Mama told me not to come.

She said, that ain’t the way to have fun.

  • 8 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • What isn’t sensible about nuclear? For context, I’m coming from the US in an area with lots of empty space (i.e. tons of place to store radioactive waste) and without much in the way of hydro (I’m in Utah, a mountainous, desert climate). We get plenty of sun as well as plenty of snow. Nuclear should provide power at night and throughout the winter, and since ~89% of homes are heated with natural gas, we only need higher electricity production in the summer when it’s hot, which is precisely what solar is great for.

    So here’s my thought process:

    • nuclear for base load demand to cover nighttime power needs, as well as the small percentage of homes using electricity for heat
    • solar for summer spikes in energy usage for cooling
    • batteries for any excess solar/nuclear generation

    If we had a nuclear plant in my area, we could replace our coal plants, as well as some of our natural gas plants. If we go with solar, I don’t think we have great options for electricity storage throughout the winter.

    This is obviously different in the EU, but surely the nordic countries have similar problems as we do here, so why isn’t nuclear more prevalent there?



  • Not taking a picture, but here’s what I have:

    • Ryzen 1700 in a giant case sitting on my desk (desktop PC is on top of that in a mini-ITX case); 2x 8TB HDDs, connected to network over Wi-Fi; hope to cut the size significantly once one of our ITX boxes need an upgrade (both Ryzen 5600s)
    • Mikrotik router (5 port) and Ubiquiti AP sitting next to my bed; Mikrotik handles my local static DNS for my public services

    Running:

    • Jellyfin, as well as Samba and some other NAS stuff
    • HomeAssistant (nothing monitored though, but I plan to add my Sensi thermostat soon)
    • Actual Budget
    • Nextcloud
    • Vaultwarden (currently unused, plan to switch soon)

    I also have a VPS to get around CGNAT, and I have a Wireguard VPN configured so communication is encrypted.

    Plans:

    • upgrade NAS to either a mini-ITX motherboard or a mini-PC w/ external USB-C enclosure
    • actually run Ethernet - have been putting off for years
    • configure my Sensi thermostat in HA and maybe get some other smart home crap
    • use Nextcloud more - want to get SO using the notes app so I can finally kill Google Notes for shared shopping lists
    • port my PF spreadsheet to LibreOffice and actually learn to use LO Calc (currently using Google Sheets); I use GoogleFinance func for stock quotes, so I need to replace that with some other workflow (mostly rebalancing investments)
    • replace our TV or at least have an alternative for Jellyfin - the config disappears whenever our TV WiFi screws up, which is like 2-3x/month; screw you LG…

    So yeah, somewhat simple. My family likes Jellyfin, but I haven’t really gotten them on board with anything else.






  • I’m not saying “game design,” but things like deciding on art style, optimizing balance between fidelity and performance, etc. AFAIK, that’s all “production” stage things. Assuming it’s the same studio as built it the first time, they’ll still have the original artwork, which probably just needs to be touched up and reexported. That’s a lot less work than building something new from scratch.

    In fact, you probably need minimal assistance from developers since all the gameplay elements are already there, you’d just need a small group for making some tweaks here and there to keep consistent performance, and maybe add in a little bit of fanciness here and there (e.g. tweak shadows, maybe some RTX if you go crazy). None of that is particularly time-consuming for a developer to throw in, so once the art team is done freshening up the assets, they can prep for release.

    I’m thinking a project like that could be completed in 2-3 years, depending on which game they pick and how far they want to take the remaster. That’s definitely in line with the timeline for a TV show.



  • Here’s my current bill:

    • usage - 420 kWh
    • total - $58.86 (mix of winter and summer usage)
    • stated rate - $0.09-0.10/kWh for “block 1”, 0.10-0.12 for “block 2” (they charge more the more you use)
    • calculated average rate (inclusive of all fees and credits) - $0.14/kWh

    And here’s my previous bill (all summer usage w/ AC and whatnot):

    • usage - 522 kWh
    • total - $80.17
    • stated rate - $0.09/kWh for “block 1,” $0.117/kWh for “block 2”
    • calculated average rate - $0.154/kWh

    That’s why I gave the $0.12-0.15/kWh range, because it depends on time of year, total usage, etc. It’ll probably be closer to $0.12/kWh next month since we’d use hardly any electricity (we use natural gas for heat).


  • That really depends. If you’ll eventually get a NAS, I recommend a NAS HDD because they do better with 24/7 operation. They also use a bit less power than desktop HDDs (which you shouldn’t get anyway, just get an SSD for your desktop/laptop), if you care about that.

    I use two WD Red HDDs in my NAS (just an old desktop PC), and I’ve had Hitachi in the past. I use SSDs exclusively for my gaming desktop and laptop though, because performance is a lot more important than cost.


  • Power costs would have to be bonkers for it to matter.

    8TB NAS HDDs are <$200, so even if it uses 15W vs 3W, that’s 12W difference, or 8-9kWh/month. If you pay a ridiculous $0.40/kWh, that’s $40/year. That means the SSDs would pay for themselves after ~15 years, and I’m guessing you’d replace/upgrade them long before then.

    But NAS drives use a lot less than 15W, usually around 4-6W idle. So the payoff period is probably closer to 30 years… My electricity is more like 0.12-15/kWh, so it’s never going to pay back for itself.



  • The fridge is the important factor here because cold makes it separate slower. But then it’s hard to spread, especially for almond butter.

    We end up taking it out of the fridge a bit before needing it, which helps, but it’s still a nuisance, and if I forget to put it back for whatever reason, I have to go re-mix it, which takes a few minutes.