• 3 Posts
  • 33 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: September 30th, 2023

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  • The solar panel technology has evolved in leaps and bounds in the past 20 years. Current panels are more efficient and resilient than old ones. I’d recommend saving for a new installation if you can.

    In some places you can get a loan against your house equity for things like a solar panel installation if you install it on the roof. The thinking there bejng that the value of the house increases as a result. There may also be subsidies you can access.

    That being said, you can test an used solar panel with a decent multimeter, by measuring the voltage (DC volts), short circuit current (DC ampers) and operating current if you can (this one is easier with a clamp meter, but you have to measure it on a live installation). As long as the values are reasonably close to the panel spec, you should be fine. There are tutorials out there on how to actually do it without blowing the fuse on your tools.





  • Perfect human beings don’t exist. Apparently there’s a religion positing there was one perfect human, but we nailed him to a cross for interfering with business.

    Here’s a thought. If you were able to get away with Almost Anything ™ and were surrounded by people praising your genius, dashing good looks and boundless generosity towards their persons, how long would it take for you to lose your moral compass, you think? You would pretty soon lose your frame of reference to the normal people, and your empathy would follow. And that’s assuming you’re not 2nd or 3rd generation ultra rich, in which case you never had it to begin with.

    Succession is a very good TV series exploring the mindset of such people, if you want to see it in action. Otherwise, history is full of examples - such as Nero, the greatest poet to ever set fire to Rome.

    I know there are exceptions, like everywhere else in life. But those tend to cultivate humility as a habit, like other people go to the gym.


  • I second the suggestion of a Kobo. I have the Libra 2, bought after the charging port of my paperwhite gave up the ghost, and it’s perfect for my needs:

    • usb-c charging port
    • native support for epub
    • hardware page turning buttons
    • water proof (not tested, but nice to know it’s there)

    Support from Rakuten has been stellar as well.












  • Depends on how you read it. I see it as a woman’s POV calculating the potential for violence from an encounter where the only guardrail they can trust is the man’s morals. And given the amount of catcalls, casual feels and assorted bullshit women in my friend circle had endured from a very early age, fuck no, I’m not begrudging them choosing a bear.

    Besides, OP was talking about men harassing women because of stating their bear preference. Which a) just proves them right, and b) do you honestly believe they meant ALL men are worse than bears? Each and every woman in that original story could probably choose at least 10 men in her life who she would be perfectly fine encountering in a dark forest. The question was, however, about calculating risk in an unknown encounter. I don’t read it as sexism at all.