captain_aggravated

Why?

220v isn't achieved via two phases; we get 110v out of a single phase by center tapping the transformer. The center tap wire is called the "neutral" and is at ground potential, and then the two "hot" wires. There's 110v between the neutral and either one of the hots, and the hots are 220v apart. It's still one phase.

Note I used 110/220v here and 120/240 above. peak-to-peak, root-mean-square, ask an actual electrician, I'm just an asshole on the internet.

Some of those belong to the person in the background.

A couple days a year typically, between hurricanes, tornadoes and winter ice storms.

Honest answer: Induction stoves aren't shit in the US. They don't run at a lower voltage because our homes are wired for 240V same as Europe.

Honest explanation: The American power grid closely remembles anyone else's, we've got the big long distance power lines up on those big pylons that transmit power in the megavolts, those get stepped down at substations to a dozen kilovolts to snake into neighborhoods, and then those pole mounted transformers step it down to 240V to make the couple hundred foot trip from the pole to a few houses. The difference is that in America, the transformer is connected to the house with three wires, not two. The third wire is a center tap, so you have the two outer wires and a center wire.

Measure the voltage between the outer two wires, you find 240V. Measure between the center wire and either of the outer two, you find 120V.

Most of the normal outlets throughout an American home or business are wired between one of the outers and the center, to deliver 120V. But, we routinely wire some circuits across the two outer wires for 240V, we even have special plugs for this to make sure you don't plug a 120V appliance into a 240V outlet. Things such as electric water heaters, HVAC units, clothes dryers, electric car chargers and electric stoves are indeed wired for 240V here.

Induction cooktops took on a low reputation in the US because early models were hilariously expensive (Westinghouse was selling an induction range in the 70's for $1500, that's about $10,000 in today's money) and not particularly reliable. Another factor was all the trendy cookware from the 60's on. CorningWare and Pyrex (ceramic and borosilicate glass) was huge in the 70's, Calphalon (anodized aluminum) and Revere Ware (high-nickel stainless steel) was on all the wedding registries in the 80's, and solid copper was big in the early 90's. None of which work on induction stoves. Which means, for decades, Americans perceived induction ranges as gimmicky crap that required "special" cookware, that to buy into an induction range would require throwing away all your pots and pans. Americans continued preferring resistive coil electric or natural gas stoves.

Well, we arrived into the 21st century, teflon-coated steel and tri-ply stainless pans come into vogue, Corning stops making consumer ceramic and glass products, Revere changes their stainless formula, and now we find that most cookware on the market is induction compatible. Induction stoves are the fastest growing market segment in kitchen appliances in the US, everybody wants one.

Something something war on Christmas...?

Autodesk.

Wow, your mom sucks. Get her out of your life.

I have only ever seen the phrase "don't chase, attract" used by women to peer pressure each other out of actively participating in dating. Reminding each other to never express enthusiastic consent.

"Playing hard to get" is taking that line of thought to the logical extreme. "Want men to want you more? Always turn them down!"

It's the opposite side of the "women want assholes" coin, it's an incorrect premise taken to an extreme.

I assert that terror is terror.

I think video games are good for terror. Subnautica for example, reaper leviathans are terrifying, but not horrifying. You encounter a reaper, and it's a spike in adrenaline, but you don't lay in bed that night staring at the ceiling about it.

Abstract: I burned a pair of audio CDs three days ago for listening to in my cars. Two (nearly) identical discs, one for each car. I have largely moved away from optical discs but am making an effort to re-embrace them.

Full text: So when I went to build my PC, I wanted a Fractal Meshify 2 Mini case. I built my cousin's PC in one, I wanted one too, but they had apparently been discontinued. I wound up with a Pop Air Mini case instead, which in many ways isn't as nice, but it does feature a pair of 5 1/4" bays hidden behind a magnetic panel at the front of the PSU basement.

One of my little projects was to install one of those multi-format card readers and an old optical drive there, and I got it done a few days ago. I have a USB optical drive, in fact a couple of them, but an internal one is just a nicer thing to deal with. It is my understanding that no one is actually manufacturing those external optical drives anymore; that the ones you see on Amazon with god knows what branding are old laptop drives of whatever spec stuffed into a new case with a USB controller. They're flaky, janky, and flimsy. Plus there's never anywhere to put them; they come with short little cables so they're invariably hard to plug in. So instead I ganked a blu-ray reader/DVD writer drive out of an old Dell I have lying around and installed that, and man is it nicer.

My inaugural project was to make a couple of audio CDs for the car. This project involved little to no piracy; all of the audio came from legitimately purchased CDs that I bought as directly from the band as I could. I want to fund the artists, not the sniveling IP hoarders. So I've got discs now that have my favorite 25 out of ~120 tracks I bought from them in my cars. I ripped the discs to FLACs the second I had them and have been listening to them on my phone, my precious originals safely stored in a CD rack.

I also bought a new spindle of CD-Rs, which is also getting harder to do. The ones I bought have inkjet printable labels. And it just so happens my old inkjet printer has a disc printing feature that I've yet to use. So I tried it out. Getting this particular printer going in Linux for more than basic features is a no-go; CUPS+Gutenprint is available for at least a thousand makes and models of Epson printers including the models above and below mine in the range, but specifically not mine. I chose to take that personally, but in the meantime I have discs to print. Funnily enough the printer can do this without a PC at all; it has a feature specifically for printing JPGs onto discs, and another feature that I have to assume is designed specifically for piracy:

My Epson XP-830 Expression Premium "Small In One" printer has a built-in feature to copy a CD from the scanner bed to the disc tray. That is, put a CD label side down on the scanner glass, put a printable CD-R on the disc tray, and it will figure it out and copy it. I can think of no purpose for that other than to hand out copies of Now That's What I Call Music 7 or Windows Vista Home Premium to all your high school friends. It's useless for things like "File Archives 2011" or "Iron Butterfly Beach Party Mix" but it's a very user friendly counterfeiting workflow.

So mostly I installed this optical drive for reading rather than writing. I can see a future where I replace this drive with an M-disc burner; I keep threatening to start a Youtube channel, and that might be how I archive video footage, but...I don't know.