"Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearWA
is it safe to let a water heater to be unplugged for ~3—6 months at a time?

My house has a tankless water for most of the house. Exceptionally, one floor gets hot water from a tank. I rarely need hot water on that floor so I keep the tank unplugged. But when I need a backup shower (e.g. the tankless gets clogged with limescale) I plugin the tank, let it reach a quite high temp, then shower. Is this risky? I just heard from someone saying they only unpower their water heater for 1 day at a time because of some specific kind of bacteria. I was assuming whatever bacteria colonizes in 6 months or whatever would be killed off when I fire it up. But I know that some bacteria (which goes after spoiling meat) produces toxins, so even when the bacteria is dead there are dangerous chemicals remaining. Is this the same risk with water heaters? If it’s unsafe, what do I need to do? Do I have to fill the tank with air between uses? Or can I just run the water for as long as needed to get all new water in the tank before powering it?

4
4
mander Mander posts blackholed on the onion instance
Jump
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPL
    plantteacher
    5 days ago 100%

    As a test, I enabled js on the onion site and tried again to post from the onion connection. Again my message was simply blackholed. So noscript’s default disabling of JS is not the issue.

    (edit) then I posted from the clearnet site mader.xyz.. no issue. This problem is onion-specific.

    1
  • mander
    Mander plantteacher 5 days ago 83%
    posts blackholed on the onion instance

    I just got burnt. Wrote up a relatively high-effort post in: http://mandermybrewn3sll4kptj2ubeyuiujz6felbaanzj3ympcrlykfs2id.onion/c/water clicked *sumbit*, and it simply ate my msg. Redrew a blank form.. no way to recover the info loss. This is my 1st use of the onion, so I did not think to enable 1st party j/s (which is strangely off be default in noScript on Tor Browser despite clearnet sites having 1st party js enabled by default). It’s unclear if it’s a JS problem or if it’s because the onion version uses a quite old/classic reddit-like theme. In any case, it sucks.. it’s a defect for sure.

    4
    1
    ethology Animal behavior African elephants call each other by unique names, new study shows
    Jump
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPL
    plantteacher
    2 months ago 100%

    I would assume the extent of the uniqueness is probably unknown at this point. The researchers probably meant uniqueness within a group. Though I suppose the population is small enough that the names could be unique globally.

    1
  • ethology Animal behavior African elephants call each other by unique names, new study shows
    Jump
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPL
    plantteacher
    3 months ago 66%

    Also worth noting that AI was used by the researchers. It’s not mentioned in the article, but I guess AI helped sort out which sounds might be a name.

    1
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearET
    Animal behavior plantteacher 3 months ago 100%
    African elephants call each other by unique names, new study shows www.ctvnews.ca
    30
    3
    publichealth Public Health (US) the unnecessary-IV (swindle?) [update: price corrected to $600]
    Jump
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPL
    plantteacher
    7 months ago 100%

    That would make sense. In Europe I got an IV just for blood samples. They could have been anticipating the possibility that I would need pain killers later, but seemed like it would have made more sense to use a normal needle and only do the IV if it came to the point of needing meds.

    1
  • cooking Science of Cooking Loss of cooking skills has hurt our ability to adapt to rising food prices, experts say
    Jump
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPL
    plantteacher
    7 months ago 100%

    ⚠ Folks-- use lynx to view that article. It’s fully #enshitified in GUI browsers (autoplay, ½-screen blocking bullshit) but decent in text browsers.

    1
  • cooking Science of Cooking Loss of cooking skills has hurt our ability to adapt to rising food prices, experts say
    Jump
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPL
    plantteacher
    7 months ago 100%

    Indeed.. now that we can simply enter a couple ingredients into a search field and get countless recipes, and also w/Youtube, I would expect people to be better equipped in recent decades.

    2
  • cooking Science of Cooking Loss of cooking skills has hurt our ability to adapt to rising food prices, experts say
    Jump
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPL
    plantteacher
    7 months ago 50%

    The article covers that: “Of course no amount of cooking prowess will help if you can't afford a basket of groceries.”

    0
  • cooking Science of Cooking Loss of cooking skills has hurt our ability to adapt to rising food prices, experts say
    Jump
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPL
    plantteacher
    7 months ago 100%

    Weren’t bread machines all the rage because you just dump in the ingredients and it’s autopilot from there? I see a lot of them at 2nd markets and in dumpsters, so I wonder if their usefulness was overestimated.

    1
  • cooking Science of Cooking Loss of cooking skills has hurt our ability to adapt to rising food prices, experts say
    Jump
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPL
    plantteacher
    7 months ago 100%

    .. or farmers trying to sell obscure things like celery root!

    seriously though, the article seems reasonable and balanced to me. E.g:

    • “Of course no amount of cooking prowess will help if you can't afford a basket of groceries”
    • “It's important to note, however, that cooking skills alone cannot solve the affordability problem”.
    1
  • cooking Science of Cooking Loss of cooking skills has hurt our ability to adapt to rising food prices, experts say
    Jump
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPL
    plantteacher
    7 months ago 100%

    Right but what if the cheapest food is idk, something like celery root? I think the idea w/the thesis of the article is that a skilled cook can adapt to whatever ingredients are cheapest at any moment.

    I think I’m a decent cook but I also think I need to improve because when I’m in the produce area and have no idea how to use like 15—20% of the options there. E.g. celery root, cactus, and ½ dozen things I don’t even recognize.

    1
  • cooking Science of Cooking Loss of cooking skills has hurt our ability to adapt to rising food prices, experts say
    Jump
    publichealth
    Public Health plantteacher 7 months ago 81%
    (US) the unnecessary-IV (swindle?) [update: price corrected to $600]

    Hospitals will often give patients an IV as an automatic procedure and then use it for just one blood draw or injection, or even not use it at all. Then charge ≥$~~60~~ 600¹ for it (in the US)! I went to the ER in Europe and got an automatic IV. They only used it to take blood and nothing else. So I took notes and prepared for a dispute. When the invoice finally came, I found no charge for the IV. But had to probe because I’m the type that will fight over a nickel on principle. I asked for details on some of the doctor’s fees, since it was not itemized separately. After my investigation, it turns out the IV was bundled in but only €6. LOL. So insignificant indeed. Not sure if it’s fair to call it a swindle in the US. Is it typically a deliberate money-grab when the IV is not really needed? Staff are (generally rightfully) unaware of pricing and just focused on giving the best care for the patient independent of cost. And for insured people that’s ideal. But I often steer the staff, saying I’m an uninsured cash payer and need price quotes and to asses the degree of need on various things. It’s a burden on them but it’s important to me. I have gotten discharged a day early on a couple occasions (which generally saves me ~$/€ 1k each day I avoid). Funny side story: a doc who I steered well toward budget treatment pulls out his smartphone with a gadget that does an echo. He said this is free but unofficial… maybe we can get out of the pricey proper echo imaging. And indeed the pics were good enough. Anyway - to the question: Whether to give an IV involves guesswork on whether more things will need to be injected. Do docs have any criteria to follow when ordering an IV, or is it their full discretion and they just order it for convenience without much thought? 1) ~~$60~~ was the price ~15-20 years ago.. probably even more today. CORRECTION: the ER nurse in my family apparently tells patients who possibly don’t need an IV that the cost on the bill will be $600 (as a good samaritan warning). I don’t have direct contact with this family member.. heard it through someone else. Can any other ER nurses in the US confirm whether that’s accurate? I am really struggling to believe this price and wonder if someone’s memory failed. I think if I were quoted that price I would surely say for that price I do not need it.. feel free to stick me 10-20 times if needed. (update 2: [seems realistic](https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/surprise-bill-iv-push-hospital-unbundling/))

    7
    3
    chemistry Chemistry Dishwasher guide: salt will harm the stainless steel lining. What about salt water in stainless steel pots?
    Jump
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPL
    plantteacher
    7 months ago 50%

    If you read the whole thread, I would not have to spell this out. These are preservatives (source):

    • honey
    • salt
    • garlic
    • sugar
    • ginger
    • sage
    • rosemary
    • sage
    • mustard
    • mustard seed
    • cumin
    • black pepper
    • turmeric
    • cinnamon
    • cardamom
    • cloves
    • vinegar
    • citric acid
    • lemon/lime juice

    They generally work by killing/repelling/deterring microbes that to a notable extent happen to be of the unwanted variety. Before yesterday, I thought salt worked similarly to the others on that list. Yesterday I learnt that salt is uniquely functions as a preservative due to a different mechanism (a drying effect).

    Your logic is nonsense. To claim that because substance X does not kill /everything/, it cannot serve as a preservative -- this is broken logic that you brought to the thread. Nothing on that list of food preservatives kills or deters every microbe - not even every harmful microbe. Of course they selectively mitigate /some of/ “the bad bacteria” (but note it’s a bit straw mannish for you to use the article “the” in your phrasing imply /all/ unwanted microbes). Most preservatives mitigate enough unwanted microbes without unacceptable overkill to beneficial microbes to justify use as a preservative. They are selected as preservatives for this reason. Foods that fail to significantly select against unwanted microbes (i.e. most foods) don’t get tagged as a preservative. How are you not grasping this?

    You also have noteworthy bad assumption: that evolution does not happen outside of the ocean. The claim that because life started in the ocean, the ocean is therefore suitable for everything -- this is bogus. Try putting a freshwater fish in the ocean. If a complex organism can evolve to become intolerant to the environment of its ancestors, why wouldn’t microbes also evolve to develop intolerances?

    0
  • chemistry Chemistry Dishwasher guide: salt will harm the stainless steel lining. What about salt water in stainless steel pots?
    Jump
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPL
    plantteacher
    7 months ago 100%

    Indeed, that’s a good point. I wonder how many people don’t know that. I used to think “nothing will survive 250°F in my pressure cooker” and was tempted to cook some questionable pork. But yeah, would have been dangerous because chemical toxins from bacteria output would “survive” (persist) in 250°F. So after some quick research, I tossed it.

    Though I might be surprised if 24hrs is enough time for brine to not only accumulate bacteria in high numbers but also allow enough time for bacteria toxins to be produced. How fast does that happen? I would have thought a day is too short (I don’t think I ever let more than a day pass between boils).

    2
  • chemistry Chemistry Dishwasher guide: salt will harm the stainless steel lining. What about salt water in stainless steel pots?
    Jump
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPL
    plantteacher
    7 months ago 25%

    Actually that logic is broken IMO. A food preservative need not make life impossible for all organisms. E.g. hops (and consequential acidity) preserves beer to some extent by making life hard for some unwanted organisms. But hops do not kill everything (of course, because you intend to drink the beer). Beer can still spoil despite the hops.

    But as I said in my correction, salt works as a preservative through a drying effect, which I did not previously realize (TIL).

    -2
  • chemistry Chemistry Dishwasher guide: salt will harm the stainless steel lining. What about salt water in stainless steel pots?
    Jump
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPL
    plantteacher
    7 months ago 50%

    I could always transfer it to glass or plastic to protect the pot but I guess laziness was the original motivator. Salt is cheap enough that I’ll probably just toss it going forward.

    0
  • chemistry Chemistry Dishwasher guide: salt will harm the stainless steel lining. What about salt water in stainless steel pots?
    Jump
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPL
    plantteacher
    7 months ago 100%

    Yeah, indeed I just realized from an article I linked that salt only works as a preservative by drying out food. So salt water is indeed useless.

    3
  • chemistry Chemistry Dishwasher guide: salt will harm the stainless steel lining. What about salt water in stainless steel pots?
    Jump
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPL
    plantteacher
    7 months ago 33%

    i get 403 forbidden w/that link. And archive.org chokes on it too for some reason. Does your source counter this source?

    (edit) ah, I see the problem. Salt only works as a preservative by drying out food.

    -1
  • chemistry Chemistry Dishwasher guide: salt will harm the stainless steel lining. What about salt water in stainless steel pots?
    Jump
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPL
    plantteacher
    7 months ago 100%

    I can’t imagine it’s particularly food safe to leave your starchy pasta water out for a few days and then reuse it.

    I haven’t tested a few days of non-use. It’s usually if I happen to make pasta two days in a row, and (more rare) three days in a row (where it still boils daily).

    2
  • chemistry Chemistry Dishwasher guide: salt will harm the stainless steel lining. What about salt water in stainless steel pots?
    Jump
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPL
    plantteacher
    7 months ago 100%

    Well it’s not actually clear to me whether the soft water is to protect the dishwasher, or to make cleaning more effective. Soft water dissolves soap better which makes it more effective in cleaning. It also means I can use powdered detergent (which is cheaper than liquid detergent, but in hard water powder doesn’t perform as well). Soft water has the down side that it’s actually /more prone/ to corrosion than hard water (at least according to youtube plumbers). So I’m tempted to conclude the built-in water softener is just for cleaning effectiveness.

    3
  • chemistry Chemistry Dishwasher guide: salt will harm the stainless steel lining. What about salt water in stainless steel pots?
    Jump
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPL
    plantteacher
    7 months ago 100%

    Also aren’t you afraid something will come to live in 2 days in warm salty water

    Wasn’t salt the most popular preservative in the days before refrigeration existed? The stuff boils with heavy salt (like ocean water), so starts off semi-sterile due to the boiling. Then I don’t imagine many things looking for a home in brine, which then boils again the next day. This water is saltier than foods that rely on salt for preservation.

    1
  • chemistry Chemistry Dishwasher guide: salt will harm the stainless steel lining. What about salt water in stainless steel pots?
    Jump
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPL
    plantteacher
    7 months ago 33%

    Starchy water sitting around is a breading ground for bacteria. Don’t do that.

    That water is brine, if you do it right. Salt is a good preservative. I’ve tested it with up to 2 reuses.

    Also, dishwashers don’t clean with salt water. They use the salt to reset their internal water softener.

    Not sure why you thought I thought dishwashers clean with salt water. The manual’s advice was to mitigate salt grains that did not get into the salt reservoir that would sit on the stainless steel potentially for days.

    -2
  • chemistry Chemistry Dishwasher guide: salt will harm the stainless steel lining. What about salt water in stainless steel pots?
    Jump
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPL
    plantteacher
    7 months ago 60%

    Ah, I wondered if I needed to explain that, since dishwashers in N.America do not take salt. European dishwashers tend to have built-in water softeners (because it’s somewhat uncommon to have whole house water softeners). So we periodically have to fill a salt reservoir in the dishwasher to feed the water softener.

    1
  • chemistry
    Chemistry plantteacher 7 months ago 72%
    Dishwasher guide: salt will harm the stainless steel lining. What about salt water in stainless steel pots?

    The manual for my dishwasher says to refill salt just before running a wash cycle, because if any grains of salt spill onto the stainless steel interior it will corrode. If it runs right away, no issue because the salt is quickly dissolved, diluted, and flushed. So then I realized when I cook pasta I heavily salt the water (following the advice that pasta water should taste as salty as the ocean). But what happens when I leave that highly salty brine in a pot, sometimes for a couple days to reuse it? Does that risk corroding the pots?

    8
    29
    academia Academia Should universities be self-sufficient and independent? Or dependent on Google/MS?
    Jump
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPL
    plantteacher
    8 months ago 100%

    And email, done right (safe, no spam, secure, private) is one of the hardest things to do. It’s not easy.

    It should be easy when ~95% of the traffic is internal, which is the important traffic. Students and profs emailing each other. How often does a school need to collaborate with another? Google has ruined email and if mail to externals is unreliable that’s fine. Hopefully students are not becoming helpless when the need comes to write a snail mail letter.

    I would rather not condition students to satisfy corporate hoops imposed on them by surveillance advertisers.

    But can you, do you want to explain setting up thunderbird to the median college goer?

    Thunderbird is a convenience. Every student should have access to a UNIX or linux lab where they can type “pine” at a shell prompt and get a preconfigured mail client. If they want the extra convenience of using a 3rd party client, just give them the raw generic parameters. They are students -- it’s their job to struggle through puzzles.

    1
  • academia Academia Should universities be self-sufficient and independent? Or dependent on Google/MS?
    Jump
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPL
    plantteacher
    8 months ago 100%

    When I studied compsci, my prof told me ½ of what I learn at the uni will be obsolete by the time I report to work. So his take was to give a strong dose of the kind of knowledge that does not expire: theory and concepts. We learned a language that does not even exist in the real world (PEP5), which was a blend of important constructs from several real assembly languages. He said if you learn PEP5, you will be best adapted to picking up any assembly language. If he were to teach a real assembly language the chances we would encounter it would be slim and we would be alienated by dissimilar other real langs.

    The wise move is not to make students dependent on implementation specifics.

    On a note on matlab, in addition to industry, there are certain fields in academia, eg neuroscience and many engineer fields, where matlab has been part of their culture for quite some time. My guess is you can make the case for some other proprietary softwares used in university. Changing culture in a field is not an easy thing; but fortunately people in science usually notice these issues and make a choice for themselves.

    IIRC, the GNU Octave language is similar enough to MATlab that if someone cannot adapt something must have gone wrong with their instruction, which should not be centered around implementation particulars.

    MATlab can only be justified in one niche case: simulink, which GNU Octave does not offer. A prof should have to have simulink as part of the course if they are going to justify spending dept money on MATlab.

    2
  • academia Academia Should universities be self-sufficient and independent? Or dependent on Google/MS?
    Jump
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPL
    plantteacher
    8 months ago 100%

    I have a postfix server that Google rejects. I was told I need to setup DKIM. Then I was told it’s not just enough to have DKIM configured, but I will be forced to solve Google’s CAPTCHAs before my DKIM is accepted. In the end I opted not to ever send email to google or MS recipients.

    Perhaps universities could go as far as setting up DKIM but then refuse to support Google’s special needs (such as CAPTCHA solving). If email from the uni to a google acct bounces, no problem because the sender is at least informed that google refused their RFC-compliant message. But what if Google accepts the msg for delivery then files it as spam? Should the university mail server give the sender a notification that a msg was delivered but likely to a spam folder, I wonder?

    2
  • academia
    Academia plantteacher 8 months ago 96%
    Should universities be self-sufficient and independent? Or dependent on Google/MS?

    In the 90s campus to me was like a small city that was self-sufficient in a lot of ways. The school provided its own services in-house. A prof also told me he would teach us what industry is doing wrong so we can correct it -- that academia was *ahead* of industry. The school chose the best tools and languages for teaching, not following whatever industry was using. These concepts seem to be getting lost. These are some universities who have lost the capability of administrating their own email service: * mit.edu → mit-edu.mail.protection.outlook.com * unm.edu → unm-edu.mail.protection.outlook.com * ucsc.edu → aspmx.l.google.com * ucsb.edu → aspmx.l.google.com * cmu.edu → aspmx.l.google.com * princeton.edu → princeton-edu.mail.protection.outlook.com I have to say it’s a bit embarrassing that these schools have made themselves dependent on surveillance capitalists for something as simple as email. It’s an educational opportunity lost. Students should be maintaining servers. These lazy schools have inadvertently introduced exclusivity. That is, if a student is unwilling to pawn themselves to privacy-abusing corps who help oil¹ companies find oil to dig for, they are excluded from the above schools if required to have the school’s email account. Schools pay for MATlab licenses because that’s what’s used in industry. But how is that good for teaching? It’s closed-source, so students are blocked from looking at the code. It contradicts education both because the cost continuously eats away budget and also the protectionist non-disclosure. A school that ***leads*** rather than ***follows*** would use GNU Octave. Have any universities rejected outsourcing, needless non-free software, and made independence part of the purpose? 1. Google and Microsoft both use AI to help oil companies decide where to drill.

    27
    8
    biology Biology What You Don’t Know About Sperm
    Jump
  • "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearPL
    plantteacher
    9 months ago 100%

    When the hard-working little swimmers encounter the thicker vaginal mucus, their path is slowed. So the sperm often join together at their heads, which gives them greater swimming speed (up to 50 percent faster) than if they were to carry on individually.

    I wonder why that is. If a group of people were to join together and run, the speed of the group would be capped by the slowest runner. And aerodynamics would be worse.

    6