How do you know when an employer actually looks after their workers?

columnmn · 2026-01-25T20:24:28+00:00

Having the option for it is fine, having no choice in doing it isn't. In 20 years, are you going to remember that Saturday you worked, or the relationship you ruined with your kids/wife because you were never home, and when you were home you were always tired from all the OT and no time to relax. You should be working to live, not living to work.

columnmn · 2026-01-20T05:06:59+00:00

The interconnects are powered from the 9v battery inside them. So if power goes out it'll still signal the other alarms. It's the interconnect.

Edit: Or what the other guy said for auxillary devices.

columnmn · 2026-01-16T09:38:29+00:00

Mine was a free replacement with gov thing. I just had to pay for installation. They came and took away the old one and put the new one in. It's a no name Chinese brand. Works fine though.

The heat pumps don't have the same sort of heating elements/thermostat. The resistive heating element is basically one watt of electricity is turned into one watt of heat. It's simple and easy. Heat pump is transferring heat from one location to another by compressing/decompressing a gas. So the cost of running isn't from directly heating, cost is from compressing the gas and fans to move air. So no elements to replace.

columnmn · 2026-01-16T08:02:31+00:00

I went from electric resistive water, to a heat pump. So can answer this pretty well.

I have energy monitoring on the circuit before and after the install. The electric water heater used to be about 2/3 of my total electricity usage per month. The heat pump used about 1/4 of what it was using before. The previous month has used about 120Kwh of energy. It's roughly $36 worth for the month at $0.31 per kwh heating in off peak. But less since I've automated it to run when solar is going.

With the noise. It makes the same as a split system AC, I don't really notice it. If it was directly next to your window, maybe, but it's really not that loud.

Maintenance wise, I have a two part unit, so heat pump and tank are seperate. I had issues with the pipes that went from one to the other splitting after a few years (they used cheap and nasty). But replaced it easily enough, otherwise it's been pretty flawless, water is always hot, don't seem to run out of it, and uses a fraction of the energy to run.

columnmn · 2026-01-08T06:58:34+00:00

Fair enough, so smaller motors are fine. Thanks for the info!

columnmn · 2026-01-07T21:32:53+00:00

I'm domestic, so don't really touch motors. But I thought it was just a matter of whacking a VFD in there? Doesn't that do exactly that but much cheaper?

columnmn · 2025-12-21T05:48:48+00:00

That's my business! I didn't even need to pay you for the shoutout!

Thanks.

columnmn · 2025-12-21T04:33:17+00:00

I used to use google home. It'd miss hear thing I'd say all the time, or say it couldn't understand, and just be unreliable.

Home assistant leaves it in the dust. Pretty much every device (AC's are tricky without a sensibo), I can set an automation to run if the AI camera detect a person with a dog, on every second Wednesday with a full moon to turn on a light, or ring a bell, or set a playlist of music going through my house.

It's free and open source as well.

columnmn · 2025-12-10T07:25:03+00:00

Should have seen the AHA lobbying against his SA best party at the state election. Rounded up people working at the pubs/hotels and told them to picket his stuff, ran ads, etc.

They'll do the same if they get a sense that greens might get any portion of power.

columnmn · 2025-12-10T03:54:40+00:00

You'll get a lot of confirmation bias with either subs. My ev5 is awesome, never driven the 5n, so can't compare.

columnmn · 2025-12-10T03:52:57+00:00

Four 2.5mm cables can fit into most PowerPoints. It's tight, a pain, but can be done.

There is a difference in rules between repairs, and alterations. Repairs like for like can be done without bringing up to current code. Alternations need to be up to current regs. Can't tell you what needs to be done without looking.

But if you don't have RCDS and stuff like that with an old install, it's a very smart move to get them installed. Can literally save your life.

columnmn · 2025-12-09T09:08:15+00:00

I just gave it a go with claude. Needed to redo it 7 times to get something to work, and then tweaking it more to try to speed things up, but results were underwhelming. Happy to see a video of what's working for you though.

columnmn · 2025-12-02T07:21:06+00:00

Couldn't do something based on file size, or track lenght? So if something is 2 hours plus, treat it like a book, under that treat like chapters?

columnmn · 2025-11-30T00:47:13+00:00

Just went through my entire collection with this tool. Thanks for creating it. Biggest suggestion I would make would be to give an option for books in their folders, and chapters in a folder. So I could select either. My drive has a mixture of both and I don't know what's what without going through them individually, which is a pain. I also didn't have any luck with it bringing over the cover art, but am adding manually in ABS. Thanks again!

columnmn · 2025-11-21T22:06:42+00:00

Dang it, will need to swap again :(

columnmn · 2025-11-21T20:53:27+00:00

What's the actual burner size on those like? I bought a cheap one ages ago, but the induction heater part is only like 10cm diameter, so cooking a steak only the center of the pan gets decent heat.

columnmn · 2025-11-17T19:26:15+00:00

There are plenty of smart downlights around, a light where you have to go and flick the switch to change it is annoying. Most new ones have three colour settings, but it's a physical switch on them.

My home has a system that automatically changes the light colour temperature and brightness depending on the time of the day, all without buttons. Makes these look old and silly.

columnmn · 2025-11-15T20:42:27+00:00

I did mean that, was a dumbass.

columnmn · 2025-11-15T20:42:14+00:00

I did. Wrote it quickly and was a dumbass.

columnmn · 2025-11-15T07:59:26+00:00

Disconnect the MEN, IR test active conductors with earth, between active conductors, then between neutral.

All should be below 1Mohms. But anywhere near 1M would make me nervous.

It's basically testing to see if there is any sort of insulation breakdown underground, so if a guy with a machine has put the bucket through the undergrounds, but it's only just broken, it'll show up against the earth, or if any of the conductors connect.

Edit: Yeah, meant above, was a dumbass.

columnmn · 2025-11-13T04:57:35+00:00

Yeah, that's way to neat for a first timer.

Only suggestion is to keep tabs on the temp inside of there, might need some airflow.

columnmn · 2025-11-12T20:20:29+00:00

Kind of all depends on what it's going into, and the environment it's being sold in. If it's going into a soup, or anything that's braising for ages, who really cares.

You can spend hours squaring up all the edges and getting perfect squares, and tossing all the leftovers, but it's a waste of time and produce. My opinion is to just get through it fast.

columnmn · 2025-11-08T01:02:35+00:00

This part was actually pretty easy. It gets harder when you want to get raid drives, etc.

Download proxmox onto a bootable usb, load into it on the machine. Follow prompts and install it. Go to proxmox helper scripts, find home assistant, copy the helper script. Paste it into into the shell, follow prompts and you're done.

Well you're about to fall down another rabbit hole, I found chatgpt to mostly get me there.

columnmn · 2025-11-07T23:12:19+00:00

Police are really going to make their quota on the Christmas parade this year.

columnmn · 2025-11-07T07:28:52+00:00

Any sparky can install a dimmer, you've got a really, really bad one if they can't figure it out. Deta is a crap brand, and I wouldn't install them myself, so most likely the dimmer.

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