K‮ly‬e @khird@qoto.org

Today I found out the hard way that trying to get a double-double at Starbucks results in three ounces of straight espresso (two ounce-and-a-half double shots).

Also if you ask for a hot tea with milk you have about a one-in-two chance, over the long run, of getting a chai latte instead.

In case anyone at the company happens upon this and would care to update the recipes, those drink orders are for (1) coffee with two measures each of cream and sugar, and (2) boiling water with a teabag and a measure of milk, respectively.

One of today's winners of QOTO's spam-to-ban prize had a bio which invited the reader to "[d]iscover the world of cats mating near you [...] ." I did a double and triple take on reading that, but that's exactly what it said.

@peterdrake Not according to the documentation:

Mastodon’s full-text search allows logged in users to find results from their own toots, their favourites, and their mentions. It deliberately does not allow searching for arbitrary strings in the entire database.

Note that QOTO also has bookmarks in addition to favourites, which allows you to mark a post for later on without notifying others. Bookmarking a post also makes it searchable.

Here's a trick for #volvo #windshieldwiper blades. Volvo, in its wisdom, decided to invent a new nonstandard attachment style, which means that cheap blades you get at retail can't be mounted. However, you can make it work in a pinch if you don't feel like paying fifty dollars for new high-end ones.

1. Buy some cheap truss-style wiper blades and remove the rubber piece from the metal frame holding it. It's easiest to pull it out starting at the barbed end. Discard the flexible metal strips embedded in the groove on each side.
2. If the groove doesn't go all the way to both ends, get a sharp knife and carefully extend it. Be sure not to cut all the way through!
3. Cut the rubber edge completely away from the metal beam on the original Volvo blades. The top lip is actually an extension of the rubber edge, so this will come away too, leaving a thin gap along the length of the beam.
4. Squeeze the beam in the middle to disengage the clips holding the plastic mount to the metal rails, and remove the plastic mount. With the mount removed, you can now move the rails independently to make the gap between them wider.
5. Thread the new rubber blade into the gap such that the metal rails fit into the grooves from which you removed the flexible strips earlier. Make sure the blade goes firmly all the way into each end cap, then work inwards to seat the rubber onto the metal.
6. Snap the mount back onto the metal rails. There is a small plastic stub which fits into a corresponding notch in each rail to make sure the mount is positioned correctly, and a clip at each corner to hold it on. Make sure all are engaged correctly.

Looks like we are getting a lot of former Twitter users today - I hope you enjoy exploring QOTO and the rest of the Fediverse! Our rules are at https://qoto.org/about/more#rules and you will be expected to abide by them. Be aware that our rules are not the same as Twitter's, and other instances on the Fediverse will have different rules that their users are expected to follow.

If you're considering reporting a foreign user (i.e. from an instance other than QOTO), please take a minute to read that instance's rules. There's no point in filing reports over conduct that the foreign instance doesn't prohibit. You can block the user or his whole instance yourself, but QOTO won't intervene except where the offending user is evading your blocks e.g. by setting up alts to contact you.

If you think the user's conduct *does* violate his instance's rules, make sure you tick the little box to forward a copy of the report to the foreign moderators. They might hand down some kind of punishment to him if they agree with you. But in either case, no punishment will come to him from QOTO's team.

I'll do my best to answer questions if you tag me.

@freemo could you please check in on QOTO's infrastructure when you get a chance? I'm seeing symptoms of federation failing in both Mastodon (missing posts from last night) and Matrix (can't join foreign channels).

Satisfaction is... finding the sweet spot in your parallelised code parameters, so that it hovers at about 95% of CPU time, and the machine stays responsive for daily use

My best guess is that it's supposed to be a chimney - you could put a candle in the bottom and it would heat the air in the cylinder, driving it up and replacing it with fresh air from the bottom, driving its own circulation. At the same time, it would heat the contents of the bulb like a retort.

But there's no fitting to attach anything to the top of the bulb, so any vapours would just be exhausted upward with the combustion products of the candle. I also don't get the point of the serpentine tube - if it were just for support, why would it be hollow and matched to an orifice in the side of the cylinder? If it's for filling the bulb, why not just use the orifice at its tip, since you can't have anything attached to that anyway? Were it straight, you could maybe use it to stick a thermometer into the bulb, but the bends in the tube prevent that.

Can anyone #identify this piece of #glassware I came across today? It's a bulb suspended in a cylinder, with a serpentine tube connecting the bulb to an orifice in the side of the cylinder. The bulb also has an orifice at its tip, and the cylinder is open at both ends.