MrVilliam

I've had my Earfun Air Pro 3 earbuds since like July and I like them okay. Currently on sale for $76. I used to eat in front of my TV in the living room even when alone, but now I just sit at the dining table and pop these in. Especially with Vanced YouTube. The ads on the PS5 YouTube app became obtrusive to the point that I just don't use it anymore. I'll also pop these in while doing chores around the house. They pair to my phone and Steam Deck without issue.

I had other earbuds before this that were about $35 but not noise cancelling. They fell out of my pocket while I was out of town, so I splurged on something that would sound better, and I'm happy with them for the price point and form factor.

Excellent thought, but we're on public sewer. That's why I'm confused about why they would've been bleaching the water heater.

Built shelves into the back wall of the garage. It's been great for storage.

Installed a water softener, but more on that in a minute.

Also wrote with sharpie on the wall of the maintenance closet the dates of routine PMs for the furnace and water heater. Unfortunately, I found out the hard way that they weren't particularly diligent about the water heater stuff. It just said "bleach" and dates, but they clearly weren't flushing it properly. I found and removed probably like 15-20 pounds of scale and replaced the lower element that it killed. I have a theory that they installed the water softener well after living with hard water for a while, and by then there was already a bunch of scale in the water heater. Combine that with dosing bleach which is higher pH and not properly flushing it out and they welcomed crystallization of the dissolved solids that were already there. Then under deposit corrosion killed the lower element. I'm not sure why they felt the need to dose bleach though. That would only really attack organics, and the water is already treated before coming through. Idk, it's my first home so maybe I'm the one who's a clueless idiot here, so I shouldn't judge too harshly here lol.

Definitely not 100% more electricity assuming you're handwashing with hot water and have an electric water heater. If you're on a gas water heater, then you're burning more gas to wash your dishes. You're also using way more soap than if you used powder or liquid detergent in your dishwasher. And no matter how you slice it, using your dishwasher is significantly more passive as you can run it, go to bed, wake up, and unload it. You washed your dishes in your sleep.

I agree with you that it all comes down to preference, but it's downright silly to believe that running your dishwasher is an "extra step" lol. Just load it properly (not too much stuff and face soiled sides down and toward the center), run hot water to your faucet before running so that the initial rinse cycle is rinsing with hot water, put some detergent (not pods) in the detergent door but probably only like half full, close the detergent door, put like a teaspoon extra outside of the detergent door, and just run it on normal or medium or whatever your dishwasher says that seems standard. Try it tonight. But check the filter at the bottom and clean it out first. If you have water spots on your glasses when it's done running, you probably have hard water. You can either install a water softener which would be great for your showers and your laundry too, or you can just buy jetdry or some other rinse aid which will chemically soften the water in your dishwasher. Or your water spots may be from putting too much detergent in. You really don't need to fill that little cup. Filling it is for running a very full dishwasher with very stubborn, caked on shit.

It's your preference. Maybe you like spending 20 minutes handwashing. I don't. I'd rather load dishes as they get dirty to keep it all from piling up around the sink. I prefer to use less electricity, less water, less soap, and less of my time.

Sorry for my passionate defense of dishwashers. I'm a water chemist who has been working in power plants for over ten years and I'm passionate about this sort of thing. I'm a true dull man.

I think you mean "doldrums" here. Noun, a state or period of inactivity, stagnation, or depression.

I'm not against piracy, but publicly posting about intending to pirate would just invite cops to come and snoop around. I'm not dumb. I should either shut the fuck up about this topic and feel free to pirate or I should not pirate so I can freely speak up about how bullshit it is to pay for these things when piracy is far and away the better experience. I chose the latter, and especially now that resources have been provided to help others to choose the former, others can do so without even asking where to start.

I can afford to buy my media, but I wasn't always so financially stable and I refuse to forget those chapters of my life. People are really struggling right now, so I wouldn't dare judge anybody for pirating instead of paying these absurd streaming bill amounts just to get a dogshit selection, bad UI, and pisspoor video quality. As everything in life seems to be going to subscription model, I'm becoming more interested in owning my media. It also just seems like building a NAS and ripping my discs to build a library within it could just be a fun tinkering tech project.

It's ludicrous that the original pirate-killer service has become such a bad deal. 13 years ago it was such a good deal that it didn't really make sense to pirate anymore. Now it's triple the price, 1/3 the quality content, and a worse experience.

I would have had less issues had I pirated

This right here is the problem. Consumers are being punished for paying for their service. I would be more than happy to hand over my hard earned money for products and services that are good value. I'm not trying to get something from nothing here. It's absurd that we could get better than they're promising, let alone actually delivering on, and it could cost us nothing.

Yesterday, I learned that several titles on Netflix are locked out from the ad-supported tier "due to licensing restrictions". Inexcusable. Pay, still sit through ads, get a fraction of the library. I think I'm gonna start building a NAS and home library this year. BDs and DVDs can be snatched up for cheap from pawn shops and eBay. I'll do it legally just so I can tell any FBI pricks to go fuck themselves if they should ever decide to check on my shit.

This. Conservatives have poor media literacy. They don't understand that they're the punchline in stuff like that. They miss the point of stuff like RoboCop and Starship Troopers and unironically like those movies for the action and don't even recognize the social commentary. They watched Team America and guffawed into their 24 packs of light beer at every shallow joke without recognizing that the jokes were intentionally shallow to point out what an idiot would think is a good joke. It's like the TV show in Idiocracy. The real joke is below the surface.

I appreciate the info!

I opened hot taps on the floor above to break vacuum. My wife had questions about the sounds she was hearing and I compared it to putting your thumb on the top of a straw to hold liquid in the straw; I just took the figurative thumb off the top of the figurative straw to drain it.

I don't have a shop vac (yet). I'm a new homeowner and have bought plenty of new things lately and wasn't in the mood to go to the store in the middle of what I was dealing with, so I just stirred up and drained the bits I saw through the element hole. I didn't know just how much it was until I'd already been at it for a long while anyway lol.

The house is only about 7 years old, and I'm assuming the water heater is too. There's a water softener attached, but I bet it's a new addition they put in in response to the hardness they were growing in the water heater.

I had googled thermostat settings and was mostly seeing about 125° as the recommended temp, and the thermostats I bought were factory set to 120 and the manual recommended against raising it. Now I know I can bump mine up a touch if I feel like it!

I'm a power plant operator with a background in water chemistry. I was uniquely prepared to understand this situation, but not as well equipped as you would've been lol.

Is that the same as a heat pump water heater? They typically need a lot of air around them to work properly and my water heater is in a small closet next to my gas furnace in a townhouse, so that's not really a great option for me.

Eventually, I'd like to upgrade my heat/AC to a heat pump though. They're much more capable and efficient than they used to be. Modern ones heat fine even when it gets down to 0°F, which it occasionally does here around this time of year.

Anode looked better than expected, especially considering it still had manufacturer insulation and cap over it, so it's literally never been changed and the house is 7ish years old.

I always used to use hot water when I needed to boil water for stuff like pasta or rice to get it there faster. I guess now I know haha.

It's only about 7 years old, so I'm pretty sure I got to it in time. I hadn't thought of it plugging a leak at the time, but that's a very valid concern. I'm pretty sure that under deposit corrosion was what killed the element, so it could've attacked the tank itself too. The anode rod must be doing an okay enough job lol.