I'm not saying that it's likely or that it would have any effects.

I live in Vancouver Canada, my house was built in the 1950's and the basement has the floor joists of the kitchen [above it] exposed.

At that time forestry here was felling massive ancient trees. I'm curious how precisely I can establish a maximum age of the trees felled.

Obviously I could count the rings visible on the joists and subtract that number from 1950, but not having the tree's full diameter limits measurement. I understand it's possible to compare relative ring sizes with existing [cross referenced] data sets to date timber.

Does anyone have any experience doing this or able to point me in the right direction? Any resources I'm unlikely to find on Google?

...and a fact check of the statements made in the interview.

I'm trying to achieve variable speed control on two brushed DC motors powered by a 3s or 4s LiPo battery (~12V or 15V). This is for a nerf blaster I'm modifying, which is why I'm not using a pre-made speed control ie I want control over the shape/layout. I'd like to vary projectile speed with a thumb knob.

I just finished watching ElectricMonkeyBrain's YouTube video on the TL494 PWM chip.

I was initially planning to vary the duty cycle with a potentiometer on the chip's control pin, to get a PWM signal and feed that into a MOSFET. But in the video he mentions that the chip has an integrated over current protection function. Ie the chip will

monitor the voltage across a sense resistor in series with the load 

and will

kill the output if the sensed voltage/current goes above a reference voltage

It occured to me that I could actually adjust the reference voltage as a way to control the motor speed.

Would this be a better way to achieve speed control and protect my motors/battery? Or is it a terrible idea altogether.

I met a Ukrainian today. He is my age. I met him at school drop off, our sons are in the same kindergarten class.

They recently arrived here from overseas. I welcome them, but I wish we had done more to help Ukraine.

There are numerous places in the world where people are being displaced by state violence, but I don't think there's anywhere that it's being done by a global power so directly. It's similar to Gaza/Palestine & Israel, but Russia can end the war by simply going home.

If we had been meeting our NATO obligations for the last 30 years, would this family have been driven out of their home? I don't know. (I actually know almost nothing about their personal circumstances)

I just feel like we should have done more, and that it's not too late.

I have recently rewatched the movies Inside Out and Home Alone, having previously seen them while childless (I.O. as a young adult, H.A. many times at various ages).

The parental behavior draws a lot more of my attention, and it really changes the movie for me.

The parental panic when they don't know where their kid is, or if they're safe, just hits so much harder. Like, it's not that I didn't understand the movie before, I guess I just have a new appreciation for the parents emotions.

Are there any other movies that you appreciate differently now that you have different experiences?

I know this isn't build a pc, but everything over there is so gaming oriented I thought I might get better advice here.

I'm a noob that wants a home media server for sharing photos of my kids with my family (across the country), video library sharing to some family members, and streaming my music collection to my phone (and maybe my dad's).

But I'm considering ripping my father in laws extensive bluray collection (well seeing it up so he can rip them into my library) so I reckon a full tower is required for HDDs.

I'm imagining unraid, with a big pile of used drives. What I like about that approach is that I can economically add storage as the video library grows as I/we rip. Or are used HDDs a false economy.

I think the only processing intensive thing in the use case list is ripping and video library sharing. I have no concept of what sort of processing is required. Should I get a graphics card?

There's a Lenovo TS-140 (E3-1226 V3) available available used for $80 Canadian. Is that a good place to start?

I

The cyclist was riding on the sidewalk, and ran a red light (a bit more justified to flag him down). He fled, eventually ditching the bike and fleeing by foot.

I hope the police didn't screw up by performing an unjustified search.

My friend John mentioned that he has been feeling depressed lately. There have been some bad things in his logs that would make anyone sad but the things that normally bring him happiness aren't doing anything for him lately. It's something he has struggled with in the past. He has a counselor and has been prescribed anti-depressants. I'm not worried about him harming himself.

My understanding is that part of being a friend to someone facing depression is reaching out to spend time with them.

How much should I reach out? I don't want to harass him, and he has a wife and other friends (that are emotionally closer than me). His wife for sure knows what's going on, but I'm not sure about his other friends (our kids go to the same school so I actually see him more then most of his friends).

I understand that sometimes depressed people neglect chores in their life, should I ask his wife if there's anything I could help him/them with?

The bake off one:

Sister in laws:

I glove you.

My neighbour (40/m) ("N") confided that his recently retired father (70/m) ("G") has started going to the casino twice a day (all day but he comes home for dinner).

G's losses affect the food they eat (multi generational household).

N doesn't really know what to do. I'm not so concerned for N, moreso his mother/G's wife.

It's not my business but, when I was a kid my boyscout leader committed suicide after gambling away his house so I'm pretty sensitive to this sort of thing. I'd like to help if I can.

Any advice?