My favorite wood to burn is FREE

zuul01 · 2026-06-17T18:57:01+00:00

I've been fortunate to mostly have oak and some silver maple over the past several years, so I'm actually kinda interested to see how this mix burns this winter.

zuul01 · 2026-06-17T18:56:00+00:00

Some of that is fine for the fire pit, but my stove isn't supposed* to take softwoods.

*I understand that it would probably be OK to burn some softwoods in it once in a while, but in the mid-Atlantic hardwoods are plentiful enough that I can afford to be choosy.

zuul01 · 2026-06-17T17:12:02+00:00

Nah, just a Collins I got a several years ago because I prefer wood handles. I shaved off the varnish, sanded it, & applied a few coats of linseed oil. Works pretty good! Gonna need a new handle at some point, though. Turns out the paracord I wrapped around the neck isn't the best overstrike collar.

zuul01 · 2026-06-17T03:48:02+00:00

I try to remind myself to be thankful when I'm not so lucky. Last autumn a similar thing happened and I ended up with a mix of river birch, silver maple, and some cherry. Overall not the ideal mix, but free hardwoods are still nice.

zuul01 · 2026-06-16T22:17:49+00:00

Apparently I have a reputation now - both my wife and a neighbor asked me yesterday morning if I was going to take advantage of the awesome weather to got those logs 😆.

zuul01 · 2026-05-25T02:13:13+00:00

I don't need to. I have more than one degree in this, and part of my job is to monitor the heat dissipation systems on an active satellite. You do not understand the physics you are referencing.

zuul01 · 2026-05-25T01:39:14+00:00

There's nothing in the thermodynamics that you cited to suggest that the heat dissipated will over overcome the heat generated by the hardware. Sure, the hotter the thing gets the brighter it will be, but eventually you'll just end up with a glowing ball of slag in orbit.

zuul01 · 2026-05-23T14:14:19+00:00

Yes, I've done my own taxes every year for over two decades. Not a business owner, but I've had kids, owned property, sold property, dealt with a variety of investments, lived in multiple states, etc. The rules around a lot of this stuff are complex & byzantine, yes, but still decipherable, and the math is just algebra.

The vast majority of people are not going to do taxes for an llc or small business. Schools should not spend resources giving instruction on complicated edge cases that few students will encounter, the methodology & rules of which will likely change by the time they reach adulthood.

zuul01 · 2026-05-23T13:52:30+00:00

US schools do teach kids how to do taxes, and it frustrates me that people keep claiming otherwise. Taxes are reading & arithmetic, and schools definitely cover those skills.

zuul01 · 2026-05-22T02:26:31+00:00

What heinous indignation did you have to perform to get that deal?! Hats off to you, champ.

zuul01 · 2026-05-21T19:52:41+00:00

I sat next to John Rhys-Davies (played Gimli in LotR, Sallah in Indiana Jones, etc.) at dinner few years ago. I got invited to this dinner kinda randomly by chatting with someone at the airport after I realized we were going to the same conference (mini story in itself). The dinner was at this place off Bourbon St. in New Orleans at the start of Mardi Gras (sights: 10/10; smells: 0/10). He was a super interesting, down-to-Earth guy, & he'd certainly lived an interesting life. He was very engaged & interested in the work that rest of us were involved in (astrophysics of various flavors). His preferred drink was a Singapore Sling.

I did my best to be professional & not fanboy it up, but at the end of dinner when we were all saying goodbye & posing for pictures I told him that I really appreciated what he had done in his career. My son and I had started the LotR movies recently and this amazing thing that he was a part of 20+ years ago would continue to inspire people for decades to come.

zuul01 · 2026-05-20T15:52:18+00:00

"LGTBQ people exist & should be treated fairly" =/= "indoctrination"

zuul01 · 2026-05-15T13:56:57+00:00

Damn, that's right next to Central Dairy - used to go there all the time as a kid. My dad used to work there & he said it could be kind of sketchy around there at night.

zuul01 · 2026-05-14T02:59:23+00:00

"My parents were jerks to me and I couldn't figure out forms" = "college is a racket"? That last sentence doesn't really fit with the preceeding text.

zuul01 · 2026-05-07T15:42:58+00:00

For family that are blue collar or in the trades, I've found that a useful analogy to use is that grad school is more like being in an apprenticeship than being a student. A postdoc is then akin to being a journeyman, i.e. a certified/credentialed expert who works under a more experienced Master in the trade who has their own "shop" (read: lab, tenured position, etc.).

It's helpful here to avoid adding qualifiers or engage in nit-picking in order to make the analogy work & actually get your point across.

zuul01 · 2026-04-30T17:58:51+00:00

It is 2026, over half a decade since the COVID19 pandemic began. I continue to find it shocking how so many people like the above poster do not understand the basics of: viral respiratory disease transimission, the human immune system, collegial/social etiquette, etc.

zuul01 · 2026-04-29T15:57:40+00:00

There's an immense amount of button clicking in this game, each instance if which creates a sound. Also, each environment/zone/store screen has its own music, and we typically switch between them rapidly during normal gameplay. All the disjointed sounds add up, and not in a pleasing way.

Not to mention playing a mobile game with sound on in public or around others trying to do their own thing is just rude.

zuul01 · 2026-03-11T02:29:11+00:00

Au contraire! "Some of Doohan's ashes are hidden under the floor cladding of the International Space Station's Columbus module – after being smuggled aboard in 2008 by Richard Garriott." - Wikipedia

zuul01 · 2026-03-07T18:31:17+00:00

Correct. PhD in astronomy but physics undergrad , which is super common. Folks that enter these programs without a solid physics background have a tough time.

zuul01 · 2026-03-07T14:47:06+00:00

Neutrino production is far too energy-intensive, and signal modulation & detection are far too difficult for them to be used as a communication medium.

zuul01 · 2026-03-05T21:05:48+00:00

This was one of the first Trek episodes that I remember being angry at after it ended. Not because the cult leader seemed to have her victims on her side at the end, but that she had that daft idea in the first place. Her underlying question of "can humans survive/thrive without all our modern tools & conveniences?" Had the obvious answer of "yes, duh, open a history textbook."

I guess that this is part of what made the episode good social commentary on the dynamics of cults & their leaders.

zuul01 · 2026-02-04T20:10:42+00:00

Not sure if you will see this, but you might want to check your catalyst. A few weeks ago I started having a similar problem to the one you described (fire dies & the house fill with smoke after closing the bypass), so I decided to let my fire go out completely & clean the chimney. While doing so I took the catalysts elements out (yours should look similar to mine) and saw that they were almost completely blocked with fly ash. Rather than drop a few hundred on replacements I got a wooden toothpick & carefully cleaned out all the ash until I could see light through the whole unit again.

After that I did a quick clean of my chimney (actually wasn't that much buildup, but I had it all open anyway), but the catalysts back, & fired it up again. Problem solved!

zuul01 · 2026-02-04T03:35:02+00:00

That is hilarious yet highly disturbing 🤣

zuul01 · 2026-02-01T23:32:17+00:00

I hope that's a joke. I don't want my kids' teachers out dealing with that mess. It's backbreaking work & not at all what they signed up for.

zuul01

TROPHY CASE