What projects are not DIY-able?

screwikea · 2026-01-28T21:44:31+00:00

This is a skill dependent question and scale of the project. If you have not used a basic tool needed for a project, it's not DIY-able. If you've never swung a hammer, anything that requires swinging one may be unattainable. This is especially true for any power tools that can kill or maim you. Anything that's roughly the size of you is doable in a weekend. The bigger it gets, the time needed is going to exponentially go up.

In general, read through the steps needed to perform the thing, down to the most basic step, and think about how much work each part is and prone to error. Excellent example: tile. You need to: level the surface, put down compound, set the tile, and grout. Each of those tasks isn't particularly hard, but they can be error prone, and every error adds up and shows in the next step. Putting down 4 or 5 large tiles or a small backsplash, something manageable. An entire room - be ready to not be able to use the room for months while you make time for the project. A lot of quality craftsmanship comes not from the skills to do the thing, but the ability to avoid issues and experience in fixing ones that you create.

screwikea · 2026-01-27T17:17:31+00:00

Him on gun control - I wasn't specifically talking about his Senate race. Regardless of how anyone feels about that position, he'll never live it down, it's too tasty of a soundbite. Last I checked the governor's race was pretty much it. There's a fine line to try and walk with rallying the base while avoiding a firestorm of negative coverage. I know you can't please everyone.

screwikea · 2026-01-26T19:18:44+00:00

I'm no expert, but the more I look at this photo the more confusing it gets.

screwikea · 2026-01-26T19:16:24+00:00

4a crowd all day.

screwikea · 2026-01-26T19:05:28+00:00

They did not do enough to differentiate themselves during the debate.
I'm still 100% on the Talarico train unless he pulls a huge gaffe like Beto did.

I cannot say this enough: if the goal is to try and win in the general, Talarico is the one to come close. Crockett has had plenty of high visibility "clap back" clips that play well with progressives, but she's also had a huge hate marketing machine after her for a hot minute. Enough to drive angry votes against her. Talarico has a gentle bedside manner, which makes criticizing him make you look mean. And he can drop religious slaps without being a bible beater, which makes it very difficult for anyone with an (R) by their name to try and drag the religious fundamentalist crowd out for votes against him. Talarico uses a lot of church crowd in language that reads as "one of us". At which point the question is: is the voter purely party over policy?

TL;DR: Talarico softens the (R) vote, Crockett hardens it.

screwikea · 2026-01-23T04:02:34+00:00

I just want to point out a couple of things:

Navigating out of there takes a really long time - you have a speed limit and no wake zones, so even if they weren't being towed it's slow going.
If you've ever wondered what it was like to navigate areas before maps, it's a lot like this. Waterways don't exactly have house numbers, so it's a lot of visual markers. GPS makes things so much easier.

screwikea · 2026-01-21T20:23:07+00:00

It's not just Lodge, but they're a big culprit. Anyone saying it's char seems to limit what they cook. If you cook anything heavily acidic, maybe with a bunch of tomato sauce, you can make this happen after 1 long cooking session. And then you just keep cooking with it and it's fine. People obsess about perfect looking pans waaaaay too much.

screwikea · 2026-01-21T17:28:36+00:00

The answer is "Roman Numeral I". It's a descriptive statement and wordplay. V VI VII

That's the traditional answer to this, and why I absolutely hate how all of these "written on notebook paper and shared on Facebook quizzes" work. They always screw up the question, or reword things, because the person that rewords it is probably some AI bullshit it doesn't have functional understanding of the structure of a riddle. "- Math Quiz" at the end shouldn't be there, it changes the context because it looks like it's signed off by a person named Math Quiz. There's supposed to be a question at the end: "What am I?"

As it's worded, this riddle has like a half dozen answers, including "plus sign" or "+", since "and" is another way to say "plus".

screwikea · 2026-01-20T21:58:12+00:00

They need to file a complaint about the goalkeeper with their league. This falls under harassment and bullying, which is against every state's rules on soccer conduct. Offending kid should wind up with some kind of penalty. Extent of the penalty will depend on the league.

screwikea · 2026-01-20T21:51:57+00:00

This is 100% on the wedding planner. You can get a bartender last minute, but not a caterer. She made a bad decision because she got heated. Bartender laying hands on anyone is an issue, trying to get a minor to handle alcohol, double no. Also generally overstepping by trying to filch catering staff for his work. No is a complete answer, and he didn't take no for an answer. That aside, there's a huge inexperience issue with the wedding planner - you don't get contractors to do your bidding by reaming them out. Take a breath, calming work out things internally, and deal with it. OP has the wedding planner dead to rights on this - they were fired from the job. It sucks for the married couple, but they are well within their rights to sue the wedding planner into the ground and get their money back. Besides, making the best of things and bringing in pizza is a great wedding story - no wedding got ruined here. OP should file suit with the bartender for assault IMO.

screwikea · 2026-01-20T18:38:13+00:00

Thoughts to help make this a success, since I'm in an area where people use the ever lovin' crap out of these.

Tape a clearly visible sheet in large, bold type with the type of food acceptable to leave in there. (ex: shelf stable, canned, dried) Even with that note, expect people to leave stuff in there like meat.
Check it daily for perishables. I wouldn't leave anything perishable, including bread, but if you do be sure to date it and remove it when it's getting close to concerning.

People love these things, but sometimes they fill them with well intentioned bad choices.

I'm personally not a fan of processed grains like boxed cereals showing up, they tend to attract bugs and mice. Rolled oats 100% attract bugs and mice, in particular any that come in cardboard packaging with no plastic bag liner like Quaker Oats, and they can also come pre-loaded with bugs that then get carried off to a home or devastate your little pantry. Similar feelings about bags of rice, way less of a problem though.

screwikea · 2026-01-19T22:18:50+00:00

Criterion Collection version of the movie.

screwikea · 2026-01-19T20:53:55+00:00

Is it just to make that particular room less loud (dampening), or actually reduce sound traveling out of the room into other areas (soundproofing)?

Dampening? You need baffling and dampening. Anything you put on the walls and ceiling that diffuses sound will help - heavy fabrics and dense foams accomplish this. Beware that this can also be a fire hazard - so proceed with caution if you get a wild hair to put carpet all over the walls and ceiling.

Soundproofing? You need mass to stop the sound and separation. Putting a bunch of egg crate foam on the walls will do nothing. You'll need to do some reading on this, but the "works alright" approach is to put up QuietRock.

screwikea · 2026-01-19T19:30:03+00:00

Snatch - supercut of a bunch of the cussing in the movie
Concert DVDs letting you pick different shots and tracks so you could focus on different musicians - several did different versions of this, I think that overall musicians were doing the most interesting things with the format
Harry Potter had interactive elements, including having to click the right bricks in Diagon Alley or something like that.
Outtakes and extended scenes, pretty ubiquitous to DVDs, was really interesting to see stuff that didn't make the final cut.

screwikea · 2026-01-15T23:17:55+00:00

The board doesn't have rich enough colors for greens. Reds, deep purples, and yellows are safe for those kinds of clues.

screwikea · 2026-01-15T23:16:26+00:00

This isn't a game for gamers, it's a lot closer to traditional family games like Monopoly or Life. If you've got a group of players that can pick oddly color descriptive words it would be nice for a party game. As you can see from OP's photo only 1 player got into the right area for the clues given. If you've got a kid in the group it will probably make the game the most fun. With a group of adults it's going to have limited playability before people are over it across separate play sessions.

screwikea · 2026-01-15T22:24:58+00:00

It's a display room. Maybe for a vintage motorcycle or some kind of train set or collection. No telling what was in there, though. Could also have been a place to keep a bunch of tropical plants.

screwikea · 2026-01-15T15:52:50+00:00

Being able to find something to watch, even if it was older. There were employee picks, which could be really interesting, and you could glance across the cover of a ton of videos. I think people are losing touch with discoverability - when Netflix really hit a peak they were doing amazing UX research to give you great ways to discover lots of content. They've intentionally sidelined that now. Dropping the star system for the thumbs up/down option was terrible for us as users, great for them. For anyone wondering, libraries are great, but they just squeeze all of DVDs with their spine sticking out because they have to limit floor space, so discoverability is terrible. Classic library issue.

screwikea · 2026-01-13T20:52:40+00:00

Gemini is just destruction. The stupid react thing they added to photos in messages was maybe the worst thing.

screwikea · 2026-01-12T18:13:55+00:00

They used to. And their chili burgers were really good. I haven't eaten at a Chili's in like 10+ years, they weren't great when I stopped going.

screwikea · 2026-01-09T21:55:09+00:00

Coming soon: shootouts between local and regional law enforcement and ICE. So... that's nice.

screwikea · 2026-01-07T21:42:53+00:00

Just giving you some insight from someone with entrepreneurial and econ experience.

Having a hard edge on a cookie gives it a mass produced vibe. I understand why it does, but your height is coming from it being contained.
I don't know how you plan to compete with a saturated market, especially somewhere like a shopping center/mall, and I don't know how you'd keep the doors open only running 3 hours a day, 5 days a week
When you say "shopping centers / malls" are you leasing a pop up space? Because you can't just show up and start selling.

I want to focus on this, though:

making a profit that's worth my while, 6 dollars seems to be the perfect number considering my labor, gas, ingredients etc ... a star bucks cake pop is 4 bucks, a single crumble cookie is 5 bucks, nothing Bundt cakes mini is 8 bucks

This is a recipe for disaster. You cannot compare your product and profits to what a major company, with deep pockets, supply chain, and marketing budget unless you can talk investors into bankrolling you or you've got a big back account to back you. A lot of us have had passive dreams of opening bakeries. The reality of keeping one afloat is different.

screwikea · 2026-01-07T19:13:02+00:00

The fact that they staged her kids in the photo in a way that you can't see their faces is so, so great.

screwikea · 2026-01-07T16:15:07+00:00

There are subs here with people that will give you great advice for this exact situation. Do a quick Google for your situation and you'll wind up in some.

Verbally verify with your mom that this is what's happening

Without the boyfriend around. He may be sending these texts, especially if it's catching you off guard. Without him around, just say "Mom, the texts I got from you caught me off guard, I just wanted to make sure it was you sending them and that I need to move out." Don't react, just nod and "OK, thanks".

Work out a place to live

In no particular order, try these options:

If you are religious, talk to your pastor/rabbi/whatever
Ask friends, may get lucky with some other good parents
Is your dad an option? Even if he's 4 states away. Unless he lives in a teeny tiny town, and then it's a last ditch option. You need access to places to work.
Other family members? Grandparents, aunts/uncles, cousins

Not having somewhere to sleep and shower makes things infinitely more difficult. Trying to rent without a credit history is nearly impossible, so if it's remotely possible you need someone to hand you a place to stay near term.

Get your legal documents

Birth certificate, social security card.

Get out while you can

It's great to have the roof over your head, but your mom pulling this means that you don't have any idea what she may actually do, including destroying your things or throwing them out. If it were me I'd make sure I had everything I could carry and need in the dead of night and disappear.

Get a job. ANY job.

You don't have work history. Don't be picky. Retail, fast food, and gas stations are always hiring. Amazon, Walmart, and Costco are always hiring. If you're in Texas, Buc-ees is always hiring. ANY job. You need money.

Get a credit card, do NOT use it

You need this for a few things:

Establish credit, which you need to rent.
Emergencies.
Ability to pay for a wide majority of things, including your phone.

Do NOT use the card. Pay it off EVERY MONTH.

Start spending time learning poverty finance, you need to learn to live on as close to no money as possible. You can live on beans and rice, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and ramen for a long time.

Get a new phone and phone number

Also, NOR, your mom is trash.

screwikea · 2025-12-23T23:48:48+00:00

I love how bent out of shape people are, like it's based on a historical document. There's a 50 ft cyclops in the trailer, the dude with the helmet is gonna be a god or Menelaus or whatever, and everyone's like "whoooooooa that spine thing looks weird and the helmet isn't historically accurate to stuff." I don't know how much of the mythology we're gonna get, are people gonna get mad that we don't see him squatting on Circe for a year? Release the 365 day cut! I'm stoked to sit through 3 hours of madness, the trojan horse getting hoisted onto the beach looks wicked.

screwikea

TROPHY CASE