From Allrecipes:

Mix:

• 215g AP flour (1-1/2c)
• 15g granulated sugar (1T)
• 2t baking powder
• 1/2t salt

Add and mix:

• 163g milk (I used Oatley full fat) (2/3c)
• 2 eggs
• 1T vegetable oil (I actually forgot this and they came out fine)

Fry in:

• 2 large apples, cored, peeled, and sliced (3c, 325g)

Fry in 375⁰F (190⁰C) oil for 6 minutes. At 5 minutes, some larger ones were still a little raw in the middle. Shallowly fill a cooking spoon, maybe 1/4c each.

When fresh from the oil, roll in:

• 1/2c granulated sugar
• 2T cinnamon

Very easy to make and delicious. Pretty filling too, I mixed up a double recipe but only cooked half which made 10, and three of us are two apiece and were full.

The only question is, do I file them under "muffins", "fruit bread", "cake & pie", or "cookies"?

From King Arthur's recipe. Hot water and high hydration result in a very soft, extensible dough; lots of flour on the rolling pin and counter are essential.

I'm building a shed, and want a large single door on the end. It's 47" wide by 74" high (roughly 4'x6' or 120cm x 180cm), framed like a regular house door would be (header of two 2x boards with plywood sandwiched; joist and trimmer on each side). I'd like the door to avoid sagging, and also be strong enough so when kids inevitably climb on it that's fine too.

I see lots of patterns for shed doors, for example (from secrets-of-shed-building) the zig zag, with a pair of triangles bearing weight down to the hinge edge:

Or (from artofit but are they the new pinterest or something?) the high single diagonal:

Or rectangles, or exes on the lower or both halves. Does the variety mean it doesn't really matter?

The shed has plywood sheathing, and I'm planning to have a single panel of plywood sheathing on the door, does that provide enough shear stiffness?

And I'll probably use 2x4 framing on the back/inside of the door, maybe lap joints for fun though most people seem to just do butt joints, probbly flat against the door though I see some folks putting the 2x4s edge against the door like they're just framing more wall.

Any experience with sagging or successful doors very welcome, or structural theory to apply here! Thanks in advance.

Every now and then after a big rain these crop up in my basement. No obvious cracks or anything where they pop out of the unfinished concrete floor. I try to dispose of them without too much opportunity to shake of spores, and then douse the floor with bleach, but I also admire their ability to grow with no apparent nutrients.

Prophets are going through the roof!

Probably not really necessary given how shallow it is, but I had fun hand chiseling a very slight birdsmouth for some shed rafters. After some practice (and sharpening), I could get most of the material in one cut. Demos I saw all used a circular saw, so thought I'd share something different.

Iron just starting to warm (above) and ready (below).

Freshly ironed shape (below), and the paper it was ironed on (main post).

The Extra exam asks:

E5D10 - As a conductor’s diameter increases, what is the effect on its electrical length?

HamStudy has this explanation:

From the ARRL Antenna book:

the electrical length of a linear circuit such as an antenna wire is not necessarily the same as its physical length in wavelengths or fractions of a wavelength. Rather, the electrical length is measured by the time taken for the completion of a specified phenomenon.

As the diameter increases the resistance decreases, which in effect lengthens the effective "electrical length" of the wire. Thus you could have two wires of differing physical length which are both electrically e.g. "12 wavelength" at the same frequency because the shorter one has a larger diameter.

So, to restate again: the electrical length increases as the diameter increases.

OpenHamPrep explains with (sorry, seems to block copying text):

I'm having trouble internalizing the explanations though.

Electrical length: How does this relate to velocity factor? I'm picturing how one wavelength at a given frequency fits in the conductor. Compared to velocity factor of 1 (speed of light in a vacuum), if the wire had VF 0.8, I'm picturing that the wave in the wire would oscillate at the same rate but not get as far, so the wave would complete in a shorter physical distance. This matches an equation from picwire:

From HamStudy's explanation, how would decreased resistance mean increased electrical length?

OpenHamPrep seems to make more sense (bigger diameter = more capacitance). But why does that reduce characteristic impedence, and why would lower impedence mean "slower wave"?

Some 92 percent have delayed or abandoned medical care because of costs, according to a survey of 1,507 U.S.adults by financial services firm JG Wentworth.

High prices at the doctor’s office, urgent care, emergency room and more have led to 85 percent of Americans having medical debt. Collectively, American consumers have $220 billion in medical debt, according to a February poll from KFF - that’s around $958.61 per adult with medical debt.

Nearly one in five adults said their health got worse because they skipped a doctor’s visit. That problem is more acute for those 64 and younger - 42 percent say their health got worse after putting off a medical visit.

Broan-NuTone bathroom vent fans have apparently been catching fire (there was a recall a while back, and some fires recently). This case is interesting because the insurance paid and then went to sue NuTone to recoup the payment, but they couldn't prove exactly how the fan overheated so they didn't win.

I was digging into topics for the Extra exam questions.

The interplanetary magnetic field is a vector quantity with a three axis component, two of which (Bx and By) are orientated parallel to the ecliptic. The Bx and By components are not important for auroral activity and are therefor not featured on our website. The third component, the Bz value is perpendicular to the ecliptic and is created by waves and other disturbances in the solar wind.

When the north-south direction (Bz) of the the interplanetary magnetic field is orientated southward, it will connect with Earth’s magnetosphere which points northward. Think of the ordinary bar magnets that you have at home. Two opposite poles attract each other! A (strong) southward Bz can create havoc with Earth’s magnetic field, disrupting the magnetosphere and allowing particles to rain down into our atmosphere along Earth’s magnetic field lines. When these particles collide with the oxygen and nitrogen atoms that make up our atmosphere, it causes them to glow and emit light which we see as aurora.

For a geomagnetic storm to develop it is vital that the direction of the interplanetary magnetic field (Bz) turns southward.

I was looking at E3C05 on HamStudy, which I'm enjoying as a more productive alternative to doomscrolling.

What orientation of Bz (B sub z) increases the likelihood that charged particles from the Sun will cause disturbed conditions?

The bar is clamped in a metal vise, so the vise is very slightly heated and that side of the bar is much cooler.

Taken using the Topdon Android attachment.

Got part of a faint signal using my Arrow antenna and Yaesu FT-60. The pass was up to 60⁰ I think, so not likely to get a lot stronger. But juggling satfinder.ca, antenna direction, the Robot36 app, and Doppler frequency adjustments all myself is a bit tricky, I could see getting better results with someone helping.

Made using some oak scrap.

Hand tools for most of it. Drill press was useful to get the depth of the counter sink for the screws' shoulders.

On 13 April 2029, asteroid Apophis will briefly come within 32 000 km of Earth’s surface. It will be the closest approach of an asteroid of this size that humans have ever been aware of in advance.

During the approach, Apophis will be affected by Earth’s mighty gravity. The side of the asteroid nearest Earth will be pulled towards our planet more strongly than the side farther away, resulting in tidal forces that will stretch and squeeze it, perhaps triggering quakes and landslides, and change the way it rotates.

Posting an alternate source for some more detailed info relative to another shared article.

cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/[email protected]/p/2233823/unreasonably-pleased-when-i-can-charge-from-excess-solar

Additional detail for DIYers: I used vuegraf to publish MQTT from my Emporia Vue, which OpenEVSE can natively consume.

I somewhat recently connected Emporia Vue's 'net production/consumption' metric to my OpenEVSE so I can make use of the 'eco divert' feature that only charges from excess solar production. Since my utility charges for transmission of net-metered power, this leads to some savings. When we have cooler summer weather it shows up very nicely on the graph.

EVSE view:

(Hopefully this is OK for this community. Not news, but could be a nice highlight/discussion. If not, glad to find another spot to share it.)

I somewhat recently connected Emporia Vue's 'net production/consumption' metric to my OpenEVSE so I can make use of the 'eco divert' feature that only charges from excess solar production. Since my utility charges for transmission of net-metered power, this leads to some savings. When we have cooler summer weather it shows up very nicely on the graph.

EVSE view:

(Hopefully this is OK for this community. Not news, but could be a nice highlight/discussion. If not, glad to find another spot to share it.)

Gaffney had used his iPhone to snap photos of nude prisoners he had encountered in his job—and he had then shared those photos with “several female civilian employees inside the Sheriff’s Office.”

Gaffney was fired from the Sheriff’s Office last month and was today charged by Bucks County District Attorney Joe Khan with “secretly photographing naked prisoners.” This didn’t result in just one charge, either; Gaffney was hit with a batch of charges, including official oppression, unsworn falsification to authorities, possessing an instrument of crime, and obstructing the administration of law or other government function.

I got a J-Pole for VHF/UHF on Craigslist, and now that I have a NanoVNA (highly recommend!), I can see it's not correctly tuned for 2m. It looks like it's about 50MHz low for my 146MH ideal center, and while SWR of 3.4 is kinda usable, from what I read it's not great for the radio nor ideal for transmission.

The antenna is made from ladder line, with a gap near the bottom (the defining characteristic of a J-pole I believe) and a twist in the center. It's mounted to a 4x4" wooden post on my roof deck, with a small nail at the top and a plastic+nail coax clip near the bottom. There's a string of party lights near the top (almost always unplugged) which I discovered was severely detuning my HF dipole that ran parallel to it; but the J-pole is perpendicular and I don't have another better mounting option.

I've read advice on tuning J-poles but it was too technical, and I didn't understand which part to trim. Is there somewhere I can trim without having to re-solder? (I'm comfortable soldering, but would prefer not to in this case since it's physically awkward to either solder in place or take it down/up.) Or can I do something to raise the resonant frequency non-destructively?

Thanks for any advice!