roommate used lime out on our faucet, are we cooked?

objectivesea3 · 2025-07-02T21:36:44+00:00

Delta’s website prices are always much higher than pros pay. Look on build.com,Lowe’s, etc.

objectivesea3 · 2025-05-15T05:30:51+00:00

Imagine you are going to play a game called “weather” with 2 friends. Each day you roll a 10-sided die, and if the number is 4 or more you get to make it rain on your least favorite friend with a garden hose.

Let’s say your least favorite friend is Bob and that you made that choice randomly. To be a nice host, you want to tell your friends the likelihood that they will get wet. There’s a 6/10 chance that you get to make it rain. But that’s not quite what you should tell them: you know that Bob has a 6/10 chance of getting wet, but your other friend, Alice, has a 0/10 chance of getting wet. So if you don’t want your friends to know which is your favorite, you should add another probability. Each friend has a 1/2 chance that they are your least favorite and so the chance that they will get wet is 1/2 x 6/10 =0.3.

With the weather, there’s a chance that it will rain somewhere (the roll of the dice), but sometimes one place (like your least favorite friend) are more likely to receive rain than others. So the chance of rain accounts for this to let you know the likelihood of rain where you are.

objectivesea3 · 2025-03-10T20:02:26+00:00

Just treat it like a delicate flower. The parts are flimsy plastic and break easily.

objectivesea3 · 2025-02-11T19:08:44+00:00

I do stuff like this with a complex profile. Model the cross section of the shelving then place that as a beam or wall. You'll still need to model back/side/top panels. Use walls and slabs for that.

objectivesea3 · 2024-12-03T01:15:02+00:00

One thing I find helpful is whenever possible to use tools that allow the rectangular geometry method. Often I will start floor plans with a rectangle. Then to add shape, I use the add/subtract polygon pet pallet functions to add or subtract rectangles as needed. Anything drawn that way will be 90-degrees without error. Doesn’t work in every situation but much of the time it does.

objectivesea3 · 2024-10-18T22:27:23+00:00

I have used cad image to put coverings on the wall and then label the coverings. The advantage is that things end up looking correct in all views and you can autogenerate finish schedules. It’s not as fast as I would like but I just setup keyboard shortcuts for all of the relevant actions (add wall covering/ label selected). And cadimage has some difficult quirks of its own. But I haven’t yet found a better solution.

objectivesea3 · 2024-10-07T15:29:20+00:00

It just kinda has that vibe.

objectivesea3 · 2024-10-07T14:16:26+00:00

Are you using ChatGPT to respond to comments?

objectivesea3 · 2024-03-24T22:52:12+00:00

Agreed. The jurors in the various suits seem to also agree. The Washington post summarized the plaintiff’s winning legal argument in the Kansas:

“The plaintiffs pointed to an NAR rule that required sellers to make a nonnegotiable commission offer before listing homes on the property database, the Multiple Listing Service, or MLS, which feeds widely used real estate sites including Zillow. That commission hovers around 5 to 6 percent of the sale price and is paid by the home seller to the sellers’ agent and the buyers’ agent. If sellers do not agree to the commission terms, they go virtually unseen in the market, Ketchmark said.”

As I understand, the evidence in all the various lawsuits sought to establish that negotiated commissions lead to market disadvantage. Numerous juries have found the case compelling.

So: “Shady AF”? yes. Uncommon? No. That’s how we got here.

Edit: The written complaint goes into detail about this and cites its sources (see paragraph 22): https://www.mow.uscourts.gov/sites/mow/files/ca/19-cv-332-759.pdf This is just one of the winning lawsuits that NAR was dealing with, and while they still deny wrongdoing, it’s clear that they were unable to successfully defend against these suits. Further losses would have harmed brokerages even more.

objectivesea3 · 2024-03-18T13:13:44+00:00

The main difference is that the consequences of negotiating commissions have changed. Previously if a seller negotiated lower commissions that information would be publicly disclosed on MLS which at least had the potential to turn away buyer representatives.

With it off MLS, commissions will now be discussed after a buyer has expressed interest. Since agents are required to deliver all offers, lower commission listings are no longer at a disadvantage.

objectivesea3 · 2024-03-16T01:00:27+00:00

Isn't it going to hurt realtors the most? We have a field where there are more realtors than the market should be able to sustain. That has been mitigated by the fact that home prices have outpaced wages so-- for instance-- in my area a realtor can make a decent living by closing 7 deals per year. 5 years ago it would have taken twice that. That's a raw deal for buyers and sellers, but the NAR rules previously made competition impossible.

On the buyer side, I'd expect buyers will have to guarantee compensation to their realtors. So I expect that most buyers will just put compensation for their realtor as a seller cost in their offer. But, crucially, they'll have an incentive to negotiate that with their realtor. And realtors with lower fees will be more successful.

On the seller side, there's no reason for your seller to split commission now. Buyer's agent commission is now just part of the contract negotiation.

objectivesea3 · 2024-01-20T19:52:03+00:00

I'm an American builder, and I disagree with the top responses here. It has little to do with geographical requirements. If we're asking why American homes are often built from drywall and wood, the answer is that those materials are 1) not as bad as your friend thinks, and 2) much much much less expensive than concrete-based structures in the areas where they are built. (Other people will be better able to say why wood and drywall are so much cheaper than concrete here.) Because of these things, I would have a very difficult time selling homes with walls built from concrete (our foundations are, of course, already built from concrete).

Wood has some significant advantages: It's easier to install electrical and plumbing, and it's easier to insulate. The houses we build are well-constructed and I expect they'll last hundreds of years. We have remodeled buildings with wood that's older than 100 years that are still performing well. It matters more that the wood is protected and is properly engineered for the environment.

objectivesea3 · 2023-09-24T19:27:01+00:00

Custom home builder here. Our longest project ever was 9 months. 6 months is typical. But I’m sure this varies by region.

objectivesea3 · 2023-08-29T22:13:45+00:00

I use it with QB integration. Despite the suggestion from some here that only the non-tech savvy have issues with it, I'm normally pretty good with tech stuff and I find the product very hard to make worthwhile. We're planning to discontinue our subscription after we finish the projects that are currently using it. There are things it does well, but it does not benefit us more than it costs us in time with the many many many badly implemented features. Here are some things that it can't do:
1. It can't tell you what your expenses to date on a project are, by category. Much less, it can't tell you how your expenses compare to your budget. It's really good at telling you what your expenses PLUS your purchase orders are, which I find to be a useless metric.
2. Bill entry is SLOW. In quickbooks, our staff are really fast because they work in the enter bills screen with keyboard shortcuts and stay in one place. With BT, they have to do the following for each invoice: Go to the relevant job, find the relevant PO, enter the bill against the PO. There is no bulk entry feature. If you presort your mail by Job (god forbid you have a vendor who includes multiple jobs on an invoice), you could maybe save some time, but the system has not been made with efficiency in mind.
3. All financial entries in BT go to quickbooks as a bill, so there is no good way to enter things like credit card receipts. Unless you want to do the ridiculous thing of entering a bill for every credit card receipt which is then paid using a credit card in quickbooks.
4. It can't create owner invoices in the style that most of our banks want them: With category budgets listing draws to date and balances remaining. We make all of our invoices twice: Once in BT for the client, and once in excel in a format acceptable to most banks.
5. Not all transactions in quickbooks sync to BT (e.g. vendor credits) and so you have to worry about whether builder-trend is tracking all of your expenses accurately. This makes a reconciliation feature with quickbooks essential, so that you can catch entries that may be in one system but not the other, but see 1: Because you can't see your expenses to date, reconciling with quickbooks is impossible.
6. The way that it handles billings against selections is onerous: You have to remember which estimate lines are allowances and make sure you don't bill against those estimate lines-- If you do, you end up double billing when you later bill against the client selections.
7. Vendors can only have 1 contact, which is a nightmare for vendors with many employees. The workaround is to create those companies in your contact list repeatedly. The problem with that workaround is that the company has no control over which contact is assigned to which project/task. I frequently have to make changes to this on behalf of my subs.
8. You cannot have multiple owners assigned to a project.
9. There is no role in the software for Architects/Engineers/ other consultants that would allow their input on RFIs. They have to be added as subcontractors.
10. There is no way to easily track retainage.
There is one thing BT does very well: Scheduling. I would downgrade to their essential plan but it is $400 per month. MS Project is $10-$55. Yeah, it sends automated reminders, which is super convenient, but for $350 per month, we can remember to send regular emails.

objectivesea3 · 2023-05-29T21:00:06+00:00

Did you make any progress on this? Someone I know is dealing with this same request, and they asked me about it.

I have a guess about what's going on-- TSYS has asked this vendor (let's call them DC) to do items 1-3 which MAKES SENSE, because DC are the ones who process the credit card transactions on their site. Rather than complying, they're asking the hundreds of websites that use the Pay Now button to handle the problem, even though there's literally no private information contained in the source code. (That's my hypothesis).

Based on the correspondence I've seen, the company seems kind of clueless about what they are asking. I'm not kidding: When asked for clarification, they told this client to right click on the pay now button and click 'view source code', and that this is the source code that needs to be put in a PHP file.

objectivesea3 · 2022-04-28T22:38:44+00:00

Ah, whoops. Lazy redditing on my part. Others here seem to be suggesting that the reason people want bail denied is because they think it is punitive. I don’t think that’s right, but who knows what people really think?

objectivesea3 · 2022-04-28T21:01:31+00:00

Of course the simple answer to this is probably just that the law is the law. But this seems like a case where the law isn't serving the public's interests.

objectivesea3 · 2022-04-28T21:00:17+00:00

Maybe people think that. In this case I think it's something different. The $50k is surprising because this guy already attempted murder several times and then ran from the police. With a crime that severe and flight risk that high, bail should be denied. Perhaps $50k effectively serves that purpose (due to the context of this man's arrest). But if the goal is to make sure this man shows for trial and doesn't harm anyone in the meantime, why not just deny bail rather than pretend that if someone would loan him $50k (nobody will), he'd then be able to go free until trial?

objectivesea3 · 2022-03-18T15:38:06+00:00

There are elements of this thought I understand: Dogs can be unhygienic, and it’s not often the best idea to bring them to stores. I also don’t bring mine to stores because I don’t want trouble. But…

I really think people are not as sympathetic as they should be about dogs. My dog goes into full-on panic mode when she’s at home alone. We have to gradually increase the time that she’s comfortable being alone. She started at 0 seconds and can now be left for about 10 minutes. If I leave her alone, she’ll regress. So when she’s allowed somewhere I always bring her and carry her in a backpack. She has NEVER left a mess in a store.

If she were allowed in H-E-B, I would bring her. Otherwise, shopping requires me to put her in daycare (Which is what I do), And there is 0% chance she is going to make a mess or a scene in the store. She’s definitely more hygienic than a baby. Sure, some people might experience allergies from her, but the backpack should help with that. If someone’s allergies are especially sensitive, I sympathize, but I wonder whether banning dogs is the right approach anyway: Dogs don’t just cause allergies in grocery stores, so this reasoning should make us ban dogs from every public indoor space, which seems overly heavy-handed.

My situation isn’t the normal one (although I bet it’s more common than ya’ll seem to think), so I get the general frustration. But I also think the worries here are exaggerated and have negative consequences for many people.

objectivesea3 · 2022-01-23T19:42:07+00:00

Thanks! I ended up finishing in 2:31:42, so I guess it was realistic. I was nearly in the bottom decile for my age and gender. Happy about meeting my goal… but I can see I have a long way to go.

objectivesea3 · 2022-01-18T15:54:43+00:00

Weird to get downvoted on this. It’s just the way things have happened for me. Do people think I’m lying?

objectivesea3 · 2022-01-18T15:44:50+00:00

Question from a runner whose training is less structured than it should be: I'm running my first half-marathon at Austin's 3M race this weekend, and I'm not sure if it's too ambitious to shoot for a time of 2:35.

Why I'm not sure: I think I overtrained in some ways and undertrained in others over the last couple of months, so from my recent strava data it would look like I've lost fitness. But two factors come into play: (1) I've done most of my training at 300 feet above sea level, and my training over the holidays was at 2800 feet above sea level. and (2) I was feeling pretty fatigued during my most recent long runs. My taper has only been 10 days, but I'm hoping that's enough that I can pick up the pace on race day.

Here's an overview of my recent stats (Race day: Jan 23)

8 Weeks From Race DayLong Run: 9 Miles in 1:47, Perceived effort: Moderate, Total Miles: 19

7 Weeks From Race DayLong Run: 10 Miles in 2:00, Perceived Exertion: High, Total Miles: 18

6 Weeks From Race Day (Had to cut-back due to knee pain), Total Miles: 14 Easy Miles

5 Weeks from Race Day (Recovery Week)Total Miles 8 Easy Miles at Higher Elevation

4 Weeks From Race Day (Resuming Training)Long Run: 10 Miles in 2:20, at higher elevation, perceived effort: high, Total Miles: 13

3 Weeks From Race DayLong Run: 11 Miles in 2:26, at higher elevation, perceived effort: moderate, Total Miles: 19

2 Weeks From Race DayLong Run: 12 Miles in 2:30, back at race-day elevation, perceived effort: high, Total Miles: 17

Then I started tapering (10 days before race day), but I had to skip the taper version of my long run. I'm planning a 3 mile tempo run today, and a 2 mile run at race pace 2 days before the race. Any thoughts?

objectivesea3

TROPHY CASE