quickthrowman

A judge ruled it was OK to scan books and save the scanned copy if you shred the physical book afterwards.

Feel free to buy books by the ton and preserve them yourself. The simple fact they’re being sold by weight implies they’re not rare or unique.

If you’re lazy and don’t mind dealing with a few ads, search yandex for ‘[content name] free stream’ and use one of the many pirate stream sites that show up in the results. Adblocker highly recommended.

I have access to a well-seeded 20+ year old private tracker but usually use the above method to stream content for free these days.

> I remain baffled when people buy a 7 year old used V6 Traverse, a vehicle extremely well known for catastrophic engine failure

I’m puzzled as well, buying a car that depreciates 60-70% in 7 years seems like a horrible idea, you could spend roughly the same on a Toyota Highlander or Honda Pilot and only face 30-40% depreciation after 7 years. This information is freely available if you google “[vehicle model] depreciation curve”.

Nissan (and Stellantis, Mitsubishi) decided to stop making better cars and focus almost exclusively on subprime lending, the rest of the story tells itself once you have that information.

Food delivery services offer convenience for a price. If I hire a courier service to bring some materials and tools to one of my electricians, it’ll cost me a minimum of $50.

I can pay a bit extra for food and $10 in tips and fees to have it delivered to me instead of spending half an hour driving to go get it myself. I know what I’m paying for and value the service they provide.

There are a couple of metro areas that escaped this problem by having regional government, Mpls/St Paul, MN and Portland, OR.

Minnesota has the Metropolitan Council which derives its power from state statute and can supersede the decisions of local governments. The same people that bitch about ‘my tax dollars’ complain about the Met Council but I feel it provides a cohesive regional planing organization and they provide water, sewer, transportation, and regional parks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Council_(Minnesot...

Portland, Oregon has a similar organization called Metro that I am not familiar with, other than it is similar to the Metropolitan Council. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_(Oregon_regional_governm...

Ah I see what you’re referring to.

I was taught that the safe way to keep using the old pre-8000 series wire is to use the specific listed fittings for this purpose (WAGO 221 series nuts are fit for purpose) with contact paste and a copper pigtail that connects to the device.

Oh yeah, I forgot about the built in door switch, good call XD

The word “socialist” was strongly associated with the USSR in the Cold War era United States. Anyone advocating for socialism was dismissed as a red pinko commie spy.

See Joseph McCarthy, HUAC, Hollywood blacklists, J. Edgar Hoover’s COINTELPRO and other domestic surveillance programs for a small slice of anti-communist efforts in the Cold War US.

I’d just throw an analog min/max thermometer in there and investigate if the max temp goes above 40F, sounds a lot easier than adding a temp probe and door switch to a residential refrigerator.

A bimetallic strip thermostat with a ‘cool/off/heat’ mode switch and ‘on/off/auto’ for fan control is all anyone actually needs with a fixed speed compressor and generic furnace with a fixed speed fan.

If you have a fancy modulating furnace and variable speed compressor or a variable speed heat pump, a thermostat that uses a PID would work better.

Aluminum wire is completely safe these days. Wiring devices and breakers have accepted both Cu/Al wire for the last 50 years.

There was an issue with aluminum wire and terminations, the wiring devices and breakers used for copper only wire didn’t work with aluminum (wrong coefficient of expansion of the metal where the terminations were made) and caused arcing and fires. Once the termination points were made out of an alloy that worked with both Cu/Al, it’s been safe to use.

Oh awesome! I’m glad there are others in the industry around here :)

I’d like to learn more about PLCs and SCADA, but that scope of work usually falls on another contractor, we mostly provide installation for BAS systems that control HVAC and chilled/hot water plants.

I do some water treatment plant projects and there’s a local contractor that handles the PLC and SCADA stuff.

I imagine Oracle lawyers to be identical to the Cylons pointing guns at President Gaius Baltar and forcing him to sign death warrants on New Caprica.

https://youtu.be/2_nUztwPiEY

A residential electrician would be completely lost on a data center site. Commercial electricians travel around to the various data center projects. Most of the trades are similar.

> You don't get, for example, datacentre electricians rocking up pretenting they can install network cable to spec and running away having (if you are lucky) only done a continuity test on the cable they just installed.

I frequently have my electricians pull and terminate network cable if it’s only one or a few (daisy-chained VAV controllers or a network drop for a BAS panel), if the customer needs a formal TIA-568 test then I’ll sub that out. My electricians are already pulling and terminating building automation cable, CAT 6 isn’t gonna stop em :)

Indeed, tracer wire is usually bonded to a (sacrificial) magnesium anode, but it’s a crapshoot whether the tracer wire is still intact.

I sometimes hire directional boring and excavation contractors and if there’s any doubt as to where an electrical conduit or natural gas pipe is, I opt for the hydrovac truck to minimize risk.

It has been conjectured that the easiest way to locate a buried fiber optic cable is to start digging.

(The actual easiest method is to install the conduit or direct burial cable with tracer wire)

You’re leaving out the speculators who usually end up assuming the risk of both the producer and buyer.

> You know it if you've driven past any road construction project. 90% of the people at any given time are standing around.

If 90% of the people onsite are unnecessary, a competitor will simply bid for the project without the extra labor and win.

Have you considered the possibility that you don’t understand how road construction works? I don’t fully understand how it works and I am a commercial construction professional.

The model in reality is “Hope the producers like you enough to write you into the show as the winner.” Survivor is hyperreality, not an actual competition.

Porsche’s induction charging strategy seems a lot smarter and much more reliable than a robot arm.

That would have wide ranging negative effects on the middle and upper middle classes (and wallstreetbets), consider HELOCs (home equity loan), ag loans using farmland as collateral, and brokerage margin loans.

I’m fine with it provided there’s some sort of minimum level of wealth required to be taxed in this manner. Taxing someone that is using a HELOC to replace their roof on the unrealized equity appreciation would be unfair, and I’m not even a homeowner.

There are better ways to attempt to tax wealth, eliminate the step-up cost basis and asset shielding in trusts and other forms of estate tax avoidance and the issue would correct itself eventually. Unfortunately, politicians in the US will not do this because they need donations from extremely wealthy people who absolutely do not want their estates taxed away. It’s also too easy to hide money in other places, there will always be nations willing to take on tax haven status to reap the benefits. I’m not sure what a practical solution is given the outsized influence of the wealthy all over the world.

> Where is your source for this?

For one, the lack of any secure computing systems.

Futures are a mechanism to transfer risk from one party to another, more or less.

When did you pass the bar exam in whatever state you practice law in?

This looks like it’ll be a good book for me to learn more about electrical theory and circuit design, I know a bit about AC and DC electricity from working in electrical construction which should help me dive right in, thanks for sharing this book release!

I still need to watch that movie, I feel obligated to see it after so many people suffered so many injuries while filming it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roar_(film)#Injuries_and_set_d...

What are they going to do if you’re not carrying anything illegal and you’re a citizen? You cannot be refused entry to the US as a citizen and they can’t charge you or hold you without evidence. You don’t have to tell them why your phone is wiped, just stay silent until you’re released.

I will be wiping my before I pass through US Customs next, no matter who the president is. I have no idea what some guard might randomly take issue with, best not to risk it.