Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.
If you know what you’re doing, you can measure the size of the sun and scale the entire solar system from observations like that. Takes more science than I’ll ever accomplish, that’s for sure!
I realized the show was on just before Greatest Transit (roughly what you see above), so I duct-taped a 1 inch spotter / finder scope to a camera tripod, taped a sun shield on the scope, bent some card stock for a screen, then assembled everything on the patio:
Word from the BPAC meeting says that NYSDOT re-timed the signals on both ends of Burnett Blvd, because of the increased traffic from the closed bridges on Degarmo Rd. Here’s what that looks like from a bicyclist’s perspective; you may want to compare this with othermeasurements in the recent past.
T=0.00 – I’m approaching the light and obviously won’t get through on the current cycle. However, the car in the left lane is just clearing the sensor loop, so we know the sensor has been triggered:
As nearly as I can tell, the green-to-yellow change has decreased from about 7 s to maybe 4 s; that may be influenced by the car position / speed across the loop. NYSDOT definitely hasn’t increased the minimum delay to provide additional time for bicyclists.
The yellow-to-red transition may have decreased from 5 s to 4 s; it definitely hasn’t increased.
T=10.433 – The white car deliberately blew through the yellow and red signals:
T=12.000 – The white car has almost cleared the intersection, 3.567 s after blowing through the red light, and cross traffic in Rt 55 has started to move:
It’s impossible to tell from my position when the Rt 55 traffic saw their green signals, but they started moving 3.5 s from the time the signal in our direction turned red. I’d previously measured that at 1.333 s, so NYSDOT seems to have lengthen the all-red overlap.
T=14.433 – Cross traffic on Rt 55 fills the intersection:
That’s 10.3 s from the Burnett signal turning yellow, which usually happens when we’re just barely into the intersection; we need at least 15 s to reach the far side of all six lanes. Obviously, cross traffic on Rt 55 must notice that we haven’t cleared the intersection when their signals turn green and avoid running over us; that’s legally required, but it’s obvious NYSDOT (still) isn’t helping bicyclists get across the intersection.
The NYSDOT regional office behind my right shoulder has a bike rack. We’ve never seen any bikes in it, so it’s equally obvious NYSDOT doesn’t practice dogfooding. I’ve never been able to invite / persuade / shame anyone from NYSDOT to ride along with us, so they can show me why their design really does “mak[e] our highway systems safe and functional for all users“.
A moth came within arm’s reach during a ride along the Dutchess County Rail Trail:
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Squinting at some earlier frames that show only a tiny moving dot, the moth disappears every five frames: one wingbeat requires either 5/60 or 10/60 s = 12 or 6 strokes/second.
We continued our respective missions without incident…
The moth came much closer to the camera than it looks. I should calibrate the images with known objects at known distances, but that seems like a lot of work.
Back in high school, I designed and built a slide rule exposure calculator to improve my macro photographs:
Macrophotography Exposure Calculator – front
The base consists of three layers of thin cardboard glued together with Elmer’s Glue. The three slides have three layers of thinner white cardboard glued together, with offsets forming tongue-and-groove interlocks, topped with yellow paper for that true slide rule look:
Judging from the seams, I covered the hand-drawn scales with “invisible” matte-surface Scotch Tape. Worked well, if you ask me, and still looks pretty good:
Macrophotography Exposure Calculator – front – detail
The reverse side carries instructions under a layer of packing tape (which hasn’t survived the test of time nearly as well), for anyone needing help:
The slides still move, albeit stiffly, and it might be usable.
I vaguely recall extension tubes on an early SLR, but memory fades after that. Getting the exposure settings close to the right value evidently posed something of a challenge and, given the cost of 35 mm film + development, it made sense to be careful.
Fortunately, even today’s low-end cameras make macro photography, at least for my simple needs, easy enough, with the camera handling the exposure calculations all by itself:
“… One of the most frightening things about your true nerd, for many people, is not that he’s socially inept — everybody’s been there — but rather his complete lack of embarrassment about it.”
“Which is kind of pathetic.”
“It was pathetic when they were in high school,” Randy says. “Now it’s something else. Something very different from pathetic.”
“What, then?”
“I don’t know. There is no word for it. You’ll see.”
For obscure reasons, the Silly Season brought Sanders, Trump, and Clinton fille to the City of Poughkeepsie within the span of eight days. We know enough to stay far away from such events, but one of the contestants came to us!
A siren heralded flashing lights off to the left, coming up the hill from the bridge over the Mighty Wappingers Creek:
Candidate Motorcade – 0463
The police car jammed to a stop in the middle of the Red Oaks Mill intersection, directly in front of the cars (and bikes) that had just begun moving after the light turned green:
Candidate Motorcade – 0700
During the next minute, the officer managed to clear most of the traffic from the left-turn storage lanes perpendicular to us, after which two motorcycle officers led the procession:
Candidate Motorcade – 5015
Two ordinary SUVs with flashing light bars followed:
Candidate Motorcade – 5211
Two stretched SUVs with side window and marker flashers:
Candidate Motorcade – 5403
One blatantly inconspicuous black sedan running dark:
Candidate Motorcade – 5467
Two black patrol cars and a white patrol car, all with flashing lights:
Candidate Motorcade – 5792
The officer jumped into his car and rejoined the procession at the end:
Candidate Motorcade – 5992
According to my back-of-the-envelope, the motorcade moved through the intersection at a steady 20 mph.
Given where all the folks who merit such an escort were supposed to be at the time, I don’t know why they brought The Personage through the Red Oaks Mill intersection in that direction; the City of Poughkeepsie is to our rear, due north of Red Oaks Mill. Perhaps they’re following a randomly chosen route to confuse the unprepared, even though it’s longer and requires more traffic control?
Rumors from a Reliable Source indicate that not all trains travel on steel rails.
I suppose you eventually get used to having a couple of quiet people standing in every room with you.
One benefit of the inevitable news coverage: a few more people now know how to pronounce “Poughkeepsie”.
Just because I hadn’t done so for quite a while, I rode Grand Avenue from Beechwood north to the rail trail. The rotted asphalt at the Westbound Arterial (a.k.a. Maple St, at that point) intersection makes it easy to spot the quadrupole sensor loop:
Grand at Arterial WB – front camera – 0193
After half a minute, with no traffic pulling up behind me, I eased the bike over the central wire:
Grand at Arterial WB – front camera – 1693
Which is exactly as awkward as it seems:
Grand at Arterial WB – front camera – 1945
Much to my surprise, the sensor tripped:
Grand at Arterial WB – front camera – 3044
That’s about 50 s from the time I rolled over the first of the two sensor loops, which is fast enough for me. It’s unusual to find a sensor loop that detects a bike, though.
A bit over 6 s seconds later, I’ve cleared the intersection:
Grand at Arterial WB – front camera – 3445
The rear camera shows that the light remains green:
Grand at Arterial WB – rear camera – 1085
And it stays green:
Grand at Arterial WB – rear camera – 1121
About 11 s after turning green, a car approaches the sensor loop:
Grand at Arterial WB – rear camera – 1228
I think that reset the signal timing, so that light remained green for nearly 23 s:
Grand at Arterial WB – rear camera – 1581
It turned red after 26 s:
Grand at Arterial WB – rear camera – 1671
As nearly as I can tell, the minimum green time for this intersection is 12 s.
So life is good: the sensor loop detects a bicycle and the signal remains green for long enough to a bike to clear the intersection. If only all intersections worked that way!
Compare that with the minimum 7 s for the Burnett Blvd intersection and you (well, I) wonder why crossing six lanes requires 5 s less than crossing three lanes. Perhaps different standards apply to this single-direction cross-traffic flow that make it much more difficult than Burnett’s bidirectional cross traffic?
A classic American Optical microscope illuminator emerged from a box, minus its bulb. Some rummaging turned up a reference for AO bulbs, so I knew I needed a GE 1460 prefocused bulb. Those seem to be a bit rare these days, with 1460X bulbs sharing the same base with a slightly different glass envelope shape. As nearly as I can tell, as long as the filament sits in the same location relative to the base, it’s all good. Five bucks and a few days brought a new 1460X bulb to the bench, a few drops of Caig DeoxIT slicked the holder’s rather gritty contact patches, and the new bulb fit perfectly:
Microscope Illuminator – 1460X bulb – detail
And it lit up just fine, too:
Microscope Illuminator – 1460X bulb – turned on
That’s running at the lowest of three selectable voltages: 5, 6, and 7.5 VAC, respectively. Given that the bulb spec says 6.5 V (at 2.75 A!), you best have a spare bulb on hand if you need the highest setting. At the nominal 6.5 V, it’s good for 100 hours; 6 V should eke out many more hours.
A generously articulated arm holds the illuminator for desk work:
American Optical Model 651 Microscope Illuminator – on base
That long snout fits into the pair of holes in the arm of my stereo zoom microscope to cast a bright light directly on the subject. The LED ring light makes that less necessary than before, although sometimes distinct shadows help pick out the details:
The data plate on the bottom of the illuminator, should someone need it:
American Optical Model 651 Microscope Illuminator – data plate
The optics cast an image of that white-hot filament out into space, so I think the diffuse active area of a white LED wouldn’t produce the same amount of light on the target. I have some Pirhana LEDs, though, so (when this bulb fails) I’ll see about that.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 