The Vent and Rant Thread

[cromag]

Originally Posted by fum

Yes, it is the same all year. We have central heating in our town. So, hot water goes into the house, heats the water for shower etc, and around the house for heating. We don't use much in the summer, and a lot in the winter. We pay 150 -> 200 dollar a month. So you can say that we pay in the summer, for what we use during winter.

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Oh. So rather than having your own water heater, the city provides the hot water.

Originally Posted by fum

Yes. Actually it is quite a nice system. We have a giant plant, north off Aarhus(The main city), built to produce electricity, and the waste heat goes into heating our houses. Around 200.000 people. So there are some big pipes dug down around the cities in our municipality.

Con Ed operates a steam distribution system in New York City. I believe it mostly serves commercial customers, including apartment houses, so I don't think it's likely that individuals would be directly billed -- but, as always, I could be wrong.

[Rumpelteazer]

I just hate bright LED lights on appliences and electronics. The smoke detector in my hotelroom, which is situated over the bed, has two LEDs, they flash every 5 seconds and they are so bright that I can see the flash when I have my eyes closed at night.

So, on today's shoppinglist is an eye mask.

[cromag]

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

I just hate bright LED lights on appliences and electronics. The smoke detector in my hotelroom, which is situated over the bed, has two LEDs, they flash every 5 seconds and they are so bright that I can see the flash when I have my eyes closed at night.

So, on today's shoppinglist is an eye mask.

Or, a sticky, removable Post-It note to cover the LEDs?

I have the same gripe about electronics like stereos and televisions that use bright blue LED lights to show they're powered on. If you must have a power LED, why can't it be a low level red one?

[Rumpelteazer]

Originally Posted by cromag

Or, a sticky, removable Post-It note to cover the LEDs?
I have the same gripe about electronics like stereos and televisions that use bright blue LED lights to show they're powered on. If you must have a power LED, why can't it be a low level red one?

That did work for the microwave, but not for the smoke detector, due to the shap and where the LEDs are situated. On my next packing list I'll add a small roll of black tape, that would have worked.

I hate bright LEDs, and the trend that they have to be blue or green.

[fum]

I fiddle around with LEDs for my modeltrain stuff, and I usually paint them. A black permanent marker kan dim them to almost nothing.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

<rant> Firefox upcoming changes ... ... extensions not working already ... ... thinking of switching to Edge</rant>

I've looked at Edge. It's actually usable, though a long way from what I'd like.

I have several versions of Firefox here. I have a release version as production browser, and Developer Edition and Nightly. I was running all three with the same profile, switching back and forth to see what might break in new versions.

The problem is extensions. The Gecko rendering engine Firefox uses understood and rendered HTML and CSS, and interpreted and executed JavaScript. Gecko also understood and rendered XUL, an XML language for creating user interfaces. The look and feel of Firefox was implemented in XUL, CSS, and widgets, with JavaScript doing the work when you clicked on a menu choice or an icon. The browser was simply an instance of something Gecko rendered. Because of this, you could dramatically change what Firefox looked like, and create extensions to modify and enhance how it worked.

XUL is deprecated, and Gecko itself is going away, with a new rendering engine called Quantum in the wings. To make it more fun, Mozilla has decreed that going forward, all extensions will use the Web Extensions API, making it theoretically possible to create extensions that that will work in Firefox, Chrome, and Edge with minor changes. Such extensions will be entirely JavaScript.

The problem is, a good deal of what a lot of existing extensions do simply can't be done with only Web Extensions, unless that API is considerably expanded.

I have about 40 extensions in Firefox that are part of my standard kit. All of them will stop working as of v57.

To give myself head room, I switched the the Firefox ESR release. This is intended for organizations with many FF installations. It will get security updates, but major changes that will break things will happen a lot more slowly. Firefox ESR is at v52.04 level, and what I use will continue to work for a while.

I have a Firefox Developer Edition instance using a different profile that I use to track the progress of stuff using only Web Extensions, and if a sufficient subset of what I rely on now gets implemented, I may switch.

But I've already gotten notices from developers of an assortment of extensions I rely on saying "Sorry, but development is hereby ended. What my extensions do can't be done in only Web Extensions!"

There are some third party Firefox builds, like Pale Moon and Waterfox that are sticking with Gecko, but I foresee problems for them down the road. Web standards are constantly evolving. Gecko is a large and very complex product. Will the developers of the third-party builds be able to change Gecko to handle future web standards? I strongly suspect the answer is "no".

My big gripe is that the Mozilla devs seem to live in a echo chamber. At no point do I recall Mozilla trying to find out how the users felt about proposed changes. Users have been voting with their feet, and FF browser market share has been steadily shrinking. Mozilla funding comes from ad deals, and the current funding base is through a deal with Yahoo, replacing Google as the default search engine. But Yahoo has been bought by Verizon (and the amount of the funding Yahoo had committed to give Mozilla was a sticky point in the acquisition.) Will Verizon continue to provide the funding when the current agreement expires, with traffic coming from FF shrinking as people drop Firefox? What will Mozilla do if it doesn't - make puppy eyes at Google? I don't see this ending well.
______
Dennis

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

<rant> Firefox upcoming changes ... ... extensions not working already ... ... thinking of switching to Edge</rant>

What?

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I've looked at Edge. It's actually usable, though a long way from what I'd like.


My big gripe is that the Mozilla devs seem to live in a echo chamber. At no point do I recall Mozilla trying to find out how the users felt about proposed changes. Users have been voting with their feet, and FF browser market share has been steadily shrinking. Mozilla funding comes from ad deals, and the current funding base is through a deal with Yahoo, replacing Google as the default search engine. But Yahoo has been bought by Verizon (and the amount of the funding Yahoo had committed to give Mozilla was a sticky point in the acquisition.) Will Verizon continue to provide the funding when the current agreement expires, with traffic coming from FF shrinking as people drop Firefox? What will Mozilla do if it doesn't - make puppy eyes at Google? I don't see this ending well.
______
Dennis

So, it's bye, bye firefox, I'm afraid, and going to Chrome.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by fum

I fiddle around with LEDs for my modeltrain stuff, and I usually paint them. A black permanent marker kan dim them to almost nothing.

Thanks. Not an LED but you just solved my freezer light problem.
Our chest freezer is in the bedroom.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

So, it's bye, bye firefox, I'm afraid, and going to Chrome.

Depends. How many extensions are you using?

Folks using a stock Firefox install who haven't dabbled in extensions are unlikely to notice anything.

How bad you'll be bitten depends on what you have installed.

Mozilla has a web page where they track progress in converting popular legacy extensions to WebExtensions: http://arewewebextensionsyet.com/#addons

And a list of extensions that are FF 57 compatible is here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/fir...?tag=firefox57

I have Chrome here to track its development, but I don't especially like it. It's a "no other workable option" case. Even though Edge is actually usable, I run Linux as well as Windows, so I need the same browser in both OSes. FF and Chrome exist for Linux. Edge doesn't.
______
Dennis

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Depends. How many extensions are you using?

A lot, some of them I've adapted myself from Chrome.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

I just hate bright LED lights on appliences and electronics. The smoke detector in my hotelroom, which is situated over the bed, has two LEDs, they flash every 5 seconds and they are so bright that I can see the flash when I have my eyes closed at night.

So, on today's shoppinglist is an eye mask.

Oh, brother. One of my HG (Holy Grail) items. I feel like the great white shark, constantly searching the Net for good ones.

I had a pair, a few years back, that I really loved, and of course, the manufacturer "improved it." They changed the material on the front of the mask from soft cloth to windbreaker-type material, so now the mask is stiff as hell, and it whispers all night when you move. That same noise you hear when you're wearing a windbreaker or other Poly-nylon blends. I hate those.

Between that type of idiocy, and all the bloody VELCRO, for head straps (obviously conceived by men, who have short hair!!), it's difficult to find a good sleep mask, IMHO. They're all designed for things like airplane flights, where you're not really lying down, or short-hops...it's become very hard to find any decent ones meant to use nightly.

Good luck with your hunt--if you can find a way to block the lightsource, you might be happier.

Hitch

[DiapDealer]

Stupid TV show chose to use a real product in their fictional "Science." Problem is, they chose to present 2,4-D as a pesticide instead of the broadleaf herbicide that it really is. If you're going to use real chemical compounds in your fiction, you may want to think about using something other than that which anybody who knows the least little bit about lawn-care could have told you wasn't going to fly.

[Rumpelteazer]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Oh, brother. One of my HG (Holy Grail) items. I feel like the great white shark, constantly searching the Net for good ones.
I had a pair, a few years back, that I really loved, and of course, the manufacturer "improved it." They changed the material on the front of the mask from soft cloth to windbreaker-type material, so now the mask is stiff as hell, and it whispers all night when you move. That same noise you hear when you're wearing a windbreaker or other Poly-nylon blends. I hate those.
Between that type of idiocy, and all the bloody VELCRO, for head straps (obviously conceived by men, who have short hair!!), it's difficult to find a good sleep mask, IMHO. They're all designed for things like airplane flights, where you're not really lying down, or short-hops...it's become very hard to find any decent ones meant to use nightly.
Good luck with your hunt--if you can find a way to block the lightsource, you might be happier.
Hitch

I hate those swish-swish coats. It took a while to find a good autumn/spring coat, since the noisy coats are hip this year.

I totally forgot to get an eye mask today. I remembered it when I had already reached my limit for busy stores. I'll try again tomorrow.

Also, why does the thing have to blink every buy 5 seconds?

Thanks for the tips on what I need to consider when getting one, though I suspect I won't have much choice.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

I hate those swish-swish coats. It took a while to find a good autumn/spring coat, since the noisy coats are hip this year.

I totally forgot to get an eye mask today. I remembered it when I had already reached my limit for busy stores. I'll try again tomorrow.

Also, why does the thing have to blink every buy 5 seconds?

Thanks for the tips on what I need to consider when getting one, though I suspect I won't have much choice.

I've ripped out a fair amount of hair, trying to get "over" the Velcro, and, well, that hasn't worked. Also, if you wear eye creams or face moisturizer, at night, make sure it's a) washable and b) that the eye area has wells, so that it's not pressed up against your lids and eye area, particularly if you're using eye creams. (also, if you prefer the mask tighter, having it pressed against your eyeballs kinda defeats the purpose.)

I've currently got a somewhat sculptured mask, washable, and it does have a velcro enclosure, but the way they've done it keeps the velcro from the hair, which is fine by me. I don't love it, but it's "okay."

OH, and unless you ADORE (and I mean, ADORE) lavender, sage, etc., stay away from those herbal masks. I got one with lavender, thinking that I could swap out the lavender seeds, for something else, so that I could adjust the weight/bulk of the mask, and what an horrific mistake that was. Even though the seeds were in a separate enclosure, the mask STINKS, even now, months later, long after I've removed the lavender and replaced it with plain oatmeal. Stinks to high heaven. Yuck.

Good luck. I'd make recs, if I had any, but my bedroom nightstand lower section looks like the Island of Misfit Eye Masks, or the Eyemask Graveyard, where old Eyemasks go to die. It's sad, really. Good thing they're so bloody cheap.


Hitch