The worst piece of tech that I have ever owned in my life is a CD Cleaner I bought from GameStop back in the day. That shit was straight up a sacrificial altar. It never cleaned. Only consumed.

Oh shit, I remember those. They “cleaned” by using an abrasive spray to “polish” the CDs. Those things were straight-up evil.

I worked at a tree farm in my teens and honestly if I could still do that making what I make now I would be all over that. Always outside, in great shape, got to run heavy machinery, it was great.

Damn, I feel old now…

Haha I know right? Nobody today would ever fall for propaganda like this given we hold the entirety of human knowledge in our pockets.

Huh really? I have tons of trash pandas around me (central Ohio).

lol same, or maybe “hold my beer.”

What’s really amazing to me is they could have EASILY pivoted and become a mega online retailer like today’s Amazon. They literally had all the pieces already in place with their catalog/mail order/warehouses.

Agreed, custodians (usually) wouldn’t refer to themselves that way. Without them though, trash doesn’t make it to the point of disposal. Which is a break in the chain. We could debate the finer points I’m sure, but it’s about bed time for me and I have an early AM meeting with offshore.

So have a good one, and I do appreciate the discussion!

Depends on where you draw the line. Janitors for instance are usually paid a pittance. As are cleaning crews that vacuum the vast offices spaces around the country.

If you are talking about CDL drivers that collect trash cans then yeah, they tend to be paid well. Without all the pieces of the puzzle though the system breaks down.

Plumbers, as it turns out, are paid quite well since nobody wants to go into the trades currently.

To expand a hair on this, modern waste disposal. So with plumbing comes sewage. Then the close child is refuse removal. We literally cannot live (healthily) without these things.

Side-bar, the folks that power waste removal are VASTLY under-paid.

Vaultwarden?

That person isn’t welcome on the beach house planet.

FTFY

I went down the solar rabbit hole a year or two ago, unfortunately my house is oriented in a crappy direction and coupled with a bunch of old-growth trees there was no scenario where I would even break-even in the 20 year life expectancy of the panels. Maybe some day that will change.

Like you said though, I’m in the same boat where electric and gas are both quite cheap here.

A few years ago I created a spreadsheet where I can plug in electric and gas prices. It shows me which is the cheaper option to heat with. And year after year despite my heat pump being ~3x as efficient as my gas furnace the furnace has been hands-down cheaper to run. So I just leave the thermostat on Aux all winter. One day I suspect it will flip but that hasn’t happened yet.

When you did use it in the winter did it ever struggle?

Yeah, when it would drop below about 25-30 degrees F it couldn’t keep up and the aux heat would kick in. Which at the time was VERY expensive dual 10,000 Watt electric coils in the ductwork.

Mine is an older model though from 2007 I think. I know the newer ones are MUCH better and some can go sub-zero.

What do you consider cold? I have one in central Ohio. It was my primary winter heat source until I had gas installed a few years back. Now the price of gas is so cheap I don’t run the heat pump in the winter. Obviously still use it for AC in the summer.

Nope: https://www.joe.co.uk/news/prisoner-who-died-and-was-brought-back-to-life-argued-his-life-sentence-had-technically-finished-394879

I’ve never had trouble with off-brand SOS pads. But damn, shitty off-brand scotch tape? Yeah that stuff sucks. You have to watch cheap masking tape too. Some of them leave horrible residue behind.

Not only are they not honest, they also put down crazy requirements and if you don’t meet them your resume goes straight into the trash. No reason NOT to up you chances of an interview. I would probably say don’t straight-up lie, but it’s easy to bend the truth and inflate your worth. So do that, all the time.

Wait…fuck my life…how did I now know about that?!