ToaKraka
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User ID: 108
I'm not sure where you're getting the 90 cm from.
(4) Except as provided in Sentence (5), openable windows in buildings of residential occupancy shall be protected by
(a) a guard, or
(b) a mechanism that can only be released with the use of tools or special knowledge to control the free swinging or sliding operation of the openable part of the window so as to limit any clear unobstructed opening to not more than 100 mm (3.9″) measured either vertically or horizontally.
(5) Windows need not be protected in accordance with Sentence (4), where the bottom edge of the openable portion of the window is located
(a) more than 900 mm (2′11.4″) above the finished floor, or
(b) less than 1 800 mm (5′10.9″) above the floor or ground on the other side of the window.
ToaKraka
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12hr ago
In The Phantom Menace, it seems that slavery is openly practiced on some worlds and the Republic just doesn't give a shit.
The opening crawl for that movie explicitly states: "The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute." Naboo is an outlying star system. Tatooine is even more distant from the capital than Naboo—possibly not even part of the Republic, as indicated by how Watto refuses to take Republic credits. These two systems are not representative of a "glorious republic", any more than Moldova and Transnistria are representative of Europe.
ToaKraka
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13hr ago
ToaKraka
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18hr ago
I haven't read any Star Wars books in maybe ten years, and The Crystal Star in particular in maybe fifteen years. But I do not remember The Crystal Star's being particularly bad (though I do recall thinking it was rather weird that the Solo twins were able to create light with the Force by vibrating air molecules in their prison cell). The point is that it is among a zillion books that are suitable for movie treatment.
I don't think it's possible to make another great Star Wars movie. All the good ideas were completely used up in the original trilogy. Back in the 90s they made a bunch of books to continue the story, and an awful lot of them were about the emperor coming back to life and then getting taken down again by Luke, Han, and Leia, because what else can you even do?
This is blatant misinformation. Only a single storyline, the comic series Dark Empire, featured a revived Emperor. There were lots of cool Star Wars books, running the gamut from standalone books like The Truce at Bakura, The Crystal Star, and I, Jedi to sprawling series (plural) like Rogue Squadron, New Jedi Order, and Legacy of the Force.
ToaKraka
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1d ago
An r/bogleheads bigwig says otherwise.
The Cash Trap
The way it might play out if you switch from a total bond fund to a cash equivalent is as follows. The economy goes into a recession, and the Fed signals and then implements significant rate cuts—for example, −1.5% over 2 years. Now you’ll find your HYSA or MMF may be suddenly yielding less than 3% while the total bond fund, thanks to its 5–6 year duration, is still yielding close to 5%. So you think you’ll switch back to the total bond fund after that happens. But what you missed is that, when the Fed cut rates, BND’s holdings became more valuable and the price will have shot up. How much? I can’t say exactly. But, as one indication, at the end of October 2023, the Fed only signaled that they were stopping rate increases—not even a signal of actual cuts—and BND’s value jumped 8% in two months.
Think about it—you are contemplating moving money from BND to an MMF to earn maybe 0.75% more yield over the course of a whole year, and when the Fed signals rate pausing BND increases in value by 8% in just 2 months. The December 12–13 Fed meeting alone caused a +1.6% daily increase in BND’s value. So the decision to chase a little more yield could cost you years’ worth of the spread you were trying to capture. As described in this post:
The cash trap describes the risk of investing in short-term bonds or cash instruments at higher rates that ultimately prove temporary. The Federal Reserve eventually cuts rates, and the high short-term yields disappear. Because the securities have short maturities, falling rates do not lead to material price appreciation. Once the securities mature, the cash flow stream withers and investors are left with a much lower return outlook. However, if investors lock in longer-term rates, unlike the short-term options, the yields do not go away. Not only does the cash flow stream stay steady, but the reduction in market rates also leads to price appreciation. The result historically has been significantly higher returns on longer-term securities, despite the lower starting yield.
ToaKraka
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2d ago
I think he mentioned a while ago that he does have a job and this website is just a side project.
ToaKraka
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2d ago
VTI (Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF) is an ETF (exchange-traded fund) that covers the entirety of the US stock market. VTSAX (Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund Admiral Shares) is the mutual-fund equivalent. The previous commenter is recommending that you invest exclusively in US stocks. The more standard advice is to invest in a mixture that trends from 90/10 stocks/bonds (high reward but high risk) when you're working to 70/30 bonds/stocks (low risk but low reward) when you're retired—and also 60/40 US/foreign, so four different component funds in total.
ToaKraka
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2d ago
I tried keeping some friends between approximately 2012 and 2016, but found it not worth the effort.
ToaKraka
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3d ago
I find that extremely hard to believe. The bathroom door and the shower door should never be open at the same time.
ToaKraka
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3d ago
Just leave your doors closed or ajar rather than wide open, and there's no problem.
ToaKraka
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4d ago
D&D is under a Creative Commons license now
This is not a very informative phrasing, because there are several different Creative Commons licenses and some of them are very restrictive. More specifically, D&D is under CC BY 4.0, the Creative Commons attribution-only license, whose restrictions are minimal.
ToaKraka
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4d ago
Is this allowed by the fire code?
I see no prohibition in International Residential Code § R318. It does contravene International Building Code § 1010.1.7, but that doesn't apply to houses.
IMO, it's a terrible way to save space, too.
Maybe if you constantly leave doors wide open rather than ajar or closed. I personally do not do that.
ToaKraka
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4d ago
ToaKraka
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4d ago
My Texan mind simply can’t comprehend the prospect of hundreds of pounds of snow sitting on my roof.
Snow load at the northern edge of Texas reaches 19 lb/ft2, which is almost as much as the 20 lb/ft2 of live load for people walking on a flat roof.
As for controllers—do you actually like them lighter?
I don't care much about the weight (though, having removed the rumble motors from my Xbox One controller, I do think it now feels better to hold), but I hate rumble and disable it in every game I play, so why not remove rumble motors that I never use? (Some Internet searching indicates that people with arthritic or otherwise-unhealthy wrists also like lighter controllers.)
Remember the big dam failure that happened in Brazil ten years ago? A London judge has found some liability for it.
ToaKraka
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4d ago
Court saga:
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A municipality has an ordinance requiring a towing company that operates in the municipality to have a storage lot within the municipality.
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2013: A towing company with a storage lot in an adjacent municipality sues, arguing that the ordinance violates a state law that requires municipal towing ordinances to be "non-discriminatory and non-exclusionary".
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2015: The municipality settles the lawsuit by agreeing to change the ordinance to require a towing company to have a storage facility within five miles (eight kilometers) of the center of the municipality, as the crow flies. (Unfortunately, this lawsuit is too old for any of its documents to be available in the state's online judicial database.)
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February 2020: A second towing company with a storage lot 5.6 miles (9 kilometers) from the center of the municipality sues, arguing that the new ordinance still violates the state law.
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October 2020: The trial judge dismisses the lawsuit, finding that the five-mile radius is a reasonable method of ensuring convenience for the municipality's residents.
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2022: The appeals panel vacates and remands for further proceedings. The municipality never actually stated on the record its rationale for the five-mile radius (other than that it included the first company), so the judge had no basis to infer a rationale.
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2024: The municipality states on the record that the five-mile radius was picked as a "reasonable distance" for the convenience of its residents and police officers. The trial judge rejects the second company's arguments that any radius not measured from the edge of the municipality (which is approximately an 8 mi × 3 mi (13 km × 5 km) rectangle) or along roads is unreasonable, finds the five-mile radius reasonable, and dismisses the lawsuit.
Here is an extra-detailed floor plan for a two-story house.
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Dashed lines: Footings, foundation walls
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Solid lines: Rooms, drywall, studs, sheathing, continuous insulation, portals, doors, door swings, windows
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Dotted lines: Roof overhang, gutters
The footings, insulation, and rafters are based on the harsh climate of Fairbanks, Alaska (snow load 67 lb/ft2), and can be reduced in size if the house is built in a warmer location. (The International Residential Code's prescriptive tables top out at 70 lb/ft2, so for anything higher than that an engineered design is required. The highest snow load listed in the International Building Code (for ASCE 7 risk category II, which applies to houses) is 432 lb/ft2 in Whittier, Alaska, which is warmer than Fairbanks but has a wetter climate.)
Fun fact: If you are nostalgic for the days when gamepads were as light as feathers, you may be able to drastically cut down on weight by simply removing the rumble motors! The linked guide instructs you to desolder the wires, but merely cutting them works just as well if you are removing the motors rather than replacing them.
ToaKraka
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5d ago
I'll also compute square roots by hand from time to time, just to keep my skills sharp.
Based, but I personally don't find it very fun once the numerators and denominators of the approximating fractions start exceeding three digits.
ToaKraka
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5d ago
ToaKraka
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5d ago
No, I'm arguing that the term "oatmeal" includes flavored oatmeal, instant oatmeal, steel-cut oatmeal, and presumably other types of oatmeal with which I am not acquainted, rather than just ordinary oatmeal, and the law would need to differentiate between those types.
ToaKraka
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6d ago
Sources: Hiring freeze, campus closure
However: This document indicates that each of the seven satellite campuses being closed had fewer than 800 students. The dire situation at those satellite campuses doesn't really reflect the university as a whole, whose main campus enrolls 49,000 students and has not seen its enrollment fall over the past ten years.
I couldn't say. The similarity is suspicious, though.
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