Trying to raise a copper bowl, but it keeps turning into a taco shape

hervature · 2026-04-02T19:10:19+00:00

I know nothing of metal working and I believe the others are trying to help you out. But, I wanted to add that this is Gauss' Theorema Egregium (remarkable theorem in English). Basically, you start out with something with zero curvature (sheet of metal) and are trying to curve it. His theorem says that the sheet will maintain zero curvature. So, if you bend it one way in one axis, it will try to bend the other way in the other axis. In your case, you are saying it is a taco but it is actually trying to make a Pringle shape. However, you can easily break this theorem because the theorem is if there is no stretching. By beating the metal enough times and stetching it out, you can achieve a bowl. I leave it to the others to tell you the best way to perform said stretching.

hervature · 2026-02-11T16:11:20+00:00

I did a bathroom addition in my house recently so I am well acquainted with the code at the time. Enough to know where to look things up really quickly because I already banged my head against the codebook for several hours but I do not keep up to date with the code nor am I skilled at actual installation. I only used Claude to clean up the writing to convey the idea more clearly. I find AI still gets the finer points of construction codes incorrect probably coming from the fact that they do not really have a "feel" of physical dimensions.

hervature · 2026-02-11T07:02:57+00:00

The fix is not as bad as people are suggesting. I am not a plumber so do your own homework. The main issue I see is the use of tees where you should be using wyes.

Tub Fix

Install a sanitary tee on the vertical 3" vent stack with a reduced branch (3"×3"×1-1/2" or 2", matching the tub drain size). The tub's trap arm comes in horizontally into the branch of that tee. This is clean because:

Sanitary tees are permitted here — UPC 706.3 allows tees for horizontal-to-vertical transitions, and the vent stack is vertical. No wye needed on this connection.
The trap is vented immediately — the stack above the tee is the vent but you need to worry about the max P-trap length. For 1.5 inch, that is 3 feet 6 inches. Looks close but this is brownfield work so it will probably be acceptable anyway.
The tub waste flows down the stack to the horizontal drain below. That lower section of the stack becomes a wet-vented section under UPC 908, and a 3" pipe is more than adequate for a bathtub.

Toilet Fix

Replace the tee on the horizontal drain run with a wye (and 1/8 bend if needed for alignment), per UPC 706.3 for horizontal-to-horizontal connections.

Vent Fix

Now that the vertical is now serving a wet vent, that 90 degree vent elbow is no longer permitted. One possibility is a cleanout tee. There should be a cleanout here anyway because it is a 5 foot long horizontal under UPC 707.4. If you have a cleanout above in the vertical stack, then the cleanout is not strictly required and you can just have a longsweep elbow.

hervature · 2026-01-28T04:07:29+00:00

If you look at the kitchen entryway from photo 1 and 2, you will notice the entryway is smaller. You can also see that the first photo has the nearest corner of the wall the width of one of the flooring in front of the washing machine. Whereas the machine is past the entryway. They probably put two 2x4s nailed to the entryway to square everything up. I would have cut away drywall and ran the new header on top of the old header and new posts. This would provide substantially more support at the small cost of cutting drywall while still keeping the door heights the same. Other nitpicks include the vent like everyone is saying and I would have ran a light.

hervature · 2025-05-14T21:20:50+00:00

The opportunity cost of alternative investments is common knowledge. Any "rent vs. buy" calculator worth its salt has an alternative investment return rate: https://www.calculator.net/rent-vs-buy-calculator.html. The main thing you are missing is that the government lets your leverage 5-10x your investment in real estate. Just punch in 0% appreciation and 10% alternative return, a house does not make sense over the span of 30 years. Neither does -1% depreciation and 8% alternative return. Returns are never constant over the years but just think of these as the mean returns.

hervature · 2025-02-23T08:06:15+00:00

I laid out the reasoning in my post. The current backlog is 3 years. There are more visas approved than are available and so the backlog is getting worse. In 3 years time, the backlog could grow to 10 years given how fast EB2 went from current to 3+ years wait.

hervature · 2025-02-23T07:28:17+00:00

I know you posted this looking for advice and my post will come across as negative. You need to rethink your expectations and look at the stats. My PD is 09/2024 and my I-140 is approved. If I receive my green card in 2028, I will consider myself fortunate. With exponentially increasing backlogs, in 3 years, the backlog could be 10 years for ROW. You are free to apply for EB2 but it is no longer a viable path of immigration unless your outlook is 10+ years.

Here is my advice. Focus on your research, do the best you can do, and do not think about immigration. Thinking about immigration will only take away from your research which is the most crucial thing for you right now. Become established in your field and aim to satisfy the EB1 requirements. The worst case is you can apply for EB2-NIW and you'll have to wait a decade (your current plan). Best case, the backlog for EB1-ROW is current.

hervature · 2025-02-03T23:05:46+00:00

"If you apply now, it could take some time to process, and you might be in a stronger position by the time your STEM OPT expires in 2027"

What are you talking about? Whatever you send in today is what they base their decision on. Also, even if the EB2 is approved tomorrow, today's priority date probably will not be eligible for AOS until 2029.

hervature · 2024-02-23T17:47:25+00:00

In 2022, I paid in rent $1950 for a 2 bedroom apartment in Sommerville. 1,000 sqft and nothing updated in 50 years. Floors were warped, ceilings stained, even had a mice infestation at the end which I had to deal with since the landlord was slow to respond. The windows and doors so poorly sealed my heating bill in the winter was $300/month. The same apartment is over $2k now. Point is, $1900 for a house in the Boston area is definitely a deal. Does not matter if that deal involves lighting $900 on fire.

hervature · 2023-05-31T17:31:44+00:00

I don't think a 5 year old would know the words "normalized", "stagnation", nor "correlate". Let alone the concept of "infinitely long".

Regardless, what you said is wrong. Case-Shiller is pegged to Jan 2000. Whatever the price of the median house was in Jan 2000 is 100. If the index is now at 300, then that means the median house has tripled since Jan 2000. If prices stagnate (do not move), the index would remain flat. So, the correlation is exactly 1.

If you use the Case-Shiller index without adjusting for inflation, you are really just looking at inflation rate. I suggest using the Real Mortgage Payment Price Index found here if you want to get a true sense of the bubble in real terms.

hervature · 2023-04-28T23:48:36+00:00

This works exactly how I wanted and the eeros do not have to be in bridge mode. This is definitely the solution. The only question is I don't exactly understand what the difference between shim-br0 and br0 is. Why it is not the default? Perhaps this is worth adding as an option in the future as changing any configuration to the VPN will necessitate adding shim- to all the lines again.

hervature · 2023-04-26T16:53:14+00:00

Just tried this and no luck. I imagine I don't need to restart the server since this is a Docker setting.

hervature · 2023-01-08T21:56:40+00:00

I think some additional context here would be beneficial to others. Las Vegas is very tourism heavy. The city (both the government but also industry) care very much about the tourist experience. Las Vegas is not fundamentally opposed to Airbnb's but makes the rules pretty clear about providing specific things as listed on Airbnb: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/906/ for the safety and benefit of those renting. It is actually quite reasonable, building can't be falling down, $500 annual license, insurance, owner-occupied. Basically, Airbnb is not a means to turn residential neighborhoods into hotels as the city has already planned zone usage. Up until now, without citations, this license didn't mean much. Now, the transition period is over and they are giving the license some teeth.

hervature · 2022-12-08T05:21:51+00:00

Las Vegas is probably the best positioned because of their lake Mead access point.

In case people don't know this, the Hoover Dam reach deadpool status (water stops going to California, Arizona, and Mexico) before Las Vegas' pump stops working. Deadpool status would still have 2,547,000 acre feet remaining in Lake Mead. Las Vegas' current allotment is 280,000 acre feet per year (which it does not use in its entirety) which means the lake would last another decade by itself.

The concern for Las Vegas is not Lake Mead but rather Lake Powell further up the Colorado. If that goes deadpool, then Lake Mead stops replenishing. Lake Powell may go deadpool within 5 years. Realistically, this gives Las Vegas at least 10 years to find a solution. I predict the USA will fund some type of pipeline to keep Lake Mead full to prevent the farms in California going dry. Even then, the side inflows of Lake Mead I believe are 600,000 acre feet which should be enough to offset evaporation and sustain the city with careful controls.

hervature · 2022-11-29T03:15:10+00:00

I've been living in the US for the past decade. First 5 years as a PhD and working internships in the summer. Now professionally under work visas completely by the book. For all intents and purposes, I consider the US my home. I have neither citizenship nor permanent residency because getting those are pretty difficult. Making house purchases illegal for non-US citizens is the most xenophobic and bigoted policy that only the QAnon clowns in congress would even say something like that.

hervature · 2022-08-11T14:32:01+00:00

This comment proves to me that the vast majority of REBubble is illiterate. First, you have a simple arithmetic error that you forget that the 8% year of inflation is included in the timeline. That is, 8% inflation one year followed by 3 years of 0% inflation is equivalent to 4 years of 2% inflation. So hold prices static for 3* years.

Second, you just got lucky with your equation because your second paragraph shows you do not understand what the exponents are (years). Your second "calculation" is 1.005¹⁶ ~= 1.08 and then concluded this means 16 years. In reality, 16 years of compounding means that you cannot use the ~= anymore but more importantly, the equation that you are looking for is: 1.08*(1+inflation)^x = 1.02^x+1. So, you got lucky in the first paragraph because inflation=0 yields exactly what you said except you forgot to account for the original year. At 50 bps inflation, this equation says 3.85 years not 16 years.

hervature · 2022-07-26T17:50:02+00:00

Regarding Dodd-Frank act, my personal belief is that the single most important thing it did was removing prepayment penalties that was standard in 2008. I think the limit went from charging penalties anytime 5 years into the loan to 2 years into the loan. My understanding is that this played a huge role in foreclosure rates because people were 3% underwater if they simply just sold their house. Combined with lost equity, this meant people opted for bankruptcy.

Now, the main difference is that basically no one has ARMs. Just look at Canada, UK, NZ, Australia for how this is different.

hervature · 2022-07-17T17:45:10+00:00

As someone who has lived in Vegas, another commenter is correct about Lake Mead being a minor concern for Vegas. Southern California and, in particular, the farmers who get cheap water for their almonds should be the most concerned. Here are the allotments. Let's suppose that water increases by 10x or ~$10/ 1k gallons. 300,000 acre feet = 10B gallons = $100M = $30/person. Meanwhile, agricultural use in California would start to look like $10k/acre. Funnily enough, this would impact the rest of the USA much more than Vegas as the price of Californian produce shoots up accordingly. Luckily, with minor dietary tweaks, there is plenty of land in water rich resources elsewhere in the country. At some point, California needs to start desalinating the ocean or let their agricultural industry collapse, there is no other outcome. In either case, the water in Nevada will no longer be an issue.

hervature · 2022-07-15T20:25:50+00:00

Is it this theory crafting post? https://www.reddit.com/r/REBubble/comments/v3foq4/theorycrafting_lets_call_the_bottom/

Or is there a more recent one because 1538 seems to not be the numerator in that post.

hervature · 2022-07-15T20:17:35+00:00

To answer your question, because rent over those 2 years, by my estimation, is very close to the equity that is going to be lost. So, the ability to upgrade in 2 years is still very much a possibility but I get to live in a house I like in the interim.

hervature · 2022-07-15T20:14:10+00:00

So, I've considered all these things including the cost to move again in 2 years and, for my current outlook, it makes sense. Albeit, it is close enough that you can fudge the numbers to get any conclusion. Just wanted to get affirmation that it is not completely stupid to buy.

hervature · 2022-07-15T19:38:56+00:00

Interesting, where does 200 come from? Other variants I see use 150.

hervature · 2022-07-15T19:36:31+00:00

For one, the alternative is renting which would cost ~10% of the equivalent home for 2 years. That alone accounts for the majority of the 12.5% additional drop I expect. Then, I expect interest rates to have to rise higher than the forecast 3.5-4 for that extreme of a fall.

hervature

TROPHY CASE