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Cake day: September 23rd, 2023

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  • Yes, Massachusetts. I have a dual fuel heat pump with natural gas backup installed in 2020, so it’s a newer system. And I have one heat pump mini split in the least energy efficient, but most used room in my house (large, high ceilings, exterior walls on three sides, and a skylight).

    The first couple of years I noticed when it got just below freezing, the central heat pump seemed to struggle to keep up. Then this year I replaced my windows and got new wall insulation in both of the main bedrooms and bathrooms (previous insulation was original from the 1960s and shredded to bits with huge gaps.)

    After those improvements, I’ve been running my heat pump down to 20⁰F/-7⁰C so far without any issues at all. I’m excited to see how cold we can get and this system still keep up. I am still supplementing my one large room with the mini split, but that’s mostly because all my plants are in here, so I keep this room warmer than 68⁰F/20⁰C.






  • Fresh episodes of X-Files and Star Trek: TNG every week.

    Just that whole experience of something on television being a cultural zeitgeist because everyone had to watch it at the exact same time because that was the only time it existed. Sure, you could record it on VHS and watch later, but it wasn’t the same. Even being at home watching alone felt like participating in a social event.



  • This was very much my experience with the trans girl I grew up with 35 years ago. From the instant she was able to express preferences (I’m talking like age 18 months to 2 years), it was all princesses and dolls and makeup and trying on mom’s high heels. We all just assumed she was a gay boy because we had never heard of a transgender person before.

    We encouraged her to just keep that behavior at home because she was bullied mercilessly for appearing to be an effeminate boy. But nothing would stop her; she was completely irrepressible.

    When in high school, she told us she was really a girl, it was like the most face-palmingly obvious thing. Of COURSE that’s what we’d been seeing her entire life. It just made sense. That’s just who she is.




  • Nothing at all bad happened to the two German journalists who published the Panama Papers. Bastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier are both very much alive and well, and have started a nonprofit organization in honor of their friend and colleague, Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was murdered by an operative of the Maltese government officials who she was investigating for corruption that was revealed in the Panama Papers.

    The investigations and revelations produced by The Daphne Project are ongoing. These are journalists who refuse to be silenced by one woman’s murder.

    But to understand that, you’d have to be interested in not being ignorant for five seconds instead of just parroting things you saw online because you think it makes you sound smart.

    https://www.occrp.org/en/thedaphneproject/



  • As a person who has had many cats in my life, I am of the opinion that two cats is the best number of cats. If you can afford to care for and have space for a second cat, I’d say go for it.

    If you’re not really experienced with cats, be aware that cats almost never get along immediately. It can take weeks of them seeming to hate each other before they become friendly. It’s helpful to put the new cat in a cage where the current cat can see and smell them, but can’t reach them with claws. That gives them a little space to get to know each other before the current cat feels like its territory is being invaded.