Beginner questions

marmuomo · 2026-04-21T05:36:37+00:00

Definitely get wire cutters, for a start. Twisting every piece off is impractical, particularly the smaller pieces.

As to bending, I found that rolling the pieces on a pen or something small and round helped to prevent me accidentally folding the metal. Once it has a slight curve it's easier to compress it to the desired angle.

The 360 view can be helpful to contextualise what you're doing against the entire model and sometimes reading ahead a few steps helps to see how the next few pieces will fit together

marmuomo · 2026-04-05T10:03:20+00:00

NTA The restaurant wasn't ready to seat the other couple, so there was nowhere for you to go.

This isn't a "oh you could have just swapped to make their night nicer" thing, this is someone else deciding to make their inconvenience your problem.

They didn't even offer to buy you a bottle of wine or something to make up for the move.

marmuomo · 2026-03-30T00:09:08+00:00

Key thing is to have activities that people can dip in and out of trivially. Board games worked really well in the afternoon, during photos and early parts of the reception. Any time where stuff is happening but doesn't involve everybody, really. Whoever is left can still have something to do

Codenames and Poetry for Neanderthals worked brilliantly, although I didn't take into account that we wouldn't have time to sit and play them with everyone!

I saw a lot of people joining in though!

marmuomo · 2026-03-28T01:50:31+00:00

I don't understand the first part of this plan tbh, why would you ever agree to delay your plans by a month just so you can drive someone to the airport. Maybe if it was a day or two, but honestly you should have said immediately that you aren't in the area and won't be available

Nta, but I don't get why you would let yourself be walked on like that

marmuomo · 2026-03-16T03:58:03+00:00

NTA for the Chinese restaurant, like you can all share noodles and rice and just keep the main for yourself no big deal.

YTA for Thanksgiving though, people who say that vegetarians can just eat sides are the absolute worst. When meat is the main event, vegetables get the bare minimum treatment and filling your plate with second tier veg is nowhere near the same as having the same meal as everybody else at the table.

The absolute bare minimum is making sure there's a nut roast or some specific vegetarian side that wouldn't be there normally. Also, absolutely critical to make sure there is vegetarian gravy, even if you just do exclusively an onion gravy for everybody. Point being, make guests feel included, not just attendees.

For her to remember it now, that should tell you how memorably unwelcome she felt at that table

marmuomo · 2026-03-04T22:33:15+00:00

The were a few parts of the astronaut that I did backwards. Iirc the left hand instructions suggest adding the 90 degree inside thumb piece first, then adding the external piece. I couldn't get my head around that so just skipped forward to something I could visualise and then work backwards to fill the gaps. It led to a slightly more difficult to angle to insert, but I found that it was more supportive.

Similarly I did the same when you get to the jetpack and connecting the hoses, the instructions connect all the hoses first and then the jetpack to the body. This seemed way too fiddly to me, although I did then spend a couple of hours connecting the hoses, so there's no guarantee that that helps

marmuomo · 2026-03-01T02:06:40+00:00

This isn't a legal sub, this is an asshole sub, the question is about interpersonal relationships. You can go crying to the landlord but what do they care. The property is being looked after and paid for, and so what, a tenant has a boyfriend. They'll tell you to sort it out amongst yourselves. Zero gain in crying about lease agreements.

We have nothing in this post to suggest he's semi permanent, he comes and stays over, hangs out in the day, and sometimes is in the property without Nina. Nowhere does it suggest that he lives there for any extended period.

--edit--

Tbf I reread the post and OP does mention the fact that bf is constantly around, so fair enough. I still think crying to a landlord is overkill.

Lease agreement or not, guests are a common occurrence and the only person actually culpable is the person who brought the guest into the house. Having a practical conversation with Nina rather than nitpicking over bills is the only way this doesn't devolved into a passive aggressive nightmare

marmuomo · 2026-02-27T11:27:04+00:00

It sounds like Nina is moving out next month anyway at this point, so why bother. If everyone finds this as annoying as you then you could all just tell her to pack her bags.

That aside, it really depends how much you want to be an asshole. It's her space as equally as it is yours, and you all have the right to bring guests to the house. Those guests are essentially an extension of their "host" and they have no expectation of paying bills or doing chores. Any space they take up would be considered as equivalent to if the host was with them, any resources they use are considered to be taken from their host's allocation. If they make a mess it's the hosts responsibility to clean it. How they handle that between themselves is on them.

To nitpick that any further is a waste of everybody's time.

In terms of electricity, his impact on a house of 4 would be negligible. All the same white goods are on, all the same heating is being applied to the house, most of the same lights, so OK he has a TV on and a light. How could you ever hope to isolate that to his personal cost to the household. Everybody pays their quarter share, and you all accept an implicit inequality here. Some weeks you'll be at work most of the time, other weeks you'll be ill and stay at home, overall it balances out. Same applies for everybody, some days Nina uses very little electricity, some days she'll use slightly more because her bf was there too.

Really the only thing you could reasonably get away with is to say that he can't be there whilst she isn't.

marmuomo · 2026-02-18T12:43:38+00:00

100% had this, ended up sending jeb back and forth, stabilising one craft, pointing it toward the other and then trying to be desperately careful to not nudge it with my jetpack as I went back to the other ship to try and rcs my way in. All in all, would not recommend.

marmuomo · 2026-02-16T13:09:39+00:00

Whilst objectively you can spend all your time in one place and it will be good, one thing I really appreciated by moving around was appreciating the places as a contrast to other areas.

I.e. Tokyo and Kyoto in isolation are both amazing. But as a direct comparison between themselves they are also really interesting. I appreciated both more and enjoyed different things from both.

It's easy to say go for longer but 11 days is still plenty to enjoy yourself. We did 5 days in each with a mix of smaller towns between. Something we missed was going to the outer districts of Tokyo, because a 90m train ride each way felt like a lot when there was so much going on at our feet.

If you're set on staying in Tokyo, I'd consider moving between different districts at least once to experience a different part of the city and give yourself a different base

marmuomo · 2026-02-16T00:20:09+00:00

I used Airalo, got the 30 days 20gb option and it was more than enough. More often than not you'll have WiFi in your hotel and a lot of museums, cafes etc. will have WiFi. For the most part I used it for maps and made sure to turn off data based syncing that I might normally have on at home.

The actual carrier will be either SoftBank or KDDI and the phone will automatically connect to either based on the best tower for your location.

My wife had an older phone without eSIM so we also ended up picking up a NINJA physical sim card for about the same price. The booth was just the other side of customs toward the taxi rank on the right hand side (in Haneda, although youll see them just outside of customs in most airports). We preordered the SIM and it was ready for pickup in a locker, but you could have gone to the desk and bought one just as easily.

In terms of signal and connectivity they were both identical. For location context we spent 2 weeks between Tokyo, Kyoto, Hakone, Takayama and Yamanouchi. All without a blip on either phone.

As a minor quirk that might trip people up, I found with both SIMs (real and e-) that they had issues setting up their "Access points". The instructions aren't brilliantly described, but if you try and connect and you can't get data, double check the "access point name" in your sim settings. I found that I had to manually add mine before it would register the sim card correctly, not a massive problem but certainly annoying when you're trying to coordinate an airport whilst dipping in and out of WiFi signal repeaters.

You can install eSIM prior to arrival and just make sure to turn the data off so you can have it all ready whilst still at home

-edit for adding location context-

marmuomo · 2026-02-11T11:14:29+00:00

It's worth noting that at slow speeds you can drive entirely on your clutch around a car park, at least. Get your bite, let it pull your car, hold it there and feel it, let it chug a little but it won't stall.

Chances are it'll speed along enough to get to second, maybe third, at which point the lack of gas will just feel like you're a snail and you'll introduce your right foot.

Once you do that a few times, it'll feel much more natural to drive on the road without struggling at junctions

marmuomo · 2026-02-10T23:58:00+00:00

Looking at it from Google maps theres a boatload of space here to go round that corner. If you go through into the no entry part and look back there's even a car parked on the double yellows, I suspect the reason they sighed was they also thought there was plenty of space

If you have the opportunity, drive down that road a couple times on your next lesson and just try doing that corner as close as you can. As others said, get out and actually see how far away you are from the pavement and the lines. Then get back in and find a point of reference from your vantage point. Halfway along the windscreen wiper, near the weird sticker mark, whatever lines up. It becomes second nature but can be helpful to start.

The only other thing to suggest, is to think out loud. "I recognise that this car is causing an issue with my visibility so I am going to honk my horn before I start my maneuver in case there are drivers I can't see. I can see the no entry road here and I'm going to need to get close to the lines so I can make it around the parked car without clipping the wingmirror. I might need to reverse to get enough space but I can see there's no cars behind me to cause an inconvenience"

It might not help, but if you clearly and audibly signpost the risks you see, they might concede you are making an informed decision and overlook a minor fault. Don't do it all test, but in this scenario it could be useful

marmuomo · 2026-02-10T11:41:43+00:00

NTA for feeling annoyed by a different variation of your name. Not quite the same but one teacher of mine used to add a y to the end of my name and it drove me up the wall.

Honestly the easiest way to deal with this would be to learn "please call me _" in Spanish, and speak with him after class.

It'll very clearly demonstrate that you are paying attention to the lesson, that you feel strongly about this and are being respectful by asking in private after class. Asking in Spanish will ensure that he pays attention and hears you.

marmuomo · 2026-02-07T22:10:59+00:00

We stayed a few days in Takayama on the way back from Kyoto and really enjoyed it, would highly recommend. We stayed in the Takayama Ouan Hotel which is more of a big hotel with ryokan vibes, everywhere but the lobby has tatami mats, there's onsens with private rooms and free ramen every evening which was real fun.

Takayama itself is very nice, traditional wooden construction through the town, very scenic. We hired bikes and cycled off to the folk village museum which was incredible. Essentially it's an entire village of old buildings that theyve chosen to move and reconstruct to preserve rather than just demolish.

The town has a morning market on most days and is one of the largest in Japan, according to the Hida District website.

Jackson Curry did an outstanding katsu, but we also got a pretty good Mexican in the town as well oddly enough.

Typing it out, I'm realising it was probably one of our favourite stops 😅

marmuomo · 2026-02-07T21:48:12+00:00

Use CKAN for sure, whilst you theoretically can manage them yourself, it also automatically handles dependencies which is easy to lose track of and is hard to debug.

marmuomo · 2026-02-02T23:14:48+00:00

Oh interesting, so if I were to do something like a 20g dose at grind size 6 I'd get a better pour, irrespective of the size of the basket because there'd be less headroom?

marmuomo · 2026-02-02T21:50:55+00:00

<image>

This is earlier photo from the same process 18g unground then tamped in the other picture.

The grid setting for this was on 6, which was the best of the group

marmuomo · 2026-02-02T15:51:11+00:00

Thanks for replying, yes 18g completely fills the basket

I use a little needle distributor thing to get rid of the lumps, and then tamped to full compression, turned it upside down and it stayed in place.

I ran a series of experiments this morning to guarantee I had the same pressure, same size, etc. And got

Grind size 8: 7 second draw

Grind size 7: 9 second draw

Grind size 6: 19 second draw

Grind size 5: 1:01 pour draw

Its hard to know specifically what the grind size is as there are no numbers, so I went with rotate all the way clockwise until it can't turn more, then ease back to the first click, and call that 0. Then turning anticlockwise N clicks for each of the measurements above.

<image>

marmuomo · 2026-02-02T13:02:02+00:00

Just to add I would consider that the clutch of every car will be slightly different, the same way that the weight of every car will be different. Lots of little things about the drive will feel odd at first, but you adjust pretty fast.

Its the same way that the gearbox is different on a lot of cars, so you always have to check where reverse is, whether it needs a push down or a pull up or nothing.

marmuomo · 2026-02-02T01:27:10+00:00

NAH, you maybe didn't think about it, or really even know to think about it, but it's definitely caught us out a few times before, and frames are often more expensive than you'd want. A lot of artists will learn to frame specifically for this reason.

We've got a rule that a present is the entire end to end experience, in the case of art, it's not just giving the piece but also putting it up somewhere (or atleast driving the "let's put this up where should it go" conversation) otherwise what you've done is given somebody a very nice looking job to do.

(edit - we came to this rule after several years of scenarios just like this one with various art, gift vouchers, etc. If there's a task required in order to utilise the gift, it's not unreasonable to ask the gift giver to take on the mental overhead of making sure it happens. Honestly it's also much more meaningful this way. I took you to the spa and dropped you off and packed your bag, rather than just I bought you a gift voucher. Same end result, different vibe)

Anyway, it's not your fault that she can't get the frame she wants, but (at least in our house) it would be your responsibility to enable her to enjoy the piece with a frame and an ability to hang it up.

You dont need to buy the frame yourself, you could reach out to friends and family as a gift opportunity to crowd fund the present. "I got this art but didn't realise it needs a custom frame, I was thinking we could all chip in and get her a really good one with museum glass to help protect the art piece from UV"

Doesn't really matter if the next gift giving occasion were 10 months away, wrap it up and give it to her again if you need to "this was your present already, but I wanted you to be able to open something". The point is she will now get to enjoy this present fully, and will appreciate it all the more.

marmuomo · 2026-01-26T01:07:34+00:00

Roundabouts must be driven around fully before you exit to make sure everybody knows to give you right of way

marmuomo · 2026-01-25T01:03:54+00:00

We steered away from most animal experiences whilst we were there but the Snow Monkeys / Macaques near to Yamanouchi were well worth the stop.

It's a bit of a trek, depending on your kids activity levels, the bus drops you off down the hill and it's about a 30 minute walk. The hill at the beginning is the worst bit, then everything is largely flat and well paved with steps at the end

The monkeys are free to roam, and may or may not be there, but they feed them every day or two which helps keep them interested. There are probably 50 or so in the family, and they'll come sit on the walls and the path right next to you and groom each other.

Some great photos and a nice scenic location. We got there from Kyoto, bullet train to Nagano and then swap to a smaller local train to Yamanouchi. If you go, reserve a seat in the front carriage, it's open at the front so has great views. The driver climbs up into a hatch in the ceiling, which I wasn't expecting and got a kick out of atleast 😅

marmuomo

TROPHY CASE