My recommendation is to maybe get some electrical safe tools, possibly some gloves that insulate against shocks, but definitely a good non-contact voltage detector, or NCV.

Check the circuit with your NCV before turning off the power, before working on the things on the circuit, and after turning on the power when you’re done (before you switch anything on). It helps keep you and your house from halting or catching fire.

… And always connect ground wires first.

Good luck.

Fair enough.

If you’re not an EE or a nerd (like me), then it might as well be black magic.

Powerline adapters are fun here tho. They work great if you’re not crossing the split phase, otherwise they suck… A lot.

I’m not an EE. I apologize if I gave that impression. I just have an obsession with understanding anything I use on a regular basis, whether computers, smartphones, electricity, vehicles… Anything that does stuff, and I use it, I want to know how it does the thing that it does.

I’m weird like that.

I learned a lot from “Electrician U” on YouTube, along with a few others. Maybe worth a look. The scientific/physics side of things was more from watching other YouTubers (as to why it behaves the way it does), along with a fundamental knowledge that I learned from doing amateur radio stuff. Working in IT and having to deal with the power requirements of systems and making sure that we won’t blow a breaker under load… That helped motivate me to learn.

It all came to a head when we were deploying a network and server for a business that was still in construction of the facility. The electrician was going to run a temp line for our stuff so we could set up and be ready for opening day, and he asked how many amps we needed… I did a bit of a deep dive to figure out an answer for him, and I’ve been learning more and more since then.

Oh this gets stranger.

It’s usually 120v, but I’m not going to split hairs over 10v.

So, 120v is not a voltage that is delivered from the grid… Technically speaking. Each home is given one circuit of 240v, which is usually part of one leg of a three phase, coming off of the Transformers… 120v is there because they center-tap the transformer. This halves the voltage by consequence. Inside the house the circuits are generally laid out to try to balance the load between each half of the 240v phase.

The idea is that two 120v loads, put in series, will total 240v. So power will ideally go from L1 to a 120v load, to “neutral”, then over to another 120v load, then finally back on L2.

More or Less.

120v is basically just half of what you should be loading the system with.

The center tap neutral from the transformer is to collect any load imbalance between L1 and L2 to allow for the two “sides” of the phase to be out of balance and still work.

The US “plug” ( aka receptacle ) is a NEMA 5-15R, or NEMA 5-20R (for 20A); these are designed for 120v operation using the half phase described above. Of course, you can mis-wire it and make all kinds of dangerous abominations if you so choose. There is, however, a less known NEMA 6-15R and NEMA 6-20R that is basically the same, but for 240v operation, replacing the neutral wire with L2 instead (and 15/20A respectively).

So it is entirely possible to have 240v outlets in a North American home, while still being compliant with code.

It’s actually really fascinating information when your dig into it.

You wasted a lot of words here.

You acknowledge that at the beginning of COVID, contact tracing and sterilization of contact surfaces was paramount before we knew better, going to the length of generating, or otherwise obtaining “tubs” of cleaning products for the purpose.

My entire point is that “contact tracing” is not just who you make contact with but what you make contact with. My point is not and was never that it was relevant for protection against COVID. My point was that it was a part of contact tracing. I only mention COVID at all because that is what was taught in the early days of the lockdown. A point to which you have all but plainly said, that you have also been educated on.

The miscommunication here is that you are only looking at contact tracing as person to person contact because it was relevant during the pandemic, while I’m focused on the umbrella concept of contact tracing not just for COVID specifically and that as a medical term, which it is and always has been, “contact tracing” is not just person to person contact, but also contact with surfaces. The context of the word contact, is the difference. In your view, you are seeing contact as in someone on your contact list, a person you connect with, or communicate with. In my context, contact is the act of touching or making physical contact with peoples and things, including nonphysical contact, like what happens when you share a small space with someone, you are in contact with all of the surfaces they are, inhaling the air they’re exhaling.

For COVID, contact tracing and education thereof started with the full medical definition of contact tracing, including, but not limited to, physical contact to both people and objects, and sharing a space with others. Later the former part of that was dropped for COVID specifically as it was established that it did not yield any significant prevention from infection.

None of the above paragraph is in question.

My friend who sanitized their groceries on the advice of medical professionals during the early days of the pandemic did, indeed, as you say, waste cleaning products with no real gain to show for it. In their defense, at the time nobody knew that.

My point is. Contact tracing is more than who you make contact with. That was it. You’re arguing something totally off topic about COVID that doesn’t refute anything I’m trying to prove.

In the context of COVID, again, no it does not prevent the spread in any meaningful way, as medical science has since proven. You were, like everyone else, taught the full meaning of contact tracing during the early days of the pandemic, yet here we are. You’re up on a soap box, shouting from the rooftops that it doesn’t prevent the spread of COVID. A point that was never in contention. Good job. You played yourself.

That seems like the same thing as soda stream, which is far more popular where I am.

I don’t want soda stream, I also don’t want this drink mate thing. Far too manual to make soda when I want it.

With an actual soda fountain: I set it up, and beyond refilling the supplies every few months or so, I wouldn’t need to think about it or do anything… Just fill up my cup and go.

I disagree. I specifically cited in the context of the apps made. The contact tracing that was in effect for COVID was far more comprehensive.

If you didn’t get that message, you likely were not paying attention. I knew people that were using disinfecting wipes on their groceries because of contact tracing. Eg, they couldn’t know what or who made contact with their products prior to having them, so they did the right thing in the context of contact tracing and sanitized the items to the best of their ability.

This wasn’t uncommon among those that actually wanted to avoid the virus.

If you’re only referring to contact tracing in the context of the apps that were made, sure. Then it’s about who you were in contact with.

Contact tracing in medical contexts is entirely not that (or at least, not just that).

In medical environments being aware of what you make contact with, aka, contact tracing, is absolutely about tracking what the hell you touched.

You leaned on that wall over there for 2.6 seconds after touching this thing contaminated with x, y, and z? Great, now we have to sanitize that, and everything that made contact with it.

Sit down.

We wanted to do it this year on our anniversary, which was about a month ago now, but there was too much going on financially that even throwing a modest party with the budget constraints was going to create problems. We both had job disruptions in the last months of 2024, and things have just been a bit to hard financially to really bother.

We’re starting to save for next year already. Planning shall begin soon.

I love it. I think it would be pretty awesome to have a drink fountain for home.

Not sure I could get the wife approval on that…

My partner and I are similar to you. We couldn’t care less. I proposed to her, she said yes, we’re happy with the way things are, nothing needed to change.

However. Legally speaking, when you get married, you are considered as a single legal entity in many things including court/law enforcement/taxes.

A person cannot be compelled to bear witness to their partners actions in court, in the USA, that’s the fifth amendment, in Canada, it’s section 11© of the charter of rights and freedoms. The basic concept being that you have the right to remain silent (and not incriminate yourself).

While I don’t plan on doing any crime or anything… That’s a nice perk.

Also, she hates doing her taxes, so when we’re married, I can do taxes for both of us.

There’s very few perks here and bluntly, it’s not worth the cost…

We’re going to elope and just throw a “reception” (party) afterwards.

Confirm this for me. It’s not one hole per drink on the first, isn’t it? It’s two per, since one is for the creamy thick syrup, the other is for fizzy water.

That’s why you basically end up with soda water if the syrup is out.

That’s correct, no?

A big thing with COVID was contact tracing. As in, knowing who and what you made contact with that could have been contaminated with your sick.

Surfaces were nontrivial in that whole context.

If you didn’t learn contact tracing during COVID, were you even in lockdown?

FR

I must ask why; the prohibition of it doesn’t make any sense to me at all. It’s all but proven fact that it’s not any more harmful than either smoking cigarettes, or drinking alcohol.

Both of which are completely legal to consume all day, every day.

Weed simply doesn’t deserve the status it is given, it was placed on schedule 1 as a gigantic middle finger from the ruling class, against the working class. They did it to punish those they saw as their lessers, and so they could have the police rough up anyone because they owned a small amount of the substance. But the cigarettes and alcohol they’ve enjoyed for decades and many of them have profited from? Those are fine. This new thing (at the time) that they aren’t profiting off of? Let’s make it illegal, so we can force everyone to use the things we do profit from.

That’s basically the backstory here.

Why you, or anyone would oppose lifting that prohibition is confusing at best, racist/classest at worst.

I’m genuinely curious how you have come to have the position you do. If you don’t like it, nobody is going to force you to use the stuff, same with alcohol and cigarettes. So why do you care?

From the wording, it looks like they’re just going to georestrict their content to places that are not Turkey.

Far from a problem, unless of course, your primary following is from Turkey; or that’s where you live.

I don’t blame bluesky here, they operate internationally, and they have to obey the laws of the locations they operate in. Personally I’m wondering what kind of Internet posts are restricted in Turkey? Who has laws to say you can, or cannot say things on the Internet? Besides… I guess, China, and obviously illegal things like CP…

Were they posting CP?

IDK, I’ve never used bluesky. I barely used xitter, back when it was relevant, if I were to use anything as a replacement it would be Mastodon.

Anyways.

I also would not know about that.

With the switch 2 coverage, this is something that bugs me quite a bit… Not the meme, Nintendo games, by comparison, are worth more than the slop that Ubisoft craps out. No matter how good a Ubisoft game could be, Nintendo has them beat in terms of quality.

Back to my point. The cost of games is insane. The price point for most video game systems is around $500 USD. Whether PS5, Xbox, switch, whatever, they’re all either at or near, $500.

You buy 6 games, and you’ve spent more in games than you did on your console. The fuck is this? We might as well go back to the days when you would buy a whole ass console that could only play a single (or small selection) of games like the Coleco Telstar.

I think they figured out that you make money from selling the add-ons, so they dipped the price of the console and jacked up the cost of all of the games so they could increase profits and shareholder value.

Oh wait.

Clearly, it’s light-ish red.

This person colors