dingus

joined 2 years ago
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[โ€“] dingus 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (6 children)

Hi. You seem knowledgeable so I hope you don't mind if I ask a couple of questions.

I purchased a new electric water heater a little over 1 year ago. The temp by default was set bizarrely low to me...I think like 120-125F. The water was simply lukewarm to me and I read online that the temp it was set to was not high enough to kill certain pathogens, so I turned it up a bunch. I think initially I decided to go with 150F but then turned it down to 145F after a while. The heater also encourages you to turn down the temp to a crazy low level if you know you will be away for a while...I decided to never use such a feature because I am not interested in breeding pathogens.

Anyway, after only a little over one year, one of the heating elements failed in it. Luckily, the company agreed that this would be covered under warranty. A tech came out and replaced it for me and showed me how corroded the component looked.

I asked him why it failed so prematurely and he gave two reasons for me.

  1. Yearly maintenance had not yet been performed which supposedly caused excessive sediment buildup. I didn't like this answer because it's not like I had been running it for 5 years when this happened. It was only 1.5 years old. I have never heard of a water heater failing for not following the exact one yearly maintenance schedule to the exact date. This sounded odd to me... especially since I've lived in apartment complexes who fail to do any maintenance on them for years and this doesn't occur. Does this theory make sense?

  2. The temp was set too high. When the tech arrived, he said 145F was way too hot which I thought was bizarre to me. He set the temp to 140F and said it should prob be ok now. I don't get how a difference in only 5 degrees would cause such a catastrophy premature failure of the heating element. Are some modern water heaters just build like shit and not actually meant to be run at temps that destroy pathogens?

Do you think there's anything else I can do to prevent component failure like that? I'm not sure if maybe I have hard water and if that might have contributed? If I do, how would I fix that? Thanks!

[โ€“] dingus 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

As an adult, I never expect someone will get something I want or that I can really figure out what someone else wants. It's not like when we were kids. You generally have your own money to get what you want now or the items are too expensive to be a gift anyway. The gift giving is just supposed to be something fun to do, not necessarily the content of the gifts themselves.

I wonder if maybe you could set up some sort of white elephant exchange some time in the future? I've wanted to do something like that with my family, but my mom doesn't seem to be entirely on board. If you have enough people, it's fun to do and then you don't really have to worry about what someone may or may not like.

The fact that you were so distressed that you had to leave the room is a bit concerning to hear though tbh. Feels very entitled.

[โ€“] dingus 6 points 1 week ago

๐Ÿ˜”๐Ÿ˜”๐Ÿ˜”

[โ€“] dingus 15 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I'm honestly really surprised that your mortgage is about half the cost of renting. That has not been my experience in recent years at all. That's how things used to be, but in post 2020 times, monthly mortgage payments often seem to surpass rent payments in my area, making the whole thing kind of a hard pill to swallow. Idk. Maybe I was looking at things wrong. I'm not a real estate expert. I just know that buying my place increased my monthly bills a bit instead of decreasing them like that. It seemed that would have happened with any property I looked at.

[โ€“] dingus 2 points 1 week ago

No trauma or anything like that here. Some of us have just always had it without a cause!

[โ€“] dingus 4 points 1 week ago

It's a bit comforting to know how many others in this thread have also had it as long as they can remember. I'm the same...can't remember there ever being a time where I didn't have it. It also isn't the stereotypical classical single tone "ringing" noise for me, so I didn't ever connect the dots as it being tinnitus until into young adulthood.

Still makes me a bit concerned that I'll lose my hearing some day. Both my mom and maternal grandfather experienced significant hearing loss over time.

[โ€“] dingus 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Yeah I think I've had it my entire life, tbh. I think it likely significantly contributed to my fear of the dark as a child (and even sometimes now as an adult).

I don't hear a single tone. It's a kind of subtle noise that seems to have a lack of tone. It reminds me of a CRT whine, but a bit different. Most notably, it constantly warbles in quality and directionality, which is why I think it contributes to said fear. It can make it hear or really simply "feel" like an entity is there when it isn't.

In general I don't really pay too much attention it. Only when there's a lack of noise or stimulation...as when you're trying to sleep.

When people described silence as being "deafening" metaphorically, I always assumed they meant literally because they were talking about the noise lol.

[โ€“] dingus 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

So many married couples I know tend to talk as if they absolutely hate their spouse. I never understood it. If you hate them that much, then why are you married???? Very rarely do people seem to have a mutually appreciative relationship with one another. As someone who never really bothered with dating, the whole concept of people staying with someone they hate so much has forever confused me.

As a general thing not related to relationships...I've noticed that most people I interact with at work have strong tendencies to be randomly unkind for no reason. The people who I have always gravitated towards either don't seem to display random acts of unkindness or very rarely do so. I wonder if the problem is simply that most people in general are assholes??? Maybe if both of them are assholes then each one is the best they could have come up with or something??? Idk just rambling off some ideas here.

[โ€“] dingus 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Yeah I appreciate that bit a lot. This is a casual internet forum, not a PhD dissertation. I don't see why anyone should bother with trying to be so perfect all the time. Humans aren't perfect! It's ok to be casual and relax when necessary. :)

Most of my posts have a little "edit" mark icon next to them because I post things and then immediately notice something wrong or add more detail. And I know after I edit it there will still be weird typos! Oh well! Doesn't hurt anyone!

[โ€“] dingus 23 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Imo mirror selfies do on average tend to look a lot better. I think a lot of it must be that the photo is taken from further away. This causes two things...

  1. The picture isn't a detailed because the shot is simply further away. Wrinkles, acne, and other imperfections are not as clear or pronounced.

  2. Features like your nose, chin, eyes, etc. appear smaller in far shots than close shots. In close shots, there is a bit of a "fisheye" effect due to the perspective, even if you aren't using a fisheye lens. It exaggerates a lot of facial features and isn't how you normally see yourself when you're looking into the mirror because you just aren't that close.

No, it's just just "because the image is flipped" which is what is repeated ad nauseum online. The biggest thing is the second point I mentioned.

There was a gif out there somewhere that very simply and easily demonstrates this phenomenon of how wildly different your facial features can look from this.

[โ€“] dingus 2 points 1 week ago

Lol well I generally can't stand when my nails are too long so that helps! Yeah with all of the benefits of contacts, the downsides ended up ultimately being too significant for me which is why I went permanently back to glasses after years.

[โ€“] dingus 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Cry about the continued march of time and my mortality.

Then afterwards!!

  1. Work on a project I've been meaning to put more effort into. I've had ideas for some time now of trying to "invent" a device to help me with a sometimes extraordinarily difficult task at work. Solutions for the task already exist, but are incredibly expensive (tens of thousands of dollars or more) and my workplace doesn't seem to be inclined to go that route.

  2. Work up the courage to ask my work bestie to hang out outside of work sometimes soon! It necessitates hanging out with children which I'm not necessarily always a fan of, but I can go through it if it's important to my friend. Sometimes work gets a bit busy or stressful and it would be cool to make memories outside of work. We've hung out only a few times ever. Idk!

Yeah, the political shit sucks. But since there's nothing I can do about it, I'm just a bit "meh" on the whole thing tbh. It's not anything I have the power to fix. So I'm just going to do my best to ignore it! Not really on my radar at the current moment, but it definitely was during the elections themselves. Idk we'll see. Always best to just try to think about other things!

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