Free Republic

I've built power supplies using full wave rectifiers in the past, and a couple circuits with single diode half wave rectification for non-critical supplies, but in all cases the power requirements were low and the diodes I had on hand several times overrated for the current and voltage / power involved.This time though, I want to add a half power function to a 1500 watt 120 volt quartz heater. (Over-simplification - see below comments. But ~half of the 1500 watts is the design target.)*So... I know a diode in series with the quartz element and no power supply capacitor** will...

It turns out space helmets serve a dual purpose - to keep air in and stink out. Just like Earth, the universe emits various smells from every corner of the never-ending universe, often of which are generally unpleasant, Space.com reported, citing numerous space expeditions over the decades. Although it is impossible to take a whiff of the cosmos without facing certain death, astronauts have long described strong odors clinging to their space suits after they return to their air-locked chambers. Metallic, burnt meat Those aboard the Apollo moon landings described the scent as gunpowder-like, while others who traversed the International...

Faucets: Has anyone modified a modern faucet for higher flow? Cell Phone Battery: A possible fix for not taking a charge. I'll ask about the faucet first. Has anyone modified one of these new fangled / EPA limited flow rate kitchen faucet for higher flow rate? These damm things are just too slow, especially off a well system where you only have 40-45 psi water pressure to begin with, and that's after the pump just ran. At best you get close to 1/2 gallon per minute. Heck, us old types don't have a full minute to wait around while filling...

A speeding driver with a suspended license caused a chain-reaction crash that killed a “darling” and ambitious 14-year-old boy around the corner from his Brooklyn home over the weekend, cops said. Teen Christian Antoine was crossing the street at the intersection of East 81st Street and Glenwood Road in Canarsie around 6:15 p.m. Saturday when reckless Mercedes driver Rayan K. Salmon, 45, allegedly crashed into him, police said. Salmon first struck the front left fender of another vehicle – which caused his ride to spin clockwise and hit the teen pedestrian, cops said.

The 365m-long (1,197 ft) Icon of the Seas has 20 decks, and can house a maximum of 7,600 passengers on board. It is owned by Royal Caribbean Group. The vessel is going on a seven-day island-hopping voyage in the tropics. But environmentalists warn that the liquefied natural gas-powered ship will leak harmful methane into the air.

I'm comin' up on Pennsylvania inspection and my cats are shot (already tried "guaranteed to pass" and it failed, etc.) and a certified mechanic diagnostic . . . the cats are dead.I may as well get the 02 sensors as well.

Plans to build the tallest skyscraper in the United States are shaping up in an unlikely metropolis: Oklahoma City. Developers at a real estate company are adjusting the already ambitious plans to construct the Boardwalk at Bricktown Tower by a few hundred feet to make the building reach 1,907 feet high — which would make it the tallest in the country, the Oklahoma City Free Press reported. “The symbolic height honors the year that Oklahoma was admitted as the 46th state of the United States,” Matteson Capital said in a statement.

America's tax debts are spiraling after the IRS put a halt to chasing payments during the pandemic. Some 18.6 million taxpayers owed the IRS $316 billion in overdue taxes at the end of 2022, up from 16.8 million owing $308 billion in September 2019. And the figures are only set to grow this year. Experts are warning that workers who have been used to getting refunds in the last few years can swing into money owed for 2024. The trend has been fueled by the end of pandemic tax relief and also a booming stock market which puts more investors...

The man known to history as Thomas Jefferson was born on the 13th of April 1743 at his 0:09 father’s estate of Shadwell in Albemarle County in the Commonwealth of Virginia. 0:16 His father Peter Jefferson was a surveyor and planter who owned several plantations 0:21 in Virginia, including the tobacco plantation of Shadwell which he founded in the 1730s, 0:27 worked by slaves and free labourers. At the time Virginia was one of the thirteen British colonies in North America, but in 0:35 just over three decades it would become one of the leading states behind the creation 0:40...

A useful reference for identifying and accurately calling out propaganda techniques when you see them. This is worth bookmarking! -- TIMESTAMPS -- 0:00 Agenda Setting 0:09 Appeal to Fear 0:15 Appeal to Prejudice 0:20 Inevitable Victory 0:33 Join the Crowd 0:41 Beautiful People 0:56 Big Lie 1:06 Classical Conditioning 1:18 Cognitive Dissonance 1:32 Plain Folk 1:51 Cult of Personality 2:07 Demonizing the Enemy 2:13 Demoralization 2:20 Dictat 2:30 Disinformation 2:43 Divide and Rule 2:54 Euphemism 3:02 Euphoria 3:12 FUD 3:28 Firehose of Falsehood 3:41 Flag Waving 3:50 Flak 3:55 Foot in the Door Technique 4:09 Framing 4:19 Gish Gallop 4:29...

A fact to nail down right off the bat when finding the dividing line between these two spirits is that ... all bourbon is whiskey, but not all whiskey is bourbon. To explain — whiskey is a catch-all term for spirits distilled from fermented grain mash; this can include any combination of grains — think corn, rye, barley, and wheat. Bourbon is a subcategory of whiskey with distinctive details. According to the American Bourbon Association, for whiskey to earn the bourbon label, it must contain at least 51% corn in its grain mix. Additionally, it needs to be: distilled to...

Meet New York City’s good neighbor. For the last year, Sean Feeney, a finance veteran turned restaurateur, has been quietly padding out his resume with some major dirty work: garbage. It’s an unsavory business. But in our city where trash is so ubiquitous it’s starting to feel like a coordinated street art project designed to offend the senses, the 43-year-old owner of Brooklyn’s Fini Pizza has taken a personal interest in its disposal. Instead of flooding 311 with futile complaints about the muck, Feeney opened his cash register to help clean up his section of Williamsburg and now Downtown Brooklyn...

A trio lashed a 13-year-old boy with belts before ripping off his sneakers in a vicious Brooklyn mugging last week, cops said. The group – two men and a woman – approached the youngster around 3:15 p.m. Friday at 17th Street and Fourth Avenue in South Slope and struck him with belts multiple times before pulling his kicks straight off his feet, police said. The trio then fled into the nearby Prospect Avenue train station, where they hopped on a Manhattan-bound R train, authorities said.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was perhaps the most important president, if not world leader during the 20th century due to the U.S. involvement WW II, but his legacy started long before that conflict, and his decisions helped shape the post war world. Hosted by Colin D. Heaton. Forgotten History is a 10th Legion Pictures Production.

An overnight shooting left two men dead and four other people suffering from gunshot wounds after a shooter opened fire in a suspected speakeasy in Philadelphia on Sunday, according to the Philadelphia Police Department. Just before 1 a.m. on Sunday, officers responded to a report of a person with a gun inside a home that was allegedly operating as a speakeasy. Upon arrival at the home, officers located a 53-year-old male who suffered a gunshot wound to his face and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Finding yourself named in a document dump involving the world's largest underaged sex ring, a dead pedophile billionaire, his convicted female accomplice, a disgraced Prince of England, and the conflicting statements of an alleged victim is without compare. When I learned that I was included in the Epstein documents unsealed on Monday, my first response was disbelief. Then again, of course this was going to happen. It was only a matter of time. Much has been written in recent days about the documents concerning Sarah Ransome - who first approached me in 2016 with bombshell claims that she had videotapes...

A Missouri high school student is facing criminal charges after a distressing viral video showed her wrestling and repeatedly punching her 65-year-old teacher, leaving her hospitalized. One clip seen more than 1.3 million times on X by Friday shows the St. Louis educator on the floor desperately trying to protect herself from the student standing over her and pummeling her in the head. The Normandy High School student continues to punch and slap the teacher even when she rolls on top of her, clenching the educator between her legs as other students gasp in shock at the hallway brawl.

The 2024 Chevrolet Equinox represents the seventh model year of the compact crossover’s third (and final) generation, for which it receives a handful of small changes. Here’s everything that’s new and different about the 2024 Equinox. GM made no changes to the Equinox’s model line, as the vehicle continues to be offered as a compact crossover in FWD or AWD across the following trim levels: LS 1FL LT 2FL RS Premier

Better known as a world-famous luxury SUV icon, the Cadillac Escalade nameplate was also briefly attached to another body style between 2002 and 2006. Dubbed the Cadillac Escalade EXT, the “sport utility truck” combined the four-door luxury and street panache of the Escalade SUV with a composite pickup truck bed and expanded utility, making for quite a unique offering. Now, we’re rendering this modern Cadillac Escalade pickup that could make for a killer successor to the Escalade EXT. Granted, this isn’t the first time we’ve rendered a Cadillac Escalade pickup model based on the latest fifth-generation SUV. In fact, we...

A distressing video shows the moment a goon carrying a metal rod struck a woman as she was pushing a baby in a stroller along a street in Southern California — just hours before cops say the same attacker bludgeoned a 60-year-old woman in the head. The back-to-back assaults occurred Thursday in Long Beach, leaving one of the victims bleeding profusely from a head wound. The first incident took place shortly before 10 a.m. and was caught on surveillance video. The footage showed the suspect running up to a woman walking with a child and smashing her in the back...