• 3 Posts
  • 49 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 21st, 2023

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  • I love it, and for anyone else who does, I have a suggestion.

    Get a SodaStream (or whatever your carbonator-of-choice is) and a cheap adapter to run it from a standard CO2 tank. Not only do you save money on CO2 refills, but you save money on buying cans of seltzer, too. The concentrated flavor additives are only a few dollars at the grocery store.

    I think my SodaStream was something like $100. The adapter and hoses were $50-ish. The flavor syrup costs around $5 for enough to make gallons. Every few months or more, I might pay $50 or so to refill a 20lb CO2 tank. It’s already paid for itself, and it’s incredibly convenient.





  • I generally buy almost everything online, but clothes are one exception to that. I generally have 1 or 2 brands of clothes I normally purchase, but even within those two brands, size can vary quite a bit, especially after they’ve been washed a few times.

    I can buy two different size 36 pants from my favorite brand, and after washing, one fits comfortably, and the other only fits if I leave them unbuttoned. Being able to test them in-person at least gives me a general idea of if they’re still going to fit after they go through the dryer.





  • It’s actually surprising how much just having a person in the room can alter the temperature and humidity levels. In my master bathroom, I have my bathroom fan set to activate when the dew point reaches a certain level (I’ve found that dew point produces better results than just humidity); the idea is that the bathroom will be ventilated when someone takes a shower and for however long it takes for the humidity to dissipate after they’re done. The funny thing is that every so often, I’ll take an excessively long poop (lets me honest, I’m scrolling on my phone), and the fan will kick on. Just being in the bathroom will alter the dew point enough that it triggers the fan.

    I also have a room that contains all my server/networking equipment. It’s climate-controlled, and I’m constantly monitoring temperatures. The times that in the room working, I can see a noticeable spike in the temperature graph, even though the only variable that’s changed is that there’s a person in the room.

    So my point is: OP might not have been having fun that night; it’s entirely possible someone just came in and went to bed.




  • I was born in the 1980s. I remember growing up, I always had the impression that by this time in the 21st century, we’d have figured out some way to break the established laws of physics. Maybe it was because of watching so much sci-fi, but I feel like I’m not alone in this. The media seemed to reflect the same line of thinking. “Back to the Future 2” with its hoverboards and flying cars is now set several years in the past.

    Be it anti-gravity, interstellar travel, teleportation, whatever, I always kind of assumed that by now, we’d at least have a working theory of how we might implement it in the next few decades. I think a lot of that has to do with the start of the “information age.” Computers and the way they could connect us were so revolutionary, it seemed like “magic” to the layperson. More “magic” would only be a few years away, right? If we could fit all this power into a box that sits on your desk, then it wasn’t beyond the scope of reason to think that anything was possible; it’d just take a few more years for us to figure it out, then we’d be planning the first NASA mission to another solar system.

    What I never would have predicted is just how rapidly computer technology would advance. We now have supercomputers in our pockets, powered by CPUs that are well into the realm of nanotechnology and are now starting to run into limitations imposed by quantum physics. As a technological society, we’ve probably progressed farther than I would have ever imagined, just not in the way I expected.



  • In some states, these signs don’t even mean that a person can’t carry a concealed weapon into the shopping center. In my state, for instance, assuming you are otherwise able to legally carry a gun (meaning you took a class and aren’t a felon), the list of areas where you can’t legally carry a gun is very limited: Federal buildings, courthouses, etc. If a business has a sign posted stating “no guns allowed,” you can still legally carry your weapon in that business. If an employee sees that you’re armed, they can ask you to leave, and you’re trespassing if you refuse, but nothing legally stops you from carrying a gun into the establishment in the first place.

    As a disclaimer, I’m not arguing this one way or another. I have a license to carry a concealed handgun, in fact. Just sharing information.



  • One day, you’re going to die. Unless you are fortunate enough to die suddenly, you’re going to experience the terror and the pain the comes along with dying. Anyone who cares about you is going to be saddened by your passing.

    None of that would be true if you had never been born. Your parents, every parent, has condemned their children to death and has ensured sadness for anyone who comes to care about them.

    The worst thing my parents did? Not using protection or having an abortion. Conceiving a child is the most selfish act any person can do.





  • I’m curious, why does this require OpenSSL in order to compile? I’m not aware of any audio formats that use encryption, but I could be wrong.

    My first thought was for connecting to https streams, but I don’t remember Winamp having this capability. “Back in the day,” I used Winamp for playing local audio and RealPlayer for what little streaming was available.