Evan Simko-Bednarski
@simko-bednarski
Journalist w/ a camera & a pen, friend to wayward machines. Transit reporter at the New York Daily News, Vice Chair of the Daily News Union.
The Simko-Bednarski Turbo Library is a little Mitsubishi-heavy at the moment
So I turned my bathroom into a darkroom on a Wednesday night
Ah HA! So no idea how any of this happened but I’m pretty sure that little stub of a black wire is the ground. Totally severed. So nothing that I did today, something that somehow happened unbeknownst to me between the last time I ran the meter and now
Gotta splice it into this wire which, I’m not going to lie, feels like it was on its last legs 20 years ago. Fingers crossed.
This guy seems to get the voltage down into the low 1.4s, so it’s going in
But the 1.35V mercury batteries it was designed around are particularly toxic and no longer made. The current day batteries that fit in the battery port put out 1.5V. The meter reads the light all wrong as a result.
Haven’t done a fixing-things thread for a *long* time. Tonight on the kitchen-counter-cum-workbench, my 1974 Leica CL. This is a very small little film camera. My example is extremely beat-up. But it runs. Job tonight is the light meter. The CL has a meter that expects to run at 1.35V
Thank you! I maybe should have made clearer in my caption, that’s the switch between systems (on the right) and the box that handles axle counters (on the right) another similar-sized box handles the interlockings and transponders. Meanwhile, this is the older relay room
The hearing started out on an emotional note—Sovia Thurkal, aunt of 18 y/o Romanch Mahajan, who died jumping after his mother when she fell from an out of control carriage, wept while testifying before the Council. “Remember the life he lived and the love he gave to everyone around him”
Also, I’m sorry, but seeing a World Cup wrap on a subway just makes me wish they let that tagged Knicks train stay tagged for a bit
Work train on the beat—one of the Wabtec battery hybrid R255s pulling a few flat cars downtown through City Hall on the Lex line tonight
I am maybe most in love with this Parker 51 with a hooded nib and a dented cap (I think it’s from 1941) But it needs more work than I feel up to at the moment to repair the filling system
Love that! Mine’s nothing special, just an old Readyset Royal with one shutter speed and no aperture control. But I’d love to be able to use it.
I have some pens I fixed up from the 1940s that end up in my reporter bag. This little Eversharp gets the most regular use.
Bikes on the Beat ™️ Press Conference Edition Ran into @elkue.bsky.social and his 1x4, friction-shifted Lemond. Reynolds 853 steel, Ultegra and DuraAce, swept-back bars and just four gears. Crazy light. Love it.
I... don't know. I shot photos once for the Atlantic Wire, an assignment in which the editor renegotiated my rate down at least once and then tried to glue someone else's byline to my work. This was 12 years ago.
Also *kinda* right. I cover transit and transportation for the New York Daily News. Anything that floats, flies or rolls. A lot of that is "breaking news" but that's a very very broad category. I think the language calculators just assume anything that isn't think-piecey is "breaking news/crime?"