The Born Loser by Art and Chip Sansom for January 17, 2022

I’ve been rereading Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Series, which was written in the 1950’s. Asimov thought that someday people would have nuclear powered appliances in their homes, as in washers with built in nuclear reactors. Anyway, I think Brutus should buy an atomic coffee maker from the Foundation.

A coffee maker and a couple space heaters is all you will need power for.

Yeah, Brutus, where are your priorities.

Most electric furnace’s for houses run on 220 volts, I’m not sure that a small generator could handle that kind of load or not.

Even if I drank coffee, I consider heat to be the single most crucial thing.

Generator for the furnace, refrigerator, phone chargers, and ignitors for the gas stove. Water kettle on the stove for the French press.

I know nothing was said about this, but for the colder parts of our older house we use a space heater which works pretty well. Could work for Brutus in an emergency. I would also plug in a charger for rechargeable batteries, phone and/or laptop. (I’m sure Mr. Sansom would have included all of that in the strip if there was room to do so. At least he got the coffee maker in there.)

When I served a aboard a nuclear submarine, we shut down the reactor and were running the backup diesel. The coffee pot was one thing shut down to save power. Since the navy runs on coffee, the captain made an exception.

Gladys just won my heart! You gotta have priorities! Ammirite?

in our not very well wired house we have the choice of using the toaster or the futon dryer or the coil to heat the bath water – if we try any in combination or all at the same time the house blows up…

The lights are on but nobodies home.

I like the way she thinks!

I have a coffeemaker with a thermal carafe (so there’s no hotplate) hooked up to a small UPS. I can make a week’s worth of pots with power out.

When I was in the military every place important had backup generators. The canteen even had a backup backup. Canteen sold beer and cigs/tobacco and other essential products like coffee/sodas. Uh huh.

Gotta have your priorities! ;-) lol

With thorium reactors, something like a residential nuclear power unit might be possible.

thee important stuff ya see. My family would agree, we’re grouches without our coffee.

She’s got that right. But the generator should be able to run both. But if it can’t, you’ve always got the fireplace for heating……

For those with generators. Be sure to run them at least every other month, under load. Hair dryers work great for that, easy to know the wattage.

A coffeemaker draws twice the electric power of a gas furnace.

I had to run a pellet furnace off a car battery for three days after a windstorm in Mendocino knocked out the power. Had to learn how to operate a pellet furnace. Unfortunately, there was no power for water from the well – instant 19th century! Plan ahead.

I see Brutus is actually expecting to find and know how to operate this generator at the last minute.

This is exactly why I buy my caffeine in soda form. Too bad they cut the amount of caffeine in Diet Sunkist by more than half a few years ago. I really liked the taste, but I need to feed my addiction more.

Gladys you are my soul mate!

Get out the camp stove for that. Perked coffee.

Wonder if the electric goes out in the Metaverse

Gladys, you’re starting to make me like you a little bit. We both love chocolate and coffee, so that’s a start.

I have a bigger generator and can run 2 chest freezers a fridge and microwave and 2 electric heaters with it..

It appears that Gladys has her priorities in the correct order…..

If I had to choose between heating the house and being able to brew coffee, I think I’d opt for the former.

There’s an eye care surgery clinic across the parking lot behind me. They have a huge Kohler generator outside. I wonder how many extension cords I’d need to tap into that.