Notices by Emily Velasco (mle_online@social.afront.org)

The traffic signal at the El Monte civic center is suspiciously favorable to people leaving city hall or police headquarters -- like to the point that it's really ridiculous how much it favors that tiny cul-de-sac over the huge thoroughfare it connects to.

I'm tempted to do a public records act request for all communications between the city traffic engineer and the city manager, the police chief, council members, and city department heads

@botvolution how did it get a funny name like that?

My taro plant just opened its second flower, and a third flower is on the way

@spetku It's so cool, huh. What a proud spadix

A friend of mine is in a master's degree program right now and they're telling me how one of their classmates is upset because he got 80% on a paper when chatgpt told him he would get 100%

AI is going to be the leaded gasoline of our time

@botvolution There's definitely a strong resemblance. I would have thought the same, except ladybug larvae are always bright orange and black around here

@botvolution When we do media training for faculty members at work, one of the things we tell them is that if they are making an important point, they should state it three times. I applaud you for practicing that

A tiny little bug was hanging out on my calipers. Small but fearsome looking.

It looks like it's a lacewing larva

I want an MPPT thingie so I can charge my DIY backup battery with solar panels when camping or in case of power outage.

However! All of the ones I find are BIG. Like 60 amps or 80 amps charging current. I don't need anything that big. I'm sure 5 amps would be plenty enough, but does anyone seem to sell that? Not that I can find so far.

@k0ffy i need one for 36v lithium ion, so it looks like this one won't work

@k0ffy The price is decent. It's just that if a 100A one is $44, i feel like should be able to get a 10A one for like $15, but that doesn't seem to exist

Here's a little bicycle hack that may or may not be useful to you bicycle people out there. I'm sharing it just in case it is.

A while back, @smellsofbikes told me that on many bikes, the bottom bracket threading is the same as the freewheel threading.

That seemed like a random bit of trivia until I needed a spacer to push this sprocket outward on this hub by about an eighth of an inch. I was digging through my bin of washers looking for one the right size (not finding one), and thinking about making a custom washer on the metal lathe when I remembered what he had told me.

I looked in my bike parts cache and found a bottom bracket lock ring. Sure enough, it threaded right on to the hub threads, and it worked perfectly as a spacer.

Sadder than the famous "For sale: baby shoes, never worn" story is this Craigslist post:

Friedel the Clown giving away his like-new clown bike because "the circus fired me."

My neighbor saw me working on my bikes and asked if i could give his old bike a tune up, since it had been sitting unridden in his garage for several years.

I did, and in exchange, he gave me a plate of food his mom prepared.

Whenever the gardeners come, Hobie hides for the duration of their stay. I never knew where he actually went until i accidentally found his hiding spot today. He's such a chicken.

I bought some arc welding electrodes for the arc/tig welder i found in the desert last month. I need more practice with arc, but the machine works, and this is more fun than mig welding.

One leaf growing through another leaf

@apodoxus Yeah, sure. Reading Moby Dick is the same as using an LLM to do things for you