Okay so it turns out the hybrid water heater does have 4.5kw elements inside of it, but I'm guessing that those are kind of like emergency backups to help keep up with unusually high demand. So while it is capable of pulling 4.5 kwh, it'll still use on average maybe a little over half a kilowatt.
Oh! Can't forget utility rebates either! For example, my electric supplier offers a $100 rebate bill credit on energy star hybrid electric water heaters!
The downside though is the hybrid electric (heat pump) water heater has a high up front cost. Easily 4x the cost of a standard electric heater. But the total energy usage and tax credits (if/when applicable) would more than make up for the difference in a few years, that's for sure!
So, I did a price comparison on water heaters since I may have to replace my electric water heater soon, and uh.. wow, the average energy usage difference in cost is pretty crazy. Prices are based on what I pay for natural gas/electric in my area in the states, usage is how many kilowatts/therms (1 therm is 99976.1 BTU) get used per hour. Daily usage is an estimate of how many hours each device uses per day.
Like yeah with Amtrak I can run from Milwaukee to Seattle to LA to New Orleans to New York to Chicago to Milwaukee, but that involves 6 separate trains. Still would be worth it, but layover between trains can potentially be long
Anyone able to recommend a decent USB 3.1 (10gbps speeds) hub with type C ports? (A mix of A and C would also be acceptable, but I'd like it to have a minimum of two type C ports.)
Though I currently have no need for it, I would like to consider externally powered USB hubs as well, in the event I ever have a cable that is longer than... 1.7 meters in length so I don't suffer signal degradation.
Autism Speaks
A reminder that Autism Speaks doesn't give any fucks about people with autism. They could care less, and would likely prefer, if people with autism just disappeared. They don't want to help children with autism; they want to help parents never have to deal with an autistic child. They don't want to help autistic people survive in a world set up for neurotypicals; they want to help everyone live in a world without autistic people. Everything they do benefits nobody with autism.
oh. so it's not just me having trouble with art these days. well, uh. that's a relief, i suppose
https://soatok.blog/2021/03/27/no-its-not-just-you-thats-having-a-hard-time-lately/
Pandemic, vaccine, shitpost
I only wish my cellphone could handle the extreme boost in 5g reception I'm going to get as a result :P
But alas, my phone is 2 generations too old for that capability!
Auto repair, long
Have to replace a mirror on my van; it wound up hitting the side of the garage and shattered the plastic casing. Everything still works surprisingly, but at the moment it's being held together and protected from the elements by tape. If it was just the chrome cover that would be an easy replacement, but unfortunately the black plastic base was also fucked up. Not upset though; shit happens and that's a fairly common mistake.
Annoyed at how hard it is to source a replacement part though. Because it's a high end trim (T&C Touring L) it's got a lot of features beyond just being a basic chrome capped power mirror. In housing signal, heated, power folding, blind spot advisor, etc. All the aftermarket places sell mirrors that lack the blind spot advisor though, and that's what makes this so difficult. Manual fold, power fold, heated, in housing lighting, chrome finish, yes. Some of the blind spot advisor mirrors that I DID find are lacking other features though, or are not the right fit for the van. And the mopar parts websites list like 50 million mirrors that MIGHT fit the van, so good luck figuring out which part number I actually need!
Thankfully I was able to pull the mirror off enough to look at the actual part number and do a search. ...and wow there are literally NO aftermarket replacements for that particular part number. What the fuck. Best I can do is OEM from discount mopar supply sites. And those run $400 each, but sometimes you can find them for 30% off. Still, that's a hell of a lot of money for a mirror D:
Last resort I went to eBay to see if I could find a used one. Thankfully I did find one! $210 for a used one that is in a condition comparable to my mirror before the incident! Ordered it and now I wait. Supposedly it'll be here in 10 days. Hopefully sooner. Going to have to figure out how to pop the panel off the door when it does come in; the connector is inside the door itself and it's secured too tightly to just pull the cable up through the opening behind the mirror panel.
Alc
So once every 3-6 months I buy myself booze (not including the occasional purchase of sake, which is primarily used for cooking.) Usually just a 6 pack of wine cooler style drinks because I can't stand the taste of alcohol usually, beer especially, but I do enjoy what is essentially spiked fruit juice. I drink rarely since I absolutely will not drive with any amount of alcohol in my system, and driving is like 90% of my week (so I'll likely be having one bottle a weekend, especially with my never knowing if or when I'm going to need to make an unplanned trip somewhere over the weekend.) But hey, sometimes it's nice to crack open a cold one and enjoy.
Apparently this time when I did a build your own 6 pack deal, I ended up with one of the drinks being a berry flavored beer. And... yeah I'm not doing that again. The beer flavor was strong enough to ruin any enjoyment I could really get from it. Ah well; it's what I expected, but figured I'd give it a shot anyway. Now I know better
A sushi loving, sometimes screamy firelizard!
Honorary pupy, born in the era of the Famicom/NES
https://firelizard.carrd.co/ (Where I can be found)