mordechai9000
Joined 11 years ago
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1,021
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357
Member since
Jan 17
Recent submissions
Comment · 1 month ago
Stellar fusion could also be a factor in a sufficiently large compost heap.
Comment · 2 months ago
In northern Alaska it can last most of the day in the winter, and most of the night in the summer.
Comment · 2 months ago
That could be a troubling game for someone with a history of psychological problems like depersonalization or other forms of psychosis.
If it were a film or a story, you could tell it with enough ambiguity that the audience wouldn't be sure, either.
Comment · 3 months ago
I also want to add something. The new pressure cookers, stovetop or electric, are much less risky than the old school version with the rocker switch. Those could get clogged with food and they had no backup relief mechanism, as far as I know, anyway.
The ones used now have a primary valve that controls the cooking pressure, a secondary valve that will release if the primary fails, and the silicon gasket for the lid, which acts as a tertiary pressure release if the first two fail.
I know some people, like my mother-in-law, have stories of pressure cookers failing and spewing soup at high velocity all over the kitchen. I think that was more of a feature of the older version. And probably required some carelessness to achieve even then.
Comment · 3 months ago
I think $1M net worth in the US these days is a nice little nest egg, but not anywhere near financial independence. Unless your needs are simple, you can relocate somewhere to live very cheaply, and you don't have any dependents.
Comment · 3 months ago
I'm a little skeptical that any actual wiring from this project is still in use to this day. Conditions are hard on this kind of infrastructure. Alaska has been pushing to modernize telecom infrastructure heavily for the last two decades, and now LEO, GEO, microwave, and fiber are delivering services to pretty much everywhere. On the other hand, I've seen a free public telephone in the middle of a village that has dial-tone, presumably even in the middle of winter at temperatures past -40. I can absolutely believe that if there is a pair of wires that get the job done, they could still be in use for something like that.
20 years ago I stumbled across an abandoned telegraph line that was used to connect Seward to Anchorage. There were poles with intact glass insulators in some places. It wasn't far off the highway, and I encountered someone else at the time who told me it was an unofficial trail used by locals. So I wouldn't be surprised if someone took the insulators for whatever reason in the meantime.
Comment · 3 months ago
> Obviously, huge challenges here
Social credit score? I've seen that Black Mirror episode.
Comment · 3 months ago
The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.
- T.H. White, The Once and Future King
Comment · 4 months ago
I worked for a small, local ISP in the mid 2000s. I don't think I made any stupid mistakes on my part, but I had plenty of coworkers who did. To be fair, people were often actively hostile to security concerns back then. It's not much better now, but at least not everything gets a public IP by default.
Comment · 4 months ago
It also had "weltschmerz" in the list, but I think I have only ever heard "ennui" used in English. They are both foreign words, but I would not have thought of weltschmerz as a loan word. Then again, maybe I am not reading the right texts.
Comment · 4 months ago
Depending on where you live, those probably aren't the problematic species known as the German cockroach that typically infests human living quarters.
Comment · 5 months ago
My concern is that even if it would temporarily alleviate the local drought conditions for some areas, it wouldn't reverse the long term trends towards hotter, drier conditions.
Comment · 5 months ago
I wonder about failure modes and fault identification. I've heard stories of things like screws or brackets wearing through the insulation and causing an intermittent fault that defies diagnosis. One of those things I think about when I am procrastinating.
Comment · 5 months ago
A handful get infected from direct exposure to animals. Then it spreads to family and others in the community. Sometimes people travel and bring it to a new location. Sadly, it is often the caregivers who get infected.
Comment · 6 months ago
I believe, in my state, similar looking characters are considered identical for vanity plates. I assumed this applied to state issued plate IDs as well, but maybe not. It's hard enough trying to read a license plate on the road without throwing in confusion over B vs 8 and O vs 0.