>And fortunately for the district and the community, the solution might have just arrived in the form of a package from China.

Why do I suspect they just replaced one problem with another.

>“And yes, there will be a remote override switch so this won’t happen again,” Mustone added to the outlet.

Unless it has an open protocol and they hold the encryption keys and it's been audited that the whole thing doesn't tie back to a cert with looming expiration, that's an unwarranted belief.

Probably would have made more sense to have someone figure out a way into the system that was already deployed, rather than go around installing new boxes all over the school, only to find out that they don't have real control over those, either.

>Where can I buy potatoes?

Hadley or Hatfield, but only in season.

We were dodging piles of them on the roadside for months after

>green and created a horrific odor

Hail solanine!

AFAIK if you want them to keep you have to store them somewhere dark; a closet or basement or the proverbial "root cellar"

>My meter estimate

That's your biggest problem, your previous reading is an estimate, not an actual one. And it's probably a grossly wrong estimate. You need to look at previous bills and seek a correction.

>Electric Baseboard Heating

That's the most expensive possible way to heat, second only perhaps to burning collectible trading cards in a fireplace, though at the moment that almost looks competitive.

>most rooms are set to 65 and my office is set to 71.

That wouldn't be affordable for most people, even with heat pumps. Buy some sweaters and turn the heat down to 60, and that only in the spaces you actually use (for freeze protection as low as it will go without actually being off in the rest).

>I run a gaming pc all the time.

On the plus side, that's no less efficient a heating source than your electric baseboards, though come the end of heating season...

>I believe you're thinking of the observatory on the rise/ridge between Orchard Hill and Sylvan

No, I was referring to the radome that sits atop a tower between the two sections of Lot 49 near East Pleasant Street.

What does it look like in the daytime?

There's a radome on a hilltop on the UMass campus that you might be pointed to at times, though that's not really very far above terrain.

But there's also a north/south run of power lines with towers that are tall enough they might require lighting at night.

WHYN's towers rise in a field in Southampton but that doesn't seem to be the direction you're looking in or necessarily even visible given intervening ridges.

>What nobody here is telling you is Northampton is a very high cost of living town in an already high cost of living state.

On a more practical level, the difference between prices in downtown Northampton vs. the actual grocery stores in Northampton and Hadley (reachable by bike or in the case of stop and shop even walking from campus) is larger than regional price differences.

It's buying things at what are essentially convenience stores, prepared meals, etc. that are actually going to kill a budget.

>Hadley seems to have more freezers?

Think it's the other way around, despite being "bigger" Hadley has little besides a few frozen pizzas, milk, and perhaps some eggs and cheese.

Northampton has a a whole row of refrigerators facing towards clothing, and then the reverse side in the next aisle is frozens.

So for example you can get frozen veggies, or bag meals, or chicken in Northampton, but never seen them in Hadley. Neither of course has fresh.

I've always wondered if it was a lease or business license condition that the Hadley store not really compete in the "grocery" space. At least there are lots of places you can get those on a trip over there.

>Whole Food and Trader Joe's are across the river in Hadley. They are relatively accessible by bus, but probably too much of a hassle without a car.

Pretty easy ride on the bike path except when its covered in snow

> a larger Walmart

In terms of floorspace, technically yes, but in many ways Northampton's seems better, and they have more food than Hadley. Easy to duck in there before Big Y. Actually the only thing I can think of that Hadley Walmart has that Northampton doesn't is ammo?

The main thing with both Stop and Shop and Big Y is to watch the sales and only buy what's on sale. Which has a better price varies week to week and item to item. That would be even more true of CVS - absurd ordinary prices, but often good sales.

Of course either grocery store is inexpensive compared to much of what's downtown, except maybe some of what deals and steals has.

>What’s the Asian market in hadley?

Tran's World Food Market.

It basically backs up to the bike path so actually quite reachable for a student, but maybe a little tricky the first time to identify which unofficial exit to use. Needless to say route 9 is not fun.

Also unpleasant to get to without a car.

>You shouldn’t need much if you’re living on campus, the two small down town stores should be able to get you all your essentials.... You’ll have a great time just on campus and downtown Northampton.

While that's true it's definitely worth exploring beyond downtown, not just because everything downtown is overpriced but because there's just so much more to the area.

>Assuming that you're going to Smith? Typically the students eat at the dining hall

Indeed, even compared to many other schools Smith seems to be very self contained with students rarely seen much beyond the immediate area of the campus

>If you need a real grocery haul, the Big Y in Northampton is a dang delight and is a bike ride away

Yes, but it's worth checking Stop and Shop, too. Some things are better at one, some at the other. And watch the sales each week, lots of stuff is a ripoff at its usual price and should only ever be bought on sale.

>(there is a bike path running past it!)

No, there's no bike path near Big Y. That's Stop and Shop.

To get to Big Y from Smith one could take State and get on the bike path behind Stop and Shop which then intersects Jackson Street, but that leaves Jackson Street itself and the goofy intersection with Cooke. Or one could just go up Elm to Woodlawn to Jackson, though technically turning left onto Elm on the return is not allowed.

There is technically bike lane (not "path") on the portion of King Street between Big Y and Damon/Bridge, but King Street is not a very sensible way to get there on a bike.

Ironically there is more or less "bike path" to the Big Y way over in Amherst but while Trader Joe's, etc that one would go past in Hadley are probably worth it (and until Northampton's opens late spring, Aldi) there'd be little reason to go to the Amherst Big Y rather than the Northampton one.

But the whole area is great to bike around - there are a tiny handful of roads to avoid but most of the ordinary ones are great.

Five of the six north american "Thomases" are passive cabs that get pushed by a locomotive at the rear of the excursion train. However the one steam powered, one, rebuilt from a switcher based not far away in East Stroudsburg, PA, so it could conceivably be that, though given limited water capacity it's unclear if that goes out on its own without an assist from the back or at the ready. It certainly wouldn't transit any mainline unaccompanied, if it even got there by rail rather than truck.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Eastern_District_Terminal_15

Incidentally the picture is likely 5 more more years old.

If you want to see any meaning at all, you need to break it down by:

1. Your usage in kilowatt hours, compared to say this time last year (and make sure you're looking at actual meter readings, not the scourge of estimated ones!)
2. Your supply charge per kwh, this just jumped drastically - likely now an astronomical 33.891 cents or so?
3. Your delivery charge per kwh
4. Fixed customer charge, perhaps included in the deliver total ($7 or so iirc)

Any post, call, complaint, whatever that doesn't address these individually is indeed yelling at clouds - perfectly understandable under the situation as we're all hurting - but in no way going to lead to any insight or understanding.

A further complication is that people who's billing period spanned the Nov 1 rate change seem to have gotten an initial bill using some sort of weighted average rate. You likely won't see the true painful rate until you have a billing period that's entirely post Nov 1.

>They live in NYC now for fuck's sake.

They indeed venture in from time to time, because metro north tracks are indeed a thing.

Similarly, it doesn't work out.

Up in Westchester along the south county trail? Absolutely, and fair is fair unless they're rabid in which case they get dealt with.

But wandering down the MNR tracks into Manhattan and taking up residence in Central Park? Nope, life will try, but that ain't gonna work out.

You might want to look at a map.

This is a very small place, out on its own in the water, effectively an island connected to the mainland by a causeway. This isn't habitat, this is disneyworld.

The coyotes might venture into where people are, but then they'll retreat to the areas of the near-island where people aren't. And going after them there, and not on a residential street, is basic safe hunting.

It's not like there's some huge reservoir of adjacent woods with an unending supply of habitat and thus wildlife - which would indeed accurately describe most of the rest of "coyotes and bears and bobcats oh my" MA

>I am on a city electric pool, so my rate is .09 per kw

Damn you are lucky :-)

With those rates, I'd use the heat pumps exclusively.

I'm personally trying to avoid running the heat pumps (mini-splits) during the coldest part of the 24-hour cycle, because the colder it is outside, the more energy required to produce the same amount of heat.

So I've been turning them off when I go to bed, and then trying not to turn them back on again until mid/late morning when it's had a chance to warm up outside or at least the sun is on the compressor. It's close enough to the bedroom window that I can just hear it in the silence at night, and it's the sound of money being spent.

Many would argue that you shouldn't adjust the setting on heat pumps at all, but just leave them. I don't quite agree with that, because the same heat is more or less expensive during the colder/warmer parts of the outside day, and my home cools slowly enough that I can meaningfully average those.

But I would argue against turning up heat pumps "for comfort" during a particular part of the day, especially if that's a time when it tends to be cold out, like first thing in the morning - so for someone who's leaving the house to go to work or school, trying to wake up to a warm space is fairly expensive.

You mini split is probably cheaper for maintaining temperature most of the time.

Your boiler may be cheaper for raising the temperature, or on the days when it's coldest out, which is when the mini-split's effective efficiency (of "pumping" rather than "creating" heat) drops from almost 400% down towards 200% and may no longer overcome the inefficiency of the original electric generation (which in MA is largely from burning fuel)

Either way key is also going to be using only the heat you absolutely need in the parts of the house where you need it. Though do be careful if you close part of a building off entirely to consider the risks of pipes freezing - including heating pipes. Hot water heating systems often control the return, actually, so if they freeze they'll happily send huge quantities of heated water into the break.

> it was the people of MIT that were complaining tha.t the public were no longer allowed in the infinite corridor

Or that the access controls were annoying.

Plus the general feeling of being tracked.

Bill complaints that don't distinguish between usage and rates are meaningless.

We just entered heating season

And rates just went up because of the global market and geopolitical situation

Sitting here in four layers, a hat, and three pairs of socks.

>I want cash in hand for buying a house.

Then you don't want to be blowing 50% of your income on rent

>Why isn’t a year upfront incentive though?

For one thing its actually illegal

Landlord tenant law is chock full of things that the parties are prohibited from agreeing to do.

Sure, you think you are "volunteering" to pre-pay (so it's not the landlord "requiring") but if you can volunteer, why wouldn't a landlord refuse anyone who did not also volunteer that?

The law strictly limits what a landlord can accept in advance, because what they can accept is in practice what they can require.