If examiner gives you 2 solids and asks to separate they cannot be separated instantly, mostly one of them will be soluble for eg he gives you sand and NaCl and asks u to separate them, we know that sand is insoluble in water and NaCl is soluble so we will add water to both solids the NaCl will dissolve then we will take a filter funnel on a conical flask , place a filter paper on it and pour the solution, the insoluble sand will be collected on the filter paper as residue and the salt solution will flow through as filtrate. Now here he can ask two things 1. NaCl in crystal form 2.Nacl in powder form. 1) heat the NaCl solution to crystallization pint and allow the remaining liquid to slowly cool or evaporate, after some time crystals will be formed and we can just filter them and dry them by tapping with filter paper or in an oven. 2) Just heat the salt solution till constant mass nothing else.
now for the sand that we got although we have separated it, it may contain some soluble impurities of NaCl, which we do not want so we wash the sand with "DISTILLED" water and then dry it by using filter paper.
Also for the crystals that we got for the NaCl, please do not wash them with any water as NaCl is soluble in water so they will dissolve again. everything i wrote is for understanding the process in exam please summarize this.
Liquid+Solid If solid is insoluble just filter it and wash with distilled water to remove any soluble impurities and dry it
if solid is soluble we will do simple distillation. please do not sit there write the whole setup just draw the distillation diagram and label it (a picture speaks a thousand words) showing the heat source the round bottom flask the condenser with water in and water out and thermometer labelled, the solid will remain in the flask and the water or liquid will be evaporated and and then condenser and collect in the beaker at the other end.
PLEASE IF IT IS A ORGANIC LIQUID THAT WE ARE SEPARATING DO NOT USE A BUNSEN BURNER TO HEAT THE FLASK AS THEY ARE HIGHLY FLAMMABLE. use an electric heater or a thermostatically controlled water bath. also please make sure that whatever the liquid being separated, its boiling point should be below 100 degrees or we cannot use water to separate it as the water we are using in the condenser to condense the liquid will evaporate itself.
Liqud+Liquid if both are immiscible meaning they form layers and do not mix. use a separating funnel and pour one the more dense one off as it will settle at the bottom. if asked why are we able to separate them in this way, the answer to that is because both liquids have different density.
if both are miscible, then just write we will use fractionating column please do not sit there mentioning the details just draw a rough diagram including the round bottom flask, fractionating column, thermometer, Liebig condenser with water in and out marked, beads in the fractionating column to allow only particles with more energy to pass through and particles with less energy meaning lower temp to fall back in to the flask and a beaker in the end to collect the separated liquid.
if GAS + GAS then first step is to liquify them, which is done by lowering their temp, and then we will again be facing a liquid + liquid (miscible) so we will then do fractional distillation to separate them.
if both gases have different MOLECULAR MASS then we easy way to separate them is by diffusion. Gas with lower Mr will diffuse faster hence can be separated
hope everyone understands :)

I hope this isn't a dumb question - I am the parent of a fourth grade girl who was diagnosed with dyslexia recently and this is all pretty new to me. I hope I'm missing something, actually, because I'm confused and pissed and sad.
This ended up being longer than my single question - I guess I am actually really pissed off and sad about the last nine months in general, and I am completely open to any feedback, advice, or ideas about what to do now and how to help my kid. This is the first time I wrote all of this down and the irony of writing a novel on a dyslexia subreddit is not lost on me.
I'm leaving it lol.
Cora has always been brilliant and weird and loud, but over the last few years, it became apparent that she was having a harder time....stopping. Stopping talking, stopping moving, stopping yelling - it was just endless and exhausting for everyone around her. (Except at school. She is and was perfectly behaved at school - she has literally never gotten so much as a note home about goofing off in class.) Cora hit a wall in third grade - the hyperactivity was finally wearing her out, too, and annoying her friends. She finally asked for some help slowing down.
She was tested for ADHD and the general host of common mental health conditions last fall, and to no one's surprise, was diagnosed with ADHD-combined type, as well as anxiety symptoms that the psychologist described as significant enough to warrant a GAD diagnosis…but that she strongly suspected were a perfectly rational reaction to the very real problems Cora’s impulsiveness caused in her life.
This was exactly my experience as someone diagnosed with ADHD as an adult. It turns out that the consequences of constantly losing my car keys, forgetting appointments, and impulsively spending money I didn’t have were making me anxious and stressed, not the other way around. I had expected similar results for Cora and I was glad this was happening now - she could skip the years of totally ineffective treatment and misdiagnoses that I went through before being diagnosed and successfully treated.
What we were not expecting at all was the additional diagnosis of "specific learning disorder with reading impairment" noted in the report. I had no idea what this meant. The psychologist did not use the word "dyslexia" in her written evaluation, a decision which resulted in another 8 months of confusion and (probably unnecessary) testing detailed below. She explained to us that Cora could have dyslexia, but that her testing wasn't granular enough to be sure - that there was a chance it was "something else" and the SLD diagnosis was an umbrella term that covered both dyslexia and conditions unknown. (I have no idea what she was referring to and the general weirdness about using the word dyslexia was something I noticed with the school, too. I am still confused by this and other interactions where I get the distinct feeling people aren’t telling me something important.)
It was almost September, so the psychologist recommended pursuing testing with the school; this seemed to be a reasonable next step. They would test Cora and determine exactly what was going on, if anything. This whole part of the report was very much characterized as an incidental finding - something to follow up on, but nothing alarming given Cora’s history of good grades.
"Maybe she was just tired after a long day of testing,” the doctor explained. “But it also seemed like she wasn't hearing certain letters correctly." Years of speech therapy had helped Cora correct all but a few minor issues - but combined with this potential reading issue, maybe an audiologist should test her again. Get her hearing tested, start medication for ADHD, and see what the school says about her reading - that was the plan, no big deal.
I wasn't worried, but I figured it couldn't hurt to see what other help was available. I learned that we have a branch of a big tutoring nonprofit in our city that offers Orton-Gillingham instruction at no charge - something I soon realized would cost hundreds of dollars per month at other centers. Free is good! I submitted Cora's application and the report from the psychologist (with the ADHD/GAD/SLD all clearly noted)….and we got a rejection letter a week later in the mail. Cora didn't qualify because the tutoring was specific to dyslexia, and the SLD with reading impairment was not the same as a formal dyslexia diagnosis. Fair enough, I thought - I figured we'd get the testing done through her school and could reapply if the result was a dyslexia diagnosis.
That....was naïve, lol. But the psychologist made it sound like a total non-issue, something schools did all the time. I sent the school psychologist and teachers the report before school even started, since surely they would want to schedule all of this right away! I didn’t hear anything for a few weeks – the start of the school year must be such a busy time, after all – but raised it again, report in hand, at a meeting with Cora’s teacher in late September.
“You….really want to try to avoid putting a label on things too quickly,” she told me, in a tone that implied there was much more that she was not saying. “She seems to be doing quite well in class. Let’s see how she does on the standardized tests we’re finishing this week and go from there.” I was definitely aware that I was missing something, but it seemed reasonable to wait for Cora’s test results if they would help inform next steps. Cora scored well above average, as usual; shortly after receiving these scores, the school psychologist emailed me to let me know that no further testing was warranted.
I still felt like I was missing something – spoiler alert, I was – but there didn’t seem to be anything else left to do. They're the experts and were totally unconcerned – only positive news - and Cora’s new ADHD meds seemed to be really helping. After that, everything did seem to be okay at school for a while. Cora liked her teachers and was doing well.
Everything was copacetic…except for the fact that Cora’s anxiety seemed to be getting worse without any tangible explanation. She complained about fourth grade being a lot harder, but again – her grades were fine, she was perfectly behaved, she liked her teachers….it was difficult to identify any problem that needed solving. Soon, Cora started getting home and isolating herself in her room for over an hour every day. She seemed stressed. Worn out. This went on for months.
And then she had her first panic attack on a Sunday night, seemingly out of nowhere. She wanted a mental health day Monday and was back in school Tuesday, seemingly her normal self.
The next Sunday, she had another panic attack, and this one was much, much worse. She lost control of her bladder. I was close to taking her to the ER. It was scary. That's when it all came out. She was DREADING school - her two hours of ELA in the mornings had become “torture.” She was white-knuckling it through the reading, writing, and spelling work, totally clueless as to why it seemed so much harder for her than for other kids, but so determined to get good grades that she had just burned. the. fuck. OUT.
She was home for days after this. The school tried to dismiss my concerns at first - it couldn't have been that bad, I was told. To be fair, my concerns were vague because I still didn’t understand the real issues or how to help Cora, either. Cora was clearly unwell and adamantly refused to return to school. I started putting everything in formal, written letters emailed to all of her teachers, the school psychologist, and everyone else who seemed potentially relevant. I told them I wasn't sending her back until they did something to try to figure out what was going on in ELA.
That was mid-February. We had a meeting before I would agree to send Cora back, where they talked about putting together the "interdisciplinary team" to conduct "extensive classroom observation.” They insisted that this process would take at least 60 days to complete. Cora reports that there have been three days where someone has essentially come to her ELA class and stared at her while she works.
We weren’t just waiting for the school, though. After the psych eval last summer, we had been slowly working through additional evaluations and appointments related to Cora’s hearing, speech, and language abilities. Basically, we were working our way from Cora's ears into different regions of her brain, trying to catch problems along the path that sound waves traveled - entering Cora's head as vibrations in her ear canals, winding into her brain as phenomes, assembling into a stream of recognizable words, converting into meaning in entirely different areas of her brain, and eventually emerging again via her speech. I had no idea so many tiny things could go wrong in that process, but they can - and we can get pretty damn granular in order to figure that shit out when there’s a potential problem. Cora had some weird results here and there - we now know that overlapping speech is basically her Kryptonite, which explains a lot of meltdowns at family gatherings over the years. But on the whole, her ears and her brain are doing fine, and she doesn't have autism, either.
We had been lucky to get hooked up with the best child development team in the area - they were wonderful, and the process of more testing and visits seemed to reassure Cora (and us, honestly) that there was more help on the horizon, more answers soon. She started low-dose Zoloft for the anxiety and seemed a little happier; her anxiety about school was starting to morph into resignation and frustration, which actually seemed healthier in a way. "It takes time," they tell us. Her breakdown was in February. They wanted to see the report from the most recent evaluations. Fair enough; although it is not lost on me that I am paying an outside team to do the school's job, at least it's getting done.
Two weeks ago, we finally got the team's report - and the written words, "developmental dyslexia." The lead psychologist is going to meet with the 504 team at her school - he is wonderful and immediately understood so many of Cora's concerns and needs. I'm not exactly optimistic, but it's at least possible that this may result in accommodations/extra help in school. Cora thinks he walks on water and is so excited that he's going to "stand up for" her.
The report is detailed and confirmed a lot of what we suspected. She's a really bright kid - IQ around 120 with sky high mathematics and nonverbal problem-solving scores. She apparently discussed "conundrums that are complex and abstract in nature" during her sessions, with a "recognition that there is not necessarily a solution" to these mysterious issues. (LMAO....this is my weird and wonderful kid.) The report describes Cora as "delightful" - funny, self aware, and highly motivated to learn.
Her reading comprehension score was in the 90th percentile, essay composition in the 70th - spelling scores came in at the 25th percentile, which was no surprise. Pseudoword decoding was poor - she's in the 14th percentile - and it got worse from there. Cora has an oral reading fluency in the 9th percentile, a basic reading score in the 7th percentile, and a word reading score in the 4th percentile.
In fact, the essay composition score was the only "average" score among dozens of measures of her reading, writing, and language abilities - comprehension was universally excellent and decoding was universally abysmal. It was hard to read. It felt like a gut punch - looking at the single-digit scores, I finally realized the insane degree of effort it must have taken to finish her work and look happy doing it.
The developmental psychologist leading the team told us that it was unusual to see that stark of a difference - that the severity of her impairments are usually associated with average comprehension scores at best. I have tried to wade through research about these instruments, but decided to take his word for it. Typically, the deficits in her basic reading skills would set off a chain reaction of lower scores down the line - but Cora had brought her grades and tests scores up from an already high start at the beginning of the year.
"It's no wonder her anxiety symptoms are increasing - she's completely exhausted," he said. "Imagine what she could achieve with the right kind of help."
I realized then why Cora's high scores and good grades, so impressive to everyone else, were such a source of consternation for her. That chain reaction was still happening, getting in the way of what she was actually capable of achieving. She knew it, even if the rest of us didn't - she could do better with the right kind of help.
I honestly feel sick thinking about it. She never told anyone she was struggling, never asked for help - not from us, not from anyone at school, heck not from her former-literacy-teacher grandma. No one had any idea. My husband and I had actually encouraged her to slow down a little in the weeks before her panic attacks, just out of a general sense that something was brewing despite her repeated insistence she was doing fine. Turn in the worksheet a day late, three sentences is plenty, relax. Unthinkable, Cora insisted, she was fine.
So she's back at school, nothing has changed other than the glacially slow 504 process of "observation" occurring in the background sometimes, but she seems to be a bit less stressed. I can't tell if getting pissed off about the situation is helping her deal with it, if the Zoloft is taking the edge off, or if she's just masking harder now. Maybe all three. 18 more days of school and Cora is counting. them. down. Her teachers and support staff seem generally bewildered by the idea she is or was ever struggling. They were caught totally off guard when I abruptly pulled her out of school until we at least got them to commit to the 504 process – but we had been blindsided too. They saw a happy kid who was thriving academically until her parents pulled her out of school and started a process that no one seems particularly committed to finishing. Sometimes I think they don't believe us at all. Maybe I would feel the same way in their shoes, I don’t know. I think they’ll listen to the doctor.
The entire point of this post, though, was to ask about Cora’s second rejection from the local tutoring program. With summer approaching and the diagnosis of dyslexia (versus maybe-dyslexia, maybe-whatever-else-could-be-included-under-the-SLD-“umbrella”, which I am still unsure is even a thing), I've been looking into all sorts of options for tutoring. Summer is a good opportunity to try to start getting Cora some meaningful help without adding yet another thing to her plate. She's excited. We can build some tools before next year - if we know what works for her, we can be better advocates from Day 1.
So I resubmitted Cora's application - I still had my original email and I just attached the shiny new report to that, explaining where to find the magic D word that I fully expected would finally open a door where Cora could get the right kind of help. This new report was more granular with reading testing, but the dyslexia diagnosis was the one really substantive change. It included Cora's ADHD and anxiety diagnoses, as did the report I submitted with our initial application, but with new information about medication and treatment for these issues - progress!
(I would like to point out at this point that ADHD and anxiety are firmly established as two of the most common comorbid diagnoses for kids with dyslexia, and that anxiety symptoms in particular can occur because of the challenges caused by dyslexia. My daughter had full-blown panic attacks at 10 years old largely because she struggles to FUCKING READ and no one was helping her. I know I am preaching to what little choir is likely left at this point in my novel. But especially as someone who was medicated/treated for depression and anxiety for 20 years before anyone agreed to test for, diagnose, and treat the ADHD symptoms that were causing me to regularly fuck up my life in really depressing and stressful ways…..this chicken and egg shit really hits a nerve.)
Anyhoo, it had taken 8 months and a lot of work, but I had finally done this one cool thing for her - Cora was going to get the right kind of help. The school year is almost over, but at least we had this one success. The obstacle that I’m still not sure was warranted in the first place – the lack of the word dyslexia in the initial evaluation – had been checked off what was now a giant list of obstacles in Cora's path.
And thanks to the generosity of people who had probably heard and experienced a lot of similar, frustrating stories, our family could focus on paying off the bills accumulated in the process of getting to this point instead of adding more to the pile. Free is always good, but sometimes free is a godsend.
Twelve hours later, Cora was denied again, this time via a brief email simply noting the GAD diagnosis in both reports. "Our tutors are not trained to work with children who are diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorders" and they "cannot meet her needs."
That was it. No further explanation. Just…fuck your anxious baby girl who is trying so hard and fuck you for trying. NEXT!
Oh, and P.S., fuck the really significant percentage of kids with dyslexia with comorbid anxiety diagnoses who are incredibly well researched and described in just…all of the fucking literature. Just all of it, honestly, for decades. Fuck those kids too.
People seem to treat the word "dyslexia" like it's the only thing that matters sometimes but also not something that should be ever said in other contexts, AND I'm pretty fucking sure that "SLD with reading impairment" is essentially equivalent to the word dyslexia because no one can explain what else might be under that "umbrella," and apparently it's nigh impossible to get meaningful help for my daughter through the public school systems anywhere in America, and giant nonprofits care about kids with dyslexia so much, but not the anxious ones, better lock the doors before those crybabies get their needs all over our tutoring center!
We will figure out how to pay for help for Cora, that’s a given.
But honest to fucking god, have you guys just been putting up with this shit the whole time? I'm so sorry.

For over 4 years I've been purchasing the Butterball Boneless Turkey Breast as a "healthier" option to processed cold cut turkey breast. Looking at the package one would believe that the turkey breast is a 3lb breast and a gravy packet. I cook one of these for my family at least 2 times a month. It has always been a pretty satisfying product. I never use the gravy packet and toss it every time without paying much attention to the "weight" of the packet. The last few months, it appeared that every time I cooked one, it was yielding much less meat. I thought perhaps I was cooking it too long although I always use a meat thermometer to ensure proper cooking temperature is met to avoid food poisoning. I cook to an internal temperature of 165 degrees because after removing the roast from the oven, it continues to cook reaching a temperature of 170 degrees. Last week I decided to weigh the roast because I was very suspicious of what I have been getting in recent months. Frozen the total package weighed 3.2 lbs! Thawed the meat weighs 2.5 lbs and the gravy packet is 10oz. I was appalled! I was under the assumption that the roast is 3lbs and the gravy packet is extra. After cooking the roast came to 2.1 lbs! I immediately reached out to Butterball customer service chat line to complain. I was told that the label clearly states that the Net Wt. of the total package including gravy packet is 48oz or 3 Lbs. Not the meat itself. I was advised that the meat weight is always 40 oz and 8 oz of gravy packet equals the 48oz. I immediately responded with that's misleading! The rep stated that the "packaging guidelines" protected them in that as long as they stated the Net Wt. which is the total of both items in the packaging. I further stated that I felt they were putting much more solution in the roast than before adding to the "weight" and it is now yielding much more than before!. He stuck to his story of 40 oz meat and 8 oz of gravy, After getting no where with customer service. I reached out to Better Business Bureau to complain. I was contacted by Butterball and after listing my experience and complaints with her, she proceeded to tell me the same story of the "packaging guidelines"! I then responded that the packaging is deceptive and the consumer has no idea what they're actually getting. Oh and might I add that the price of the roast has increased $3.00 in the last 4 years! She said it clearly states under the Net. Wt. that it includes gravy packet. I pointed out to her the distance from the Net. Wt. to where it states Included Gravy Packet and how no one could correlate that to means it's included in the total package weight. She then proceeded to tell me that sometime last year, and she does not know when??? exactly, that Butterball changed the weight of the gravy packet from 8oz to 10 oz and lessened the roast from 40 oz to 38 oz! So without informing the consumer of doing so. See where I'm going with this? We are being strategically misled! I ensured her that I will no longer be purchasing the roast or any other Butterball product.

I asked the local building department about adding an EVSE and was told that a load calculation would be required. I asked if the city had a specific form, but was told that any pertinent one would work.
My state (MN) has adopted the 2023 NEC. I believe for my purposes (single family, looking to add a load), I am looking for 2023 NEC Section 220.83.
I have a 100A main circuit breaker on the panel (complete list of breakers listed below).
There is an existing 40A double pole breaker that is abandoned as the range has been converted to gas.
Heat is gas.
Hot water is gas.
Only potentially large loads are electric dryer and air conditioning.

Worksheet following 220.83

Part 1: General lighting/receptacle

• 4500 VA = 1500 Sq ft * 3 VA/sq ft

Part 2: Small appliance (2) + Laundry circuits (1)

• 4500 VA = 2 * 1500 + 1 * 3000

Part 3: Nameplate Rating list:

Device	VA
Washer	1200
Water softener	13.5
Range	432
Radon mitigation	84
Fridge	720
Microwave	1550
Garbage disposal	540
Dishwasher	1200
sump pump	1164
Bathroom fan	540
Garage opener	360
HVAC	3360
Laundry Dryer	6240
EV Charger	7680

Calculations:

Calculations	VA
Total Load (before demand factor):	32883.5
First 8 KW @ 100%	8000
Remainder at 40% (32883.5-8000)	9953.4
Total Load (8000+9953.4)	17953.4
Amperage (21793.4/240)	74.8 A

Panel:

Label	Breaker Amp
Abandoned Range, convert to EVSE (double pole)	40
dryer (double pole)	30
ac (double pole)	30
microwave/fridge	20
furnace	20
Basement bathroom	20
basement outlet	20
garage outlets	20
wash/dryer	20
basement utility lights	20
garbage disposal / dishwasher	20
water softner, Range, radon	15
kitchen outlet	20
kitchen outlet	20
exterior deck	15

Questions:

• I included Washer as an appliance. But it runs off of the 1x Laundry circuit (not separate circuit). I should remove the laundry washer from the appliance list for load calculations (part 3) as it is already accounted for in the 1500 VA laundry circuit?
• Sump pump is also plugged into the laundry circuit. Does this mean it should also be removed from the appliance list for load calculations (part 3) as it is already accounted for in the 1500 VA laundry circuit?
• EVSE, dryer, and A/C all receive the 40% demand factor in my calculations. This is how I understand 220.83, but I want to make sure.
• Anything else I messed up here?

My friend and I were high school freshmen. We were really poor, but we still both would scrounge up change to buy a soda every now and then. With the "healthy lifestyle" thing schools were doing, all the soda vending machines were removed. For a while, we were really upset. However, I walked by teachers lounge one day while a teacher had the door open and saw that there was a coke vending machine still in there. Not only that, the price for a single bottle was only $0.50. That was an outright steal to us. We knew we had to get in there. The problem was that the door was constantly locked. We began creating our plan.
During lunch hour, we scoped out the normal HS building. Since it was lunch, all students were required to be in the cafeteria. However, we knew a way to have access to the building was to get lunch detention. Kids in detention were released 20 minutes late for lunch. The easiest way to do that was to not turn in Biology worksheets. 3 Zeroes in biology and a few late lunches later, We found out that one of the teachers would leave a key in the door for easy access. On the fourth day, we put our plan into action.
My friend would watch the door, as I slipped into the lounge after the teachers had gotten their lunch. I made my way to the machine with a dollar in quarters. On the way, I noticed a bowl in the corner labeled "soda fund" with lots of change and dollar bills inside. Greed took over me that day. We ran out of the school building with 3 sodas each.

Hi; I’m a 41 year old mom that was diagnosed with adhd in my early 20s. I have been ion and off meds since then, and am currently on medication. I see many adhd behaviors in my son, who just turned six. His kindergarten teacher has shared some concerns but told us that we should be looking for him to increase his times of focus in 1st grade. He broke his collarbone recently and wasn’t able to do gym or recess. Multiple bites have come home about him being silly and distracting in class and lately he’s been getting notes home from his reading teacher about not completing his worksheets. He has said he just doesn’t feel like finishing.
At his well child check last week, his doctor noticed he can’t sit still and recommending him for adhd testing. Can a diagnosis be accurate at six? I feel like I think it’s adhd because I’ve been hypersensitive to it and watching. However, many of his behaviors are totally normal for a high energy six year old. What is the best way to know what is normal versus not at an age where a child should be free to be childlike?several times he has disrupted the learning of others. I feel bad about that. I really am hesitant to get him screened because I don’t want him labeled or subject to stigma I was. Am I being ridiculous? I go back and forth because o feel like knowing early can help us and him - so things won’t have to be as difficult for him, so he can understand what works for him and doesn’t, and for him to be able to make this his super power not something to feel bad about.
Does anyone have experience with screening or parenting young children suspected to have adhd? As someone who has been medicated and felt not like myself on them, my hear breaks to potentially medicate a child who can’t article that is happening. I want to help him not blow out his spark. I know I am overthinking this, but just wondering if anyone can provide some advice from their experience. TIA!

My spouse and I are trying to be better at taking breaks during heated conversations. The thing Im struggling with is recognizing when I need one. I've always had issues labelling my emotions - I feel that I am calm, certainly not in a good mood, but able to engage in discussions. He claims I get "an attitude", but that to me is more him being a tone policer than anything that points to emotional overwhelm. According to him our issues could be solved if I recognize when I need a break so that things dont escalate (I will eventually zone out and he tends to get loudemore critical). What do y'all do to gauge your inner emotional thermometer? How do you know when you're no longer in the realm of chill?

I am trying to do forcasting on a pivot table , but it is showing me this error "the forecast cannot be created because the timeline is not evenly spaced excel." I've tried removing blank values before 1971 by inserting timeline.
https://preview.redd.it/cx3yol7x4vwc1.png?width=1432&format=png&auto=webp&s=3a1cea2e4901707eb3e62093add75e0bccff88ad

I bought, assembled, and have been using a Cedarbrook 4x6' outdoor sauna prebuilt kit for about 1 month now. This post is about the experience and a summary of the sauna.
I used Trumpkins notes, The Art of Sauna Building book, and this subreddit as references before making my sauna decision.
Quick Summary
The Cedarbrook 4x6' outdoor sauna is a great finished product. It meets about 90% of the Trumpkin/Finnish standards and requires 2 people and an intermediate DIY skillset to assemble.
4.0/5.0 stars overall
Decision points
Size:
I was looking for a 2-person sauna and the Cedarbrook 4x6' (interior dimensions) seemed like a good choice. It is their 2nd smallest model.
Company:
I live in the SF Bay Area and there was only one local sauna distributor and they sold Finnleo saunas. The cost of the Finnleo sauna, at about $18,000 through the distributor, was the highest quote that I received. But, the distributor did offer a contractor to assemble the sauna and the electrical install for about $6,000 extra. If you wanted someone else to do all the work, this was the best option I could find. I did reach out to some carpenters and handypeople in the area but no one was interested in assembling a sauna.
At about half the cost I decided to compare the prebuilt saunas. Shipping costs can be significant and around 15-20% of the sauna cost. Quotes can be difficult to obtain beforehand but a good range is $900-2,500. Cedarbrook is based in Washington State and charged $932.
I judged the assembly difficulty based on available videos and each brand's marketing. Cedarbrook has some old videos from the 1980's and seemed easy to moderate in difficulty.
Height:
One concern was the sauna height. This is discussed in the Trumpkin and Finnish standards. 80" is the minimum recommended with a flat ceiling. Cedarbrook defaults to 76" but offers an upgrade to 80" for $171 which I did purchase.
Heater:
Based on my research a 6 kW heater seemed to be the best choice. I opted for the older Polar HMR 60 because I wanted something that was reliable and had a long track record. Cedarbrook does offer more heater brands and options.
Cedarbrook process and issues
Ordering is pretty simple and you can do it online. If you want a different heater or any customization just include it in the notes.
I placed the order in mid-October and I received the shipment at the beginning of April, almost 6 months total vs 3 months estimated on their website. They do not provide any details about the status of your order, other than an order received receipt. I had to email them multiple times for an update to schedule the electrical work.
Cedarbrook contracts out to a local large delivery company once they ship the sauna. The delivery company will then call you to schedule the delivery. One important detail to note for the delivery is that delivery is curbside. This could be a huge issue because all of these saunas are delivered on pallets. You may have to dissemble and move the pieces in front of your house. I got lucky and the delivery driver moved it into my garage. I wouldn't count on this.
The sauna arrived on a double-long pallet with a scrap-wood frame and shrink wrap. It took about 2 hours to dissemble the packing and organize the pieces.
Most of the sauna parts are labeled but the labeling is not precise or on each piece of wood. You have to figure out a lot of the details yourself.
Cedarbrook includes 13 pages of instructions. They are not good and are all paragraphs describing the assembly. They also have some really old and outdated videos on their website. The instructions would have been more useful with detailed pictures.
Assembly
You need hand tools, level, reciprocating saw, jigsaw, shims, various screws, nails, and any inside/outside treatment chemicals. I opted for the preinstalled electrical conduit which I would highly recommend.
Assembly definitely requires 2 people because the wall panels are large and weigh around 100-150 lbs each.
The carpentry skills required are around advanced beginner or intermediate DIY level. You do have to cut some wood pieces to fit, level the base, and correct any mistakes.
I placed the sauna on a cedar deck. I choose not put anything on the floor other than duckboard on the front half of the sauna. Cedarbrook had some strange guidlines on what to place at the bottom of the sauna. For a deck they recommend a plywood base with a vapor barrier on top. But, after researching this subreddit I found that there was no clear answer on needed a barrier on top of a deck. Some people with saunas on decks argue that the deck alone does provide some drainage and airflow without any significant insulation issues. Some people insist on some sort of layer to collect the sweat and water after each sauna session. I opted to start with nothing on top of the deck and see how it goes. Worse case scenario is that I can add a rubber layer in the future if needed.
Assembly was straightforward except for 2 areas. Leveling the 4 base plate pieces of wood took a bit of time and required shims. This is glossed over in the instructions and videos but ends up being really important. The slanted roof was really annoying to assemble. The instructions are confusing and it took a lot of time to install all of the cedar shingles. Cedarbrook offers an older style A-frame roof which I think comes pre-assembled. I would definitely go with that roof instead of the slanted one just because of the assembly difficulty.
Cedarbrook recommended sealing the inside of the sauna with Miracle cover marine and the outside with Seal once nano guard. I tried using a roller but ended up using a brush. I would recommend getting a spray gun.
Time breakdown:
-Pallet breakdown and organizing the parts (1 person) 2 hours
-Sauna assembly except the roof (2 person) 12 hours
-Roof assembly and shingle install (1 person) 4 hours
-Outside and inside sealing (1 person) 4 hours
-Heater install and rock placement (1 person) 1 hour
Cost breakdown

• 4x6 prefab sauna with slant roof and Polar HMR 60 heater $7,237
• Accessories (headrests, stains, thermometer, ect.) $ 560
• Shipping cost $ 932
• Total $8,729

I didn't include the electrical cost because there is so much variability. I did need a 30A breaker installed for the heater and I did get it permitted. A good range for the electrical estimate seems to be $1,000-3,000 nationwide.
Sauna temps

• Starting temp from 50-70F outside usually takes 30 min to reach 180F and 45 min to reach 200F
• I am able to get the temp to 200F without tripping the high heat limiter. For the Polar HMR 60 there are some simple workarounds available if that is an issue

Random details

• Cedarbrook didn't line up the pre-installed electrical conduit runs with the pre-drilled holes in the roof segment. They were off by an 1" probably because 2 different people did the work. Re-drilling was required and luckily we didn't crack the wood
• The Cedarbrook instructions are out of date. Panels were labeled 1,2,3... but the instructions listed A,B,C... It seems like it is a small company and they aren't that interested in changing things
• I had to rearrange the rocks in the heater 3 times because too many rocks caused the high temp limiter to trip and too few rocks left coils exposed
• The sauna has 2 benches but the lower bench is basically useless. It is low and right next to the heater. The upper bench does have enough room for 2 people
• The 4.0/5.0 rating is due to the skills required to assemble the sauna and the mediocre instructions. Based on my research there are saunas that are easier to assemble

Finally, if you haven't purchased a sauna before and are reading through Sauna keep in mind that many of the comments are ridiculous. I ended up overthinking this decision because some people are obsessed with the Finnish standards and Trumpkins notes. Most of the pre-built kits are going to meet 80-90% of the Finnish standards and will be good enough. We just don't have a sauna culture in America and it is almost impossible to get prebuilt kits that meet 100% Finnish standards. Although, that might be changing and Cedarbrook does offer a Trumpkin kit.
I did reach out to a number of people who built saunas on the Sauna who were very helpful. Thanks to anyone who answered my questions.
I'm happy with the finished product and let me know if you any questions!
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A while ago, I read about the additional labour costs of using, or allowing for, dual units in computer programs – US and metric. (Sorry, I can't remember where I read this.)
The writer said that in addition to the programming, conversion factors need to be checked, and the whole program may need to be tested twice, once in metric units then again in US units. It's not just the conversion factor that is important, but the rounding of decimal fractions to something sensible and checking the input values so that absurdly large or small values are rejected. Also, it has to be made obvious to the user which units they are using.
Do you know of other areas in industry, or life in general, where dual units are necessary and visible?
One obvious area is labelling of goods in US and metric measures, and getting the right kind of ounce, fluid or avoirdupois. Again this should need extra checking to ensure it is done correctly. (Has anyone found gross errors in dual labelling of mass or volume?)
The tyre pressure pump at my local service station is another example. It can be switched between kPa and psi, so I set it to kPa every time I use it.
Other examples might be as simple as my digital clock with a built in thermometer which can show ºC or ºF.

Let’s be real, lesson plans can be great, good, bad, ugly and downright messy at times. I know walking into a classroom that things for subs never quite go to plan. I have had lesson plans on a post it note and one that was 38 pages long.
Most of the teachers that I have made friends with have the emergency lesson plan for unplanned absences. They usually have the schedule, info on helpful students, info on students who may throw furniture around and the really good ones email or attach the lesson plans to the postings. Where to find things, and so on so forth.
I picked up 3 days of kindergarten in a row for the same teacher. (WTF was I thinking)
Today I got like an outline of a lesson plan. Half of it I had no access to because the slide shows or websites were not included. None of the worksheets were labeled. More than half of them didn’t have instructions. There was no details, and looking at the next two days, it’s a basic outline where everything was left blank.
I pride myself on how well I can stick to a lesson plan. I work hard to build rapport with teachers and schools in my district, but it’s so damn hard to feel effective and have classroom management when I have no clue on what’s actually supposed to happen. The other kinder teachers couldn’t help because they didn’t understand the lesson plans either.
I have two more days ahead of me where I just have to wing it and hope this teacher provides me with a good feedback score. I also have to put in feedback and everything in my soul wants to bash the whole thing, I tread carefully in how I word my feedback, I love my job and I don’t want to burn bridges in certain schools.
I’m just so frustrated.

From what I can tell there is not a native way to have a specific sheet that data from a form in a workflow is printed to based on a selection an end user is making on the form. For instance, there is a dropdown menu, and if they select "cat" it prints data to the sheet tab I've labeled "cat" or if they select "dog" it prints data to the sheet tab labeled "dog" from the form, etc. We can easily have it do this to a specific sheet on a Google worksheet, but it doesn't appear there is a way to have it select which sheet tab based on a variable from a workflow or a form. I could make it work either way.
I can easily have it just print the selection to sheets, then sort by this selection and move it myself, but I'm trying to automate this menial task. Would I be stuck building a custom solution to this, or has anyone done something similar already?

Again, purely speculation and opinion based, don't know these people and I am more than likely wrong. Again, I understand they have fucked up views and I'm not endorsing but I do try to see the best in people when I talk about them.
Whitney-She is tied with Esther for my favorite of the bunch. Her life struggles and the many phases she has been through give her a very relatable quality. She comes across very grounded. At first, I think she was desperate for the approval of the whole big Bates machine after all the instability of her youth (FWIW, I've seen other people say and I believe that she was not removed from her parents by CPS but was probably placed with another family in her church due to "rebellious" behaviostrained relationship with parents. That doesn't let her parents off the hook but I do think it's worth mentioning.) But in recent years she's really come into her own and it's been great to see. I think she and Zach have a beautiful relationship. She also seems like a very loving and doting mother who truly wanted a large family vs. being pushed into it like her SILs. (Which makes sense because she wasn't raised in a fertility cult like they were.) She doesn't act like her life is perfect (cough Erin) but she doesn't spend a bunch of time bitching about her kids and how annoying they are on social media (which annoys the hell out of me when I see people do it tbh. I'm like, your kids are going to see this one day.) Of course she isn't perfect. Y'all know I don't like the Mommy Influencer schtick and and being so deeply connected to Abeka is....a choice. It's nice that her kids socialize with other children, play sports, etc., but they could really flourish in a public or private school. That being said, she does seem like she's pretty involved in their homeschooling process, in comparison to Alyssa who just sticks them in front of the computer or hands them worksheets. Overall Whitney comes across as a warm, funny and genuine woman.
Brandon-I've gone back and forth on him. First I thought he was alright, if a bit tightly wound, then I thought he was a controlling weirdo, and recently I've come back around to sort of liking him again. A lot of my change in opinion comes to down to the Keilens' recent video chronicling their infertility journey. He has been so supportive of her and sensitive to her needs and feelings during all this. The fact that he told her "Go to God and tell Him how you truly feel" when she said she was doubting her faith said a lot to me. I know it's still a religious response, but he could've given the stock answer of "Just believe harder and don't be ungrateful to a God who's done so much for you." It's like he actually wanted her to be comforted. And the fact that he has been so supportive tells me that he loves Michaela for herself, not for her womb. I feel sorry for him as well because you can tell he really wants to be a father. When he was talking about Eden and he said that he said to God, "Give her to me" it broke my freaking heart. He would have loved that little girl so much. Of course he has many flaws, chief among them being producing material for IBLP. That is really really Not Good. But I've come to the conclusion that he is more like Michaela than I thought: A gentle, sensitive person who truly cares about other people but is deeply enmeshed with toxic cult beliefs. I think if he tried his hand at a secular career, he could be successful; I could see him illustrating children's books.
Chad-I used to really like Chad for all his romantic gestures, but lately he's been everything I dislike about Brandon amplified and without many of Brandon's redeeming qualities. Well, maybe that is oversimplifying. But I swear, something happened to Chad when all that boutique/Carlin drama went down. It was like he was like "wait, I'M the headship here" and he cracked the fuck down. All of a sudden the family was headed to Florida, and boy did he make sure they got there come hell or high water. And in Florida, Chad has all the power. He's straight up said he wants to keep his daughters in dresses/skirts only. The whole Paine Florida Farm Era has just been off-putting as hell. His has this strange affect now. I will say, he has been extraordinarily helpful to the Bates and anyone around him when they needed help with anything construction related (or anything period-bro was the family barber for a while.) I think he is a very loyal man and actually follows his own moral compass very closely. I think he actually loves his family deeply-its just in his mind, control=love.
Tiffany-I actually like Tiffany. There, I said it. She comes across very sweet and like an amazing cheerleadehype woman. People call her a kiss ass who's trying to get in good with the Bates, and there's probably some truth to that but I'm also inclined to believe that that's just her natural personality. If you look at her pre-Lawson insta posts, that's just how she talks about people. The fact that she pays special attention to people like Callie, who often get overlooked, is a very kind thing in my eyes. I also have sympathy for her conflicting emotions during a rainbow pregnancy. I actually think her and Lawson are pretty happy-certainly not the greatest love story ever told, but they care for each other. She does have Toxic Positivity vibes though-everyone is so happy and loves each other sooooo much. Fighting? What's a fight? She lives in a bit of a fantasy world. Also her connections to institutions like Liberty University is 😬. That being said, I think she is going to love this baby to the point of smothering them lol.
Esther-If Esther has zero stans I'm dead. I jest, but she is soooo refreshing for a fundie wife. She is who she is and she's not apologizing to anybody for it. What matters to her are her man, her kids, and her happiness. And I love that. She did NOT settle and waited for a true love match who dotes on and adores her. Another rare quality in a fundie woman-she knows her worth. She is an attentive mother who clearly knows her child very well. She never kissed Kelly's ring. In a world of women who tie themselves into knots desperately hoping for approval, it's truly a breath of fresh air.
John-😐. That basically sums up my feelings on John. He's just such a 1950s father-his only responsibility is providing financial security, his wife does all the "women's work" of childcare, cooking, cleaning, etc. He's only interested in his son while his daughters bore him. He prioritizes time with his buddies over time with his family. It's not that he doesn't love them-I'm sure he does. His approach to family life is just one that should have died out 50 years ago.
Bobby-Not too hot on him either. For God's sake give your poor wife a break. If the cheating thing is true (and there's no hard evidence so I'm not claiming it is), then he's a dirtbag. But even if it isn't, it really feels like he's clipped Tori's wings. She lost some of her spark when she married him which is tragic. Personality wise he's cardboard. He's white bread. He just doesn't stick out to me.
Lydia-She's alright. I actually feel sorry for her, having a husband who will publicly state he has "the final say" in decisions about HER life. The rhetoric she spouts about her immigration case is stupid, but while I scoff at it I also have sympathy for her because she had no say in it originally. She was only 10 years old when she came here, and now she has an entire life in the US complete with an American-born husband and child. So I understand her desire to stay. But the pretenses on which her family is here are plainly ridiculous. And they are MAD hypocritical for going on about how mean the government is being to them while continuing to shit all over POC who are fleeing dire poverty and genuine tyranny. Personality wise she does seem pretty nice though. And she is quite the doting mom. It's clear Ryker is her world. I also have a lot of sympathy for the trauma of her miscarriage and I think it's cool that she is (was?) a photographer.
Evan-He actually seems quite friendly and warm, but he can be so freaking obnoxious and fame hungry. I remember when Zade was born he was immediately caught up in making instagram reels. Like bro can you breathe without filming something on your phone. Just enjoy the moment for once. I think he is even more gung ho about the family vlogging thing than Carlin. He wanted an off-ramp out of being an electrician and that was it. I think he loves Carlin a lot but also makes a lot of impulsive decisions and seems weirdly immature for a father of two (they are two peas in a pod that way lol.) He is just always, always filming and it irks me so bad. However he does seem very involved in the day to day childcare which is nice.
Kelton-Dawg IDK how to feel. I'll say this: There are a lot of things about Kelton that I actually respect. He feels like an actual adult. He runs a businesss very competently and is not completely reliant on social media for a living. He is bonded with his children and he makes sure his wife has proper medical care. He actually takes life seriously and doesn't treat it like some 24/7 Youtube lark A La Evan or Lawson. But of course there is the downside. I know there's a lot of controversy about how his relationship with Josie started, and while I don't think I have the authority to label it, bottom line is it was fucking weird. And the posts about his 2-year-old daughter's purity....Stop It. Get Some Help. I think his mom's death screwed him up big time and he just did not know how to act for a while.
Travis-He's like a more tolerable version of Evan to me. He's still got that over-the-top YouTuber persona but I feel like it is tempered by more rationality and self-awareness. He seems to have a naturally lighthearted personality. People used to say he was mean but I never saw that at all. Maybe it's because we're both from New Jersey. That's probably why he comes across as much more "normal" in his affect than other fundies do to me. I'm interested to see how this whole touring business goes. I'm glad he seems like a pretty chill father since growing up under the yoke of Daddy and Granddaddy Clark sounds fucking scary.
Emerson-I really don't know that much about her. She seems sweet but she also co-signed on the Target post which is blech. Overall I think marrying someone like her-a public school girl from a smaller and much more mainstream family-was a great thing for Jackson though. Maybe their kids will be the first ones in the Bates fam to have a shot at attending public school. I know Florida public schools are barely a step above wisdom booklets but hopefully they'll move lol.

I have a list of vehicles in one worksheet in google sheets, they have the vehicle name and status, I want to make a list to choose from my available vehicles but I want it to exclude options that are labeled as "damaged" so we don't take out a vehicle that needs to be repaired out on the road.

“If no one’s alive to remember something,” Chelsea asked me as I threw my shoulder against the front door, “do you think it ever actually happened?”
Icicles fell to the ground, but the door stayed shut. I even tried stepping back to kick my boot into the handle. Wood splintered around the frame while Chelsea said, “I used to tell my daughter that that’s why ghosts exist—to remember everything for us.”
I told her she was an idiot. “If ghost’s exist, then they’re asymptotic,” I said. “They don’t want to be found.”
I backed up to the edge of the porch. Leaning forward, I sprinted at this door, throwing my whole body against it until the thing shot open. It shot open like a knocked out tooth, and I fell into the house.
From the floor, I told Chelsea, “This is comfier than the shelter.”
She wiped off some snow that had landed on her shaved head and glided past me into the house. The bright skin on her skull reflected my flashlight beam against the cobwebbed ceiling, and I wondered how she had been able to reach back there. How had she cut it so short? No one at the homeless center was sober enough to hold a flask steady, let alone a razor.
I got up, taking my flashlight and waving it over broken picture frames and furniture covered in snow drifts. It had been a decade since the Endotherm—ten whole years since the lab upstate got its wires crossed. Ten whole years since I had a job.
Chelsea picked something up off the ground. “Who do you think lived here?” she asked, tossing me the object. “Demons? Poltergeists?”
It sparkled through my flashlight beam, this tiny crystal sphere, and I managed to catch it against my chest. The thing was frozen solid, holding onto a trio of polyethylene figures—some mom, dad, and daughter type—just an ugly, plastic family trapped in a snowglobe.
Before the Endotherm, the lab upstate had spent billions of dollars promising families, just like the one in my hand, eternal life. If they had the money, they could plug their home into the lab’s infrastructure. A series of pipes and wires that didn’t deliver water or electricity. They delivered time.
A thermostat to control how fast people aged.
It wasn’t the cure for cancer, but it wasn’t not the cure for cancer. Someone could just turn their dial down enough and those rapidly mutating cells could slow to a crawl. It even worked in reverse. People could turn their dial up and completely heal any cuts or bruises overnight.
No need for ice packs. No more picking at scabs.
The truth was, I had worked there, at that lab upstate. I had developed those pipes and wires that carried the condensed, plasmic soup used to speed up or slow down people’s organic molecules. I helped connect these houses and neighborhoods together into one giant computer network.
But this was all before the Endotherm.
I slipped the snowglobe into my coat pocket and shone my flashlight around the rest of the house. There were holes hammered into the wall, and the coffee table was littered with notebooks, pens, and pencils. The place was trashed. Someone had been here.
Chelsea said, “Do you think the reason ghosts destroy things when they’re angry is because they’re looking for a way out?”
And I wanted to tell her, couldn’t ghosts just appear and disappear whenever they felt like it, but I just kept pointing my flashlight around at the holes in the walls looking for the glint of wire—looking for something we could sell.
That’s when it landed on the recorder. One of those old-school devices with the buttons running up the side. It was just like the ones we had back at the lab. So I picked it up and pressed the button labeled ‘play’ and a voice said, “Whoever hears this, it’s important you know the truth.”
The truth was, there must have been an open window somewhere that we missed, because no sooner than I started the tape, did a gust of wind shoot through the house. It barreled out from the dark hallway next to us, throwing snow off the furniture and into the air, and the front door wouldn’t stop banging itself against its broken frame.
Instead of going to close it, all Chelsea had to say was, “Do you think it’s possible that some memories want to be forgotten?”
So I did it myself. I went and jammed the door shut while the recorder competed with Chelsea for air time, saying something like, “I used to believe everything tended towards chaos. Ice turned to water. Water turned to vapor. The second law of thermodynamics.”
It was saying all these things Chelsea wouldn’t understand like, “This is what Ludwig Boltzman spent his entire life trying to figure out. He developed a statistical model, a whole new branch of mathematics, just to understand why icicles melt.”
Back in the living room, I stuck my flashlight into the half-demolished wall, and there it was. The gold-copper glint from all those wires and pipes that had been installed half a generation ago. Free for the taking.
Sheetrock crumbled as I shoved my arm further up into the wall, and I wondered why whoever had been here before didn’t strip it for themselves. As the wall tore further open, gray clumps of ash fell against my boots, and when the recorder said, “Bolzmann asked himself, why do we have to live in a world where things fall apart?” I froze.
I froze because I had heard that voice before, but before I could press the speaker to my ear and listen closer, something slammed from the street outside.
I ripped my arm out of the wall and dropped to the ground, clicking off my flashlight. In the dark, through the frost coated, living room window, something red blinked outside. A steady pulse like a ticking timer, and it was here in the dark when I remembered where I was during the Endotherm.
I was working. I was working with the chief scientist in front of the lab’s terminal when whole neighborhoods just started going offline. The lights went from green to pulsing red, and the chief scientist, he had froze. He had froze in a way that no manager should freeze when the lights turn red.
Even all this time later, he hasn’t done anything. No one has done anything. No government official or labcoated-scientist has set foot in one of these offline neighborhoods. The surviving families petition year after year, but the only people stupid enough to actually step foot into these places are the junkies and scrappers.
The people who could actually do something? They’re just waiting out the clock. Because once we’re all dead, no one has to remember.
From the living room floor, the recorder hissed in my hand, still on.
“Shit,” I muttered, shaking it and jamming its buttons to try and get it to stop but all it did was speed up. A high pitched whine that the boots crunching outside had to have heard.
Chelsea was against the wall rubbing her fingers into her hairless skull and telling herself, “Don’t worry,” she said. “When you’re scared of something, it means you’re on the right track.”
The truth was, this was not what I signed up for.
The boots stopped right outside the front door, and I shoved the recorder into my coat to at least muffle the sound. My breath curled in the cold air. It twisted around itself, tugged towards the wall and down the dark hallway by whatever expired chemical soup was still in those pipes.
A thick stream of cold air dissipating exponentially into nothingness. Reaching for infinity.
The door didn’t open.
It stayed shut, and the boots crunched back across the ice on the porch, back the way they came, and Chelsea was so pale I could see through her.
She said, “I used to tell my daughter that when she was scared of something, it was actually her brain telling her to pay attention. Wouldn’t it make sense,” Chelsea said, “that all these times we’ve been running away from ghosts we should have been running towards them?”
As she yapped, I crawled towards the frost covered window. I had to scratch the ice off like a gas-station lottery ticket to see whoever was out there. But even with it all scratched off, all there was was a shadow walking towards the blinking red light, some car’s alarm system. A door squeaked open and the blinking stopped.
“We should sneak out the back,” I told Chelsea.
But all she had to say to that was, “Do you think some ghosts are actually scared for us?”
I finally got her to follow me, and we crept over torn books and shattered family pictures, down into that long dark hallway, when I heard the boots again. They thumped loud, running towards the front door. Chelsea almost floated over me as we slipped into that last room, where I shut us in just as the front door burst open.
And I must have hit it, because in my coat, the recorder buzzed back awake. It said, “For example, Georg Cantor. He created the first fractal before Mandalbrot ever did. To make one, what you do is: you take a line, and remove the middle chunk.”
I pulled my jacket tight together to try and suffocate the noise while I peeked under the door, but it didn’t even matter because Chelsea wouldn’t shut up.
She was behind my shoulder saying, “You should see this,” while the recorder said, “Now you’re left with two smaller lines. For each of these two lines, repeat the process. Take out the middles. One becomes two becomes four becomes eight.”
“Really,” Chelsea said, “You really need to see this.”
So I turned around, finger to my lips, but as soon as I did, everything went numb. Steam rose off my fingertip like a warm gun, towards the unmade bed I was looking at. A giant stuffed animal laid tangled in the sheets, holding something in its hands.
“Now apply that pattern in two dimensions,” the recorder said.
Scissors. Paper. That was what the stuffed animal was holding. Small flat, white diamonds dotted its chest. Shapes cut from the paper. One of these squares hung from the tip of the scissors. Frozen in time.
The recorder said, “Fold. Cut. Fold. Repeat. What Georg Cantor did was spend his entire life figuring out how snowflakes dissolve.”
The truth was, this wasn’t a giant stuffed animal I was looking at.
Chelsea whispered, “Do you remember yet?”
Another gust of wind tore through the house.
It tore through the house because whoever was looking for us had finally flung the bedroom door open. Standing over me, with a coat that hung like a dress and a beanie that slid down over its forehead, was a skeleton.
He looked down at me, this emaciated man, pushing his hat up over his eyes with the back of his hand. A hand holding onto a bright orange gun.
“You’re alive?” he asked, water dripping from his untrimmed beard and against my face. “It’s been ten years.”
The voice that came out of his mouth was the same voice coming out of the recorder, and I could almost remember how I knew him. I looked over for Chelsea, but she was gone. Wind whipped through the open window as if she had evaporated through it.
“Just…” the skeleton man said as he pushed his beanie back up with his gun. “Just…stay right there.”
He fumbled back down the long dark hallway, and I considered following Chelsea out the open window, but that would’ve meant crawling over the bed of this not-stuffed-animal. This liquid-nitrogened child.
She smiled at her paper snowflake. She had to have been smiling at that snowflake ever since the green lights had turned to red lights. In that same amount of time, I had lived in more homeless shelters than she probably had baby teeth. I had lost my job and more money than I’ll probably ever see again.
I crawled over to her bed, taking off my coat to wrap it around her as if it could dissolve away the last decade, and from the living room the skeleton man shouted, “Remember what you told me about Alan Turning?”
He said, “You told me that he was the one who gave computers memory. You told me that he modeled hard drives after cold storage, so that information could be preserved forever.”
I tucked my coat tighter around this tiny girl covered in her lattice of tiny square crystals, and the snowglobe rolled out from the pocket, against my stomach.
“Memories can be forgotten but they can never disappear,” the man yelled. “That’s what you taught me.”
I picked up the snowglobe, and the wires in my brain must have come uncrossed because I saw myself in it. Not just my reflection. My actual self. One of those three polyethylene figures, carved from wax and standing watch over the other two.
Chelsea and my daughter. My wife and this freezer-burned child laying in front of me.
An ugly family trapped in ice.
“You taught me,” the skeleton man said, “that all it takes is one instruction from the processor, one little nudge, and boom! You’re right back where you left off.”
On that day, the day of the Endotherm, when the lights had turned from green to red, my student had asked me, “What did I do wrong?”
He said. “I studied Boltzmann, I studied Cantor, and Turning. I did everything you said. What could I have done wrong?”
And on that day, in that lab, the fat in his cheeks had already started to burn away. Instead of running logs, instead of capturing crash reports or mitigating the system failure. I left. I was the chief scientist, and I left him there to drive straight home.
“They said you went mad,” the skeleton man said as he stepped back into my daughter’s room. “They said you lost your mind, but I wouldn’t believe it.”
“I wouldn’t believe it,” he said. “Until I found this.”
He shook one of the notebooks from the coffee table at me, and I wanted to throw the snowglobe in my hand against him like I was one of Chelsea’s angry spirits. I wanted to destroy this house all over again like when I came home the day of the Endotherm and found my daughter frozen to her bed.
“Do you even remember?” the skeleton man asked.
He said, “You told me, Alan wasted his entire life trying to understand how memories thaw because you could create a world where nothing changed.”
“But what you really did was waste my life.” The skeleton man—my old student—he slammed my notebook on the bed. “You let me believe that your mistake was mine.”
The notebook was flipped open to the middle. Tucked in that page like a bookmark—between drawings of Carnot engines and binomial equations—was Chelsea’s obituary. She smiled from the black and white picture the same way my daughter smiled at her snowflake.
It was the last picture we had taken before the chemo. It was the last picture we had taken before Chelsea lost all her hair.
“You never told me that Alan Turning died of cyanide poisoning,” the skeleton man said, waving his bright orange gun around. “You never told me that Georg Cantor was committed to a sanitarium, or that Ludwig Boltzman hung himself in front of his wife and daughter.”
He pulled back the hammer on his weapon, “You never told me that when you try to control everything, it tears you apart.”
It was a flare gun, the thing he had pointed at my face. The barrel shook all around, drawing invisible lines together in front of me, and I said, “I’m sorry.”
I said, “If you put the gun down, we can still figure it out. We can fix all this.”
He hesitated, biting his cracked lip. The barrel kept bouncing between my eyes, and I told him, “It’s okay to be scared.”
And that did it. His arm shook as he slowly lowered the gun. He lowered it from my head to my chest until it was pointing at the floor. And that was the moment I jumped. I jumped up and smashed the snowglobe into his face.
The weapon flashed, something cracked, and then there was nothing.
The truth was, I had wasted everyone’s time.
Before the Endotherm, while Chelsea was dying of cancer, I had siphoned time away from everyone else. All those wires, all those pipes, all those plugged in houses, I never turned them on. I diverted every Joule of energy meant for everyone else to my own house.
But even all that condensed atomic soup pumping through our vents and radiating over our WiFi it hadn’t been enough to completely stop entropy. We had discovered Chelsea’s cancer too late, and it was too far along. By the time I had rigged the system, her cells were already too much for her to hold.
They were exploding inside her like a Petri dish. Asymptotic. Reaching for infinity.
It was a week after her funeral when I went back to work to try to fix the system. But it was too late for everyone. As soon as I switched everything over, as soon as I flooded those dormant pipes and wires with all that energy, the system couldn’t handle the stress.
None of us could.
It was the crackling that woke me up. A popping that sounded like what happens after you’ve walked too far out onto a frozen lake. Sharp splinterings that forced my eyes open.
My skeletonized student lay on top of me. Black blood oozed from his nose, which shone like oil off the orange-heat clawing up at the walls around us. A fire that was trying to get at the pipes inside—whatever was left of that expired molecular soup.
I pushed him off to get to my daughter. Flames raged around her bed and licked away the fuzz on my face as I rushed over.
But she was stuck. The criss-cross fabric from my coat had fused into her bare skin, and that paper white drop of snowflake hanging from her scissors evaporated into a puff of black smoke. We were all melting together, caught in the fight between both ends of a thermometer.
So I left.
I climbed over my daughter and jumped out that open window into a blanket of ash and snow. Wires sizzled and pipes exploded sending shockwaves of energy into the air around me. I rolled through the yard and ran out into the street to escape along with them. And as I did something in that house wailed. The howling sent a current through me, forcing my hair on end.
And the truth was, if I didn’t know any better, if I wasn’t absolutely sure, I’d have said it was a ghost.

I have several graphs in multiple worksheets using multiple filters arrive at each graphs, some are line graphs, some are bar graphs. I want to add a dynamic or automated text box in the dashboard such that values labelled in the graphs can be used to prepare a commentary based on each graph. The data story viz does not work in my organization need to prepare a similar commentary it could have generated.
Thanks in advance!

I have several graphs in multiple worksheets using multiple filters arrive at each graphs, some are line graphs, some are bar graphs. I want to add a dynamic or automated text box in the dashboard such that values labelled in the graphs can be used to prepare a commentary based on each graph. The data story viz does not work in my organization need to prepare a similar commentary it could have generated.
Thanks in advance!

I have several graphs in multiple worksheets using multiple filters arrive at each graphs, some are line graphs, some are bar graphs. I want to add a dynamic or automated text box in the dashboard such that values labelled in the graphs can be used to prepare a commentary based on each graph. The data story viz does not work in my organization need to prepare a similar commentary it could have generated.
Thanks in advance!