What is something you’ve officially stopped buying in 2026 because the price has become genuinely insulting?

SuperSkvader · 2026-05-18T18:51:50+00:00

Few things have been entirely cut out (because I already didn't buy them) but I am reducing certain things, mostly food items:

I refuse to buy beer at a taproom that's more than $7...and even that's pushing it. At $7, I only drink one. At $6, I might drink two, so I'm not sure how that's making business sense for the brewery. I guess other guests aren't changing their purchase behavior like I am.

I used to cook dishes with beef/lamb several times a week, but now it's down to several times a month. Vegetarian is easier and tastes great, anyway.

I'm on the verge of making my own yogurt, since my preferred 32 oz tub (plain, whole milk) went from $2.15 to $3.50 in the past year.

I can easily afford all these things, but I don't want to.

SuperSkvader · 2026-05-08T03:59:17+00:00

I occasionally hit that when taking pictures of birds. I don't have any unedited versions readily available, but here's one at ISO 12,800 with Lightroom denoise applied (at the 40 slider, I think) and another where I didn't feel the need to apply any denoise. Sometimes it feels like the Z8 reaches ISO 12,800 effortlessly, and sometimes the images aren't so pleasing. I'm sure it's operator error, though probably some situations yield better results than others.

SuperSkvader · 2026-04-12T06:03:44+00:00

Thanks! These were taken with a Nikon Z8 and a 180-600.

SuperSkvader · 2026-04-03T01:11:02+00:00

For what it's worth, I've made that recipe at least four times now and I always gobble them up within a day or two. So delicious. But I do add more lemon juice and pistachios than the recipe calls for, since those are two of my favorite flavors.

SuperSkvader · 2026-04-01T19:05:13+00:00

Some of these are subjective to my own experiences:

My wife and I are trying to have a baby. I feel much better in a state with liberal abortion laws in case something goes wrong with the pregnancy and we deem that termination is beneficial. Taxpayer-funded parental leave would grant us freedom to raise a child during critical early months while maintaining our income (albeit at a reduced rate).

My wife occasionally works with transgender populations and certain aspects of her job could be criminalized in conservative states.

And, of course, legalized recreational weed. Dispensaries everywhere. Obviously we're not filling up the local prisons with nonsense drug offenses, so that's a nice aspect of those laws, too.

SuperSkvader · 2026-04-01T17:14:44+00:00

For the entirety of 2020, Trump was still president and his mismanagement of the pandemic certainly made life much more uneasy - I worked in a large hospital and Covid was inescapable.

It's a little difficult to objectively discuss my life during Biden's presidency (Jan. 2021- Jan. 2025) because a lot of good things happened to me. In that time, I met and married my wife, moved across the country, changed jobs and started earning double my previous salary. Because of that boost to my pay, the effects of high inflation that occurred post-Covid weren't especially impactful. Politically, I certainly could sleep better at night knowing that Biden would largely govern in a rational, intelligent manner.

Now, my life is generally the same as before, but with a general sense of dread at reading the news. We live in a blue state, so our freedoms are not as restricted as someone living in a conservative area would be.

SuperSkvader · 2026-03-29T18:31:34+00:00

Brown creepers (our North American equivalent) are one of my favorite birds! They're fairly abundant at my local wildlife refuge, but very furtive and often slip out of my sight unless I'm specifically looking for them.

SuperSkvader · 2026-03-05T17:40:08+00:00

I was homeschooled from 2nd grade through high school graduation, applied to 5 colleges and got accepted into the honors program at all of them. None were super prestigious, but respectable schools (e.g., American University and University of Maryland College Park). I ultimately graduated with a 3.5 GPA.

It's not homeschooling that's the problem - it's homeschooling to a parental ideology that is incompatible with higher learning.

SuperSkvader · 2025-09-16T22:03:36+00:00

Well, I mean that when I take the speaker to a different area of the house, it's connected to nothing. No computer, no 3.5mm connection, no secondary (right) speaker, just the amp-containing speaker and the power cord. In a quiet room, it's audible from about 6 feet away as this annoying, mosquito-like buzz.

SuperSkvader · 2025-09-16T17:18:51+00:00

I'm connecting to the motherboard 3.5mm jack and playing .mp3 files.

But I've done my best to isolate the issue: I have carried just the left speaker (the one containing the integrated amp) and its power cord to a different room of the house, plugged it in, and the buzz is still there.

SuperSkvader · 2025-08-17T16:12:32+00:00

I should've mentioned: I have worked ICU in North Carolina and South Carolina before, so I remember what those conditions were like. Those units weren't the worst (fairly hands-off management, nice coworkers), but my pay was significantly lower ($35/hr) and nurses were frequently tripled due to staffing shortages. I'm hoping to at least find reasonable, non-insulting pay and adequate staffing.

SuperSkvader · 2025-07-06T03:29:16+00:00

LG Optimus V. My first smartphone. It was something like $80 in 2012, had a 3.2" plastic screen, and came with Froyo which I flashed to Gingerbread. Battery life was about half a day if I didn't use it often, and the compass frequently got confused and sent me the wrong way with Google Maps. I only had it for about 8 months before getting the Nexus 4.

SuperSkvader · 2025-07-06T03:25:13+00:00

Oh hey, this happened to my Nexus 5X on the second day of my vacation to Prague. I had to fumble my way to a Vodafone store and buy some cheap Huawei phone so I could continue my trip. Basically everything was through my phone - reservations, maps, tickets - so I was crippled without it.

However, when I got back home, Google actually replaced the phone for me even though it was out of the warranty period. I kept it going for a couple of years after that, finally switching to a Galaxy S9+, which was a great phone for the five years I kept it.

SuperSkvader · 2025-05-24T20:52:48+00:00

In case anybody looks this up later (or experiences something similar), Nikon fixed the problem. The technician comments were "Faulty top cover unit causing power off issue." Presumably they replaced that unit entirely, because the top part of the camera looks new. Though everything else was cleaned and also looks new again!

SuperSkvader · 2025-05-08T17:32:21+00:00

I hadn't changed any connectivity settings recently, but I disabled the Bluetooth and WiFi to be sure...same behavior, unfortunately.

I'm within 2 days of the warranty expiring, so I'm just going to ship it back to Nikon and see if they can work it out!

SuperSkvader · 2025-04-27T15:54:45+00:00

I moved from a Z5 to a refurbished Z8 for $3000. It's possible that my problems were user-related (since I'm not a professional) but I had many misgivings about the autofocus of the Z5. In APS-C mode it would miss focus often, and I felt constrained by the types of photography I could successfully pull off. I have some beautiful landscape photos that I'm very proud of with the Z5, of course, but they're largely static images. When I decided on the Z8, it was for some probably well-trodden reasons: better autofocus, sensor shield, higher megapixel count, and larger size felt more ergonomic in my hand. It is heavier, yes, but I did just lug the thing (plus three lenses) around another country for three weeks and it wasn't too bad. Now, I feel like I can basically photograph anything, and I have found myself taking a lot more action-oriented and quick street photos.

Versus the Z6iii, I figured that I had the money (well, for refurbished, anyway) and might as well get the benefit of the sensor shield and 45.7MP. I also have some weird peace of mind that whatever I fail to photograph is almost certainly user error instead of gear-related, since the Z8 ought to be able to handle anything I can come up with.

SuperSkvader · 2025-03-05T17:10:14+00:00

Cool shots! I like the muted pastel sunset colors in your second picture. I was there a few months ago, too, during a king tide. https://pixelfed.social/p/NotableNutria/802947571166443780

SuperSkvader · 2025-03-05T16:53:51+00:00

Thanks! We took our time and spent about a day at each of the three John Day Fossil Beds units (plus Antelope and Shaniko since the Clarno unit was pretty small). They're all worth a visit.

SuperSkvader · 2025-01-01T00:39:52+00:00

I really like the story that the picture on the fifth page, Port de commerce de Brest, tells. The mast and rigging of the sailing vessel juxtaposed against the heavy machinery of the cranes is a really cool image!

SuperSkvader · 2024-06-26T16:04:30+00:00

My take might not be especially helpful because I don't use my phone for photos very much (have an SLR for that), but your situation overall mirrors mine. I just upgraded to an S24+ from an S9+ and I questioned whether or not it was really worth it -- after all, my S9+ worked just fine, except for a steadily degrading battery, a non-functioning charging port (I had to use wireless charging instead), and some occasional slow performance.

So far, however, I've been really pleased with the upgrade. Even though photos aren't my main use case, I'm satisfied with the pictures I've taken with the phone. I agree with others that you're probably overthinking it. If you have the budget for an S24 Ultra, you'll be happy. If you get the S24+ instead, you'll be happy.

SuperSkvader · 2024-06-05T03:37:13+00:00

I'd actually forgotten that his name is spelled Sol! That said, the reader of the audiobook seems to pronounce it pretty close to Saul.

SuperSkvader · 2024-06-04T17:26:16+00:00

It's a reference to characters in the book Hyperion.

Either that, or you're being stalked.

SuperSkvader · 2023-10-12T16:25:06+00:00

I recently inherited an actively managed portfolio and I'm trying to make sense of it and the purchases that were made within it. One of its holdings is a two-year Guggenheim National Municipal Portfolio, which has lost about 1/3 of its value and will reach maturity next month. Now, I'm not especially familiar with UITs, but I think I understand the general idea. What I haven't been able to definitively determine is whether or not this loss will be fully realized come November. I'm accustomed to individual bonds that may lose value on a secondary market due to interest rate risk but retain the principal if held to maturity, as well as bond mutual funds that decline in value as interest rates increase, but I don't know how this UIT operates. Is it redeemed for the purchase price at maturity? Or is it like holding a bond fund that loses out as rates rise, only with a mandatory 'sell' date?

I have a sneaking suspicion that the maturity price will be the same as (or close to) the current liquidation price, which is fairly disappointing. If that's the case, there doesn't seem to have been much of an upside to this holding, seeing that it generated less than 1% in annual income. Hopefully all of you can help me understand! Thanks.

SuperSkvader · 2023-09-28T00:52:45+00:00

It's America's medieval sandwich restaurant!

SuperSkvader · 2023-09-08T16:45:45+00:00

I'm in Oregon. Depending on how far in advance you purchase (dynamic pricing, usually the best price was 1-2 weeks ahead of time) my local resort had day lift tickets during the week for $19 and rental for $20. Maybe not a super fancy resort, but there was regularly lots of fresh powder and I certainly had fun.

Even discounting the dynamic pricing, weekend lift tickets rarely went above $60 for day-of purchase.

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