We have a new boiler!

[conuly]

It is blue. I didn't even know they came in colors!

*********************

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Comments

[gingicat]

I wonder how this Braille reader differs from a BrailleNote? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrailleNote

[wpadmirer]

Cool! Heat is a good thing.

[kengr]

This is a 9-line Braille display, with a few controls.

The BrailleNote is a low end laptop with a keyboard (regular or Braille) and a *one line* Braille display.

That "18 or 32 column" description in the wiki article refers to the number of "columns" of pins. It takes two columns to display *one* Braille character.

So that's a 9 or 16 *character* display.

My friend Lin got a secondhand BrailleNote years ago, but hasn't been able to use it since the battery died (you have to send it back to the factory to get the battery replaced, and it's *expensive*)

[kengr]

Boiler? Do you have steam heat or something? Or is that just a regional term for a hot water heater?

[darkoshi]

I was wondering the same thing. Either way, I've never seen any color ones before either.

[conuly]

Most New Yorkers have steam heat. Our buildings are old. (My house in particular is celebrating its centennial soon!)

[kengr]

I recall when a lot of buildings in downtown Portland had to install new heating systems.

PGE was shutting down a power plant that was at the edge of the downtown area. It had been there since the early 20th century.

The buildings in question had been getting steam heat from steam piped from the power plant. Some of them were buildings built as late as the 60s.

Quite the scramble when the plant closure was announced in the 80s.

I've lived in a building (an old boarding house converted to apartments) that had old style radiators. But these weren't steam. Just hot water. But the radiators looked the same.

[gingicat]

Oh, good to know! That means my friends will be delighted by rather than annoyed with the article. (One of them brings her BrailleNote *everywhere* and was devastated when her first one broke. Fortunately she was able to find a used one and her family helped pay for it.)

[moxie_man]

Though she confirmed she has a steam heat system, I suspect it's a regional term as I've heard it used up here in Maine, where many a furnace/boiler are either hot air systems or baseboard hot water (not boiling hot). Mine is baseboard and it also happens to be blue in color.

Baseboard systems tend to also double as the hot water heater for obvious reason.

[bibliofile]

Congratulations on your new blue source for hot water and heat! May it work well and efficiently for the rest of your life.

[conuly]

Yes, now we just need to fix all the radiators that don't work right.