Digital Analogue

Knob-and-tube wiring

The neat think about living in a house with old K&T wiring is that you can play with it. The bar to entry is very low; and there is a sense of being transported back to the wild and woolly early days of electricity, when anyone could play. All I put in was an overhead light fixture, replacing one that seems to have been there long ago, but whose hanging wire at some point got cut. The one I installed was its direct descendant: plastic instead of ceramic, and with the socket mounted instead of hanging, but it was a simple white piece that screwed into the floor support and had two exposed screws to connect to the wiring. This particular one also doubled as an open junction box, providing power to one of my living room outlets. Yet as simple as it was, it was immensely satisfying to see it in place and working after I turned the power back on.

Replacing the bathroom faucets turned out to be a bigger job than expected, because the 50s-era plumbing that was there used rigid copper tubing to connect the knobs to the faucet, and these were hard to manoeuvre around. Also, I took the opportunity to remove the whole shebang from its position and see how the fixture and the plumbing fit together, which will come in handy when I get around to tiling that room. (Side note: ceramic sink-and-pedestal fixtures weigh a ton.) I got everything back together a little while ago, and nothing seems to be leaking, so, all good there.

I also managed to hang most of my plants, as well as my key rack, so progress is definitely being made. I needed to mow the lawn today, but forgot until it was getting dark, so hopefully I'll be able to find time tomorrow. (God I hate lawn care.) And, oh, I suppose I should be doing some more unpacking at some point....

"Infinity+1 must be prime. Multiply all the positive integers together, and you get positive infinity. So infinity must be congruent to 0 modulo every positive integer. Therefore, infinity+1 must be congruent to 1 modulo every positive integer larger than 1. So, it has no natural divisors other than 1; therefore, infinity+1 is necessarily prime." --Brent Spillner