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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 2nd, 2023

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  • My thinking was more about the initial heating of the water. What happens to the steam after it’s used to turn turbines? Does it float back down to a settling area ready at 50°C or something ready to be picked up for another loop, or is the water lost and and endless supply of new water is pumped in? If the latter, you could save on fuel by using the data center outflow as the inflow of water to the system (starting from 40°C or something, instead of from room temp or colder).

    It seems both types exist, though the ones that reuse water do so by feeding cooler water into wet cooling towers and cooling the steam with some new water. I don’t think having warmer starting water would help here, most likely it would be bad.

    The kind that use a continuous supply of fresh water do exist and are common, but it seems like they don’t build them anymore due to environmental impacts. There’s possibly an opportunity with existing ones to build a data center next door and pump the warmer water to the power station for reduced fuel usage in heating the water?

    Something else I have seen is building a data center next to a water park, using the warmer water to provide heated swimming pools. I thought that was a brilliant way to reduce energy wastage.









  • It won’t feel like a blink at the time 😆. Oh god those early months are hard, though as many people will say it doesn’t get less hard just hard in different ways (terrible twos, threenagers, fucking fours). My books got refined to the kids, and it’s been a few years now, but I seem to recall “how to talk so little kids will listen” is a good entry point. This is for ages 2-7 because it’s around the tantrum starting age (2ish). There’s a much older and much more famous book called “how to talk so kids will listen”, it’s also good but I’m not sure if you get much more if you’ve read the “little kids” version (which was written by the daughter of the original book). The newer one also feels more modern. I might revisit the older one when I reach teenage years (which I’m told start at 9 or earlier 😅).

    I seem to also remember liking one called Playful Parenting, which is written by a child psychologist that specialises in play therapy. There’s also a follow up book called The Art of Roughhousing that was written after he emphasised in Playful Parenting the important of roughhousing and people didn’t know how. Literally just pages of cool things to do at each age (think of Bluey and Bingo mountain climbing - you might not (yet) know what I mean but I know plenty of childless/free adults that love watching bluey).

    A bit older, The Explosive Child, which is probably around age 5 or 6. It’s about kids who have trouble regulating emotion, and strategies - often this is ADHD. This one made the list due to our specific kids. Maybe they have books to help parents of kids who do what they are asked and behave all the time, but such a book wouldn’t be useful to me 🥴

    I also recall The Whole Brain Child was good, but I can’t recall what it was about. That might be a more general one, a good starting point for someone a little while away from tantrums.

    A couple I still have on my list are Raising Good Humans and The Book you Wish your Parents had Read. I have started on the latter and not yet sure if it’s going to click with me. Lots of focus on mindfulness, and on journaling about how you were raised and feelings that come up and so on - the intent seems to be to be more in control in the moment and less “yelly”. I’m not too far in though.

    Oh another is The Gardner and the Carpenter. If I remember right this one emphasised that you are not a carpenter, sculpting your child into what you want them to be, but rather you are more like a gardener, there to pull the weeds out but letting your child grow to be themself. I can’t remember much more than that.

    I seem to recall most of the books were more practically useful from ages 2 onwards, but I still found it helpful to read a few books in advance of this just to work out what sort of parent I was trying to be.

    I’ve listed a few, I think a good approach is to start a list. Write down the books, subscribe to parenting communties, and pick one that seems like a good starting point. Then as others recommend books, you can add them to your list. If you see the same ones come up multiple times then bump them up the list to be read sooner.




  • I’m a yes on kids and no regrets on having them. But I have a few comments on it.

    • Kids can be very different. Don’t decide based on how much you like someone else’s kid.
    • Having kids is great and gives life meaning and all that crap, but very few people start wanting kids after having them. If you aren’t sure you want kids, please don’t have kids! Not even one! The very least you owe a kid is a parent that wants them.
    • If you do have kids, read a parenting book. Even better, read one or two every year. There are heaps of ideas on getting kids to cooperate, and arguably more important, making sure you don’t actively hurt them, don’t destroy their self esteem, make them live in fear of you, etc. I say read many because you’ll find common themes, and ideas that click with you and work with your unique kids. One of the first ones I read suggested buying a baby gate so you could lock your two year old in their room alone when they were “naughty”, pretty glad I kept reading other books.

    And this is important to me but apparently not so much to others, but we are well onto the area of unsolicited advice and I’m rambling now so I’m just gonna say it: you have one job, you’re raising adults. Make them cable, functioning adults but even more so do everything you can to make sure they make it to adulthood in good shape! Teeth get brushed twice a day, every day, no exceptions. Put them in a car seat every single time, don’t be that parent driving their preschooler around with no car seat. The recommendations for what age to use car seats until are probably a lot older age than you’re expected, do some reading. (also no kids under 12 in the front seat if there’s an air bag). Watch them properly near water. Driveways are not playing areas. If you live near an ozone hole like I do then it’s important to know that one bad sunburn as a kid can be a death sentence when they are older.

    A shitload of kids never grow up for completely preventable reasons. One. Job. If you’re gonna do it, make sure you take it seriously.

    Also we live in different times. Google the shit out of any question you have. You can use incognito for the really stupid ones but still Google them if you aren’t sure and it might be important.

    Yes this rant was brought to you by some horrifying things I’ve seen.






  • Ok apparently Illinois has a 39c per gallon gasoline tax, another 18c in federal, and another 6% or so on state sales tax, plus any regional sales tax. It’s unclear whether the sales tax applies to the gasoline tax (in NZ it does), but let’s assume it doesn’t. Then that’s $3 - 0.39 - 0.18 = $2.43 then remove 6% tax is 2.43/106*100 = $2.29

    We can probably knock a bit more off because there is probably some regional/city sales tax but it should be the right ballpark.

    It does seem we pay about the same for petrol, though from what I’ve been searching up, this is wildly different across states because states have much different ways of paying for roads (e.g. Hawai’i is mostly taxed at the pump where as Alaska has big taxes on oil extraction to keep taxes for residents low, including for roading).