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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 21st, 2023

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  • This feels like a relevant situation to bring up one of my favorite Terry Pratchett quotes:

    The Sam Vimes “Boots” theory of socioeconomic unfairness.

    The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

    Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

    But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.






  • Having once upon a time overfilled my oil by almost a quart, I think you are mostly right.

    Engine oil should stay in the crankcase. During normal operation, some of it is pumped elsewhere to lubricate the crankshaft, cams, and other mechanical components. The rest of the oil sloshes and splashes around the crankcase keeping everything slippery. If there is too much excess in the crankcase, components moving can push the oil somewhere it shouldn’t be.

    In my case, when turning left, the excess oil was pushed passed the piston rings and burned in a huge cloud of blue smoke. It wasn’t a proud moment, but stopping in a random service station and having Bruce try to drain a quart of oil out of the engine, because I couldn’t afford a full oil change was awkward.

    … Anyway: all of that to say this:

    If you have too little, your oil pressure light will probably come on. If you have too much, you’ll notice it somewhere else.




  • I have a whiteboard in my kitchen. Amongst other things, on it I keep a list of perishable foods that we have on hand. When I am trying to figure out what I am going to cook, I can look at the list and not have to think about every ingredient I own, And only focus on things that will go off soon. I usually don’t include the common items we tend to go through often.

    Sometimes I also include leftovers that need to be finished, and unusual ingredients I bought impulsively because I thought I wanted to try making something new but than lost focus/motivation to actually make something with them.

    It’s not a great system, but it helps me waste less.