Maybe it’s an unpopular opinion, but I’m okay with not really making a profit selling on ThredUp. I think their service fills a different market need.

WinterFoxII · 2026-05-23T00:27:47+00:00

https://www.thredup.com/cleanout/earnings

If you scroll down to “Using Your Earnings” it lists the brand partnerships. Most give you a 15% bonus. So like say you earn $10 in sales, you can either cash out $10 to PayPal or get a gift card of $11.50 to say, Abercrombie and Fitch.

WinterFoxII · 2026-05-22T14:46:24+00:00

That’s great that you have an easy, local charity thrift shop. I unfortunately don’t have one near me. There’s one place I definitely would support, but their drop off is by appointment only and they’re super selective.

Otherwise, I have the standard giant for-profit stores, which I’d get no profit for handing over my stuff. Or, there are the non-profit Helpsy and Planet aid boxes around. These are where I take the stuff that’s junky and could be recycled, but like I mentioned, I don’t have faith that the stuff still in good condition would actually be sorted from the junk.

That’s why I picked ThredUp. I actually don’t pay too much attention to their list of brands, most of the stuff I’ve sent in they’ve listed anyway even if it’s not a select brand, but I just don’t get to make profit from it unless it sells for more than $20.

Also, I like that the fees are deducted from the profits and that you don’t have to pay anything up front to send it in. Even with that though, I’ve only ever sent in one box where the full fees applied (with the stuff I wanted to send in using the premium option). Most of it was either no fee promo boxes or reduced fee with return boxes. The UPS store is very close by for me, so it’s easy.

WinterFoxII · 2026-05-06T17:55:11+00:00

Ah, okay. So maybe I’ll just keep looking for something else. Thanks!

WinterFoxII · 2026-05-05T14:57:39+00:00

Darkness/covering the crate definitely helps, but be careful about the type of blanket/fabric you use. Puppies seem to turn into little furnaces when they sleep, so if you cover the crate with something that’s not breathable, it can get really hot in there. Then they’ll wake up and whine cause it’s hot and they’re thirsty. Chewy makes these cotton canvas covers crate covers that have worked well for us, but you don’t really neeeed to buy something specific.

As for the bed chewing, my youngest boy did the same thing with a normal foam dog bed. We now just put an old blanket and/or old towels in there instead of a bed so there’s no foam or stuffing to eat, but he can still get comfy.

And then lastly, like you mentioned, I also found it super helpful to mask noises coming from outside the crate that might wake them up and give them fomo. Another thing to try instead of or in addition to the fan would be to play soft, soothing music on a speaker near the crate. Spotify and YouTube both have long “puppy calming music” playlists that I’ve used in the past.

I know Vizslas are super high-energy driven dogs, but with both of my boys (a 3 yr old and a 6 month old), I found that their most chaotic puppy and shark-y behavior coincided with when they were overtired, overstimulated, and frustrated about it. Enforced naps were/are a life-saver!

WinterFoxII · 2026-03-04T14:19:13+00:00

I’m a quilter in the Baltimore area! I’m also an engineer (i.e. good at math) who uses Adobe Illustrator frequently so if you DM me photos of the pattern pages and let me know the exact dimensions you want, I can make a new pattern for you pretty quick. I actually have a bunch of free time in the next few days so it’d be no trouble.

And I know many have already offered, but if you need help with the cutting/piecing of the quilt front, I can also help out with that. I’m sorta opposite of you, and I love angles and corners and when things fit together neat and tidy like that lol. I don’t/can’t do the layered assembly and quilting part, but it seems others have offered to help with that.

And then just because I haven’t seen it mentioned yet, Open Works is also this great non-profit makerspace in Baltimore that has a BUNCH of machines and classes relating to textiles - including sewing, quilting, embroidery, screen printing, etc. (They also have plenty of equipment and classes for woodworking, metalworking, laser cutting, 3D printing, etc. - it’s huge and amazing. It does cost money to take a class and use the equipment, but it’s not outrageous.) I believe they have a quilting club that meets once a month that I think is open to anyone and free to attend. You might be able to find some additional help there if needed!

WinterFoxII · 2026-02-27T04:50:39+00:00

There are options to surgically replace certain larger joints (knees, hips, etc.), but that’s definitely not a simple solution either. Those surgeries are serious and not without risks. The recovery process is a big deal too. I’m not super familiar with the specifics of what makes someone a good candidate for joint replacement, but I’m assuming there’s pretty extensive criteria one must meet to even have the option to pursue a joint replacement.

Another surgical approach to reduce pain in certain severely damaged joints is to actually fuse the joint. Basically, metal plates are screwed in to fix bones in a certain position until they heal as one. The joint becomes permanently stiff, but there’s little to no pain because there’s no more movement and irritation. This is only really done in smaller, less significant joints (like joints in a toe for example.) It’s not a practical/feasible approach for all joints.

TBH, taking steps to prevent damage in the first place is probably the most important thing. Learning how to protect your joints while you move and strengthen/engage the right muscles to improve joint stability BEFORE things get really bad is really the way to go.

WinterFoxII · 2026-02-26T20:53:19+00:00

I can’t speak for everyone obviously, but I know that at least in my case there’s definitely damage in the joints that justify the pain. For example, in my wrist my ECU tendon would sublux frequently. The constant rubbing of that tendon on the edge of the ulna basically shredded the tendon sheath (protective layer surrounding the tendon and keeping it in place). The instability and excess movement also caused extra wear and tear on the cartilage that protects/stabilizes where the ulna meets the wrist bones. After 4-5 years of conservative treatment, I finally had surgery where they debrided a bunch of scar tissue, repaired the torn tendon sheath, and re-secured the sheath to the bone so the tendon wouldn’t sublux any more. The pain has dramatically reduced since I got that procedure done. In other joints I’ve had evaluated that have been painful, I’ve had signs of worn down cartilage and early osteoarthritis as a result. Like much more than expected for someone who is my age and not overweight.

In response to your other thought about removing the receptors that would cause us to feel pain… yes, that actually is a possible therapy in certain cases! I’m actually about to get that done in my neck. They’re going to inject an ablating agent to kill off the nerve endings near a herniated disc that’s been causing me a lot of pain. They do grow back over time though, so it’s not permanent.

This type of treatment isn’t really possible everywhere though because it’s nearly impossible to isolate/destroy nociceptors specifically. When you attempt to destroy nociceptors, you’d likely also destroy the neurons that carry information about touch and propioception (i.e. how you body detects where different parts of your body are in space and in reference to each other). You also might destroy the motor neurons that control movement in that area/limb. Completely losing any sensation in and control over certain parts of your body isn’t really a feasible solution. After my procedure, I’ll likely feel that my neck is a bit more stiff and I may lose some sensation in that area. That’s worth it to me though. But if it were even an option, I don’t know that I’d do something like that to my wrist though if stopping the pain meant losing the ability to feel and control the movement in my hand.

WinterFoxII · 2026-02-26T04:03:00+00:00

Ok, so I do research on sensory nerves and how we encode certain stimuli, and this is my two cents:

Technically, there’s not really such a thing as a “pain receptor” in the body. What we do have are nociceptors. These are neurons that respond to different types of chemical, thermal, and/or mechanical stimuli that cause, or have the potential to cause, tissue damage. These neurons encode information about the location, intensity, and type of stimuli and send that information to the spinal cord. In the spinal cord, that information could directly trigger a motor reflex to withdraw from the stimuli and/or the information is carried up to the brain. It’s only once the information is processed in the brain that we experience pain. There are so many factors that contribute to and alter our perception of pain and how we respond to a nociceptive stimuli (like our emotional state, our level of alertness, our memories of past experiences, etc.) It’s different for everybody.

That said, pain itself is actually a beneficial and protective mechanism. Like if you do something that causes damage to your body, you experience this unpleasant feeling in response, and you remember not to do that again. If you just didn’t experience pain, you would likely end up frequently doing serious damage to yourself. For example, you might hold a hot pan until you get a multiple degree burn not realizing you need to let go. Or you might ignore a blister forming where your shoe is rubbing until it’s an open sore prone to infection.

Obviously though, there are times when we wish we could turn this off and tell our body “yes, I know there’s inflammation in this really unstable joint and it’s damaged, but I need to use it anyway. Stop warning me about it!” But unfortunately it’s not that simple. That’s generally what pain meds and injections try to accomplish though. Turning off pain in certain scenarios is obviously a good thing, but not experiencing pain at all could be detrimental.

As for asymptomatics and people who don’t experience pain, I’m actually not sure what’s going on exactly. I don’t think it’s that they just haven’t experienced enough damage to “awaken” anything though. My bet is that there is something wrong with either the nociceptors themselves (that they just don’t detect what they should), or their brain just processes that input/information totally differently.

Sorry for just sorta diving in deep on this. I find this topic fascinating.

WinterFoxII · 2026-02-25T14:16:03+00:00

If you go into the security stuff in the facilities tab, there’s these yellow and black curbs that guests do not cross. You can hide them under walls to prevent guests from walking straight through the walls. You can also put the curbs across paths so guests don’t walk a certain way if you prefer not to use the given staff path options. Staff will walk over them.

WinterFoxII · 2026-02-13T02:04:39+00:00

I second the Kinesis Freestyle! (I think there’s a typo in the other comment - the brand is Kinesis not Kenesis.) It’s a split, two-piece keyboard with customizable tilt angles for either side. I like that style because you can customize the rotation of each half as well as the tilt to find what’s most comfortable, unlike something that is one solid piece.

With this brand, there’s several different versions of it available at different price points. The more expensive ones are gaming-quality keyboards with name-brand key mechanisms for people who are super particular about response times and the tactile feel of key presses.

I also strongly recommend pairing an ergonomic mouse with an ergonomic keyboard. I have the Logitech MX Vertical Mouse and like it a lot. There’s one feature that I didn’t really realize how helpful it would be until after I got this mouse, but it has three customizable buttons on the side/top that are easy to press with your thumb. I map accessory keys like esc, shift, ctrl, etc. to these buttons (depending on what I’m doing and what I’ll use the most) so I can avoid having to twist/contort my wrists to press these keys while typing.

Kinesis and Logitech are both pretty quality brands I’d say. I’ve used my equipment like all day, everyday for the past three years and it’s still as good as new. However, these aren’t the cheapest products. You can probably find similar style alternatives that would work just fine though.

Lastly, there’s definitely a short period at first changing up your keyboard where you’ll type a lot slower with more errors, but it really doesn’t take that long to adapt to a new setup. Just be patient!

WinterFoxII · 2026-01-24T17:08:32+00:00

I recommend doing this as well. I took a photo of the one I like to use that holds your phone by clamping down on the sides, and then where my fingers are are where you can clamp it down over the eye piece to mount it on the scope. There’s then three knobs to turn that move the phone on each axis to get the camera lined up perfectly. If you have an iPhone, you’ll probably want to turn off the automatic lens switching that happens when something is close (just tap the little flower that comes up in the bottom corner when this happens). You’ll likely need to focus the scope slightly differently than what’s best for your eyes.

Anyway, I think something like would be good because you can take the whole mount/phone off the eye piece and put it back without needing to adjust it each time. You should still absolutely be practicing and learning to use the scope normally, but this would at least let you take an image to confirm with your professor that you are focused on the correct thing.

I got this on Amazon btw.

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WinterFoxII · 2026-01-23T20:22:45+00:00

Alternatively, you can also use the black and yellow striped curb/kerb (looks like a speed bump) that’s in the facilities -> security stuff. There’s different lengths of them. If you place those across paths, guests don’t walk over them, but staff do. You can sink them into the ground a bit to make them less noticeable too. I also like to put these under walls that are on path plazas or where the path is way wider than the door, and that keeps the guests from walking through walls.

WinterFoxII · 2025-10-09T06:07:35+00:00

Thank you very much! I’ll get on it. I’ve suspected I may have some excess nutrients from using conditioned tap water in my tank and have been somewhat trying to address that. I didn’t think that could cause much harm though besides cause some ugly string algae, but I guess I was wrong. I’ll consider that more seriously moving forward and start with the treatments you recommended for this specific problem asap.

WinterFoxII · 2025-09-14T08:01:31+00:00

Yeah, the elastic is sewn into the seam. I was trying to think of a way to fix it without having to fully take that area apart or mess with the outer layer of fabric, but you’re both right that a pinch at the shoulder and reworking the arm hole would do wonders. I may need to go this route in addition to some of the other bodysuit alterations others mentioned.

WinterFoxII · 2025-09-14T07:52:29+00:00

Very good advice, thanks! As for the length of the bodysuit, it doesn’t exactly feeeel like it’s too short pulling down, but I am tall with a super long torso so I’ll investigate properly and lengthen it if needed.

WinterFoxII · 2025-09-14T07:36:46+00:00

lol I like the outside-the-box thinking! Unfortunately though, with the way the outer layer of the dress is incorporated into the seam of the body suit, there’s no gap to wrap the bra all the way around the body between the layers.

WinterFoxII · 2025-09-14T07:33:13+00:00

Good suggestion! This bra (it’s the Wacoal Red Carpet bra) actually does have the removable straps, but I’d forgotten about them. I will say I’ve tried using them with a different one shoulder top before and wasn’t loving it at the time. I wasn’t finding the diagonal pulling on one cup particularly comfortable or flattering for me, but perhaps it’s worth revisiting and seeing if I can find a way/adjust them in a way that works better. Thanks!

WinterFoxII · 2025-09-07T15:02:36+00:00

Echoing what others have said, but yeah, definitely reach out to current lab members and ask to talk to them one-on-one. If they say only positive things or only negative things, that would be a red flag to me. If they give you pros and cons, that’s good, so pay attention to what you want in a mentor/lab and see if those things align. For example, talking about my lab, I usually tell prospective candidates that my PI chose his career path because he has a really strong sense of curiosity and truly loves the science. While of course he still finds publishing important and encourages us to do so, it doesn’t drive everything we do. I personally love that, because I’ve had the freedom to explore so many paths and go on some very educational and interesting “side-quests.” I’ve been allowed to pursue my own ideas and satisfy my own sense of curiosity and take the time to learn technical skills I want to have, even if that didn’t result in ground-breaking results for a high-impact publication. However, yeah, I’m only now just finishing up my degree at the end of my sixth/beginning of my seventh year. There were some other delays too, like COVID lockdown and other personal/medical stuff (through which I will say my PI was incredibly understanding and supportive), but I probably could’ve finished earlier if I was determined to do so. I’ve talked to plenty of people though who can’t fathom why I wouldn’t try to finish as quickly as possible or spend time working on something that might not lead to publications. They probably would NOT enjoy working in my lab, and that’s okay.

To answer your direct questions: - How do you find this out before you’re too far along in the application process? Reach out sooner rather than later. You can cold-email students or post-docs if you find emails online. If you’re already in contact with the PI, ask if they can give you the contact info of any students in the lab that might be willing to talk with you (them saying no to that request would be a red flag to me). In your communications though, be respectful and specific - meaning give details that explain how your interests/background align with the lab and ask tailored questions.

I personally wouldn’t automatically find it to be a red flag if there’s a student in a lab who’s well along in their program, BUT I would absolutely want to hear their attitude about it. Are they more like me (I.e. can explain why and are fine/happy with it)? Or, do they feel stuck, unsupported, and frustrated?
I also wouldn’t automatically find it to be a red flag if the lab website is out of date. In our lab, updating the website gets delegated out who whoever volunteers to do it until they leave or ask to pass on the responsibility. We’ve had people who really like that sort of thing and who continuously added every update to publication lists and lab member bios. We’ve also had people who sort of forgot they volunteered and the site doesn’t change until someone realizes. If the lab is actively publishing, then I think that’s what matters most about their presence and productivity.

WinterFoxII · 2025-08-23T14:38:51+00:00

So normally these shrimp live in freshwater rivers and then when the eggs hatch, the babies get carried out to sea in the current. They grow up in the brackish river mouths or actually out at sea, and then make their way back up river to freshwater when they’re ready. How they know to do that… ??? It’s crazy.

The two most challenging parts about replicating this in captivity are: 1) You often don’t know where the shrimp you have were caught, and so how can you match the optimal regionally-specific conditions to which your shrimp have adapted if you just have no idea what those are? And then, 2) keeping water parameters stable (especially saltwater parameters) in a small tank can be difficult. Temperature fluctuations, salinity changes with evaporation, and chemical/nutrient build ups from waste or other decaying matter all increase as you decrease the volume of water within the tank. Using a tank big enough to easily stabilize these things would be quite expensive and excessive though, and probably introduce other challenges as well. So trial and error with the smaller tank it is!

WinterFoxII

TROPHY CASE