In America, it's the end of Daylight Savings Time. That's a glorious day when we get back an hour in our lives- and it's conveniently located adjacent to a minor holiday of revelry and fun.

Various US fire departments would like us to remember to change the batteries on our smoke detectors today. I mean, as long as we're trying to remember where all the non-networked clocks are in our homes, we might as well do one more minor task that will at worst keep us from having to disconnect the darned thing at 2am and at best actually save our lives.

And... while we're at it, I like to take today to change all my secure passwords. It's a _major_ pain in the butt. It's also important to do so on a semi-regular basis. That way if some company gets hacked, they can get to work breaking a password you've _already changed_.

Totally off topic, but this forum as a whole can probably use a tiny community service announcement.

(Edited to add: While you're at it, you probably want to enable 2 factor authentication wherever it is offered, also.)

Did you accidentally triple your adderall dose? What a strange thread.

You're right tho

This is the greatest thread of all times!

Except that it has nothing to do with X-wing.

Or Star Wars.

Or gaming.

Or FFG.

But...no petitions! So yay! Best tread of the year!

The only critical passwords I have are work related and those I change monthly anyway.

Always remember that the australopitecus was the first ancestor to have a regular meat diet, thus bringing the original sin of destruction into the human race.

But to be fair, Australian, I mean turnabout is fair play innit? Eat the thing that tries to eat you, stops 'em cold.

Did you accidentally triple your adderall dose? What a strange thread.

You're right tho

*coughs*

You're not 100% wrong. But this chore _is_ something that I like to remember to do every time Daylights savings time ends.

This is the greatest thread of all times!

(snip)

no petitions! So yay! Best thread of the year!

And that's one of the reasons I started this thread.

The only critical passwords I have are work related and those I change monthly anyway.

You don't do your banking online? Or use paypal? Not Amazon? There isn't one site that has your credit card?

A couple years back when Sony got hit, lots of credit card information was stolen, and people were able to use the fact that many people use the same passwords for _everything_ to hijack other accounts and do lots of naughty, naughty things.

The only critical passwords I have are work related and those I change monthly anyway.

You don't do your banking online? Or use paypal? Not Amazon? There isn't one site that has your credit card?A couple years back when Sony got hit, lots of credit card information was stolen, and people were able to use the fact that many people use the same passwords for _everything_ to hijack other accounts and do lots of naughty, naughty things.

That has less to do with changing passwords than actually creating different ones for each account.

The only critical passwords I have are work related and those I change monthly anyway.

You don't do your banking online? Or use paypal? Not Amazon? There isn't one site that has your credit card?

I don't use paypal, nor Amazon. There are no sites with my credit card information, the one card we have is barely used online.

Banking online, sure, how else? But that's not with passwords but with scanners and single use passwords generated on the fly.

Most online purchases in my country uses the same system.

The only critical passwords I have are work related and those I change monthly anyway.

You don't do your banking online? Or use paypal? Not Amazon? There isn't one site that has your credit card?A couple years back when Sony got hit, lots of credit card information was stolen, and people were able to use the fact that many people use the same passwords for _everything_ to hijack other accounts and do lots of naughty, naughty things.

That has less to do with changing passwords than actually creating different ones for each account.

That too. Which I do.

I create a mnemonic by taking a sentence and using the first letter in every word as my password. I replace one of the words with the name of the site. Another character is replaced with a number. For instance:

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York.

Lets replace "winter" with "[site name]". So:

Now is the fantasy flight of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York.

That sentence becomes "nitffoodmgsbtsoy".

16 words = 16 characters. Not bad! We can add a number to it by:

"nitffo0dmgsbtsoy"

It's a password that is easy to remember, site specific, and is fairly random.

I change my passwords every year or so just in case someone has gotten hacked and has chosen not to tell the world about it.

https://youtu.be/f5FIxRsqFUA?t=34

Ignore the Dutch language, but the video itself should give you enough of an idea how online banking works. Online purchases from webshops in the Netherlands work the same way; the store connects to your bank and sets up the transaction, you authorize the transaction directly with the bank, store has their money immediately (or as good as).

Fast, secure, cheap.

Why is it that we still make a routine of changing batteries in smoke detectors when the things tell you when the battery needs replaced?

I guess if you have older detectors without that feature, but the detector itself is usually only good for 10 years.

Why is it that we still make a routine of changing batteries in smoke detectors when the things tell you when the battery needs replaced?

I guess if you have older detectors without that feature, but the detector itself is usually only good for 10 years.

Have you ever been woken at 2am by a smoke detector telling you that your battery needs replacement? When that happens _once_, you'll understand my insistence on doing it on a regular basis.

That happens once, and once only.

Until you buy a new smoke detector and show it the ruins of the previous one.

Why is it that we still make a routine of changing batteries in smoke detectors when the things tell you when the battery needs replaced?

I guess if you have older detectors without that feature, but the detector itself is usually only good for 10 years.

Have you ever been woken at 2am by a smoke detector telling you that your battery needs replacement? When that happens _once_, you'll understand my insistence on doing it on a regular basis.

Very rarely does anyone suggest it as a method to prevent annoyance and instead as a "safety measure", which I can't understand. There might be good reason, but I'm a little suspicious when I see Energizer commercials reminding me to change my batteries for my "safety". If you are doing it just to avoid annoyance, go ahead, I can dig that.

If it ever comes up, here's a tip. If a hard to reach detector goes off in the middle of the night, just turn the heat up a few degrees and it will work well enough to stop chirping. Then you can replace it the next day.

How high should you turn up the heat? I never have the heat on during the night, and upstairs I only heat the bathroom. So to heat up the landing would take some time

If it ever comes up, here's a tip. If a hard to reach detector goes off in the middle of the night, just turn the heat up a few degrees and it will work well enough to stop chirping. Then you can replace it the next day.

I don't want to run my heater when it's already 80 in my condo!

How high should you turn up the heat? I never have the heat on during the night, and upstairs I only heat the bathroom. So to heat up the landing would take some time

Well, if you noticed it right away, you would only need to raise the temperature a couple of degrees and keep it there.

I assume you do a space heater in the bathroom? In most heating systems, it doesn't do a lot of good to close off vents. The increased pressure it causes in the system will kill the efficiency. On several occasions I've had HVAC guys tell me it is not efficient to adjust the temp down more than 6-8 degrees at night, though I can't find any corroborating reason to say "why", so it could just be one of those wives tales that gets passed around.

How high should you turn up the heat? I never have the heat on during the night, and upstairs I only heat the bathroom. So to heat up the landing would take some time

Well, if you noticed it right away, you would only need to raise the temperature a couple of degrees and keep it there.

I assume you do a space heater in the bathroom? In most heating systems, it doesn't do a lot of good to close off vents. The increased pressure it causes in the system will kill the efficiency. On several occasions I've had HVAC guys tell me it is not efficient to adjust the temp down more than 6-8 degrees at night, though I can't find any corroborating reason to say "why", so it could just be one of those wives tales that gets passed around.

No, central heating throughout the house, as usual.

And the house is well insulated, the living room drops at most 3 degrees celsius at night and that's when it's freezing out, we don't let it go below 16. Upstairs we only heat the bathroom and sometimes the office, if we use it. We never heat above 20 anyway.

If it ever comes up, here's a tip. If a hard to reach detector goes off in the middle of the night, just turn the heat up a few degrees and it will work well enough to stop chirping. Then you can replace it the next day.

I don't want to run my heater when it's already 80 in my condo!

Do you let it stay hotter than 80 during the day?!? Usually, the lower temp overnight is what causes the battery to work poorly, causing the chirp to begin. So when your house is the coolest is when they start going off.

So in the summer, if you cool the house in the day, then allow it to warm overnight, you are more likely to get the chirps in the daytime than at nighttime. Vice versa in winter.

How high should you turn up the heat? I never have the heat on during the night, and upstairs I only heat the bathroom. So to heat up the landing would take some time

Well, if you noticed it right away, you would only need to raise the temperature a couple of degrees and keep it there.

I assume you do a space heater in the bathroom? In most heating systems, it doesn't do a lot of good to close off vents. The increased pressure it causes in the system will kill the efficiency. On several occasions I've had HVAC guys tell me it is not efficient to adjust the temp down more than 6-8 degrees at night, though I can't find any corroborating reason to say "why", so it could just be one of those wives tales that gets passed around.

No, central heating throughout the house, as usual.

And the house is well insulated, the living room drops at most 3 degrees celsius at night and that's when it's freezing out, we don't let it go below 16. Upstairs we only heat the bathroom and sometimes the office, if we use it. We never heat above 20 anyway.

How do you only heat the bathroom then? By closing off vents? Or is this some crazy HVAC system that allows only doing certain rooms?

How do you only heat the bathroom then? By closing off vents? Or is this some crazy HVAC system that allows only doing certain rooms?

Vents?

You just turn off the radiators in the rooms you don't want heated.

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