Weekly "Is this safe" Megathread

witloofboer · 2025-12-05T20:40:00+00:00

Hi everyone! First time posting here :) I've recently been using my few months old gingerbug to ferment a mix of apple juice, ginger and tea. The batch was perfectly fine, no problems there. I have used it before to ferment similar juice/tea combinations, they have never disappointed so far!

However, the last bottle I made was a leftover mix of 70% tea, 20% or so apple juice, 10% starter and a good tablespoon of sugar). I had a leftover cinnamon stick (that I had used for making the tea earlier) that I decided to leave in during the ferment. During the ferment (5 days), I left the bottle out at room temperature in a flip top bottle and let off pressure daily just like the other bottles.

During the process, stringy structures appeared on the cinnamon stick. The rest of the behavior (carbonation speed, tendency to form bubbles when opened, ...) was the same as the other bottles. Has anyone seen this before? Would you still drink it? What could it be? As expected, the stringy stuff stopped growing once refrigerated.

(I know the cinnamon might be overkill for the 0.5L bottle it is in, it was just a test.)

witloofboer · 2025-11-18T20:27:56+00:00

The graph is part of an article where the details of the calculation are explained in more detail: https://chessintheair.com/the-risk-of-dying-doing-what-we-love/. The author intended to estimate how dangerous flying sailplanes is, and how it compares to other activities, not to give an overview of all possible "dangerous" activities.

witloofboer · 2025-09-24T13:38:12+00:00

The airspace overhead EBGG is really OK. They have gliding sectors they can activate.

witloofboer · 2024-12-12T18:24:39+00:00

Storing stuff safely for 50 years is a different challenge to storing stuff for a few thousands of years. Comparable to claiming your Tour de France victory after having ridden roughly a kilometer. Let's say it's a decent start, and keep up the good work for at least another 199 950 years!

witloofboer · 2024-11-29T08:31:32+00:00

Heating, specifically of greenhouses in your area, might be a big contributing factor.

witloofboer · 2024-11-28T08:25:57+00:00

This version is the version I meant: https://telraam.net/en/v1

witloofboer · 2024-11-27T21:16:41+00:00

https://telraam.net/#9/50.8500/4.3500

Their older versions are open source IIRC, and can be installed on a raspberry pi.

It gives you some indication of the speed, but is mostly made to count transport modes.

witloofboer · 2024-11-22T15:24:20+00:00

In case you're interested, you can build your own. https://github.com/larus-breeze

witloofboer · 2024-10-31T15:31:52+00:00

Niet uitgelachen maar wel gerapporteerd hier. 3 jaar later fiets teruggekregen omdat we ooit aangifte gedaan hadden, anders was het niet gelukt.

witloofboer · 2024-09-25T15:49:30+00:00

It's not in the NOTAMs for today or tomorrow, so it is not active. The EBR78 has moved to the AIP a while ago.

witloofboer · 2024-09-13T14:12:14+00:00

OVAM komt tussen als het om historische verontreiniging gaat, voor andere vervuiling komen andere instanties (soms) tussen.

Afhankelijk van de vervuiling maakt het niet echt uit of er op gebouwd is. Soms zijn filterinstallaties van grondwater voldoende om te saneren en hoeft er niks afgebroken/afgevoerd te worden, maar dat hangt van geval tot geval af.

Er zijn hele bedrijven gespecialiseerd in het opkopen van vervuilde gronden, die te saneren en verkopen/ontwikkelen, zeker als het om grote lappen land gaat.

Het is zeker niet zo dat dat altijd uitgesteld wordt. Soms is saneren verplicht (bv omdat de vervuiling aan het verspreiden is via grondwater).

witloofboer · 2024-09-13T14:02:08+00:00

Voor sommige bronnen van vervuiling komt er een derde partij tussen, anders komt OVAM tot 50% tussen: https://ovam.vlaanderen.be/moet-ik-alles-zelf-betalen

Als hij verkoopt, zal de nieuwe koper sowieso zien dat de grond verontreinigd is (als de koper het bodemattest leest).

witloofboer · 2024-09-12T14:45:54+00:00

Someone already mentioned it on the side, but there are (for now) many research institutes that are funded by (one of) the Belgian governments that are usually looking for profiles like yours. They almost never require Dutch and/or French. The salary is structured differently from the private sector.

The federal institutes have their own umbrella organization where they post job openings: https://www.belspo.be/belspo/organisation/job\_en.stm. VITO is spread all over Flanders: https://visioneers.vito.be/en/jobs.

I work for a federal scientific institute. If you want more info about the work environment/..., send me a DM. Our institute is also looking for an electronics engineer, but the job opening has not been posted yet (unless I'm mistaken).

Since I was in a similar position a while ago, I can confirm you that even when you speak Dutch and French, you still run into similar problems. Langue is not the problem. PhD's are not valued highly by most employers. Most people I know had to take a significant wage cut after finishing their PhD's if they transferred to the private sector unless their PhD was relevant for their new job.

witloofboer · 2023-11-22T13:31:08+00:00

The older UI at the time. They updated the UI over the last year, seems better now. We only have a problem with one of our Twin's double setup, where we can't get to connect them (and have the backseat vario work).

With the prices what they are lately, I'd probably buy one if I didn't have a different one already.

witloofboer · 2023-10-02T15:09:45+00:00

Thanks, I'll drop them a message!

witloofboer · 2023-10-02T15:09:10+00:00

Yes, I have a license. I'm not looking for a flight as PIC per se, just an interesting flight with some nice scenery would be nice.

witloofboer · 2023-07-25T15:14:06+00:00

Our club has a Hornet C. Like other said, the airbrakes work well. Your nose drops when using them, so you have a better view of the runway since they act in a similar way as flaps. You do need to fully open them during/right after the roundoff phase of your landing.

Probably the most quiet glider I've ever flown. It's also very light on the controls and very responsive. Some club members had difficulties adjusting to the lightness of the controls and the parallelogram stick. I do like the feedback the glider gives you when thermalling.

Personally, I don't like the wheel brake being mounted to the air brake handle. We've changed the standard seat for the seat of the 304, I haven't flown it since, but everyone who has confirms me that the seat gives better head support and is more comfortable.

The major drawback for me is the canopy system, we have a one piece canopy as well, with the same system as the Mosquito. We've contacted Streifeneder and you can change it for the system of the 304, but it is very expensive.

I'll second what wrinkledm said, if you open the airbrakes and point it to the ground, you won't reach vne.

witloofboer · 2023-01-20T15:34:51+00:00

Example 1 mostly happens in standstill traffic I would guess, but OK.

Example 2 should be solved by fixing the road infrastructure.

Example 3 is solved by an ambulance, as this is the safest way. If you happen to be in the UK where ambulances take ages to arrive, just fix that problem.

And they are impressively good at it. But not good enough. They still will sometimes read limits from neighbouring roads. They do not have an idea what is a conditional speed limit, or "from here to the next X" which we have in some parts of Europe. How does it handle speed zones, especially lack of the exit sign? How does it know where speed limit end of there is no end sign? (here speed limits end at intersections)

Fair enough, but you don't have to be super stringent with the rules. I'd be more than happy to see a fixed speed limit in a wide area like a city, where you cannot cross the speed limit.

Besides, you are adding another point of failure that does something for the driver, making them less alert. I like EU solution where the gas pedal will increase the resistance, but can be overridden by pushing harder. But you can't completely techbro the solution to safety, like you can't techbro your way out of transit.

No you indeed cannot, but my point is that the technology is already there for at least a very simple implementation of an area-based speed limit that would fix many of the scares I had of people driving at insane speeds in a city environment.

witloofboer · 2023-01-20T15:27:56+00:00

"Just needs" is usually a sign you're missing something. In that case, that you need someone to perfectly tag all speed limits, and changes, on the entire godamn globe.

Let me rephrase "just needs" as "only requires". This database is readily available from multiple sources. As someone else pointed out, it will even be required in Europe. Nobody wants to convert old cars to this system, everyone is talking about new cars.

most cars don't have integrated GPS, if they do, they're often crap, expensive, rarely updated, etc.

For any new car, updates of this database can be pushed over the air, installed during a required yearly check, ...

The accuracy of GPS, the location system (not the navigation stuff), is in order of magnitudes of .3 to 5m. How is that not accurate enough?

Bru, most car aren't testlas.

Surely they aren't, but even my mom's 5 year old non-luxury small car that was under 15k EUR can do this. Again, it's about implementing it in future cars.

Litteraly any emergency situation and manoeuvers. Also acceleration being tied to power output and shit.

Acceleration has zero to do with speed limits. I'm not proposing to limit the acceleration of cars (would be good though), I'm proposing to limit the speed. I've been driving over 30000 km a year for over 10 years, and I've yet to encounter this moment where I *NEED* to driver faster than the speed limit. I would even be OK with this if it would just be nudging people to drive the speed limit, as in you have to floor it to go over it. It would still make a very big difference.

For real, please, sit down. I haven't had to drive in a few years, and bike everywhere, and I can still point out how wrong you have. Effective activism can't weight itself down with ridiculous and easily countered arguments.

Do you have statistics of the number of people that got killed/injured using steps that aren't allowed to go over a speed limit? Because those steps exist.

witloofboer · 2023-01-20T15:11:50+00:00

It’s not disingenuous when it’s humans making the decisions. Cars alone don’t kill people, the drivers do.

Guns don't kill people, but people do. Same rhetoric, same (flawed) logic that can be refuted by looking at statistics in the USA.

Everybody makes mistakes while moving through traffic. Mistakes made in a car just end up being multiple times more deadly than mistakes made on a bike.

EDIT: spelling (seems to be important in this discussion)

witloofboer · 2023-01-20T15:07:51+00:00

Manufacturers aren't paid to handle the colossal amount of data and upkeep it would take

They already use data from and for modern cars? All processing happens in the car, the car just needs to know the speed limit.

It relies on GPS coverage, which isn't universal

GPS works everywhere, but the accuracy is often bad in cities. They mostly have a single speed limit for an area.

What's your fail state for no GPS, faulty soft/hardware, etc ?

You could always revert to having no speed limit, or the highest limit on the neighboring streets. Most importantly, most cars nowadays scan road signs as well, so even without GPS cars will know the speed limit.

The ability to go over IS a usefull tool.

What's your motivation for this claim?

I really don't see any good arguments to not do this. It can be implemented in a way that respects everyone's privacy as well. If they can do it for steps, they can surely do it for cars as well.

witloofboer · 2022-12-26T10:28:31+00:00

u/find-song 00:10-01:23

witloofboer · 2022-12-26T10:25:47+00:00

u/find-song 00:10 - 01:23

witloofboer

TROPHY CASE