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Nice to see you back, Dave. Smart to get out of CA. That state is heading to disaster. It's overpopulated for the resources available in the area. Since you're playing catch up on what people here are doing, I more or less retired in 2017. I had a good consulting gig with Exxon which ended...

Avoiding the sun is easy for a night person like me. I'm rarely even out of bed before noon, never mind outside. Most of my riding/walking is done at night. Unusual hair colors probably wouldn't work for me. Besides, fortunately as I mentioned earlier going gray isn't a problem in our family...

I agree. Biological age matters a lot more than chronological age. I'd say me and my siblings are probably still in our 30s going by biological age. I'd still rather find someone first before going on any trips but there's lots of opportunity for that in NYC. Just walking the streets and riding...

I'm seeing a major generational shift. Your generation supports this a lot more than mine. As your generation gets into power, it's a lot more likely we'll start to do something. Your generation is really the first to acknowledge en masse the problems with an auto-based transportation system...

Last thing I'd ever want to do is travel with seniors. Ditto for group travel where you don't set your own agenda. I just turned 60 but me and my siblings look 20+ years younger than we are, and can match that in terms of physical ability. My sister is almost 59. She has so few gray hairs she...

Well fortunately the NY Metro area is a major shipping hub, so I'm good to cross the Atlantic at least. If I needed to cross the Pacific, it's Amtrak to the West Coast, then hop a freighter from LA. Since I would most likely stick to major cities overseas chances are great those would be major...

There's ships to the other continents. If/when I ever travel overseas, time isn't an issue. I'm happy to spend two weeks on a freighter crossing the Pacific if it means avoiding flying.

Merc, I know Amtrak sucks in most of the country. The only place it handily beats or matches flying/driving time overall is on the East Coast. I'm talking about national HSR running at 220 mph and averaging, say, 180 mph with stops. NYC to Chicago in 5 hours. Counting the time getting to/from...

Only thing to add reading all this talk about airlines is I'm glad I never was in a position where I needed to fly, much less needed to do so on any kind of regular basis. If I ever get around to traveling, it's Amtrak for me. I flew once, back in 1990, when the airlines were generally much...

By definition you can't brainwash kids to become atheists because atheism isn't a belief system that needs to be taught. You're simply not burdening their minds with the baggage that is religion. When they're adults, they're free to seek out religion if they want. Until then, let them focus on...

That's fine because it's adults studying religion, and doing so for academic reasons, not to be converted. There is definitely value in that, especially if it convinces those who think their religion is the only true one otherwise. True, and this is exactly why I'm against religious...

In my opinion forced religious indoctrination on youth is just another form of tyranny (and child abuse besides). Religion shouldn't be taught at all to minors, regardless of the parent's wishes. Of course, all religions do this because they're far more likely to sway children into believing...

Way too complex. The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything is 42.

It's possible a new old stock power supply board can get it back into working order again, assuming you can find one, and the fire didn't damage anything beyond the power supply/cord. Wasn't that a fairly high-end printer back in the day? I personally want a Game of Thrones style Viking...

For those prices I hope they can render photorealistic games in 8K resolution at 120 fps. That said, are there even any games at this point with such content? I suspect their target audience is cryptocurrency miners more than gamers/video editors/etc.

I keep scratching my head over why it bothers some people who others sleep with. These people must have really empty lives, or they must be super control freaks. Back on topic, I've been using Chrome mostly for a while, and I usually have an Edge session open as well.. Sounds like both of these...

Those numbers are fine for LiFePO4. I actually made a charger which does the absorption at 3.5V and the float at 3.4V. Those numbers translate to 28V and 27.2V, respectively, for an 8 series battery. Sometimes they use 3.6 or 3.65 for the absorption phase just to get faster recharge times but...

OK, no problem, I'm happy to help. I might dig out my APC UPS just to see what the charging voltage is, and if I can adjust it.

Anything 13.8V or higher is enough to fully charge a 12V LiFePO4 battery. SLA needs at least that much or more to fully charge, so most UPSes are voltage compatible with LiFePO4. Yes, a server rack with EVE or CATL would be an awesome backup battery for a UPS. I also have 6 packs with 48 A123...

That's why I would suggest using a standard UPS that takes lead-acid batteries but build your own LiFePO4 battery. You can get A123 cells in packs used for about $1 a cell. "Used" is a misnomer because when I checked the capacity, it was the same as new cells. To replace a 7Ah, 12V SLA battery...

Just a question-how far in terms of miles are those trips? A free car sounds great until you consider insurance costs and possible repairs. When my father died in 2006 some people asked me why I didn't want his car. Putting aside that I didn't/don't have a driver's license, I realized it was a...

https://blog.tripplite.com/the-benefits-of-lithium-iron-phosphate-vs.-lead-acid-batteries-for-ups-systems They mention LiFePO4 lasting 8 to 10 years, versus 3 to 5 for lead-acid. In truth, if you float them at 3.4V per cell (13.6V for a 12V battery), instead of the more typical 3.65V per cell...

Thanks for letting us know. I skipped the two boosters because I was waiting for an omicron specific booster. I'm not in a high-risk group anyway, being that I only go out every other week to buy groceries. And I wear an N95 mask with a surgical mask over it. I'll get the booster in a few...

Anything using A123 cells can handle the load easily. I just bought some surplus 96 cell packs (12 series, 8 parallel arrangement which gives 38.4V nomimal and 20Ah). Not for a UPS, but for solar backup once I get a solar system. Anyway, right on the pack it says SHORT CIRCUIT CURRENT 2250A...

This probably explains it better than I can. Most newer UPSes synthesize sine waves electronically, using what is basically a switching power supply which varies its output the same as 120VAC house voltage. This is done for cost and weight reasons. Pure sine wave inverters should be...

For me that would cost more than the equipment on it.

Sorry to hear about your friend's death, Merc. I've already been down that rabbit hole myself. I wrote about it here but can't find the post. I came within minutes of taking my own life in my third year of college. Only the fact the train I was planning to use came through at only 60 mph...

If/when I upgrade my monitor it's going to be OLED 4K but the price still needs to drop. I never bought into the widescreen fad. Still using a pair of 20" 1600x1200 monitors. I'd love OLED in maybe 24" 4000x3000 resolution but I guess that's too much to ask for, so I'll settle for 4K, maybe...

Ah, the good old days. My first PC was a 386-33 with 4MB of RAM. I got it in late 1998 after my friend upgraded the PC at his business. Needless to say it was slow even for the time, but it was better than having no PC. Anyway, that machine had a 1.2GB HDD which was using drive overlay software...

Thought this was relevant given the concerns here about power dissipation: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/amd-and-nvidia-leaks-show-we-are-drunk-on-power-and-the-hangover-is-going-to-be-brutal/ar-AA102Kl8?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=458add52ac8841788f35a344cda18233

I don't know about you but a lot of the cost for me is delivery. For example, on the last bill: There's the basic service charge per day. This varies slightly depending upon the length of the billing cycle, but on average it's around $18. The delivery charges are north of $0.16/kWh once you...

That's a good guideline for what I would get with solar since I'm more or less in the same area of the country as you. Figure roughly 1 MWh/year per installed kW. Since I plan to put the panels on the garage, I'm probably limited to about 6 kW. That said, there are some newer panels in the...

Yeah, but you still have to get that heat out of the case, which implies a lot of case fans. I don't even have one case fan. The fan from the power supply provides enough air flow to remove the heat from the case without unacceptable temperature rise. APU = Accelerated Processing Unit (AMD's...

They're about $0.30/kWh for me. That includes the delivery charge, which is actually more than the supply charge. ConEd wants another rate increase, so we might be looking at $1/kWh in the not too distant future. New windows helps a lot. As renter, that's out of your control unfortunately.

At my current electrical rates a 300W card operating even 4 hours a day would cost $11 a month. That's not counting any additional AC use to remove the extra heat. How the heck do you even cool something like that? Air cooling isn't going to work, not without the system sounding like a vacuum...

Just take it one day at a time. He sounded like a really sweet cat. I still sometimes hear mild creaking sounds coming from my bed similar to when Jeannie walked on it. It would be a great comfort if we knew with certainty that something of them is still around after their body is no longer...

Just keep him company and keep him comfortable. Probably not much else you can do. I sadly went something similar with Jeannie in late 2020 to early 2021. At first I didn't think it was anything life-threatening. In late November 2020 she had diarrhea for over a week but recovered. Then she got...

Looks like the GOP finally made it official that they want to turn the US into a Christian theocracy. I've been saying this for years. https://news.yahoo.com/boebert-says-she-tired-separation-205248681.html

Yeah, basically they're going to rule how they want, then twist their legal reasoning to justify their decision. I'd still love to see how they might be able to square away an abortion ban which violates the beliefs of faiths which don't consider a fetus a person until it's born. The ironic...

Merc, Fact is if Roe had been argued based on the separation clause in the 1st Amendment, and not on the 14th Amendment, it wouldn't have been overturned (assuming of course the justices didn't want to chip away at the wall separating church and state any more than they already have). Ditto for...

Sure, this ruling doesn't affect me, but it's just the start at gradually chipping away at our rights. Sooner or later I'll lose rights which do affect me. There's also the pending West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency case. The planet is something I care about deeply. This ruling...

I bold-faced what I think is the primary reason. I haven't had a discrete graphics card for a decade. And what I'm using now (A10-7870K) is probably only 1/3 as powerful as the latest APUs from AMD. Hard-core gamers are the main ones who need discrete graphics cards. And they certainly wouldn't...

Even easier than that for the fans. I simply put a temperature sensor on the radiators. When the temperature of any radiator drops below, say, 50°F the fan kicks on. When it goes above that the fan goes off. I keep the house well above 60°F in the winter, so the fans will never come on during...

A separate cooling loop might make more sense, and yes, I wouldn't be thrilled with the idea of drilling holes in the brick wall. I might be nice if someone already designed a system similar to what I had in mind, and worked out any kinks.

That's among my to do items in the next few years, along with solar power. I'm looking for some way to keep most of my existing hot water system intact. In theory it shouldn't be hard. The pipe for the hot water heating loop which gets heated by the oil furnace would instead be heated by a...

I'd say more likely most homes built in the last 40 years or so. That's when central air really started to take off. I'm pretty much the same. If I'm not moving around I can barely tolerate high 70s to about 80°F. If I'm active, 65 to 70 tops. I don't like doing yard work outside unless it's in...

Yeah, I saw that one, as well as the Midea U version. For me it's moot since I mounted all of our air conditioners through the wall. I like the idea of a unit that heats and cools but I'd still want one with inverter technology. The fridge I bought in late 2017 has that. It makes lots of sense...

Meanwhile my heat tolerance has always been close to zero ever since I was a kid. So far I've managed to get this far into June without turning on the A/C, but only because it's been a relatively cool June, with most days in the 70s. The few days in the mid 80s, plus one day in the mid 90s, were...

Are they going to cover your power costs for those servers? It probably costs a small fortune each day.

I didn't see the pics, either. I just saw text that was gibberish and assumed Doug's cat had walked across the keyboard. My last cat died last February but when I had cats that happened pretty often. Of course, I thought it was strange that some sequences of characters were repeated but I...