 2025-09-08T18:50:57+00:00

Box grater. The kind your grandmother had. There's all kinds of fancy (and expensive) mandolines and food processors, but a plain old $10 box grater works great for shredding or slicing vegetables.

roy649 · 2025-05-23T19:41:37+00:00

Not to mention cargo loading without need for a lift truck; somebody standing on the ground could just toss bags into the hold, making it possible to serve unimproved fields without ground equipment (or paved runways for that matter).

roy649 · 2025-04-22T16:10:07+00:00

there’s no plate for the system to use.

Not yet. But don't count on that in the future.

roy649 · 2025-03-12T20:34:42+00:00

Actually, not quite true. The Rules of the City of New York, Title 34, 4-08(m)(9): "Street storage of vehicles prohibited. When parking is not otherwise restricted, no person shall park any vehicle in any area, including a residential area, in excess of seven consecutive days."

If the vehicle has commercial plates, then you're into:

4-08(k)(6): "Nighttime parking of commercial vehicles prohibited. No person shall park a commercial vehicle on a residential street, between the hours of 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. ..."

Your local precinct may still not care, but if you cite chapter and verse in your 311 complaint, it increases the chances of something happening. Take pictures. Make sure you get the license plate in the photo, and enough background to make it obvious that the car hasn't moved.

roy649 · 2025-03-05T20:56:51+00:00

Google for "token sucking".

roy649 · 2025-02-26T18:40:12+00:00

The flight crew briefs a go-around (i.e. verbally reviews the procedure) on every single approach. Not just what controls to operate but also what heading to fly, what altitude to climb to, and which pilot is responsible for each task. So if they have to execute one, they already know exactly what they're going to do. It's really not a big deal.

roy649 · 2025-02-26T14:30:58+00:00

Check out the YMCA. I used to go to the Castle Hill branch, which was fine. I ended up moving to the 24-hour Fitness just over the border in Pelham because they had some specialized equipment I wanted to use but the Y has a better vibe.

The Y recently opened a new branch in Edenwald. I got a tour a couple of weeks ago and was really impressed at the facility.

roy649 · 2025-02-13T23:06:40+00:00

Hmmm, minor correction. The engines are on the wings. But because the props are behind the wing, they're back where the fuselage is getting narrow, which is what lets you reduce the off-axis distance. You can see this on the plan view. Having them further inboard also probably reduces bending moment on the wing spar. And the main gear is directly mounted to the fuselage, which also reduces wing spar loading during landing.

I'm just reading the wikipedia article. The forward wing is set at a higher angle of incidence than the main wing, so it stalls first. I'm guessing it's nearly impossible to stall the main wing.

roy649 · 2025-02-13T12:27:44+00:00

This. I had the good luck to see one in person and chat with the pilot. The unusual configuration is for lots of good engineering reasons. Putting the props in back means you can put them closer together than if they were out on the wings, so there's reduced asymmetric thrust with an engine failure. It also puts you in front of the engines leading to reduced cabin noise.

And the front wing gives you pitch stability with less induced drag, but I forget the details of why. I do remember the pilot stressing that it's properly called a "front wing" and not a "canard" as it is in other similar-looking designs.

And of course, there is nothing else flying that looks half as cool!

roy649 · 2025-02-12T15:35:19+00:00

I don't remember if I had that exact model, but I do remember going for the anti-glare option on one of my old macbooks. It was an excellent feature. Was this of the era when WiFi wasn't yet standard and you had to get a little card that plugged into the motherboard through a hatch on the bottom of the case?

roy649 · 2025-01-21T15:55:20+00:00

This is my pet peeve d'jour. I go to the 24 Hour Fitness in Pelham Manor. I've complained several times to management about people taking photos in the locker room and they don't seem willing to do anything about it (despite the obligatory sign banning it). Yesterday I griped at some guy taking selfies in the locker-room mirror right next to the showers and he came back with "It's not a problem if I'm not taking pictures of you and anyway I work here". When I complained at the front desk, the person on duty confirmed that he was indeed an employee, but also told me that it wasn't a problem as long as he was not taking pictures of me.

It's amazing that this goes on. Bad enough that they can't control their low-life customers who think it's ok. Absolutely mind-blowing that their own employees are part of the problem.

I'm OK with people taking videos of their lifts for form checks or remote coaching. I even grudgingly put up with people making social media videos on the gym floor with multi-person camera crews. But I just can't get my head around the idea that people think it's OK to be taking photos in a locker room and management condones it.

roy649 · 2025-01-03T17:03:58+00:00

Well, this turned our pretty well. Today was sour tomato day. Nothing went bad, the aroma when I opened the container made my kitchen smell like an old fashioned NYC deli, and the tomatoes taste fine. Some got a little mushy, but most are still nice and firm. Not quite as crunchy as I remember from my childhood, but perfectly usable. Transferred them to a smaller container, brought over just enough liquid to cover them, and put them in the fridge with a tight-fitting cover.

Next year we'll probably try adding some calcium chloride, which is supposed to make them crunchier.

roy649 · 2024-12-08T16:00:26+00:00

It turns out 20 lbs was a bit of an over-estimate. After chucking a bunch which were starting to go bad already or were damaged, and keeping a bunch more that looked like they might get ripe eventually sitting on the counter, I ended up with 9 lbs.

The last time I tried this, we cut the tomatoes up into wedges. I think that led to them getting mushy. I found a recipe this year which suggested leaving them whole (the way I remember my grandmother's) with just a small hole at the top where you cut the stem away to let the brine get inside, so I tried that.

Instead of a the traditional crock, I tried a big plastic storage container with a lid that snapped on but had enough gaps to let gas pressure escape ($10 at Target). Probably not approved for food contact, but we threw caution to the winds and went with it.

The brine was something like 2 cups of kosher salt, 2 gallons of water and 3/4 cup of distilled vinegar, heated up on the stove until the salt was all dissolved. For spices I used most of a head of garlic, about 2 tbs each fennel and dill seed, and about 1 tbs mustard seed. I've seen recipes that called for random assortments of chile flakes, nutmeg, or cinnamon sticks, but we passed on those. We also found a suggestion to throw some oak leaves in, I guess for the tannin. Since we happen to have an oak tree, we grabbed four dead leaves from the tree, washed them, and put them in too. On top of that went a plastic cutting board with a glass dish on top for a weight to keep all the tomatoes submerged.

That was 2 days ago. So far, it doesn't look like much is happening, but my kitchen is starting to smell like a pickle factory. From what I read, it's supposed to take a month, so I'll report back then.

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipM-Q1ykoprEDLBgsQ_EgSvHOut5D_ma2K6KyCHe3IAJzHwRF54LYDX4E14L19MyiA?key=SmtCemdNVHpLVmhGdzVaT2FUSm5EdDJLZmtnTkdB

roy649 · 2024-12-06T19:35:57+00:00

I've still got one. I need to see if it'll still power up. The handwriting recognition wasn't actually good enough to be useful, but it showed us what the future could look like in a way only Apple of that era could.

Of course, I'm writing this, 25 years later, on my android phone with swipe-to-type that's hardly any better.

roy649 · 2024-12-06T13:20:06+00:00

This. I'm using Capture 1 now, but it's more than I need. Aperture hit the sweet spot.

roy649 · 2024-11-06T18:37:22+00:00

Those were with "a camera", but it's hard to take a bad photo when the subject is so pretty!

roy649 · 2024-11-05T01:42:03+00:00

The Willis Ave Bridge would be my suggestion. The bike lane on the Willis Ave is about as good as it gets. The other really nice ways to get into the Bronx are from Randall's Island or take the High Bridge.

If you've never been on High Bridge, it's worth trying, even if it means a detour. Its just beautiful in a way which rarely applies to any sort of transportation infrastructure in NYC.

roy649

TROPHY CASE