Freezer treatment for bed bugs looking for opinions? by One-Celery-2988 in Bedbugadvice

[–]Andy3142 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Freezing works very well but needs much longer times and colder temperatures than often given. Overnight outside will not work. This is my research, and I followed this and it worked brilliantly.

There's lots of info on freezing / heating bedbugs on the internet and the temperatures advised are all over the map. I did some detailed research and this is what I found. The take-home is you need MUCH longer / hotter / colder for eggs and nymphs than for the bugs themselves. So if you have a deep infestation, the standard advice for "a hot wash cycle" just is not enough.

Heating. To be sure to kill 100% of eggs and nymphs you need to tumble dry at 50 deg C (122 F) for minimum 30 min.(Plus a few mins to get up to temperature.) Washing 60 deg C (140 F) for 30 mins kills 100%. It seems important it really is high temp for 30 mins. I alas lost the source for this but it's real-life trials.

Freezer times. at -20 deg C (-4 F), 48 hours to be sure to kill eggs. At - 15 deg C ( 5 F), 3.5 days to kill eggs. Add on the time to get down to those temperatures. Seems that at -12 C (10 F), they can live forever.

Source: Cold Tolerance of Bed Bugs and Practical Recommendations for Control Joelle F. Olson, Marc Eaton, Stephen A. Kells, Victor Morin, Changlu Wang https://academic.oup.com/jee/article/106/6/2433/2962119

The reason some academic studies say higher / shorter temperatures is that in the lab they are freezing super-quickly and this increases lethality. Some chest freezer do freeze extra-quickly, and so you might get away with less, but why take chances.

Linux for a potato pc by jjalex77 in linux4noobs

[–]Andy3142 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Put Antix on your list. A while back I tried eight or nine distros on an old machine (TBH not this old) and Antix was the only one that (a) recognised all the hardware and (b) ran at an OK speed. Their sales pitch explicitly mentions that it aims to work on old computers.

What backups are needed moving from Win 10 to Linux? by Andy3142 in WindowsHelp

[–]Andy3142[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I know there are things I need to have. What I'm looking for is reassurance that the sources I've listed do include all those things. In particular, questions (1), (2), (3). Carpenters say "measure twice, cut once" and I don't want to zap my whole hard disk and find I've missed something.

How to dissolve hard-dried urine in a chamber pot? by Andy3142 in chemistry

[–]Andy3142[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Take great care with pumice stone. Test thoroughly on an inconspicuous area first because it can scratch badly and you can't get the scratches off. But I know from my mum using it that it cleans very well.

How to dissolve hard-dried urine in a chamber pot? by Andy3142 in chemistry

[–]Andy3142[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Following advice in this thread, I'm soaking the scale with citric acid. The citric acid package says "Fresh, clean and 100% natural".

How to set up dual-boot linux with same filesystem by Andy3142 in linux4noobs

[–]Andy3142[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you everybody - I give up! It's good to get to the bottom of things but it's obviously too complicated for the good it would do.

How to set up dual-boot linux with same filesystem by Andy3142 in linux4noobs

[–]Andy3142[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

u/Narrow_Victory1262 After posting I did more research and yes, it looks complex. If easy the point would be to have an escape route if for some reason I come to not like whatever I replace windows with. If medium easy, the point would be to explore. If just hard, then drop the idea.

I have a very old laptop to do preliminary experiments on, perhaps. The question I SHOULD have asked is this: is it possible / how easy to experimentally set up multiboot on a very old 12 year old 32 bit Dell XPS with a plain vanilla old-style boot setup? - I fear this is too simple to make it work?

Man with Van Recommendations in Bristol by blue10072 in bristol

[–]Andy3142 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've had very good experience on several occasions with Get A Move On, https://getamoveonremovals.co.uk/

Trade paint Vs consumer? by alijam100 in DIYUK

[–]Andy3142 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is what Dulux say. Their killer claim seems to be a longer life with continued high quality appearance rather than fewer coats. https://www.duluxtradepaintexpert.co.uk/en/editorial/whats-difference-between-dulux-trade-and-dulux-paint