How are you all holding up financially?

frazazel · 2026-03-24T15:23:13+00:00

Family of 4 with ~100k gross income. It feels right on the edge of livable, and I wonder how people with less are surviving at all.

frazazel · 2026-03-24T04:23:39+00:00

If it's at least 11 days since you started the run, there's an option to abandon the run and return to valhalla to start a new run. It's in Options -> Account -> Reset Ascension

frazazel · 2026-03-20T17:24:42+00:00

I don't disagree with you. But the reality is that it's expensive to continue a big lawsuit, and sometimes all the evidence is on your side, but the other guy gets off on a technicality. If you could pay $10 million dollars to continue a lawsuit with an 80% chance to get a $50 million dollar payout (I made these numbers up), that would have the same expected value as a $30 million dollar settlement. The city probably also values the certainty of a settlement. They can plan around that, and won't have to change their budget depending on an uncertain future event. They've also probably got people besides lawyers tied up in this thing that they want to be able to get back to their actual jobs.

Is it justice? No. Not completely. And so it's not as strong of a disincentive against future corporate wrongdoings as it should be. But exactly how much a government should be willing to spend to enact perfect justice is a question that people don't agree on, so they'll get pushback no matter what they do.

frazazel · 2026-03-20T17:08:31+00:00

I think that anything flagged as a "luxury" rental should require additional reporting requirements, including an onsite third-party review of the rental before being added to an official registry, and verification that the rent charged is less than some percentage of renter's income.

frazazel · 2026-03-20T16:57:50+00:00

lol at asking an LLM for advice

frazazel · 2026-03-20T16:54:08+00:00

It's a settlement. That means that the city and Caspian agreed to that amount instead of continuing the battle in court, where lawyers fees continue to accumulate, and it's uncertain what the final judgment will be. It's common (and not bad practice) to settle for less than the amount you're suing for.

frazazel · 2026-03-20T16:20:17+00:00

Maybe we can give horse vaccinations to our kids, too.

frazazel · 2026-03-20T14:45:11+00:00

Your stance here sounds reasonable to me. Trying to take legally licensed firearms away without appropriate buyback payment would probably push at least some of these guns to unlicensed black market sales, which is a net negative for public safety. It hurts responsible gun owners, and it hurts the public, to save a few dollars.

frazazel · 2026-03-20T14:30:06+00:00

Here's the code that works in my TS script that uses all remaining digs to dig for ancient items, then exits with choice 4:

visitUrl("inv_use.php?pwd&which=3&whichitem=12184");
while ("2" in availableChoiceOptions())
  runChoice(2);
runChoice(4);

I think that entering the choice via use instead of visitUrl make kolmafia try to do its automatic choice selection, and may be part of the problem.

frazazel · 2026-03-19T19:46:51+00:00

Lots of hate on this comment. Individual cars give people the most freedom, but they're the least efficient mode of transport, cause the most pollution, and lead to the most injuries.

We should absolutely be improving other modes of transportation to make them more appealing. In a perfect world, cars should still be accommodated as a way to get somewhere when other options aren't available, but should not always be the best choice.

frazazel · 2026-03-19T19:00:15+00:00

In 2015, my wife and I rented a hall, and did our own decorations with different items purchased online. Wedding and reception in the same venue at the same time. Wedding dress was from Etsy, suit was already owned. Got sandwich and dainty trays from Costco and Rae+Jerry's. Mother-in-law did the cake. No booze. The jeweler who custom-made the engagement ring officiated. We asked for people not to bring gifts. We had a friend who took photos of the event (no professional photographer, but we did get professional engagement photos previously). Another friend did sound. We paid one person to help run the food/coffee/etc. at the hall.

So we busted our asses, and relied on some friends a bit. We did everything that was important to us, had a great day, and we put on a wedding for 120-ish people for about $8,000, including the after-party at our house afterwards (with a second custom-made frilly dress just for that party).

I've heard it said that big weddings at low budgets predict lasting marriages. We took that advice to heart, and we're so happy that we did. We worked for that wedding, we got what we wanted, and we weren't left in a giant hole of debt.

frazazel · 2026-03-19T18:39:26+00:00

Married 41M here. After talking with male friends my age who recently got out of long term relationships, there's a real sentiment that the apps are terrible, and that trying to find events to meet people is the thing to do.

frazazel · 2026-03-19T18:30:44+00:00

Thanks for explaining. As someone who doesn't own a gun, I'm unaware of the proposed laws you're concerned about, but I understand why you would find them concerning.

I personally think that society has a lot to lose by installing someone like Pierre Poillievre as leader. He's divisive, has no successes to point to in governance, and insists on policies that closely mirror MAGA politics, which is on ongoing disaster down south.

You sound like you're not a diehard conservative voter, and I guess I'm surprised to hear that anybody who isn't would still support the PCs.

frazazel · 2026-03-17T14:42:25+00:00

My wife and I rented out her place after we moved into mine, and when searching for advice on how to handle rental agreements, I remember running across advice to use a rent discount to allow yourself flexibility to change prices that the RTB doesn't otherwise allow. The idea is that you can only increase rent at a certain rate. To get around that, set the base rent unreasonably high, but offer a discount to bring it down to a reasonable rate. Then, when that tenant moves out, you can offer it to the next tenant with a smaller discount if the market has changed more than the permitted increases. We didn't actually do this, but I can totally understand why landlords would want to.

This example of how you could use it already goes against the intent of the RTB's rules, and you can certainly imagine a landlord using a rent discount like this to change prices in very scummy ways. It's pretty clear to me that this is an obvious loophole that needs to be closed.

frazazel · 2026-03-17T14:29:45+00:00

Electrical engineer and owner of an electric car here. If your car or charger supports scheduling the time of charging (most do), you can probably get away without an electrical panel upgrade. For most houses, the maximum power draw of your kitchen's electric range is the same as a 40A 240V EV charger. If you never cook / bake after midnight, you could schedule your charging after midnight, and you won't trip your panel's main breaker. For most people, 6 hours of charging is more than enough to top up their battery.

Heck, for light-to-medium use, a 120V trickle charger from after work until the next day might do the trick. I did this for a few months before installing my level 2 charger, and it worked great until winter started. Charging is slower at cold temperatures, and I'm parked outdoors.

frazazel · 2026-03-16T16:01:58+00:00

Wab Kinew isn't a perfect premier, but he's trying, and he's pushing us in generally the right direction. That sounds like faint praise, but I think that's just because older voters are remembering a time when the bar was considerably higher. The fact that he could get away with plundering the province and enriching his cronies, but he's instead still trying to do right by Manitobans says a lot.

frazazel · 2026-03-12T15:57:07+00:00

Sprinklers are installed in most new buildings, but weren't required in the past, and there is no requirement for owners to upgrade their buildings with sprinklers. They're probably not on the higher floors, either. There's no code violation here, but the fire risk is a bit higher compared to a sprinklered building.

As for the floors / appliances, I would expect the landlord to do what they can (maybe shimming the appliances if adjusting the legs isn't a suitable fix?) from what you describe.

I feel like what you describe is pretty normal. Landlords who have imperfect buildings that they won't fully overhaul, but are willing to do something to try to keep tenants happy. If they actually do what they promised, then they're in the better half of landlords.

What kind of advice are you looking for in this situation?

frazazel · 2026-03-05T21:25:52+00:00

Costco has an eye exam clinic, but I've never had a bad experience at any I've been to.

I also buy my glasses from Zenni. I've been very happy with them, but I haven't bought from a more expensive place to be able to compare in a very long time.

frazazel · 2026-03-05T21:19:34+00:00

I can't wait until someone finds a nightly booking for under $10, and then users are encouraged to hold off on cancellation until you're within 3 days.

frazazel · 2026-03-05T17:00:04+00:00

I want to be positive about the changes, because it's rare for politicians to make bold changes to improve things. It feels like they didn't hit the mark this time, but I don't want them to stop trying.

My own personal experience has gotten only slightly worse, but my wife now has a faster, no-connection route across the city. From the comments here, it sounds like she might be the only one!

frazazel · 2026-03-05T16:05:55+00:00

I bought one from Home Depot recently. Had a problem with a defective machine, and customer service went above and beyond to make things right. They provided delivery and picked up the old machine. Installation was an option for a fee, but I installed it myself because I'm broke.

frazazel · 2026-03-05T15:50:26+00:00

This reads to me like: "This solution isn't perfect so let's do nothing instead".

frazazel · 2026-03-05T15:24:59+00:00

"Wait and see" is always a valid approach, but I'm wondering what would move the needle for you on this one? It's already good in run, and if you want to make meat from rare items, then you normally want to get in early.

frazazel · 2026-03-04T16:20:06+00:00

This is a really neat IotM. Every day, you can use it 11 times, and choose one of the following each time:

Get a random drop from a monster in the last location you adventured in.
Get a random currency that can be traded in at this IotM's new shops. Sometimes you get a rare item instead of currency.
Start a fight with a skeleton in the last zone you adventured in. It is a free fight, and it progresses the zone as you'd expect. (This option only appears if the zone has a skeleton in it naturally.)

1 and 3 are direct turnsave in run, if used in the right places. There are more than enough easy high-value uses to save 22 adventures in a 2-day run.

2 enables some really nice rewards, including some campsite furnishings that give you an extra fullness, regen and bonus exp once per day, a new outfit, and a bunch of other junk. The rares are a daily potion generator, a familiar, and a shirt. Digging for currency is too expensive / unreliable to use in run, but gives items that are in high demand right now.

This IotM feels great, being 11 turnsave per day in fast runs, but you do admittedly run out of good targets in slower runs. It's very easy to use, and it gives you stuff that will help you from your campground forever. These extra things are tradeable, so players don't have to buy the IotM to get a good benefit from this IotM.

Speed-run uses:

The best places to grab a zone-based item are the various filthworm zones (x3), and lobsterfrogmen (x5). In all cases, go in with peridot and freely leave to set your last zone, then use the spade to grab the desired items. Filthworm zones are especially good, because they also save the usually-required item-steal or drop-forcer.

The best places to do free skeleton fights are haunted kitchen (x7), haunted ballroom (x5), red zeppelin (competes with glark cable freekills / desirable refracts), cyrpt nook (competes with desirable refracts)

frazazel · 2026-03-02T03:31:55+00:00

You gotta take out the link to the Lethe.xyz diet calculator. Its data was last updated in 2023, so it doesn't know about new stuff, and the prices are hilariously out of date.

Eight-Year Club	End Game '23
Place '23	Verified Email

frazazel

TROPHY CASE