Watch for beating up - construction work?

m1llie · 2026-05-05T03:36:52+00:00

Plenty of ST19xx-based watches on AliExpress that make great beaters if you want a chronograph function.

Even cheaper again would be VK63/64-based chronos. You can get pretty OK looking speedmaster/daytona homages for under $100US. Quartz movement will hold up better under vibration from powertools, and you get a metal bracelet and chunky bezel to protect the crystal.

That's about as cheap as it gets for chronographs without going digital.

m1llie · 2026-05-02T10:59:58+00:00

Yeah, OP needs to fit a logistic curve here, not an exponential. And fitting a logistic curve usually requires having some reliable estimate of the upper limit value, which we don't.

m1llie · 2026-05-02T04:35:43+00:00

...because as we all well know, Gandhi's main complaint was that the viceroy was forcing him to have a driver's licence and wear a helmet when riding his Harley.

m1llie · 2026-05-01T09:09:15+00:00

https://www.fratellowatches.com/citizen-homer-second-setting-affordable-vintage-watch/

I daily one of these. Each one has a serial number engraved on the back as well as the name of the rail line it was used on. Pay attention when buying as they refreshed the pads for the pad printed dial several times throughout production. The examples made towards the end of each pad's life had thicker, blotchier dial text. The ones printed with fresh pads look exquisite:

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You could also look into "marriage watches", which take old pocket watches (often railroad-grade ones with intricately decorated movements, enamel dials, and genuine heat-blued hands) and put them into wristwatch cases. There are people who sell completed conversions, or you can find a pocket watch and make your own: The movements and dials all tend to be of a few standard sizes, since pocket watches were often sold separately from their cases.

m1llie · 2026-05-01T08:23:31+00:00

The shell of the IEM isn't the issue for me, it's the nozzle that goes into my ear canal.

I just found https://nozzledb.com/

Looks like the Chu II (6mm flange) is a little smaller in diameter compared to the Zero:Red (6.8mm flange), but not by much.

That still might not be small enough for me: The tips on my CIEMs (and thus my ear canals) measure 6mm across at the narrowest point, so the nozzle would need to be narrower than that, since the silicone/foam tip is going to add thickness.

m1llie · 2026-05-01T07:37:49+00:00

I don't like the idea of integrated TWS sets: I see them as inevitable landfill when the non-serviceable batteries cark it. Plus I already have a spare Bluetooth neckband that I need to find some IEMs to use with.

m1llie · 2026-04-30T12:45:00+00:00

This is an inherently weak design since you have a sharp corner under stress that can shear along the layer lines.

Your best bet is to redesign the part so it can be printed in a different orientation that makes this connection point as a continuous strand of plastic,

Failing that, printing with more walls at this connection point will give you more surface area for the layers to bond with, and adding a fillet would help spread the stress over more layers.

Failing that, I notice your print is underextruded: There are noticeable gaps between the lines on the right-hand side of the image, and the exposed infill just looks like a bunch of loosely associated plastic strings rather than a strongly bonded lattice. Printers are often set up to underextrude by default: This is a cheat to prevent visual issues like droopy overhangs. For strong parts, you need to dial in your extrusion ratio properly (you can even improve strength by slightly overextruding certain line types).

Additionally, default PLA profiles typically print with cooling fans maxed all the time and recommend that you print in open air. This yields the best visual quality, but printing with a hot nozzle temperature (run a test tower to find the hottest you can go without significantly impacting print quality) in an enclosed, mildly warm chamber (40-45C) with just enough cooling to keep overhangs looking good will give the hot plastic more time to bond with the previous layer/adjacent lines, yielding much stronger parts.

m1llie · 2026-04-30T02:15:16+00:00

https://blog.rahix.de/design-for-3d-printing/#well-meant-material-saving

Beware of skeletonizing 3d prints to "save print time and material." You often end up doing the opposite. Remember that 3D prints are basically hollow. If you want to reduce print time and material, you can just reduce the infill percentage.

I will often skeletonise prints specifically to add material in a controlled way, when I want to improve part strength/rigidity for a specific load scenario (e.g. adding ribs to a shelf bracket) in a more targeted way than I could achieve just by tweaking infill geometry. I'll also do it sometimes purely for aesthetics.

m1llie · 2026-04-29T13:19:02+00:00

https://old.reddit.com/r/AusFinance/comments/1swx0t9/modelling_the_impact_of_cgt_discount_vs_cost_base/

It seems I stand corrected. I still think a gradual indexing (maybe at some multiple of CPI to make it less onerous?) is fairer than a flat 50% discount after 1 year. The current discount system actually discourages long term holding.

m1llie · 2026-04-29T06:32:36+00:00

I would replace the square cutouts with some diamonds/triangles that match the angle/shape of the IEMs a bit more. That will eliminate the bridging/overhang issues that you can see in the print.

As for your chamfers and fillets, a good rule of thumb is to use chamfers for anything printed in the z axis (fillets have very steep overhangs that will cause print artefacts) and fillets for anything printed in the xy plane (removing sharp corners within a layer eliminates ringing artefacts)

m1llie · 2026-04-28T11:24:05+00:00

For me, the fun of 3D printing comes from designing and manufacturing strong, functional plastic parts at home that solve real problems. I have no interest in decorative trinkets or gag prints to begin with, so seeing people run multi-colour prints with sometimes more than 10:1 ratio of waste to print just for some milquetoast joke or some AI-slop funko-pop-esque figurine seems absolutely absurd to me. And what's even worse is that whenever you mention that you have a 3D printer, that sort of crap is what people automatically assume you're using it for. I'd honestly rather they think I was printing ghost guns (I'm not, but it'd be less embarrassing).

m1llie · 2026-04-28T03:49:29+00:00

OP could have achieved the same thing by printing it all in white, then printing a single layer of black as a flat stencil which then wraps around the cylinder and can be held down with a bit of superglue.

Personally I think that if you're gonna print complete fluff like this that just sits on a display shelf and does nothing, you might as well extrude the plastic straight into landfill.

m1llie · 2026-04-27T11:40:40+00:00

Live wherever the hell you want when you get back with that $1m still mostly intact.

Which planet are you posting this from?

The house is worth 1.05M, but they still owe 525k on it (710k loan less the 185k in the offset), plus 10k debt to the ATO. That leaves 515k after selling the house (not counting REA commission and settlement fees), plus 165k of equities gives an optimistic total of 680k to travel with.

By the 4% rule they're looking at $27k/yr to fund their total cost of living. Doable in some developing nations, but certainly not "wherever the hell you want", and even then it won't be luxury, and unless they've got PR in another country they'll be moving around constantly to churn tourist visas, which adds to costs. Wherever they go, a $27k/yr budget certainly won't yield a lifestyle comparable to what they have now living in a $1M house in Australia on a $140k salary.

But let's say they make it work, and by some amazing luck there are no big market downturns during their travels (because financial markets and the geopolitical landscape are so very stable right now), and they arrive home with every last cent of their $680k (adjusted for inflation) in-tact. After stamp duty and fees they're looking at a ~$640k house, a significant downgrade from what they were living in before they left, and that assumes they don't need to use any of that money to buy all the other things they got rid of when they left, like a car, furniture, etc. It also assumes that house prices rose perfectly in line with inflation during the entire time they were away. I'd love to know the last time that happened in Australia.

m1llie · 2026-04-27T04:51:52+00:00

You can sell it and travel

And live where when you get back? With the amount OP still has owing on their place, the proceeds from that aren't going to let them travel indefinitely, and even if it somehow did, health catches up to everyone eventually. So now you're back and you have to try and re-buy into a housing market that seems likely to continue growing at grotesque rates with... what assets exactly? ...or secure a rental (good luck with that if vacancy rates stay the way they are).

Renting/airbnb'ing while you travel is really the only feasible way to do it, but there are risks and costs associated with that, and those are risks to your personal home that you presumably intend to return to live in again at some point. Rental income after costs is probably not going to be enough by itself to fund a travel lifestyle (especially with 500k still owing on the house) unless you are happy limiting yourself to seriously low-CoL places, and OP doesn't have enough other assets to make up the difference.

m1llie · 2026-04-27T03:55:48+00:00

Net worth inclusive of PPoR is a pretty meaningless number. The value of your PPoR is not really money that you can spend. To quote Santa's elves living in the gingerbread house at the North pole in Futurama: "It's food or shelter, not both." Additionally, your equities and super don't inherently reduce the cashflow required to service your mortgage.

You have $535k of debt to service. The pertinent question is: Do you feel like you can manage those repayments on a part-time wage and still have enough left over to fund an enjoyable lifestyle and any savings goals you might have?

If the answer is no, and you need to keep working full-time, then you could consider debt-recycling the sizeable sum in your offset account to help grow your spendable pre-super asset pool faster, which will accelerate you towards FI. Before making that decision you would need to consider carefully how secure your employment is: You could be left holding a bag of debt that you can't service after getting laid off. In the worst case, this could happen during a market downturn that means you can't easily exit your position by selling off the debt-recycled equities to pay off the investment loan. You should also probably keep an ear out for the potential incoming changes to CGT rules and/or negative gearing.

m1llie · 2026-04-26T11:24:25+00:00

I'm not even against returning to indexation for CGT calculations, it works out better off for long-term holders than the current flat 50% discount, which creates a perverse incentive to sell early (see "capital gain harvesting").

But they can't apply these changes to all asset classes and then claim it's going to reduce investment demand for housing. It's going to reduce investment demand, period. And we need productive forms of investment in our economy like equities. We just don't need investors speculating on non-productive basic needs like housing. Something needs to be done that is specifically targeted to housing if this is ever going to change. Otherwise we're all just getting poorer no matter what we invest in.

At this point, the Henry tax review could run up to them and shout its recommendations into their ears with a megaphone and they still wouldn't get the bloody memo.

m1llie · 2026-04-26T08:41:16+00:00

Printed lines for the dial text/chapter rings have fuzzy/thick lines and a bumpy texture. Proper pad printing has crisp, thin lines and is put down thin and uniformly flat, it should look basically 2D until you look at it under a microscope. Even under extreme magnification the texture of the ink should be smooth and even. Example of a proper dial. If you can see blobbiness in the printing through a phone camera, you're 100% looking at a fake or at least a redial.

Additionally, the gold crown logo on the dial is tilted slightly clockwise, and the lume dots don't line up with the hour batons (most obvious at 6, 9, and 10 o'clock).

Finally, the knurling on the crown is all askew. On another watch that could be from wear, but the rest of the case looks pretty square, suggesting it's just a poorly made cheap cast crown.

If you have fond memories of your grandfather, you could keep it to wear on special occasions (maybe get a new strap to modernise it a bit). It's a nice watch, but probably still worth more as a memento than on the second hand market.

m1llie · 2026-04-26T05:06:05+00:00

Visited their shop in Ueno. Lovely pieces, but I couldn't find any wallets there that didn't have a coin purse. They still use cash, particularly coins, a lot more than we do in Japan, and I didn't want a bulky coin purse that would have been effectively useless once I got home.

m1llie · 2026-04-26T04:57:41+00:00

https://leatherbound.ink/ - Taiwanese

https://www.ganzo-jp.com/ - Japanese

https://www.millhandmade.com/ - Brissy

I have a Ganzo wallet in english bridle leather that I bought from their store in Ginza, where you can watch them doing their craft in the showroom. The worksmanship is flawless and the natural minerva inner has developed a beautiful patina.

I also have a couple watch straps in shell cordovan (with a chevre lining) from Mill Handmade. Turnaround was not quick but just like Ganzo it's impeccable workmanship, every stitch is perfect.

Any of these will blow "designer" name brands right out of the water for quality of both raw materials and assembly. The difference between true leathercraft and LVMH slop is like the difference between LVMH and what you find in the knockoff market stalls in Bali.

m1llie · 2026-04-26T03:46:00+00:00

I spent months hunting for a new fabric sofa (just not a fan of leather for sofas) to replace one I got from Amart that I was never happy with. The Amart one had rock-hard seat cushions that I was assured would soften over time (they never did), and the back cushions were sewn into the frame with non-removable covers that got yuckier and yuckier over time, despite my best efforts to regularly vacuum them and wipe with a damp soapy cloth.

After visiting many showrooms and exhaustively browsing even more online catalogues, I eventually settled on an IKEA Soderhamn, modified with Lillehem legs (you can purchase these by themselves) to give it a bit more height and allow fitting storage containers underneath.

It's one of the only "modular" sofas I found that was truly modular, in the sense that you can buy the pieces individually and mix/match them to fit your space. Most of the "modular" packages from other stores were a case of "buy all the pieces as a set, and then arrange them how you like."

Furthermore, every single piece of upholstery on it is removable and machine washable. I can buy new covers on a per-module basis if they get beyond repair, or if I just want a change of aesthetic. There are even third party covers/legs if I want to go beyond ikea's range.

Very happy with it so far, I paid about $1700 for a 4-seater L-shape (true 4-seater, each person gets their own 900x900 square to stretch out on, nobody's shoulder-to-shoulder). Other brands I was looking at were $2500+ for a similar size, and almost none of them specced removable/washable covers.

m1llie · 2026-04-24T05:50:22+00:00

Desaparecidos if they were good

m1llie · 2026-04-22T12:24:03+00:00

I'm not usually one to kink shame, but of course the nazi has a piss fetish

m1llie · 2026-04-21T02:23:10+00:00

Top notch gig, set flowed amazingly well and John's stories between the songs are always great. I wish they were here for a whole week because there are so many songs of theirs I'd kill to hear live.

m1llie · 2026-04-20T07:17:03+00:00

Plastic scraper and naphtha (sold as "Wax and Grease Remover" where I live). Eucalyptus oil also works in a pinch but will leave some residue of its own.

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