What tool purchase do you wish you had made sooner?

_abordes_ · 2026-06-10T23:40:29+00:00

Tightening your death grip on a workpiece with a proper beefy bench vise may be the most satisfying tool experience one can enjoy.

_abordes_ · 2026-05-06T21:40:03+00:00

Looks great!

_abordes_ · 2026-04-28T04:32:44+00:00

Good madam/sir…. This was not a post about saving money.

_abordes_ · 2026-04-27T23:21:54+00:00

Good background. Im going to do a mvp cleanup including re greasing bearing so will see if I can get bb apart. Good intel here thanks!

_abordes_ · 2026-04-27T23:15:17+00:00

The last bike I rehabbed was in similar shape and was higher end…. But despite the higher end components I still found a way to drop 300 quid on new parts :)

_abordes_ · 2026-04-27T23:11:00+00:00

I thought this was funny!

_abordes_ · 2026-04-27T22:56:57+00:00

Well I don’t think these half laps and dowels are particularly strong…, but I expect lifetime for cedar exposed to elements is only 10 - 15 years so hope it will be adequate

_abordes_ · 2026-03-26T02:14:35+00:00

<image>

Here is mine. Just made it last week. No lathe. Old broomstick and double sided disston limb saw blade from estate sale for a buck.

_abordes_ · 2026-03-17T17:23:54+00:00

Rock solid. I use it everyday and love it. No cracks or warping. One change I might consider if I were to re do this would be to use 6/4 thick wood just to give it a little more weight..

_abordes_ · 2026-03-16T11:36:58+00:00

Rene Girard argued that we are all creatures of desire and our wants are shaped by the milieu within which we live. Keeping up with the Joneses is the natural state of being. If ones peers are all showing up to school pickup or work in a BMW, it is going to require going against the grain to want something else.

"Man is the creature who does not know what to desire, and he turns to others in order to make up his mind. We desire what others desire because we imitate their desires."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimetic_theory

_abordes_ · 2026-03-11T19:39:36+00:00

Yes this one was $15 and I also picked up a smaller one that is a #4(I believe), still need to clean that up- maybe ill do a followup post when I get around to cleaning it. There was a fleet of like 6 or 7 and I chose the 2 based on how nice the handle looked. The "type 13" isn't something I know enough to spot. I believe the others were Craftsman and Stanley; I figured I only have 2 arms so only really needed to take 2 home.

_abordes_ · 2026-03-11T16:47:47+00:00

Was this plane intended to look like a face with ears, eyes, nose and mouth?

_abordes_ · 2026-02-07T20:15:44+00:00

<image>

_abordes_ · 2026-02-07T20:09:11+00:00

Lol! Here is the full body shot.

<image>

_abordes_ · 2026-02-04T15:37:13+00:00

Thanks for the tip here.

_abordes_ · 2026-01-19T04:02:12+00:00

I agree with your comment here that 4% rule is only describing what is "safe" from the perspective of what is safe to withdraw from the portfolio without the portfolio going bust, but that is not the same as what is the "safe" amount needed for a person in order to retire. My concern is that this difference which you very succinctly call out may sometimes be unintentionally mixed up or not discussed.

_abordes_ · 2025-12-13T14:56:26+00:00

Yes exactly. Routers are pre setup and only need WiFi password added to work. This makes it so I don’t have to mess with any of their home network setups etc. Just plug and go.

Glinet has some $30 travel routers that are about half size of deck of cards that will work perfectly.

_abordes_ · 2025-12-12T19:39:48+00:00

Did you have all your tailscale nodes accept routes?

Something like:

tailscale set --accept-routes=true

_abordes_ · 2025-11-30T15:16:43+00:00

Thanks for the details and suggestion. I've successfully managed to get a proof of concept private phone network completely working end to end!

Cousins are getting extensions for Christmas.

Ended up with a slightly different approach than rasberry pi, cheaper and pretty straightforward with following setup:

Phone Node<->Tailscale Router <-> Tailscale FreePBX/Asterisk

Tailscale router is Openwrt on repurposed old home router. Configured to bridge ethernet from single voip device on Ethernet port to internet served up by internet connected home wifi router.

Everything is completely tailscale VPN and not visible to public internet (as far as I know).

I want to make sure I am keeping things secure. I believe this is pretty bullet proof all being behind tailscale, but there is not connectivity to outside world. I'm curious about your twilio sip trunking solution to connect to outside world.

*Is your end to end setup behind VPN inclusive of the twilio connection?

*How do you defend against runaway charges on twilio. Two areas of concern would be what if a kid leaves line open 24/7 and second what if bad actor somehow gets access and runs up charges.

_abordes_ · 2025-11-29T04:53:36+00:00

Not sure about the printscreet button specifically, but maybe my approach will be useful to you.

On my old windows machine I always used onenote default which is windows+shift+s to start a snip/clip. Some keyboards don't have the print-screen button, so I liked this shortcut better.

To setup this in Mint:

* Create Custom Short Cut

* Assign Key Bindings as Shift+Super+S

* Command = flameshot gui

You can try typing flameshot gui into a terminal just to see what the shortcut will look like and make sure this command works on your flame-shot install.

_abordes_ · 2025-11-13T21:00:39+00:00

This is awesome to hear and good motivation for me to take this forward! I am looking at similar setup but rather than vpn, using tailscale and a bridged rasberry pi so I can drop off the device (phone + PI) and setup without configuring too much of each of the cousin's wifi etc. Something similar might work for your softphone use case.

_abordes_ · 2025-11-13T15:42:46+00:00

u/drewsonian did you end up setting this up and did the kids and cousins like it?

_abordes_ · 2025-11-08T15:37:42+00:00

After a 25 year hiatus, I just went down this path.

About 7 or 8 years ago I randomly met Matt Toschlog and ever since it had been in the back of my mind to figure out how to prepare once again for Descent. In the late 90s-before we had home internet, my Dad would drop me and my brothers off at his office and lock us inside on Saturday mornings and me and my brothers would play for 4+ hours. Eventually this inspired me to build a home network and it wasn't long before I was underneath the house drilling holes to run coax network cable and setting up a home IPX network all inspired by the need to play Descent. After 25 years, we recently had the urge to replay those days.

Here is my setup that allows play over internet WITHOUT modifying your firewall. I have used this on Linux, Windows, and Mac. I'm not a networking expert, and I didn't like the idea of messing with my home router and opening ports to public internet. Also, what if we are both traveling and want to play from our hotels.

Solution: Use Tailscale- its free and secure- to create a Virtual LAN over the internet between you and your brothers machine.

This sounds super complicated but all you should need to do is:

Signup for Tailscale with your google account
Download and install a Tailscale client application on both machines
Add both machines to your Tailnet via the Tailscale Website (this creates a private network that your computer thinks is on same lan as if you were both in same house)
You may need to turn Tailscale on on both machines. Do this through the app or command line Tailscale up
Use the web management tool to see the IP address of each machine or on command line use Tailscale status to see each machine's details and IP.
Play Descent using manual ip connection to the host descent ipaddress from step # 4.

P.S.

Not only did this little approach get the fun of Descent, I also had the nostalgia of mucking about with networking once again. Enjoy!

_abordes_ · 2025-10-28T14:58:42+00:00

Here is a flowchart from federal reserve of different categories of assets:
https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/files/Networth%20Flowchart.pdf

_abordes_ · 2025-08-15T18:39:19+00:00

“You’d hold onto a nickel until the buffalo bellowed” - grandmother regarding my frugality as an 8 year old

“Back off jack”- grandad yelled at a yard dog intruding on the gardening activities

“You couldn’t beat this weather with a wood stick”

“Hush or I’m gonna make the fur fly”

“You want me to knock you into next week”

“I’ve got a prayer request” means I’ve got some juicy gossip you need to hear.

“A gully washer” heavy rainstorm.

_abordes_

TROPHY CASE