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I miss the old days when they came in tables... at least it was somewhere to put your pi.
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Only when it's made of natural materials; otherwise, it's just decadent.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Logarithms are the scariest math. They make everyone go e!
Socialism is the Axe Body Spray of political ideologies: It never does what it claims to do, but people too young to know better keep buying it anyway. (Glenn Reynolds)
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OriginalGriff wrote: basic bongo drum?
That would be an early Feynman 
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Your comment seems baseless.
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We're have a bit of an Artic blast, today. It's back up to 7F (roughly -14C). Brisk, wind, as well, ca. 30mph (gusts over 40mph). (48kph, 64kph gusts). My house heating system, not designed for this, was just about able to maintain 60F (15C) inside before I plugged in a 1500W electric heater and coaxed a few more degrees into the living room.
Some of you are lunatic enough to live where this is common. Why in the world would anyone's ancestors settle in frozen hell?
Well - at least daylight hours are almost back to 10.
(bunch of nuts out there . . . got to be).
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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I'm not going to tell here what happens with the tough guys in Texas when the temperature drops below +15C, but compared to them you are a true Viking who can't go swimming without bringing an ice pick.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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why waste money on heaters and in particular the electricity they use?
I hear bitcoin mining machines are cheap these days
...yes while it's true they do cost more to run then they earn, but even if they only get 1/4 of their costs back it's still a quarter of your heating bill earned back.
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Well, a 93-95% efficient natural gas heater is a lot cheaper to run than having someone else burn the fuel somewhere -> convert to electric (losses) -> send through power lines (losses) and turn what's left into heat.
I mean, really - the other 3/4 of the power used - how much entertainment value is there in watching bitcoins being mined? I prefer to get bitcoins the old traditional fashioned way, by holding data hostage.
You kids - always so eager to try new things
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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phhht bitcoins for holding data hostage, that's hardly old school.
I still prefer to collect good old real folding US$ when rich distant relatives in far flung countries pass away leaving no other family but me (don't tell my siblings).
Sure gotta put out a few thousand for processing fees but I get millions back. that's what I call ROI.
(and the real bonus: being real US$ can also burn them to keep warm.)
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W∴ Balboos wrote: Why in the world would anyone's ancestors settle in frozen hell?
No tax-collectors until summer. Not even a travelling salesman, so no problem.
Very peacefull weather, once you turn your phone off
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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Sounds like solitary confinement.
If they had any sense they would have evolved to have the ability to hibernate.
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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W∴ Balboos wrote: If they had any sense they would have evolved to have the ability to hibernate.
Human brains need too much calories to do so. I'm staying optimistic and hope that the next generation that consists of zir's and apache's evolved this ability
Bastard Programmer from Hell
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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W∴ Balboos wrote: Why in the world would anyone's ancestors settle in frozen hell?
I have often pondered this fact as well. 
I live in upstate NY. Just got 14 inches of snow, -21F wind chill. -6F base temp.
I can't even go outside to take out the garbage.
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I first thought about this when in Grad School in a suburb north of Chicago. That first -20F, when it wasn't even the wind-chill, and I wondered why the settlers (that survived) didn't head south as soon as the first winter passed.
Lake Michigan would freeze out as far as the eye could see every winter. Snow didsn't melt before the next snow drop. Stupid place to live. In the city of Chicago, itself, no on shoveled the snow out of the way because the law was that it was your fault if someone fell after you shoveled but an act of god if you left the snow alone.
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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I strongly contest your choice of words, and emphatically reject the assumption given in the hugely inappropriately worded subject to your posting.
Kindly replace the word "some" with the appropriate determiner.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Mark_Wallace wrote: Kindly replace the word "some" with the appropriate determiner.
all?
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Much better.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Well there are some positives to having a negative mathematical symbol in front of your temperature gauge.
1.I haven't had a mosquito bite in months.
2.Never had termites or cockroaches(well crickets are part of that family I guess)
3.I don't have to visit family as much because of the weather.
4.It gives me a better appreciation for what I'm missing when I leave to warmer pastures in retirement.
5.My dog does less circles before finding her ideal "landing spot"
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W∴ Balboos wrote: Why in the world would anyone's ancestors settle in frozen hell?
Quite simply because they didn't.
The Northern climate has cycled through periods of cold and warmth throughout the existence of the planet.
My understanding is that many of our northern ancestors migrated north when we were in a warming period.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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GuyThiebaut wrote: My understanding is that many of our northern ancestors migrated north when we were in a warming period.
It is my understanding that they were forced to stay by The Manticore blocking there way.
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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W∴ Balboos wrote: Some of you are lunatic enough to live where this is common.
What we consider to be the lunatic part of it are the technical requirements stated by the authorities when you put up a new house here. It is stated by "U value": Walls shall have a maximum heat loss of 0.18 watt per square meter per kelvin temperature difference. With -15C outdoors, +20C indoors (35K delta), the maximum permitted heat loss is 35*0.18 = 6.3 watt per square meter of outer wall. Through the ground floor, it is even stricter: At most 0.1 W/K * square meter. For the ceiling, the maximum U-value is 0.13.
These requirements demand top quality insulation of at least 30 cm (12 inches) in the walls, and 40-50 cm under your ground floor. You can in theory make 2-layer windows satisfying the requirements, but in practice, they are three layer, with insulating gas between the layers.
Also, the majority of households use heat pumps nowadays, delivering three to four times as much heat per watt compared to a plain electric heater. Heated floors is becoming more and more common, allowing room temperature to be lowered by at least 3-4 C (or 5-7 F) for the same level of comfort (at least if you don't wear shoes indoors). We have strict requirements for the efficiency of wood stoves. Recovering the heat in ventilation systems is not required, but fairly common - the used air blown out of the house is cold.
So, we have ways of handling the cold. This morning was -15C at my place: Clear sky, dry, snow is light and crispy (we had a snowfall of 61 cm, 24 inches, last weekend). Actually, we love the cold so much that we sometimes catch it!
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An excellent argument to confirm my original subject line!
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Well, my ancestors many generations ago came from Scandinavia. Which may be why my recent ancestors (18th century and onwards) settled in Georgia. 
Yet, I spent a winter in Chicago and a winter in southeastern Idaho (courtesy of the US Navy) and loved it. Days and nights of -40F in Idaho were not uncommon, and I would stand out in the snow drifts for up to an hour waiting on a bus to take me and my Navy buddies 60 miles out in the desert (as teenagers - I was 19) to play with live nuclear reactors.
I adapted to the cold quite well.
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I grew up in the inland - far from any ocean or lake. Well, there was a river down in the bottom of the valley, but it didn't bother us much; most of its surface was frozen most of the winter. Air was dry, we had very little wind. At school, we were allowed to stay in the corridors during the breaks if temperature was below -20C (-4F), but we didn't want to - we wanted to run outside.
When starting my studies, I moved to a costal town with a lot of wind. Temperature downtown rarely goes below -5C (23F), yet I was freezing like a dog most of the time. Most of the winter was milder, sometimes below freezing, sometimes above, turning the snow into (wet) ice impossible to handle either as a pedestrian or as a car driver. Rain at a couple degrees below freezing (it certainly happens!) feels far, far colder than dry snow at -20C! Especially when the wind is howling through the streets.
I still live in the same town, but have moved a few kilometers away from the fjord, higher up in the landscape. It is somewhat drier, and colder, here than downtown - currently at -15C (downtown temperature is reported to be -8C). If I were to move somewhere else, it would be further inland, to a cooler, drier place, such as Røros reported to have -23C right now, or Folldal at -29C. I know that I would freeze a lot less going to the grocery store there than I would if by taking a trip downtown in this town, even if the temperature is 21 centigrade lower in Folldal.
Wind and humidity is what counts. I got the impression that Chicago has got a fair share of both, but I never lived there, so I may be wrong.
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