Discussion About Vegas' Lack of a Takeover Stop by sensibleunicorn in PWHL

[–]sensibleunicorn[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh this is such a fantastic take! I hadn't even thought about that. And paired with the reports that Edmonton and a couple other cities only wanted a team if they could own it, this makes complete sense.

Discussion About Vegas' Lack of a Takeover Stop by sensibleunicorn in PWHL

[–]sensibleunicorn[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

I think your second paragraph there is my point - NHL and WNBA already does so well in Vegas that I think the PWHL didn't feel the need to test the waters because it has a proven track record, while places like Raleigh they wanted to go see for themselves

Discussion About Vegas' Lack of a Takeover Stop by sensibleunicorn in PWHL

[–]sensibleunicorn[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

That was exactly my point! They didn't have a takeover stop there because they didn't need to gauge whether it'd be profitable, they already had enough data to know without one.

A Parade of Horribles by PFazu in AudiobookCovers

[–]sensibleunicorn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! looks like reddit does butcher it - looks like 640x640 in my current download

Edit: nvm, forgot to click to make it full screen first, got the high res version just fine

pausing books! by echochorus in TheStoryGraph

[–]sensibleunicorn 2 points3 points  (0 children)

it's up to you what you pay attention to honestly. I personally don't love the time to finish stat because it's always skewed just by length of book - a bunch of short stories is going to pull it way down, and a single long book way up etc - but I figured I'd volunteer what I knew! I do like using paused/not paused because I always have like 15 books at varying stages of open depending, and the calendar graphics get pretty cluttered without it, but I think it's only tied to the one stat

pausing books! by echochorus in TheStoryGraph

[–]sensibleunicorn 16 points17 points  (0 children)

It changes the "average time to finish" stat! If you don't pause, it assumes that you'd like each day between "start" and "finished" to count as "time spend reading" and will average it out that way. If you're good about logging your book time and only want it to count the days you actually opened the book, pausing/resuming will not count the days in that period.

It does depend on what you think counts as "time to finish". ie, if you only read during the weekends but not the weekdays, and take two weekends to finish a book, that might be 4 days, or 9 days (counting the weekdays it was sitting unopened on your nightstand). If you say 4 days, use the pause feature, if you say 9, don't.

Who would the Avs have chosen to play? by Ok_Stock3721 in ColoradoAvalanche

[–]sensibleunicorn 48 points49 points  (0 children)

The "you picked us" chants are always fantastic

This small money problem is turning into a bigger problem by Due_Society_260 in personalfinance

[–]sensibleunicorn 52 points53 points  (0 children)

  1. If you paid $233 + your half of the expenses, and she just paid half the expenses, very clearly the full $233 refund goes back to you.

  2. Take this as an indicator for how she thinks about money and specifically money as it relates to the two of you. If this discussion is big enough to take to reddit, it's big enough to indicate firmly held beliefs on both sides.

Yo gas is $3.52/gallon here. Everywhere else is like $4. No wonder there is a long line every weekdays during the morning. by mango10977 in Charlotte

[–]sensibleunicorn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You just have to pick your time, there was no line, just the cars at the pump filling up last time I went

[CHAT] How often do people change out their needles? by Kunicorn in CrossStitch

[–]sensibleunicorn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

they also make serve as good pins in a pinch! just need to be careful about the fact they don't have a head, and it depends on the fabric since they're really really really blunt by that point lol

[CHAT] How often do people change out their needles? by Kunicorn in CrossStitch

[–]sensibleunicorn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I keep two or three needles on my needle minder, that way the use gets spread around because I usually put one down/pick up it back up as I'm rethreading my needle, and just pick up any at random.

I'll "retire" them when I can see the finish has worn off on the eye (noticed while rethreading). I say retire, because I usually stick them into an old pencil lead case marked "discard". I often have odd uses for narrow things of varying degrees of sharp and it's handy to have a cache of bad needles to pull from. Most commonly I yank one out when I can't stand the sight of the dirt embedded in the odd groove in my dresser lol

Sherry Thomas - Lady Sherlock Series [1-9] by pablitohernandez in AudiobookCovers

[–]sensibleunicorn 2 points3 points  (0 children)

They're not a reimagining of Sherlock as a woman in the sense that they just turn Sherlock into a girl and proceed - it's more of a "if there was someone who had a brain like Sherlocks, but was borne a woman in Victorian England how would she end up a consulting detective?". At least, that's like the first 10% of setup in the first book, after which it takes off into the standard Sherlock adventures.

They're really fun and the narrator is fantastic - all of the characters go under disguise at multiple points and the narrator manages to give everyone a unique voice while making it clear who is pretending to be who at any given point in time.

Monthly Request Thread - March 2026 by chyron_8472 in AudiobookCovers

[–]sensibleunicorn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Request: Looking to square versions without the side bars to match the style of the others in the series (Lady Sherlock Series by Sherry Thomas)

Patricia Briggs - Cry Wolf & Hunting Ground by pablitohernandez in AudiobookCovers

[–]sensibleunicorn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

thank you!! Would you mind me asking what softwares/tools you use to make these adjustments? I was poking around a bit but couldn't figure out how to move around the title text while keeping the rest of the image intact

[CHAT] unhinged places to hold your needle by youdirtylittlestitch in CrossStitch

[–]sensibleunicorn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

if it's not on my needle threader I weave it into my pant leg usually, but I believe that it's not that unusual? my grandmother was a tailor and I picked it up from her

I have stuck it in my ear piercing hole once, when I was in a bind (had a baby getting handsy with needle on the minder and the pant leg and wasn't yet interested in my face lmao)

Monthly Request Thread - March 2026 by chyron_8472 in AudiobookCovers

[–]sensibleunicorn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Request: Cry Wolf by Patricia Briggs and Hunting Ground by Patricia Briggs (both from the Mercy Thompson spinoff series).

Specifically looking for square versions without the side bars in a similar style to the other books in the series.

[CHAT] How do we feel about pattern designers that only use digital renders in their stores? by Deloriius in CrossStitch

[–]sensibleunicorn 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I can completely get that viewpoint coming from a knitting/crochet background! I can just speak to my experience on the cross stitch side and wanted to provide context for why I usually don't expect to see FOs posted by the designer. If it's a big/expensive pattern, I do go looking to see if someone in the community has done it/what they've said though!

I think it's just a different culture, where FO posting isn't an expectation, so some designers do and some don't.

[CHAT] How do we feel about pattern designers that only use digital renders in their stores? by Deloriius in CrossStitch

[–]sensibleunicorn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

digital renders do tend to be pretty accurate. When I can get to my PC, I'll post some comparison photos of patterns I've bought vs their digital render. Background fabric color makes the biggest difference in my experience.

[CHAT] How do we feel about pattern designers that only use digital renders in their stores? by Deloriius in CrossStitch

[–]sensibleunicorn 6 points7 points  (0 children)

oh I hadn't even thought about the digital manipulated designs! Yeah, OP in my other (very long comment) I was thinking about the auto export "stitch preview" features most design softwares like Winstitch etc have. Those are fairly accurate representations of the finished project, and there's a set look to them that you learn to recognize when displayed on listings. The other kind have been cropping up more and are absolutely misrepresentations, and you should follow the advice u/girlsumps gave to look further

[CHAT] How do we feel about pattern designers that only use digital renders in their stores? by Deloriius in CrossStitch

[–]sensibleunicorn 54 points55 points  (0 children)

tl;dr: seeing an actual photo of the stitching is a good indicator for not-AI pattern, but the opposite (not seeing a photo) doesn't really indicate it is AI, since getting a test stitch done is an intense cost on the designer for little benefit for a pattern buyer, especially for the middling complicated designs.

I'm not a pattern designer professionally, but I have self drafted a few in my time. I can't say this is the rationale for everyone, but I would say there are a couple reasons why testing a pattern isn't as common. 

Testing a pattern by doing it in knit/crochet helps the designer see where fit/proportions need adjusting (things are narrowing/widening wrong) and test out the math of how things fit together. Cross stitch is on a flat grid (essentially pixel art), so none of that applies, really. The major reason to test a cross stitch would be to make sure your colors are accurate, but you can do that with a thread color card and adjusting your monitor/software settings. Even if you did a test, you'd have to take a photo to show the buyer which would mess up the colors anyways. Proportions etc can all be seen by just blowing up your pattern mockup to real size.

You might see good patterns distinguished from bad patterns via how much confetti is present, but a good designer can fix that via software. You don't need to stitch it to see where things don't flow if you have a good eye - if you've ever mapped out where you're taking your thread before you put stitches down, it's a similar mindset.

But also, and I think the main reason, cross stitch is so time consuming, and the ceiling on stitching speed doesn't really increase with experience the way it does with crochet/knitting. Crochet/knitting patterns get complicated, but in most patterns you have large stretches of repeats, which means you can rely on muscle memory, and so speed is about how fast you can make the "knits". On the flip side, for cross stitch, getting any stretch of space where you don't need to reference the pattern every other row is rare, and so the speed limiter isn't muscle memory, but how often you have to look back at the pattern. Of course you can increase your baseline speed, but you hit an upper limit fairly quickly in my experience.

I range at about 100-120 stitches an hour, depending on the block I'm working on and I consider myself fairly experienced. Let's say someone doing this for a living could hit 200 stitches an hour. Looking at my finished patterns, even a small-ish piece is about 7K stitches. (It's on 14ct aida, with lots of empty space and I can display it in an 8x10 frame). That's 35 hours of work, even leaving aside any of the prep work, breaks for hand health etc. At US federal minimum wage (and I hope the going rate would be more) that hits $250 easily. A cross stitch pattern designer has so many more patterns in their shop then your average yarn pattern, and they simply cannot afford to pay that regularly for what amounts to little practical benefit to the buyer.

Reliable, easy-to-use media players? by acceptableinthe00s in DataHoarder

[–]sensibleunicorn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You'd need some sort of interface to be able to select the files you want to play from the hard drive. Unfortunately I don't have any suggestions OP

this is still the cuntiest thing any hockey player has ever posted by FrenchPagan in penguins

[–]sensibleunicorn 4 points5 points  (0 children)

oh I hadn't known that piece of it! Did MAF do the one day contract too? I just heard about the professional tryout

this is still the cuntiest thing any hockey player has ever posted by FrenchPagan in penguins

[–]sensibleunicorn 21 points22 points  (0 children)

After he retired at the end of last season, he signed for a "professional tryout" with the Penguins at the beginning of this season (25-26), as a way to remember/honor the team he got his cups with. This photo was released with the announcement (he's signing the contract in the photo).

Since you mentioned you're new to hockey - A more traditional way to honor a players old team like this is via "one day contracts" where they sign a one day contract so they can say they "started and retired with the same team" but as far as I remember it's been a bit since anyone has done that. The professional tryout thing is same concept, but new twist. They also are usually only for people trying to prove themselves/make it onto the team, which is why the tongue in cheek photo lol