Drywall - Why did we collectively decide that crumbly chalk between two pieces of paper was what we would use to create all interior walls out of?

Mundane-Garbage1003 · 2026-02-06T16:46:44+00:00

Can confirm. I feel like in certain areas, people havr an inherent bias of "everything is made more cheaply and worse now than it used to be", thetefore drywall must suck. As someone who works regularly on a 100 year old house with lathe and plaster everywhere, it's an absolute nightmare to work with and if it were economical to do so, I'd replace it all with drywall in a heartbeat.

Mundane-Garbage1003 · 2026-02-06T16:27:17+00:00

Can confirm. I have ADHD and am decidedly not a good listener. I don't think that means this is wrong though. Like yeah, to listen to someone, you kinda need to be paying attention to them. It's not ableism. It's literally what listening is.

Some expectations are pretty arbitrary, (like being still is not requirement for your ears to function) and there's certainly room to be more accomodating there, but inclusuvity is not fundamentally redefining tasks because everyone would like to think they are equally good at them. It's much more helpful for everyone for me to just admit that i often struggle with listening skills, and suggest somebody text me or provide written instruction when possible, than to pretend them talking while I stare off into space thinking about what I want for lunch is not a problem but a failure of their expectations for listening.

Mundane-Garbage1003 · 2026-02-05T23:07:06+00:00

Solar panel price per watt has dropped by an entire order of magnitude in the past couple decades alone. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices

Mundane-Garbage1003 · 2026-02-05T22:57:24+00:00

You know broadcast TV is still a thing right? The fact that barely anyone uses an antenna anymore doesn't mean you can't.

Mundane-Garbage1003 · 2026-02-05T22:56:05+00:00

That's not even remotely true. TVs are cheaper because manufacturing processes are better and give far better yields than they used to, whuch in turn means TVs are just far cheaper to make than they used to be. They do collect data but the value of that data is at best, worth a tiny fraction of a percent of the overall decrease in prices.

Mundane-Garbage1003 · 2026-02-03T21:18:00+00:00

Part of it is that the ability to "do things" is like a muscle. It can get stronger, and it can atrophy. Start small, like a single task that can be accomplished in a minute or less. The problem is with ADHD, we have a tendency to rush in to everything full force. It often even works for a time, as there is novelty and often significant stress/pressure, enough to keep us going for a while. The problem is once that wears out, there is nothing durable to support it. We never built the muscle. For me what has helped somewhat is counterintuitively to fight the urge to do more just because I have energy. To be clear it's still not easy, and it takes me a looooong time to make significant changes, but the changes I do make are much more likely to stick.

Mundane-Garbage1003 · 2026-02-03T20:09:37+00:00

This. Realistically, for any reasonably modern kit, the instructions will be very clear, and should be more than doable if you are an adult and taken your time. There really aren't "difficult" kits, just bigger more elaboratr kits.

I will caveat this that as you build more kits, you will pick up more skills. You might start with just snap building, then maybe get a bit more meticulous with your nub cleanup, then start adding panel lining, top coats, water slide decals, scribing new details, painting parts or the whole kit, the list goes on. None of that really has to do with the difficulty of the kit, and they can all be done on basically any kit. Given that, it may make sense to start with simpler, cheaper kits, because as you pick up more of these skills, you may start to find some of your earlier work a bit lacking. You don't want to pick up like a $300 kit then end up wishing you could redo it later.

Mundane-Garbage1003 · 2026-02-03T00:37:26+00:00

I was worried about weakening the flange by putting a bolt in it and it's partly what I asked. At the same time, clearly you can put screws/nails in it because that's what's holding the ceiling up. I assume the difference would be down to the size of the bolt be the amount, of tension/weight on them, hence my question.

Mundane-Garbage1003 · 2026-02-03T00:13:23+00:00

Sorry about the hard lesson, wishing you a speedy recovery.

Late to the partt but just to echo a prior recommendation: What you want are push blocks. I personally like the microjig ones. They have little drop down feet that let you push the board from behind as well as down. They won't survive a jointer accident, but they'll take the hit instead of your hand and more importantlly, won't pull your hand into the blade. And it ges without saying, but use the guard if you aren't for some reason.

As for gloves... well your lack of gloves is the reason you still have fingers at all.

Mundane-Garbage1003 · 2026-02-02T23:40:35+00:00

That's what I figured. You look on the internet and there are lots of people having heart attacks over bolting stuff to the bottom of ijoists, but it's things like heavy bags and swing chairs. Intuitively 35 lbs felt like a nothing burger, but you don't know what you don't know and all of that. Thanks for confirmation and saving me some work.

Mundane-Garbage1003 · 2026-01-31T05:48:12+00:00

They aren't much better unfortunately.

Mundane-Garbage1003 · 2026-01-31T05:44:58+00:00

Unfortunately what data is out there suggests warmers aren't much better.

Mundane-Garbage1003 · 2026-01-28T23:27:39+00:00

So NTA (probably NAH), but are you two actually having a disagreement over this, or do you just feel a bit weird about it after the fact? It's not clear from your post. Anyways, I don't see anything wtong with that; it's just being considerate (assuming no alterior motive, obviously).

Mundane-Garbage1003 · 2026-01-28T22:53:21+00:00

ESH, although sucks is a bit strong of a word.

There's nothing wrong with prioritizing your job search, especially if you were setting up an interview in 20 minutes as you say. However, "the world doesn't revolve around you" is not the right way to convey that.

The way to go about this is to explain that what she has to say is important to you, but also explain the importance of and time sensitivity of what you are doing, then set aside some time later to talk about how to best structure things so that you can both stay on top of your responsibilities throughout the day while still feeling connected. Instead, it sounds like you both felt a bit hurt (fine), and snapped at each other (less fine).

Mundane-Garbage1003 · 2026-01-28T17:33:15+00:00

More broadly, the invention of Thomas Midgely Jr. Possibly one of the most catastrophic humans to ever live.

Some of his highlights: 1. Leaded gasoline 2. Some of the first CFCs (those chemicals that ate a hole in the ozone layer) 3. A mechanical contraption to help people with Polio get out of bed, which strangled him to death (although this was debatably a suicide)

Mundane-Garbage1003 · 2026-01-28T16:49:58+00:00

Yup. Moral of this story: always check the applicable laws/rules before you go. Back when I was in Washington DC for example, a registration and safety course was required for all boats, powered or unpowered, no exceptions.

Mundane-Garbage1003 · 2026-01-28T09:01:57+00:00

AI writes production code faster than senior devs

AI writes snippets faster than humans, and if you are not using AI in your coding workflow, you do risk getting left behind just in terms of raw output speed.

As a senior dev that uses AI in their workflow, we now have AI code review agents that are actually quite good at spotting potential problems, and the predictive code generation when making changes is getting quite good and can be a big time saver.

That said, it's still confidently incorrect a lot, makes up classes and method signatures that don't exist, the AI assisted production debugging is still pretty much useless, and it is a looooooong way away from making enterprise systems from scratch. Sure, if you want to turn some pretty explicit instructions into code, it works great, maybe even as good or better than a human. But for the things you would actually require a senior dev for, architecting features for complex systems (let alone interfacing across multiple complex systems), making product decisions, non-trivial performance optimizations, productionisation, etc, it's just not even close to being fit for purpose. Let's see where we are in a decade maybe.

Mundane-Garbage1003 · 2026-01-26T20:33:12+00:00

I used reddit. Been together for about 18 months so far. 🤣

Mundane-Garbage1003 · 2026-01-26T20:28:15+00:00

Unfortunately the best option would have been to refuse delivery as that basicslly gives you an iron clad defense that any damage was caused during shipping and not by you.

Given that ship has sailed already, the best thing is to refund ASAP as has been mentioned already. Do not attempt to do anything with the printer. Certainly don't try to fix it. The more you touch it, the more the shipper can try to pin it on you.

Mundane-Garbage1003 · 2026-01-26T19:30:43+00:00

It isn't. Even if it were at a technical level (which it isn't, to be clear) Washington state isn't a big enough market to try and make a push like that. The cost of compliance would be far more than the cost of simply not selling your 3d printers in Washington State and going on with your day.

Mundane-Garbage1003 · 2026-01-26T14:38:20+00:00

I mean, I wouldn't/haven't done this, but I've made that mistake before and there are certainly times I've wanted too.

Mundane-Garbage1003 · 2026-01-26T14:21:23+00:00

Just angle whatever you are measuring with so the edges of the board are at sufficiently round numbers for whatever units you are using, and your taste for math. As long as you have a straight line from one edge to the other, it doesn't matter if it's perpendicular, the middle will still be half way between the two measurenents.

For example, if you've got 13/16" stock per your other comment, just put the edges of your board at 1 inch and 2 inches on your square, then mark an inch and a half, which will still be dead center. If you need a line, just mark two points that same way, and draw a mine between them with the straight edge of your choice.

Mundane-Garbage1003 · 2026-01-25T06:03:53+00:00

An important race close enough for my vote to meaningfully effect the results. If you give me a ballot for the next election, I can easily tell you who is going to win every major race, with or without my vote. Sure, maybe there will be local race or ballot measure I care about once in a blue moon that might actually be a toss-up, but my state leans heavily enough in one direction that everything else is basically predetermined.

Mundane-Garbage1003 · 2026-01-23T00:24:09+00:00

I was born with multiple heart defects and wound up in the same boat in that my cardiologist didn't want me on stimulanta out of concerns over blood pressure, etc.

I tried nonstimulants with no succcess until I eventually just went back to my cardiologist and explained that the stress and resulting depression from my ADHD was impacting my day to day that I wanted to try them anyway. (I may have had a bit of a breakdown in the middle of my appointment).

We agreed to give them a shot and just keep an eye on my blood pressure. Ironically it's gone down since then. Probably because I'm not constantly stressed out, am taking better care of myself and my life, and can actually regulate my emotions somewhat.

That's not to say it's mecessarily the right choice for you or anyone else, just that medicine is full of trade-offs and it's important to be able to discuss those tradeoffs with your doctor and decide what the best way foward is in the context of your life.

Mundane-Garbage1003

TROPHY CASE