You’re not wrong

2,732 hours in Rust. I’m not proud of it

Morrowind has my favorite overall soundtrack, but Halo 3’s One Final Effort is the best video game music ever written. Cool piano rendition of One Final Effort and Halo’s main theme

I’ve just been blocking instances. I realized after the fact that I signed up with lemmy.ml, which contributes to it, but was the only instance that was quickly approving people when I signed up. It may be time to switch instances, or finally get off my ass and make my own.

I don’t mind some of the ideas, but seeing people constantly sucking off Russia and China gets old in a hurry.

In the US, the Coast Guard puts out Local Notice to Mariners once a week, and will push one out if there is a new hazard to navigation reported.

If you’re in anything larger than a small fishing boat, update your charts. Shit changes quick on the sea.

They’re generally a great experience. It’s way different than Lowe’s/HD, and generally better selection for cheaper than places like Woodcraft or Rockler. There’s typically a wide range in widths/thicknesses, so have a rough idea of what you need and be ready to mentally adapt your build if they don’t have as many wide boards as you need. Some places will have a minimum purchase requirement, but the few I’ve gone to don’t. Typically, I spend $200-400 for a trip, which covers a few projects for me.

Added bonus of going to a mill instead of a distributor, sometimes they’ll have waste you can take for free/really cheap! Great for small projects or lathe stuff

It’s hard man. I was living in Alaska when I really got into woodworking, and I had one overpriced option for a really limited selection of hardwood. I managed to get some old maple flooring from a guy that was contracted to replace a basketball court, and got some old redwood from a water tower that was taken down, but otherwise I just used pine for everything for the first few years.

Best advice I can offer is to find a local mill. Facebook groups are good for finding local people that just do it on the side and/or don’t have a website. Ideally, find someone with a kiln, or be prepared to wait for months to years for it to dry. You can also find some good deals at auctions and sometimes on FB marketplace

The only wood I buy at Woodcraft nowadays is for small lathe projects when they have blanks on sale

Woodworking can get crazy expensive, but like most hobbies, you can get into it gradually for relatively low cost. I started with a cordless drill and a circular saw, then gradually bought used tools and restored them. If I were to buy everything new in my shop, it would easily be $15-20k, but I’ve spent maybe $2k over 5 years. The most I’ve spent on any one tool was a $400 miter saw a few months ago on sale, almost everything else has been stuff that’s older than me or inexpensive tools that work just as well as pricier options.

Good hardwood is fucking expensive though. I found a local mill where I can get cherry for $4/bdft or walnut for $5.50/bdft (bdft = board foot, volumetric measurement equivalent to 12"x12"x1"). Somewhere like Woodcraft charges $15-18/bdft for walnut, which is $60+ for a 6" wide, 8ft long, 1" thick board.

ETA: It does annoy me when every woodworking video comment section is bombarded with complaints about how expensive tools are. Yes, Sawstop and Powermatic are obscenely expensive. A DeWalt job site table saw is more than enough for most hobbyists starting out. So is a used saw you can get for $100 or less. It’s very easy to blow through $20k outfitting a shop, but it’s also very easy to outfit a shop with old, quality tools for a fraction of that price. This is what I’ve spent over five years

• 6" Jet jointer from 1973: $240
• 12" Parks planer from 1943-1986 (no idea on exact date): $200. Used a 13" Woodtek lunchbox planer for a few years before this. I got that for free because they don’t make linkage gears for it anymore, and I was able to 3D print replacements.
• DeWalt job site table saw, new in 2018: $325
• Wen drill press, new in 2019: $70
• Wen scroll saw, new in 2019: $60
• harbor freight miter saw, used: $80 (fuck this thing, would never cut square no matter how much I tried to tune it)
• DeWalt compound sliding miter saw, new 2023: $400
• Harbor freight lathe, new 2020: $150-200 (don’t remember exactly)
• shaper from 1978 + $2k in tooling: $40 at auction
• 7-10 various hand planes, all used from eBay or marketplace: $80
• knockoff 14" delta bandsaw from late 80s: $40
• harbor freight dust collector, new 2023 (gift): ~$250-300
• slow speed bench grinder, new 2021: $90
• various hand saws, 2016-2023: probably $100
• various chisels, new 2016-2023: ~$120

All in, $2,100 over 5 years. I sold ~$1,500 worth of random projects in that time, and gained a ton of enjoyment from it.

Even if you do go big and spend a lot of money on tools, as long as you have disposable income and you’re not forgoing your/your family’s basic needs, there’s nothing wrong with spending money on things you enjoy. It’s ok to enjoy things.

My parents took us to one of their concerts in like 2008. They were surprisingly good live.

OP said irrationally disgust

Your instance name disturbs me

Text goes perfectly to Photograph

I second this. BS Mechanical Engineering at a military college better part of a decade ago. Having a checklist removes the mental load of sitting down and going “fuck what do I have to do?” and then remembering something two hours in that’s due in 20 minutes.

I’m at the age where my joints hurt and things from my childhood are considered old or “vintage.” I don’t like it.

old

You take that back, and then get off my lawn

Watching it right now, I think it holds up ok

There is a key distinction between a contracted public service and a private company running a for-profit business. Think buses (as you described) vs taxis.

I lost my username once and couldn’t recover the account

Abe books was my go-to in college for international editions of engineering textbooks. $40 for a book that cost $450 for the US edition. Only downside was that all the units were in metric and weren’t perfectly converted, so I had to check against a classmate if we had work out of the book. All the info was still the same tho, and it was 10% of the cost, and it let me take open book tests where a digital copy wouldn’t cut it.

Bingo