Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.
NYSDOT re-striped Rt 376 using paint with sprayed-on glass beads, rather than plastic strips, which produces lovely rainbows when the sun comes from directly behind. Alas, my helmet camera can’t resolve faint colors against the background glare and doesn’t show the circular reflection cutoff:
Glass Bead Retroreflection – 2016-07-20
However, the scattered beads light up the pavement’s cracks and crevices.
Four days later, the drifts of beads have dissipated to leave bright reflections anywhere the tires don’t reach:
Glass Bead Retroreflection – 0219
That’s along the big traffic circle at the Raymond / Collegeview / Forbus intersection.
Riding into the Village of Wappingers Falls, there’s a lumpy patched pothole just ahead of the fairing & front wheel:
Water Droplets – 2016-07-19 – 0196
You can watch (and I can hear) the fairing flex as the front end jounces over the patch:
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The hydration pack slung behind the seat also jounces and, when the reservoir bag bottoms out, the sudden pressure increase squirts water out of the bite valve, all over my face and goggles, and way out in front of the camera:
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The camera runs at 60 images/second: those 28 images span all of 450 ms.
Two seconds later, the droplet stabilized into a nice round lens:
Water Droplets – 2016-07-19 – 0360
The low humidity of a lovely day evaporated the drop after another three minutes…
Mary used a garbage can lid to shelter some plants, left it in the garden for a while, and a critter moved into the new shelter. She first noticed two well-prepared front entrances:
Garden shelter – front entrances
And a rear entrance or, perhaps, the emergency exit:
Garden shelter – rear entrance
Gingerly lifting the lid, she found a dismantled bird corpse:
Garden shelter – bird corpse
Along with a large stash of sour cherries from a nearby bush:
Garden shelter – sour cherry stash
A good-size toad kept an eye on the proceedings:
Garden shelter – toad in lair
We didn’t know toads ate sour cherries, but the evidence seems clear:
Garden shelter – toad on sour cherries
The image of a toad taking down a bird can’t be unseen, but, more likely, a recently fledged nestling took shelter and couldn’t figure out how to get out again.
At some point along a recent grocery ride, the top half of the flag mast on the BOB Yak trailer went missing.
We had a general idea of where it happened, but, fortunately, I Have The Technology:
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The flag and pole ended up just off the road, only slightly the worse for wear. I hadn’t planned on riding two dozen miles on a rather hot and humid summer day, but so it goes.
The lower ferrule chafed away enough of the fiberglass pole that it could slip downward, eventually releasing the upper ferrule:
BOB Yak Flag – ferrule chafing
That split near the end enlarged the pole enough that the ferrule couldn’t slide off, so I contented myself with cross-drilling the whole affair for a 1-72 screw, packing epoxy into the hole, tucking more epoxy up inside the bottom end of the ferrule, then burying the screw and nut:
BOB Yak Flag – reassembled ferrule
While I had it on the bench, I replaced the somewhat shredded fluorescent orange tape just under the flag and added a strip of diagonally striped red-and-white retroreflective tape for an attractive barber-pole appearance.
T=0.000 s – The dot just below the lower tree branch extending over the middle of the road doesn’t look like much:
Jackson Rd – Leaf Impact – 2016-06-30 – 0337
T=0.600 s – It’s fluttering, which means I’ve noticed it:
Jackson Rd – Leaf Impact – 2016-06-30 – 0373
T=1.317 s – Rolling at just under 20 mph:
Jackson Rd – Leaf Impact – 2016-06-30 – 0416
T=2.117 s – I know exactly what’s going to happen:
Jackson Rd – Leaf Impact – 2016-06-30 – 0464
T=2.850 s – The camera lens is seven inches above my eye level:
Jackson Rd – Leaf Impact – 2016-06-30 – 0508
T=2.867 s – The air stream over the fairing begins tilting the leaf:
Jackson Rd – Leaf Impact – 2016-06-30 – 0509
T=2.883 s – Collision alarm!
Jackson Rd – Leaf Impact – 2016-06-30 – 0510
T=2.900 s – Perfect alignment:
Jackson Rd – Leaf Impact – 2016-06-30 – 0511
T=2.917 s – I’m now riding with an oak leaf plastered over my entire face:
Jackson Rd – Leaf Impact – 2016-06-30 – 0512
I wear big lab-grade splash-resistant goggles over my prescription sunglasses to keep dust out of my eyes: the leaf covers the googles, I can’t see out of my left eye (and, thus, the mirror), and most of my right-eye vision has gone green. Although I managed to not inhale during the impact, the leaf forms a good seal over my nose and mouth.
T=3.683 s – Glancing to the left doesn’t dislodge the leaf:
Jackson Rd – Leaf Impact – 2016-06-30 – 0558
Did you notice the oncoming car?
T=7.483 s – Four seconds later, I’m off the bridge and past the bushes overhanging the guide rail, so I can finally spare a hand:
Jackson Rd – Leaf Impact – 2016-06-30 – 0798
The view to the rear, showing the car that’s been trailing 1 second = 25 feet behind me during this entire adventure:
I caught another oak leaf the same way on the rail trail a few weeks earlier at a much lower speed in much less stressful surroundings; I figured that wouldn’t happen again for quite a while.
Ya never know what’s going to happen out there on the road…
For all I know, the ants haul the carcass into position, blow the scuttling charges to loosen the armor, and sink it in a convenient spot on the driveway:
We often see Red Tailed Hawks circling high above the area, but this one came closer than most (clicky for more dots):
Red Tailed Hawk Red Oaks Mill 2016-06-27 – 0195
Surely you can see it, just to the left of the speed limit sign? It took us by surprise, too!
Near the middle of the road:
Red Tailed Hawk Red Oaks Mill 2016-06-27 – 0211
And away:
Red Tailed Hawk Red Oaks Mill 2016-06-27 – 0227
Perhaps it’s taking a break to enjoy just flying around? That’s about what we were doing; it was a fine morning for that sort of thing.
Squinting at a few more frames, it’s flying at 18 mph with 4 wingbeats per second. Not in a hurry, that’s for sure, and still traveling faster than we were.
We spotted a few Gas Hawks above the airport, too, but they stayed too far away for pictures…
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 