I got banned for visiting my mother. No really. I decided to log on from her house, and the anti-bot bot noticed I was using a different IP address and flagged me for being a bot. Did the little dance to confirm I’m a real person, which resulted in a permanent ban. Thanks Reddit!
Stories like this always remind me of the Peter’s parking deck at GA Tech. The couple that donated the land wanted it to be a park, so that the students would have a green place to play and relax. Once Tech had the land, they put a parking deck there instead. But they put a basketball court on the top level so that they technically met the letter of the law.
In fairness, as a student I needed that parking deck way more than I needed the park.
Ever play with a pair of binoculars or an old camera where you had to manually turn knobs in order to focus on something in the distance? That’s the ‘focal point’. This is what LASIK changes. So, if you can currently see stuff up close but not far away, LASIK can move your focal point to make it easier to see things clearly at a different distance.
What LASIK does not change is how wide your focus range is. That’s controlled by your eye muscles and how flexible your cornea is. As you get older, that range gets narrower and narrower.
Using myself as an example, My LASIK set my focal point at around arm’s length. So I can see my computer monitor no problem. I had my surgery around 25, and for years I didn’t need glasses at all. When I reached my 40s, I realized I was having trouble reading very small print, and things very far away were a bit blurry. So I now keep a pair of distance seeing glasses in the car for when I’m driving, and I also have a couple of pairs of readers lying around the house. I still walk around without glasses, but there are times when I need to pull out a pair.
Peanut Butter. Put a big dob on a plate and hand me a spoon.
Like, I’m at the point where I’ve acquired a Vitamix so I can make my own. Which is even more dangerous, as now I can also control the sugar and add flavorings. A nice dash of brown sugar or a hint of Vanilla really make it pop.
I’m kinda surprised we can’t do this by simply insulating the center-most half of the pot’s bottom. When heated on a burner, this would make the outsides hotter than the core, which ought to cause our soup to rise along the sides of the pot and then roll back to the center, forming a nice current that auto-stirs.
I suspect the reason we don’t do this is that eventually, even insulated, the center would still reach equilibrium & we’d lose our circulation. In order to keep this going, we’d need to change the burners, not the pots. We’d need to design burners to be hot on the outside but cooled at the center.
Back when I was really into fighting games, I made a set for myself. They were awesome for fighting games, but not usable for any other games. Pretty much every other game at the time (late 90s) wanted the analog functionality from the joysticks, which a fighting game stick doesn’t have (or didn’t anyway, I admit I have not kept current).
I would add, at the time it was possible to find an arcade supply store and buy commercial parts direct. I don’t think those sources exist anymore.
Kenny from South Park?
I agree, we need to stop chasing a moving target. Instead, minimum wage needs to be adjusted every year to account for inflation.
Fun fact, the maximum amount you can donate to your congressmen is increased every year to account for inflation. So, we already have the formulas in place.
Yes. Although they’ve gone to shit, I still encourage using contractor rating sites like Angie’s, Yelp, Google, or those mailers that come around once a year. Get three quotes from high rated companies. Make a point to listen to the perceived pain points from each of them, as each of them will point out different issues. Circle back with the first quotes to ensure they have a plan to address everything. Ask about insurance, ask about cleanup. Expect to pay more for good quality.
I should add, I do all the small & medium stuff myself. So the only contractors I deal with are here for ‘big’ jobs. That might be your issue - a small project isn’t going to fill a whole day, so the best contractors aren’t going to look at it.
Even this doesn’t guarantee great contractors FYI. I had some windows replaced, in my opinion they did a subpar job for the price. Will probably hold up for 10 years, but it will need to be redone at some point.
Reheat pizza by placing a few drops of water in a frying pan & cover. Gives the bottom the slightest bit of crunch & the steam reheats the rest evenly.
Canned soup + a bouillon cube + extra of that one thing that you like (pasta, rice, meat, veggie).
You can use frozen strawberries instead of ice in many drinks. Doesn’t water the drink down, and you get a sweet treat at the end.
Folks often ask me how I manage to keep my old cars looking & running so great. I’d love to say it’s because I do all the maintenance, and of course that helps. But the real answer is because I keep them in a garage. It really is that simple. It blows my fucking mind that America is so car-centric on every other aspect except having housing with enough garage space.
XNview. This was a screen capture & basic editing tool I started using in like the Windows95 era. Yes, the latest couple of version of Windows also do this, but I’ve got the hotkeys memorized at this point.
I reckon I should point out that I’m transitioning to Linux, so I rarely use it anymore. But we had a helluva run together.
Although I agree, as a thought exercise, how about we also split up companies worth 1 billion dollars? We used to call them monopolies, but corporations have become very good at staying technically just under that bar. I’d argue this is part of the problem.
1968 Chrysler Wagon.
Finally had a bit of time this weekend, started replacing the main seal for the rear differential so that it would hold oil. Got the whole thing apart only to realize I had ordered the wrong seal. So, going to be up on jackstands for another week. On the upside, gave me time to replace the rear shocks and also do an oil change.
Write it down.
I use two whiteboards to separate priority. The one in the kitchen is for timely stuff: Take the trash out, doctor’s appointment Tuesday. The one in the office is for longer term stuff: Fix the garden gate, paint bathroom.
If you’re stressing, pick something & make some progress on it. You can only do so much in a day though, while you are working, stop & realize that hey, you’re making progress! And perhaps the biggest thing for me is I don’t erase my projects when I complete them, I cross them off. Then on Sunday morning, I take a moment to look at everything I completed before clearing the whiteboards & starting over for next week.
I made peanut butter at home last night. Both batches came out great.
It really is pretty darn simple. I buy normal roasted peanuts at the store, then grind them up in a Vitamix (think blender, but on steroids), then add a pinch of flavors to taste.
Reddit’s bot detection bot banned me for being a bot. The irony was too much.
First off, everything you wrote is excellent. And I love the Halloween vids below too - particularly the night shot with the flame bulb!
I did go the bigger turbo route with mine, and was autocrossing & doing track days with it for probably the first 10 years of it’s life. So, I wasn’t exactly being easy on the trans. So hopefully you’ve got more life left in yours. Also, good to know that if I ever have issues with the block, it sounds like I have a lot of options.
Only piece I can add is I did also look into STI transmissions. The bell housing side will bolt right to the block, but nothing else fits. The gear ratios are wrong compared to the rear diff, and the mounts for the halfshafts are different as well. In order to do the swap, you need the whole STI drivetrain all the way out to the hub & wheels. Sure you can do that, but finding all those parts is going to require a donor STI. And if you have a donor STI, why aren’t you building that out instead…
Biggest difference was at the doctor’s office:
Fat me: Doctor, I’ve been shot!
Doctor: Have you tried losing weight? That’s clearly the problem.
Thin me: Doctor, I’ve been shot!
Doctor: Well your bloodwork looks great, nothing to do here.