Tesla is amazing. I ordered the car on October 3rd. One in stock but not in the area. Tesla shipped it to Norfolk and had it ready for delivery on Monday (a bank holiday). So delivery was Tuesday.
Sandy Munro keeps telling us legacy auto makers are a timezone behind Tesla. After a lap around Virginia Beach, I believe him.
Back in April, Millennium Falcon, my VW ID.4, was in a mishap that resulted in some repairable damage to the rear quarter panel, rear hatch, and crushable bits under the car. Damage stopped short of the battery charger and other expensive bits.
As I write in late September, Millennium Falcon is in pieces at the VW repair activity awaiting replacement contactor/disconnect assemblies so it could be reassembled and shipped to the collision repair activity for to do the mechanical repairs. The battery box is out of the car. The doors are tagged out as, without the battery in place, you’ll fall out the bottom of the car. So no work can be done. They can’t even update the console firmware.
Without the contactor/disconnects, the drive doesn’t work. These devices use pyrotechnic fuses to disconnect the battery from the battery module connectors. Without them, the car can’t go. These are fairly sensitive shock activated devices. When working as designed, they become unusable and must be replace. Without contactors, an ID is not a vehicle, it is sculpture!
In mid-September I learned that the contactor/disconnect assemblies were on global backorder in the VW parts logistics system. That it has been several months suggests that they might be on galactic backorder! VW had no date for availability.
I called VW Customer Care and made the observation that Chattanooga and Mosel among other VW assembly activities were putting ID.4 and other vehicles together that needed these same HV contactor/disconnects.
Oh, and can’t you just nick a couple off the line? In reality, other factories make the battery packs where the contactors are located. And the dealer and assembly operations are separate companies with a common parent so we’re not raiding the fridge for ice cream here.
In looking at the part number I checked in April, visiting the local VW parts manager and his staff, I learned that at least 4 SKUs (stock keeping units) had been used for these parts since launch. And the new one, the one you are supposed to use, can’t be had.
But this is a different story, Millennium Falcon is out of service with no immediate prospects to return to service. I’m renting a stand-in from Enterprise for an unknown period. While paying bills, I realized I had a car payment plus going out the door to Enterprise each month. Why not turn the Enterprise bill into an actual car payment?
I prefer to shoot raw rather than JPEG and recently discovered that regular iPhones (the not Pro kind) can shoot raw using 3rd party camera apps. Today we will take a look at a couple of these apps, Halide Camera [6] and Obscura Camera [7] and compare these to Apple Camera.
Here I’ll highlight the strengths and weaknesses of Apple Camera, Halide Camera, and Obscura Camera that I have experienced in use.
To shoot raw, you need to develop the latent image using a rendering app such as Skylum Luminar Neo [9] or PixelMator Pro or Photomator from the Pixelmator Folks [8].
I’ll make an assumption that the kids need shoes so budget is a concern. And I’ll make another assumption, that you are able to listen to music after baths and bedtime stories, so loudspeakers are out on space and familial considerations.
Modern headphones offer live concert detail without intruding on the household and do so at a price within reach of many.
With the change of management at the website formerly known as Twitter, new API pricing has made use of Twitter/X API’s prohibitively expensive for small websites such as mine. As a service to my friends, I announce my posts to my Mastodon followers. This post shows where the JetPack configuration.
Several years ago, a Schiit Audio Modi DAC and Magni head-amp came to grace the Dismal Wizard’s desk. Some time later, he bought a pair of Audeze LCD-1 headphones. While shopping for these he also found the HiFiMan Sundara open backs, also a planar magnetic design. Having some spare coin lying about, he ordered a pair and has been listening to them. After five hours or so of listening with Sundara Open Back, I’m really impressed by Sundara. My first impressions follow.
I’ve been a user of APC small computer UPS products for 20+ years. It seems that whenever one is needed, the battery is flat. As yet another round of battery replacements started, I decided to switch to portable power station products for the UPS role in my home network. But which one?
With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and changed utility tariffs, it is attractive for Virginia home owners to install residential photovoltaic generation systems. Most owners are likely electing a roof lease scheme where the solar company owns, maintains, and operates the equipment paying the home owner for use of the roof, net metered power from Dominion, and a receives a piece of the action on the generation in excess of needs. Panel coverage varies from what is needed for local use to the whole roof of east-west roofs.
Solar generation peaks in mid-afternoon and starts to fall off rapidly in the late afternoon and supper hour. Dominion’s residential time of use tariff reflects this fact and the peak that results from migration from work to home. The time of day rate is high peak from 3 PM to 6 PM.
Over night, Dominion is running its most fuel-efficient paid-for units to meet base load demand. Rates are lowest from midnight to 5 AM. During the summer, a day rate is used between base rate and peak rate periods.
So, when should we set our thermostats back? Read on to learn what Dismal Manor does. Implementation is specific to the Ecobee 3 Lite and EcoBee 4 models. What we are talking about here applies to electric power used for heating and cooling.
You can never have enough backups. There’s an old saying, “One is none, two is one (maybe).” In reality, media goes bad, backups are missed or fail, there’s a ISP fade, etc, etc, etc…
And we’re here in hurricane country. In the US we hide from wind (shelter in place) and run from water (evacuate). At least one on-site backup needs to be easy to take with you.
Recently, a Mastodon discussion aroused my curiosity when authors reminded me that two backup tools I use have some weaknesses. Time Machine, used for local backups can occasionally corrupts its output sparse images. BackBlaze, used for off-site backups, was also known to be subject to ISP fades and other issues.
What’s a poor old duffer to do? Read on …
Rocky has completed his convalescence but not without some Rocky drama. He started licking his IV patch. And got a nice lick granuloma going extending his sentence in Nurse Wretched’s care. It was looking gamey so Doc prescribed gentamicin topical spray. And keeping tongue and teeth off the inflamed patch. And Rocky’s antibiotics were extended for a second course.
When done with antibiotics, I continued the topical and dressing. Once it had a good sound scab, I discontinued the absorbent pad and vet-wrapped only. The dressing still kept sliding down. Fun. And I started applying cortisone ointment (left-over from my dermatologist). This calmed down the red and Rocky lost interest in licking it. I was able to leave him unmuzzled much of the day making Rocky a much happier camper.
And once the pink was faded, I switched him to O’Keeffe’s Healthy Feet foot cream. This is basically Chapstick for feet. Some moisturizer, some bee’s wax, and other secret ingredients including pH correction to neutral. O’Keeffe’s is good stuff, taming cracked, dry feet, heel cauliflower, and contact callouses. And kept Rocky’s IV patch moist and irritation free. He quickly caught on to earned time unmuzzled and stopped licking. His leg peach fuzz is returning to the patch.
Dismal Manor Dispatches 
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