Indeed. We also have to consider that it has become popular¹ to boycott the US over Trump’s tariffs and US support for Israel. These boycotts would discourage the use of US tech giants, in principle.

¹ for example: !buyeuropean@feddit.uk

I appreciate the research and references.

For the greenhouse gas emissions, the electric kettle should pull ahead in the future as renewables take over

Perhaps in most regions outside of populist-rightwing-controlled regions, that will be the case. ATM I am not in the US but still they are tearing down the nuclear power plants and building 3 new natural gas fired plants. So progress is moving backwards where I am.

Centralised gas burning would be more efficient than burning it on a domestic stove, but hard to grasp that the difference would be enough to exceed conversion and transmission losses. Worth noting that there are a couple ways to get hot water from gas:

• simple pot on stovetop
• water runs through a coil of fire-heated pipe inside an insulated box – aka a tankless combi boiler

The 2nd option would not give boiling water, as I would not want boiling water to run through the domestic pipework, but I wonder how a small tankless gas-fired tea water appliance might do as far as increasing the gas efficiency, should it be invented.

In any case, if electric-fueled heat were generally efficient, I would expect the gas-fired combi boilers to be much less popular. Though note as well that economy is not closely tied to efficiency. Natural gas cost per kWh is much cheaper in my area than electric cost per kWh (by a factor of 2 I think).

I highly doubt that gas stove is more efficient that anything other than a wood fire.

We’re talking from energy source to water, not wall to water. Sure, if you neglect everything that gets the energy to your wall, then electric is more efficient.

What do you mean you have to watch the temp control? Obviously they shut off at the temp you set

There are 3 varieties of electric kettles:

• on/off, no control
• temp guage (analog or digital), no setting
• configurable so you can set the temp which is then targetted

BTW, your link is unreachable to me. (Cloudflare strikes again)

Gas has a conversion efficiency of 100% but not all of it every the kettle. That leads to efficiencies lower than the electric ones.

Yes but you’re only talking wall to water. From energy source to water gas is the most efficient because it does not have the lossiness of generation and transmission that electric does.

With good induction it is also faster than every other method so that would be my choice if I had an induction cooker.

You’re purely talking boil times. But the end game is brewed tea, in which case it cannot be faster because after boiling the water you still need ~1—3 min to brew it. That’s why the inline heating elements in dispensors are interesting. It starts brewing immediately so the 1m50s it takes to boil all the water can be neglected.

I struggle to believe water pooled up enough to carry stuff. Condensation is possible perhaps to the extent of having some invisible amount of sweat. Unless there were puddles that formed and evaporated before I saw it. Though it’s a short fridge. The top of it is at eye level so I see the top every day.

Here’s another pic:

It does not wipe off with a rag. I have some proprietary rust stain removal liquid, which I think is intended for when rust gets on fabric. But I guess I’ll try it on these spots. Otherwise I’m left with some kind of abrasive approach.

Might want to crosspost to !scicomm@mander.xyz, just to inject some life into that community.

I wonder if that’s a boiling frog scenario. I’m always tempted to keep increasing the heat in hot tubs after adjusting to temp. I wonder if your sister gradually moved closer as she got acclaimated to the temp.

i don’t have a microwave oven but I appreciate the suggestion.

I’m considering that as well and got some tips from here:

https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2024/12/how-to-build-an-electrically-heated-table/

So far my lower body is fine but in case it gets colder I have been keeping an eye out for excess waste roofing insulation in my area, which I would use for an under desk rig.

When you say your clothing becomes the chimney, that makes me wonder if I should surround myself in a insulated structure, unlike the link above where they seem to let heat escape around the legs.

Thanks for the suggestion. That seems ideal because it’s directional. I could probably mount it to heat the keyboard area without adding any heat to the laptop. I’ll try to find a smaller 250 watt one so I can just heat the keyboard area.

For £3 that’s certainly worth trying. I guess I would not find those locally but they look simple enough to make.

I just downloaded the manual and skimmed through pages of safety info. This was the only relevant statement about that:

“Limit the length of use and check the skin’s reaction.”
“Overly prolonged radiation may lead to the skin being burned.”

Since they don’t mention a duration of exposure, I get the impression this is just pointing out the obvious for liability purposes in case someone does something foolish.

The 15 min seems to be more about protecting the device itself from over-heating. Which I suppose means it’s not well designed… overly fragile. And I guess the lack of fan would enable the device itself to take on lots of heat. (edit: sorry, just read that it has a fan… though it could be fragile nonetheless)

update: I also see that the bulb lasts 2000 hours. I’ve seen 250 watt bulbs claimed to last 6000 hours for like ~$20. So I guess this thing is garbage.

It’s a good approach. But the aluminum I have is part of a whole. A rice cooker inner pot and a wok lid. Maybe I can find a replacement wok lid.

But what about knives? Dishwashers are said to dull knives. So far I only buy middle of the spectrum chef’s knives (~<$60) so abusing them isn’t a big deal. But that means I give up the benefit of a sharp knife that keeps a long-lasting edge. If I buy high-end (which likely runs a few hundred $), then it’s a bit wasteful to abuse it in the dishwasher. I suppose there are some things that I have to accept as high-maintenance. I wonder what pro chefs do.

They spoiled:

• red kale
• fermented fruit juice
• fermented strawberry jam
• pumpkin jam
• sourdough

but it’s unclear which led to possible benefits. With jams I would just scoop out the unexpected organisms and eat the rest. Maybe that’s not even necessary.

They could try to say that but I doubt people would believe it.

Who throws away their own code particularly when it’s not junky commercial code but code their heart and soul was behind on a non-profit project? I keep my old code around if anything just to be able to search it to re-teach myself coding and design tips I forgot about. This code backs their research which they may need to refer to when a prospective employer asks for detail on how they executed the study.

ah, I’ve seen that before… i recall the violence measurements. Glad to have a copy of that.

Maybe the acknowledgments gives a hint?

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like to thank Kelly Idouchi, Manya Sleeper, James T. Graves, and Celine Berger for their contributions to this project. Similarly, we thank Chris Hoofnagle, Daniel Solove, and the attendees of the 2014 Privacy Law Scholars Conference (PLSC) for valuable feedback on an earlier version of this work.

(edit) there is also this about page and perhaps this lab was involved.

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2911988

Oh, wow… I wasn’t expecting that reply. I was actually looking to discuss in general how to address this variety of issue. It was a few years ago but the code would still be interesting to see. I dug this up:

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2911988

And now that I dug back into this, I must make a correction. ACM replied to say they are looking for the missing material… then they never found it and they dropped the ball at that point and also neglected correct the description. AFAIK, ACM did not try to reach the researchers, who ignored my inquiries.

(Irrelevant trivia: ACM used to be in Cloudflare’s access-restricted walled garden, making it difficult to access research. They are still in that shitty place but at least they are now whitelisting Tor which slightly reduces their exclusivity.)