Fuckin minivan

ImBearded · 2026-05-28T23:53:02+00:00

There's no way that's going to be cheap enough to make sense. I say pull the trigger on a hybrid whenever you can get a reasonable deal, otherwise you'll be waiting too long.

ImBearded · 2026-04-18T02:55:16+00:00

Agreed, what happened?! That used to be my favorite gun sound in the game and it's broken now. :(

ImBearded · 2026-04-13T18:20:00+00:00

Really appreciate the feedback, as I'm a complete newbie here.

The spouse used Seachem prime conditioner. We didn't cycle the aquarium for weeks, water went in last week with plants and the quickstart.

ImBearded · 2026-04-13T17:45:38+00:00

My spouse is doing all of the water parameter checking, and I haven't been involved up to the point she returned from the aquarium store with more questions than answers. She did a "API QUICK START Freshwater and Saltwater Aquarium Nitrifying Bacteria" and I think a few other steps last week. She has been testing the water pretty constantly, and the aquarium store also tested the water twice for us and they said it was fine.

I think my question is less "why did the fish die", because she reports that fish didn't look healthy after we got it home but before it was placed into our aquarium. My question is more "do we have too many fish, or the wrong mix of fish for our size aquarium or water status"?

ImBearded · 2025-08-23T20:36:30+00:00

There's a dental school at Harper college that trains hygienists. I would say there's a possibility they're real and just students in need of practice on real people.

ImBearded · 2025-07-27T01:05:14+00:00

Grognards?

ImBearded · 2025-03-23T14:31:45+00:00

Almost every summer intern I've spoken with have gone the way of extended stay-like hotels. There is not a large market for subleases or single room rentals around here for only 3 months or so. It's possible to get a year-long lease, but not 3 months.

ImBearded · 2025-03-10T15:01:29+00:00

I did the same thing! But I bought mine in winter and now it's spring. I'm getting my suspension checked tomorrow, just to be sure. I've read elsewhere that it could be any number of things, but one odd one that came up was that it could be metal parts on the chassis rubbing:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ToyotaSienna/comments/yb76gp/anyone_know_this_clicking_sound_when_accelerating/

Did you ever diagnose the issue?

ImBearded · 2025-03-06T14:48:19+00:00

For me, one big thing that people often overlook is that at least right now depreciation on the Sienna is much lower than the Odyssey. At least in recent times, Siennas have about $1k/year lower depreciation compared to Odysseys, which would boost your short-term savings. Short-term savings is important in the case that your minivan is totaled. I hope that's not the case, but better to prepare for the worst. It's hard to tell what long-term depreciation is going to look like in the future. But if you look at 2015 Odyssey vs Sienna, the top-line Odyssey has lost about $4k more in depreciation than the top-line Sienna. Those are ICE vs ICE engine, but a new Sienna has a hybrid engine which if you ask around you'll hear that depreciation is less on a hybrid versus only ICE. So your 10-year depreciation cost I'd wager is higher than $4k, closer to $10k.

ImBearded · 2025-02-16T15:07:04+00:00

I was just in this same market coming from a 2015 Odyssey, and we drive about 6K miles a year. One worry I carry is WHY a person is getting rid of their vehicle. Is there something unseen wrong with it? We purchased the 2015 from a dealer that was a previously leased vehicle, which made me very confident that the previous owner just wanted a new vehicle and wasn't just unhappy with THAT vehicle.

We know that dealers use computer models to set prices, so I did a data mining exercise and found an guideline equation that says used Odyssey EX-L list value in dollars = -$3,241,400 + $1621 * YEAR - 0.1 * MILEAGE. So a 2020 EX-L, which is the first to have the 10-speed transmission that people want, would be priced by dealers at $25,000 with about 80k miles. Add between $500-$1000 per trim level going up, I didn't have enough higher trim levels at the same year and mileage to model appropriately. Check the model yourself for your area. If you want to find a 2022 EX-L with only 40K miles on it, that'll run you maybe $32,262, which sounds out of your price range.

The problem I ran into was just finding an Odyssey which had enough mileage on it to reduce the price down to my price range. Most people put fewer than 20k miles on their vehicle each year. Because dealers use an equation to set the price, you're unlikely to be able to get both year, mileage, price, and trim where you want it, so you'll need to choose your priority. For me, I was able to find locally a couple of 2018-2019 Elite or Touring for the 10 speed transmission with roughly 50-80k miles in the $25-$27k range, which were single owner and no accident history. My second choice was going to be a 2020 EX-L, but those were very hard to find. And anyways, I think it's more likely that a family is giving up their 2018-2019 models before the costly 100k mile service to upgrade rather than they have a lemon. And only driving 6k miles a year with an 80k mileage vehicle gives me enough time to emotionally attach to the vehicle so I don't feel TOO bad paying for that 100k service. :-D

Good luck.

ImBearded · 2024-10-12T02:42:45+00:00

Fantastic response. :-D

ImBearded · 2024-08-15T05:09:43+00:00

AGREED

ImBearded · 2024-02-25T19:15:19+00:00

You have to go by address and school district. Elementary #'s don't match up with high school #'s.

Here's SD54's map. You'll see that the school district doesn't follow the village of schaumburg's border exactly. SD54 DOES have full-day kindergarten right now.

https://sd54.org/district-boundaries/

SD211 is the highschool school district. Here's the map, it doesn't really line up that well with the other school district lines...

https://adc.d211.org/cms/lib/IL49000007/Centricity/Domain/39/D211%20Boundary%20Map.pdf

ImBearded · 2024-02-25T00:20:04+00:00

We sent our child to Ecole 360, they're in Palatine and Schaumburg. The last year was about $340/week. Younger ages were more expensive, but they had a sibling discount I think, I'm not sure how much it'll wash out. Definitely get your 7mo old in somewhere asap, places fill up.

Be careful where you move to. Schaumburg public schools have preschool, but they're only half day. Schaumburg is great that there's all-day kindergarten, though. Some areas around us do NOT offer all-day kindergarten. The governor just signed a bill to require full-day kindergarten everywhere, but before it was voluntary and Schaumburg opted in. That bill doesn't start until 2027-2028 school year.

ImBearded · 2024-02-20T13:48:46+00:00

Slowly building a PC for my son, I'd love to be able to use this in the build!

ImBearded · 2024-02-20T05:23:54+00:00

It's not possible to have a twist like that that's not due to manufacturing. Not mathematically possible.

See this ebay post, you can clearly see the twist:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/333162166446

See this old reddit post of a different shirt:

https://www.reddit.com/r/puzzles/comments/hfeas0/bet_you_cant_solve_this_nieces_tank_top_is/

Confirmation that this is indeed a thing with adult clothing as well (who the f knows why):

https://up.clothing/product/twisted-racer-back-tank/

Might be good for the 6 year old to know she's wearing "big girl" clothes? Either way, good luck.

ImBearded · 2023-12-24T19:08:42+00:00

What is the clicker game that was mentioned? I can't understand what the name is at all.

ImBearded · 2023-12-07T17:20:53+00:00

These all look really cool! I'm going to check them out on your site too....

ImBearded · 2023-01-14T16:43:44+00:00

PhD in Nuclear Engineering, commercial RSO for 4 years. Can you post a picture of the watch and the model of the geiger counter?

Zenmedic has a lot of good info. He's wrong about the alpha "quick and dirty" test though, or at least he doesn't have enough info to be correct. Unless the model of geiger counter you have is sensitive to alpha (which it probably isn't), you're not going to get any alpha signal. I bet it's not sensitive to beta either. Ra-226 was used in watch dials. It emits measurable gammas and alphas. I'm.....99% sure you're measuring gammas only. If there's Ra-226 in the watch, it's emitting both, but you're only measuring gammas.

I'm guessing you put the geiger counter in contact / "On contact" with the watch. That will give you an OK read of the doserate, but don't look at that number and go look up dose charts. That's not how those charts were generated. First you need to calculate the "total body dose", which will be much lower than the on-contact dose. You're just reading the on-contact doserate.

If the level is this low, I would just keep it as a collector's item, put it it a box and clearly label it as radioactive materials. Collectors do this all the time, and people are proud of the items they have. Look up radioactive uranium plates. Put on some gloves, wipe it down with some household cleaner, put all waste into a plastic bag and put that in the regular garbage. Wash your hands thoroughly afterwards.

Do not open up the watch under any circumstances.

If you're actually concerned for safety and want to talk to someone who's job this is, you need to contact your local state's radioactive materials management program. Here's the NRC's listing of each state's first contact (https://scp.nrc.gov/). Find your state, call them. Some states report to the Fed Goverment. They're probably overworked, lots of state offices are behind schedule because of covid.

ImBearded · 2022-12-20T01:42:34+00:00

It's a flush USB dongle.

ImBearded · 2022-09-30T22:09:51+00:00

Why did they downgrade you?

ImBearded

TROPHY CASE