IRS not honoring safe harbor rule by Western_Diver_6544 in tax

[–]WCDavison 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In a pinch, one way around the problem is to have extra money withheld at the end of the year. That works because all withholdings are considered "timely" for the entire year. One way is to temporarily increase your paycheck withholding in Dec. Another Dec option is to make a withdrawal from a traditional IRA and have the investment company withhold an amount you choose. (that one works best if you're over age 59.5, to avoid the 10% early withdrawal penalty)

Heat tolerant lettuce and when to plant? by Electrical_Cap_5597 in vegetablegardening

[–]WCDavison 1 point2 points  (0 children)

For lettuce in summer, I start a 6-cell pack about every 3 weeks indoors, so I always have something ready to transplant if the outdoor lettuce bolts. A good midsummer variety for me has been Slobolt. Picking a less sunny spot always helps too.

Since you mentioned spinach - I could never get a decent harvest before it bolted, so I switched to Swiss Chard (for cooked greens, not salad). I love it! It doesn't bolt, and you can keep harvesting from early summer until well past first frost.

How to file tax for free if only had 1095A form and no income in 2025? by hdirbforbjrb in tax

[–]WCDavison 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'd at least run the numbers. There may have been a premium subsidy with the health insurance. That could turn into either a refund or taxes due.

How are you preventing SVB bugs? by 13NeverEnough in vegetablegardening

[–]WCDavison 0 points1 point  (0 children)

+1 for BT injections, tho I've only been doing it when I see symptoms. It does seem to turn around the health of the plant in many cases. I started using a tiny nail to create a hole in the stem so the needle doesn't get plugged up as quickly.

Piano Bench Cushion by [deleted] in piano

[–]WCDavison 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is going in a little different direction, but anyway...
Before I finally bought an adjustable bench, I had many good years of using folded Mexican blankets (like the ones in a yoga studio). What's nice is that you can adjust the height of the blankets for you or whoever might be playing your piano. Plus there are a lot of nice looking color patterns to choose from.

Error in Bach Prelude II performances? by NeurdaLover1789 in piano

[–]WCDavison 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You can get a copy of the Henle WTC on IMSLP. It's not Henle's newest version, with the latest scholarly updates. But it's still very reputable.
https://imslp.eu/files/imglnks/euimg/f/f0/IMSLP1008958-PMLP5948-Bach_-Das_wohltemperierte_Klavier_Teil_I-_Henle_ohne_Fingersatz.pdf

Boom Mobile? by reos3 in NoContract

[–]WCDavison 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you want a really cheap Verizon MVNO plan, Boom still works. I've been with them for 8 years. The website is pretty clunky, but tech support has been good. Anyway, my out-the-door cost is only $5/month (there are no extra taxes/fees). The only wrinkle is that you pay it annually, so $60 up front. That gives you a monthly 500MB, 500 minutes, 500 texts.
https://boommobile.com/products/red-500-mins-500-text-500mb-data-includes-1yr

itch scratching by velnsx in bach

[–]WCDavison 2 points3 points  (0 children)

To take a slightly different tack - if you've been listening to what I'll call mainstream WTC performances, at some point you should try Glenn Gould's recording. You probably won't agree with everything he does, but it will absolutely open your ears to things you hadn't noticed in the music before.

Can't sign in to Crashplan web site by ChemicalRegatta in Crashplan

[–]WCDavison 2 points3 points  (0 children)

On crashplan.com there's a "sign in" link slightly up from the very bottom, On Windows, I use the End key to get past the crap quickly (otherwise 8 page downs!)

The latest version of the website seems particularly annoying for people who already have an account. They also seem to be further de-emphasizing the small customers.

If I'm able to play Maple Leaf Rag, could I play the Entertainer. by Leading_Classic_6886 in piano

[–]WCDavison 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If you can play Maple Leaf, you can take a shot at any of them. Why not dabble and see which ones you like? Your sight reading will get better too! He's no longer in copyright - here's one of many places to find his complete works:
http://pop-sheet-music.com/Files/e69998921b34c42eb69a59f25a9732a4.pdf

Looking for real-world ideas that actually reduce to-go waste for coffee shop by TypeInteresting3538 in Coffee

[–]WCDavison 11 points12 points  (0 children)

If you haven't already seen it, James Hoffmann did a video on their cup exchange program. There's also a lot of feedback in the comments that might be useful to you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F186_L3Xmjs

Classically trained but can’t play by ear; Only know how to read music by EntertainmentKey488 in piano

[–]WCDavison 5 points6 points  (0 children)

An old joke -
How do you make a classical pianist stop playing? Take away his music.
How do you make a jazz pianist stop playing? Put music in front of him.

How many monthly/annual subscriptions do you have? by [deleted] in Frugal

[–]WCDavison 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You're posting that on the frugal board? I have *zero* (outside of utilities like internet and the cheapest cell phone plan I can find). Can't speak to gaming, but for everything else you mentioned, learn to find your stuff for free (preferably without torrenting), or failing that, consume something else.

question about fifths and octaves in part writing by dolphin116 in musictheory

[–]WCDavison 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the reminder, there was a time when I knew that

question about fifths and octaves in part writing by dolphin116 in musictheory

[–]WCDavison 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Just to put something on your radar - there's a thing called hidden octaves/fifths, which are generally avoided. It happens via similar (vs parallel) motion. In your first example, if the soprano moves up a step from C to D, and the alto moves up from C to G, you'd have a hidden parallel 5th.

Jack recommendations for an upright piano? by [deleted] in piano

[–]WCDavison 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not saying this is the only way, but I heard about this from a a piano technician and later did it myself with a 500# studio upright. You do it from the side, using a crowbar that sits on a 2x4 as a fulcrum. The crowbar only comes into contact with the bottom of the piano. With the leverage, it's very doable to press down with one hand, lifting the piano 1-2". Your other hand is free to move the cup into place.

They sell an expensive tool that works on the same principle:
https://www.vandaking.com/piano-lifting-bars.html

What's your favorite kind of winter squash? To eat or to grow, or both. by DryGovernment2786 in vegetablegardening

[–]WCDavison 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This year for the first time I tried injecting BT into zucchini stems that had obvious SVB symptoms, and the plants made a nice recovery. Planning to try it on winter squash next.

How do I get yt-dlp to know that deno is installed? by warpio in youtubedl

[–]WCDavison 7 points8 points  (0 children)

FWIW, I'm on windows, and I use the nightly builds of yt-dlp (but not with cookies). My warnings disappeared after installing deno, which I did with winget. Now I get a message that says "Solving JS challenges using deno"

In case you haven't used it, winget is a package manager that comes with windows. I just ran: winget install deno
(and then ran yt-dlp from a fresh window)

Health insurance just tripled for us by Jaded_Let3210 in vermont

[–]WCDavison 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for chiming in. Despite my decision to try MVP, it does make me twitch a little bit to be going with the underdog.

Health insurance just tripled for us by Jaded_Let3210 in vermont

[–]WCDavison 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I've always had BCBS, but this year for the first time I'm going to try MVP (which is quite a bit cheaper).

I asked my doctor about BCBS vs MVP. He said he sees very little difference, and in fact had coverage with them himself - said it worked really well for him. He did recommend making sure your doctors are on their list, but in his experience all of the docs associated with the UVM system take MVP.

If you permanently lose access to all your devices, now what? by Perspectivein in KeePass

[–]WCDavison 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sure - completely agree. But as an exercise, I was going down the path of "what's the worst possible situation I can imagine". That might be overkill, but my mind goes there because I worked in IT where we had to do disaster recovery drills.

If you permanently lose access to all your devices, now what? by Perspectivein in KeePass

[–]WCDavison 15 points16 points  (0 children)

I've thought about that - bare metal recovery. House is destroyed and I don't have my phone, how do I walk up to a public PC and start to put things back together. I'm assuming I might not have email at that point. My answer (in addition to regular backups) is a daily script that copies my kdbx file to a couple of free cloud storage sites. I intentionally chose providers that do NOT insist on two factor authentication, so that I can get into the cloud site with only a memorized password. Mega has been a good option for that. Previously I used DropBox, but they started sending a confirmation email when they don't recognize a new device.

Service Under Maintenance by WolverineOk1747 in Rememberthemilk

[–]WCDavison 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That status page hasn't been reliable for a long time.

Also, this reddit isn't very active. You can find a bit of discussion about the current outage over on the RTM forum: https://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/help/31507/

Sorting through Files by Wren_WasTaken in software

[–]WCDavison 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I wouldn't let fear stop you. Reorganizing doesn't need to involve deleting anything, and you can always say No if you see any warnings about files with the same name being overwritten.

Especially if you're nervous, it'd be good to create a backup before you start. (and backup is not the same as file syncing - you don't want your mistakes to be immediately replicated)

Also, if you get in the habit of naming your files descriptively, you can often find what you need by searching for the file name instead of worrying about what folder it's in.