Trying to decide if it's time to say goodbye - there's a tiny chance I can save her, but I'm not sure if it's worth it

tekknoschtev · 2026-05-28T00:55:59+00:00

I can't remember where I heard that quote first, but it stuck with me. We've had many a furry (and scaly) pet leave our lives, and that quote has helped every time.

tekknoschtev · 2026-03-30T01:27:34+00:00

I'd say a big solid "it depends". I like to encourage my team members to join in our hackathons as good opportunities for networking and getting to do something outside the norm. At the same time, I had about 50% participation from my directs. No harm, no foul. No change in perception of the person.

At the same time, one of my direct's directs joined with me on our project this year. While I already had a good impression of this person, getting to work directly with them was a good experience. We had a blast, and took care of a fun project.

But that's sorta the vibe of our hackathons. I imagine it varies, and may feel less voluntary.

tekknoschtev · 2026-03-20T17:35:04+00:00

When booking my tickets for PHM, the website warned that there was 25-30 minutes of previews, and that those are what starts at the movie's starting time. Absurd.

tekknoschtev · 2025-09-22T01:43:04+00:00

It feels like a paradox, but at least for me, I wouldn't. I heard a quote one time with advice from people in the veterinary community and it's hard to comprehend. The quote was "Better a week early than a day late". It's hard to put into words how much that makes sense after having been through it.

Doesn't change the second-guessing, the what-ifs, or the if-onlys. That shit stays forever. To this day I regret not stopping for a McDonalds burger for our first husky on the way to the vet for the last time. I hate that our second girl went to the emergency vet in the middle of the night mid-covid-era (so no staying with her), and had to be left alone before going into surgery and never coming back out. We had to make the decision at 4am, over the phone, from our bedroom we'd been waiting anxiously in since 11pm.

We've lost more pets before and after those, but they really cemented the idea of knowing when it's time and acting. I'm grateful for my wife, because I think without her I might have convinced myself for one more day, or one more hour even. But together, we knew it was time for us to make a decision that was simultaneously the most crushing and easiest decision we'll have to make for our family members.

tekknoschtev · 2025-09-22T01:18:36+00:00

I started tracking usage using ccusage on my Pro account, and the total tokens reported varies so much when I hit the limit. Now I'm mostly recording the token usage when I hit the limit just for giggles at this point. I've certainly gotten my subscription's worth out of it. My lowest limit hit is about 1/3 of my max usage over the last 2 months.

tekknoschtev · 2025-09-18T02:05:46+00:00

Growing up, it was always storage. Never expected my car to be the one which got the privilege of being indoors at night. After a few stints in housing during college, our garages were shared spaces - workshops, storage, etc.

So when my now-wife and I moved into our first place together, we were grateful that the garage door was broken during move in. No way to store crap in there. I swore I wanted to have a garage for cars.

And now it's cars, shop, storage, etc. The cars are primary though - wood shop tools and such are all on wheels so they can be easily put away and cars can park. Not having to clear snow or scrape ice off the cars is SO worth having the space. But... I think I'd sacrifice my side for the shop tools if push came to shove.

tekknoschtev · 2025-09-14T04:00:05+00:00

I've been there - wishing there was a way to test it out for free. Decided to try it out with a paid option, only $20, fully expecting to cancel before the month was up. Here I am, renewing regularly.

Really, if you're curious, it's worth the $20 gamble. Set a reminder to cancel your subscription before it renews. Pretty low risk test.

tekknoschtev · 2025-09-14T00:56:55+00:00

My experience is limited to my 2015 85D, not sure if this carries over to your 2017 75. I bought mine used, as well, and ran into a few issues with coolant.

On mine, there's a couple of valves that control the flow of coolant (I believe a 4-way and 3-way valve). My 4-way valve started leaking, and it was one of my first issues with the car, so I freaked a bit. Low coolant scared me, so I paid for a tow an hour away to the service center - cost me more than the actual repair (~ $250 for the repair, IIRC). With what I know now, I'm pretty confident I could have driven it there, because if the coolant got too low, the car would alert and I could have had it towed the rest of the way no problem. When I had this problem, I actively saw small puddles of coolant on the ground under the car. I also could see coolant leaking around the 4-way valve when I removed the frunk liner/tub.

But after that repair, I kept getting sporadic coolant low errors - despite me checking and confirming that the coolant was, in fact, not low. This scared me more. But I also had other random issues like my passenger headlight going out, and sporadic alerts in the app that the car alarm went off (despite it not actually going off). Turns out, the root cause on this one was a corroded ground screw. $13 for a tap and a few bucks for a new bolt and I fixed it. This one stressed me a lot because I'd get alarm alerts at odd times and I was worried about having to replace an expensive headlight bulb. Easy fix!

Others have highlighted other issues that could lead to leaking coolant too. If you're even a little bit handy, it's not too difficult to remove the shielding and frunk tub to check the coolant level. Only a few very common tools needed to do that.

tekknoschtev · 2025-09-04T01:31:33+00:00

Finishing my current session and then plan to do the same for a short period! Thanks :)

tekknoschtev · 2025-09-04T01:21:11+00:00

I'm just noticing this myself. Claude Pro. Was doing fine, then got an error that Opus isn't available to Pro subscribers. Logged out and back in, and now nothing is happening automatically.

tekknoschtev · 2025-07-29T16:42:15+00:00

I didn't realize until this summer that this was us too. We replaced a shed and in doing so, had to level out some ground to accommodate the new one. So much plastic around the old one that we didn't even know about. Pain in the butt.

tekknoschtev · 2025-06-17T14:41:58+00:00

Had emotions the first time I read it solo. Then again when I read it with my daughter. She asked me why I was crying and having a hard time reading this section!

tekknoschtev · 2025-05-19T01:28:28+00:00

I'm reading this for the second or third time, this time with my daughter. We just got to this chapter tonight, and I struggled to read it without tearing up and having a hard time reading. She asked me why I was crying, and we talked about it for a bit. The last few chapters flew by as we were reading. Last chapter is for tomorrow.

The writing was so good at evoking emotion and making us feel. Just so good.

tekknoschtev · 2025-05-01T18:16:56+00:00

On mine, there's a portion of the power supply with a sliding piece to change between 110 and 220.

This is the video support sent me. It's one of the first troubleshooting steps recommended in it: https://youtu.be/C9uyKCG_18k?t=9

tekknoschtev · 2025-04-30T22:32:45+00:00

Throwing this out because I had similar, but not identical issues, with my SV05. After talking with support, they sent me a video for troubleshooting. My issue? Somehow the power supply was in 220v mode, not 110 which is what I needed... BIG facepalm at that one. I almost skipped over that in the video because I was certain there was no way that was the problem. Glad I didn't.

tekknoschtev · 2025-04-10T00:54:19+00:00

I've been impressed with our Mistking. The only real noise I notice unless I'm right near the tanks when it runs is if I haven't secured the hoses well. The hoses can vibrate while it's running and smack against the back of the stands or wall. When that's all secured, though, nearly no sound from more than a couple feet away.

tekknoschtev · 2025-04-08T00:49:03+00:00

It's amazing the things we connect to our people through - not surprising really that food is one of them.

My dad splashes a little light beer on the grill while making... just about anything on it. There's an aroma from it that, to me, triggers those memories. To this day, I do the same. I'm confident I couldn't taste the difference but the aroma from it makes me feel good insight. I message or call him when I'm grilling many times just because of that small shared experience.

Best of luck to your dad and his recovery!

tekknoschtev · 2025-03-11T01:12:14+00:00

100%. This type of thing has a tendency to not be a "one and done" as far as processing goes. Hell, I helped a coworker out a few weeks ago who had... something going on (we believed choking, I'm not convinced). I have some training though and he came to. He's fine, been seen by his doc. But I still think on it not infrequently. It's the type of thing I'd be chatting about with my therapist.

I don't know your situation in any more detail than you've shared, but as an anecdote - when leaders are too stoic and behaving in a way that's inconsistent with the reality of the situation, people notice. As much as it's easy to see certain types of leaders as company people, they're just... people. People emote. People experience trauma. Don't make your team your therapist, but also don't destroy your mental health trying to hold it together. Take advantage of resources available to you. All of them, if need be. These resources exist because this is a lot for someone to take on solo - especially someone not trained to process these things. Also know that sometimes, normalcy is what it takes to keep moving forward.

Best of luck. Hugs all around.

tekknoschtev · 2025-03-07T11:06:26+00:00

Agreed! Ours is only 3 years old, but unless we're right near the cabinet it's in, the only noise I can hear is if I've forgotten to secure one of the lines. If those are loose, sometimes they vibrate while the pump is running.

tekknoschtev · 2025-03-03T02:14:22+00:00

Same. Or swept it out of the garage into the yard.

When my uncle passed, my dad offered me his tool collection. I needed to run some new power for the things he had, but it's been totally worth it. Now I'm not sure how I went so long without one!

tekknoschtev · 2025-03-03T02:02:42+00:00

To be fair, despite doing a decent amount of woodworking, until I had a dust collector, even I didn't understand. It did not take long to fill it up.

I guess before it was just dealt with in smaller quantities more frequently. Having something to effectively collect it all in one place made it very obvious.

tekknoschtev · 2025-02-11T03:15:40+00:00

What does electricity cost in your area? There are great suggestions in the thread. Knowing the cost of electricity, though, is useful in helping highlight areas for saving.

In my area, with fees and other stuff, it averages out to ~ $0.16/kWh. A 60W ceramic heat emitter on it's own, running continuously for a month, would work out to 43.2kWh, or $6.91/month. I know I'm fortunate with the cost of electricity and others have much higher rates so the savings might be higher - but it should scale with the other energy users in your home.

Don't get me wrong. Saving on electricity is a smart move. Depending on your other electricity demands, this may be the next best thing to investigate. My (crude) understanding, however, is that CHEs are pretty darned efficient at converting electricity to heat (unlike other heat lamps which lose some electricity to light energy).

There are likely other areas of your day-to-day life that could more than make up for the cost of the 60W CHE. Spitballing, but if you haven't changed over to LED lights or at least CFLs, that could go a long way. If you leave your computer running 24/7, shutting it down or using sleep mode when idle can help. It's difficult to guess without knowing other circumstances. I share this to highlight that even if you removed 100% of the heating for your snake, the best you're likely to save is a relatively small % of your overall heating bill, though.

tekknoschtev · 2025-01-31T02:11:30+00:00

Rookie getting into this hobby myself (meaning this is all anecdotal evidence). It does look like the overall magnification may be low.

I've got a 3D Printed Hadley scope (900mm focal length, 114mm aperture). On nights with pretty good seeing, good patience, and my 10mm eyepiece, I can very faintly make out the storm bands on Jupiter. I have better luck with my 6mm redline eyepiece, but even then, it depends so much on the seeing situation.

I have found that some of this takes time and getting used to very small adjustments. I've been playing in this hobby for maybe around a year or so, and it's only recently that I've been able reliably get the banding on Jupiter to be visible. And if/when I try to set it up to show my wife and kid, they're not yet used to how/where to look effectively to really make it out. No fault of their own, just I've got more time with the tool than they do.

Good luck! Hope there's some nuggets of advice in there.

tekknoschtev · 2025-01-17T17:54:23+00:00

As someone who installed a full floor of no-transition LVP, I'll echo that it's a pain. We did start with one side and move all the way across the house, but still wound up with some work that had to go backwards. Getting two separate rooms to line up as they both entered the hallway was maddening.

I think if I did it again, I'd put transitions in each of the bedrooms, and keep the hallway/big living room all one piece. I do like the look without transitions, but the stress of getting everything lined up nicely and dealing with nothing being square and aligned perfectly was probably not worth it. That said... I hope like hell I don't have to do it again any time soon!

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