Mice used to have a mechanical ball in the bottom. You needed to remove it periodically to clean out the gunk that formed on the rollers. When optical mice appeared, they steadily replaced the old style. It became an IT joke. Mice with balls were male. Optical mice were female.

Old stock, or is someone still making them?

Computer mice is an area where females have completely displaced males.

I’ve not seen a male mouse at work in a long time.

I find it a lot more palatable if you assume it’s viewed from penny, as an unreliable narrator. There’s actually a lot more geeky stuff going on under the obvious, but she doesn’t notice it.

It’s worth noting that this is talking about plug in solar, so would be at standard mains voltage.

1kw would be around 4A in Europe, but 8A in the USA. Also, since resistive losses scale with I^2 that’s 4x the heat dumped in the walls.

At least in the UK, they tend to run 3 phase to a road, but only a single phase goes into a given house. You need to get a special hook up to get 3 phase to a domestic premise, and they don’t like doing it.

I had a chat about this with a friend who works for the national grid (UK).

Apparently the problem is keeping the grid balanced and stable. Basically, the grid struggles to react fast, so they plan ahead. Things like large scale solar can provide predictions on output. Home solar can’t.

When clouds pass over an area it can cause slumps and surges in the local grid. The more home solar, the worse it gets. The current grid is designed to work top down, with predictable changes in demand. It needs upgrading to deal with large scale bidirectional flows.

The plug in units are (potentially) even more ropey. If used properly, they are no worse than normal home solar. Unfortunately, being cheaper, there are worries over the microinverters not shutting down. Either due to the manufacturer cheaping out, or turning on an “off grid” mode.

There are also worries about overloading household circuits. Back feeding bypasses the household circuit breakers and RCDs. They could overload wall wiring and cause fires, or stop an RCD tripping, allowing for a person to be shocked.

I don’t know how much this would apply to the American Grid, but I would imagine it would be worse. Your grid is older and larger. You also use 120VAC which makes the current overload issue a lot worse.

Older PCs couldn’t always boot from CD. In those cases, you needed a boot disk. It had just enough OS to get the cd drive working and allow for a full install. They also allowed for basic repair or maintenance tasks e.g. resizing the windows partition.

Veterans kept a couple about at home. Nothing like the catch 22. “I need a boot disk to fix my PC/I need my PC to make a boot disk.”

I would much rather a FOSS option, that is difficult to tap into. The other option is people using proprietary setups that can be data mined without the user’s knowledge.

Its a classic “perfect is the enemy of good” situation.

I personally suspect environmentally caused ADHD could be a thing.

Ultimately, if the treatment methods and suggestions help, I have no issues with it being treated.

It’s also worth noting that ADHD (and sub diagnosis ADHD) are disproportionately represented in certain groups. My wife didn’t realise she had a problem till well into adulthood. Since she was diagnosed, over half her friendship group are either diagnosed, or in the process.

When it causes active problems with life. It’s also worth noting that it’s a brain chemistry change. Where on the sliding scale you pick is, ultimately, a little arbitrary.

I personally suspect modern life isn’t helping. The pressures on children are quite different now. I suspect many children who wouldn’t develop symptomatic ADHD in earlier years now do.

It’s also worth noting that ADHD, as a condition, is mostly a Gordian knot of maladaptations. Built up over childhood (and beyond). While there are a lot of commonalities, you need to do a detailed investigation to pick out what bits are a problem to the individual.

If you’re going to go through that process, then you might as well not tie up an MRI machine for no reason.

Drugs can treat the base problem, but don’t work well without the follow-up care to repair the behavioural damage.

I actually missed that on my first pass.

Thanks for the heads up!

I also love the breakdown of costs. It’s one of those little things that shows their mentality.

My plan is to replace the bathroom extractor with a heat exchanger. It takes outside air, warms it using the exhaust air, then dumps it into the bedrooms.

The living areas are easier. Opening a window for 10 minutes isn’t an issue when you’re awake and moving about.

You can also get vent replacement versions. They flip flop between venting out, and pulling in, storing heat in a heatsink as appropriate.

I don’t want it too cold when sleeping, and heating a room with an open window is wasteful and expensive.

I’m personally planning on installing an air to air heat exchanger. Even a cheap one can get 75% recovery. Add in some air sensors to make it smart and it’s fairly fire and forget.

I feel you. I lived in a converted stable once. The place leaked air like a sieve.

I also discovered the oil fired boiler had 20m+ of unlagged pipes between it and our radiators, running through an unused stable. It took 2 full tanks/winter to just keep it above freezing. It should have been 1/2 a tank to keep it nice and warm.

Modern houses are actually quite a problem for this. A well insulated house also tend to be quite well sealed. I’ve seen my bedroom pass 5000ppm. I suspect a lot of people are working in 1000ppm environments or higher for long periods.

For those interested, IKEA recently released a air quality sensor that does CO2 for a very low price. ALPSTUGA

2 words, cycling shorts.

They leave very little to the imagination…

It’s less based on the capacity, and more on how much time is likely a premium.

E.g. motorway services are more expensive, since people need the power and want to get back on the road. It’s exactly the same logic as the price of petrol there.

PhD level and up are notorious for over specialisation.

My university had a personal assistant, dedicated to 2 professors. Half their job was to make sure they made it to lectures on time. They still managed to be late sometimes.

I suspect this would change a bit, if you separate serial killers from mass shooters.

Serial killers need to plan out what they are doing, to not get caught. They can often hide behind a mask of charisma.

Mass shooters fit this quite well. It’s also the exact behaviour I would expect from someone trapped in an untenable situation. The pressure builds until something happens. In a few of those people, it is via anger and rage against those they feel wronged them.

1 group is likely naturally broken, to some degree. The other is broken by modern society.