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Assuming you have a 200A service, you don’t need to replace your panel. You can remove two single pole breakers or one two pole breaker, install a 100A two pole breaker in the empty space, buy some 3/#1 copper SER cable (two hots and one neutral for 240/120V) and use it to feed a $125 100A load center without a main breaker.

You need to use #1 copper for a 100A subpanel, you can use 3/#2 aluminum cable for a 100A service entrance but there’s an exception that allows using wire rated at 83% of its ampacity for a service entrance conductor which does not apply for subpanels.

Refeed the two removed breakers out of the load center and add a 60A two pole breaker to feed the EV charger, if it’s a cord and plug charger that you plug into a NEMA 14-50R you’ll need a GFCI breaker, if it’s hardwired you don’t need a GFCI breaker.

The material can be purchased for less than $500 for this project, if you have to hire out the labor it’ll be considerably more expensive, I’d estimate one day for an electrician or around $1200-1800 depending on where you live.


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

The judge ruled that format shifting was fair use. The fair use argument was enhanced because the original was destroyed. Hypothetically, one could do only the format shifting and keep the original - but the original could not be sold or donated or otherwise given away because then the format shifted copy would not be fair use.

I can burn DVD copies of my old VHS tapes. I cannot then give away the old VHS tapes or sell them at a garage sale. If I keep them, they're cluttering the shelf... so the VHS tape gets thrown away 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.

The simple fact that the AI labs are spending billions of dollars to acquire and scan them implies they are rare and unique.

Please provide proof for the billions of dollars claim, thank you.

25 million books

scanning+ocr: 0.05 per page * 300 pgs: 15/bk

acquisition+disposal cost: 2.00/bk

total acq+scan+dispose = 425M

settlement value / bk: $3,000 [bartz v anthropic]

settlement probability, let's say 1%: 0.01

expected settlement / bk : $30

expected settlement total: 750M [industry-wide this is certainly an underestimate]

legal fees: 25% of settlement total: 187M

total 1.36B

+ operations, engineering, storage


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.


> This information is freely available if you google “[vehicle model] depreciation curve”.

That's just one of those secrets that you need to know, though. It's like knowing to ignore the unemployment rate (in the vast majority of cases) and instead to look at the prime-age employment rate. People rarely think of something like that without being told.


Cars are also one of those things that can be an emotional purchase and people do weird things. I spent way more than I needed to in order to get the car I wanted and I wanted it because it's a cool vehicle that, when I squint, still fits my needs. It wasn't smart financially but I'm extremely happy I did it. My wife could not care less about a vehicle outside of it being ergonomic and not having a payment. We'll be looking at depreciation curves and the like during that exercise.

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...


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.


Very true. I’ve started talking to older generations about their Socialism Security checks. “That’s different! The government taxes me and then… uses it… to support me when I’m not making money… Oh.”

Lots of people detest socialism until you show them how they’re already benefitting from it. I’m not even really pro-socialism, except in the simplified case where you have a number line with “capitalism” on one end, “communism” on the other, and “socialism” as the range in the middle. I definitely wouldn’t want to live on either end of that spectrum, and a mixed economy where private enterprise handles wants with a government handling needs for those who can’t do it on their own — i.e. socialism — is a reasonable alternative.


Social Security is a really bad example though. It doesn’t support a living wage, and everybody depending on it would have been better off if they could have invested those taxes instead.

The Ruling Class in the US has long been effective at influencing public opinion and behavior with boogeymen: communism, socialism, woke-ism, and so on. Mention publicly funded healthcare to 1000 random Americans, and the response from 950 of them is gonna be "Socialized medicine is bad!", and nothing else.

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.

There is already a door switch in all the refrigerators I have used. It controls the light (at least I think it does, I have never seen the light go off:)

Close the door very slowly. If you do it right, you'll see the light turn off.

Or, y'know, press the switch yourself.


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

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.


Fixed speed compressors are okay for AC condensers but for tighter applications like heat pumps a variable speed drive offers a good efficiency gain, the problem is there is no standardization established for the driving of say a variable motor since they are all redesigned and unique so when the controller goes kaputz you are out 3-4000 dollars for something that costs 30 dollars to manufacture

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