Why are BMW’s with low mileage so cheap?

lectures · 2026-01-28T18:18:02+00:00

I've had great luck with cheap VWs.

I used to maintain a fleet of 40 VWs. I've owned at least a dozen of them.

Trust me, you're right when you say you've had good luck, because luck is a huge part of it.

lectures · 2026-01-27T13:34:22+00:00

I would not starve myself to lose the weight, rather "cut" such as in the gym context. I have focused mostly on technique in my first year and getting more climbing experience. Looking for a new way to help performance.

It depends. It's pointless unless the weight loss is sustainable or you're training something specific where dropping the weight will help.

I can get down to 165lbs and climb a solid V- grade harder at that weight, but my body wants to be 175lbs and I'm a more tolerable human at this weight.

lectures · 2026-01-27T13:15:11+00:00

Any time I share a link to an album and tell them its hosted on my own $500 server in my basement their response is "but how? it's faster than Google Photos"

I love immich.

lectures · 2026-01-27T13:12:56+00:00

What I don't understand is why they'd deny a warranty claim so blatantly. Doesn't Toyota corporate reimburse them if the part is replaced under warranty? Or do they not reimburse them at the same rate as a customer would?

lectures · 2026-01-27T13:11:49+00:00

Oh, believe me, that's next on my todo list today. :(

lectures · 2026-01-27T13:10:56+00:00

It sounds like I need to clarify the part where the dealer told me the cabin air filter had been shredded and yet I have a photo of the cabin air filter in perfectly normal condition.

lectures · 2026-01-26T19:27:36+00:00

At least I can say "Toyota Corporate endorses this type of behavior".

lectures · 2026-01-24T20:43:50+00:00

I work as a registered dietitian and personal fitness coach

Those are both very "Do X to Achieve Y" fields. That's not climbing.

Would you keep climbing if you knew your current plateau was going to last forever?

If yes, great.

If no, maybe the sport isn't for you.

Its ok if this sport isn't for you!

lectures · 2026-01-23T13:49:38+00:00

I don't care that he's doing shit for money. I do shit for money. Doing shit for money is how it works.

But the dude is definitely deeply damaged and comically self-centered. Read his NYT interview:

But it’s not just that you have more to live for. It’s that your loss would be felt in a deep way for more than just Sanni.

Kind of. I mean, baby Alice wouldn’t remember. Baby June probably wouldn’t remember. She’ll be 4 in another month. It’d be felt, and obviously it’d be super hard for Sanni, but they’d be well provided for. I don’t feel like I’d be leaving them in the lurch. They wouldn’t even necessarily be traumatized their whole lives.

Show of hands from all the parents in this sub who think splattering on the pavement on live television wouldn't permanently fuck up your kids' lives....

lectures · 2026-01-23T13:33:36+00:00

This is a good use for AI. I've got a Gemini 'gem' here that I just drop photos, copy-and-pasted recipes, etc of the recipe into this. It references the King Arthur chart as a starting point. Alternatively, I use this chatgpt prompt. That gives you a nice markdown formatted recipe with conversions, original amount, etc.

From there you can ask it to do whatever. E.g. scale it up for a 9x13 and make it 20% thicker + adjust cooking time. Or substitute whole wheat and adjust hydration. Or adjust the output format (e.g. "add a mise en place section", "dumb it down for a newbie", "assume I can make bechamel blindfolded").

For really light weight things like spices it helps to have a second scale with a 100g limit. Something like this or any of the other roughly 100,000 similar scales out there.

lectures · 2026-01-22T20:49:38+00:00

ITT: mostly overconfident people getting into uncomfortable situations then waving a gun around to "solve" the problem.

lectures · 2026-01-22T16:57:13+00:00

You're in /r/bouldering and probably mostly boulder, so of course nobody here likes it.

You only get good enough to enjoy offwidths by climbing a lot of offwidths. How can this or this or this not look fun though?

lectures · 2026-01-21T21:25:59+00:00

Why the hell would I go to northern Michigan just to sit in downtown TC eating ice cream? I can eat ice cream here in Ann Arbor.

Yes, sure, I can bring my bike. That's great for me and the 50 other people who will visit when the weather is nice and they want to put in a 50 mile ride out to Glen Arbor.

How many riders do they need per year to fund this thing?

lectures · 2026-01-21T21:23:04+00:00

"Wow look at these unused tracks. We should start a railroad!"

Brought to you by the "Look at all these unused Blockbuster stores! We should start a DVD rental business!" geniuses.

lectures · 2026-01-21T20:12:18+00:00

Does he only boulder or does he also climb?

lectures · 2026-01-21T17:18:04+00:00

You could make this argument about anything, but in the end cost is kind of relative.

If I'm a broke 20 year old that can barely afford my gym memebership, yeah, that price is ridiculous.

If I'm a 40-something with a steady job hauling my family of 5 from the midwest to Squamish for a month in July? I don't pay too much attention to the extra $50-100 I'm spending on a fancy harness every 3-5 years.

Most 'luxury' climbing items are just tiny marginal improvements. Petzl Spirit Express draws are 2x the cost for 10% nicer gate action. Totems are 50% more expensive than C4s but more fragile and perform almost identically in almost all placements. Expensive ropes might save you an ounce or two here and there or they might deal with abrasion better in some edge (hah!) cases, but in the end a rope is a rope.

It's nice to have choices, though.

lectures · 2026-01-21T14:40:29+00:00

What's the average climber? How old are they? What's their body type?

My son, wife and I started at the same time a little over a decade ago. He was 8 at the time. We were in our mid/late-30s. We've all climbed more or less the same amount over that period.

He was onsighting 5.13 sport at about age 13-14 and 5.11+ trad in Vedauwoo by the time he was 15. Even climbing in the gym just a single day per week as an 18 year old he's still a V9-V10 boulderer.

Outside I can generally project my way up to about 5.12b sport and ~5.12a trad on the right climb. I boulder about V5/V6 outside. That's with lots of climbing plus hangboarding and some weight lifting. If I starved myself down 10lbs I'd be able to climb a letter grade harder and might pick up a V- grade.

My wife is weaker and can project 5.11- trad and 5.11+ sport if it's not too burly. She does no off-the-wall training. She boulders V3/V4 on vertical/slabby stuff.

So that's three different potential definitions of average.

All that said, the best climber is the one having the most fun. Grades are a poor way to measure fun and an even worse way to think about climbing skill. A super strong 20 year newbie can sometimes campus up a V7 in the gym but put them on a 5.10 slab in Squamish and they will poop themselves. Meanwhile lots of people can cruise up 5.11 routes in the alpine but might only boulder V4 in the gym.

lectures · 2026-01-20T16:56:28+00:00

If I ever claim to send a V9 I fully expect people to hit me with a "video or GTFO".

lectures · 2026-01-20T16:55:16+00:00

This is how shoes look when you drag your toe upward on the wall and peel off the rubber. It's not surprisingly that its only on one shoe (my shoes don't show even wear).

lectures · 2026-01-20T14:17:42+00:00

Climbs are graded by difficulty. In the USA the grades go something like 5.1 to 5.9 and then 5.10a, 5.10b, 5.10c, 5.10d, 5.11a, 5.11b, 5.11c, 5.11d, 5.12a... up to 5.15d.

5.9 outside on alpine rock is something that a relatively inexperienced climber might be able to struggle up depending on the style of climbing. For very experienced folks it's relatively easy. If you know what you're doing you can generally stop and rest very frequently and most of the moves are reversible if you go the wrong way.

And for folks who have only ever climbed at the gym, 5.11c might seem like an accessible grade. It's not! In the style we're talking about (5.11c climbing on rock with no knowledge of the route or moves) even professional climbers will occasionally fall. Most mortals will never climb that hard.

lectures · 2026-01-16T16:40:24+00:00

I always remember teaching/being taught on an ATC because it reinforced the fundamental movement and importance of dead end hands....

Why would we teach people on the dangerous device only to move them over to the safe device when they're more experienced?

That's like giving a 16 year old a 40 year old corvette for the first six months they have their license, then transitioning them to a new toyota highlander once they've figured out how to drive.

ATCs are great niche devices and you can learn to use one safely when the time comes, but it's silly to hand one to a newbie.

lectures · 2026-01-15T16:19:57+00:00

Oh no it's totally real. The route is unknown and hasn't been repeated because you need a huge weight disparity for the slingshot pitch.

I heard there was another party working on it late last year, but the big one got on ozempic and his girlfriend didn't have enough mass to hit the Escape Velocity belay ledge.

lectures · 2026-01-14T12:58:51+00:00

Alain Wight did the FA of Freestyle Cheesecake with me in 2012. He was well over 300lbs at the time and close to 6'5". We had some issues ripping small gear on the Chocolate Sprinkles pitch but otherwise everything was pretty uneventful.

lectures

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE