Marta being extra sometimes
Best I can say about today’s lateness is, discharge your static buildup before you fidget with your flash drive.
Today's edition of the Secret Commentary is empty, because Dave failed to come up with something for it.
Marta being extra sometimes
Best I can say about today’s lateness is, discharge your static buildup before you fidget with your flash drive.
I have an aunt that holds such a charge that my uncle has her ground herself to remove the charge before she touched a keyboard or mouse to keep her from killing them.
I produce a lot of static as well. I’ll be walking with a shopping cart rhythmically zapping me every couple of seconds.
i am curious how a sarnothi would handle a waterpark/public pool.
If we’re talking about Selkie? She’d become the defacto ruler of the pool. No one will be able to outswim her, therefore, no one will be able to challenge her watery reign of terror. At least they won’t until it’s time for the Smith family to go home for the day.
Out-swim, most definitely, but she’s going to have to come up for breath like anyone else. Unlike the other pool in which Todd did his scuba training, a public water park is going to have some heavily chlorinated water.
Of course there is always the remote the possibility that the facility is promoting itself as “Sarnothi friendly” and is using an alternative method to keep the water clean. In that case they’d have to make sure the water is properly oxygenated, as well.
you mean ozonated or salinated?
those are the t traditional ways of keeping the pool bacteria-free.
And UV light rays. That’s pretty effective for bacteria.
Traditional where? Granted, it has been some time since I’ve been to a public pool, but it is my understanding that chlorination is the “traditional” way it is dealt with.
Regardless, we know it wouldn’t be salination, because that is definitely not “friendly” to a fresh-water species like the Sarnothi.
Yeah, chlorine is good in someways, weird in others. The new technologies are being used more in residential pools, and spas, not so much in large indoor pools because of down time and investment in infrastructure. But the copper ion tech and the electrolytic oxygenation is cool science for pools. And will become cheaper as it gains market share.
That’s a good curiosity. I don’t know what water parks are like up in Michigan, but around here they have water slides and big swimming pools, and it’s all heavily chlorinated, to keep out the algae growth and to prevent the customers from getting the crud.
How would that chlorine affect the gills? I’m pretty sure that if you went fishing then caught a bunch of bass, then brought them home and toss the menu swimming pool, they’d be dead tomorrow.
I hate otto korrek.
That was not TOSS THE MENU SWIMMING POOL, it was TOSS THEM INTO THE SWIMMING POOL.
You mispronounced “Otto Carott”. HTH. HAND.
If they’re saying ‘on Michigan’, I think they actually mean on Lake Michigan. If it’s the type of waterpark that I think it is, I think the park might draw water directly from the lake and lets it flow back into the lake too, meaning no chemicals in the water. In one city close to my hometown, we have a waterpark exactly like that on a lake here at a campground. No chlorine or anything like that, just good old unfiltered lake water.
“on Michigan” could also refer to a street name, (“the park on Michigan” street/avenue/etc) and is the usage im most familiar with, but I also live *in* Michigan
Last page she said “I hope you like beaches” and the commentary specified a freshwater beach, so she shore of Lake Michigan seems likely.
I vaguely remember Selkie saying she disliked pools because they tasted/smelled bad. But maybe if she wore a wetsuit to it?
to clarify i meant i wonder how she would handle the abudance of chemicals in the water.
There are non-chemical natural water parks. I’m not familiar with the Great Lakes, but Texas has Schlitterbahn in New Braunfels, which is right on the San Antonio river, and pumps up the river water (filtered, of course) and passes it through all the attractions before returning it to the river with nothing added but sweat, sunscreen, and urine.
I’ve also seen fairgrounds type fun-parks right on beaches, in New England.
I read a lot of webcomics and I swear likelihood of computer failure increases proportionally with the quality of the comic.
….you might be on to something there.
You might want to get an ESD strap if you have that many issues with static electricity. It’s a wrist strap with a wire and a clip, providing a better path to ground; you clip it onto a nearby item that has a path to ground. If you see a wireless ESD strap, those are useless and don’t work. Hope everything works out!
“You ain’t much fun since I quit drinking…”
Name does not compute. I have not heard that song in a minute, though!
Check my comment to yesterday’s comic.
Check my comment to yesterday’s comic.
Happy belated birthday! And as far as not getting why tattoos are cool – I’d say your way makes *waay* more sense – considering that no one tests what is in the inks they use or how it affects the body – I feel like this is something that in a few hundred years people will look and say they did what? the way we do when looking at Victorian time uses of arsenic and lead…
Not going to say every person who makes tatoo ink is unethical, doing it ‘wrong’ or doesn’t care what they’re putting into clients’ bodies. A lot of tattoo artists are amazing – both as kind people and as artists. I just wish we had science to back up some of the commercial inks.
Ah, Dave, you are rockin’ this arc. The trope of he highly successful Aunt, swooping in with munificence with the sole intent of making life joyful. Only this is the same Aunt who is bound to say something really true, because what is funny changes with the beer goggles. I am SO enjoying it.
“Bastion of traditional femininity” and “More beer!” I love Marta so much!
Marta could answer tha,t but they’re in a restaurant and there are kids with here.
unsure if on purpose or not, BUT the sentence “Oh, this is that water park ON Michigan” should be “Oh, this is that water park IN Michigan”. (i apologize in advance for my grammar nazi-ness. i can’t help it lol)
Unless it’s ON [the shore of] (Lake) Michigan. To be “in” Lake Michigan, that would imply it’s either underwater, or in the middle of the lake, and I suspect neither is likely, especially when there was mention of beaches.
I’m loving Marta and Steve’s fun couple-dynamic! My partner and I have been close friends for 25+ years, and we have a similar, silly-together dynamic.
I work in a recliner with a laptop on my lap (with a cooling fan thing underneath it). Especially in winter, I can generate a static charge every time I get up out of the chair, from my pants brushing the upholstery.
The day I zapped and fried my PS3 controller (those stupid things are $75!!!) I had enough, and started researching ways to reduce static in my room.
The only very viable method I could practically implement was a humidifier. It didn’t completely eliminate static but it does very noticeably reduce it. I’ve gone through a few of them by now and have some tips to share:
-There’s a simple model by Sunbeam where the mostly round water tank is on the bottom, capped with a heating device and vent on top; looks like a fat jar. Water is heated in a central shaft and steam shoots directly up.
Pro: Since it’s so simple in design, dirt and minerals left behind by the boiled off water fall straight back into the water tank, so cleaning is as easy as giving it a swish of water when you refill it. Nothing has time to build up to difficult levels. It’s also one of the cheapest models.
Con: It was louder and tended to spit water over the sides onto the floor unless you filled it exactly right… then it spit LESS water onto the floor. The directions even advise you to put a tray of some sort under it.
-Most other humidifier models follow this overall design; a water tank on one side, heating element in the base, and a tower with an internal “chimney” and the electrical controls on the other side.
Pro: Quieter, doesn’t make mess, runs longer too.
Con: Much more difficult to clean. This design has the dirty water pooling in the bottom with the heating element, so calcium or other minerals can build up directly on it. Directions advise you to disassemble the whole machine and clean it more often than you’re likely going to, so every 6-8 weeks when you notice it’s not working as efficiently anymore, you’ll pull it apart in the bathroom, find the heating element caked in several mm of hardened calcium, and have to spend 45+ minutes chipping it off with a literal chisel while cussing under your breath.
Fortunately, I found a good solution to that problem: Distilled water.
Distilled water can be bought in most supermarkets or drug stores very cheaply. A big 4L jug costs the same or less than a small 300L bottled water for drinking. $1-2 in my area.
Distilled water is water that has already been evaporated once, then cooled down back into water again in a different container, leaving all the minerals and other solids behind. It’s as close to perfectly pure water as can be practically acquired by a regular consumer. (That said, drinking water with minerals is good for you. D.W. is not normally for drinking purposes, not that you can’t).
Since all the hard minerals have already been removed from distilled water, you can use it in a humidifier of any design, and there’s virtually no detritus at all left behind in the base and heating element. I clean it once a year before I put it away for the season mostly as a precaution against mold, but otherwise, I never have to clean it regularly at all! 😀