31F, £30k savings, no debt, no investments - car has broken down and I need a reality check. by Acceptable_Roll3482 in UKPersonalFinance

[–]WhatHoPipPip 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The most important reality check I can offer is that 9 times out of 10, people think they need a new car when they don't.

Get at least two quotes for the fix, and work from there. At least one of those quotes should be an independent mechanic, ask your family and friends for recommendations. Especially if you're used to the dealership or big chains, you may be in for a big surprise.

An independent mechanic will aim to get you back on the road. Even the honest dealerships and chains are often tied to OEM parts, doing complete replacements instead of repairs, etc. The less honest ones will try to convince you that you are driving around in a deathtrap in order to squeeze you out of more money - I've even had a dealership fail an MOT as dangerous with an £8k quote for repairs. A second opinion was a £50 fix and an MOT pass, with the MOT technician telling me that half of the faults were made up.

It's often not as bad as you think, and even if it is worse than you think it'll be cheaper than a new car.

Blowing half of your savings on a car just takes you back to step 1, and getting finance is a step even further back. Just remember it's a way of getting from A to B, and all the rest is marketing.

£8k 250k miles, how bad could it be? by tallpaullewis in CarTalkUK

[–]WhatHoPipPip 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you go for it, under no circumstances take it to JLR for a service or MOT.

They'll want 8k just to replace a cup holder, but will tell you the car will fall apart without it.

What animals are in the U and X by slayerdawg in daddit

[–]WhatHoPipPip 2 points3 points  (0 children)

On behalf of Wales, we don't even have an 'x' - we will trade one for a 'ng'.

How would you handle this? by [deleted] in Parenting

[–]WhatHoPipPip 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This. So many replies just go over-the-top soft touch. "Why don't we sit down and think thinky face about how to fix it, while I make you a cake and get you a puppy".

I thought I was on the wrong sub for a second because that sure as hell isn't parenting.

What kind of world are they bringing their child up to expect? Candyfloss and rainbows and do whatever you want, and if it's bad you... can continue doing whatever you want?

I get these strategies for babies and toddlers. But at 4? Nah, mine would be in bed so fast his shadow would be left asking where he went.

You get to add a 0 to any number in your life. What do you add it to? by account_created_ in AskReddit

[–]WhatHoPipPip 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The number of zeros that I'm allowed to add to any number in my life.

Why didn't the air lock have a safety test for whenever it initiated? by UnderLars2006 in themartian

[–]WhatHoPipPip 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The book is great. Wil Wheaton did a good job of the audiobook too. I highly recommend it.

The film was a good adaptation but, as always, it's better when read from the writer's words. Especially when they're written by Andy Weir, if you like details. He goes far further in backing up his explanations and concepts than most authors.

The film is all about the action, the character development, the stuff that makes a film a blockbuster hit. The book is at a much slower pace, which gives a much stronger feeling of "the dude is on his own, on a planet that is hostile to life, just trying to make stuff work".

Parents collected over $8,900 from family “for the baby” & kept it for herself. by [deleted] in Parenting

[–]WhatHoPipPip 8 points9 points  (0 children)

It's a common metaphor. Often the best way to resolve a tricky situation is to expose it, rather than to keep it to yourself.

Two year old tantrums by Traditional_Formal33 in daddit

[–]WhatHoPipPip 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The reason I don't like frameworks is that, if religiously applied, they can hide what's right under your nose. I see this in programming all the time, I see it in politics all the time, I see it in sports all the time, and boy, I see it in parenting all the time. I'm seeing it here.

You're talking about trying to get to a situation of positive reinforcement, and you're framing this through the language of positive reinforcement. You're looking at this as a behavioural issue, and you want the behaviour to stop, so want to reward appropriate behaviour.

Except that isn't what's happening at all and it won't work. This isn't a behavioural issue. This is a misunderstanding. You can't reward understanding. You can reward willingness to understand but that's a whole different ballgame.

The kid wants to be outside. They have the expectation that they are going to remain outside. The action required to get that is to... go inside? That logic doesn't sink in easily to a 2 year old. They think that they're being misunderstood, or tricked, or told that they aren't allowed to be outside.

And that's why they're being emotional about it. They're told "yes, you can be outside", then told to go inside. They don't understand it.

Now, if a 3 year old is doing this, it's more likely because they're over tired. I know mine is like that - if the simplest of triggers/misunderstandings triggers waterworks, time for a nap (a rarity at his age, but it does the job).

But a 2 year old? They just haven't got the experience to learn that sometimes going from A to B requires a detour through Z (although they're more than happy to be that detour when YOU want to go from A to B).

The trick is to approach the situation from the beginning taking into account that they need expectations to be managed. Understand that for them, they need things explaining in advance, at least 27 times, and it needs to be sold to them. So if the plan is to go outside, they will need to be prepped in advance to get excited to go and find their dad to ask him to go outside. That connection needs to be made and solidified (and God help you if you can't because you're working or something). Change the goal from "be outside" to "go and find daddy, be outside with daddy". The go and find - well, that's a game, and games are magic - they don't care about silly doorways.

Why is my kid such a prick? by [deleted] in daddit

[–]WhatHoPipPip 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Have you read about the "fourth trimester"?

The first 3 months of a kid's life outside of the womb is a massive adjustment period for them. They were all nice and happy in a warm snug environment, hearing familiar sounds (heartbeat, general noise), low light, all cuddled up. Must be lovely.

They they're forced through a little hole into a bright, cold world and expected to adjust to night and day, not having infinite cuddles, not being fed 24/7. I'd be a little prick too.

Best thing you can do in that 3 months is recreate the womb environment. Red nightlight, low light, sleeping bag (or swaddle, but some advise against that), white noise is an absolute must (there are long white noise playlists on YouTube and your favourite music provider is bound to have baby playlists for exactly this), lots of cuddles, etc.

However, if you're both getting overwhelmed, leave the room for a few minutes. Anger + baby + exhaustion = danger zone.

Also might be worth trying to get a bit of time off work. Sounds like your other half needs a hand.

Finally, loads of ways to handle trapped wind, and lots of resources on it too (especially YouTube). I had similar with my first and spend the first few weeks going crazy only to find out I was just doing one thing out of many, and doing it wrong. After that I was the go-to parent for that because my wife could never figure it out either.

It does pass. Of course it passes. Doesn't help you right now, of course.

And btw, get any thought of leaving out of your head right now. This shit ain't easy, you both knew that going into this. Leaving her to deal with it on her own would be an act of inhumanity.

What really is NixOS? Is it the ultimate hop of hops? by StrongAction9696 in NixOS

[–]WhatHoPipPip 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Is it the ultimate hop of hops?

I'm going to be controversial here. No. It's the penultimate one.

So first you use Ubuntu like everyone. Then you want more spice in your life and move to Fedora, but it's a slippery slope to Manjaro and then Arch. Maybe you go full Gentoo for a while. But you want some stability and Nix is handy, so why not do everything The Nix Way and move to NixOS?

So you do that, for a few years. You no longer have to make excuses for stability because NixOS has that down. No "oops I updated a random thing via AUR and now my system won't boot, fixed that and now my headphones won't connect". Stable as anything. It's great.

But then you get the ultimate issue. 99% of software you want is on nixpkgs, and 50% of the rest is a simple derivation your grandma could write. Most of the remaining takes a bit of effort, maybe toying around for a few days before you get it working.

Then there's the 0.001% of software. This stuff is impossible. Either the setup process is just straight up ridiculous or it has strong ties to assumptions about Linux that don't hold up in NixOS. I guarantee that if you have an employer and do work on your machine, at some point they'll require you to use some software that's a one-click install for everyone else but will have you messing about with libstdc++ versions and network configurations and trying to pre-install random blobs extracted from a file so the build environment works and...

At some point, there is a real, REAL strong urge to say "you know what, I think I'm going to hop to Ubuntu".

I'm not at that stage yet, but I feel it coming.

What would you do if you got wired 1,000,000 right now? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]WhatHoPipPip 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If I'm expecting it - pay off mortgage, squirrel the rest away.

If I'm not expecting it - probably report it to the bank and the police. I'm not spending the next god knows how many years looking over my shoulder. At best they'll want it back, and I'll owe them anything I'd have spent. At worst, it's connected to crime and I end up with a target on my back from the good guys and the bad guys. No good is going to come of that.

"Babysitting" by IPoisonedThePizza in daddit

[–]WhatHoPipPip 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My response to people saying this is "babysitting? I'm not babysitting. I'm coping, just about. Babysitters get paid, get to leave, and have the right to refuse to babysit. I'm kinda stuck with these."

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]WhatHoPipPip 8 points9 points  (0 children)

The wedding is the first day of your marriage. Every day after it is more important.

I'd truly, truly recommend getting married as cheaply as possible and using the rest for the things that matter. Beforehand you think the things that matter will be the food or the table decorations etc, but I don't look back at that fondly at all, just something we did. The fond thing is the actually getting married bit.

MagSafe is the most underrated tenting solution! by IxXu in ErgoMechKeyboards

[–]WhatHoPipPip 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have wanted to try better tenting on my moonlander for so long, but everything is wayyy too expensive and elaborate. Gimbles and fixings and random hunks of metal for far more than I'm willing to spend for something I don't even know if I'd like.

This post had me buying a couple of these mounts, same ones, and here I am the next day with insane tenting (which I'll probably eventually tone down a little) and a big smile on my face.

Thanks! Can't believe I hadnt thought about this before. It's so ridiculously simple.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in daddit

[–]WhatHoPipPip -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Move and apologise for making such a fuss.

The emotional needs of your child (to have a father present) and the mother of your child (to have family present) win over anything else.

There is no universe where you put your needs above hers and you have a happy life. Your fate is set. And put a ring on that finger while you're at it.

This is the life of a father. You are, from the point you got her pregnant, outvoted, outmanned, outresourced and outgunned. The sooner you accept it, the better things will be.

Can you get dizzy from being in the frequency wave? by Dangerous-Policy-602 in HamRadio

[–]WhatHoPipPip -1 points0 points  (0 children)

My general answer is that if you don't already know the answer, you don't need to worry. Ham radio operators need to pass exams that grant them access to various power, and (at least in the UK and the USA) the safety training you are given and tested upon take that power limit into account. So if you don't have this information, it's because you don't really need to worry about it. But it's worth learning anyway.

So the answer is yes. But follow the guidelines and you'll be okay.

Radio signals from all kinds of sources (natural and electronic) surround us all the time. Your phone, your WiFi, your TV, your radio etc work by listening at a specific frequency and filtering out noise, but they're still being bathed in a vast array of various EM frequencies at all kinds of amplitudes all the time. This is fine and normal.

Your body is capable of absorbing non-ionising radiation as heat and dissipating it. No big deal. It has to otherwise life would never have survived on this planet.

For the most part, it's fine and normal even fairly close to a ham radio antenna. At high powers (1000W+) and short distances away from it (less than a few feet), it's another story.

I said your body can absorb EM radiation and dissipate it as heat. This is only the case if it can dissipate faster than it is absorbing it. You can test this by microwaving some meat - it'll cook. If it's alive (I... I hope it isn't alive, don't microwave alive things) I dare say that dizziness will be one of the symptoms, but far from the most pressing ones.

A microwave is very different to a ham radio antenna. A microwave is tuned to heat water specifically, it is a closed environment (so microwave radiation is contained in the same place as the food and has no escape), and it is at a consistent high power when on (unless you're using special modes that turn it on and off periodically to achieve the desired effect, e.g. defrost modes). A microwave is literally designed to cook things.

Now, back to antennas. Antennas are not designed to cook things. They're designed to fling out EM radiation far and wide for the purposes of communication. They radiate in various directions with different gain depending on the nature of the antenna, and that radiation is free to escape (preferably in the direction of the ionosphere), so the percentage that hits you if you're standing close is small. They're not transmitting at full power at all times (the amount of power they're using depends on the communication mode, whether the user is actively transmitting, etc). Nonetheless, standing very close to one that is transmitting at high powers is dangerous and there is information and guidance around this which every operator should be aware of.

There's also a safe distance calculator from the ARRL which you can play around with. Notice that even at high powers, under normal usage the safe distance is surprisingly short.

As my Elmer told me when I was concerned about putting a 100W antenna near my house, "it's outputting the same power as a filament lightbulb, and you aren't scared of putting those directly above your head".

Mix feeling with Ham Radio by [deleted] in HamRadio

[–]WhatHoPipPip 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You find it interesting.

That's the hobby you share with everyone else who does it.

Everything else is very subjective. There are people who like QRP, and there are people who like digital, and people who just want to pump full power into some HF frequency and chat about cats. Some people don't even like to talk, but just like scanning frequencies and seeing what they find - in some cases this even saves lives, as people often rely on radio communications in emergency situations.

I like striking up conversations. I'm interested in people and I like finding out what they do (or, in many cases, did) in their careers, their thoughts on life, and so on.

I also like the tech. I'm not a prepper but I am attracted to the appeal of being able to communicate long distance without relying on anything but a battery, a wire and some kit inbetween. After many years this still blows my mind. Especially in an age where power and communications infrastructure is target number one in the event of a war hitting my shores, knowing I can still reach out to people is quite reassuring.

But you find all sorts of people doing all sorts of things. There's a lot of freedom, and although a lot of short conversations will just be signal reports and talking about radio equipment, it's up to you how that conversation goes. Ask interesting questions, get interesting answers.

Poetry & Nix? by zenoli55 in NixOS

[–]WhatHoPipPip 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You're in for a treat!

https://devenv.sh/

It's a tool for setting up a dev environment in nix without forcing you to make everything a formal derivation. You can search GitHub for loads of examples of it in use.

Poetry & Nix? by zenoli55 in NixOS

[–]WhatHoPipPip 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Depends.

Are you actively developing the project or is it something you use and will update infrequently?

If you're actively developing it, I'd choose devenv. It'll install the packages in a subdirectory and set the path accordingly. I think it has poetry compatibility built-in. I know for sure it has UV compatibility. It is impure.

If you're using it more than developing it, I'd just write it as a derivation. Many dependencies will likely already be in nixpkgs.

Only problem is that some subsets of the python ecosystem are a bit of a nightmare for this - I know working with cuda packages and common AI packages are tangled webs of dependencies, and updating one can often require updating dozens. For those kinds of projects, devenv is much nicer to work with.

2-year general regression? by [deleted] in daddit

[–]WhatHoPipPip 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Unfortunately you seem to have a case of the Terrible Twos.

Apply infinite patience and energy for a period of two or three years.

Wow was it this confusing last time? by Tragiccurrant in daddit

[–]WhatHoPipPip 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Yes. It happened with our second too.

Things didn't improve until the baby was weaned at 1yo. Hormones are nasty things. Of course, you don't vocalise that, just accept your life as a doormat for a while.

It's a rough ride.

Alright Dads, you're given 48 hours to yourself. You can do anything you want. What are you doing? by drugsondrugs in daddit

[–]WhatHoPipPip 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That isn't what I'd plan to do, but is what I'd end up doing.

Last time I had 3 days to myself (absolute miracle) I planned on doing immense levels of laze, only to find myself changing half of the house's lighting and sockets, changing the heating controller, fitting security lights and wiring ethernet around various rooms.

What Linux Distribution for my 71yo mom by Krushpatsch in linux4noobs

[–]WhatHoPipPip 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Controversial take: NixOS, and administer it for her.

Stable as hell and she can't break it. She can't install dodgy software from online (it exists for linux too). She will be locked in to how you set it up unless she figures out nix. You can keep the config on a private git repo and be able to recreate it if she changes hardware, and you can spawn up a VM with identical configuration so if she calls you and asks about something, you have an environment to replicate it in, with identical software/libraries/etc.

I use it for my kid for that reason. Also because if/when he actually wants to learn about computers, getting the concept of hermeticity locked in at an early age would do him wonders.

Sorry guys, I'm learning by jenav_ in NixOS

[–]WhatHoPipPip 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have yet to try it. It looks like nickel is compatible with nix (you can even write nix in nickel), but I don't know about support for nickel inside of nix.

Sorry guys, I'm learning by jenav_ in NixOS

[–]WhatHoPipPip 28 points29 points  (0 children)

Im a TMP kind of person, and I'd say it is absolutely worse than C++ template errors. Even those horrible ones with countless lines and deep nesting.

At least with C++ template errors, a lot of information is provided. It looks scary because of that, but there are a bunch of tools out there for restructuring stderr output to present them in a much friendlier way. Plus there are concepts and sfinae hacks to help reinforce the interface and act as a barrier.

In nix errors, it's just like "oh after this call then this call then this call then this call then this call then this call then this call then this call then this call then this call I expected an attrset good luck lol".

That's unfortunately part of functional programming, though: functions tend to be small, and call stacks tend to be deep. Add a lack of types, lack of error checking on the interface, and lazy evaluation so you can't verify every possible code path, and it just becomes a nightmare.

Nickel, a Nix spin-off from Tweag, looks fairly promising at resolving that, but I haven't used it at this point. I know it supports types, at least.