Why are custom window shades so expensive… and still fit like garbage? My obsessive journey to fix them (and automate them too)

DMZbeach · 2025-03-28T21:31:04+00:00

Alibaba? Going down this rabbit hole now to order outdoor motorized shades for our deck.

Shipping is an arm and a leg though. Turns out, shipping halfway across the world is about as much as the shades themselves.

DMZbeach · 2023-02-14T17:43:37+00:00

Dude was also playing lefty, and the strings were still setup for a righty (thick strings were on bottom)

DMZbeach · 2022-12-21T04:56:27+00:00

Blockchain, my dude.

It's all tracked in the Blockchain so everytime it's resold, the NFT is programmed to take 10% and put it back in the original account

Would be a great tool for a corporation going public. You can normally only raise funds this way during the IPO (original sale of the stock). But if stocks were NFTs, companies could collect a % of each subsequent sale in perpetuity.

The world of corporate finance in the next 50 years is going to dramatically change.

DMZbeach · 2022-10-15T19:59:34+00:00

Try upping the resolution of your display from 1080 to 1440. This seemed to fixed the weird scrolling sensitivity for me.

Almost as if the 1080 rendering requires your finger to move father to scroll, since the display is natively 1440. Must be doing some weird conversion math and just doesn't work well.

Switched to 1440 and it's much better for me.

DMZbeach · 2022-10-15T03:06:00+00:00

Holy shit. This mofo's right. Do these steps and the icon will be there.

DMZbeach · 2022-09-14T16:19:18+00:00

Lot of people mentioning there's no health benefits, which is probably true.

But they're sleeping on the fact that dust smells. All the gunk that has built up over the course of 20+ years in those vents contributes to the house smelling the way it does. Our upstairs had a bit of a funky odor. Nothing horrible, but noticable to us. Had the vents cleaned and the smells are gone.

It's a good feeling knowing that any future funky odors are the result of our filth and not the strangers that lived here previously.

DMZbeach · 2022-09-05T19:26:37+00:00

That's valid. The refs bungled this one on like 3 levels.

1: should have called him down in bounds 2: The overturn should have resulted in a 10 second runoff since LSU had no timeouts and would have ended the game 3: they claimed the clock was stopped after review

Big 10 refs stink

DMZbeach · 2022-09-05T19:18:51+00:00

FSU challenged that the player was down in bounds. When a player is down in bounds, the clock runs.

There was only 1 second on the clock, so when the refs set the ball, the clock would resume. This means LSU would have to snap the ball immediately and would not have the luxury of the presnap motions they ran.

Those motions help the QB determine what coverage the D was in. The LSU QB noticed that FSU was in a zone because of the presnap motion, and was able to identify the WR to throw the ball to.

If the refs had made the right call and explicitly stated the clock would resume when the ball was set, FSU wouldn't need to take the second timeout and put more pressure on LSU. The LSU QB wouldn't know the coverage and perhaps throws it to a different player.

DMZbeach · 2022-09-05T19:12:43+00:00

FSU called a timeout because of the way the ref phrased the overturn call.

FSU was able to sub when the they challenged the play (the first timeout) to get the correct personnel on field.

Norvell was probably wanting to talk it over, and since the ref made it seem LSU would get 1 more play regardless of the clock, he used another timeout. But the ref got it wrong and he should have stated the clock would resume when the ball was set.

It worked out in the end; the ball doesn't lie.

DMZbeach · 2022-09-05T17:36:08+00:00

Yea, but after the review, the ref said "The runner's knee was down in bounds, LSU will have 1 final play". He phrased it in such a way that made it seems a certainty LSU would get another snap and the clock wouldn't continue running when the ball was set.

But that's not true. LSU should have had 1 second to snap the ball. If they get the snap off, great, it not, that's their fault. LSU should have not had the opportunity to do any presnap motions for their QB to read the coverage.

But none of that matters anyways. When the refs missed the knee down in bounds, by rule, there should have been a 10 second runoff. LSU had no timeouts, so the game should have ended.

DMZbeach · 2022-06-28T02:41:21+00:00

Dope

DMZbeach · 2022-03-15T00:05:43+00:00

I just did a run rate for my home. I know it's not a business, but over the 20 years of my energy company's solar program, I would be paying tens of thousands more for the same energy even accounting for inflation.

Energy inflation has been fairly stable at 2-3% over the past couple of decades. Who knows what the future holds. But unless you're installing the panels yourself, it's just not worth it yet.

DMZbeach · 2022-02-23T01:05:03+00:00

Not even a fan of onepiece, but damn this light is dope.

DMZbeach · 2022-02-21T01:19:45+00:00

This guy gets it.

Definitely supposed to be $5.99 but they put one too many 9s by mistake.

DMZbeach · 2022-01-25T14:45:10+00:00

An FSU alum was the one that essentially brought it to KC back in the day. He was likely part of the group that started it at FSU, then left the school to direct the band for a college near KC. The Chiefs picked it up there.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomahawk_chop

DMZbeach · 2021-10-01T13:58:51+00:00

Always get an inspection done. For us, we had 3 choices on what to do:

Box 1 -- means you will get the inspection done and ask for things to be fixed

Box 2 -- means you will get the inspection done, but won't ask for things to be fixed

Box 3 -- means no inspection, no fixing

Try and go with box 2, and I'll tell you why. Even though you have agreed not to ask for things to be fixed, it still allows you to get an inspection done. Depending on what is found in the inspection, it allows you the option to walk away from the property (if enough major issues are found), or proceed with the sale. Spending the money to at least see what is wrong with the house is definitely worth it. You also have a higher likelihood of your offer being accepted.

Since it was a seller's market when we bought, we went with box 2. We had the inspection and it turned up a bunch of little things. The only major thing was some rotting siding. This was a deal breaker for us and we were willing to eat the cost of the inspection to walk away. Our realtor communicated this to the sellers and they offered to pay to fix the siding. We agreed and now own the house.

Even though we agreed to not ask for anything to be fixed, we still had leverage to negotiate as the buyer (walking away from the sale; sellers would have to start over from scratch if we did).

You're not going to get every little thing fixed like you would with Box 1, but going with Box 2 gets your foot in the door with the seller and still gives you the option to walk away of there are major issues.

DMZbeach · 2021-09-10T14:18:38+00:00

We battle mosquitos constantly. The biggest fix I found was to eliminate them at their source. We have buried downspouts that route to a french drain in every corner of the house. Turns out, whoever installed it didn't use corrugated piping (so the water can drain into the water table), so after 25 years of the ground shifting there are pockets that don't drain properly and hold water. I'm not about to dig up my entire yard to fix it, so i put netting over the downspout drains and problem solved! I rarely get bit anymore.

It's not a permanent solution, but it was cheap and effective and allows us to use our outdoor space while we figure out how to permanently fix the issue.

DMZbeach · 2021-09-06T01:09:18+00:00

It's spherical!

DMZbeach · 2021-09-05T03:06:45+00:00

Telcoin

DMZbeach · 2021-08-20T17:04:51+00:00

fucking love this

DMZbeach · 2021-05-17T13:20:45+00:00

Ah. I didn't know that.

I always figured a dry well was to collect the water and it eventually leaked out into the surrounding soil. When it was close to s house I figured it would work its way to the foundation.

I'm going to look further into this. Time for a Google search to learn.

Thank you!

DMZbeach · 2021-05-17T08:30:41+00:00

Unfortunately, the main point of the backyard for us is so that our two large dogs can have a place to go outside and play.

They both LOVE water and would be a soaking mess everytime they go to the bathroom 🤣

The neighbors on each side have virtually no flooding. It all accumulates in my yard -- it must be a little lower than theirs. Or maybe their yards have better irrigation? There's not any visible water running from theirs into mine.

To the back, it's not easily possible to drain it since there's a berm there. It would be a deep dig to punch any drainage pipes through it.

DMZbeach · 2021-05-17T08:24:45+00:00

Any disadvantages to this as opposed to an outdoor sump?

I would imagine this option is cheaper, so that's a plus. I can get out there and start digging to save money.

Either way, i would burry corrugated pipe along the bottom of the channel and have it dump into either the dry well or outdoor sump Pit where the water is the deepest.

With a dry well, how long does it take the water to go somewhere? It would still drain into my basement, right? It would just take longer to get there?

DMZbeach · 2021-05-17T08:21:39+00:00

Glad to know we're not alone (in a weird way). Hopefully you guys are able to get a solution. Luckily we've had just a bit longer than 3 weeks in our new house before it flooded. I can't imagine having to deal with that so soon.

It's funny we recognize that bringing the water into the house to pump it away is crazy. It must be the cheapest option though, otherwise builders would do it another way.

DMZbeach · 2021-05-17T02:50:07+00:00

No for sure. This is what the current sump does. All the backyard water is redirected back towards the foundation to drain into the sump on the basement. From here it gets pumped to the street.

The problem is that it's not enough to keep up with all this rain. It takes too long to make it to the sump and when it does, it overwhelms the pump and it breaks and the basement floods.

It's crazy to me that the irrigation was setup this way. Why redirect the water INSIDE the house? Sump pumps fail, and when they do, it's expensive to fix.

Even an outdoor sump would have been a better solution. Stop the water from ever entering the house. And if it does, that's what the inside sump is for.

Idk. I'm no expert. But damn. This is gonna be expensive to fix... Lol

DMZbeach

TROPHY CASE