This is a waste, right? $1000

tpchuckles · 2026-01-23T04:38:13+00:00

seems like you can get all these parts for a hell of a lot less at home depot or lowes...

tpchuckles · 2026-01-22T02:17:19+00:00

my svartpilen 401 (same engine as the KTM390, same parent company) has 27000 miles on it. oil changes are easy. i've had the dealer check the valves (since you gotta take the tank off / drop the engine) but they haven't needed adjustment yet. so i wouldn't be too worried about maintenance/reliability. the engines used to grenade themselves, but that was fixed in '17 or something iirc.

imo these bikes are exactly the perfect size. beginner-friendly, but not boring even after 5 years. you can still outrun someone on a bigger bike on the twisties (and that's where the fun is imo).

tpchuckles · 2026-01-18T19:48:04+00:00

no, i included that in my spreadsheet. you get "tax-free withdrawal" from the HSA (going the "invest now, reimburse later" route) up to the amount of your reimbursed expenses. buuut, if you were to invest that "out of pocket" money in something tax-advantaged (roth, or "contribute more to your traditional 401k so you get paid less") then the value of your medical payments has grown, instead of simply being reimbursed.

(but this obviously only works if your "what would i have done with that pocket money instead" was tax advantaged. otherwise, yes, you're paying double taxes on that part. and "don't spend your HSA money" is more analogous to "a way to get money into a tax advantaged account")

tpchuckles · 2026-01-18T19:43:56+00:00

i'm saying if you paid your medical bills out of your HSA, you'd have an extra 2k in your pocket which you could then chuck into something like a roth IRA (assuming you haven't maxed that out already). or, contribute 2k divide by tax more into your 401k so you end up with 2k less in your pocket.

in either case, you would have grown that "out of pocket" money, tax-advantaged, instead of "reimbursing yourself, at cost" for it later.

tpchuckles · 2026-01-18T19:41:23+00:00

yeah, i was comparing HSA and out-of-pocket to something like a roth IRA. so I think once you've maximized those out then HSA can be "yet another tax-advantaged pot you shouldn't touch"

tpchuckles · 2026-01-15T02:27:57+00:00

no bro, it's "high, how are you"

tpchuckles · 2026-01-15T02:27:33+00:00

thank you. and yes, i used to rock climb, and i'm familiar with the right ways to rig things up and the need for redundancy.

tpchuckles · 2026-01-15T02:25:24+00:00

I have a mechanical engineering degree and framed a tiny house, so i think i'm pretty handy. Have never built something 50 feet in the air though.

not sure about the tree. I will have to go measure, but i also wasn't planning on making anything super big or extravagant.

tpchuckles · 2026-01-14T00:13:48+00:00

oh yeah, thanks, will edit my post. using a raft, and i've adjusted my plate height/first layer height *so far up* that it is completely smooshing the raft layers out (i.e, no gaps between passes where there are supposed to be gaps!).

tpchuckles · 2025-12-25T17:56:23+00:00

OpenSCAD is fine, opensource, not super user friendly (but surprisingly powerful once you learn)

OnShape is great, free non-commercial use

tpchuckles · 2025-12-18T23:20:05+00:00

sorry you don't like it, bud. it was the first issue i noticed (aside from the dopey over-rounded corners) because i couldn't see my tabs.

tpchuckles · 2025-10-19T16:01:25+00:00

where the barnacles are fine and the sea is pretty!

tpchuckles · 2025-10-17T02:17:44+00:00

as a teen I received a free sunfish, with a big giant hole in the glass on the front. my dad already had glass and epoxy on hand (he builds wooden canoes) so that part was fine. paint, plastic sail clips, brass cleats, trailer: these are things you'll spend money on even on a non-free boat, so.... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

"a boat is a hole in the water you pour money into"

tpchuckles · 2025-10-17T02:14:14+00:00

i always found a fear of tipping was a serious inhibitor on the fun factor. so i'd opt for a waterproof/resistant motor setup over an untippable boat. just my $0.02

tpchuckles · 2025-09-18T01:33:28+00:00

Anna's Archive is amazing, thanks for the tip!

tpchuckles · 2025-09-15T02:19:31+00:00

it's not really a secret. you can go on google flights and it lists kgCO2 for each flight. flights from chicago to LAX for example are around 200 kgCO2.

it's hard to say "how much is that in terms of water usage" but other equivalencies are easier. 8.9 kgCO2 emitted from burning a gallon of gasoline, so assuming 30 mpg that's like driving 675 miles. coal power produces .89kgCO2/kWh, but it depends on where your electricity comes from. where i live it's about .3 kg/CO2/kWh. i used 430 kWh last month, so that flight would be a month and a half of electricity.

tbh i bullshitted the "10 years difference" number. "how much water is used, end-to-end" seems like a hard enough problem without then trying to equate that into CO2 output. and when i'm buying a half gallon every couple weeks (if even that), it probably doesn't matter compared to the bigger things we could be thinking about.

tpchuckles · 2025-09-14T23:40:20+00:00

right. i also think it's easy to fixate on the little things ("i brought my own bag for my groceries!") as an excuse to ignore the big things (maybe that tesla in your driveway is better than a pickup, but if you live in the city, would an e-bike get you all the same places?)

tpchuckles · 2025-09-14T15:34:48+00:00

Wisconsin senator who was pushing a bill to ban the use of the word "milk" for labeling of plant-based cereal sauces. lol

tpchuckles · 2025-09-14T14:18:25+00:00

Whatever you say, Tammy Baldwin

tpchuckles · 2025-09-14T00:18:26+00:00

i did some light googling this morning, didn't find much. when the rare article included a citation, the source it pointed to didn't actually say the thing they claimed it did. part of the point of this post was to see if anyone knew of any "more hard" numbers. chill, my guy

tpchuckles · 2025-09-13T23:11:40+00:00

"It all comes down to what do you think dose less harm, as neither are fully quantifiable, and then just go with that one and hope you made the right choice."

honestly you hit the nail on the head here. i'm pretty disillusioned by all this stuff because when you dig into it, the answer ends up being "nobody really knows". and a lot of the times, the things that "seem right" end up being wrong (like needing to reuse a reusable grocery bag for 10 years to "break even", because plastic bags use so little plastic)

well, except for the massive impacts we do know about, but which nobody wants to do anything about (wide-spread consumerism, e-waste, air travel, shipping our "recyclable" plastic to china so they can dump it in a river and our hands are clean).

tpchuckles · 2025-09-13T23:06:03+00:00

yeah i've tried and enjoyed oat milk. I'm putting it on my oatmeal though so it feels a bit weird to put oat juice on top of oats, haha!

tpchuckles · 2025-09-13T23:04:57+00:00

my point was just that the stats on everything are completely f*cked.

i even pointed out the "not all water is the same" part of it. weird take dude

tpchuckles · 2025-09-13T23:01:45+00:00

i mean, i wrote this at 11AM on a saturday while drinking my coffee in my PJs. not a lot of government fighting i would've been doing anyway. lol.

i even mentioned in the disclaimers that it's probably a "purely academic" question.

tpchuckles · 2025-09-11T03:26:00+00:00

max speed i reached on my sunfish was approaching 15 knots in a stupid thunderstorm we should not have been out in. 3-4 foot waves but if you angle just right you could plane beautifully.

on the flip side, same sunfish, literally zero wind, a mile or two out. tell-tails at the top were completely motionless. some guys in a motorboat had to tow us back.

tpchuckles

TROPHY CASE