PhreeZone

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Everything posted by PhreeZone

  1. Funny - I was just starting to think about shutting the site down since most of the manufacturers are hosting the manuals directly anymore and its been a long time since I have done any updates to it. I'm going to look at moving it to a cheaper (might be slower) hosting platform in the future since I've spent about $1000 on the site over the last 6-7 years and I am not doing enough rigging anymore to cover its costs. I'll update everyone as my plans come together on it.
  2. First Energy here in Ohio just asked the state for a bail out of their entire energy platform via a really complicated set of house bill requirements. They had asked for the ability to charge about $200M annually on electric bills for "grid modernization" but ended up spending it on other things and the state Supreme Court just told they had to stop and can not use it to pay shareholders anymore. https://www.ohio.com/news/20190619/ohio-supreme-court-rescinds-firstenergy-customer-rider-that-brought-utility-up-to-204-million-annually Second thing happening is that a lot of coal producers are introducing legislation that will eliminate the states requirements to use "zero emission or renewable" power. 90% of this is nuke power from two plants, they currently receive state substitute money that the coal plants / producers want removed and put towards them instead. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2019/06/14/message-to-ohio-electricity-customers-stop-closing-nuclear-plants/#4d0f41b34d3b This is creating a really unusual set of alliances here - Nuke plants, oil/gas producers and some Environmental groups are on one side fighting for the money and requirements to stay - another set of environment groups, some renewable company's and miners are teaming up with the coal producers to get the funding pulled to try and shut down the nuke plants. If the plants are shut down then coal will be the primary power source but a few new gas plants will be needed eventually but for the next few years it will be a boom for coal again. A few renewable companies are fighting it since they want the bill written to drop nuclear from the list and only offer up the money to solar/wind. Its a super complicated mess with a ton of lobbying dollars being dropped to control the energy production around here.
  3. Locations like this are used frequently by the movie/TV industry. If you need a desert background than its better to go here than it is to go to Elsinore or Perris and see the lake and homes everywhere.
  4. Attacks against other posters are not allowed - final warning on this one.
  5. I needed an MRI a few years ago for an injury but it was not a "need it right now in the ER issue" I called my insurance up and found out that the procedure in the hospital was going to cost me $1500 after insurance discount but there was an offsite facility that was 10 miles away that pre insurance pricing was $750 and after discount was $450. I am on a High Deductible Insurance plan so I was going to have to pay the cost out of my HSA / pocket. Before this insurance plan style I would have just done it in the hospital and let the insurance deal with it and paid my low $75 co pay and been done but would have really spent a ton of the insurance companies money, now with the other plan its causing me to be a better consumer and shop around for some options. Here is another example - trip to the ER for a possible broken finger (with possible nerve damage) cost me $2500 - trip to the local urgent care for a fractured ankle - $375 plus the optional 450 for an MRI after the XRays were clear - ER insisted on all those procedures with no opt out option.
  6. Depends on the charging system you use. If you have a home charger its just another KW that gets used and put on your electric bill. If you had bought into a Tesla fairly early (Pre 2018) you usually were granted access to their network of SuperChargers for free. In essence they would pay to provide the power to the super chargers and you can use it for free. There are some third party charging networks out there also that you can have access to for either a set free per recharge ($5-7 usually) or a usage rate of about .08-$.15 per kw used. That generally means a full recharge for about $3-4. Lots of places of business have free chargers also to encourage people to come to their location and spend money shopping while their car charges. One of my local malls has 20 charging spaces for free.
  7. Federal tax credits. Same ones that every car maker is using right now for their electric vehicles - they started at $7500 and now for Tesla are reduced to 3500 and will phase out in another year or two. Few other makers have created enough volume that they have dropped to the 3500 level. Its the same place that credits like the $13800 adoption credit is coming from, or the 30% towards a solar system for residential use. Same with the $2000 saver credit towards an IRA for some people per year or the $2000 Lifetime Learning Credit or the $2500 American Opportunity Credit for taking a school course. The legislature has created incentives to drive certain behaviors - one in years past is was "Cash for Clunkers" to drive people to ditch old inefficient cars and spend money to buy new cars at a time that the auto industry was having major issues and was facing the elimination of massive numbers of jobs if they did not find a way to sustain demand in a poor economy. At the state level some states were giving credits too but again that no different than some of the other credits like the $4.5 Billion dollars to Foxconn or the $550 Million Amazon got in VA plus the 23 Million in credits from the hotel taxes. Taking that 4.5 billion out of the state coffers means that everyone else gets to cover that loss of income and everyone from the local cities, to the highway department to the schools are all now going to have to go with out that income in the years to come.
  8. Tesla only sells direct via its website or its showroom only. Cars.com links to independent dealers so show their inventory so they will not be able to show Tesla cars. You can order a 250 mile range two wheel drive Model 3 for about 37000 after the last federal incentive and have it in 2 weeks. Previously with the higher incentives the price was under 35000 but now its about 37000 before tax and title. That puts it near the same pricing as a Ford Explorer or a decent Chevy Impala. A Model 3 is equipied more like a premium brand like BMW, Mercedes, or Acura and as such its pretty much in line with their pricing for the Model 3 vs their low end cars like a BMW 3 Series or an Acura TLX. As to the maintenance questions - all EV's win big on that since they do not have anything in the way of moving parts except for the drive motors and things like an AC pump. Most motors that are in use are rated for an average lifespan of 25 years of continuous usage and start/stop operations do not cause any additional wear. There are no transmission issues or additional components like radiators or other parts that an ICE needs. No oil changes either. From what I have seen from a few EV owners locally - they rotate the tires, replace brake pads as needed and thats about it.
  9. Flight Concepts used to make flags for some of the demo teams out of F111/ZP.
  10. Billy - take your pathetic pandering of a "Muslim conspiracy to burn it down" to another forum. You are on your last warning on this and anything else on this track will just have your accounts banned. All reports from the Parisian fire department indicate this started in the attic of the nave while in the middle of major reconstruction. The number of workplace construction fires is astronomical due to things like sparks from cutting, tools and other items. The entire wooden roof with out a sprinkler system would have had the structure condemned if it was a commercial building instead of a house of worship. Those timbers were several hundred years old and were as dry as tinder so the slightest spark meant they were going to burn with out a way of stopping it.
  11. A Demon in race configuration with only one seat is technically slower 2.3 seconds vs a Model S with all 5 seats installed @ 2.28 seconds for the 0-60 speeds. Personally I'd rather not have to strip all the seats and put the thin racing fronts on the car to get those speeds and would rather just have a 5 seater that does those speeds on its own.
  12. Intentional trolling of the site is prohibited as you very well know and if you are taunting people into blocking you that counts as trolling. Trolling will result in your account being blocked again since you are well past your final warning.
  13. Any further posts that are just talking about other posters and not the topic at hand will find the poster on a temporary ban from the site. Any posts that are just reposting of the same pictures that were linked to in the last few posts will also find their accounts on a temporary ban. This thread was reopened to have a civil discussion on the topic - not to allow posters to throw insults at each other or spam the forum with the same photos time after time.
  14. I believe that the manual trim can only be done below certain airspeed, above it the forces are too high to allow for manual inputs since you are fighting against the forces on the tail.
  15. All mods now have privileges for every forum under the new design - they are no longer just monitoring a subset anymore. Even easier than sending a message is using the new "Report" feature, when this happens it automatically sends a notification to every moderator that a post needs looked at and we can do a one click option to mark the poster as a spammer and it removes all their posts and prevents them from posting anymore. Filters can be looked to to prevent certain types of posts - for example anything with the phrase "WhatsApp"' might be safe to filter since not a lot of posters use that in a normal post but lots of spammers do.
  16. PhreeZone

    AmTrak

    I've done a long haul Amtrak ride from Chicago to Denver a long time ago and it was a fun experience but I'd rather spend the extra money and fly today just to get there in a few hours rather than taking a full day. That being said at the time my ticket from Chicago to Denver was about $35 and an airline ticket was 250+ at that time. Luckily airfare has not faced the same inflation rates for a lot of reasons so the difference today is a lot closer than it was years ago. If airfare was $1000 for the same flight then Amtrak would look a lot more appealing again. Short haul/high speed is a great option and I am actually ok with refocusing the dollars away from the long distance routes as long as airfares remain where they are. Some of the best views in America from a scenic point of view are from a panoroma scenic car on a train and they are cheaper than driving on a solo basis but add in a few family members and for the length of time its cheaper to drive anymore. I will say the one thing that Amtrak has going for it is group travel. Looking at youth groups like Scouts, etc it is hard to beat for trying to get 60+ youth and another dozen adults on the same itinerary for the same cost. Trying to do that via an airline is a serious stress inducer since unless you book 12+ months out (or charter for serious $$$) you might not find enough seats on the same plane to send all the group and then its subject to bumps, cancels and lots of other factors. On my trip we were traveling for 20 days so we needed a few backpacks worth of stuff each- the luggage fees now days would have been $150+ per person plus tickets. I recently had a funny experience for air travel pricing - at work we were all (1800+ people) told to book travel to a location for an event in a large city but it only had about 80-100 flights a day in to it. Email comes out at 11:00 to book the trips - we all start logging into the system to book the flights and see prices starting at $400 or so right then, by the time most of us completed the booking process over the next 30 minutes or so the tickets were up to $1300-1500 since the seats were filling up and there were only a few seats let on each flight. On Demand ticket pricing via the airlines saw a surge in the number of people booking tickets to the city so it jumped the prices as seat inventory dropped. It ended up costing us about 1.25M more in airfare than originally planned due to this since they figured prices at about 600 per person and not the inflated prices we ended up getting. - Amtrak would have been fixed prices but it would have been painful to get everyone there.
  17. Correct - basically you prewire the lights and their transformers and can use something like the 1/2 plywood sheet to put them up for the working phase but when you are ready to drywall all you have to do is unplug the light, slap up drywall and then use a circle cutter to create a hole. Reach into the hole, plug the light back in and snap it into the hole you just cut out and its finished. No more having to hold the sheet up while trying to mark out the can in the ceiling, taking it down to cut it and then finding out you were off by 1/2 inch and now you hope to hide it all under the trim. I have been there and done that one before and it sucks. For the workshop area drywall the ceiling there too. It prevents dust from settling up in the joists and just finishes easier. Only reason not to do it is if you are going to need full access to those areas all the time in which a cheap drop ceiling will be ideal or if you are working with oily materials that will stain the walls and ceilings (machine shop setup) Also these are direct wire - no junction boxes needed usually.
  18. As Bill said if you are using the can fixture and are just going to install the screw in bulbs (any type LED or incandescent) you have to consider each fixture at roughly 100W. The better option is to get a sealed LED fixture like this to use instead. https://www.homedepot.com/p/Lithonia-Lighting-Wafer-6-in-White-Integrated-LED-Recessed-Kit-WF6-LED-30K-120-MW-HP18-M6/303722031 With this you then get to count the fixtures at 13w each and can put your 30 on a single circuit. Also keep in mind any outlets need to count at 100 watts at least. Issue is you need drywall ceilings to mount the lights into - wire first and then cut the hole and they snap into it.
  19. Just a final reminder that this thread is not to be used to post political, racial or anything dealing with pedophilia jokes at all. All such posts will be removed and we will ban the posters.
  20. One of my favorite renewables that is starting to get a lot more attention is tidal power. Not the stupid wave generators that people are putting on shorelines but instead under water turbines. Tidal energy is extremely predictable with a swing of only 2-5% difference of total energy through out a given day, it works 24 hours a day and does not cause any of the other issues of taking up land space that a lot of solar projects seem to do. Out of all options that are renewable and non-nuclear it is the best option for a base load replacement option. Nuclear is still the single best base replacement but the process to build a new plant is too long and too expensive. The newest versions are moving from mounting turbines on the sea floor to having them floating near the surface attached to barges and ships. They can be placed well outside of normal shipping lanes, have the option to add additional solar options to the barge to power local items and with HVDC lines running from a farm of them to shore can generate extremely large amounts of electricity out of sight since they are over the horizon for most people. Right now a single barge is producing 2MW but plans are underway to build 6 MW ships as a test bed. This puts a ship as generating the same power if not more than a wind turbine with a much more predictable output 24 hours a day. https://marineenergy.biz/2018/08/21/floating-tidal-turbine-clocks-record-3gwh-in-a-single-year/
  21. I'd file a complaint with the local medical board for notice that they can inquire more into the situation.
  22. The Max10 is already in its certification process and it is expected to have all these issues plus a few more. So my guess is that Boeing will wind down production of the Max8, push forward the new certification of the Max10 with these issues resolved and have a few differences in there too and then will as a show of goodwill will toss in the upgrades and optional items to trick the planes out with everything for any of the existing Max8 orders that want to convert.
  23. One day I was figuring how much I had spent skydiving, training and traveling for skydiving over 18 years. It turns out it was around the same amount as a really nice new car. Math was showing I was at 50k in 9 years so I just quit counting since it was going to be more than I cared to know at that point. Was it worth it? Absolutely! I enjoyed every dollar spent but you need to know your limits going in. Don't have a spare 3k laying around for a rig and another 5k for the A license up front then you need to know you will probably be on rental gear for a while and you might have more failures on the student jumps since it takes muscle memory and more frequent jumping helps that. Renting puts the cost per jump around $50-60 usually after getting licensed so you might only be able to 50-60 jumps a year instead of a 100+. That also means you need to go slower and do smaller jumps than the people that are cranking out 300 jumps a year. I've haven't jumped for 2 years and so has my wife. Kids and other things are now a better use of my time. Do i miss it? Some but my weekend balance is now way better. Stats used to be only like 10% of tandems students will do a second jump, and only like 20% of those will get a license and only about 25% of that ground will get more than 200 jumps and only a small portion of that will still be jumping 10 years later, (Basically about <1% will be around in 10 years out of everyone that makes more than 2 jumps) not sure if thats still the case. Have fun while you are doing it since its a blast and you will meet some great people!
  24. https://www.factcheck.org/2019/01/trumps-not-donating-1-billion-for-border-wall/ Take 10 seconds and look into things before you post them next time.
  25. https://www.congress.gov/search?q={"congress"%3A"all"%2C"source"%3A"legislation"%2C"search"%3A"actionSessionCode%3A\"116-1|8000\"+AND+billIsReserved%3A\"N\""}&amp;pageSort=documentNumber%3Aasc Investing in Main St Act: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/116?q={"search"%3A["actionSessionCode%3A\"116-1|8000\"+AND+billIsReserved%3A\"N\""]}&amp;s=1&amp;r=9 All American Flag Act https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/113?q={"search"%3A["actionSessionCode%3A\"116-1|8000\"+AND+billIsReserved%3A\"N\""]}&amp;s=3&amp;r=7 Encouraging Small Business Innovation Act - https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/206?q={"search"%3A["actionSessionCode%3A\"116-1|8000\"+AND+billIsReserved%3A\"N\""]}&amp;s=3&amp;r=18 Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards Act - https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/251?q={"search"%3A["actionSessionCode%3A\"116-1|8000\"+AND+billIsReserved%3A\"N\""]}&amp;s=3&amp;r=24 One of my personal favorites since it can really do a lot to improve Cybersecurity at the national level - Hack your State Department Act - https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/328?q={"search"%3A["actionSessionCode%3A\"116-1|8000\"+AND+billIsReserved%3A\"N\""]}&amp;s=3&amp;r=33 There are lots of these (180+ passed so far)