Kinder Surprise are readily available all over the US. The yellow plastic egg has been modified so it essentially splits the two halves of the chocolate egg, but I see them for sale at every grocery store, Walmart, etc.

They used to be banned, but not for quite some time now.

I’ve never seen a window AC with mechanical knobs not cycle the compressor when it hits the temperature set by its thermostat. The fan might run 24/7 but the compressor? How could it possibly regulate temperature otherwise?

Gotta see some evidence on that claim. Older stuff is more power hungry no doubt about it, but especially old data centre equipment is waaay more reliable and built with some very nice creature comforts.

This.

Almost all of my gear is bought used: switches, server, even memory. My main server is an old Dell C6100 blade server I got for $250. My disk array is a 12-bay SAN that I found for $50 and took a chance on being able to get it working. It’s power hungry but it’s got redundant everything and I have spare parts on the shelf next to it.

I’ve been branching into ARM servers a little and right now I’ve got an RK3588 board with 32G of RAM. That’s new (and expensive for me) but I got a fibre channel array for $20 that I’m going to try to make work with it. $8 FC HBA and a $12 cable along with a $30 m2-to-PCIe adapter intended for eGPUs. I’m not going for speed here, but used data centre equipment is nice and some of it is dirt cheap because it’s too slow for “real” work.

Monitor the current with the smart plug. When you want to turn it off, wait for the current to drop for a few minutes (this means the compressor is off/unloaded) then power off the outlet.

Might be an idea.

Very weird; I’m in twentynine palms today (visiting Joshua Tree and then just got back from stargazing) and saw/heard nothing about this. Drove through Palm Springs late this morning to get here.

What a senseless tragedy. I hope for swift justice for the perpetrators and peace for the victims.

Why not if (f & (F_1 | F_3)) {? I use this all the time in embedded code.

edit: never mind; you’re checking for both flags. I’d probably use (f & (F_1 | F_3)) == (F_1 | F_3) but that’s not much different than what you wrote.

What? You have to show ID art the ticket counter or kiosk to get your boarding pass. Security usually only looks at the boarding pass, then you have to show ID at the gate. That’s how it’s been in Canada as long as I can remember.

My car is a diesel. I believe catalytic converters are the usual fare for gasoline engines.

and I like how you’re trying to steer the conversation in exactly the same way but in a different direction.

I mean seriously, you call the hypothetical person in some low level clerical/administrative role a fascist because they won’t quit because it’s simply not that easy to do so, yet in the same breath you say “I totally have so much power as an individual to drive the piss ass politics in a country of 330 million” – hypocrite much?

It’s just like the DEF tanks on 18 wheelers. I buy a 10L jug of it from Walmart for something like $10. In my trunk there’s a panel you remove and under it there’s a small cap very similar to the gas cap. Remove that, hook up the DEF bottle hose (the bottles come with a 12-15" corrugated hose) and very slowly pour it in. You don’t want to spill that stuff, it’s nasty not because it’s urea, but because when it dries it kind of crystallizes and makes a real bloody awful mess.

Replace the cap, replace the panel cover, close the trunk and you’re done for another 9-15mos.

It’s my understanding that the cheat was in all TDI models, but the smaller Jetta was particularly bad because it didn’t have a urea system and the fix for that model was to retrofit one. My Passat may have needed a more robust urea injector and not just software, but I can’t remember now. Either way on my year/model the fix was barely noticeable.

I just drain the gas and run it until it stalls. Been doing this with the lawnmower, weed trimmer and snowblower for over a decade, never any carburetor issues.

Thank you, that was brilliant.

Now I have to explain to the people in my vicinity what “dull men’s club” is because I involuntarily let out a great belly laugh after reading your comment.

The dumbest part is that after I got my car updated (the Passat only needed a firmware update) the fuel economy was not even one MPG worse. It’s been a decade and I’m still regularly getting slightly better than 50MPG on the highway and low-30s in the city. There was no reason to cheat.

I’m currently driving that VW TDI – best car I’ve ever owned in 35 years. Next vehicle wasn’t going to be a Tesla, but perhaps an F150 Lightning if they ever get their head out their asses and offer a regular old e-pickup – I don’t want quad cab and a short bed, just two doors and a regular full size bed would be great. Alas, that’s hard to find in ICE, let alone electric.

nowhere near the trunk of the car, thankfully. :-)

I guess the closest I’ve gotten to that is to have a cow lick the “T” off of the “Passat” lettering on my trunk a couple years ago.

it’s amazing how I could immediately identify which loops you are referring to and have repaired a few of my own for similar reasons.

Had you known how to sew, you could have mended that rip!