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I wonder if Cards Against Humanity bid against them.


Depending on the specifics, you might be able to add socat in the middle.

Instead of: your_app —> server

you’d have: your_app -> localhost_socat -> server

socat has command line options for setting tcp_nodelay. You’d need to convince your closed source app to connect to localhost, though. But if it’s doing a dns lookup, you could probably convince it to connect to localhost with an /etc/hosts entry

Since your app would be talking to socat over a local socket, the app’s tcp_nodelay wouldn’t have any effect.


Look up vagal maneuvers. Used by a subset of tachycardia patients to reset to a typical heartbeat.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagal_maneuver


Perhaps a stack of these could be useful as a volumetric display?


I wonder what tricks would be invented to make up to lack of enough layers


The Bug Bite Thing seems to have a similar miraculous effect for my family. I was initially skeptical, but it works surprisingly well. Also, no need to fiddle with batteries.


My son gets horrible blisters from mosquito bites (skeeter syndrome). Bought him a bug bite thing out of desperation on our last trip south and was blown away to see how well it worked to keep the swelling down.


In my experience, it only really works if you do it within 5 minutes or so — but if you do it's absolutely magical.

It's even better for bee stings.


I’ll have to try.

Once you have had enough bee stings, they hurt briefly then stop. But 3 days later you get itchy.

I’m good at getting stung, not so good at beekeeping.


I was similarly skeptical and impressed with how effective it was. +1 for the bug bite thing.


SoundHound is a credible alternative.


SoundHound it's actually much more impressive because it can recognize hummed or whistled songs too!


Google search in Android can do that too. Albeit not very well.


pixel series since 6 has an option to passively listen and document songs by default. probably the only feature I miss moving to iphone


It dates all the way back to the Pixel 2 from 2017, still feels like a magical feature though.

I think the historical log of songs that the phone heard launched a little later, on the Pixel 3.


I used to use SoundHound originally, but their Android app became so bloated that it took a long time to start it. As a result, I switched to Shazam and have not used SoundHound since.


I use palindromes. Easy to check and will catch extra dollars added.


Seems like the article is addressing two orthogonal issues — home insulation and heat pumps. They are suggesting that heat pumps depend on improved home insulation. Why?

Is the idea that heat pumps don’t pack enough punch to replace boilers on their own, and they need to be combined with a more efficient building envelope in order to be sufficient?


Gas heating in old construction heats up the water to 80+C. Heat pumps typically result in lower temperatures. This is not an issue in new construction, which often has floor heating or special radiators. But old construction has radiators that struggle to heat up the interior at these water temperatures -- unless you improve the insulation, which is sensible anyway.


My few thoughts on insulation.

The problem with insulation is retrofitting it is expensive and carries a huge risk because older houses are designed around the idea that they breath.

The current practice of insulating inside the envelope is just so blindly stupid I can't wrap my head around why people think it's a good idea. If you work it out, insulation should go on the outside of the envelop. Think insulated siding and roof panels. Granted I'm now seeing that,

And with insulation you quickly run into the problem that the benefits rapidly diminish while the cost is linear. R30 doesn't save you three times R10.

At some point it's be cheaper to put solar panels on the roof to run a heat pump than add more insulation.


> retrofitting it is expensive and carries a huge risk

Because construction industry is shockingly incompetent and corrupt.

Lived in a few newbuilds, they are full of fuckups - walls aren't straight, the hole for a fire sprinkler is not where the sprinkler is, so in case of fire it won't actually work. The hot water plumbing was not up to spec and has discharged a swimming pool of boiling water into someone's apartment, they are lucky no-one died.

They will not get something as complex and humidity control right.


I'll add I'm suspicious of insulation since all the modern stuff is foamed petroleum. I feel that's both a fire hazard[1] and has the potential to be classified as toxic waste. See lead paint and asbestos.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire


Know your products, I've built houses from scratch and added insulation to existing houses, extensions, sheds, and always used glasswool:

https://www.bradfordinsulation.com.au/information-centre/how...

https://insulation.com.au/product/pink-batts-insulation/

It's recycled glass.


I can't speak for other countries, but here (Switzerland) insulation is primarily mineral wool or else it must be fireproof


Yes that’s correct. The heat pump is more expensive to run than the gas boiler it replaces, and can’t match the output.


That's not true. Heat pumps are cheaper to run than gas heating, I removed my old single room gas heater for a ducted split system total cost reduction was 30% even before Russian invasion caused gas prices to spike. And house is much warmer.

Gas boilers generally produce much hotter water, so the radiators they use tend to be small.

Heat pumps gain more efficiency if you can reduce the output temperature. So running a heat pump at max efficiency through radiators designed for a gas system, won't put out as much heat into the room.

So you have two options, increase the size of the radiators or increase the insulation. It's better to increase the insulation as you gain the benefit of both warmer room and less energy required to heat a room.


I can assure you it is true, but for transparency’s sake I will say that I have no idea what a single room gas heater is.. I’m pretty sure it isn’t what we are talking about here. Neither do I no what a ducted split system is.


I think that depends a lot on location dependend prices. I am in denmark and my ehat pump is significantly cheaper to run than the gas boiler that it replaced, even if you compare it with pre ukraine/pre covid gas prices.


Absolutely, a heat pump is three times as efficient as a gas boiler, but in the uk electricity is more than three times the price of gas


which begs the question - why would anyone switch from a gas boiler to heat pump then, if they only consider economic utility, and none of the externalities?


Amusingly, Alex Gerko offered the hams some cash to fund their lawsuit. He's the founder and CEO of XTX Markets and supposedly has a net worth of $11b.

https://twitter.com/AlexanderGerko/status/168782830155593318...


Not really amusingly, it's pretty obvious why.


it's pretty obvious why the chicken crossed the road. and the joke is still amusing


> it's pretty obvious why the chicken crossed the road

...but it isn't, that's why it's an entire category of jokes.


> That won't stop until the tax payer agrees to insulate investors from any losses.

What does this mean? Are corporate structures (corporations, LLCs, etc.) insufficient as liability shields?


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