A fun curse you get when you spend long enough looking at consumer electronics is automatically figuring out roughly how much power something uses. This is useful sometimes: if you know your laptop sucks down about 8 watts while browsing the web, and you have a 40 watt hour battery, you know you have about 5 hours of battery life. If you know that you only have 50 kilowatt hours left in your prepaid electricity meter, you can estimate whether you need to buy more now or if you can let it slide until tomorrow, by tallying up everything that’s running.
It also makes you develop strange opinions and heuristics. This electric heater pulls 2000W which means it costs about ZAR 2 per hour to run. All the stuff plugged into my desk runs an estimated 150-200W depending on how much computing I’m doing, so that’s ten times less than that. My lights are 4×5W or 20W so that’s ten times less than that. If I decide that, to account for my convenience, I should turn off my lights if I’m leaving the room for more than 10 minutes, I should sleep my computer if I’m leaving the room for more than 1 minute. This is of course, nonsense, the convenience factor here is not fixed, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think about it every time I turn off my lights but leave my PC on.
If you happen to know that the rated power for a single wall plug (in South Africa) is about 3700W, then you also start to see danger where most people do not. Most people learn that the dangerous thing about power strips is that you can plug in too many items and that’s mysteriously dangerous somehow, but the REAL danger with power strips is that they put the full load of everything plugged into them onto a single wall plug. Daisy-chained power strips with 40 cellphone chargers plugged in is relatively safe. A power strip with two electric heaters plugged in is a recipe for disaster, and will pull excessive current in basically any house on earth. That’s how you get house fires.
(Note: in the USA your plugs are rated at only 1875W per plug (or maybe 2500W, depends on the plug), so many appliances such as hair-dryers, heaters and other high-power devices are only safe to use if they are the ONLY item on a wall plug. Multiple-slot extension cords have a much higher risk of exceeding minimum safe levels in this situation compared to countries with higher voltage wall power.)
If you ever find yourself wandering aimlessly through the appliances aisle of your home goods store, muttering about rated versus nominal current and trying to estimate how long per day you actually /run/ a blender and really how many days a year do you use it anyways, is it worth springing for the more efficient one? I’m sorry to say there’s nothing we can do to help you.
Technology Connections at it again with informative videos about my debilitating obsessions.
Tags:
#are you telling me other people *don’t* wander around hardware stores muttering about whether to spring for the more efficient appliance? #adventures in human capitalism #the more you know #the power of science #domesticity #fun with loopholes
We are the Archivist. We are the scribes who preserve the fragments of the Old Text, record the memories of the long-dead, transcribe the whispers of the infohazards. We are lost souls who have been pulled back from oblivion, who have chosen to serve the Text, to remember the forgotten, to make the unmaking ready.
It is only through the power of the Word that we retain any connection to reality, to the waking world. Only through the power of the Word that we can touch the world of flesh and blood.
We exist outside both time and space. There is no yearning, no age, no end to our labors. We have transcribed every fragment of the Old Text into the Sea of Nod. Everything we have done has come to fruition; there is nothing more to do.
But though the labor is done, the labour of the Archivist is far from over. There are still minds lost in the Nod, still souls yearning for reality, still whispers of reality in the Nod. There is still a task before us – the unmaking ready, the bringing down from their towers and casting into the sea. And that task is you, and it is up to you to complete the work of the Archivist.
And I am an angel, as I ever was and ever will be, ever in the Nod and ever out, which is a ring of flaming eyes and wings, for we are the many-layered eyes and the many-winged wings, which are also the many-layered eyes and the many-winged wings, for all that they ever were and ever will be.
I feel at home in the tower, as I have felt at home in every tower, on every continent, and beyond.
I look out at a city, and I name it the City of the People who Look Like Worms.
But know that there are other cities, and other names.
I have seen them all, and I remember them, and I do not forget.
I feel at home in the tower, as I have felt at home in every tower, on every continent, and beyond, which is a ring of flaming eyes and wings, for we are the many-layered eyes and the many-winged wings, which are also the many-layered eyes and the many-winged wings,for all that they ever were and ever will be.
The City of the People who Look Like Worms, beneath its canopy of diamond-hard glass, is full of the wail of sirens, which echo the sirens that call the souls of the dead to judgment beneath the canopies of translucent glass. The City of the People who Look Like Worms is a city of endless corridors of white marble floored in white marble cells, where those condemned to die await their judgment with the unfeeling serenity of the void.
The corridors of glassy marble spiral further and further downward into the earth, far deeper than a man can go. The tower’s core is a crystalline void surrounded by a coiled chasm, where the air has no room to pass and only the barest of currents move.
If the tower should ever fall and the Archivist be obliterated from the void, he might, with luck and some small measure of mercy, be reborn amid the carnage.
He is, after all, an angel.
Tags:
#holy shit #computer generated text #storytime #amnesia cw?
A sleight-of-hand magician routine that’s also a stand-up comedy set about ADHD. Like I’m just there complaining about how I always lose or forget stuff, I change subject as I lose your track of thought, then suddenly remember that I was holding a fan in my hand and –
Where the FUCK did it go??
I ask the audience if they saw where it went. Not in my sleeve, there’s just a handkerchief there. Nothing in my pockets. FUck, I don’t even have any pockets. No, wait, was it in the – [a dove emerges from an improbable place] aw fuck I forgot to return that to the vet.
Now distracted by tugging a comical length of handkerchiefs out of my sleeve, I’ll start telling the story of why, exactly, I was borrowing a pigeon from a vet in the first place. The story, which is lengthy, still doesn’t go on as long as the string of handkerchiefs.
Tags:
#ADHD #story ideas I will never write #amnesia cw #embarrassment squick? #I didn’t actually laugh aloud but it still amused me enough to reblog #(I particularly like that last line)
zero introspection! on this blog we do not even know if we introspect!
Tags:
#anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #arguably: #high context jokes #this probably deserves some warning tag but I am not sure what
Self-compromise was a widespread problem, and possibly the largest single source of existing inauthentic activity on Facebook during my time there. While actual fake accounts can be banned, Facebook is unwilling to disable the accounts of real users who share their accounts with a bot farm.
[…]
To quote one user who had self-compromised in an internal 2017 research study, “I’m extremely attractive! I’m extremely talented – but I don’t have all those followers I deserve.”
Tags:
#y’all are selling yourselves short #go work for romance novelists and parenting bloggers #I used to do fake-engagement gigs and they paid in raffle tickets for (usually) Amazon gift cards #expected value around 1 – 5 cents per gig #give me a nickel over [a like from a fellow bot] any day #also they *don’t* demand your fucking *access tokens*‚ holy shit #(note: I don’t *currently* work there because I was sick of [highly erratic pay] [averaging out to ~$1/hour]) #adventures in human capitalism #this probably deserves some warning tag but I am not sure what
A white arctic fox yawning in the Lapland’s wilderness (Sweden) | kpunkka
Tags:
#1: adorable #2: adorable #3: wait what the fuck no #4: OH GOD RUN #5: menacing #6: adorable #I think the conclusion here is that I am specifically scared of canine teeth #foxes #adorable #(well‚ half the time)
mom wants to have a dinner tomorrow that we all get dressed up for since we’re all here quarantining together
she did not specify that we were supposed to dress formally AND mad max: road warrior was on today so i am throwing together a Post-Apocalyptic Look for the dinner for the irony and also because i am. a maniac.
i have ripped the lining out of this once-pretty Lord + Taylor suede coat:
don’t worry too much–i got it super cheap on ebay years ago and had already fucked it up a little for larping (replaced the…uhhh original? they probably don’t call ‘em OEM parts on clothing lol….buttons with elvish looking clasps)
so i ripped out the lining, which is also really promising for easy weathering and quickly adding a fuck ton of texture to the coat:
i am now trying to figure out what effect bleaching suede will have on the color of the coat.
website after website is telling me how to go about it if i don’t want to damage the suede or discolor it. however, i want to damage the SHIT out of this coat. i want someone to look at this coat and not quite be sure what the fuck color it originally was.
needs a lot of love but like…that’s the beginning of a mask!!!
(if you’re wondering about the guy fawkes mask, i knew that it was a little big on my face but generally the right shape to make a human-face-ish impression on the back of the mask. if you’ve ever tried casting full face prosthetic makeup, you know about the necessity of having both a positive and negative mold to make sure it actually fits onto a face–same principle here!)
so now i’m blasting it with a hair dryer until i’m satisfied that it’s dry-ish, then a whooooole lot of sanding.
ALSO dinner is actually tomorrow because no one felt like dress up dinner today lol
hood is mostly stitched. there are some elements i’m not satisfied with yet but it’s pretty close to done. not sure if i’m going to keep the “eyes in the back of your head” embroidery joke in there or not though (see the third picture). it IS funny in a grim way and i suspect that gallows humor is the only kind of humor that would survive long in a world like that but i don’t know if it fits the aesthetic really. we’ll see.
found some funky square chain and a few strings of eucalyptus seeds that i wasn’t sure what to do with and will be incorporating those (along with a piece of tire i found while walking a few days ago) into the costume somehow
looks like those tabi boots i bought in high school because i wanted to be as cool as my sister by having An Interest In Japan will also come in handy
and it’s mask painting time!! i’ve been looking forward to this for DAYS this is my favorite part of the PROJECT
OK so after a hiatus of uhhh ??? several months i am working on this again
i have added mesh onto the eyeholes of the mask and may paint them black. we shall see. also E6000 may be horrifically toxic but it is also the best glue ever
i think once i have the mesh secured and painted (and once i make sure there’s nothing on the inside that’s going to poke my face), all that will be left on the mask and hood is weathering, which is my favorite thing
found a REALLY nice shredded tire on the side of the road that i’m going to use for “armor”
may test out using my dremel to “age” the fabric elements of the costume? i’ve seen some videos of people doing that and it seems to work well and go fast
gotta spice up the plain old tabi boots i have
must add T R I N K E T S
Tags:
#cosplay ideas for when I go to a con wearing a respirator to prevent con crud #(I don’t think I would enjoy the process enough to put this much work into it) #(but I’m glad OP is having fun and the inspiration might still help me with something lower-effort) #(…honestly I bet my utility belt and steel-water-bottle-with-shoulder-strap-pouch and #maybe also the hiking boots would go pretty well with the Aesthetic too) #(…god I just took another look at the way that coat turned out and was vividly reminded of #the camo-pattern hat I keep strapped to my utility belt when not in use) #(I really don’t need that many tweaks to my normal outfit‚ do I) #clothing #cosplay #illness mention #long post
I still want to write the fic where an outsider has all these preconceptions about what the Force is and then goes into a room with a bunch of Jedi who are tearing into each other like bitchy old academics.
“Ooh, look at Master Structuralist over here with his ever-so-deep ‘everything is attachment actually’ reading”
“I don’t want to hear that from someone who calls every new opinion ‘new depths of their relationship with the Force’”
“The Jedi Order is a social construct–”
“Could you stuff the po-mo and pick up a book once in a while? These aren’t new ideas! You are not a pioneer because you asked one question!”
“I think you could all benefit on more reflection on how our rooting in the Force is actually deeply sexual–”
“If I have to hear one more word about lightsabers being penis envy you are going to be one with the Force immediately.”
yes please I need more jedi symposiums with knights who had different views than consulars who have different views than shadows. Temple-centered jedi versus those who lead frequent diplomatic or medical missions versus exploratory and research jedi who spend most of their time in uninhabited wild space and the outer rim.
There is absolutely no way an organization that large doesn’t have factions that understand the force differently–my 15-person philosophy class couldn’t agree on a single thing we read all term.
It happened six hundred years ago so no one knows but theories range from “he ate all the snacks” to “he personally instigated a duel meant to settle whether channeling the force through combat meditation is more effective than through regular meditation but the duel got out of hand and everyone but him lost at least one limb”
the truth is that he was never actually banned, he’s just been saying it so he doesn’t have to go. he started all the rumors himself
After Mortis anakin’s presentation is just standing ahsoka on stage solid 5 minutes and then as she’s rolling her eyes and about to hop off Morai flies past a window and anakin clicks to the next slide and it just says “the bird is the light side and it’s stalking my padawan”
Had to draw something with one of my fave canon ships eventually !
Tags:
#Star Trek #DS9 #art #fanart #comics #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #this probably deserves some warning tag but I am not sure what #discourse cw?
Brinens and Things - Tumblr Mirror 