Linux server admin, MySQL/TSQL database admin, Python programmer, Linux gaming enthusiast and a forever GM.

  • 5 Posts
  • 283 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: June 8th, 2023

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  • It’s not “just” a solar panel, to be legally compliant in Germany. The part you plug in is basically a control unit. They aren’t super big and complex, but they need to be able to do 2 things:

    1. Detect if there’s a live circuit, and not transmit any power if not. This is because sometimes electricity is turned off for maintenance. You don’t want an electrician dying because a line they turned off is actually live due to someone having this plugged in.

    2. Power limiter, similar in function to a circuit breaker. This prevents overcurrents happening in your walls and starting a fire. Because all of this is happening after a house’s breaker box, they won’t flip if the combined grid + solar current is too high, so the solar unit’s control unit has to be able to deal with it.

    Disclaimer: I’m a layman, not an electrician. Just read into the tech because it’s interesting to me.




  • Yup, this is pretty much it. I played a campaign of it. Essentially, you’re so far down the hierarchy you’re basically almost human, with older vampires being a far far greater threat than humans, struggling to understand and survive vampire society before it destroys you. As you said, there’s also a fair chunk of trying to hold on to what humanity you still have left.


  • I’m one of those nano weirdos. I mean, I get why people use vi/vim, but I’m a lazy man who has the nano shortcuts hardwired into my muscle memory. It’s definitely not as full-featured as vim, but it does what I need it to do quickly and easily. If I need to just quickly drop into a file and do a find/replace, takes me maybe 3 seconds.

    Also, to share an ancient joke from the dawn of computing: emacs is a great OS, I just hope someone makes a decent text editor for it eventually.








  • Here’s an absolute classic unix koan about the terminal:

    One evening, Master Foo and Nubi attended a gathering of programmers who had met to learn from each other. One of the programmers asked Nubi to what school he and his master belonged. Upon being told they were followers of the Great Way of Unix, the programmer grew scornful.

    “The command-line tools of Unix are crude and backward,” he scoffed. “Modern, properly designed operating systems do everything through a graphical user interface.”

    Master Foo said nothing, but pointed at the moon. A nearby dog began to bark at the master’s hand.

    “I don’t understand you!” said the programmer.

    Master Foo remained silent, and pointed at an image of the Buddha. Then he pointed at a window.

    “What are you trying to tell me?” asked the programmer.

    Master Foo pointed at the programmer’s head. Then he pointed at a rock.

    “Why can’t you make yourself clear?” demanded the programmer.

    Master Foo frowned thoughtfully, tapped the programmer twice on the nose, and dropped him in a nearby trashcan.

    As the programmer was attempting to extricate himself from the garbage, the dog wandered over and piddled on him.

    At that moment, the programmer achieved enlightenment

    Source: https://catb.org/~esr/writings/unix-koans/gui-programmer.html