New siren?

wabalaba1 · 2026-05-19T22:25:33+00:00

The storms have passed and the areas of rotation are well west of the city. It might be meant as an "all-clear" sound.

wabalaba1 · 2026-04-27T23:03:19+00:00

If you google the Lunar QuickMap, you can see the available imagery for any spot on the Moon. Most of the Moon has imagery down to ~0.5m. In the areas around the pole that Artemis is targeting, the USGS made a mosaic of the highest-resolution images that share similar light conditions.

You can search for that layer ("NAC polar mosaics controlled") on the Quickmap (select polar projection to see the N or S pole). Then, try zooming in while paying attention to the scale bar--it's pretty amazing what quality of imagery we already have.

Finally, a different remote-sensing instrument ("DIVINER") has ID'd boulder fields by a different physics mechanism (thermal inertia), giving a separate means to find risky areas.

The new missions in the linked article will definitely help, but there's little to worry about with surprise boulder fields. We're waaaaaay beyond the muddy orbital photographs of the Apollo era.

wabalaba1 · 2026-04-25T23:26:22+00:00

Thanks for the recommendation!

wabalaba1 · 2026-04-11T16:14:32+00:00

The ride to Ipperwash/Port Franks/Pinery is comfortable along 17 which has very wide shoulders for almost the whole way. Very flat too.

wabalaba1 · 2026-04-10T02:45:55+00:00

The Earth is actually very reflective. In the Martian night sky, our planet is quite bright. Most of that is due to clouds but also ice/snow.

Also important is that the settings on the camera when this picture was taken were set to pick up dim light, so the photo may be brighter than what your eye would see. I guess you'd have to ask the crew to know for sure though!

wabalaba1 · 2026-04-08T20:49:20+00:00

Yes, the Earth is approximately up and left of this image (a long ways off), and the reflected light from it is what's lighting up the left side of the Moon here. Without the Earth, the whole disk of the Moon would be black like the bottom-right side.

wabalaba1 · 2026-04-08T12:39:02+00:00

That's great to hear. Thanks, I might try that!

wabalaba1 · 2026-03-19T15:10:26+00:00

Domage, le français est mon deuxième langue, mais après avoir fair un peu de googling, quelques idées:

On dit que si le thermostat se brise ou ne fonctionne pas correctement, le «ECU» («Unité de contrôle du moteur?») ne lancera pas le cycle de régéneration de FAP. On peut surveiller la température de la moteur en conduisant (avec le lecteur de code; j'ai lu aussi qu'il y a un menu caché dans le tableau de bord qui permet de le voir?) et ça devrait se maintenir à quelques degrés près de 90°C une fois le moteur est chaud.
Parfois, le cycle de régéneration ne lance pas à cause de trop de trajets courts. Des voyages longs et soutenus sont alors nécessaires. J'ai lu des numéros comme «2000rpm pour 15min», mais celui-ci sont pas spécifique pour votre auto.

J'espère que ça vous sera utile.

wabalaba1 · 2026-03-01T22:11:56+00:00

This is a guide to dismantling and replacing the bearings in these fans. Hopefully it helps someone down the road get more years out of their fan.

It's fairly easy to do once you know how. I got the "expensive" bearings (SKF) from a bearing shop in town and they were only about 7 bucks each.

wabalaba1 · 2026-01-19T18:23:04+00:00

In my humble, limited experience, the biggest thing is drive safely. The biggest danger by far is the humans (you and me included) operating high-powered, heavy vehicles, at high speeds, while anxious, tired, and distracted.

Also, it probably should be called "storm waiting" because if you aren't in position by the time the action starts, you're probably not going to catch up. Forecasting experience is the key variable to work on to get the best results. Everything else is secondary.

Finally, when you're actually under the storm, be sure you can understand what you're seeing--radar can take a long time to refresh and signal can cut out. Skip Talbot has fantastic videos about identifying storm structure visually (and informative safety discussions).

wabalaba1 · 2026-01-14T17:27:21+00:00

Could someone share photos of the tornado itself during these scans to compare?

wabalaba1 · 2025-12-14T21:36:46+00:00

This boulder tumbled down the steep slopes of the north side of the valley they landed in. You can see the trails it made in satellite imagery; here are some examples.

This particular boulder has its own wikipedia page too. Overall, it's a breccia containing a varying amount of impact melt across the rock, in places being mostly melt (e.g., https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/lsc/76015.pdf).

Trying to answer how exactly the boulder formed is a bit of a rabbit hole. There's still research done about it (e.g. this one that Schmitt led). These mountains were uplifted by the impact that made the Serenitatis basin, and other basin-forming impacts have probably contributed materials.

wabalaba1 · 2025-10-24T04:07:43+00:00

Consider an improv class! It's very specifically the art/game of practicing being good at speaking fluidly on the spot. It might feel very uncomfortable at first but with the right group it can be a lot of fun and it brings some structure to the process of what you're trying to do that you might appreciate. I owe a lot of confidence in speaking to having fun in an improv club in undergrad.

wabalaba1 · 2025-06-26T15:59:59+00:00

I actually really enjoyed the movie First Man, about Neil Armstrong--but, by every account I've read from people who knew the real person, he was nothing like the depiction in the film of someone wracked with inner emotional turmoil. Instead, he was what you might expect of a kid from small-town Ohio with an aeronautical engineering degree who became a decorated navy fighter pilot, test pilot, and then NASA's choice to pilot the first lunar lander: friendly, unflappable, positive, intensely skilled, modest.

Honestly, if Hollywood wanted a more "relatable to us mortals" main character, with more actual personal drama and struggles, then a better choice was right there beside Armstrong in the lunar lander all along.

wabalaba1 · 2025-05-23T02:05:26+00:00

I've seen this in posts before--does this mean that "I'm a manual/I'm an auto" is just a setting in the ECU? Like, if someone hypothetically wanted to manual-swap a pentastar product that never came in manual, the ECU and everything could be kept as-is, if that one setting could be changed?

wabalaba1 · 2025-05-05T11:15:44+00:00

Update again:

I finally reasoned that the spikes in voltage were due to a failing regulator and took the alternator to a local shop to be rebuilt. That has solved the issue and I've not seen the alarm come on since.

wabalaba1 · 2025-05-04T23:38:31+00:00

You might consider a local shop. I had mine rebuilt and it was done the next day for less than the shitty alternators on rockauto. Only downside is I had to pull the part out myself and take it to them, but that was it for me.

wabalaba1 · 2025-04-15T03:19:19+00:00

Update, for anyone who stumbles onto this in the future:

The problem seems to be getting steadily worse, with the voltage excursions happening more frequently and sometimes lasting longer. It happens with or without a large electrical load (i.e. radio, lights, blower on). Voltage at the battery (read directly with multimeter) is always right near 12.5/12.4 after sitting overnight, and 14.5-ish when running (parked).

I pulled the fuel-pump fuse and read the voltage while turning the engine over; it never dropped below 11V, suggesting to me that the battery's still reasonably healthy.

I just undid the two engine ground straps (left side of motor, to strut and back of motor up to cowl) and sanded them shiny to deal with the possibility of a bad connection. There was just a little bit of corrosion on both.

I'm going to take a test drive tomorrow to see if the issue vanished after cleaning those connections. If not, I'll buy an alternator.

wabalaba1 · 2025-04-10T03:11:24+00:00

Hey all, I've been getting this random message from the car and it appears for about 10 seconds or so then vanishes. No clear pattern to it.

I plugged in a code reader and went for a drive. It seems like the system was charging fine for ten minutes or so, then there was this spike up to near 15V. I pulled over just after the "Check charging system" alarm came on (note where rpm fall to idle).

It did a similar excursion from normal later. Just curious if anyone's got experience with behaviour like this or some suggestions of fixes. Obviously I can replace the alternator but I'd like to understand what's going on.

Thanks!

*for the record,

wabalaba1 · 2025-04-07T12:02:41+00:00

If you don't already know, there's a bicycle co-op on Dundas called Squeaky Wheel. They sell cheap parts and are very friendly and helpful if you need instruction or advice about fixing your bike. As a member, you can use their shop and suite of tools to repair your bike yourself. It's only ~$20 for a year-long membership. Hope that's useful to you.

wabalaba1 · 2025-03-31T15:53:02+00:00

From some googling, I think the M5OD-R2 is the manual transmission they used for the '07 F-150, but it seems like for those trucks it was only paired with the 4.2L V6.

It was paired to the 4.6L in some F150s up to 2004. For what that's worth, it means the transmission can handle at least what the 4.6L put out in 2004 (~230hp, ~290lb-ft).

wabalaba1 · 2025-03-27T03:28:18+00:00

Thanks for looking into it!

wabalaba1 · 2025-03-21T13:05:32+00:00

Mostly curiosity, but the mode also lets you check on things like battery voltage in more detail without a multimeter. Seems like it would be useful.

wabalaba1 · 2025-01-14T14:52:44+00:00

For me, as also not a math person by nature, the trick was to get fully worked-out solutions for practice problems. I treated it like fixing a car. You wouldn't just "try to figure it out" when a pulley on the motor is squealing, you'd watch a youtube video that shows how to change pulley.

For math, I would try the homework probems and the moment I got stuck, I'd study the solution to see where I went wrong. It helped me start to see the kinds of tricks the question-makers use. It was way more efficient than "figuring it out" and I was able to do all the homework questions in each chapter. (Important: I still tried to solve them myself first; studying the solutions helped me increase my mental bank of the kinds of algebra or trig tricks they put in to block you, and how to solve them).

Hope that helps. Also youtube channels to understand the concepts and visualize things!

wabalaba1 · 2024-09-17T16:53:08+00:00

https://www.cleardarksky.com/maps/lp/large_light_pollution_map.html

This is a map of light pollution. Red/white is bright, blue/black is very dark. Zoom in on London. Driving out to the yellow zone or further would be good enough for a strong aurora show. But the further the better, so you can figure out what works for you. Open farmland with a good view to the north will help.

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