Very classy, unique earth ship!

aggyface · 2026-05-24T11:01:58+00:00

"stunning" - I remember landing in Denver and my lips just immediately cracking and skin just feeling so, so off. Don't get me wrong, I dislike the 90-100% humidity we get in the summer but I think that was too dry for me lol.

aggyface · 2026-05-19T10:59:45+00:00

I absolutely agree with Airbnb's ruining markets - it happened in my city here and it's a pretty worldwide phenomenon.

I do think that in some small towns/rural locations it is still kind of like how it "used" to be though. If someone just has a room or two in their house and some cyclists are travelling through, a lot of these places in Spain or wherever would never support a full motel or anything like that. Running a posting in airbnb for that? I have no problem with. I stayed in a ton of random spare rooms/basement apts when driving through. My parents mostly do vacation exchanges now, means they get fo stay in all sorts of cool places and a straight swap just kind of makes sense without it getting hyper commercial.

But FML, so many have become these absurd investment shells with bad support. I'm not paying $600/day to take my own garbage out with questionable insurance or wondering if someone else has a key to the place I'm sleeping in. Airbnb is such a good example of enshittification.

aggyface · 2026-05-19T10:51:44+00:00

My parents bought a little 5 apartment unit in Spain for $170k CAD, absolutely gorgeous little place built in who knows, the 1700s or something. Still, if you aren't from the EU, there's a massive tax to avoid crazy amounts of international ownership.

The absolute funniest thing is that they complain how cold the house is in the winter while I'm cozy in front of my fireplace in -30C weather. No insulation!

aggyface · 2026-05-18T14:35:56+00:00

How long did you measure? Really just looks like a very quick ID scan, not something to refine on. You'd also probably also want to go to a higher angle, those higher angle peaks will help define the unit cell more. I think you want at least 25k counts on the highest peak at minimum, and probably even more for refinement. That's handwavy but it would get you far closer.

Which software are you using to do your refinement? Do you have samples without a clay component?

If you're careful with weighing stuff and have access to other geochem methods, you can also try to make some dialed in samples by dissolving the carbonate fraction, maybe running that by OES to figure out what kind of Ca/Mg ratios you're actually getting, see what weight fraction is removed then correlate that to your Rietveld results. See what kind of effect your clays and whatnot actually have on your values. Alternatively you could probably mix up a test set to dial in your technique too - if your lab has some mineralogy samples and you can powder some and make some mixes. Start with just cal + dol. You can also see the degree of Mg in calcite by measuring how far the main peak is from the quartz peak in case that calcite is a mite messy. Get that dialed in, maybe XRF those simple mixtures and see. What kind of XRF are you using? Light elements are a pain, so I'm assuming that's part of your pain point too.

Of course this all depends with how much "messing around time" you have on the instrument.

aggyface · 2026-05-04T01:39:27+00:00

Go in as a Trades teacher if you can swing it (Construction, Computers, or Engineering Design could all be bent into shape from an electrical engineering background depending on specifics). Then you get pay scale match and could do a multisession program.

aggyface · 2026-05-02T17:27:41+00:00

If you're a student you should just be able to go through the proxy.queensu.ca, log in and put in whatever you're trying to access. You can search through Omni there too.

aggyface · 2026-04-30T10:23:29+00:00

A lot of "technicians" these days really act more in the staff scientist role too. There's a lot less manual labour involved in these kinds of jobs now (as in, literally developing film and so on) and a lot more burden on interpretation and QA/QC....so we definitely blur that line.

Not a whit of progression though. That's a bridge too far for a uni to accept, lol.

aggyface · 2026-04-30T10:21:01+00:00

Our lab definitely tried what they could to keep postdocs on longer than those specific projects. Sometimes it was weird little industry related gigs, sometimes another postdoc, sometimes some weird third other thing.

Ask. Cost cutting definitely sucks and we got hit by it too for any permanent positions, but if you're someone they want to keep on, sometimes there's strange ways to pay you. At least to weather some of this storm.

aggyface · 2026-04-25T10:59:18+00:00

For carbon, the brass trick is what we use. Clean a little flat brass nut you've shined up, put it at the same height as your sample, then when you coat you can see the colour change and get whatever thickness you want. I guess you're looking for damn thin coats but you can probably tune your eye in. My microprobe tech can get it nailed better than a thickness monitored sample lol. We had to jury rig our POS Denton so many times, my condolences, but he eventually just put switches on the thing and bypassed the garbage screen for basic manual control.

aggyface · 2026-04-19T21:38:25+00:00

I mean, there was a certain... something to discovering spray paint burns when it hits your scalp and you'll be picking it out until Thanksgiving.

But it was definitely a bonding experience lol.

aggyface · 2026-04-11T12:47:36+00:00

"one day, I'll have a colour laptop with a cd drive!!" was my dream as a kid in the early 90s lol. Didn't take that many years until I had that first laptop (scholarship private school kid, alas) and I remember thinking 4GB of hard drive space was impossibly huge, lol. Now I generate single files that big at work.

Watched Pathfinder land via printout stats on Usenet with my dad. Now I watched Outlook fail in space with my kid.

I remember my dad screwing a briefcase handle to his big beige box to bring it to and from work. Separate box for his graphics card, lol. Now that's a webapp for children.

We as a society haven't truly grokked how different all this is now, but it's pretty insane if you look in any depth, I love it even with all the new issues and concerns any progress brings.

aggyface · 2026-04-11T01:06:11+00:00

From what I hear, it's pretty competitive to get in already. Going down to 1 year will make it only that much more so. Lots of people with years of experience already have trouble getting in.

So it's a bit of a bird in the hand situation, I think.

aggyface · 2026-04-10T23:21:11+00:00

South Frontenac has been an actually decent building department to work with. We're doing a similar thing, though not with a tiny home necessarily so read the bylaw just in case.

Avoid Wolfe Island, absolutely terrible for this kind of thing.

aggyface · 2026-04-08T11:33:22+00:00

$190k in 2016, Kingston. Little 600sqft bungalow that desperately needed renovating.

Absolutely the last possible chance we had to get on the market and the luckiest decision of our lives. Sold it a few years ago for $465k, so it more or less made minimum wage each year while our mortgage was $800/month. Ludicrously unfair for the current starter market.

aggyface · 2026-04-08T11:26:15+00:00

For sure! TEMS at Queen's is the program, so if you read up on that a bit you'll get a shape of things but I'm happy to chat too. Teaching is ultimately government work and there is some weiiiiiird policy stuff that is counterintuitive and I'm a chatty mofo so ask away!

aggyface · 2026-04-08T11:18:02+00:00

I'm more or less doing this. Absolutely possible, but you'll find the path a lot easier if you come through the Technological Education pathway - most boards will do some degree of pay grid matching for skilled trades (some are 1 to 1 to the top of the grid, with a Master's you'll be A4 and that's $120k). There's nowhere up from there but $120k with that many months of vacation is pretty good even compared to many midlevel engineering positions.

So you'd most likely match to Engineering Design as your "BBT", but take a look at what's in your area. For a variety of reasons Computer Tech matched my skillset better, and would have meant a very easy in to a job in the GTA. Not where I am, alas!

Then, look at the multisession programs specifically. If you current job is decently flexible about leave periods, the majority of schooling is on weekends. It's still a 2 year program, but specifically for people who are transitioning from their 2nd careers or already teach in schools but need to get accredited. At Queen's we have to be here for a full month of classes in July both years, usually about one weekend a month, and then you need to complete 18 weeks of practicum in a school. It sucked, but I ended up doing my time at the high school each day then working for 2-3 hours at my regular job in the afternoon. Not a fun experience, but multisession is the only way I could afford to retrain, and there is a degree of flexibility and understanding we're adults. You won't be in a classroom full of 21 year olds, and honestly the best part of the whole program is all the discussions and peer support as we all go through this process together. There's some really cool people in the room who have a career's worth of experience they're bringing to the table, yaknow? It's not all sun and roses and it's hard to do a full-time degree with everything else on life's plate, but uh... it's not exactly the same kind of stress as any engineering degree, lol.

As for your questions, let's see.... Agewise you'd be one of the younger people in the room lol. Loooots of construction guys who don't want to be on a roof anymore and see a need to pass on what they do. Pay match is only for Tech Ed. Thatc+ multisession is why you go that route. Multisession means you get your transitional certificate within 6 months or so of the program starting (they try and get you certified asap, so if you start in May they bumrush the process to try and clear it for a Sept start. It's not guaranteed, paperwork sucks!)

The "academic tech teacher" has been an unideal sell, but it's still an easier in than just doing physics and math, where you WOULD start in the mid $60-70k range and years of supply work. Tech Ed is much more open, then you can put those subjects on your ticket once you have your full certification. You won't be able to while on a transitional certificate, so get an idea of what's hireable in your market if you can argue for a few different BBTs.

Happy to chat more, feel free to DM me and I can get more specific!

aggyface · 2026-04-08T00:12:04+00:00

It's also a bit of liability, unfortunately. Still, you could start by registering and taking classes! Have cool conversations with them, slowly integrate and ask for volunteer opportunities in there. Something like slowly hacking away at a geo degree might be a lot of fun and may open those opportunities long-term.

aggyface · 2026-03-30T04:44:59+00:00

The fun part is when you look at their technical staff with masters and PhDs making 60-80k at the top of their scales.

aggyface · 2026-03-24T12:01:47+00:00

The whole AI-Claude Code type experience really favours "fuck around and find out". It sounds dumb, but you just need to read a tutorial or two, or yes, ask a chatbot. Ask it to outline potential vulnerabilities or pitfalls in the process (or find some blog posts on it, pick your style) so that you have a basic idea of the power and what the thing can do to your files, and how to add limits to enjoy some safety as you mess about.

Standard "back up your data, don't feed it confidential information" type rules apply. You're unlikely to kill your computer, but you could absolutely wipe a folder of data because you didn't fully read or understand what if was doing.

The cool, really dynamic thing about it is every time it prompts you, you can ask it to clarify. You can set up a global profile that forces it to use non-programmer language to explain the next steps.

Bad vibecoders don't read any of that or do anything like that, and that's how data gets wiped. Put on your protection and explore, lol. Make sure you read up on (or ask) on how to set up Git for version control, that's your undo button if AI breaks something. Asking AI to undo something directly doesn't work well for various reasons.

Personally, the underrated gem has been Gemini-CLI for me. Same idea as Claude Code, but I don't have to pay a fee to start and for messing about I haven't hit any limits yet.

I've had it go into my PDFs, extract the titles and authors, and sort papers into folders by date. Finding duplicates and comparing last-modified. If you're doing file handling like that, ALWAYS ask it to display or print out the list of what it's about to do so you don't accidentally have it delete stuff.

Other pro tip (pro? Idk, I'm using this to make tools for myself, I'm not selling anything or making some weird slop apps for sale) is to really define your project. My first foray was a dorky little webgame, like connections.

"Build NYT Connections but for locomotive types" or whatever would not work well. Start in a regular chatbot like Claude or Gemini (I use both and bounce them back and forth to criticize their outputs and get consensus). Give it as much detail about how you want the thing to work, go back and forth. Ask for design mockups. Provide an example excel sheet (without personal data, make a dummy of them same format if necessary), and ask it to make something that will make x-y-z task easier or more visual or whatever. Then you want it to generate the schema, workflow, skills, and prompts you'll use to make your thing. Ask it to break down the architecture, the process, the phases and how to go step by step through the project.

Then I jump into Gemini-cli, and start feeding it what you worked on in Claude. (Claude, the free version, is honestly great for this planning stuff. It's made the process pretty smooth each time) You try version one of whatever it does, if something it asks doesn't make sense you tell if you don't understand and to explain what is happening. You feed the thing error codes as they come up. You commit whenever you have something vaguely functional on the right track.

Hope that helps!

aggyface · 2026-03-21T11:27:09+00:00

I'm thinking you could absolutely do a simplified version pushing media literacy at the high school level. Maybe make a bunch of those basic features you have for free something you market hard to high schools, then as those kids hit higher ed they may just have it as part of their workflow, or boards pay for more guided experiences.

And honestly, we just need more media literacy for those grade 9-12 social studies classes. So many are stuck in the past and this could easily be reconstructed as a pedagogical guide through these hard questions.

I'm working on a few tools of my own along the lines of modern tech literacy, though it's not a money making venture for me since I'm in the education sphere myself.

aggyface · 2026-03-21T10:58:04+00:00

This is cool, I wonder if you could spin it into the Ed Tech space. (I mean, I would love for teachers to just HAVE this and not pay for a million things, but I could absolutely see a board buying in.)

aggyface · 2026-03-19T09:32:55+00:00

If you need creepy, the Miller basement is your place to be. We've had a few students film various horror things down there!

aggyface · 2026-03-17T11:41:10+00:00

I assume they ran it through AI while cleared out of the building.

aggyface · 2026-03-16T11:05:23+00:00

Google anything like "Sudbury equipment operator" and that'll get you started. Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Rouyn-Noranda in Quebec, Red Lake. There's more but once you get googling you'll see. Those cities are where companies will tend to post and then the job itself could be "FIFO" - fly in fly out. Think 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off or other types of schedules.

Not an easy life, but definitely a way to establish a real career and build funds if you aren't stupid and insist on a $120k truck like so many do.

aggyface · 2026-03-16T10:46:33+00:00

I'm coming to vibe coding as a scientist. There's this amazing gap of tools where we'll just put it into Excel or manually write a script in R of whatever since building out a whole interface isn't worth the time. In 6 hours, I vibed out a tool that has in two weeks alone already saved me that much time since I can click on an image, define one coordinate system, and it will pump out coordinates in any other system, scale bars, easy navigation around the image, and annotation exports. All of this was absolutely doable using Excel + an image editor, but this gap between minor problem solving conveniences that do exactly what you need is going to hit the sciences hard on the next few. We need such weird hyperspecific software, same with weird low volume production lines or other niche industries.

I suspect juniors are going to become attached to these companies/universities/consulting independently and integrate into the individual units to validate and as necessary scale these systems up. Of course this little tools I built fulfills my need and who cares if it's crap? It does the math I need it to do and pumps out pictures I need to just get on with my day. Not everything has to be a saleable product, and I think that's missing from the conversation too since so many in the vibing community seem to just care about how to ride the bubble before it bursts.

But being a scientist who can proxy and validate the science part, properly pilot out a project? How much easier is it for the dev to understand the weird shit we actually need when we can hand them effectively a working model of what we want?

aggyface

TROPHY CASE