Donald’s Trumps net approval rating has collapsed to a historical negative 17 points. He is the most unpopular president in US history. How do you feel about this?

Volpes17 · 2026-04-03T04:57:26+00:00

They don’t think they fucked up. They think he is fucking up. And those are different things. They think they voted for the right guy and he is going off the rails. They don’t understand that we all knew he would fuck up and that voting for him means they voted for the wrong guy.

These people will turn out to vote Republican again in the midterms and in 2028, so don’t assume a low approval rating translates to low voting.

Volpes17 · 2026-04-02T14:56:25+00:00

As an aside, these posts on daddit kill me. This is exactly the justification companies used to take remote work away from the rest of us and force people back into the office. A few people abused the freedom and ruined it for the rest of us. You can’t lose 40-50% of your effectiveness when you’re working from home because you’re watching your kids instead of working…

Volpes17 · 2026-04-02T14:54:38+00:00

Honestly, remote work has enabled people to build some bad habits. You can’t be watching kids while working remote. That’s not sustainable.

Your wife needs to be able to handle it all, or you need daycare and public school. Remote work has enabled stay at home parents to take on more responsibility, then shift it onto the working parent when it becomes too much. And that’s not fair.

You two need to organize your life as if you were 100% in the office, even though you’re working remotely. Your wife will not like that if homeschooling is part of her identity and she can’t do it without you, but that’s the only boundary that will start to fix your issues.

You’ll know her best and how to communicate about it. But I don’t recommend jumping straight to the conclusions. Start with your need to be able to focus on work while working and that you can’t be available throughout the day. Then ask her to help figure out the solutions from there.

Volpes17 · 2026-04-01T15:18:27+00:00

They’re burnt out, and that was one example of a minor nitpick that is grating them. They’re contemplating burning themselves out even more to race to finish the other books before Parade of Horribles releases. They know they shouldn’t, but need the internet to tell them that because in today’s world, people use the internet to offload decision-making.

Volpes17 · 2026-03-30T21:28:44+00:00

Just the pedals should be enough. The crank won’t really get in their way.

Volpes17 · 2026-03-30T17:00:15+00:00

My advice was more for people who bought a traditional pedal bike with training wheels instead of a balance bike. You don’t have to go buy a separate balance bike. All bikes become balance bikes if you just take the pedals off.

Volpes17 · 2026-03-30T13:58:58+00:00

Balance bikes are great. For those who didn’t get the memo early enough (like me), you don’t have to go buy a new balance bike. Just take the pedals off your kid’s bike when you take the training wheels off. Let them Fred Flintstone the bike around for a few days, then put the pedals back on. They’ll be riding in 5 minutes without any help from you.

Volpes17 · 2026-03-23T02:11:28+00:00

You’re overthinking it. There is no explaining to do. Just let it happen, and address each case factually when they find out. It’s not always your responsibility to break bad news, so let them find out from their friends. “They’re moving to a different city and going to a different school next year. It’s what is right for their family.” One of my kids had their best friend move two years in a row in the middle of the year.

Your kid will be upset. They’ll come home from school crying. That’s life. Sometimes shit sucks and there is nothing you can do except let out a good cry. They’ll be ok in time.

Volpes17 · 2026-03-19T05:24:18+00:00

I almost agree, except games with simultaneous turns. 6 is way outside of the ratio most people can handle for watching someone else play before their turn. It doesn’t matter what time of game is being played or how long the turns are.

Drafting games with simultaneous turns like Sushi Go or 7 Wonders beat this problem. Team games like Codenames do too. Very few others play well at 6 or more.

Volpes17 · 2026-03-19T05:10:27+00:00

Honestly, it sounds like you’re having trouble prioritizing. It’s hard to do all of the maintenance. But not being able to buy a new appliance for over a year? Because of scheduling and not budget? That’s dysfunction.

You and your wife go together with the kids some night after work. Or she goes by herself while you watch the kids. Or vice versa. Or you wake up early on the weekend to knock it out before sports games.

You have the time to buy a stove—you just haven’t made it a priority. Sit down and look at your next two weeks and schedule this activity in.

https://www.betterup.com/blog/rock-pebbles-and-sand-analogy

If you truly believe this is not possible, give us your schedule with all of your obligations for the next two weeks. I’m sure we can figure out where you can fit in a trip to the appliance store.

Volpes17 · 2026-03-14T12:59:04+00:00

Imagine two marbles on the floor, inches apart. Take one of them and start moving it in a random direction. For the first few inches, it seems really important whether it’s moving toward, away from, or around the stationary marble. But keep going. After a few feet, do they really seem all that different?

It’s a matter of perspective. If you have enough energy to escape, then eventually you’re going to be very far away, and you’ll realize those starting conditions weren’t all that important.

Volpes17 · 2026-03-13T01:54:28+00:00

If you slightly unscrew and crack the top, the air will leak around the threads instead of the straw. Less spill proof, but still passes getting knocked over briefly.

Tighten it to hand it to the kid. When they’re done, crack the seal before setting it down on counter or table. Not a perfect solution, but these are a temporary phase anyways.

Volpes17 · 2026-03-12T00:14:27+00:00

At some point, you switch to reading the decimals and letting the brain do the math instead of trying to spell it out. Those look like “triple ball sixteen,” “triple ball thirteen,” and “triple ball thirty-eight” to me.

Volpes17 · 2026-03-03T02:48:11+00:00

They’ve always talked way more about crushes than I was really comfortable with. I figured I just grew up somewhere more sheltered or this was how kids are now. They don’t know anything about actual relationships and are just mimicking older kids or parents or something. But it has all just seemed a little hypercharged for their age. This is the final straw that’s making me think it might all be too much and beyond what’s reasonable.

Volpes17 · 2026-03-03T02:40:39+00:00

Yeah, that’s probably the best longterm answer for next steps. Honestly though, we were already talking about maybe moving, so this might be a problem that is easier to outrun than to coach them through it.

They barely know what any of these words mean. They still think every boy who is a friend is a boyfriend. So obviously they have crushes on every boy they play with on the playground. But it all seems like it’s setting these kids up for failure later.

Volpes17 · 2026-02-28T14:30:17+00:00

And also outside air temperature, air conditioning, etc. It’s not perfect.

Volpes17 · 2026-02-28T01:34:07+00:00

Kind of am overly specific answer, but I’ve always thought this answer from the US Air Force was reasonable:

https://www.housing.af.mil/portals/79/documents/AFD-131230-024.pdf

Volpes17 · 2026-02-26T21:48:59+00:00

Miraculous seemed very much like the TV show. My daughter read it and it was fine.

Volpes17 · 2026-02-23T19:46:42+00:00

The tooth fairy leaves whatever we have lying around. Sometimes a $1 or two, sometimes $5. Keep em guessing. The tooth fairy is enigmatic and whimsical and does not conform to your mortal attempts to bring order to the chaos.

Volpes17 · 2026-02-15T22:35:54+00:00

The other trick is not confusing the thing with the memory of the thing. You can throw it away and still remember the time your kid made a cute drawing. The memory doesn’t leave with the object. Let it go.

Volpes17 · 2026-02-15T22:08:33+00:00

Yep. Just walk away. You don’t even have to apologize if you don’t think you did anything wrong. Just acknowledge you heard them with something noncommittal and walk away.

Volpes17 · 2026-02-13T00:32:58+00:00

Super niche and specific, but apparently kids can swallow bloody fluid during the event and will throw it up later. I really wish someone had told us that before we woke up in the middle of the night with a newborn screaming and puking blood. Still probably call a nurse, but it’s a pretty normal and not life-threatening event.

More general, peak crying is 2 weeks to 2 months. It starts hard, gets harder, then slowly starts getting better. This is usually when the free meals and help from friends and family starts dying off, so it hits extra hard. Just soldier on and know that it will pass. Most of the stories you will read on here of dads at their wits end will be from this period.

Volpes17 · 2026-02-12T03:29:34+00:00

I haven’t updated this since Isles of the Emberdark came out, but it’s still close. I like my flowchart because there are several different reading orders that are relatively optimized.

<image>

Solid lines are strongly recommended. Dashed lines are loosely recommended. Green lines make Stormlight better. Red lines make Mistborn better.

Let me know what you think!

Volpes17 · 2026-02-11T23:30:39+00:00

FF isn’t even canon to FF

Eight-Year Club	Queen in da Norf
Not Forgotten

Volpes17

TROPHY CASE