u/Nerdenator

Maybe this is what he’s been doing.

... I seriously don't get the European mindset re: the US's late entry into WWI.

At the time, a large plurality of Americans either had been born in Europe, or were related to someone who was. Lots of progressive (for the time) Germans came to the US after the failure of the revolutions of the 1840s and settled in areas like Missouri, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Italians settled in the Eastern cities after the unification wars there. There were also the Napoleonic Wars, Crimean War, the Franco-Prussian War, and all of the more minor conflicts on the continent or in its colonies.

You had a lot of people, particularly working-class people, who remembered or knew of the general military history of Europe going back to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, and saw how modern technology had turned the continent's wars into a gaping maw of violence that could consume an entire generation's worth of young men. Usually these wars were driven by the desires of royalty or the nobility, not by some sort of practical problem that impacted average people.

It makes a not-insignificant amount of sense to look at that and want nothing to do with it. That was more-or-less the mindset that Trotsky and the Bolsheviks had about the war, which is why they just withdrew completely. It was the Tsar's war to support alliances the Tsar had made, and it meant nothing to them.

I think you see that attitude among Americans too. Maybe expressed differently (Trotsky had nothing politically in common with Dilling) but there was a nexus there.

I’m a nerd who’s taking up bullseye-style target shooting. I like my M&P 2.0 9mm, but was wondering if there were any adjustable target sights for it on the market? Not finding too many options in the usual places but maybe I’m just not looking in the right places.

I’m currently futzing around with solar panels attached to a 280Ah, 12v LiFePO4 battery via a Victron Energy MPPT 100/30 charge controller.

So far, in direct sun today, I’m getting around 280 watts max out of my four EcoWorthy 100w panels wired in series. I know that they’re probably not the best panels, but I mainly use this setup for power when the electricity goes out, so charge time is less important. Still, I was wondering if I was leaving wattage on the table, so I acquired a fifth panel that puts out 50w.

When I added it to the series chain, that produced an overvolt for the charge controller. I hit the breaker and it’s back to normal, so that’s good, but then I thought to try wiring the 50w panel on its own circuit, which would be in parallel with the series circuit of the four other panels.

Doing this yielded about half of the wattage of the series panels alone. What’s the reason for this? My thought was I’d be getting the voltage of the series circuit off of one branch, then adding the other panel in parallel, thus making its amperage matter more than the voltage.

I’m just a hobbyist and while I have some knowledge of electricity, I guess I’ve confused myself here. Would there be a way to add the 50w panel in a way as to not cut the wattage or create an overvolt situation on a 12v circuit, or would it mean jumping up to 24v since that gives the controller lower amps to work with?

Gary Sinise isn’t doing too well

Like… where exactly is the line?

“Listen, back when we had drug-fueled orgies at a compound predicated on easy sex with attractive young women, we did it like professionals, ‘Ms.’ Daedone. You sicken us. You sicken us.”