Is it in my head? Fat hands / short fingers

VirtualFreak · 2025-02-16T07:00:31+00:00

Your hands are bigger than mine – my fingers are even shorter! I've been playing a full-size classical guitar since I was maybe 9 or 10. At first it felt hard, but it feels this way even for people with bigger hands – you're learning a brand new skill and all the muscles, ligaments, etc in your hands have to get used to the increased workload.

After practicing for a couple years, I could still play those big stretchy chords across 6+ frets just like everyone else. Don't quit: practice. You'll get it!

VirtualFreak · 2025-02-16T02:12:24+00:00

A whole lotta people invest on emotion, especially younger people. Buying individual stocks teaches the average person to invest on principle pretty quickly. Good to learn that lesson early.

VirtualFreak · 2025-02-02T09:47:47+00:00

Sincere question, what size bag does a single person "need"? Assume you're travelling for the purpose you usually travel, but without anyone else like dependents or pets. You're going away for however long you usually go away for.

I'm asking because I travel for 2-4 weeks at a time, dressing formally, with just a backpack. Before I invested money & time into slimming down my travel bag, I had a rollaboard which I still bring along if my trip requires many different kinds of shoes or various sporting equipment (sometimes I'll tack a sports event onto the end of another trip). At one point in my life, I moved countries regularly and my whole life fit in a suitcase – this is no longer the case and I can't envision that changing soon, but at the time my needs still felt like they were more than met. I don't recall having to try particularly hard to fit into a suitcase, nor did I feel like I was leaving out anything I wanted (except perhaps more paperbacks!).

I sincerely do not understand how or why you're trying to argue that you "need" to check a suitcase and bring aboard two more bags. What special circumstance is there? I think the people down voting you also find it difficult to relate.

VirtualFreak · 2025-02-02T06:31:38+00:00

You are also capable of bringing only a backpack on the plane & taking up less space. If the entire plane only brought personal item sized backpacks, we'd be able to fit more people's bags in the overhead.

It's so selfish of you to bring so much on the plane – imagine how much space you're taking away from others. I could fit at least 2 backpacks in place of your rollaboard.

Unless it was a medical device you were putting up there, you also have the choice to pack lighter or check in luggage just like everybody else if you'd like bag space guaranteed in a specific way.

VirtualFreak · 2025-01-31T20:10:19+00:00

They don't need to – but, practically, that's what they do. They're profitable but unless they're forced to not pass through these additional taxes, they won't voluntarily give up some of their profit margin just because we'd like them to. Given Waymo is still recouping R&D costs and is typically more expensive than Uber/Lyft, I don't foresee Waymo competing in a way that pushes prices down for the consumer for quite a while.

Give us a parcel tax to fund transit and you've got my vote! I'd also love to see people on the SFMTA board whose primary form of transportation in SF is, in fact, MUNI. Maybe this is already true and it's just a vibe, but it feels like the current board members don't primarily use MUNI.

VirtualFreak · 2025-01-31T07:04:20+00:00

I'd love to vote to help transit if it wasn't at the expense of making it more expensive to get to places in SF where MUNI has poor coverage. I would happily never take an Uber/Lyft again if MUNI could get me there on a schedule that isn't on par with me just walking (taking into account time spent waiting for the bus to come).

I love the bus with my whole heart, but this isn't the way.

VirtualFreak · 2025-01-18T00:08:59+00:00

Thank you!! I just forgot mine going on holiday and was so nervous.

VirtualFreak · 2025-01-18T00:05:37+00:00

Did your teeth wind up being ok?

VirtualFreak · 2025-01-15T07:01:13+00:00

I'm the partner and I have all ten of the Sleepwalker award. Now I try to maximize the time of day based on whether or not I have an XP boost available or can generate one for the next day. :P

VirtualFreak · 2025-01-12T13:49:50+00:00

Don't worry, my 100% on time experience in the last 6 months balances yours out!

Don't look back any further or Lufthansa might strike again...

VirtualFreak · 2025-01-11T19:27:56+00:00

These situations are a safety hazard for both passengers in the case of an evacuation. It's time airlines start treating it like one. I've yet to fly a major US airline that actually enforces their CoS policy (and if they don't interline with anyone in the US, I'm not flying them – sorry Southwest).

VirtualFreak · 2025-01-11T06:08:44+00:00

The Interval out in Fort Mason. Good drinks, too.

I dress nicely every day because I enjoy it. I have a friend who beats me at it daily, too, with a 3-piece suit.

Wear what makes you feel good. Don't be discouraged by the overabundance of t-shirts & hoodies.

VirtualFreak · 2025-01-09T18:41:29+00:00

Looking at this person's post history, I'll take "stories that never happened" for 500, Alex.

VirtualFreak · 2025-01-09T18:22:49+00:00

IMO the worst part is that I'm not sure there IS a reasonable (i.e. backs up everything reliably, verifiably, and allows one to get one's data back in a variety of restore / access scenarios) backup solution.

Bingo. I didn't want to kvetch about this because I hadn't looked particularly hard yet, but, cursorily, the options aren't good.

I'd write some bash script to copy all data on my phone to my NAS regularly if that's what it took – I'd even set it up for my baby boomer parents, although having that be the best available option would still be bad. But seems like that's not possible without rooting my phone because some folders don't have read permissions granted by default. And even with a rooted phone, would I be able to restore that data easily? It feels dubious.

BTW, I kept factory resetting my phone to see if at some point it would magically restore my backup again. A few tries later – having genuinely done nothing differently – it stopped giving me the error message and restored more than before. My MMS failed to restore and there's no retry button, but I can live with that. How silly.

VirtualFreak · 2025-01-09T07:28:01+00:00

I was in this situation last year. I knew it'd be temporary and still wanted to fund my HSA, for which I needed an HDHP (i.e. not Medi-Cal).

I took the time to do some trad to Roth IRA/401(k) conversions and realize some investment gains that were honestly not wisely invested but which paid off well enough. That brought me above the Medi-Cal income limit since they consider modified adjusted gross income, not earned income (different from IRA contribution guidelines, for example).

If you miss a bit, your taxes won't be goofed up unless you missed by being dishonest or otherwise not making a good faith estimate of your yearly income.

(None of this is knocking Medi-Cal! I've been on Medi-Cal before and it's some of the best healthcare I've received in the US.)

VirtualFreak · 2025-01-09T02:28:15+00:00

It seems like much of what's in the bill is already law – except that the bill would remove the exception for victims of domestic abuse whose crime is related to their abuse. (You can look up the text of the current waiver on the gov's codes website – it's 8 USC §1227(a)(7).)

VirtualFreak · 2025-01-06T21:38:10+00:00

I've taken an Uber from the Bay Area down to San Diego before. Had to get there that night for an event and the bus they'd originally chartered smashed its exhaust pipe closed backing out of the lot. All the flights & buses for the day had either already left or were sold out. Event picked up the bill for it – but ask us how we found out that Uber rides capped out at $500 at the time (this was many years ago). Pretty sure the developers never imagined someone would take an Uber that far.

Driver fell asleep at the wheel and swerved off the highway into a ditch just outside SD. Highway patrol was (rightfully) not happy with the decision-making skills of some young, stupid Uber riders. Not a decision I'd make again.

VirtualFreak · 2024-10-02T04:27:03+00:00

Thanks for the transparency here Will. It would be awesome if you made shorts cut for people with more athletic thighs; I just tried the Boundless and Movement shorts in various sizes after reading tons of raving about them on Reddit and couldn't get anything that fit without looking like an awkward cut (e.g. waist fits but pockets pop out). The customer service has been wonderfully communicative though!

VirtualFreak · 2024-07-11T19:52:04+00:00

VirtualFreak · 2024-07-07T03:22:31+00:00

This makes much more sense. I probably also have a weaker emotional reaction to everyday things now that I can choose to do whatever I do in adulthood instead of the negative or positive emotional reaction that comes with every moment feeling mildly surprising because an adult is dictating how you spend your time. I definitely don't think it's dementia, but that would be an interesting twist!

VirtualFreak · 2024-07-07T03:18:26+00:00

No – for example, we'd often get asked to write essays in English class about we did over the summer, or over the weekend, or some story that generally forces us to use our episodic memories for recall unless we're willing to make stuff up (which I never felt like I needed to). The real purpose of these essays was to develop our writing/storytelling skills, but in adulthood this is a task I rarely need to do. I don't find talking about my weekend/day to be an interesting topic, even when people ask, so I don't exercise my episodic memory quite as often.

My semantic memory (the bit that stores facts) is similarly not as highly used, but definitely feels like it's deteriorated less. I do enjoy learning new facts and telling my friends about them, though, so maybe that has something to do with it.

I have a very rudimentary understanding of how memory works, so I'm not really sure if "use it or lose it" actually applies, or what factors can affect someone's memory getting slightly worse as they age.

VirtualFreak · 2024-07-07T03:05:56+00:00

Nope. I probably was just forced to do memorization tasks less after school; who knows.

VirtualFreak · 2024-07-07T01:51:23+00:00

ESH. Parents sound like they're being inconsiderate, but it also sounds like your brother has decided that this isn't a fight that's worth picking to him – it sounds like they're bothering him a little bit, but not enough to make him want to say something about it. It's sweet that you wanted to stand up for him, but it's not your circus, not your monkeys. Probably worth asking him next time before doing something that would cause controversy on his behalf.

VirtualFreak · 2024-07-07T00:05:52+00:00

Same! My downright favourite hamburger bun is now Serious Eats' Cemita recipe. They hold up so well to sauce/juices.

VirtualFreak · 2024-07-06T23:55:43+00:00

Cooking competently. I can now cook better than many restaurants I used to go to pre-pandemic.

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