• 6 Posts
  • 223 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: June 7th, 2023

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  • The job market also dictates some of this. In my area and with my degree, one of the only industries I could find work in was in support for equipment used in oil and gas production. I had previously worked in the petrochem industry, robotics, and hvac, but when we had our first kid, I opted to take my current job beccause the extra pay allows my wife to stay home with our kids, for me to be closer to home, and to make environmental choices in my personal life.

    Ethically, I know the industry I work in is problematic but I also know of 10 other manufacturers who make the same equipment we do, so I sell myself on my contrbution by acknowledging that the operators would just get another brand’s stuff that may not be made as well and could have real repurcussions if something went wrong. It may be delusional but this equipment existed before I was here, and will continue to be made after I’m gone.






  • In like 2008 I was coming back from an overnight airsoft event in rural Texas at like 3am and had to stop for gas. I pulled into the only gas station in a small town just off the highway and was just about to get out of the truck when a sketchy dude walks out from behind the gas pump and started asking me questions through my window hey man, cool truck, is that yours or your parents, where you coming from? I rolled out of there real fast and found a safer stop up the road.

    Keep in mind, I was in military gear at the time because I was young and dumb, but that didn’t stop sketchy McCrackhead from chatting me up.







  • 100% a question to get angry answers on both sides. I use anti-sieze on lugs but I also use an adjusted torque value with that to compensate for the reduced friction, and check my lugs frequently.

    There are two possible failures here, you overstretch the stud and yield it from the reduced friction in the thread increasing the tension in the stud threads which weakens the stud and either pops it off when you tighten it or it fatigues and pops off later. The other failure is that the nut comes loose later when you are driving. I’ve never seen that actually happen.

    Reason for me using anti-sieze is, I tow a trailer in salt water and have had lugs rust to the studs then snap the hex off the lug leaving me to drill out the little nubbin that got left behind. Luckily it was in my garage that it happened and not on the road.


  • The temps in Houston are now firmly in the dangerous range during peak summer. When you reach a certain humidity and temperature, your body can’t regulate its internal temperature by sweating anymore, you essentially have to have some kind of external input to cool off, that can be cold(er) water, air conditioning, fans (where you can have lower humidity or temperature air blowing over you, or something similar.

    If you can make changes to your structure, doing a radiant barrier or some kind of false roof (even a solar shade or something that doesn’t block all the sun) over your existing roof to limit the solar heat transfer to your structure can help.

    If you can get some insulation for the windows, especially if you can get the foil lined version and direct the foil outside, that will also help.

    Local air conditioning (mini splits or single room units) are often less efficient but if you are just focused on making it tolerable, you can do a single room as a cool down room for less money (upfront and in energy cost) vs a whole house or multi room unit. There are 12v units that can be run on a decent size solar setup like used in RV’s or campers.


  • The local community college has(d?) a good rock station with no ads but I am just out of range of their transmitter since we moved so I have not been able to listen for the last couple years.

    In the US, the HD stations also don’t play as many or any ads, I don’t know how they are funded but its pretty cool. Mostly deep cuts or out of vogue genres. There are a couple of cool local jazz, blues, oldies or others.




  • These are both awful things to do but I was a really shitty person in highschool.

    We would stretch clear plastic wrap between two lamp posts or signposts across a road in our neighborhood at night and hide in the bushes. When a car drove up, it would vaguely look like another car was on the other side because their lights would reflect off the plastic wrap so they would stop and then get out and rip the plastic wrap down of just drive through it.

    The other thing we would do was to take a strip of duct tape and string it sticky side up on the road so when a car would drive by, it would stick to their tires and make it sound like a flat tire.

    Kids are dumb.