Phil Landmeier @shuttersparks@qoto.org

@EriogonumDarwin @lauren Indeed. I haven't used Google search in almost five years. Not once. Nor have I missed it, even once.

@robgalanakis @clive Well, yes and no. Powering an EV from coal generated electricity produces less CO2 than powering the car with any IC engine. This is because IC engines are horribly inefficient, including my "highly efficient" one.

@ordinoides Yup. That's good enough.

To belabor the topic a bit more, and in case others are reading too, I'll mention one more thing.

Looking at the table of material emissivities, it might seem like many of the numbers are approximate or have a range of values. That's not useful if you want accuracy. The reason for the approximations is that emissivity of a material depends on the composition of the material and its surface finish. So stainless steel -- which alloy?, is it a brushed finish?, sanded?, polished?, corroded?, dirty? These all affect emissivity, sometimes in a major way.

But if you have a particular case then you can measure emissivity yourself. Say you have a big stainless cauldron. Fill it with water. Heat the water to some temperature you can measure accurately, say around 160F. Shut off the heat source and let it stabilize a minute. (Avoid airflow, breezes, wind, etc. because stainless is a poor heat conductor.) Then measure with the IR gun and fiddle with the emissivity setting until it reads the temp accurately. Now you're calibrated and you know the emissivity of that material given it's current state of finish, corrosion, dirt, etc.

Note that one could do this at room temperature but the IR gun will be somewhat more accurate if the temp of the material is above ambient and closer to the temperatures you expect to measure.

@ordinoides Yes, it's a big problem that can throw your readings way off, as you noticed.

Your IR gun probably has an adjustable setting for emissivity. I've found that in practice it's a hassle and not real useful. It is useful in certain settings like if you are going to do a bunch of readings of the temp of the outside of a particular stainless steel pot. Then it's worthwhile to calibrate. Or if I'm welding / heat treating steel, then I recalibrate. (My gadget works up to 1,800 F.)

But for random kitchen use I just leave it set to 0.96 and am aware that if I read a metal object the temp is going to be off. Some materials like stainless steel and galvanized steel are especially bad. Polished copper's emissivity is so low it's not worth trying to measure it accurately.

The above is not a recommendation, just the way I use mine.

Here's a chart with some possibly useful numbers to plug into your gun. https://www.thermoworks.com/emissivity-table/

@ordinoides Hah, yeah. I'm a retired engineer, now working as a chef, so I tend to mix science and food. My IR gun gets plenty of use but it's also useful to compare with an ordinary accurate thermometer when possible. Emissivity is a thing, especially with metals, but I'm sure you know that.

@robgalanakis @clive It was a lucky find but it happens. MPG was measured on cross-country trips, back and forth WV-MT. Empty car on the flat it reaches 38 MPG. Worst cases were cross-country towing a 3,900 pound trailer at 21 MPG. Random city driving and errands around 28. Not bad for an ICE.

Been eyeing EV's for years too but they are highly problematic in this part of the country (West Virginia). There has been no significant charging infrastructure and home charging is out because the houses here don't have garages. (Built 100+ years ago). Everyone parks on the street. As more chargers appear it will become feasible.

@ordinoides Okay, gotcha. That's plenty hot. I was thinking food safety and wondering if this method was a sort of sous vide or "sun tea" approach that can not only fail to kill pathogens but encourage their growth.

So yeah, nevermind. No worries. :-)

@robgalanakis @clive Well, my Toyota Corolla runs great and gets 35 MPG. I paid $950 for it five years ago. It's easy to spend twice that on a bicycle. (Somebody is making a LOT of money ;-)

@randahl Yes, facsimile and then radiofacsimile. We ham radio operators can still use the original protocols and timing. Nowadays we use computers to produce and decode the audio tones, and display it on the screen, but some have resurrected the mechanical versions. It's slow but it works well enough. Images from the moon during the Apollo program were sent the same way.

Building on this, hams developed slow-scan television which is the same thing but in color. It was popular in the 1970s and 80s.

Newspaper photos were sent by this method into the 1960s. If you're old like me, you'll remember seeing "Wirephoto" in the caption of many newspaper photos.

@ordinoides Very interesting indeed. I love beans, cook them in big batches, and freeze them six cup portions.

Did you note the maximum temperature reached by the product during the process?

@clive I've been eyeing ebikes for several years now. They still seem overpriced.

@notpike A lot of people are not introspective. They don't ask themselves the obvious question. Many cis males never ask themselves the simple honest question, "Could I choose to be erotically attracted to men?"

OTOH it seems most people never ask themselves any honest questions. They don't question their feelings or beliefs. Their experience of the world is that what they believe IS absolute truth. Their experience is that their feeling are something that happens TO them. They don't realize that feelings are simply the result of a thought and something that they do to themselves.

@olavf I don't know what the practice is today. Those friends I know who had it done, one of them recently, and my mother who had it done looong ago 1940s) had it done all in one go.

I'm 70, have had a few pulled, but am still running on original equipment. (fingers crossed).

@olavf Great fun that is. Good luck!