So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Not since Miggie Montero's clubhouse squawk over Jake Arrieta bad pitching has another rebuke made such
a news splash as Judge E. Sullivan's broadside against Lt Gen Flynn at sentencing the other day.
The judge tripped over the facts a bit, Flynn's mendacity-or supposed-notwithstanding, Sullivan erred
the pompous jurist. A lousy FBI apprise and scattered buckshot 302s; and the possibility of special counsel
coercion missed by the media entirely.

Well, not missed by Fox News, anyway.

 

[tonyb]

On hot water: why don't more houses in the U.S. have hot water on demand? I hear it's common in Germany and maybe other countries in Europe. Sure, houses have been built with heaters and I'm sure the owners want to use those until they die, but at the heater's demise why doesn't anyone suggest switching to on demand system? Is it hard to install if it wasn't there originally?

Habit, maybe? And cost?

I’ve looked into “tankless” water heaters. And I may again someday. I lived for one year in a rental with a tankless. It failed shortly after its warranty expired. The property owner was out $800 in repairs.

Yes, that’s wholly anecdotal. Still, it’s the entirety of my firsthand experience with the things.

 

[OldStrummer]

The recent habit of email spammers: Their subject lines begin with "--Welcome to [whatever]," usually some goofy weight loss scheme, male enhancement product, debt relief program, or similar nonsense.

Why are you welcoming me? I didn't go to you, you came to me. The intro makes it sound as if we'd already established some form of business relationship instead of you filling up my junk mail folder.

You see, not only do I have a very capable spam filter, but your tactic makes it twice as easy to flag and move it to my junk mail folder.

That is all.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I had a tankless heater when I moved into this house -- it was a very old and weird system that plumbed water directly into the furnace, where it was heated, and out again. It worked fine, with no trouble at all, until a knucklehead plumber I'd hired to redo the shower pipes in the bathroom started frigging with it and ended up ruining the whole thing. Had to replace it with a Home Deepblow $250 special, which rusted out in seven years, and had to replaced with another such. If I could have lived with a dribbling shower, that would have been $500 I'd never had to have spent. It is a matter of some regret.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'm especially fond of this new wave of spam that has a header like "You Are My Victim," and opens with "Dear Victim," before going on to tell me that he's captured my (non-existent) web cam and has footage of me enjoying porn that he'll share with alll my contacts if I don't send him $500 in bitcoins. Personally, I think he's in league with that bonehead plumber.

 

[3fingers]

European water use is different than it is in the U.S. Tankless heaters cost substantially more and require regular maintenance. They will also require gas or electric service upgrades for most people since they use extremely high energy levels while they are on. You can't defeat physics. It takes X number of btus to raise water temperature a given amount. To do it in one pass as the water is flowing through in a tankless heater means lots of energy in a short time.
They also haven't proven to be as user friendly day to day as they are sold to be.
I know of a few homes where they were installed only to be removed in favor of a tank heater.
Some manufacturers also came and went, leaving their customers holding the bag with no warranty or parts availability.
I'm not entirely against them, but most customers won't save any money with one after paying for the service required and the upfront cost.

 

[vitanola]

Well, not missed by Fox News, anyway.

Yes. Lately they seem to be exceptionally good at "not missing" stuff that really is not there.

 

[GHT]

On hot water: why don't more houses in the U.S. have hot water on demand? I hear it's common in Germany and maybe other countries in Europe. Sure, houses have been built with heaters and I'm sure the owners want to use those until they die, but at the heater's demise why doesn't anyone suggest switching to on demand system? Is it hard to install if it wasn't there originally?

Apologies if I have this wrong. Are you saying that some homes in the US don't have hot water on tap? (faucet) If you have central heating then surely you have constant hot water. How would you have a hot bath otherwise? I can understand a shower having it's own heater but not having constant hot water, surely I've got that wrong.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Yes. Lately they seem to be exceptionally good at "not missing" stuff that really is not there.

No worse than CNN or MSNBC, just a difference in what gets each outlet excited. A hundred years ago, newspapers had axes to grind. Now that dead-tree media is vanishing, the same impulses have migrated to bit media. People who are morally certain that their opinions and interpretations are absolutely correct and pure necessarily view others with different opinions and views as stupid, venal, or evil. It goes with the territory.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I'm especially fond of this new wave of spam that has a header like "You Are My Victim," and opens with "Dear Victim," before going on to tell me that he's captured my (non-existent) web cam and has footage of me enjoying porn that he'll share with alll my contacts if I don't send him $500 in bitcoins. Personally, I think he's in league with that bonehead plumber.

I'd be careful about even opening something like that.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The advantage in owning a fifteen-year-old Mac is that very few viruses will run on it.

 

[tonyb]

I'm especially fond of this new wave of spam that has a header like "You Are My Victim," and opens with "Dear Victim," before going on to tell me that he's captured my (non-existent) web cam and has footage of me enjoying porn that he'll share with alll my contacts if I don't send him $500 in bitcoins. Personally, I think he's in league with that bonehead plumber.

It costs essentially nothing to send such a message, so if even one recipient in a million actually falls for the scam, the scammer is money ahead.

Several years ago Bill Gates floated a notion of charging some minuscule amount — a small fraction of a cent, say — for each outbound email. The cost for the average (legit) sender would be inconsequential, maybe a dime a month, if that. But for spammers and scammers, the cost of the hustle could exceed its return.

Nothing ever came of that idea, it appears.

 

[LizzieMaine]

In the Era you'd occasionally have people come up with the idea of running little agate-type ads in the backs of cheap magazines saying something like "SEND 50 CENTS TO BOX A, RUMPSPRUNG INDIANA." And sure enough, people would.

 

[tonyb]

Apologies if I have this wrong. Are you saying that some homes in the US don't have hot water on tap? (faucet) If you have central heating then surely you have constant hot water. How would you have a hot bath otherwise? I can understand a shower having it's own heater but not having constant hot water, surely I've got that wrong.

Here in God’s Country the most common (by far) domestic water heating system is a tank with internal heating elements.

The downside is that such water heaters use energy (electricity or natural gas, most commonly, although some run on propane) to keep water heated when there is no demand for it, which is generally all but an hour or so (if that) during a typical day. That’s why what are sometimes called “tankless” water heaters are also known as “on-demand” heaters — they heat water when it’s needed and use no energy when it isn’t.

When I was a youngster most folks of my acquaintance called these appliances “hot water heaters,” a redundancy of sorts. I recall the late George Carlin working that into a bit of his. “If the water is hot, why would you heat it?”

 

[GHT]

Here in God’s Country the most common (by far) domestic water heating system is a tank with internal heating elements.

The downside is that such water heaters use energy (electricity or natural gas, most commonly, although some run on propane) to keep water heated when there is no demand for it, which is generally all but an hour or so (if that) during a typical day. That’s why what are sometimes called “tankless” water heaters are also known as “on-demand” heaters — they heat water when it’s needed and use no energy when it isn’t.

When I was a youngster most folks of my acquaintance called these appliances “hot water heaters,” a redundancy of sorts. I recall the late George Carlin working that into a bit of his. “If the water is hot, why would you heat it?”

Thanks for the explanation, we have a hot water tank that's heavily insulated, it has a two inch poly-wotsit foam wrap. The timer on the central heating is set to use hot water as and when we need it. I assumed that it was the same in the US. It appeared to be in all the hotels and motels that we have stayed at.

 

[tonyb]

Thanks for the explanation, we have a hot water tank that's heavily insulated, it has a two inch poly-wotsit foam wrap. The timer on the central heating is set to use hot water as and when we need it. I assumed that it was the same in the US. It appeared to be in all the hotels and motels that we have stayed at.

I claim no expertise, but I can offer that insulating blankets for water heaters are available. I've seen some in use, although more a few years ago that recently. Maybe it's a regional thing.

In earthquake country water heaters are secured to framing with metal (usually) strapping. A duplex my wife and I owned for a few years had water heaters elevated on shelves a couple feet above the floors of the utility closets. I never could determine the reasoning behind that.

 

[vitanola]

No worse than CNN or MSNBC, just a difference in what gets each outlet excited. A hundred years ago, newspapers had axes to grind. Now that dead-tree media is vanishing, the same impulses have migrated to bit media. People who are morally certain that their opinions and interpretations are absolutely correct and pure necessarily view others with different opinions and views as stupid, venal, or evil. It goes with the territory.

I don't know. I figure that an informed person needs to read both the Times and the Journal, along with both Huffpo a d Breitbart, and keep an open mind whilst doing so. Moral certainty leads down a dangerous path.

 

[Fading Fast]

I don't know. I figure that an informed person needs to read both the Times and the Journal, along with both Huffpo a d Breitbart, and keep an open mind whilst doing so. Moral certainty leads down a dangerous path.

I do exactly that for those exact reasons.

 

[Bushman]

As a matter of fairness, I will say I don't watch MSNBC and Fox News or read HuffPo and Breitbart for the same reason I don't eat out of the trash. Call me old fashioned, but I'm a Reuters and AP kind of guy.

 

[Harp]

I don't know. I figure that an informed person needs to read both the Times and the Journal, along with both Huffpo a d Breitbart, and keep an open mind whilst doing so. Moral certainty leads down a dangerous path.

I tend to favor both the Times and Journal to greater or lesser extent depending upon subject; however, to be fair
to the paper of record the Times does publish objective investigative work though its editorial content often lacks
balanced writing. The National Law Journal floats my boat but SCOTUS blog is the more complete juris review.