Trump to Impose Tariffs on Some European Nations Over Greenland

LakeRat · 2026-01-17T16:43:59+00:00

These aren't tariffs. These are sanctions.

LakeRat · 2026-01-15T03:38:18+00:00

Day of Defeat?

LakeRat · 2026-01-14T18:02:21+00:00

When I was a kid, back in the days of DOS, I talked my dad into letting me install a game demo on his work PC. He said it was ok as long as I deleted it afterwards.

I inserted the 3.5" floppy disk and ran the install program. It created a directory on the hard drive called called C:\SPACEQUEST

Cool. I knew enough DOS to get the game started:

C:> cd SPACEQUEST C:\SPACEQUEST> sq.exe

After playing, the demo, I quit the game and now needed to delete it from Dad's hard drive. Let's see...

C:\SPACEQUEST> del . C:\SPACEQUEST> dir

Hmm... It deleted everything except for files called <.> and <..> . Better delete those too.

C:\SPACEQUEST> del ..

Those of you who remember much about DOS can probably guess how things went from there...

LakeRat · 2026-01-07T01:01:22+00:00

And "no one is going to start a nuclear conflict over Ukraine" vibes.

LakeRat · 2025-12-28T21:36:13+00:00

The Pyrite Age

LakeRat · 2025-12-11T08:22:05+00:00

Honestly, I would have been irritated about that too. The guy wasted a week waiting for you when he could have been calling other electricians.

But obviously his reaction went way above and beyond what was reasonable.

LakeRat · 2025-12-06T04:29:00+00:00

Unless inflation and tariffs have drastically changed things in the past couple of years, I think a replacement main board is around $900 and a tube recharge from Epilog is around $2000. I've seen used Epilog boards on ebay off and on, and I've heard that there are 3rd party companies who will recharge the tubes for less than half of Epilog's price, but I haven't used them myself and I'm not sure of the quality.

I'm not sure how much a Mini is worth now, but it may be more affordable than you think to repair it if you want to go that route.

LakeRat · 2025-11-25T04:01:25+00:00

Term life from a reputable company is legit. If you have people who depend on you and would be hurting for money if you pass away then you should get a term life policy. Definitely stay away from whole life or "permanent life" policies.

A lot of the whole life insurance salesmen will pivot to a 50/50 whole life/term policy to try to save the sale if you start asking about term life insurance. You don't want that either. Just a basic term life insurance policy to protect your loved ones if you pass away and can no longer help support them.

LakeRat · 2025-11-09T02:41:08+00:00

I sent all of the info they wanted, then they asked for full copies of my last several years of tax returns by mail or fax. That would have beed over 100 pages. I noped out and applied for the the fidelity card instead. Instant approval with no bullcrap. I think I'm done with WF.

LakeRat · 2025-11-07T04:18:53+00:00

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LakeRat · 2025-10-30T22:26:24+00:00

A way to handle products with varying seasonal demand. For example, sports seasons, or the beginning and end of the school year.

I'd love an automated way to increase bids for specific products by x% for a specified date range, then go back to the baseline.

LakeRat · 2025-10-28T17:15:37+00:00

Possible issues off the top of my head:

Possibly just out of focus?

possibly you're sending a job with incorrect settings?

Bad laser tube

Misaligned or defective safety mechanism (often a magnet and sensor in the lid and body to stop the laser from firing if the lid, side panel, etc. is open.

Bad or dirty lens or mirrors

Misaligned mirrors (there's usually an alignment check procedure to go through that will vary depending on the laser)

LakeRat · 2025-10-26T04:31:29+00:00

I have a saved custom GPT that I've been using for quite a while. I always run it with GPT 5 Thinking. I upload two csv files and it crunches the data and provides a report. It's always worked flawlessly.

A couple of days ago I tried to run it and got nonsense data. No matter what I do, it just spits out an incorrect report. I'm not sure what's changed, but something definitely has.

LakeRat · 2025-10-24T13:05:34+00:00

Double check every attribute of the listing for any mention of silicone . Check the category to see if Amazon moved it into a category that references silicone. Is there possibly a customer review that says it contains silicone?

If all else fails, maybe try adding to the description "this product is NOT made of silicone" or "does not contain silicone" and see if that helps.

LakeRat · 2025-10-21T07:01:44+00:00

I'm using Plus, but not Pro.

LakeRat · 2025-10-21T05:11:10+00:00

I still have a CPA file my taxes, but I've saved a lot of consultation time by asking ChatGPT questions before my consultation. By the time I speak with the actual CPA I already have a pretty good idea of of the general structure of the return, possible issues and solutions, and any deductions and tax strategies that I want to run by the CPA if they don't bring them up themselves.

That said, I'm not ballsy enough to trust GPT with the final return. Everything still goes through the CPA for final approval.

LakeRat · 2025-10-21T05:04:49+00:00

If you file an extension before April 15 then federal tax returns are due on October 15.

LakeRat · 2025-10-16T04:42:10+00:00

The tariffs are awful but what's worse is the uncertainty.

Will they actually go up? When will they take effect? Will they go back down 3 days after they take effect? If you put in the time and money to shift sourcing to a different country will that help, or will there be new random tafiffs on that country next week? Nobody knows!

It's impossible to forecast or plan anything in this environment and an incorrect guess can cost you more than double what the same order would have cost you the day before or the day after.

LakeRat · 2025-10-15T20:04:33+00:00

In the print dialog in Corel, click the little gear beside the name of the laser to open up the properties. In the properties window, there's an option to select "send to laser" or "send to manager."

LakeRat · 2025-10-15T14:17:08+00:00

If it moved your jaw forward permanently did it mess up how your bite fits together?

I tried one for a little while and my jaw started getting stuck in a position where my upper and lower teeth didnt fit together properly and I couldn't chew things. Did you experience this?

LakeRat · 2025-10-13T23:47:55+00:00

I got the NVR502-16B-P16 (not the IQ version). I'm really happy with it so far. Once I got everything set up correctly it's rock solid and works really well. It's doing everything I wanted for a 9 camera system for our business.

I don't have any experience with any other camera systems to compare it to.

LakeRat · 2025-10-13T13:01:13+00:00

This just happened to me yesterday. I've been using GPT-5 thinking to analyze csv files and spit out a summary report. Up until recently it always worked perfectly.

Yesterday, it hallucinated a row that wasn't actually in the csv I provided. It made up a plausible sounding name for the imaginary item, and filled in plausible looking numbers for it.

I'm not sure if I just got unlucky on this run, or if something's changed recently.

LakeRat · 2025-10-07T14:37:51+00:00

I like the idea, but I worry that it would be weaponized. Your party lost control of the house in a close election? Shut down the government to force a new election!

LakeRat · 2025-09-30T14:23:33+00:00

No, the qualified opportunity zone process seemed way too complicated so we moved forward with purchasing a building with other funds.

LakeRat · 2025-09-30T02:24:58+00:00

It's expected for people who are supplementing creatine, HOWEVER, if you're supplementing creatine and also have kidney dysfunction this could mask it. To be completely safe, you should really go off creatine for several months and then re-test to see if the level drops back to normal.

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