@szakib @schizanon I had considered an electromagnet to either pull the lever away from the tire, or push it toward the tire. But then the issue is the current needed to generate sufficient force, since the motor must make firm contact with the tire, overcoming a possible spring.

Whereas a jackscrew and servo would consume no energy when not moving, but has difficulty with fine-grained adjustments. Then add that some tires have flat spots, due to novices skidding their tires.

@szakib @schizanon Even more things left unanswered:
- how does this detect braking vs inclines? If it doesn't, a lot of motors or brake pads are going to get smoked, or the rear tire will skid out unexpectedly
- the product description suggests the motor can lift itself up and off the tire. Does that mean it has a second motor that can impart enough downward pressure to keep grip on the tire? Is this mechanism fragile or adjustable?
- what behavior during rear tire blowout?

@rk @asherlangton.bsky.social I'm also fairly happy over here in the Fediverse, while recognizing that what we see through the bridge isn't necessarily what the average BlueSky user would see. My understanding is that BlueSky blocklists do a fairly good job of filtering out cranks like this for average users, whereas public figures will sometimes even boost the cranks as a way of public mockery.

Personally, amateur lawyering fails will always be a source of entertainment to me haha

@reece Of *all* the brands they could have used, they chose that one?!?! They might as well have named it "Enron".

@reece Specifically for consumables like liquid laundry detergent, toothpaste, and cotton swabs, I very much subscribe to the maxim of "that which is measured, improves". I use a marker to write the date -- yyyy-mm-dd format ftw! -- on those products, to build an intuitive understanding how far a Costco-sized quantity will go.

With this, I can easily see where reductions can sensibly be made, like drying my ears with a towel rather than three cotton swabs, if I were so inclined.

@q "upside down GSM with Doppler shift" is a mental model that will stick with me for a while.

Excellent talk!

@giflian @nullagent Same here in California. The second window for applications crashed last month when it opened, so they're redo-ing it later this month. The first window had received 100,000 applications or so, well in excess of what the state allocated funding for.

@philpem I always enjoy being reminded of the UK's ring final circuits, a fascinating solution for supplying moderate power capacity all around a small dwelling.

We don't have ring circuits here in the USA, except for utility distribution. But we ought to in one particular scenario: Level 2 EV charging for every parking bay in a multi storey parking garage.

The reality is that not every bay is actively charging at once, so a ring economically provisions all bays with moderate capacity.

@reece For a lot of systemically underfunded USA municipalities -- eg limited to only fees and sales tax revenue, rather than diversified tax sources -- infrastructure is a decade-long commitment that everyone assumes Just Works (tm), but schools, roads, and jobs are viewed more immediacy and thus more attention and votes.

That the states and fed offer competitive grants for infra further obscures how much it would really cost the municipality to build infra on their own.

@kwf That is indeed a solution lol #ChemistryFacts

@reece Nowhere is the standard more venerated than at Vatican City. The Holy C.

(I'll get my coat lol)

@mattgrayyes Delicious tetraethyl lead. Thanks Thomas Midgley Jr.... ?

@philpem A sudden, uncontrolled thermal event.

@reece But if you do change your mind later, please consider enabling the BlueSky/Mastodon bridge so we on Mastodon can still follow along.

#LawTwitter was what brought me to old Twitter in the first place, then to Mastodon when they moved. But I never moved to follow #LawSky except through the bridge.

@philpem @ret If this is a public museum, I'd be interested in visiting if they have additional exhibits about this institutional cock-up (as I think the Brits would say).

At university, I remember the Therac-25 as a case study in why a dogged belief in "the computer can't be wrong" is so dangerous, and it seems like the Horizon IT scandal is sadly a continuing trainwreck of the same nature

@weirdunits A perfectly reasonable unit to specify the necessary grid-scale battery capacity for run-through of small service interruptions.

@reece In just about any tourist destination, especially in remote destinations where short-term rental homes are at odds with workforce housing, these sorts of efficiently-small-yet-featureful hotels would be a massive boon. Ski towns in particular come to mind.

That said, I need to know: what's with the lathe at this hotel's entrance? The small hotel I stayed at in Japan didn't have a lathe, but it did have *two* FamilyMart stores. :)

@lowqualityfacts 65 F would be catastrophic for Antarctic. 65 C would be catastrophic for Earth overall.

@reece Having an eye for value can also include seeing opportunities to derive addl value through clever consolidation. A while ago, I was due to attend a Halloween costume party as a firefighter, and could have bought that one-time use costume for maybe some $30.

But at the time, I was also doing pipe soldering with an open flame, and wanted safety gear. So two birds with one stone: I bought high-vis flame resistant overalls passable as a fireman, and will serve me going forward, for $70 total

@lowqualityfacts I almost thought this was from "NYT Pitchbot" on BlueSky lol