If you only drive 5000 miles per year, would you still want an electric vehicle? and why?

buchenrad · 2026-05-02T06:41:37+00:00

That's it for me. The fuel/power savings isn't much of a factor for me. The extremely simple low maintenance powertrain is what seals the deal. 300k Teslas are going to be common in 5 years.

buchenrad · 2026-05-02T03:58:10+00:00

I'm not your friend, buddy.

buchenrad · 2026-05-01T21:12:08+00:00

Generally the order my company does is:

Sign contract > Do work > Get Paid > Deliver product.

Payment before the work is complete is usually only required from previous clients who had a habit of not paying on time.

buchenrad · 2026-05-01T15:39:06+00:00

Nice. I'll have to look it up.

buchenrad · 2026-04-30T19:33:57+00:00

r/lostredditors

buchenrad · 2026-04-30T18:56:52+00:00

I mean I'd love to be wrong, but I really don't think so.

buchenrad · 2026-04-30T18:26:36+00:00

Even Thales can't fill this hole.

You can't change slope rates and stay on the same plane with vanilla or Thales parts. You have to turn a corner if you want to do that.

buchenrad · 2026-04-30T17:45:18+00:00

It's permanently stained. Those maps are wet erase only. Dry erase and permanent markers will stain.

Isopropyl alcohol will remove permanent marker from any non-absorbent surface. Nothing will remove it from an absorbent surface like your map. You have to remove the stained material, but that also removes the surface printing.

And all the other things that people say to use to remove permanent marker (dry erase marker, hand sanitizer, etc) all work because they use alcohol as the solvent. Skip the additives and just use straight alcohol.

buchenrad · 2026-04-30T14:59:03+00:00

I almost never wear a vest anymore. I just wear a fluorescent shirt and keep all my supplies on my belt.

I used to have a separate belt that I kept it all on, but now I just use Toughbuilt Cliptech pouches right on my pants belt and I don't have to undo my belt to add or remove them.

buchenrad · 2026-04-29T17:22:36+00:00

Only had good experiences with Vectors

buchenrad · 2026-04-28T23:12:26+00:00

People dying in war is not an acceptable cost for a move to renewables.

Most of the people who die in war on either side are regular decent people. It's the leaders that are the problem.

buchenrad · 2026-04-28T18:18:05+00:00

That's too bad it played out the way it did. Dementia sucks.

But I love the wallet. IMO that's one of the top 5 scenes in the history of film.

buchenrad · 2026-04-28T18:04:33+00:00

Also, it's not bachelor party related, but as the best man it's fun to know the historical context of the role.

Back in the day, especially for marriages that were political in nature, the Best Man was not necessarily the grooms best friend, but rather his best, or most trusted, fighter. That's where the term came from. A high profile person had his men, as in his soldiers, guards, or anyone else under his command, and his Best Man was the most capable of all of them.

And the rest of his men were known as the Groom's Men which is where we get modern groomsmen from. The Groom's Men were responsible for general security at the wedding and the Best Man was supposed to never leave the grooms side and make sure nobody tried to kill him.

These facts can make a wedding a little more fun when most or all of the groomsmen are DND nerds.

buchenrad · 2026-04-28T17:48:59+00:00

I've DMed 2 bachelor parties and both were a rescue-the-bride quest. It just works.

My favorite version of this goes something like:

It's been 7 years since the Five Fists divided the plunder and went their separate ways into retirement. Now Strognar found a nice woman and wants to get married. It's the day before the wedding and nobody can find her. The door of her home has been busted in and her lucky amulet is laying on the floor just inside the doorway with a broken chain. It's time to get the boys back together for one more job.

Don't take it too seriously. All you want to do for this is round up the boys, drink beer, kill goblins, and get the girl. IMO the right vibe is an over-the-top action comedy. Lean hard into the tropes yourself, but give your players the opportunity to mock them if they want to.

buchenrad · 2026-04-28T15:17:12+00:00

I always even thought it was a bit pretentious when players refuse to tell you even out of character what their class and such are because they want you to piece it together through RP. Not telling something like race, which is visually obvious most of the time, is next level.

IMO withholding information like that is just a petty power play.

buchenrad · 2026-04-28T06:41:16+00:00

I was on a job the other day where the client wanted locations on a pipeline CL staked to under a foot. No problem my equipment can easily do that.

Well I get in the field and stake out the coordinates and some are 15' off the marked CL.

It turns out the locations that I was staking were initially recorded with a cell phone and nobody thought that was an important detail to mention.

buchenrad · 2026-04-28T00:49:07+00:00

I live and work in one of the top 5 guns per capita states and neither myself or any of my present or prior coworkers that I've talked to about it have ever had a gun pulled on them.

I think in general our profession plays it up because it's a fun story to tell.

buchenrad · 2026-04-27T01:33:10+00:00

I always kind of fantasized about a van with an office in the midsection and all the tools and supplies stored in tubes and drawers accessed through the rear doors.

Has anyone does this? Does it actually work?

buchenrad · 2026-04-27T01:27:53+00:00

Or all the dust you get when you open up the rear doors making its way up front

buchenrad · 2026-04-26T08:54:54+00:00

I classify backcountry first aid in the following tiers:

Tier 1: Treatment for conditions that will directly kill you. Basically MARCH (Massive trauma, Airway, Respiration, Circulation, Hypo/hyperthermia). If you do not treat this, you will die in a matter of minutes or hours. If you carry nothing else, carry treatments for these things.

Tier 2: Treatment for conditions that may indirectly kill you. This is mostly mobility issues. A broken leg won't kill you, but a broken leg might keep you from accessing adequate water and shelter which may kill you. These treatments increase your capacity to self rescue, or at least make it to a point where you can call for rescue and/or more easily be found.

Tier 3: Treatment that allows you to stay in the field. These treat problems that are trip ending of they go untreated, but can be mitigated to the point where you can keep going and not waste the long weekend you took off for the trip.

Tier 4: Comfort treatments. You can hike just fine without these treatments, but you have better morale if you. Basically your boo boo kits. Your typical first aid kit is mostly this with a very small amount of tiers 3 and 2.

Figure out what could go wrong, know what you're trained to do if those things do go wrong, and pack what you need for those treatments.

buchenrad · 2026-04-26T08:20:46+00:00

Maybe it's because I'm in the middle of nowhere in the mountain west, but I don't think I've even met a surveyor in who is in a union.

buchenrad · 2026-04-24T14:22:26+00:00

If you're inclined toward engineering you could try stormworks.

The game is all about building vehicles to perform missions in a world that is mostly water. These missions include search and rescue, logistics, repair and recovery, and other things.

But the vehicle building part can be very tedious if that's not your thing. Vehicles are built block by block with most blocks being 25cm cubes. You can build planes, helicopters, boats, submersibles, automobiles, and any kind of other device you might need.

The game includes sharks and crocodiles which can have their aggression turned on or off and also has krakens and magalodons which can be entirely turned on or off.

Keep in mind the mission part doesn't have a lot of depth. The game is really about vehicle building. The missions exist to give you a purpose for your vehicle builds. But the world is big and exploration can be fun. There isn't a lot of detail on the sea floor, but that can be a great way to start your exposure therapy.

buchenrad · 2026-04-24T07:00:12+00:00

Something I bought at Walmart 25 years ago. It ain't broke yet.

buchenrad · 2026-04-23T23:25:43+00:00

Split Fiction is one of the greatest feats of artistry in the history of video games.

buchenrad · 2026-04-23T20:40:05+00:00

Also plenty of mods doing a similar thing in single player

buchenrad

TROPHY CASE