StrawberryPigtails
@StrawberryPigtails@lemmy.sdf.org
- Comment on Why doesn't NASA have a go fund me page or kickstarter? Really don't know how they work but would donate. 380 million in the US if everyone gave a dollar would do good? 5 days ago:
My understanding is that there is a law on the books that prevents government agencies from accepting donations.
- Comment on How do I finally get a long term career and become financially independent? 1 week ago:
For me it was getting a CDL. I went through Swift Transportation) to get mine, though most trucking companies either have a trucking school or have tuition reimbursement. Back in 2008, it cost me $800 upfront (going to the state for testing and licensing) plus 2 years working for Swift.
Pay was shit starting out, but at this point in my career I’m making $60,000 a year. I could be making more, but I shifted to running a yard truck instead of running routes.
If you’re not having any luck getting into the trades, that is the direction I would look. Swift literally hired me 30 minutes after I put in the application, in the middle of the night. The trucking industry as a whole tends to be really fast to hire as well. The longest I’ve had to wait to hear back from a company I’ve applied to was 72 hours.
Other options would be to check with local construction companies and farms. Both are probably really hurting for people right now due to ICE. Might also check with HVAC, plumbing and electrician outfits. I know that Alabama, in particular, has been short handed in each of these fields for a while, so they may be willing to train on the job.
Contact the companies themselves, not the unions associated with their fields as the only union I’m aware of that handles job placement as well as training is the Boilermakers. I’ve applied to them once, didn’t hear anything back from the Boilermakers for 3 years. They is a bit slow.
- Comment on When did people start saying "have a good rest of your day" 2 weeks ago:
I think I first noticed that phrase about 10 years ago. Not sure where it came from.
- Comment on AWS crash causes $2,000 Smart Beds to overheat and get stuck upright 2 weeks ago:
So, what would be the community that is the opposite of buy it for life?
Seriously, I get that internet is ubiquitous in some areas, but everything should have the ability to function correctly without internet access.
- Comment on [deleted] 4 weeks ago:
First you need to define what you mean by classical music. Depending on who you’re talking to that could be anything from Mozart or Bach in a group orchestral setting to something instrumental written in the last 5 years played solo, or any combination in-between.
I’m not an orchestral player, more a bluegrass and old-time musician, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
When you are playing in a group orchestra, you are not a musician. You are an instrument. The conductor is the musician. You’re there to play the notes on the page. The conductor may give you some leeway, may not.
In smaller groups, you may or may not have more freedom depending on the musical style and the group dynamics.
Solo, do as you please so long as it sounds good. You are both the instrument and the musician here.
As always, there is only one hard rule in music, If it sounds good, it is good. Everything else is just guidelines.
- Comment on How Long is Too Long for a Reply? 4 weeks ago:
My opinion, that would fall under technical. Your reply might not be useful to that teacher or the student that she was trying to help, but might be useful to the next teacher or student that runs across the post.
In all my years I have never found anything as poorly documented as how people’s minds work.
- Comment on How Long is Too Long for a Reply? 4 weeks ago:
If it’s a technical issue, go ahead and answer it if you think your answer will help someone in the future. Someone may be having that exact problem and have found the post via search. This has helped me more times than I can count when working on projects.
Non technical topics, depends on the platform and subject. I’d say use your own judgment.
- Comment on How do I stop sleeping through everything? 1 month ago:
I switched to first to black coffee instead of, in my case, Mt. Dew. Then once I was caffeine free (and more importantly to me at the time, sugar free) save for coffee, I switched to decaf. Felt tired the first week, but no headaches. Decaf still has caffeine in it so you avoid the migraine, but so little it doesn’t affect you much.
Honestly, the massive sugar cravings were a bigger problem for me for months than the caffeine withdrawal, but I lost 20 lbs just cutting the sodas out.
- Comment on How do I stop sleeping through everything? 1 month ago:
I do this even after cutting caffeine almost completely.
Got better after I got an Apple watch as I was able to see exactly how long I was sleeping for. Used that information to change when I went to bed. Will still sleep through a apocalypse, but at least I don’t usually oversleep anymore.
- Comment on If you had to buy a new TV, what brand would you get? 1 month ago:
The vast majority of TVs nowadays have really just become manufactured e-waste, mainly due to the piss poor computers they have running the “smart” features. Have a look at your local thrift store or Goodwill. You might find something there for a discount that will last a bit.
Nowadays, I probably wouldn’t buy a new TV. Too much malware preinstalled even if their smart features aren’t under powered. I would look instead at digital displays or larger computer monitors. It will bump the price back up to what TVs used to cost when I was younger, but at least your paying with cash instead of your privacy. Will probably last a bit longer to boot.
- Comment on How long do we have before PCs get locked bootloaders and corporations ban installation of "non-approved" software? (for context: Google is restricting sideloading worldwide on Android ETA 2027) 2 months ago:
It’s been done before. ChromeBooks comes to mind, but there have been others. Usually winds up killing the outfit that tries it.
As far as I know Chromebooks only survive because of the educational market. Locked down devices are preferable in schools.
I won’t buy one, but I could see such systems becoming dominant in another 20 years or so.
- Comment on Do you read analog clocks to the exact minute? How do you do this quickly? 2 months ago:
I don’t generally read them to the minute very often. For the most part, 5 min increments are close enough for what I need, most of the time. If I do need a more precise time, I’m usually already closely watching the clock and it’s just addition (was 1341 when I started this, now it’s 1345.).
If I need to get the precise time, cold, than it’s as simple as: closest 5 min tick, then add or subtract minute ticks till you get to the minute hand
Eventually you get to the point where it’s not something you consciously think about. You just look at the clock and then pattern recognition takes over and you just know what time it is.
- Comment on Can you get shadowbanned on Lemmy? 2 months ago:
I can see this post from the SDF. I think you may just be having federation issues.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
I tend to use a paper towel with a little bit of canola oil, after hand washing it lightly with soap and water.
My cast iron won’t win beauty pageants, but they are functional equipment, not wall decorations.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 months ago:
From what I’ve noticed, “not figuring it out” is often either a question of fine motor coordination or poor ear training.
Other times it’s outlandish expectations from yourself. Your not going to be playing "Money for Nothing " by Dire Straits for a while, but something along the lines of “Three Little Birds” by Bob Marley is probably achievable within your first week.
Fine motor control is mostly just a matter of practice. Use a metronome and start SLOW.
Ear training in this context is being able to map a sound in your head to a finger position on your instrument. Again practice, pick a simple melody and try to find that melody on your instrument.
As for what instrument. What do you want to play? You could get any instrument in the world, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t want to play that instrument.
I mostly play and teach guitar, you can easily get a reasonable instrument in the $300-$600 range. Sometimes cheaper.
Serviceable keyboards can be had for about $150.
- Comment on Could one legally get a hold of those bank bill dye security dye packs, dye your own legally obtained cash with it, and spend it places? Just to make people suspect you're secretly a bank robber. 3 months ago:
It’s probably mostly legal. Though they might hit you with defacing currency. Technically that’s still a crime, though I don’t think it’s been used in a while.
The dye is available to the general public so that part is easy. Given how trigger happy US law enforcement is, I wouldn’t recommend doing this. Sounds like overly complicated suicide.
- Comment on Does the ping between your eyes and brain increase when you're tired? 3 months ago:
I like that description. I may borrow it the next time I’m asked to run a safety training.
To answer your question, yes. Your reaction time does slow down as you become more tired. The effect is similar to being very drunk. This fact is the basis for Hours of Service regulations in the US trucking industry.
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3307962/
academic.oup.com/sleep/…/2749684
- Comment on Where are all the successful "red cities"? 3 months ago:
From what I’ve noticed, cities tend to be more liberal than rural areas. I can’t think of a major city off the top of my head that is a republican stronghold. I’ve got to go to work but I found these two links which may help.
- Comment on 32, f. Are there any dating sites that are actually free and don't suddenly force me to pay to actually use the site? 4 months ago:
With the very big caveat that I’m 15 years out of date, you might see if OKCupid or Plenty O Fish are still around.
I would check for you but I’d rather not cause my wife to worry. I met her on OKCupid. If I remember correctly, searching was free but messages always were a paid service regardless of platform.
- Comment on If you have cut off mainstream music streaming, how do you discover new music or artists and songs like what you're listening frequently? 4 months ago:
MusicBrainz is an open source database of music. ListenBrainz is an open source service that captures your listening habits, if you’ve configured your music player (or Spotify) to use the service. It’s similar in nature to last.fm’s scrobbling.
ListenBrainz has a feature where once a week it will build a pair of playlists for you. One is stuff it is pretty sure you will like (based off of what tracks you have favorited) and the other is more… experimental. Stuff it’s not so sure you’ll like but is similar to things you have listened to and liked in the past.
- Comment on Can I learn how to "photoshop" images without PhotoShop^TM and also on my iPhone? 4 months ago:
Professionals use Adobe software because it is what they know and because it is the standard. But there is no reason you need to use Photoshop unless you are working with a company that requires Photoshop.
Photoshop is just an advanced image editor made by Adobe. On Windows, Mac and Linux, GIMP is probably the most well known alternative to Photoshop. It can do roughly 99% of the things that Photoshop can do, and, more than likely, far more than you are ever likely to need. Even as a professional image editor or artist.
I’m sure that there are several options for iOS, but I don’t know them by name.
- Comment on If you have cut off mainstream music streaming, how do you discover new music or artists and songs like what you're listening frequently? 4 months ago:
Recently, most of the music I’ve found has been something the Youtube algorithm has decided I need to listen to. Most recently it’s been the Andrew Sisters and before that it was SailNorth.
Other than that, ListenBrainz does a pretty good job of suggesting new music to listen to.
- Comment on With all the animals that die in the sea, is it possible they get pickled in there? 4 months ago:
I’m no expert in the field, but under the right conditions, possibly. But that would also be incredibly unlikely. The oceans are so full of life that something would feed on the remains, and even if not it would be more likely to decompose than be preserved. Bacteria is everywhere, including in the ocean, and bacteria is a significant component in decomposition.
I believe the brine solution we use for preserving food is a much higher salt concentration than sea water.
- Comment on [Opinion] We Should Immediately Nationalize SpaceX and Starlink 5 months ago:
The only time the government is willing to spend money on space exploration ( or anything for that matter) is if they are trying to play a game of “Im better then you” with other nations.
We have a public space agency in the US and they have done jack all in maned space exploration since the end of the Apollo program. And what little they have done has been massively overpriced.
In my opinion , it’s best to have both public and commercial space flight programs. Greed in two different directions might actually accomplish something and I strongly believe that we need a STRONG space presence not just in our own solar system but in many systems throughout the galaxy for our own survival as a species.
- Comment on [deleted] 5 months ago:
Where I live, roaches are particularly bad. Especially the tiny ones. The $100 I give to Terminex every quarter is probably the only bill I am very happy to pay. They do a good job.
- Comment on Is Pop_OS! kind of bad? 5 months ago:
It could be both you and your PC.
Depending on your specs, the OS could be poorly configured for your setup.
As for the Distro itself, I’ve tried it but the default UI didn’t work for me. If I remember correctly, it was Gnome based at the time and I kept fighting its opinions on how I should be working.
Solved the problem by nuking the install and installing NixOS with the KDE6 desktop.
- Comment on Boys and beans and... 5 months ago:
I got tired of the torn up cuffs and jean cuffs are uncomfortable to walk on when you don’t have shoes on.
- Comment on I found an interesting USB-C alternative to barrel jack wall warts. Thought I'd share... 5 months ago:
I think that is basically what this is. I was actually looking for a replacement power supply for a cat feeder when I found this. Considered it for a minute then discarded the idea as cool, but overly expensive in my case. If I had had a spare 30w USB-C power supply, might have gone another way, but the older wall wart style power supply only cost me $15.
- I found an interesting USB-C alternative to barrel jack wall warts. Thought I'd share...www.adafruit.com ↗Submitted 5 months ago to technology@lemmy.zip | 11 comments
- Comment on Does anyone know where or even IF I can purchase this scope mount part? 6 months ago:
Like others have said, your best bet is to just buy new a new scope mount and rings from any firearms shop. Easier and less headache. You will need to know your scope’s tube diameter.
However, if you are dead set on repair rather than replace (and are in the US), for oddball engineering projects like this I tend to use McMaster Carr. If they if they don’t have what you need I would be very surprised. They are an engineering supplier, and have prices to match. But they sell anything thats not electronics. Excellent customer service too.
For electronics builds or repairs, I recommend DigiKey.
Between the two you could build or repair just about anything.