I’m beautiful and tough like a diamond…or beef jerky in a ball gown.

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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: July 15th, 2025

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  • If it’s a relatively recent laptop, it should be fine.

    Many of them will let you set custom charge limits. If yours supports that, limit it to like 60% or thereabouts. Long enough that you can get some UPS use out of it but not full enough it’s ever gonna go spicy pillow on you.

    If it won’t let you set a charge limit, they’ll still kind of float around full charge but not stay at 100% all the time. Even plugged in, mine will drop down from 100% to eventually 92% before it will start charging back to 100 again. That’s over the course of several days to a week.

    If the laptop is older than about 2017 or so, or still has a removable battery, you might want to just take the battery out and use an external UPS as those typically don’t have the extra charge management features newer ones do.

    To run them full time, you either want to remove the screen or “tent” them because a lot of heat is dissipated through the keyboard, and it’s normally expected to be open while running because of that. By “tent”, I mean open it halfway and put the screen facing down so it’s standing up and shaped like a tent.



  • It’s a lot like another commenter mentioned about eminent domain. It can be used for good (roads, fiber deployments, district heating, etc) but also for things not so good (data centers, etc).

    I went out of my way to find a house that didn’t even have a vestigial HOA deed restriction, so I get that. But when a private citizen donates something to the local municipality, it’s pretty egregious to not honor those restrictions, especially for things that may take a while to develop.

    I’d donate my share of my family’s farmland to build a park, but I wouldn’t sell it for all the money in the world to build a datacenter or landfill or anything else, really.








  • A few years ago I decided to try the lithium-ion UPSs. I’m on my 3rd year with them, and I will never go back to lead acid. I’ve got one “classic” UPS that is still in good shape as long as you don’t try to run more than 100w from it, but when it goes, it goes.

    These use the LiFePO4 batteries, and I get close to twice the runtime as my old ones, and they don’t drop from 80% to 10% like lead acids do. The battery chemistry is also good for about 10 years of daily cycling, so assuming the electronics hold out, they seem like they’ll last.

    The only hiccup with the model I got is it doesn’t have a serial monitor connection, but you can probably fine plenty that have it.





  • You can’t uninstall Play services once it’s installed (or if you’re on a stock ROM where it’s “baked in”), but you can disable it. Apps -> Set option to “show system” -> Google Play Services -> Disable

    Will it crash as soon as I uninstall it?

    No. However, you won’t be able to use most Google apps and RCS messaging and anything that relies on Google sign in or integrated Google Maps will not work.

    You’ll also get hammered with “Google Play Services are unavailable” notifications from SO MANY APPS. Most of those, you can go into the app’s notifications and disable the alert for “Play Services Availability”. The only one I can’t disable on my phone is from Android Setup, but it only pops up once after a reboot.

    Some apps depend on it more than others. Some will just complain that Play Services aren’t available but otherwise work just the same, but others will lose some functionality depending on how they use those services. For example, my bank app still works but complains Play Services isn’t enabled.

    Most apps that depend on Play Services use it for notifications. So, with my bank app, I no longer receive transaction notifications. I can live without those, though, but some people may not be able to.

    Can I have Android but not Play Services?

    Yes. Most custom ROMs don’t include it by default or offer builds that exclude it.

    Should I use MicroG? If yes, where do I download it?

    You can only install MicroG or other Play Services features before booting into the phone for the first time (e.g. with custom ROMs), but you can’t just replace Play Services with MicroG.



  • I also keep my grounds in a Mason jar.

    Usually I go for ease of ingesting caffeine as quickly as possible and use a generic single-cup coffee maker.

    1. Fill the reusable k-cup with grounds and put it into the coffee maker
    2. Fill the coffee cup with water and pour into the tank
    3. Place cup and press the power button
    4. Take the dogs outside while it’s running
    5. Add a splash of sweetener and/or vanilla syrup
    6. Enjoy

    Obviously, I’m not fancy about it at all. When I do get fancy, I’ll use the French press. Sometimes I’ll cold brew in the French press overnight but I always forget so that’s a rare treat when I do remember.