The type G was designed when things were designed to do their jobs. Any pain inflicted by user error was considered a learning opportunity.

The cord coming out the bottom means the plug can’t pull out. Combined with the big, chunky plug and pins, means the cable will likely fail first if pulled. It will also fail at the live core first, leaving a safe plug in the wall.

But yes, the foot pain is… impressive. It’s just blunt enough to not generally penetrate the skin, but it can happen.

I’ve taken a 240VAC hit a few times. That will definitely wake you up.

Interestingly, the only times it has happened have been when I’ve been abusing the wiring. Never via a plug etc.

It’s not a true fractal, so the length has some finite bounding. It’s just stupidly large, since you are tracing the atomic structure.

That’s exactly what I do. I also have IoT devices that are still trucking along a decade later. I fully expect them to likely do a decade more.

Both Tasmota and ESPhome provide open source firmware for many IoT devices. They throw up a local API interface that other systems can talk to. Providing legacy support is as hard as using HTML put and get commands.

It depends how often you drive without the kids.

If you don’t always drop the kids off yourself, it’s easy to get half way to work on autopilot before realising you meant to drop them off.

Sleep deprivation is a weird thing.

As a parent myself, I’m now doubly amazed at how few cases of forgetting happen. It’s so easy to do, and your brain is reduced to blomonge by sleep deprivation.

FYI, the “baby on board” signs aren’t generally meant as “don’t crash into me” signs, but “assume the driver is drunk and distracted” signs. Having been there, I try and give them plenty of space!

For most governments it’s enlightened self interest. Completely screwing over their population for short term gain is akin to cutting off your feet to save money on shoes.

I’ve noticed that people often put in near minimum acceptable effort to go optional tasks. The trick seems to be to make the easiest “acceptable” solution, to be an acceptable one.

Shopping carts are another example. The perfect solution is for people to return them to the front of the store. But that’s too much effort for many. They leave them wherever they can dump it. An acceptable one is to return them to collection points. It’s not optimal, but it’s better, and most people will actually do it.

In fairness, the only thing many people will lack is water. It’s not an exclusive stash, but in addition to what’s in your cupboards.

You can get 10L or 25L quite cheaply. 1 should do per person, maybe with an extra for cooking. Or just grab some big bottles of water.

A hand cranked flashlight, candles and lighter are all a must anyhow, for a power cut. It might also be worth having a cheap camping stove tucked away.

Food wise. It’s just a big bag of pasta or rice, along with some cans/jars to make it pleasant to eat. Throw in some hiking snack bars and you’re sorted.

They did eventually participate. While their initial behaviour wasn’t the best, I also understand why they dragged their feet. There was a definite witch hunt going on, for someone to blame. Once that calmed down, they did actually help with investigating it.

Ultimately, it’s of mostly academic interest. Where do we need to tighten down on things to avoid a repeat incident. The best answer would be “Both”.

Also, do you have a link to any papers talking about the man-made origin theory? I’ve not checked in a while, but last time I looked it sent me down a lot of rabbit holes, with nothing ultimately backing it up.

The complication is the double jump.

In the early days of COVID, there were 2 strains spreading. One of those fizzled out and disappeared after a few weeks. Genetically, they seemed to be independent jumps. A single mistake wouldn’t account for this.

It’s also worth noting that the first known infected all spent time in Wuhan wildlife market. They got fairly good tracking from mobile phones, even if the direct evidence was destroyed by the containment/cleaning effort.

Basically, the surrounding evidence doesn’t fit an accidental leak (2 jumps). It doesn’t really fit an intentional release (very geographically focused). It is consistent with it jumping from a sustained infection pool in the market. (Multiple jumps from the same small area at different times).

I fully agree, there’s some stupid ones out there. But they are actually less common than you initially think.

I spend far too long going up and down the motorways. I get bored and start comparing the various problematic cars. Most lack the nice clean cut off line, or it’s set so high as to be invisible. I’ve rarely been dazzled by cars with a properly set beam dip. It’s either high beams, or messed up beam dip.

The rudeness comes from London mostly. When you pack people too close together, they tend to develop a bunch of social rules, to keep sane. Those rules are unspoken and dynamic. That also cause an impressive reaction when you break them by mistake. It’s quite common worldwide, but London it particular about them.

Once you’re clear of the big smoke, and get a feel for the lingo and etiquette, we are actually quite a friendly bunch.

That’s still a problem, but it’s not a new one. There’s always been the issue that lights bright enough to see ahead reliably are also bright enough to dazzle. It’s also a lot easier to cope with a quick flash, however, rather than continuous glare.

The issue with a lot of LED lights isn’t brightness, its beam dip. The light should be angled downwards so it never shines into the oncoming traffic.

Unfortunately, a lot of retrofitted brighter bulbs don’t play nicely with the beam dips. Car companies also err towards helping their diver, rather than the oncoming ones.

It looks like a UK bus. If you want to help make the bus company’s life miserable there is a useful trick. This is the sort of thing a lot of parish council members will get disproportionately angry about. They also tend to have far less to do than higher bits of government. They also know a lot more about the inner workings of local government, and who’s ear to burn about it. A politely written letter (or a few from several people) can get them up in arms about it.

Once you set that in motion, wait a week or 2, then also contact the local papers about it. I’ve seen them roll with far smaller stories than this.

Neither group has much/any hard power, but the soft power of the NIMBY croud can be extremely effective against public facing companies.

Edit to add.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/artificial-light-nuisances-how-councils-deal-with-complaints

It could be argued that that light is a statutory nuisance.

The dream router is an excellent base to build upon. It provides all the normal functions (ethernet, wifi, router etc) as well as hosting the control software.

Unifi’s real power is when you expand it. The access points make extending WiFi coverage easy. You dont even need a wired link. It will link over WiFi, either as a primary or as a fall back. The flex mini is also quite handy. It’s a little poe powered switch. I have a couple tucked away providing extra ports around the house.

With my setup, I have detailed monitoring and control down to the port or wifi device. I can monitor and control things in detail, or get a high level view of my network.

While expensive, UniFi hardware is just a huge step beyond the rest of the consumer market.

I’ve had literally 10x the range (5x vs 50m), in congested environments, compared to ‘gaming’ hardware. I actually did a side by side to test. I was shocked at the difference.

The bridging function is also a life saver. 2 LR units can get a reliable signal between each other, at ridiculous ranges.

HDDs can be made tolerant to it. Constant rotation still puts significant extra strain on the bearings, when spinning however. The drive will likely fail faster than an SSD.