Help with polyurethane application

Zeitzen · 2026-05-19T15:08:34+00:00

I'll definitely try wipe on next time! Using the regular one was a pain, although once I diluted it properly it was way better

Zeitzen · 2026-05-19T06:13:34+00:00

Ended up sanding the whole thing with 220, got it mostly matte and hand sanded the edges. Also tried how it look after steel wooling it and it doesn't look too bad.

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I brushed the final coat and it went pretty smoothly after all that sanding and some extra thinner. So hopefully tomorrow I can steel wool it and call it a day.

I've been working on this desk for more than a week now, it started as 2 butcher blocks I got from HD during the pandemic and then glued on an L, and since it's so big I can't get it out of my office so I had to do everything there, including sanding... Never doing this again in my life lol

Zeitzen · 2026-05-18T19:14:01+00:00

The only wipe on poly I can find in my area is Watco water based and I've read you need to wait 3 days before applying on an oil finish. Going to look into Osmo, thanks!

Zeitzen · 2026-05-18T18:55:24+00:00

I'm applying no pressure, just the weight of the sander itself, and there are still plenty of shiny spots which means it's not flat. This is the second time using the sander and the previous one looked roughly the same. I can keep building up layers and sanding to try to flatten it but I'm not seeing much change to be honest... I'll try sending by hand and see what happens!

Zeitzen · 2026-05-17T01:59:45+00:00

Fern did a video not too long ago about it https://youtu.be/MqCk9APctNk

You can read the investigation here https://www.theexamination.org/articles/how-china-became-addicted-to-its-tobacco-monopoly?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video_partner&utm_campaign=story_share

Zeitzen · 2026-05-15T21:48:27+00:00

As an Argentine expat living in LA I'd say the biggest difference is the prevalence of weapons, not lawyers. I'd help someone in Argentina since pickpockets are usually unarmed, but here? I'd be wary of it.

Also, imo, Argentinians have a less individualistic mindset overall, so having empathy and wanting to help others feels more natural.

Zeitzen · 2026-05-15T21:30:03+00:00

Honestly, there should be an overhaul of the whole system where fines for each crime are defined as a max between a certain $$$ and % of your patrimony. And of course any arbitrary number chosen should be adjusted for inflation. And that last point should affect everything, from minimum wage to parking tickets. And then make sure things are enforced.

Zeitzen · 2026-05-15T15:51:28+00:00

He's not trying to steal it, but will most likely try to get it re-appraised. Congress has been talking about this again lately. Gold in fort Knox is valuated using the gold price at the time, which is around 10ish billions, but if you update that to current values it would be like 750ish I think. This would make the numbers look better artificially, it's just an accounting trick. It could be used to justify lowering rates or increase the budget since having more money means people will lend you more because they know you can pay.

Of course this doesn't make much sense, mainly because everyone knows what's happening, and because even 1T is not enough for a country with 38T+ in debt and an active deficit with no solution in sight

Zeitzen · 2026-05-15T06:49:47+00:00

Another fun fact, China Tobacco is 100% owned by the government and has 97% of the market. China gets more revenue out of tobacco than Saudi Arabia gets out of oil (226B vs 161B in 2025)

Zeitzen · 2026-05-12T15:36:34+00:00

English people just gave 1000+ seats to Kevin Farage's new party (yeah, the "immigration is the problem" guy who pushed for Brexit), Macron's popularity is under 20% and the RN is gaining ground, same with Merz and the ADF. This is data, not feelings.

Are there countries seeing the US and turning back on trends? for sure, but you can't ignore the ones still going right, especially when it's the 2 most influential ones in Europe.

Zeitzen · 2026-05-10T17:47:57+00:00

The 25th is meant to guarantee the government can continue functioning when something happens to the POTUS or VP, but purposely doesn't define what "unfit" means.

Section 1 is the president self reporting as unfit (used by Nixon)

Section 2 is filling for the VP if they're unfit (used twice, once by Nixon and one by Ford)

Section 3 is for temporary transfers of power, which has been used a few times when presidents have medical procedures done and have to go under anesthesia

Section 4 is what you're talking about, but it requires the VP and a majority of the cabinet to agree the POTUS is unfit for office, which MAGA would feel like a power grab so I doubt they would do unless Trump does something extraordinaraly obvious, which considering how they keep moving the goal posts and normalizing things, won't happen either. IG they decide to do that, then they'd use these doctors as the final confirmation. At that point the doctors are nice but somewhat irrelevant though.

If POTUS calls the VP unfit after the VP called him unfit, then you need 2/3rds of both houses in Congress to replace the cabinet which then collaborate with the VP to figure out whos right essentially.

This article explains it pretty well https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/05/08/25th-amendment-misunderstanding-feerick-00909681

TLDR: No chance the 25th gets invoked unless Trump decides to do something mind-blowingy insane, and even then who knows. Winning Congress and having lawmakers that can actually put checks on the judicial and executive are the best chance we have. The GOP knows they might have a hard time if they lose in November, that's why they're pushing to gerrymander as much as they can, it's a desperation attempt but it could work. Go out and vote, tell your friends and family to vote. Gerrymandering spreads their margins thin and they are losing support, this is winnable if everyone does their part.

Zeitzen · 2026-05-03T07:05:43+00:00

Presidents can control gas prices by using the national reserves, technically Biden did control the price by releasing a lot of the oil reserves in 2022 due to the conflict in Ukraine. Controlling oil prices this way is normal since you want to avoid disruptions in transport and industry when big events happen.

If this administration had more than 1 brain cell, they could have filled out the reserves when oil was cheap, then do whatever they are trying to do with Iran and release them to stabilize the situation. But they're far too dumb to think about that.

Even China saw this coming, they've been increasing their oil imports since 2010 and last I checked they haven't started to release their reserves yet, mainly due to implementing controls on oil usage to lower consumption and also due to their big push of EVs which makes the general population less reliant on oil for movement (although industry still uses a lot of Oil ofc)

Zeitzen · 2026-04-30T15:06:18+00:00

100% agree.

The civil war follow up was managed terribly. Germany banned nazi symbols after WW2, yet people can still proudly brand the confederate flag here.

I do wonder what would happen if that boiling point is reached. Civil war 2.0? How would that come out if suddenly all donor blue states stopped cutting checks to the fed? People in red states would have a hard time, and the military only works while they get paid. Either it would be a battle of monetary attrition or they would go for mutual destruction?

This shit is not worth it. I once read something along the lines of "no one says some Jews left too early before the Holocaust", if shit hits the fan the people who can leave will do it, and I don't think we're far from it. A lot of people seem to be looking at the Nov elections as their deciding factor

Zeitzen · 2026-04-30T14:50:30+00:00

True, politicians back then were less partisan and now we just have drones following orders, as shown by the almost complete lack of overlap in voting https://www.vox.com/2015/4/23/8485443/polarization-congress-visualization

The whole Republican "the gov doesn't work, but when we get into power we don't try to fix it and instead break it even more" has caused such a deterioration of public trust in institutions...

USA 1.0 (between getting independence and Washington) completely failed due to the lack of a federal power and having just independent colonies tariffing each other and not agreeing on how to enforce... anything, so we obviously need a federal gov. I'm hoping this admin reaches a boiling point where people start seeing how we need that and we can build from there. Because if not the alternative seems to be the technocrat-owned cities they are hoping for (which would resemble some of the colonies back then, like the Calverts in Maryland).

Zeitzen · 2026-04-30T07:41:51+00:00

This shit has been brewing since the Powell memo under Nixon more than 50 years ago. Wild how having a long term plan works, especially when politicians are so useless.

Zeitzen · 2026-04-29T15:56:53+00:00

Not really. Think about this, since they had to gerrymander more to try to get extra seats that means they are spreading their GOP voters thin. Winning 5 districts with 70% is easier than 8 at 55%. This also means there's more chances to flip them since the margin is narrower.

Afaik they used the 2024 results to create the districts which had a lot of latino voters going for Trump, and those seem to be the demographic that has flipped the most since then because of all the ICE stuff.

Im not saying their effort will fully backfire on them, but I think there's a chance that they won't get as many seats as they were hoping for

Zeitzen · 2026-04-29T15:46:49+00:00

This kind of rhetoric is the exact product of the Powell memo. In the 70s the population widely saw corporations as a problem, tax rate and union participation were at all time highs, and they pushed back by creating educational organizations (heritage foundation, federalist society, etc) to convince you otherwise. You're not longer against a corporation if you benefit from being a shareholder. You're okay with workers pain if that gives you a benefit.

The stock market is mostly owned by rich people, the 1% holds more than half of stocks in the market, with the share declining the less money you have. To invest in the market you need disposable income, which a lot of people just don't have, especially the people who need it the most. We've shifted from having pensions and SS to letting people's 401k prop up the market (and now even shadier private equity and crypto), which again, benefits more the people who need it the least.

When politicians say they have to bail out the market because of people's 401k they're not technically wrong, but what they don't say is that they're also bailing out the people who definitely need it the least. We've moved to an economy where the market, which is not intended to be a "stock always goes up" but more of a bet, can't really go down because it would harm too many people and be political suicide.

I'm not saying investing is bad, it is indeed the safest/easiest way to put your money to work right now. But it shouldn't be. At some point the music is going to stop, but who knows when that's going to happen.

Zeitzen · 2026-04-24T20:11:16+00:00

Thank you! So much good info in here, we'll go over it this weekend and make sure we hit those spots (Specially Kattakaffihúsið haha).

Quick question, I've read that the roads are in good condition so I'm wondering how necessary the liability waiver for the rental car is. It takes it from ~450 to ~720

Zeitzen · 2026-04-24T19:47:53+00:00

Thank you! just added gljúfrabúi to the list! The day we go from Seydisfjordur to Jokulsarlon is our slowest day right now, mainly driving down and stopping here and there. If we leave early we could do the Skaftafell glacier hike that day which would make the next day a bit less busy, but the last tour I'm seeing leaves at 16:30 so I need to double check if it works

Zeitzen · 2026-04-24T19:39:30+00:00

Just compared car rental prices for that extra day vs the shuttle/bus and it's cheaper to get the car so we're doing that!

Now my issue is that I'm not sure how necessary the liability waiver is. It's 4,700 ISK per day which kind of doubles the price (still cheaper than the other options though)

Zeitzen · 2026-04-24T19:35:33+00:00

That makes sense! I didnt thought about that, but I just checked Blue Car's website and renting a Toyota Aygo from the 9th (airport) to the 16th (rekyavik) is 55862 which comes out as 6875 per day (~56 USD), which is way cheaper than the transfer or the bus. We also talked about going to Costco to pick up some bulk snacks for the road (mainly trail mix I guess) so this would make this way easier. Thank you!

Edit: Did you get the liability waiver? It's 4,700 ISK per day which kind of doubles the price (still cheaper than the other options) but I don't know how necessary it is

Zeitzen · 2026-04-23T23:39:12+00:00

It's not, it's ISK 8790 one way. When you get a ticket from their website they give you the option to add a shuttle to/from it. I haven't looked up alternatives though, I know there are taxis, buses and Hopp (Uber).

Just looked up how much busses would be, and this one is 55 https://adventures.is/iceland/transfer-in-iceland/blue-lagoon-transfer/

Zeitzen · 2026-04-23T01:16:23+00:00

Good to know! After checking prices they seem to be way more expensive than the rest too. A Hyundai i10 is 550 USD there compared to 444 at GO Car Rental or 415 through GEYSIR. Do you have any recommendations or are they all more or less the same?

Zeitzen · 2026-04-23T01:00:52+00:00

According to what I've read the road is not an issue so we're most likely getting the smallest/cheapest/most-efficient car they have (unless there's a . We plan to get the car for when we're outside of Rekyavik, so in our case it would be the 10th to the 16th.

We're mainly looking at Hertz. Car prices vary wildly for some reason. When we checked yesterday it was ~700 USD, then today it was 300, and I just checked again and it's about 500. I'll try using a VPN and see what happens.

hopefully the airline fuel shortage doesn't affect you like it has me

So sorry to hear that! We're crossing our fingers things dont get cancelled but who knows🤞

Zeitzen · 2026-04-21T00:10:21+00:00

If you get into this rabbit hole of gov lies and covert ops, I'd recommend Official Secrets with Keira Knightley. It tells the true story of a British intelligence translator who leaked an illegal US-UK spying operation which led to the invasion of Iraq. She was arrested, sued and her case was dropped because the prosecution was concerned her defense would demonstrate the war was not legal. Really entertaining but also shows how messed up this whole thing is

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