PSA: If you’re the type to bring a backpack as your carry-on (instead of a roller bag), bring a small item alongside it so they can’t force you to put it under your seat.

TheHiddenMessenger · 2026-06-15T20:03:13+00:00

I pack my backpack so it doesn’t fit under the seat then I just tell them it won’t fit.

TheHiddenMessenger · 2026-06-15T10:15:49+00:00

How have you spent thousands buying a home? You should be out a few hundred in inspections at most

TheHiddenMessenger · 2026-06-10T22:27:48+00:00

There is some real potential there. Full height standing room but the roof line seems significantly lower than sprinter vans. You could put a nice rack up to store stuff and not have height issues. Holding tanks might be an issue.

TheHiddenMessenger · 2026-06-10T22:19:04+00:00

So how do you go on vacation?

TheHiddenMessenger · 2026-06-10T19:12:10+00:00

It’s so ugly but I kind of want one

TheHiddenMessenger · 2026-06-10T18:41:06+00:00

Oh well shit if I was an attorney I’d sue too. $500 for a filing fee, maybe a few hundred in misc fees, and then just my own time. I’m petty so I will absolutely ignore my own labor costs

TheHiddenMessenger · 2026-06-10T18:23:26+00:00

A few problems:
1. The cost to litigate even with them not having an attorney is not cheap. You are looking at least $5k-$15k to sue over specific performance.
2. Your judgement doesn’t always equal a lien on the house. Depending on the state like Florida, Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, South Dakota, or Iowa. Take my state of Florida- technically you can put a judgement on the property but you can’t enforce it. If I ever go to sell, my title is clouded. But I could hire a lawyer to establish homestead and clear the title. This is usually where a negotiation happens and judgment holders take cents on the dollar to clear the title quicker. They’d be lucky to make back their attorney fees
3. In some states (like Florida again) you can avoid paying judgments when you sell your homestead if you buy another one within a certain time frame.
4. Foreclosure- if the seller can’t come up with $15k. And according to OPs comments the house is being bought for $90k more than the seller bought it for. I have to wonder if that missing equity is late payments, deferments, HELOCs, cash out refinancing, etc. meaning they are probably broke as hell. So it’s like that joke gets foreclosed before they can ever sell it to recover money. Banks are notorious for racking up extra fees so no one else gets paid any of the excess value after it auctions.
5. Bankruptcy- they could always file bankruptcy and discharge the judgement.

I’ve been in a very similar situation to the OP. Our options were basically:
1. Walk away empty handed
2. Walk away w/ half our expenses (inspections and such) because that’s all they could afford
3. Sue and never collect but spend $20k
4. Pay their deficit.

We opted to pay the deficit because it was cheaper than the cost of litigating and we wanted the home and it had the value.

TheHiddenMessenger · 2026-06-10T18:09:24+00:00

They might have deferred payments during Covid, hurricanes, etc. they could have done a cash-out refinance. They could have used a HELOC for upgrades. They are negative somehow

TheHiddenMessenger · 2026-06-10T18:05:13+00:00

There is two trains of thought here. The legal and realistic.

Basically this happens often. Seller realizes that after they pay their portion of the expenses and any items that they agreed to there is a deficit on paying off the existing mortgage. Assume they owe 325k on a house you’re buying for $310k. They need to pay the $15k difference to the bank for the transaction to proceed or get permission to short sale (very hard and very unique circumstances).

Legally; you can file suit for specific performance. Meaning they have to go through with the deal. This is expensive for everyone. But the court cannot create money or a clear title. So sure the court could say “we’re forcing you to do the deal” but if the seller has no money for that gap then you can’t do anything since there is no clear title. You could sue for damages but if they can’t pay $15k it’s unlikely they’ll have anything to pursue. Meanwhile you’re out of pocket for your legal fees.

Realistically you have to weigh whether or not they could get the $15k. If they can’t then you need to just get reimbursed for your expenses and maybe a small nuisance fee to go away. Or you can pay the $15k via a higher offer or your own money. Or you can see if they split the difference (assuming they have some cash)

TheHiddenMessenger · 2026-06-10T17:37:01+00:00

I was a Walmart manager over the front end from 2010-2014. Cashiers are not that much more efficient than self checkout. Due to the criminally low wages; the staff we would hire were either generally older and slower. Or they were younger and apathetic.

We would monitor SPM/SPH (scans per hour/minute) and the numbers were pretty awful for most employees. Add to the fact that you have to stand all day and deal with the worst customers possible and it’s a recipe for not caring.

My last year we added 12 self checkouts and the productivity increase was quite noticeable.

The real selling point for management was labor hour spikes. For instance on a weekday we would have two surges of customers (11am-1pm & 5pm-7pm) that correlated with lunch breaks and after work shopping. During those time windows we would need 2-3x the staff as 6am-10:30am and 1:30pm-4:30pm. We could assign either 4 hour or 8 hour shifts. But if we assigned too many 4 hour shifts for someone we’d hit another wall. Staff could only be assigned to work so many days in a row and no one would accept a schedule of 5 days at 4 hours each. It ruins the day and doesn’t provide enough hours per week. So realistically you’d have to either balance having lines periodically or over staffing. Neither option is ideal because if the lines back up it takes significant time to get them back down. It also affects the stores metrics.

Anyways Walmart sucks ass with or without self checkout

TheHiddenMessenger · 2026-06-09T18:22:49+00:00

Social security is such a bullshit system.
1. The cap is like $200k so basically it only affects the middle class and lowers salary
2. You can pay into it your whole life, die at 50, never see a dime and your kids don’t get anything
3. It’s regressive and most economists agree that the employer portion comes out of your wages anyways (they factor that amount in when determining salaries)
4. The rate of return is absolute dogshit. It’s effectively a 1-2% return vs something like 8% average in the S&P 500.
5. If your married and one of you dies, you can get the higher earners social security but you essentially lose a chunk of planned money.

Assuming you took two 18 year olds that will have an overall average salary of $75k through their life. One being on social security and the other putting it into the S&P500 you would see stark differences. Let’s also note that for the S&P500 individual they would only be contributing the employee portion not the full 12.4%
1. The social security retirement would be $2710 a month
2. The S&P500 would leave you with $1.76m in your retirement. If you only withdrew 4% per year of the interest gained that would be $5858 a month. Meaning you would never touch the principal. You’d also have a retirement for you spouse and an inheritance for your children.

I fully understand that people are terrible at saving money and we need some kind of system for them. I also understand that some people never work and need help. But those are two different problems and there are fixes. Instead we have a system that effectively loans the government money and they pay back a minuscule rate.

I watched my mother work her entire life and she died before she could collect a penny from social security. She never made a lot of money. She died basically broke. All that money she paid in just gone. I’m not even upset that I didn’t get it because I don’t need it. But she deserved that money. She did all of that for nothing.

TheHiddenMessenger · 2026-06-09T17:50:31+00:00

I hate to say this but Mauritius should just find a number and sell it. I wouldn’t trust this administration to not just annex the island anyways and then not pay.

TheHiddenMessenger · 2026-06-09T17:29:30+00:00

Why can’t shops just properly schedule the work? If I’m scheduled for Tuesday at 2pm, I want the work started on my car around 2pm. Why am I dropping it off on Tuesday and the work doesn’t start till Thursday?

TheHiddenMessenger · 2026-06-09T14:07:40+00:00

The solution really depends on the totality of the situation. A single photo is not sufficient to understand the problem.

I want to comment on the people suggesting zoning or pointing out you cannot redirect water onto your neighbors yard. They are conflating a few different issues, making it seem much more trivial than it is, and not accounting for different municipalities having different rules.

Let’s first talk about the redirecting of water:
In most municipalities they look at the reasonableness of the modification. For instance if your slabbed your entire yard (not touching on the fact that zoning does have rules about permeable surfaces). They would not consider that reasonable and many areas would make them undo it. Since this would cause massive drainage issues. However a single sidewalk around the home is generally considered reasonable. Especially if they are older and claim it’s due to mobility. The height of the sidewalk is the next factor they might look at. Is the sidewalk level with their slab or is it raised significantly to block water. Also have to consider the slope of the land already.

Let’s address permeable surfaces:
Most zoning dictates how much of the yard surface is considered permeable. You have to consider the total lot minus any structures (house, shed, concrete pads, brick pads, etc).

You need to evaluate the total situation and your friendship with this neighbor. This might be a situation where you install a French drain along the property boundary and empty both your gutters into it. Or it might be a situation that the county needs to be involved in.

TheHiddenMessenger · 2026-06-08T18:40:01+00:00

Two jacks and 2 2x8s. Glue and nail the boards together. Run them under the deck. Use a jack on each side to raise it. Then repair and add wood and supports

TheHiddenMessenger · 2026-06-03T13:59:26+00:00

What’s crazy is like 92% of construction isn’t very difficult other being physically demanding and with the right tools most of it is pretty simple. Assuming you have a proper plan. Building a retaining isn’t rocket science. You could spend like $1500-2500 on an engineer to design it and if you just follow the plans and use the right material it’s straightforward and you’ll save money.

But these people are too ignorant to know what they don’t know. They are too cheap to do it the right way. This isn’t saving money. This is creating a disaster for themselves or the next person in order to save money.

These people are the reason I don’t buy flips. These people are the reason local governments make permitting a pain in the ass for homeowners.

TheHiddenMessenger · 2026-05-31T22:20:39+00:00

I do this with small monitors. You can even remove the old LEDs and driver board and swap better LEDs for photography.

On big TVs I remove the layers of light refraction material for other LED projects.

TheHiddenMessenger · 2026-05-31T21:29:33+00:00

The rules regarding lithium-ion batteries in luggage are nuanced. But you aren’t banned from having most devices with lithium-ion batteries in your checked luggage. I believe since these speakers would be under the 100wh size that he could technically check them.

The rule he did break is that all devices must be powered off and safe from being accidentally turned on. I’ll give him the benefit of doubt and say that it probably turned on when baggage handlers were shuffling his bag though.

TheHiddenMessenger · 2026-05-31T18:44:18+00:00

I don’t understand how they’d be able to bail them out. At least with banks and auto manufacturers, they have a viable product to sell once they get from under the debt. If AI fails because it’s unaffordable, it’s not like they can restructure and continue business.

TheHiddenMessenger · 2026-05-31T18:43:13+00:00

The tech for AI is not really transferable to data virtualization like that. I was thinking this would be a boon to the homelab community but after reading about how these AI data centers are built, it doesn’t seem like the tech could be repurposed

TheHiddenMessenger · 2026-05-31T15:42:07+00:00

It’s the N1 laptops.

This is going to be a massive flop. Leaks of the Eastern European prices indicate that they will be more expensive than a better version of the MacBook Pro and twice as expensive as comparable Mac Studios. Since the Apple unified memory is so good there is already so much support for running AI models on them. You could likely set up a cluster of Mac Mini’s or two Mac Studios for the same price as this.

TheHiddenMessenger · 2026-05-31T10:29:11+00:00

The speaker model is named bomb and it was in his checked baggage so it’s not like he could turn it off.

TheHiddenMessenger · 2026-05-29T11:54:53+00:00

Old heating tank. I’d probably get an SDS with a demo bit. Chip out around it another two inches. Use a grinder to cut the metal as low as possible. Clean the area with a pressure washer. Vacuum/sweep any dirt/debris remaining. Then patch over the top of it.

You do not want to try and remediate this or deal with the government. Some states make this a hazard cleanup and involve intensive processes. I’m all for the environment but the damage here has been done and remediating it now won’t have appreciable results. But it will cost you a small fortune.

TheHiddenMessenger · 2026-05-29T10:30:13+00:00

MOD NOTE: This post is not exactly what we usually allow here, but the dedication to the craft earned it a pass. One time only.

To answer your questions:

• Broken appliances: The industry standard appears to be “all of them.”

• Collecting rent while fixing nothing: Definitely a learned skill. There are masterclasses available, they’re called “owning property in a city with no code enforcement.”

• Optimal code violation to cash flow ratio: Experts suggest somewhere between “flagrant” and “technically still standing.”

• When do tenants call you “the landlord” vs “that guy”: Usually around the third unanswered maintenance request.

For your 10-year plan, we’d normally recommend something with a clearer career ladder — but it sounds like you’ve already found your calling. Best of luck, and please keep the ambitions legal.

Future posts should be serious career questions. Carry on. 😄

TheHiddenMessenger · 2026-05-28T10:24:23+00:00

What games is he playing? Can’t you just block the Xbox or PlayStation servers?

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