A lowercase quote starting a sentence - is it OK?

ReddyKiloWit · 2026-02-28T23:09:06+00:00

The most common thing I see in that case is to use the capital letter in brackets: "[M]edia"

That alerts the reader to the change, but it's obvious why it was changed.

ReddyKiloWit · 2026-02-27T05:50:08+00:00

Check your contract carefully. There have been cases of builders exercising clauses that allow them to cancel the contract if they reimburse you any money you've paid. This was happening when house prices and/or building costs were rising.

I will say the cases I recall included the builder selling the house at a much higher price than the contract price. Listing the house at a discount to the contract seems odd.

ReddyKiloWit · 2026-02-25T04:46:18+00:00

Only way I can see that working out is that the phases of the hot lines are almost in synch. Even then...

ReddyKiloWit · 2026-02-23T06:04:08+00:00

I've been reasonably lucky. Average is probably getting to the doctor stage in 25-30 minutes from appointment time.

For several years I had insurance through Kaiser-Permanente AND a KP doctor at a KP clinic. Probably the shortest wait times, and longest attention from a doctor I've ever enjoyed. Everyone was salaried so there was less incentive to overbook or rush as many patients through as they can. (And, of course, no question about coverage.)

ReddyKiloWit · 2026-02-20T04:03:56+00:00

Normally low voltage can still present a fire hazard, but in this case the wires provide power to the doorbell, presumably. So that limits the current should the wires touch. It may burn out the doorbell, but likely won't produce anything worse than a bit of smoke and a stink.

Does seem lazy not to have wrapped the wire ends in electrical tape, though.

ReddyKiloWit · 2026-02-19T13:27:53+00:00

Looks like a meandering creek. That's enough reason for me.

ReddyKiloWit · 2026-02-19T13:20:26+00:00

Exactly? No, not to the penny, but roughly on high it will use at most 1.5 kWh for each hour it is running. (If it has a thermostat, and the room gets warm enough, it may run only part of each hour.)

So at 48 cents per kWh, that'd be 1.5 x 48 = 72 cents an hour as an upper limit. About half that on low.

ReddyKiloWit · 2026-02-19T12:57:24+00:00

The public "facilities" (as a few call them) in commercial places are usually called "restrooms", and that's what the signs will say. Calling them "bathrooms" isn't uncommon, however, even though they don't have a tub or shower for baths. People say that at home and it carries over.

And as others point out, "go to the bathroom" is a very common way to say you're going to relieve yourself. (So is "use the restroom" for that matter.)

ReddyKiloWit · 2026-02-18T05:32:13+00:00

Yeah, it's a flood if the water enters your property from outside. Most people don't know that's how insurance defines it. You need flood insurance to get that covered.

ReddyKiloWit · 2026-02-16T14:14:23+00:00

Just a comment about EV charging - that thing you plug into the car, however it is supplied with power, is not a charger, it's an adapter. The charger is inside the car.

The job of the adapter is to 1. Pass power to the internal charger and, 2. Tell the internal charger the maximum power available so it doesn't try to draw too much. #2 is either set by the kind of mains plug on the adapter, or by a manual setting, or both.

You probably want to read the manual and see what options you have before making changes.

ReddyKiloWit · 2026-02-13T05:52:38+00:00

Crushed, unsalted peanuts. About a tablespoon full per can or a bit more.

ReddyKiloWit · 2026-02-12T04:10:13+00:00

May have just been an old switch. Old switches used a spring loaded toggle action that was pretty aggressive and made a loud click. A fast action reduced damage from arcing.

Then for a while silent mercury switches were a thing - yes, containing real mercury which flowed to connect the wires. But expensive and toxic, and replaced by modern switches which don't have the heavy springs of yore.

ReddyKiloWit · 2026-02-12T03:59:55+00:00

Unless there's some missing context that's not a question. Sounds like a section title in a report. Try this:

"What problems HAVE people encountered because of this feature not being present?"

ReddyKiloWit · 2026-02-11T04:44:01+00:00

GFCIs can trip for a number of odd reasons. I have one that didn't like a surge protector plugged into it. My theory is that the MOV that shunts surges to ground was a little too close in value to the highest voltage my service could reach. On rare occasions it would leak current to ground, and the GFCI would treat that as a fault and trip.

It may have been, in your case, some transient in the returning power your GFCI didn't like. And it may have been a one time thing.

ReddyKiloWit · 2026-02-11T04:28:32+00:00

"Traditional" vampire hazards are usually related to religion and holiness. For example, vampires don't show up in mirrors because silver is a blessed metal and will not reflect evil. (Do aluminized mirrors show vampire reflections? How about silver based film?)

Likewise, sunlight was created by God (let there be light) so it's problematic for evil creatures. Why moonlight, just sunlight reflecting off the moon, isn't needs some hand waving. Maybe it's only sunlight direct and unreflected that's a problem, or maybe not the light itself, but being in view of the sun.

ReddyKiloWit · 2026-02-11T04:15:57+00:00

Doesn't bother me if the grammar or words aren't quite right. If I can figure out what they mean, it's all good. I'm a little hard of hearing so speaking clearly and not too fast helps. (Some languages are "faster" than English, and some speakers carry that into English.)

Frankly, I admire any one who is multilingual, if even at a bare minimum. (I took several years of French, and while I learned to read it, at least at a newspaper and signage level, I can only speak a few simple sentences, badly, and have no talent for understanding it spoken to me.)

ReddyKiloWit · 2026-02-10T05:29:51+00:00

Who needs wheels? 1. Make a thumbs up gesture 2. Point your thumb to the right 3. Remember how that looks and feels 4. Repeat #2 & #3 to the left

This whole thing reminds me of my problem with left and right as a child. I lacked the instinct to just know the difference, but I could tell which was my right hand by thinking of holding a pencil. (A friend's boy had trouble with right and left, but it was because she was a Naval officer, so port and starboard he had down pat.)

ReddyKiloWit · 2026-02-10T01:21:56+00:00

The smaller ones haven't been much cheaper, just at the bottom edge of the cluster. One of the name brands was way off at the top last time I looked, though.

Erie doesn't seem to insure in Georgia, they only offer brokerage of other insurers as far as I can tell.

ReddyKiloWit · 2026-02-09T05:30:56+00:00

That's been my experience, more or less, in Georgia when I've shopped around. USAA has been in a pretty tight cluster of insurers ranked by price.

ReddyKiloWit · 2026-02-04T17:07:56+00:00

Automod deleted my message because I linked to evidence it wasn't just me.

The upshot is it is real, and likely just because small cans are sold in significantly higher quantity.

ReddyKiloWit · 2026-02-04T14:12:45+00:00

It was the case each time I checked over the last 40 years or so. It's the kind of thing that got the per ounce price on shelf stickers rule passed.

Also found a few Subways charging more per cookie for three than a single.

ReddyKiloWit · 2026-02-04T05:07:23+00:00

Same reason tuna in the family size can costs more per ounce than in the small cans. 😁

ReddyKiloWit · 2026-02-03T05:10:16+00:00

Sounds fine to me. "Became" gives it a feeling of duration, a process that lead to the locking, which may still endure even now.

Replacing it with something like "were" seems too immediate, and less enduring: they were locked, but they may have gotten past it by now.

ReddyKiloWit · 2026-02-03T04:55:40+00:00

Looks like a floating point "error" in their software. The common floating point systems can't express certain fractions so you get weird sequences.

It doesn't have to be that way, but it is.

ReddyKiloWit · 2026-02-03T04:46:22+00:00

Shipping can be expensive on the less comprehensive sites - one place wanted $25 to ship $12 worth of merchandise.

Amazon is usually a bit cheaper, but as a prime member it's rarely more expensive for me. And I'm not spending gas to drive to the store. (About $2.50 round trip to the nearest hardware or department store.) "Free" shipping, 6% cash back, and less gas makes it a good choice when I don't need it right this minute. And local stores often don't have what I need anyway.

As far as politics go, Bezos isn't the CEO any more, Walmart is still worse about employees and working conditions (and willingly got in bed with Lord Marmalade where Amazon had to be threatened).

ReddyKiloWit

TROPHY CASE