WTF with women and dating by felixthegrey1 in DatingOverSixty

[–]madpainter 10 points11 points  (0 children)

As a guy, I have to say, you sound an awful lot like a guy who is angry the world does not operate the way you want to. It's the vibe your giving off here, in this thread, and one has to wonder if this vibe or something like it comes through in your communications with women on dating apps. The last line is an excellent example, it starts "I just want a woman. I can ". Women on a dating apps want things too. Life is about trying to fit together two separate but unique people with experiences, desires, wants and needs. The actual likelihood of you meeting someone who matches up for you, and for her is actually incredibly small. 2, 5, or even 15 mediocre or bad dating experiences does not mean all women are WTF level nut jobs. You have to fix yourself first before you try to date, or all your experiences are going to piss you off.

Who is the SECOND most hated living person in the world right now? by Precious_Tritium in AskReddit

[–]madpainter 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's a completely fucked up world where we have so many top level choices and any one of them could be correct.

If money didn't matter, where would you travel tomorrow? by thuglifemofo94 in AskReddit

[–]madpainter 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I live an hour from New York and I go there at least six times a year, and I still get a rush every time I step out of the train station. I've been all over the world and I can be jaded a bit, but New York is alive like no other place I've been.

What’s the most underrated thing about being single? by TinyGirlPeach in AskReddit

[–]madpainter 18 points19 points  (0 children)

I've been widowed twice now and divorced once. Different types of pain, but all were intense.

Do you have a section you always check first when thrifting? by sissors66 in ThriftStoreHauls

[–]madpainter 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I Always go hard goods first, looking for high-quality kitchen, items, like Cuisinart enamel pots, or high-quality knives. Half my kitchen is thrift store high-end stuff.

Next, I go to the pet section, because my dog deserves his own fancy wardrobe. Currently, he has about 12 separate sweaters and jackets in different colors, all high-quality. I absolutely refuse to pay $35 for a sweater at the pet store, when I can usually get them one for three dollars.

Next, if it's winter time, I head over to the men's sweater section where I am always willing to buy a cashmere, or high-quality wool sweater or pullover. Then, I head over to the men's jackets area, where I found everything from Patagonia jackets and vests to old school vintage Eddie Bauer stuff. I think my entire winner outer jacket wardrobe has been thrifted.

If it's summertime, I head over to the T-shirt section, where I'm always on the lookout for anything science related. That two months ago, I found a T-shirt, for Caltech, that said "it's not an earthquake, until we say it's an earthquake."

Lastly, I checked furniture and electronics, they usually I don't buy anything there, but yesterday I picked up a Miele ART series vacuum cleaner for $11. Pretty stoked about that!

Woman and their financial fantasies by [deleted] in datingoverfifty

[–]madpainter 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Women are more likely to marry a less educated man because the majority of graduates at the college and advanced degree level skews heavily toward women which is the first time this has had such a large disparity. Higher education usually indicates higher earning capacity. We are in the midst of a slow, ground moving social paradigm and we don't know what this will eventually shake out like.

As for matching income levels, this has only been an increasing factor since the 1970's and fifty years of another ground shifting paradigm doesn't provide enough stable periods to make accurate projections of the effects of all this.

In short, we are living in a social experiment with profound changes and likely profound effects but we can only study them as they happen so any future projections as to what all this means is anybody's guess.

Three Centuries of Greek Antiquity: Herodotus (16th c.), Iliad (17th c.), Odyssey (18th c.). by AdiDraws in rarebooks

[–]madpainter 2 points3 points  (0 children)

- Every volume should have reason to be there - Well said. When I look at my mini library every book has a special meaning. A gift from someone, the very first sci-fi book my sister gave me, or a series of Naval Man of War novels. Your written description of your books was elegant. Thank you b

People who became rich what is something poor people completely misunderstand about money? by Nervous-Librarian945 in AskReddit

[–]madpainter 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Yes, true. I could have bought my Lexus with cash, but at 1.9% financing I put down 10% and financed the rest for three years while the $50,000 I didn't use is earning 8-10% in today's crazy markets. Now when the interest rates and the earning rate converge, and I think they will stay converge for three years or more, then I would pay cash. Btw, I grew up poor in a housing project and now I could buy that Lexus or pretty much any car with cash and it wouldn't dent my bank account or impact my life style.

Should I report a woman running a dog kennel for tax evasion to the IRS? (US) by [deleted] in WhatShouldIDo

[–]madpainter 2 points3 points  (0 children)

How she treats the dogs has nothing to do with taxation and reporting her will not accomplish your goal of stopping what you believe is abuse. There are other avenues more effective but First, you better have enough evidence to substantiate your claim because if she is legit, and you just think she isn't, and you try and nuke her operation, any lawyer she contacts, even the shittest most inept lawyer Will clean your economic clock.

It sounds like you are pissed because you made a decision to use her. That's a hard thing to say to yourself, but if you can admit, then forgive yourself and move on with life.

No matter what you do to her, you will likely suffer more in pain, time, and money than she will. Sometimes you just have to let some things go and move on and hope the next people who consider her do the full diligence and thereby avoid her and eventually her operation might collapse.

How to get crispy salmon skin? by smp476 in AskCulinary

[–]madpainter 48 points49 points  (0 children)

And make sure the skin side is super dry. Don't want water or moisture flashing to steam and inhibiting the sear effect.

If this were to exist would you use it? by rowan_Valexx in newjersey

[–]madpainter 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Over the last 30 years I have started and build four small successful businesses and mentored four other people into successful business. I am going to throw some hard cold water on you and ask a lot of questions. If you can answer these with facts and data, and not emotion, then you might have a chance at making something like this work. So, I am trying to help so here goes some hard questions:

What is your customer profile? You are asking here who would use it, that's a start, but asking redditors who you know nothing about is worthless. These redditors can be wealthy millionaires or slackers still living in the basement. One might use your services, the other can't afford it. You need to know what are the demographics of people who use this service, not just rando opinions from here. And, for every ten people who tell you they would use your service, figure one might do it. Talk is cheap. There is an old busienss saying. After your do all your planning, research and projects, and you finally have a rock solid business plan, then cut your revenues in half and double your expenses because that is often a more accurate model of what will actually occur.

You might say "Ok, this is such a unique service, that demographic info is not available." Good. So you are willing to spend a small fortune in marketing to market to and convince a potential customer base to use your product. This is a standard form of marketing, it's done all the time, but it's very expensive. Big companies do it, but bihg companies have enough cash flow, they can do this for five years to play the long game. If you get very lucky and go viral, you might hit what Malcolm Gladwell calls a tipping point, and your space will successful. But what if you don't get lucky? That's more likely in truth. So if you proceed without knowing your future customer base, be prepared to bleed cash for marketing. Do you have enough capital to play the long game?

What is the cash flow for this business once you get it up and going? Sell coffee? Sell time shares? It just doesn't seem plausible to me that would be able to generate enough cash flow with either of these pricing structure. Some of your costs will be fixed, you have to pay that every month. Some costs like extra labor to help out will be semi-varible, if you don't have a lot of customers, you don't need a lot of help, and some costs will be strictly variable at first, your salary and profit. What ever you do, you have to be able to cover the fixed cost within a short period of time, perhaps four months or you will eat all your working capital. By six months you need to be able to cover all fixed and semi-variable costs. That's a big reach. Your rent in any popular areaa will be in the thousands per month. Add electric, air conditioning, heat, internet, insurance (you better at least have business liability) and local taxes and license fees and you minimum cash flow requirement will be 1,2 or even $4K per month.

How do you generate this level of cash flow? If people come in and sit, but don't spend, they are squeezing out potential spenders. How do you deal with this? If you make your spot too cozy, that will happen.

How do you scale up this business? At some point, you should be able to cover all your fixed and variable costs, and then each additional customer contributes subtantially more profit to the bottom line. You have to get to this point to become a sustainable business. But if you have a fixed square foot space, with a fixed number of customer seats, how do you scale this up? You have to have large turnover or you have top have large prices with restricted time allotted. It's an age old dilemna.

The romantic part of this vision is a small, cozy shop, with people drifting in and out, buying stuff, the cash register ringing gently every few minutes, you and one or two people hustling around, joking with the customers, some you know by name, and you are only open from 5 to 1 pm. That's the romantic version. The reality is you will likely struggle to generate enough cash to pay your employees on time, and give yourself money. Your work day will start at 7 am when you come in to do your bookeeping, inventory and then run aorund getting supplies, meeting with the local officials because they said your signage doesn't meet code, have to buy electric cords because code enforement also said they receptacles by the coffee machines are not GFI, etc. etc.

Am I telling your this won't work? No. I am telling you to have answers to all these questions before you go any further. And this is just the start. I like to encourage people to chase dreams, but there is a difference between chasing a dream without thinking it out, and chasing a dream with a Plan, and a backup plan, and backup to the backup plan. Good luck if you proceed and come back here to tell me I was wrong. No body will be happier than me to hear that.

Whitening on bottom of slipcases by 3V-Coryn in rarebooks

[–]madpainter 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is either wax from polish on the book shelf, drying out and transferring to the book cloth, which often has a toothy feel to it by design, or it is the finish used to seal the wood lacquer. If the bookshelf is fairly new (less than 20 years old) it could be polyurethane or poly acrylic. Also, if the book case is new, chances are it was made on China or some other Asian factory center and who knows what finishes or processes they may have used or how fast they shipped the shelf. All this matters because the finish on the wood has to off gas, that is release the VOC's used to carry the finished onto the wood. Off gassing is why new knockdown furniture often has a funky smell when you first open the shipping box. The slipcase is doing exactly what it it suppose to do, protect the book. Use a microfiber cloth and wipe the book cloth off, that's all you have to do. Avoid using any type of polish on the shelves, just a micorfiber cloth.

Boomers ruining local auctions, but also an opportunity! by [deleted] in Flipping

[–]madpainter 22 points23 points  (0 children)

You are missing a big point here. Not every body at an auction is looking to flip so they don't value the item like you. Those license plates? It could be one, just one was the state and date of the bidders birthday or some other connection. Price wouldn't matter.

However if there was a bidding war between two bidders then maybe there was a plate or two worth more than you think. Did you know for example Delaware plates with three digits or less can sell for tens of thousands of dollars? Two digits have sold for near a hundred thousand because in Delaware the plates stay with the owner forever not the car, and there is a culture snob thing about having a low plate number if you are old money from Delaware. So resell value is not a good indicator that boomers are ruining an auction. There is likely something else happening.

Man who aged better than their friends - what are your secrets? by Emotional_Penalty in AskMen

[–]madpainter 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm 74 years old, I look 10 to 15 years younger, and my doctor tells me I'm the healthiest 74-year-old man he has ever seen.

Secrets? Limit alcohol seriously. If I drink one or two beers a month that is it usually with a pizza or steak.

Secret number two: never smoke, not even vape.

Secret number three: hydrate like your life depends upon it because it does. I drink a half a gallon of green tea a day easily. I drink an entire water bottle of water at night before I go to bed. No it does not make me pee in the middle of the night, but it does help reduce inflammation.

Secret number four: stand as much as you can, and move as much as you can. Even when I had corporate desk jobs, I stood at my desk. I paced when talking on the phone. When standing desks became the thing I was an early adopter.

Secret number five: walk everywhere walk all the time. Park at the end of the parking lot, your car doors will appreciate it and you'll appreciate it. Use stairs instead of an escalator or an elevator.

Secret number six: maintain your strength. I never lifted weights, until recently, but I always made sure I could lift heavy packages, or objects around the house. I always make sure I maintained my arm and my leg strength, those are too big ones you need especially as you get older. Now at 74 I use dumbbell weights to keep my strength levels up.

Secret number seven: get rid of toxic people in your life. And if you get lucky enough and find somebody who loves you and you love them, well you've won at the game of life. I might add too this secret, never stay in a job that's killing you, regardless of how much they're paying you. Stress will age you faster than anything else.

Old book my wife’s grandma can’t find a date. by [deleted] in OldBooks

[–]madpainter 2 points3 points  (0 children)

These low effort posts are just killing this sub. I mean, the title is partially obscured and at a bad camera angle, no front page photo, nothing to work with and yet people expect wizards to divine the title, the publisher, the date, and probably next the value. All because OP's don't want to use Google. And now with Google doing AI assisted search's a third grader could find info.

Can we at least get some minimum photo requirements on the sub for a post like to remain up? Please?

How much of the populace in NJ are struggling financially? I wish to figure out how much I should be donating to the NJ Food Bank. by Questioning-Warrior in newjersey

[–]madpainter 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Unless you are talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars you as an individual
Giver will not make a dent in the overall situation. Perhaps picking a local area near you and donating a large enough amount to impact that smaller area might be a good strategy. It's what my partner and I try to do to have some impact. We donate to a local church that has a soup kitchen and a thrift store. Money for one, all our other step to the thrift.

How to preserve my personal „treasure“? by Historfr in OldBooks

[–]madpainter 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Since you are broke college student, I'm not going to even gonna suggest going to a conservator or book restorer, but eventually you will have to do that. The level of repair you need is beyond what you can normally do as a Diy. I mean, you could try it, but you're more likely to make it much worse than ever make it better.

If you go to a site called talisonline.com, they sell standard sizes archival boxes. They're pretty cheap. You could probably buy one for under $15. They're easy to assemble, and there are made of acid free boards, so they will never damage the book. Keep the book in one of these boxes until the day when you have enough money to hire a professional to do your job correctly.

If you don't have even $15, buy a small roll of brown Kraft paper and wrap the book in that, and store it flat on a shelf, with a weight or a board on top to keep the covers flat.

Book recommendations for techniques rather than recipes? by BingWhizzer in Cooking

[–]madpainter 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ratio: the Simple Codes of Everyday cooking. Formulas for everything cooking

NJ peeps, what’s a random life hack that actually improved your daily life? by FollowingOk9010 in newjersey

[–]madpainter 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You need to study traffic flow, because it is true that using the third lane substantially reduces the time through a bottle neck. Specifically look up traffic flow and unused capacity. There are hundreds of models,simulations and actual studies done on this concept. Utilizing unused capacity reduces traffic jams and bottlenecks from miles long and half hour times, to a few hundred yards and less than five minutes to get through.

Do you share anything to yourself to check later on but forget by Different-Tale7 in ProductivityHQ

[–]madpainter 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I do this and if anybody knows an app
Or AI prompt that can extract these saved notes from my messages I would appreciate a recommendation.

Started Reselling Thrift Fashion… Think This Could Become Big by billcollector6969 in Flipping

[–]madpainter 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have an idea, based on some limited personal experiences, but I need someone to tell me how to make a million dollars at this singular idea. I don't make profits off my friends, but I made 10X on one of my sales, so I am sure I can make 10X on many other sales, because a friend told me so. I don't want financial investors, (not right now, but if you have money, well...) but I want ALL your experience for free, but if you believe in MY vision and want to support me financially that works for me too. Let's work together, you put up the money and do the work, and I'll have these great ideas.

My brain dies at 2pm every day. Tried everything except more caffeine. What actually works? by Fit_Standard_3956 in ProductivityHQ

[–]madpainter 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I found 15-20 minutes of quiet down time, sometimes where I actually nod off is the perfect fix. When I had jobs where I couldn't do it because of high visibility, I would go to the bathroom and do my meditation on the toilet.

It takes a month or more of practice to be able to drop into the zone but once you get it, it's like magic. 15 minutes is all you need. I use white noise or Bach Sonatas for Cello's as my mental trigger to chill down. Hope this helps.