It’s much easier to run a HTPC on something small like a Raspberry Pi, or an NVIDIA Shield. The hardware on your TV is probably the bare minimum to run its own smart features, and replacing the firmware doesn’t guarantee that the TV isn’t still phoning home with your data.

TLDW: The moisture sensor might be on the right side of the microwave, and the bag was pointing left when the steam was released.

But that was definitely worth a watch.

The couch cushions can be placed on the floor to sleep 3 small infants, and then three more infants can sleep on the exposed couch springs if you cover them with a blanket. Linens not provided, sleeps 7.

Ross Perot never had a real shot. The ruling parties would not have permitted it.

Even worse. You’re buying a house? That’s incredibly stressful and fraught with perils that the average person will experience less than once in their lives. You don’t start with the loan, you start with the open house that had the sex swing.

Thats sucks that they do that to you, and I know that pain you feel when it happens.

But I’m going to ask you a question I wish someone had asked me a long time ago: Have you considered that maybe you’re boring? There’s no shame in that, no judgement intended.

You have interests, and they are interesting to you. The vast majority of people would not find anything about you interesting, and you’re blessed with a family that loves you enough to ask how you are. Your response is to start with a home loan? Is your house project super interesting? Are you putting in a fireman’s pole or a hot tub? The minutiae of reflooring a rumpus room is fascinating to the person who owns the rumpus room and exactly no one else.

Your sister asked what’s going on in your life because she’s curious about you. You can tell the same story in a way that relates it to her experience by starting with emotions.

“How am I? I’m stressed, but really excited. This house project has been driving me nuts, but I will be so glad when it’s over. I could actually use your opinion on a paint color, because I want to have a splash of something fun, but everybody is saying to go neutral for resale value. What do you think?”

It’s the same conversation topic, but it’s not about the project anymore. It’s about you and how you’re feeling and how she can relate to you.

Think about the story you’re going to tell, and try to think about your audience. I built a home automation server and was really excited about all the cool things I can do with it. When I geek out about it, though, people run for the hills. So when people ask what I’m into, I skip right to the good stuff.

You know why people love magic tricks? Because they don’t know the details. Their minds fill in the gaps of their knowledge with actual magic. The cardinal rule of magicians is to never reveal the secret. If you show them that you palmed the coin and forced the card and the girl’s legs are curled up under the base of the box, they lose interest before you’re done speaking.

Telling someone about the details of your interests is like explaining how to do a magic trick they’ve never seen before. When you got into your interests, you didn’t start with “How do I get a home loan to do this?” You got interested in the magic part, and then worked backwards to figure it out.

I don’t mean to harp on that example, because I know that was just one example that one time. But you’re describing a common behavior pattern that so many people don’t even realize they fall into. Ask a kid about Pokemon, and they will dive into their favorites, and why this one is better than that one unless you get a shiny egg, and I got a shiny once but when it hatched it was just another Pidgey so I sold it to a friend who has a sister that just started out and he gives her all the shinies he doesn’t care about because she just likes having more Pokemon.

They will never mention how much fun it is to keep fighting elemental sentient animal slaves that ejaculate from balls you keep in your pockets to do battle for you.

Edit your stories like a journalist writes an article. Grab them with a headline, and frontload the interesting bullet points. The longer into the story you get, the more detail you can share, but expect your audience to lose interest two paragraphs in. If someone stops listening before the juicy bits, you’ve told it wrong.

Maybe you didn’t need to read all this. Maybe you’re not boring, and your family really is entirely responsible for not giving a shit about you. Acknowledging that you could become a better storyteller doesn’t absolve them of their apathy towards you. But I know I have a habit of being boring, and I wish someone had given me this advice years ago.

Only if he could find an anchor of some sort.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them.

In my headcanon, Twitter users were called twits, so Xitter users are called xits, pronounced appropriately.

It also forced users onto their app, which creates a captive market for force-serving ads disguised as content.

There are far too many variables to know for sure. What fuel does the central heat use? Where is the house built? What sort of sun exposure do you get? What type of house is it? What’s in your attic? Basement? How much time do you spend at home during the day?

I would go with the central heat, generally speaking.

Homes are insulated differently depending on where you live, but the exterior walls are usually better insulated than the interior ones. The heat in one room will dissipate to neighboring rooms. You’re correct that closing vents will direct the hot air to the desired rooms first. Over the course of the day, some of the energy will disperse and warm other rooms. One space heater might use less energy than your central air, but you will need to run it longer and more frequently.

You may also find that you’re keeping the one room hotter because you’re always cold in every other room. Getting warm and staying warm are two different physiological processes. Keeping the house at 66 may feel warmer than keeping one room at 72.

Consider what each heat system was built to do. Central air is there to keep the house warm. Central air is most efficient when it is automated to maintain heat. Allowing the space to get very cold every day will cause it to run longer when you feel cold.

Meanwhile, a space heater is a short-term hot spot in a room. It’s designed to create immediate warmth in the immediate area. Use it when you are feeling cold to get yourself warm, and then shut it off. If you use each one to do its job, that’s probably going to be the most efficient.

The best thing you can do for your energy bill is insulate. Get a temperature sensor, wait for a cold day, bring your entire house up to ~70, and then go hunting for cold spots. Check around window sills and near brick or masonry walls. Airflow through your walls is dollar bills flying out of your wallet. You can place film over leaking windows, replace caulk when it cracks, and fill voids that happen when old insulation breaks down or gets wet. Check your attics and crawlspaces for airflow as well, and consider reflective foil as an inexpensive upgrade if you can get to the rafters.

If everything is properly insulated, all heating and cooling becomes more efficient.

First one, then the other.

Fair question. You’re not going to catch a soda can, but a boat should be a closed system. The thresholds should be as low as is practically enforceable.

First - The major problem with trash isn’t the getting rid of it part, it’s the gathering it up part. If we could do that, it wouldn’t be a problem.

The frustrating part is that this could be the easiest to solve. Require boats to weigh in and out, and account for everything on board. Minus fuel, plus fish, but those old, broken nets and plastic waste need to return to port to be properly disposed of. Throwing even a soda can overboard should result in significant fines.

The house thing is like Monopoly 101. Never buy hotels, stop at 4 houses. If you need more houses, you can buy a hotel and have four houses to buy.

What they’re saying is that trying to reverse climate change won’t be enough. It doesn’t mean it isn’t the right path, just that it won’t go far enough.

I’m inclined to believe her, but also she needs to prove those allegations.

Two types of people reading this:

“Oh no! We should do everything we can to mitigate the damage.”

and

“Fuck it, might as well keep doing what I’m doing.”

And it’s the latter that got us here in the first place.

Eh, I can go either way on this. If the writing is great, and the story lives up to the legend, I’m interested. If it’s going to be a half-assed cash grab, then the world is better without it.

Prequels can be good, if there’s a good story to tell:

Rogue One
Prey
Better Call Saul
XMen First Class The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

It is a crime to film inside a polling place.

https://codes.findlaw.com/ga/title-21-elections/ga-code-sect-21-2-413.html

How is it not election interference?