Live data from Hacker News

Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

eukaryotewritesblog.com

81–90 of 346 posts

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#81

> In the first really heavy winter storm of the year, your power might go off. This is understandable Having lived in Norway most of my 40+ years on this earth, I can with some confidence say that this is not an universal truth. I don’t think I’ve experienced any power interruption of over 1 hour in winter ever, and it’s been at least 5 years since the last time. Yes it snows here. A lot.

Even a backward country like the USA, our power has never gone out in the winter. Only in the summer due to lightning strikes.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#82
post #80

> instruction manuals ... often have useful information ... A surprising number of my peers don’t realize this. That's because instruction manuals always have a lot of useless information, and many of them have only such useless information. One of my computer mice came with guidance to avoid prolonged contact with skin and I'm pretty sure nothing in that manual was of any value.

Manuals used to have tens of pages of useful information, if not more. These days it's just tens, if not a hundred pages of (mostly meaningless) warnings, in different languages, and sometimes only that. If you're lucky there's a single page of mostly pictures and a few lines of text, and typically just the obvious parts. I went through some old storage boxes yesterday. Found "manuals" for a number of items. One had…

I particularly miss the spec page that used to be standard in every manual and is now increasingly rare.

Of course, the really old/good manuals also had schematics, and there were a few cases where those were really help when we actually had to repair stuff like that. For some simpler things that would make sense even today but it ain't happening...

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#83
post #45
post #22

Something about the tone of the article just makes me want to write a retort / criticism instead of praising the advice. Maybe it’s because it feels like an incomplete list or that it’s too generalized but written like the author has learned it all. For example, no mention of learning when and what to do to avoid frozen pipes. Or how to fix things when it happens. Also, shoveling snow isn’t that hard if you have the…

It's not really meant to be advice. It's the author's own experience, ironically written as if it were advice. For example: "You did bleach ten gallons of well water for long-term storage already earlier in the year, right? Good." This is sarcasm, because the author did not do that.

Perhaps it's an AI generated article. A real human would have realized quite quickly that you can put snow into the tank of a toilet when the power is out.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#84

Moved a year ago from California to northern Michigan. To add to this list, specifically regarding "Do NOT get wet and cold": o If you're walking out in the cold, have many different ways to keep your feet and your hands warm, because usually, you'll have a good-enough coat and winter-pants that'll keep your core relatively warm, but it's the very ends of your extremities that get cold (just got a small amount of fro…

Any recommendations about the boots? Or what to check for?

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#85

The main lesson I learned was I didn’t have to live in a snowy place. I left SW Michigan in 2000 and haven’t looked back. I don’t like being cold, but I loathe snow and ice.

Cold and dry is not a problem. You can always add more layers of clothing and get very comfortable.

Warm and humid is a real problem. You can't just remove clothing until you're comfortable. And the humidity.. there's no remedy to fix that.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#86

> In the first really heavy winter storm of the year, your power might go off. This is understandable Having lived in Norway most of my 40+ years on this earth, I can with some confidence say that this is not an universal truth. I don’t think I’ve experienced any power interruption of over 1 hour in winter ever, and it’s been at least 5 years since the last time. Yes it snows here. A lot.

A lot of people in Norway lose power though, once in a while. Depends where you are. Just a few months ago thousands of people outside of Bergen were without power.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#87
Lately I've been fascinated by Yakutsk, the coldest large city on Earth.

About 350,000 people live there, and winter temperatures can drop to –64°C (−83°F).

And regardless of the temperature or time of year, they have shopping malls, restaurants, and everything else you might expect to find in any big city.

Here are a few recent videos I enjoyed:

24 Hours in the Coldest City on Earth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-WGGDRyf68

How We Live in the World's Coldest City - Typical Apartment Tour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikUSFU7TlYc

How We Heat Our APARTMENT at -64°C| -83°F

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHbsYYELV94

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#88

> In the first really heavy winter storm of the year, your power might go off. This is understandable Having lived in Norway most of my 40+ years on this earth, I can with some confidence say that this is not an universal truth. I don’t think I’ve experienced any power interruption of over 1 hour in winter ever, and it’s been at least 5 years since the last time. Yes it snows here. A lot.

It is really interesting for me to hear your experience.

I have lived in Norway all of my >45 years on this earth and I can say that in the first half of my life were I lived on the west coast, power outages was totally expected.

We had a generator, and we had a gas stove ("everyone" in Norway use electricity for cooking) for those days, a kerose lamp and a wood stove.

The longest power outage I experienced was 3 days, somewhere around 1986 I think, but a few hours could happen multiple times and overnight outages were not unusual.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#89

Put winter tires on your vehicles. I'm surprised by the number of people who tool around in snow and ice in 'all season' tires. Also, that writing tone is obnoxious.

I'm in the foothills in Northern California, and I've never met anyone here that changes their ties out for winter. When there's chain controls, they'll let you through if you have winter rated tires, including all-season, and all-wheel drive, otherwise you need chains. Everyone I know who drives a lot in the snow gets a vehicle with all-wheel drive and everyone else carries chains. (really they're cables, on a small…

Montana here. Everyone that can afford to changes their tires. Costco tire center is a s.show in November and May. Nobody uses chains except for un-maintained roads. Obviously nobody buys a 2WD vehicle here.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#90
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the foothills in Northern California, and I've never met anyone here that changes their ties out for winter. When there's chain controls, they'll let you through if you have winter rated tires, including all-season, and all-wheel drive, otherwise you need chains. Everyone I know who drives a lot in the snow gets a vehicle with all-wheel drive and everyone else carries chains. (really they're cables, on a small…

Interesting, here in Sweden it’s mandatory to change tires. Once I did it a bit late and drove on some ice, just a little. The car was like on ice skates for a little while .

Indeed. The first thing I do when buying a second-hand car (I never buy new cars, what a waste of money) is to buy the best winter tires (and summer tires if needed) that money can buy (lots of that available, as I save so much on the car). I never have any problems in any conditions (and there are a lot of "conditions..")

All seasons tires are rubbish. Also the "new" ones (re sister comment).

Post reply on HN