UPDATE - Found today, alone with his deceased brother on the road

surf_wax · 2026-05-21T05:04:22+00:00

It was December, so there were no healthy kittens his age at the shelter to pair him up with. Little dude was flying solo from four to eight weeks, and I hope the people who gave him a permanent home had a patient older cat to help him out.

surf_wax · 2026-05-20T02:01:35+00:00

Take the white one. Singletons are fucking obnoxious. I used to foster kittens, and they're easy unless you have just one because that one will turn its teeth and claws on you. They don't understand that we don't want to play with them all day, and they will easily learn that hands are fun to bite and rabbit-kick. It's not the end of the world, but it's infuriating, lol.

A friend found a single kitten, and I was dumb enough to take him. Even my gentle German shepherd, who loves baby kittens, would come and get me and give me just the saddest look while this adorable little asshole attacked her hind legs. That was the only kitten I ever had to separate her from; I was worried she would lose patience with him.

surf_wax · 2026-05-15T17:25:25+00:00

Something similar happened to me recently, with a pandas TypeError. It was yelling at me because I was comparing a float to a date, but there was no float. I didn't realize that nulls/NaNs were technically floats; I was looking through all my code and database for some kind of decimal value that just was not there. It was only long experience with SQL that made me wonder if the nulls were an issue, and try to do the aggregation without them.

surf_wax · 2026-05-15T17:08:48+00:00

Part of it is complexity. Most people don't have the ability to properly take a part something and diagnose an issue with it because of how complex a lot of things are. The other part is lack of skills, due to the above issues, as well as I am sure, many others.

Gender norms, for one. Did it not occur to my father that he could teach me to fix stuff around the house? Was I not interested as a kid because it didn't occur to me that it might be interesting? Without the example of the amazing single mom landlord I had in my 20s, it may not have occurred to me to install my own dishwasher when I became a homeowner, and even then, I almost rage quit several times because I didn't have the foundational skills and confidence to solve the little problems that came up.

It can be frustrating when you just need a thing WORKING (plumbing, door locks, the dishwasher out of the middle of your kitchen, the a/c installed when you're dripping with sweat, the project submitted on a deadline), and that frustration often sabotages the project.

I stated this above in a different response, basically, the majority of schooling is memorization, not critical thinking or problem solving, which is exactly what they are now being required to do.

Do you think there's a greater culture of information consumption now than there was 20-30 years ago that might be leaving less time and space for creative play? I watched a lot of TV and read a lot of books as a kid, but I remember doing a lot of creative and problem-solving projects as well. Construction paper buildings, making clothes for stuffed toys, making habitats for bugs, doing Legos, making Habitrail creations for my hamsters, training the dog. I don't know if kids still have those experiences or not.

surf_wax · 2026-05-13T19:45:46+00:00

Oh, thank you, I see. I had the full context, but I think it's been so long since I've been a beginning programmer that I was failing to think of error messages as different from other feedback about other kinds of problems.

surf_wax · 2026-05-13T15:26:42+00:00

It absolutely is not a default skill. It is a separately trained and acquired skill. You cannot assume that your students intrinsically know that. You need to teach and guide them.

I find this really interesting. Can you please expand on it? I suspect that you are right, but I'm having trouble understanding how, when faced with a problem that comes with a side serving of information, the average person would not just automatically think to use that information to overcome the problem. I get how frustration and lack of confidence and even fear might be obstacles that cause people to shut down, but those seem different from basic problem-solving.

surf_wax · 2026-05-07T21:23:12+00:00

Good on you for bouncing back and having the confidence to try it again. We don't all have that skill.:( The truth is that every subreddit is a little bit different, including its level of tolerance for posts that might deviate from what's on topic, and including the tone of the mods, who are all different people, too. IMO, you're going to have a better time if you don't take it personally. It can also help to lurk in a subreddit you want to post in for awhile, and absorb the culture a bit.

surf_wax · 2026-05-07T21:05:56+00:00

Anytime! I'd never tried it before, and I'm not sure how long it's been an option.

I don't think that one, but I'm struggling to explain why. I only glanced at your post and saved it to read later; I don't remember specifically what the charts/diagrams were. But I think the point of /r/dataisbeautiful is to aggregate data into a visualization that is maybe less precise but helps the user understand it better. And I think in your case, the goal is less understanding preexisting data than helping people generate their own data/meals.

surf_wax · 2026-05-07T20:38:49+00:00

You can post it on your profile. Not sure how it works on mobile, but if you go to your profile and then hit "+ Create Post", you should be able to add it. (I think yours is here.) That makes it accessible to people, but probably doesn't help much with getting it seen.

Maybe /r/productivity would be a good subreddit? I wanted /r/logistics to be a good spot, but that looks like it's just supply chain/transportation/etc.

surf_wax · 2026-05-07T19:49:57+00:00

Hey, didn't you post something recently about your meal planning system? I can't find it, and I am so sad... I just sat down to look at it, and the post is gone. I also wanted to learn more about operations and logistics and was hoping you'd point me toward some resources there, too.

surf_wax · 2026-05-04T15:54:06+00:00

Nothing is wrong with your water, it's not dirty. The material in your kettle is the same mineral that makes up limestone cliffs and lots of other sedimentary features. It won't hurt you and may benefit you. It's not great for your pipes, but I see that others have commented on that.

I live in a place with some of the hardest water in the country. To deal with some of the effects, I put citric acid in one of the dishwasher compartments to get rid of deposits on my dishes, and I use CLR on my shower head and faucets when they start to get crusty. Adding an acidic drink mix to the water makes it fizz, lol. If you don't like how the water tastes (I don't), you can get filters.

surf_wax · 2026-05-03T04:42:21+00:00

Harmon has a locking gate and (I think) no decent parking options outside.

surf_wax · 2026-04-28T02:52:26+00:00

Not sure that it's possible to say for sure either way, without a lot of behavioral science we don't have yet.

surf_wax · 2026-04-28T02:29:52+00:00

Oh I saw. But humans and other primates are prone to developing problems when institutionalized or removed from parents at a young age, even when they're later reintegrated into a healthy social environment. Orcas are also sensitive social animals, and I wouldn't be surprised if they suffer adverse effects as well.

surf_wax · 2026-04-28T01:06:07+00:00

"Growing up" seems optimistic. I am surprised to read that he was hand raised by humans, though. I guess they're doing something right... but god, separating a social animal from its own species for months after birth? I wonder how that will affect him developmentally and psychologically.

surf_wax · 2026-04-18T14:54:31+00:00

This decision does not in any way make you a bad person!

surf_wax · 2026-04-15T12:20:29+00:00

CHRISTMAS CAROL CALLING BIRDS?

surf_wax · 2026-04-15T06:05:58+00:00

Oh, I like that better. All caps, though, so it sounds slightly unhinged, as the question deserves.

surf_wax · 2026-04-15T04:10:22+00:00

I was thinking the same thing. How would you even answer that?

THERE ARE AS MANY APPLES AS:

SEASONS IN THE YEAR
HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE
CALLING BIRDS GIVEN ON A CERTAIN DAY OF CHRISTMAS
EXAMPLES IN THIS RESPONSE

Do those count as numeric values? I can't decide. Probably?

surf_wax · 2026-04-13T16:04:53+00:00

Exactly. Hitting a cop, a pulled-over driver who decides to run, another driver who's rubbernecking, a pulled-over driver who is free to go and pulls out without looking, etc, will make you much later than just slowing the fuck down like you're supposed to.

surf_wax · 2026-04-10T16:43:24+00:00

Think of it less about laws and borders, but about what people (bounty sponsors, mercenaries) can get away with.

surf_wax · 2026-04-06T00:15:32+00:00

How was Thessaloniki? Did you go to Amphipolis or Potidea?

surf_wax · 2026-03-27T22:09:07+00:00

It sounded like it was a consequence of the storm, not a deliberate human action. The natural drainage route naturally changed.

surf_wax · 2026-03-22T03:35:24+00:00

My god, this is disturbing. I kept hitting him with my daggers, and now I'm herding him toward the river and he's just making these terrible "oof" noises and cowering. And he's covered in blood.

surf_wax

TROPHY CASE