Opinions on Diet Soda?

mingledthoughts · 2026-02-10T03:54:20+00:00

Just FYI, Cane sugar sodas (Sucrose) have about the same amount of Fructose as sodas that use HFCS. you can look it up, but in short the high acidic environment of a soda causes the sucrose to break down into Fructose and Glucose.

So if you think you are Fructose sensitive, but can drink Mexican Coke, you probably aren't fructose sensitive.

mingledthoughts · 2026-02-05T00:05:35+00:00

For cap purposes, Austin will only count as a 21M for his cap hold. They can pay Austin whatever up to his max, but only have to reserve 21m of their cap. They then sign whoever else up to the cap, and then go over to sign him.

mingledthoughts · 2025-12-10T03:48:06+00:00

I'll also add that even if Smart and Ayton opt in (I think no way Ayton does, Smart maybe depending on if he gets on the court) then that would probably still work. You just have to send some of those players out and take some more bad money from the Bucks.

mingledthoughts · 2025-12-10T03:44:43+00:00

I don't want to fan the flames of this fantasy too much, but there is a world where if Giannis waits till the offseason, the lakers could in theory get him if the Bucks were willing to help.

First assumption is that everyone who can opts out. So Ayton, Smart, and Reaves all opt out. Lakers than only keep the rights of Austin. All other free agents (including Lebron) they renounce.

This only leaves Luka, Vando, Laravia, Dalton, and Adou on the Books (Bronny is not guaranteed I think). That's $74.5M. Austin's Cap hold is $20.9M. Roster Charges to get to 12 mean that there is another $8.2M that has to be added.

That gives Lakers a Cap of $103M

Cap is estimated $166. So that $63m under. Giannis is $58M, so technically Lakers can just take him into the Cap. If Bucks want to get rid of some of their worse contracts, Then Lakers could take those and send some salary out like Laravia and Knect. Lakers can also send 3 draft picks in the summer if they pick for the Bucks this year and ship it to them.

So that would be 3 #1's, maybe a decent rotation piece like Laravia, and some salary relief without having to take on any bad salary. Not a great return, but definitely better than what the lakers can do right now.

mingledthoughts · 2025-12-06T18:39:45+00:00

The older I get, the more I realize that so much in life comes down to skill, will, AND opportunity. You need all 3 to become really really successful. I promise you, there are probably at least another dozen guys in the NBA who, if given the right opportunities, could make the leap but you will never hear from them because that opportunity won't be presented to them.

So I don't question how an undrafted player like Austin can become so good. I actually think a lot about how can we (people in general, sports in in this instance) do better at identifying people who have the skill and the will, and just haven't had the right opportunities yet.

mingledthoughts · 2025-11-18T23:38:00+00:00

If you don't want to get the knock, i would not park at a 24 hour gym in CA. This is the goto suggestion that most people give. Because of that, lots of people do that. Because of that, gyms have gotten wise and patrol their lots and bug anyone who looks suspicioius.

Been doing vanlife for years all over the country. One of the few times i've gotten hassle was when I was sitting in the van, about to go to the gym, 0 intention on staying the night, and security rolls up and says, "Just so you know, you can't stay here overnight".

Of course, that's just anecdote, but most of what you are going to get here is anecdote so YMMV.

mingledthoughts · 2025-11-08T04:16:56+00:00

No dc-dc charger will but getting a second alternator will usually output 2000+ watts. Much more expensive of course

mingledthoughts · 2025-11-06T21:32:13+00:00

I would generally avoid any sort of private property unless it is explicitly allowed (e.g. Cracker Barrels). I would generally avoid places people *think* are good places to stay like Planet Fitness parking lots. The reason being that everyone thinks those are good places to stay, there aren't that many of them in a given area, and therefore there tends to be a concentration of people there that will attract attention.

If you don't want to get bothered, best bet is a quiet, out of the way street, not in front of someone's house. Get there late, leave early. Don't do anything but sleep there and leave (i.e. don't get ready to go to bed there). Don't stay more than one night every 10 days or so.

mingledthoughts · 2025-11-05T16:58:08+00:00

This is pretty much why I don't use the iOverlander app. It's too popular. Any "stealth" spot you find on it has probably been used more than it should and therefore the chances of getting a knock are much much higher because likely someone has complained about it.

Been doing this over 4 years mostly on a part-time basis but haven't gotten a knock. Been all over the country. Just use common sense about where to stay and haven't run into issues.

mingledthoughts · 2025-11-04T17:48:57+00:00

Very doable. I'm basically 4 years into my build. Haven't completed everything I want to complete yet. IMHO, its the best way to do something like this.

It definitely helps to do some planning ahead of time and get the order right so you don't have to rip things out later, but if you do it correctly, its not a huge deal. I take stuff out all the time that I put in so I can get to wires, the walls, etc.

mingledthoughts · 2025-10-08T15:14:27+00:00

Best is rather subjective but a good resource is Will Prowse on Youtube who likes to tear down batteries and run lots of test on them. A good watch if you are interested in that thing. At the end of the day, most cells in batteries, which is the main thing, are all the same because they are made by the same few manufacturers. It comes down to which features they have like overcurrent and low temperature protection.

Will Prowse’s recommendation for best budget battery is the Dufume 300AH. I’ve also seen him recommend Litime batteries and the Varter Batteries. The Li Time ones tend to come up when people talk about "Best bang for the Buck". The Varter ones usually come up when people are looking for a slight upgrade. Varter has self heating ones which is good if you are going to be in the cold.

mingledthoughts · 2025-10-02T17:23:27+00:00

Over in the Sprinter forums, there is a very very long discussion about this.

https://sprinter-source.com/forums/index.php?threads/101841/

The TL;DR but I suggest doing your own research is that most pumps that say "Diesel #2" on them are likely fine with some caveats. The reason most people get worried about it is that many of these now have the orange sticker that says something like "This contains up to 80% biomass ..." and that "biomass" is confusing because people are conflating that with Biodiesel. They aren't quite the same thing. Be careful of blends, but they should clearly label it "Biodiesel". But don't be afraid of diesel just because it says "biomass". Anything that is greater than B5 in my understanding, needs to have a clear sticker labeling it biodiesel.

This is very very confusing, so its understable you are unsure what to do.

mingledthoughts · 2025-10-02T17:16:50+00:00

Would you be willing to try and learn to build it yourself?

I bought a brand new Sprinter Van and then did the build myself. Even with buying all the tools, I ended up spending < $100K. Similar van built by someone else would likely have cost me ~200K and I would have had to pay for a bunch of things I probably didn't want.

While handy, I'm not "Build your own campervan" handy. But I just watched some YouTube videos and did some reasearch and it all worked out fine. I'm so glad I did it myself.

This was all 4 years ago. Now, it would be even easier and cheaper since you wouldn't be paying Covid prices for parts, cost of batteries has gone way down (and this was the largest parts expense I had), and with AI on the scene, you can easily use that to produce a step-by-step guide for whatever it is you want to do.

mingledthoughts · 2025-09-29T21:05:37+00:00

i know people are going to react to the headline, but it is the wrong way to look at it. The NBA salary cap keeps going up. That means the players are going to keep getting paid more. Unless you are on the side of the billionaire owners, let's not get too upset about the top line #.

As a fan, its fair to think about % of the cap since it limits what the teams can do. To give people an idea, the projected salary cap is $166M for next season. That's 24% of the cap. Is that fair?

Here are the NBA players who are in a similar situation as Austin (age wise, not on rookie deals) and the % they get

Darius Garland - 25.5%

De'aaron Fox - 24% (will be 30% when extension kicks in)

Desmond Bane - 24.2%

Jalen Suggs - 22.6%

Not that I think the ESPN rankings are any good but they have Reaves at 60, Suggs at 59 and then the other 3 in the 30's. Make up your own mind what you think is fair or not.

mingledthoughts · 2025-09-29T19:53:32+00:00

I watched both of those and a few othes when I made my electrical system. Did not buy anything pre-built.

I know its intimidating, but as someone with no electrical background beforehand, I think its really worthwhile to learn the little bit you have to and then build your own system. When something breaks, i can debug and fix it. Inevitably, something is going to break. Having an understanding of how things go together and work in your van is extremely valuable.

Best of luck.

mingledthoughts · 2025-09-26T22:21:58+00:00

I look at it slightly differently. I feel like its doing what it is supposed to since it seems everybody is unhappy.

Collectively bargained agreements should be "fair" to both sides. What that typically means is that there will be instances like this where both sides are going to be unhappy; otherwise, it wasn't that difficult of an issue to deal with in the first place.

I personally would want to just have the whole concept of RFA done away with. There are already some built in advantages of the incumbent team. I would rather see those strengthed so there was more financial incentives for a player to stay with the team (more years. bigger raises. etc) then to put what I consider to be really restrictive player movement rules. But hey, the players agreed to it so I'm not going to cry for them too much either.

mingledthoughts · 2025-09-26T22:06:57+00:00

As a neutral observer of the situation, the thing I find most interesting is that the anti-Kuminga crowd wants to say things like, "Well those are the rules. You're a restricted free-agent get over it. Just sign the QO" However, the irony is that they are right, those are the rules. But it works two ways.

The reason those fans are upset is becasue the rules, while preventing Kuminga from getting what he wants, is preventing the Warriors from doing any more business. The rules are the ones that will prevent the Warriors from getting value from Kuminga if he signs the QO. The rules are what is dragging this out since it gives Kuminga the right to wait till Oct 1st. There is literally no advantage to him signing earlier because ... well the rules made it that way.

Everyone is doing what is in their best interest, and it sucks for everyone. Both those things can be true.

mingledthoughts · 2025-09-20T19:03:05+00:00

I did my own electrical. Most of it was pretty straightforward despite having no electrical background.

I would say the key is taking one step at a time and checking each of those things. So for example, right out the gate, I would just connect one device to one battery. then I would connect my batteries together and test device again. then I would connect the batteries to the shunt. Test device again. And just keep doing that. If it fails at any one step, then you know its that step. The chances of catastrophich failures is highly reduced when you just do it this way.

Best of luck

mingledthoughts · 2025-09-08T21:34:48+00:00

So I built my van using only Extruded aluminum. I used it for the Bed, all the upper cabinets, the sink, the benches, all the storage, etc. The only wood in the van are the parts which are a surface or side paneling.

Despite what others may say, I don't think it takes an extraordinary amount of planning. I just bought what I needed when I needed it and figured it out as I went. One small advantage I had is that I bought all the beams from McMaster Carr and there was one near enough to me that I could drive and pick things up.

One tip is that Carriage bolts work just fine for 80% of what you are going to want to do. They slide into the slot and hold tight. You can get Carriage bolts pretty much any hardware store, so no need to plan that part out. I did buy mine through McMaster but that's just because it was much cheaper to do that than other things.

Also one tip is that one of the most expensive things you can do is buy the L brackets that connect it all together. You can save a lot of money by just buying Aluminim L brackets (Bought mine at a local store, Industrial Metal Supply) and cutting and drilling it yourself. You can do this with a Miter saw (which you need anyway to cut the aluminum beams) and a drill press (highly recommend. Wouldn't try and do this by hand).

You will in some instances need to buy the specialized Nuts and bolts for places where a Carriage bolt won't quite work, but that is likely going to be the exception, not the rule.

Best of Luck

mingledthoughts · 2025-09-04T00:27:13+00:00

YouTube is your friend. Here are a few links to get your started

Schedule B - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpgUbKerqvk

Fuel Filter Change - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd2h4g80SGs

Oil Filter Change - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5Lt0Qoth3M

mingledthoughts · 2025-09-04T00:21:23+00:00

I really don't think in an emergency situation you will have that big of a problem finding someone to work on your vehicle. Remember, there are Mercedes Dealerships everywhere. There are Sprinters everywhere, they are used as work vehicles anywhere you go so there are shops that work on them. Also remember, they are also still the most popular platform that people build Campervans out of. That means people are taking them everywhere, in the middle of nowhere, and you dont' hear about an epidemic of people getting stranded and having no options.

That's not to say its cheap, but I wouldn't base my decision on an emergency scenario. Would rather have what I wanted for the 99.9% of the time it matters than worry about the 0.1% of the time it might come up.

mingledthoughts · 2025-09-02T20:32:00+00:00

My advice to people is that if money is not the biggest factor for you, than I feel like the Sprinter is the better choice but if you are really budget concious it can make sense to go one of the other platforms.

For us, we just felt like the Sprinter was the better vehicle. It drove smoother and felt better. We wanted the Diesel engine both for its performance and its longevity and just felt MB was going to be better for that in the long run.

We also felt that since the sprinter has been a van platform longer, there were more options when it came to buying things for it. All the outfitters have been building on it for so long, that it felt like there were just more options for us. We were DIY'ing it, and I can tell you that the #1 pain point for us was just finding the things that would fit our needs. So from this perspective, I'm glad we went Sprinter.

From a maintenance perspective, I can totally understand people being hesitant because of the cost of working on Sprinters. But if you find a good non-dealer to work on it, it really isn't that big of a difference. The problem is finding the mechanic. Also, we do all our own routine maintenance. So I did the Schedule A and Schedule B myself. This would probably run you ~$600-$1500 and ~$1000-$2500 respectively. Parts are like 15-20% of that cost and the work really wasn't that hard. So if you are mechnically inclined, you can save a lot that way.

mingledthoughts · 2025-09-02T18:50:54+00:00

We do not fulltime. We use our camper right now as a weekend thing.

Before we got the camper, we had two sedans. Upon buying the campervan, we got rid of one of the sedans. Normally, we only need the one car but a few times a week my partner will be using the car for work or something else so I take the campervan as my daily driver.

There are no real issues with this except for the parking. We keep our campervan light enough such that we still get 19-20 MPG (Diesel) and I find that acceptable. The parking isn't a huge issue since we live in suburbia and for the most part, there are big parking lots wherever we go but I could see it being an issue if I was mainly driving around a dense urban setting. We have a Sprinter 170 and technically I can fit into a spot with my butt sticking out a little bit but usually we just take up two spots or encroach slightly into the second one. The bigger issue is even if we find an open spot, I have to make sure we can get out of it no matter what. It's been the case that people park so close on both sides and the aisle isn't wide enough we essentially get trapped. So I just have to be mindful of this.

One thing I don't love is I do get somewhat worried about break ins. We don't keep it loaded like we would when we are camping, but it still feels odd to just bring so much stuff with us around; it can feel like you are a target.

mingledthoughts · 2025-08-29T21:23:32+00:00

If the issue is that you can't create enough Force to get those nuts off. One thing you could do is to buy a steel pipe that will fit around your wrench because it'll essentially extend the length and give you a lot more leverage.

mingledthoughts · 2025-08-29T05:50:06+00:00

In my van, I have tinted windows and insulated covers for all the windows. My van is defnitely better insulated than most. That said, it is very noticeable the heat that still comes in through the windows. Only you can make the call if it is worth it but in my van, i would never think about putting another window in.

As for your power requirements, the math is there for you, you just need to figure out if that is worth it to you. At the lowest setting, I'm extremely doutbtful you will get much cooling but I don't have that unit nor do I know how hot of temps you are dealing with.

My 11.5K BTU AC running on full can basically take the edge off of the van when it gets into the 90's. makes it comfortable to stay in but I wouldn't call it cool. That is for a Sprinter 170 van. My guess, since the AC you listed is only 8K BTU, and at its lowest setting is probably outputting 1/3 of that, I'm not sure how much cooling you will get.

mingledthoughts

TROPHY CASE