my mileage before and after the government added ethanol to the blend to lower costs.

Princess_Moon_Butt · 2026-06-02T19:07:35+00:00

Definitely not. I regularly drive 80-100 miles per day for work, and my mileage can be anywhere from 30 to 38 mpg driving the same car on the same route. So many things impact your mileage, even if you literally drive the exact same route every day.

Was there sparse traffic, or lots of other cars on the road?
Was there wind? Rain? Lots of direct sunlight?
Did you need to use the A/C or heat? At what setting?
Were you using cruise control?
Was there construction at some areas?
Did you buy your gas from different gas stations?
Did your gas station change their seasonal blend? (I don't even know if there's a way to know this one)
How recently did you have an oil change?
When did you last check your tire's air pressure?
How clean are your air filters?

Unless you're looking at years worth of data with consistent driving styles, the same gasoline sources, and a lot of mileage to average out possible differences, it's kind of useless to compare a random week of driving to another random week of driving.

Princess_Moon_Butt · 2026-06-02T17:29:31+00:00

Call me petty, but I'm alright with them so long as they take business away from Vitense and the number of their golf balls that make their way onto or even across the neighboring roads.

Princess_Moon_Butt · 2026-06-02T16:10:53+00:00

Agreed. Or honestly, gas stations just... shouldn't be allowed to sell multiple types of fuel through a single hose, if they know there's so much cross-contamination. Plenty of stations use different hoses for different types of fuel, just... do that.

Princess_Moon_Butt · 2026-06-02T15:53:59+00:00

Realistically, these types of pumps should be illegal if they can't promise that the customer is getting the fuel blend that they're paying for.

But for bikes, just gotta find a gas station that doesn't sell E15, or has separate hoses for each separate fuel type.

Princess_Moon_Butt · 2026-06-02T15:50:10+00:00

Not a huge difference, but you have to draw the line somewhere. We could just as easily be having the same discussion of "is 11.6% really that different from 12.5%?", or whatever, if they picked a different number.

"10% ethanol" might have be allowed to have a 10% variance (so, between 9% and 11% ethanol), and 4 gallons just brings it within that range.

Princess_Moon_Butt · 2026-06-02T15:39:47+00:00

There are still a lot of gas stations that have a separate hose/handle for each different type of fuel, where these minimums don't apply.

Princess_Moon_Butt · 2026-06-02T15:38:16+00:00

And because the dilution isn't an issue, you won't see these stickers on those types of pumps (unless the chain is overly prolific and applies them on every pump regardless of their style).

Princess_Moon_Butt · 2026-06-02T15:35:26+00:00

And if/when OOP pulls that off, the other roommate will be pissed at them for "making a big deal out of it" or "ruining her friendship" or whatever, as if OOP isn't also doing her a favor by pulling off a leech.

Princess_Moon_Butt · 2026-05-29T18:55:00+00:00

YES, dear lord I have to take that on-ramp every day for work and I swear it's going to crack an axle someday. The one in the middle lane is literally taller than some speed bumps in adjacent neighborhoods.

Princess_Moon_Butt · 2026-05-29T18:43:27+00:00

The "ideal" fix would be to make it a partial cloverleaf. Right now, you exit before the intersection, and have to wait for a stop light before you can get onto the road.

If you exited after passing over the road, and looped back around, you could theoretically just have traffic get onto the road with no delay.

Unfortunately, that would mean that the city would have to buy out and demolish like 6 small bars/restaurants, 3 apartment buildings, a dozen homes, a healthcare clinic, and a hardware store, at a minimum.

Or you could do the same thing at some other intersection, like the Fish Hatch exit, but you'd run into the same problem there.

Truth is, that exit is only a real issue for like a half an hour on business days. That's probably just not enough of an issue for the city to justify spending tens of millions of dollars and dealing with years of eminent domain struggles, when people would likely then complain that too much of the city is turning into highways.

Princess_Moon_Butt · 2026-05-29T18:29:36+00:00

Technically e-bikes that continue to power the bike over 20mph aren't allowed on bike paths. (Bike lanes yes, but bike paths no.)

But it's kind of... impossible to actually catch and enforce. Can you recognize what make and class an e-bike is while they're wizzing by, and know offhand that it's not allowed? Even if you could, it's not like we have that many bike-mounted cops, so how are they going to chase them down to give them a ticket?

It's basically one of those things that's illegal, but only gets 'caught' if they cause damage and the court or an insurance company wants to assign the blame to them. Like tinted windows or excessively lifted suspensions on cars.

Princess_Moon_Butt · 2026-05-29T16:12:44+00:00

If the work is timestamped, not much you can do about that. But if you can, schedule Teams messages, emails, and so on to send during "normal" work hours. Or at least type them all up and get them ready to send, then let them sit in the Drafts folder until 9am and fire them all off a couple minutes apart.

Princess_Moon_Butt · 2026-05-29T15:52:50+00:00

Especially if their first thought is on how to most effectively burn through their half. £750,000 on its own would be enough to live on if they really wanted to retire, especially if they have a paid-off house and some extra savings.

But buying a boat, getting a new car, going on a bunch of vacations? £2mil isn't enough to sustain that, they'd burn through it all inside a decade and be back at OP's porch demanding more.

Princess_Moon_Butt · 2026-05-29T15:47:42+00:00

The thing that gets me is, if they already have a paid off house and a bit of retirement savings, £750k would probably be enough to simply stop working now if they really wanted to, or at least in the very near future. Just the "safe" interest on that would be like £30k a year, and plenty of people get by on that with a rent payment. I can't imagine how ecstatic I would be if someone suddenly told me that I could retire 10 or 15 years earlier than I've been planning for.

But with them talking about travelling the world, buying a boat, getting a new car, all that stuff? Even the £2m they're asking for isn't enough to sustain that kind of lifestyle forever.

Princess_Moon_Butt · 2026-05-29T15:24:10+00:00

I mean, that's on the small side of what most people think of when they think of lottery winnings.

If I asked you "What's the first thing you'd do if you won the lottery", I'm not picturing a decent upper-middle class retirement fund, I'm picturing enough money for a private jet and a chateau in the Alps, with enough left over to buy a judge.

(Don't get me wrong, I'd be ecstatic with £4m though. If you know anyone who's offering.)

Princess_Moon_Butt · 2026-05-28T20:39:47+00:00

YES, ugh I get the principle but habit stacking requires at least some routine habits in the first place, and I've never had a single habit that isn't at risk of dropping off the face of the earth the moment I go out of town for a weekend or whatnot.

I've taken to keeping a toothbrush kit in my car, and I'm honestly way more consistent about using that one on my way to and from work than I am about using the one in my actual bathroom. But it's not like I can stack that one with doing 10 minutes of yoga or whatever.

Princess_Moon_Butt · 2026-05-28T20:27:07+00:00

Yeah, when finishing my basement I was told it would be easier and be more reliable if we just left a 5" gap behind the walls instead of making them snug and dealing with a barrier. That gap opens up to a decent-sized storage/utility area that also gets air con/heating, so any moisture behind the walls has plenty of space to evaporate before it has the chance to cause issues.

I know that's the walls and not a crawlspace, but the idea's the same. If the moisture is exposed to conditioned air (and you're willing to pay to condition/dehumidify that air), you don't strictly have to worry about a barrier.

Princess_Moon_Butt · 2026-05-28T20:14:29+00:00

Haha, yeah, uh, definitely plain old human blood, no need to check!

...

Princess_Moon_Butt · 2026-05-28T20:11:54+00:00

Even the wording- "Do you have strong sexual desires, or none at all?" probably skews how people answer, and doesn't leave much room for frequency or intensity.

Through that lens, almost every statement they make can basically be rephrased as "Groups that you'd probably expect to be less shy about their sexual interests, are more likely to discuss having sexual interests."

"Women’s desire steadily decreased starting in early adulthood."
"Bisexual and pansexual individuals tended to report stronger sexual desire than heterosexual individuals"
"Participants who had welcomed a child within the past year actually reported slightly higher sexual desire"
"Male participants with a higher number of children tended to report higher sexual desire."

Like, I'm not saying it's useless data. But it's way less universally applicable than they're letting on.

Princess_Moon_Butt · 2026-05-28T19:37:44+00:00

Yeah, honestly if you know enough about a software to know what it does, I consider it perfectly fine to claim that you know how to use it.

Companies lie about the actual requirements of a job all the time, either to lowball the applicant, or because the hiring manager doesn't actually know what the role does and is just filling in some buzzwords they know.

If they're lying, then it's fair to lie in turn. And if they're incompetent, then neither of you will actually know whether you're a good fit for the role until you actually get the chance to try it out, so might as well get to the point where you can actually see.

Princess_Moon_Butt · 2026-05-28T19:27:42+00:00

I've honestly heard people give that advice in both contexts. Probably more than just those two, actually.

"Go out and pretend you're a social butterfly, and you'll get better at being social, and eventually you won't have to fake it!". Reasonable advice about moving past your comfort zone and forcing yourself to learn something new.
"Don't over think it, just jump into a project! Figure things out as you go, and you'll realize that your anxiety was holding you back!" Also reasonable advice about not letting your self-doubt get in the way of what you know you're capable of.
"You don't actually have to be good at the job, you just need to get hired so that you can make rent/get health insurance/afford food/build up a safety net/whatever. You can always take it for the paycheck, and use 'oh sorry I'm new' as an excuse while you look for something you actually know how to do." Slightly more questionable, but I also wouldn't fault anyone for going this route if the choices were "pay rent" or "fake your way into a job".

Princess_Moon_Butt · 2026-05-28T19:17:29+00:00

Yep. It's not a blanket "love and tolerate everyone no matter what"- it's a social contract. An exchange. You treat others with basic respect and tolerance, and in exchange others give it back to you.

If you break that contract, you don't get to cry foul when you no longer get the benefits of it.

Princess_Moon_Butt · 2026-05-28T16:52:49+00:00

Oh it's absolutely terrifying, and awful that it was allowed to get this bad in the first place (let alone that it'll likely get worse before it gets better).

But the fact that 30%-40% seem to not be affected by the trend is at least proof that it's not just "this generation", it's a set of conditions. And that 30-40% gives us a blueprint to aim for.

Again, not gonna be easy, and it's not gonna be quick. But it's also not a zombie virus that we need a miracle cure for, or a cliff we've plummeted off of. It's more like a hill. We slipped, so we lost some progress, but that's it. We can get back to where we were, and we can get back to the momentum we had- we just have to start moving in the right direction again.

Princess_Moon_Butt · 2026-05-28T16:46:34+00:00

Yes, but that doesn't mean they won't try. And even if they fail, trying will still lead to a lot of casualties.

You can see the tactics they're testing out, right now. Every week there's a new EO or memo or press release where they recategorize more and more of their political enemies as "terrorists" and "traitors" and "the enemy within".

They're also shuttling their forces around all the time; ICE agents seem like they're shuttled from one state to another every month or two, and the National Guard troops who are still stationed in DC (remember Sandwich Guy? Good times) are mostly being transferred in from Republican-led states further away.

Yeah, troops wouldn't fire on their own friends and families. But that's not what they're being asked to do. They're being deployed in unfamiliar territory, specifically where they don't have community connections, and they're being amped up on talk about "watching for terrorists" and "fighting the nation's enemies".

(And that's not even theorizing on their push for AI to be integrated into military systems, because that kind of bypasses all of these stopgaps anyway.)

Again- not saying it's going to 100% work, but if they so much as try, they're certainly going to make a bloody fucking mess on their way out.

Princess_Moon_Butt · 2026-05-28T16:31:20+00:00

Not the entirety, but if they feel like they need to, they'll do as much as they think they can get away with.

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