A good exercise is to read your essay from the bottom up. Start at the last complete sentence and when you're done read the one above. You'll catch more things that way because your mind has to change the perspective.
I change the font and size, it snaps my brain out of "I already know this text has no errors, I've been looking at it while writing it" mode and allows it to more easily read it anew
Another from chemistry: "small dangers are still dangers, don't underestimate them".
This was in my first uni. The person saying that mentioned how he never saw students harming themselves with cyanide, nitration solutions (sulphuric+nitric - highly corrosive and explosive) or the likes. No, it was always with dumb shit like glacial acetic acid skin burns, or a solvent catching fire.
Reminds me that this is the same logic I use on the road.
As a motorcycle rider I've become a very cautious car driver.
I'm a paranoid driver and I always assume that people on the road are always going to do something stupid. I'm wrong most of the time and I don't mind that but whenever I happen to avoid an accident because I was too careful, it reminds me why I'm always paranoid.
This is my rule for being a pedestrian in/near roads: assume everyone driving a car is texting and driving. Legally, does the car have to stop for you when you're in the crosswalk? Yeah. But who is going to have a worse time if they don't?
Sad that I have to have the rule but it definitely has helped me a few times.
Corralary would be "It's fine to admit I don't know". Being open to my ignorance and blind spots allows me to learn. This is good advice to everyone, but especially to those who are used to having a lot of knowledge, or at least think they do.
I'm in Portland as well, and as a cyclist, it annoys me no end when a driver with no stop sign stops and waves me through my stop sign. I call them "niceholes".
This is really good advice I also want to emphasize this when it comes to motorcycles for the love of God just take your turn at stop signs and lights do not wave them on. I have been apart of and seen people almost die from it.
My main transport is a bicycle. I do my best to be predictable, and obvious about it. And when someone tries to 'be nice' and let me go first when it's not my 'turn' / right of way, I start with all sorts of body language that says I'm not moving till after you do. Put my foot down, look at the sky, look 180 degrees away from the 'nice' car, look in the direction the 'nice' car is supposed to go, point in the direction they are supposed to go, shake my head point at the ground, cross my arms, etc, etc till they give up and just go. I've even had the opportunity to verbally explain the importance of predictability and Right of Way, but it usually doesn't go that far. LoL, we all just want to get where ever in the heck we are trying to get to, after all.
If you find yourself compelled to do something that’s not destructive to society or yourself, pay attention. Not wearing headphones I brought to disc golf led me to meeting my wife. I just had a feeling not to wear them. Then I met some cool friends. Yada yada yada, life is better.
Get out of your own way. Let things play out and act when you’re able. Try being more passive about small things and see if you’re not less stressed.
Every interaction I have I try to think “how can this go more smoothly”. Life is easy mode if you make people want to be around you.
You can say no and not give a reason and people will respect it more. Give an excuse and watch them act like it’s a puzzle to be solved.
You can’t fix everything at once. You have finite willpower. Do not stack ambitious goals or habit changes.
Understand the only way to ever be good is to fail a lot. This applies to everything. Thinking, conversation, athletics, math, baking, everything.
Garbage in, garbage out. Applies to coding, your entertainment consumption, and food.
In direct contradiction to the above rule I personally believe you MUST have some garbage guilty pleasures. How could you know what’s great otherwise?
Things are not gonna stop happening ever, prioritize.
Try to be kind. People are usually just doing their best.
Try to be kind. People are usually just doing their best.
This. It's very easy to judge people. So every time I see a disappointment, I retract from judging, and think how could I have done better If I was in their position. (Sometimes going an extra mile and tell them, tho I dnt always get +ve feedback from that)
You can say no and not give a reason and people will respect it more. Give an excuse and watch them act like it’s a puzzle to be solved.
This legit? Genuine question. The people I grew up around tended not to take no for an answer so a convincing excuse was necessary, but they were assholes in general. This actually work for real people?
It works for most non-family I would say. It shuts down any instinct to investigate. If you allude to a personal issue or medical situation people are gonna want to know all about that.
The thing is it feels kind of rude at first. It’s not though. It’s clear, direct communication. If I’m planning something it’s so much easier to know who’s in.
If it’s someone you don’t want to do something with they’ll figure it out after the third no thanks or so (hopefully).
If it’s a someone you would do something with, just not that, express it! Don’t be afraid to say you don’t hunt but you love bowling or karaoke or something you think the other person might like.
I’m blessed to have a family with a low bar for “sorry can’t make it”, so I don’t typically use this for them.
"don't attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity" is good advice for friends and family.
It's bad advice for salesmen, politicians, corporations, etc. They are more sophisticated than you and will take advantage of your willingness to extend trust after bad behavior.
Even in the event that salesmen, politicians, corporations, etc, are genuinely and naively ignorant of something that causes an issue, their station is such that they should still be held fully at fault. A layperson just going about life the best they can is expected to fail, and make mistakes. But someone elevated to a position of power, or who's entire schtick is attempting to gain from others, should be held to a much higher standard. Naturally, there are laypeople who can be malicious and feign ignorance, such as there are corporations that can have previously undetected safety issues that end up causing an accident. In the latter case, though, it makes far more sense to assume malicious intent until the company can prove they're not negligent. Humans are social creatures who need to extent trust and form bonds with others, but extending that trust to people who are incapable for caring about you personally is a massive mistake.
Doing bad things ("evildoing" if we want to express it in a morally absolutist way) is generally not for the pleasure of it, but it's simply doing what's good for oneself with little or no limits (if one can get away with it) on how bad the consequences for others are of one's personal upside maximization actions.
Whilst "malice" is per the dictionary a specific kind of doing bad things were one actually wants to harm or hurt others, hence that saying with that word specifically can't be easilly turned around (especially as actual malice is pretty rare), if you use "calous selfishness" instead the reverse saying ("don't attribute to stupidity what can be explained by calous selfishness") is often true, especially when it comes to people intelligent enough to be able to figure out the broader consequences of their actions.
I think of this as a jar, saying no all the time will fill it full, saying yes too will fill it. Saying no at one time, then yes is essential, to "cancel out the no" and jar remains empty, empty for any judging 😅
To add to your addition, Chris's Fix on Youtube has videos for a lot of the common things you'll need to do on a car & he also mainly only uses hand tools to try and keep his content approachable for the average person.
YouTube in general is a fantastic resource for stuff like this.
Too add to the comment: the biggest issues I've experienced usually isn't replacing the actually piece I need to replace, but accessing the piece i need to replace and learning how to do certain things.
To change my water pump, I had to creatively figure out a way to hold a rotating piece, while also loosening a bolt on it. After taking 30ish minutes looking for ways to do so, I can now do it in like 5 minutes.
I also had to learn that lowering my engine makes the above easier which required a specific set of tools to make the job possible/faster.
You should be able to use a c-clamp to push back the piston. The only specialized tool I bought related to changing brakes was the tools for installing and uninstalling the drum brakes.
Even those aren't necessary but they do help and I've done my brakes enough where the extra cost is worth the time and frustration I save personally.
Assume the best of people and the worst of circumstances. It just makes my life a little bit happier giving my friends and family, and even strangers, the benefit of the doubt.
Attribution bias. We have a tendency to attribute our own behaviours to external circumstances (“I’m driving slowly because I have good reason”) whilst attributing others’ behaviours to personal traits (“That person is driving slowly because they are incompetent”). It’s nice to remember that situational factors may be affecting a good person’s behaviour.
I'd say don't type out anything you wouldn't want to send, not even as a joke. On multiple occasions I've seen people type a text or email as a joke, and then accidentally send it instead of erase it.
By that same token, don't send things you wouldn't want others to see (or perhaps, be aware of unintended audiences). How often do we hear about nudes being shared? In another example, I once worked at a company that had too many bosses, and one of them shit talked me to my boss in an email. They replied back and forth a bit, and then my boss had a question for me about the project they were now discussing, so he forwarded me the entire email chain. I saw exactly what the other boss said about me, and there was no denying he was the one who said it. I immediately and permanently lost all respect for him.
Omg! I just had one of these earlier this week. Dumbass with a confirmation bias needs the size of Texas and a case of Dunning-Kruger that would make that one guy auditing a intro to "insert technical field" course that always knows the answer jealous. I am a degree holder in multiple integral fields to the topic, work adjacent to it and am a weekend researcher in the field and he was seriously trying to tell me that he didn't need to understand anything to tell me that his opinions were empirical fact that didn't need support. I tried to educate initially, but it became clear that all he was going to do was cherry-pick details out of context to support his opinion. I spent way too long. I just hope some other readers found the educational bits informational.
The smartest people in the room are the ones who are the most excited by the answer, regardless of who answers it. You see them say "I don't know but I'll find out" and watch them pull someone who might know.
That was gonna be my follow up, do an effort to follow up even if it's just for your own knowledge. I love not knowing stuff because it means I get to find out, my family and girlfriend always call me smart but I'm not, I just take the extra step to find out stuff where people would usually drop it. Even if I just make a note on my phone to follow up for later.
Depends on who it is. I'll spend 10 hours on a pc issue for my mom but if it's a cousin and it takes more than 10 minutes I'll either say it's outside of my knowledge or straight up say I would have to charge because of time commitment.
Depends on your level of agency as well. As a tech savvy teenager I felt I wasn't allowed to say no to my family asking for computer help. Now I follow what you outlined, close family and friends, free. Not so close family, 10.00 to look at it. 20.00 if it's difficult.
Same. I owe a lot to my parents. The stable nurturing home they provided was a huge leg up in life. Showing them a thing or two on the computer was the least I could do.
The whole thing has degrees.
I very much like to help my mother to update her browser.
I really don't want to help choosing a printer to my cousin's second brother's wife AND install it during Christmas when we are home and I want to just chill with my close family.
One day I was sick of how staff treated the students using the internet on the school compounds. Went on school official website, copied the school motto, and principal email, and burned the meanest staff. Baam! Didn't bother us ever.
Refurbished is not second hand. It’s an item that has been returned to the retailer for one reason or another and gone through thorough diagnosis for any existing issues and repaired. You can save money over “new” to buy something that you now know has been scrutinized.
Sometimes there may be blemishes, but depending on the product that matters very little.
I saw a video, I believe it was about refurbished gaming consoles, and the guy was showing that often times companies just blow dust out and don't do anything of value to refurbish the consoles.
Considering that you get a shorter warranty with refurbished items, I don't think it's worth it unless you know what exactly was done to the item.
Like, if you trade in a cell phone, a company could just wipe it down, call it refurbished, and sell it on Amazon as "Amazon refurbished" which makes it sound like a return that was inspected and repaired.
On the other side is "manufacturer refurbished" that is sold direct from manufacturer. Those have been returned for an issue, and likely repaired. Depending on the product, you'd be taking zero chance on a manufacturing flaw and getting a lower price.
But they're likely be scratches and stuff
So, for like a washer/dryer combe, definitely go for manufacturer refurbished. But something where looks matter more than function, the cosmetic damage might not be worth it.
Tronixfix does a number of those videos, and sometimes they do a lot to clean it and make sure it's good, other times they don't even blow the dust out
Nah you’re just buying a returned item that was reboxed.
If you think companies selling an amalgam of $0.05 plastic components are gonna meticulously disassemble , diagnose, repair and clean/replace all parts, then reassemble them only to resell at a reduced price, I have a refurbished bridge to sell you.
Rice is a cereal and therefore a valid breakfast food. Fry last night's rice with some chopped veg and garlic salt for a nutritious and easy breakfast.
Fried rice keeps better than steamed. Make it once a week and massively reduce your time/resources spent on the daily. The secret is the extra sauce with 45% spicy mayo, 45% teriyaki sauce, and 10% Worcestershire sauce or similar Roman garum-like fermented fish sauce. Put that on top of fried rice to make a killer meal.
Fried rice is basically just eggs and rice at the simplest form; breakfast.
Assume positive intent. Amazing how much lower stress your stress levels will be if you don't feel attacked (on the road, on social media, in conversations, etc).
Oh yeah, and buy a bidet. Your bum will thank you.
That really agressive driver? She/he probably just has to poop real bad. Instead of raging at them, give them directions to the nearest gas station bathroom.
Haha, luckily wasn't too bad because it only nicked my finger for a really short amount of time. It rotated past my finger when it flicked around. Could have been much worse
Sounds like it would be very popular on a book. Definitely more popular than other books in the same category (especially if it's a little cheaper than the other books).
Depends what you're making, and how you cook it. You have to keep in mind they're usually already blanched so it's easy to overcook. Peas, for instance, you just put frozen in a strainer and run a little hot water through them to melt the ice crystals, then stop. Add them to your hot dish at the end. Making creamed spinach? Defrost your frozen chopped baby spinach just enough to squeeze out the excess liquid, and stir into your hot cream sauce. By the time it's hot again, it's cooked enough.
You can just change careers whenever. No one cares. When I was younger it seemed so set in stone like you learn a trade you're a plumber for life. Go to college your major is what you're doing for life. It's not true I knew a philosophy major that was working as an elevator engineer. Do HVAC for 20 years then do something else. It's fine
My resume these days is pretty eclectic and I honestly think it's been a plus. Interviewers like to ask about it and seem genuinely interested in the different things I've done. It demonstrates a pretty wide range of skills and versatility.
If you find blood on someone who is incapable of verbalizing if they're injured or in pain, consider if they had a dark red jello with lunch before you carefully inspect their entire body looking for the injury.
If something breaks and there is no warranty and cost of repairs are to much. Repair it yourself. You don't know how? What you gonna do break it again?
Very good advice. There is probably someone on YouTube that had the same problem and filmed their repair. Ive repaired an AC unit and a garbage disposal this way.
I recently changed out the alternator in my car by watching/following YouTube videos! Saved me $500. Never touched a car engine in my life before then.
I think my favorite allegory is the "We'll See Farmer".
Once upon a time, there was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years.
One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically, “you must be so sad.”
“We’ll see,” the farmer replied.
The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it two other wild horses.
“How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed. “Not only did your horse return, but you received two more. What great fortune you have!”
“We’ll see,” answered the farmer.
The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune. “Now your son cannot help you with your farming,” they said. “What terrible luck you have!”
“We’ll see,” replied the old farmer.
The following week, military officials came to the village to conscript young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. “Such great news. You must be so happy!”
The man smiled to himself and said once again.
“We’ll see.”
Only time can yield the ramifications of an event. There is no luck, good or bad. Things happen. On balance, they are neither good nor bad, just events to be dealt with. Be patient and continue doing the best you are able to with any given circumstances. I have always tried to keep a goal in mind and move through life's circumstances in the vague direction of those goals. Things have happened that have ended up having positive impacts, and things have had negative. None of them were clear at the time and only in hindsight can I see which were which.
Most "rules of thumb" become awful advice when used indiscriminately.
People assign slightly different meanings to the same words. You need to acknowledge this to understand what they say.
Words also change meaning depending on the context.
When you still don't get what someone else said, it's often more useful to think that you're lacking a key piece of info than to assume that the other person does.
Hell is paved with good intentions. This piece of advice is popular, but still not heard enough.
Related to the above: if someone in your life is consistently rushing towards conclusions, based on little to no information, minimise the impact of that person in your life.
Have at least one recipe using leftovers of other recipes. It'll reduce waste.
Alcohol vinegar is bland, boring, and awful for cooking. But it's a great cleaning agent.
Identify what you need to keep vs. throw away. Don't "default" this indiscriminately, analyse it on a per case basis.
The world does not revolve around your belly button and nature won't "magically" change because of your feelings.
You can cultivate herbs in a backyard. No backyard? Flower pots. No flower pots? Old margarine pot. (Check which herbs grow well where you live.)
Long story short: someone else's advice ITT reminded me a uni professor talking about a student hurting themself with glacial acetic acid. That reminded me how often I'm using alcohol vinegar for cleaning (alcohol vinegar is basically one part of glacial acetic acid for 24 parts of water), but I don't see people doing it often - instead they often buy expensive cleaning agents that they use everywhere as "magical" solutions.
When you still don't get what someone else said, it's often more useful to think that you're lacking a key piece of info than to assume that the other person does.
This. Could be a difference between a Fiona and a Karen.
It's okay to always ask for a clarification.
(Or just repeat what they said, LOUDER, only for them to feel like they are being trolled 😂, and successfully clarify)
I usually twist this into "memento mori, quoque uiuere" (remember [that you'll] die, also [that you'll] live).
Like, not trying to become worm food full of regrets is nice and dandy, but remember that you'll suffer the consequences of a few of your actions while you're still alive.
There's no "must": it states for a fact that you're to die, not that you should/need/must.
A rough translation would be "remember that you'll die", or "remember that you are to die" (keeping the infinitive). Or even "remember death", it's close enough in spirit.
This. Rather than try to demand behaviour change, find ways to change the environment.
A employee who is notoriously late won't suddenly fix their behavior. Instead, schedule for them to arrive 15 mins earlier to "help out". If they come earlier, great! If they're late... They're less late than average.
Water dripping? Don’t call a plumber yet. Get on your hands and knees and try to figure out exactly where the water is coming from. You might need a $5 part and 10 minutes watching a YouTube video instead of a $400 callout. The same concept applies for most things in a home or vehicle. But don’t screw around with electricity if you don’t know what you’re doing.
If you’re shopping around based on price, make sure you’re factoring in the cost of gas and your time. Driving an hour to save $5 actually costs you money.
Need to quickly determine if a caller is a scammer or legitimate? Just ask who they’re calling. If they don’t know your name, you can hang up immediately.
Maintain your things. All your things. If you use something until it’s no longer working, it has moved from inexpensive maintenance to expensive repair.
When someone has had a health issue, ask the people around them how those people are doing. When I was first diagnosed with epilepsy, a person asked my mom specifically how she was doing. She hadn't really stopped to reflect on her own emotional state because she had been so focused on me. It was a great comfort to have someone guide her through thinking about herself.
Buy a fire extinguisher (type ABC is best for home use), and check its pressure regularly. Many of them come with a simple wall mount that is very convenient.
Also, NEVER add water to a grease fire. It will explode.
Adding to this, depending on where you live you might be able to get a free fire extinguisher from your local fire department. One fire extinguisher in a kitchen turns a three engine call into a one engine call.
Don't put WiFi dongle and wireless mouse dongle in neighbouring USBs, they are probably working at the same frequency and will interfere with each other.
"Don't do today what you can put off until tomorrow."
I know it sounds like procrastination, but it helps in particular with high stress jobs where things just keep piling on and priorities keep changing. Don't burn yourself out trying to get everything done today.
"Everyone has to start somewhere." and "You're one step ahead of the people who decide to stay on the couch."
This helps with just getting started, like if you are a beginner at the gym and intimidated by those fit people who look like they know what they're doing, or just going solo to a dance class for the first time. Or going on a hike and needing to take a lot of breaks. You're one step better than where you were before you went. At least now you have a starting point and you can only improve.
Also helps when it's cold and/or miserable outside because you know there will be a lot of people who decided to not go out, and you end up with a gym to yourself!
Life exists within the grey area that is constantly bombarded by polarized extremism. Don’t buy into the “all” mentality. Because in reality it’s always just “some.”
I really disagree with your secondhand comment. Buy more secondhand, less new! Cheaper, better for the environment, and you can find some cool things you wouldn't otherwise. I get nearly all my small kitchen appliances from thrift stores. Most people get them as like a wedding gift or something and then never use them, so they are practically new. All my clothes except underwear and socks are thrifted, most of my furniture, my dishes, most electronics... I love thrift stores.
There is expensive because of brand and expensive because of material quality, do your research.
If "do your research" means take a couple minutes to make sure there aren't glaring red flags about a purchase, then yeah that checks, but I see this phrase used as a more serious concept which just doesn't seem realistic given my experiences.
I feel like if you don't already know what to look for in your specific product of interest it's impossible to do research and have confidence. Like when I don't know where to start and try to research products through a search, I go through so much SEO bullshit in such a short timeframe that I have no confidence in anything I'm looking at, including the stuff that looks like it has a good chance of being legit. Maybe I can find a forum of some sort, but I'll need a way to tell that the users aren't just talking out of their asses (or bots, or paid sponsors). Major review sites are a mess.
The phrase "do your research" is way overstated, because someone who knows what they need to look at is already going to do research and is not the target audience. The time it takes to filter through all the nonsense and form a coherent opinion researching something from scratch is so enormous that it's hard for me to imagine someone actually doing that diligently for anything less expensive than a car. What actually happens is you just give up partway and make your best guess like you would have done in the first place. At that point your research has led you to seeing a bunch of ads and a few conflicting opinions. Yeah, that will influence your decision and possibly be helpful, but the benefits are marginal compared to the time investment, it's rarely worth more than a few minutes if it's not a major purchase.
Or maybe everyone else is a lot better at this than me and I'm making a fool out of myself by posting this.
The fact that you understand that something is an ad is a undervalued skill, sure there is lots garbage to go through(it's the current state of the internet), but it's not like you are looking at 12 brands of pasta at supermarket, just picking one it's ok in some scenarios.
It's an idea from Lean management. Everything you need to keep, prevents you from keeping something else; requires you to remember where it is, where you could be remembering something else; takes longer to move when you have to move it; takes longer to organise than having less would. It poses fire hazards that having nothing wouldn't pose. Blocks light that having nothing wouldn't block. Keeping stuff is inherently wasteful.
None of this is to say that keeping stuff is bad. It may be very useful to keep it. But you should always recognise that doing so incurs a cost that you need to trade off against its usefulness.
While we're on it, inventory is one of the eight kinds of waste identified in Lean. They are:
Transportation
Inventory
Motion
Waiting
Overproduction
Overprocessing
Defects
Skills (misuse of)
Remember TIM WOODS.
All of this is meant for running a factory, but I've found a lot of them useful in other bits of life, especially the idea that Inventory is a form of waste.
Not just stores, but inventory of goods in general. The thought is that resources spent on inventory are resources which could have otherwise been spent elsewhere. This line of thinking and fixation on Just-In-Time goods deliveries was one of the most important factors in the supply chain fuckery around covid, which only began to stabilize last year.
excess inventory is waste. Always have a buffer to handle shenanigans and/or be able to source the next thing,and avoid being up shit creek the next time the TP truck is a week late.