I can't begin to fathom how stupid this is.

1. My mum and I sat down with the energymadeeasy website and a copy of her last bill. We found what looked like a good plan: Sumo Spark SUM874100MRE2 (archived) single-rate at 73.15c/day and 29.70c/kwh.

2. My mum rang them up and asked to change to it.

3. My mum quoted the exact prices (73.15c/day and 29.70c/kwh) as well as the plan code (SUM874100MRE2). They replied by saying those prices will change on July 1st and quoted us back some numbers a few percent higher than those two. Mum said yes.

4. Sumo emailed us the following "Offer Summary":

Wat. That's a completely different plan.

5. Mum rang them today and asked them about it, they said it's all they can do because our new smart meter is of that tariff type. We told them we have never been told about a tariff change or agreed to one. They said that because we're in the cooling off period with them we can cancel and we "should" go back to our old provider and old tariff, so my mum did.

We're left feeling dazed, scammed and confused. I've just looked through my mum's emails from the old electricity provider (dodo) and they notified us about the smart meter change, but no mentions have been made about tariff changes. I double checked and our last bill from them was single tariff.

Q1: Who do we complain to about the bait and switch? AER?

Q2: Who actually changes the tariff? The old supplier (silently), the new supplier (silently), the grid operator (ausgrid), someone else?

Q3: How do we work out what tariff we're going to be on? Can I lookup the meter number and find out, or just have to wait for the old supplier to re-enable our account (we can't login today) to find out?

Q4: Do we get to choose what tariff we're on?

...as I fumbled for my Opal card through a pair of socks I was wearing as gloves.

transportnsw: No warnings.

bom: Thunder outside the wires

3 animations, choc with metaphors on the wastes of car infrastructure and the robbing of choice.

I do not know if the author intended for these to be dystopic or utopic, I have a hunch they are playing both games. They try to improve supermarket visit efficiency by expanding the use of cars at the cost of everything else.

Concept 1 (main link): Indoor drive-through shopping. . Less than a few percent of floor space is actual store, the rest is road. The store sprawls across multiple levels because there is no longer any safe space for humans to work or walk in the customer areas.

There is also no basket or trolley to store things in and change your mind. You grab an item and within seconds one of the approximately (by my count) 100 cashiers scans it and bags it. Made a mistake? Just buy your way out of it, you're holding valuable customers up, tut tut.

Concept 2: Drive-through shopping in private. How awfully lonely. A car keeps you apart from others even when you're not in it. Who wants do be vulnerable when not behind the armour of steel and glass? All aspects of life should be like being in a car.

Concept 3: Outdoor drive-through shopping.. After all of this driving we realised we're missing our connection with the outdoor world. Nature.

We could go camping. Shopping outside is a more practical compromise.

Also all the employees were getting hypoxiated from concept 1, so we decided to hide them underground. Now they are kept alert by road debris falling on the pre-sliced kiwifruit trays.

I was reading up on the life expectancy of different building materials when I came across this gem.

Screenshot is of page 122 https://www.portseattle.org/sites/default/files/2025-02/SEA-SIPP%20Technical%20Report%20Appendix%20C%20Life%20Expectancy%20of%20Building%20Materials.pdf

I guess the ethernet cables could last that long, but they rate house wiring to a lower lifetime. Ethernet cables are not "wireless", however.

The only other wireless systems I can think of are garage door openers, but they are definitely not expected to last 50 years.

You can do all sorts of nifty things when you're designing silicon. Including this abomination.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinisation

Source: datasheet for LM161, a high speed (20ns delay) moderately high voltage (30V) comparator. I'm going to try and make a discrete version of some bits of it and see how well it works. Maybe not this triple-emitter NPN though, I draw the line at components that require livestock sacrifices.

FR2 is the brownish material that many cheap circuit boards are made of. It's a mixture of phenolic resin and paper. Apparently it's quite useful to make gears out of:

Phenolic Gears exhibits superior shear force, help reduce machinery noise, absorbs destructive vibration unlike metal gears, phenolic is non-conductive, protects the mating metal gear train, and are known to outlast metal gears under severe continuous service. (source: https://www.knowbirs.com/phenolic-gears )

(Main pic stolen from here)

(Many more pics here)

Has anyone seen these used anywhere? I've read a hint regarding pool equipment, but I have never seen them there. I assume the fibres allow them to last longer than plastic/resin only gears.

Two different sizes shown. Each has two inductors (grey bits) stuck to a capacitor (middle) with some metal end caps acting as terminals. There is a third terminal underneath the capacitor. Grid in background is 1mm, pics stolen from LCSC.

I think this taped picture is also really cool (stolen from here):

Datasheet: https://www.murata.com/en-global/products/productdata/8796766699550/ENFE0002.pdf

About a handspan wide, more than half a meter deep (can't see all the way in at any angle), deep under my house.

TransportNSW is NOT showing the truth. Platform has no timer for next train and a recorded voice announcement is blaming industrial action.

EDIT: From https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-14/sydney-trains-delays-rail-tram-bus-union-industrial-action/104932704

The union advised that its industrial action — where trains are expected to run 23 kilometres an hour slower than usual — would now go ahead as planned, beginning just after midnight from Friday morning.

Sydney and NSW Trains notified workers they would dock their pay if they ran slower than the timetable.

EDIT:

The thickness of the board beneath it gives deceptive scale. It's about 50mm tall and the toroid is 85mm in diameter.

https://www.lcsc.com/datasheet/lcsc_datasheet_2408061709_Ruishen-RSCM11548-5mH-3P_C37634003.pdf

I was looking for much smaller CMCs. Also the datasheet for this part doesn't have impedance-versus-frequency graphs so I refuse to buy it anyway :P