c/Superbowl

For all your owl related needs!

  • 8 Posts
  • 29 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • It’s more of a warehouse job than a science job, so I’m probably not qualified to help, but I love learning, so I did some reading.

    Different mixes of CO² and nitrogen are available for both carbonating/nitrogenizing beer, and further mixes designed to pressurize the lines for dispensing. Replacement beverage o-rings seem to come in a number of materials from polyurethane, silicone, teflon, and others and looking at o-ring compatibility charts, they all seem to both be listed as compatible for nitrogen and CO².

    Since you’re not dealing with liquid gas, I don’t think you need to worry so much about material as if you’re using something food safe made for beverages, it doesn’t seem to be an issue what they’re made of or which gas you use as far as I can find. You also shouldn’t need to worry about the nitrogen freezing the CO² and forming dry ice from the amount I could imagine you using at home.

    Without knowing more about what exactly you’re working on, that’s the best general help I can dig up. Depending on what exactly you’re doing, finding a good homebrew or scuba shop/forum could probably get you the most reliable answer to what you’re working on since they’ll both be blending those gases in a manner safe for the human body.

    I hope that was at least marginally helpful!


  • I’m glad to see there’s a few of us in the 5 figure salary club here!

    I’m scientific support for a major pharma company. I tell people my job is essentially to be Hank Hill, as I’m in charge of compressed and liquid gases. I keep everyone squared away with liquid nitrogen, liquid helium, liquid argon, and any number and size of gas cylinder.

    It’s not a bad job. Pay is ok for what I do, people are generally nice, and most days I’m done the bulk of my work in 2-3 hours, so the rest of the time is mine unless someone needs something.

    The rest of the day I’ll prep and respond to posts here, study music, read comics or books, and watch cartoons. Nobody seems to care as long as the work gets done.

    It’s low stress and a decent environment, so I got no complaints. It’s not as good as my last job, doing data analysis of hazardous chemicals. The place was generally run really well and almost all my work was doing daily reports on inventory. I made macros to do everything, so my work was done in less than half an hour most days and I got to work at home.

    Being a nobody in pharma is pretty great as long as your group is cool.


  • Yes, but one typically enters into a business partnership with people they know and trust. One isn’t supposed to really dive into the deeper characteristics of someone they rent to so as to avoid potential discrimination. Look at this the same way whoever you work for hires people. HR vets them and says, this person is who they say they are, and probably won’t burn the place down or singe-handedly put us out of business. Same for finding a renter for a property basically. Now how thrilled would you be to be forced to co-own a property with monetary and legal liability with your least favorite coworker for the next 20-40 years?

    When the time comes to spend $20k to replace the roof on your shared home, you care about the home and want it done right and say, hey so-and-so, you got $10k for your half of the roof? So-and-so says nah, I actually don’t have any money, but me and my buddy can replace that roof ourselves for $5k in materials, so give us the $5k and we’ll do it and our half will be the labor even though neither of us are roofers. Same with landscaping. Painting. Plumbing. Flooring. All things that just need replacing with time, even if you take care of them. And now So-and-so lives in your home for 10 years, trashing it, never helping fix anything right, and making the place liveable, but not as great as it was before he moved in or as good as you wanted to make it. And now since he’s a renter still, he says, you know, this place isn’t as good as it was, I’m out. Now you not only get to pick up the full tab to get it up to snuff for the next renter, but you possibly get to do it all over again.

    I bought my ex’s grandmother’s house after she passed that had a rental on it. I lived there for 2 months before we split, and that 2 months was enough landlording for a lifetime to me. That guy took advantage of everything possible, called me the middle of the night when power went out for the whole neighborhood, and after I left he brought home bedbugs. He had an arrangement to fix things around the place with her grandmother. None of that stuff was ever done. We had to threaten legal action for him to finish up what he actually had started. This is what your scenario allows to happen without penalty to the tenant.

    Renters don’t all want to be property owners. They don’t want the responsibility of maintaining a property. I live in a condo because I dont want to mow lawns, worry about siding and shingles and fighting grub infestations and maintaining a parking area. Owning a single family home isn’t for me, and I’ve found a happy medium where I don’t rent, but I don’t have full responsibility. If you don’t want to be a property owner, you’re not going to be a good property owner and your neighbors will hate you for having the crappy house on the block. I’m sure you have one of those people in your neighborhood.

    Again, we need people thinking about how to resolve the housing situation in many parts of the world, but forced business relationships aren’t good. UBI, social security, disability, food stamps, housing subsidies. People need the cash to live a life they can find comfortable. Let them buy, let them rent, whatever they feel comfortable doing. Set ordinances how much housing can be owned by people not using them as primary residence. They’re tough fights, but that’s what needs to be examined. I’m all for tenants’ rights, but they don’t have the same skin in the game as the owner. That doesn’t make them inferior in any way. But they don’t shoulder burden beyond making rent. And that can be a valuable thing. I could never see myself renting, but my brother on the other hand doesn’t seem to want to own a house. He does enough work doing construction he doesn’t want to deal with all that crap at home. I don’t blame him.

    Home ownership sucks many times, and for someone to take a reasonable fee to bear that responsibility isn’t wrong. I pay a property management company $200/mo to enforce rules on me, but also my neighbors to make sure we don’t get that guy trashing things. They make sure the neighbor’s dryer lint doesn’t burn my house down. They negotiate the rate with the garbage man. They get the sidewalks cleared when it snows. So I pay someone to basically be my landlord even though I own my home. They provide a service, and if you get a crappy one, being a renter you can find a new one. I don’t get a choice, but thankfully my HOA is pretty decent all considered. They earn their money. Sometimes they tick me off, but they overall earn their fees. A good landlord is the same. I’m for having strict rules that they provide safe and clean spaces to live if they’re going to rent to others, but most are not faceless corporations, they’re regular people that have landlord as a day job or side gig. I know the heads of my HOA outside of that role, and they’re good people. As I said, sometimes they annoy me with decisions, but they have more people than just me to keep happy. A landlord is just another service provider and there are good ones and bad ones, and a lot of meh ones. If you rent, you get some choice at least in who it is.


  • Don’t take this as a criticism, but do you own a home?

    How would changing property values be accounted for, and how often is the appraisal done, and who pays for that? Can a landlord sell his rentals to someone else while they are rentals? If no, why not? What incentive does a landlord have to keep a property nice and safe if x% is no longer theirs? If the rent-to-owner decides they want to move or not buy the house, what happens to the money? Is any given to the landlord? Why can’t the landlord increase rent to drive out a tenant? If a new sewer line needs to be run, and it’s $10k, how is the cost split? How are property taxes dealt with if the unit is owned by multiple parties? If a homeowner owns 51% of the property and someone is injured on the property, who’s insurance pays?

    I get there is a lot to dislike about slumlord type landlords, but property and home ownership isn’t like buying a toaster. There are a ton of laws and rules and responsibilities that clearly defined parties still have court cases over. There is financial risk in property ownership, and your proposal seems to be having private citizens, even if “rich” by your definition, and it is the government dictating private use of their property.

    There are positive aspects to renting, which you don’t seem to consider. I tried to sell my house for over a year, but foreclosures had driven down property prices so much for a time, I literally couldn’t afford to give my house away for below market value and still have any money left to put on a new house. If I was a renter, I could just say I’m done here and go off and do whatever. If something breaks, there’s someone who is supposed to fix it, no cost or effort to you. You don’t need to worry about taxes and setting aside money for maintenance or hire contractors.

    I want everyone to have a home, and I hate scumbugs and corporate ownership of residential property, but many of these people do serve important purposes, and many people would not have a place to live if property owners didn’t rent out access to those properties.

    Again, I’m not a landlord because of many of these things, but I do own property and wouldn’t like something like this. It is a very complicated issue and this just comes off as someone who’s never had to fight the local zoning board, deal with a utility screwing around with you, or having messed up property records having the government trying to make you pay taxes you don’t owe say property owners have it made. It took me 8 years, 3 title insurance companies, and a judge to get my property records corrected after my divorce.

    Expanding construction of affordable housing people would want to live in and expanding housing subsidies and just in general providing adequate social safety nets will get people in homes. Giving people with no means to maintain a home is not a benefit, it’s just another huge thing that brings a pile of never-ending expenses.





  • The increase in monthly is just mainly replacing users leaving as the active 6 month seems to be going down the same rate as active monthly is going up. Am I reading that correctly?

    Total users doesn’t concern me too badly, as I’m more happy to see daily post and comment counts going up. I feel activity needs to be our focus rather than headcount. A packed stadium is kinda pointless if nobody is on stage putting on the show! 😁







  • I’m outside Allentown, but half my family is from up near Towanda. It is an odd state due to how we’re spread out.

    We’ve got Confederate flags around here as well. Less things plastered with Trump signs lately, but the last few months I’ve seen businesses with Houck signs all over. He’s an anti abortion activist that twice assaulted a 70+ year old man that was a patient escort at a clinic.

    All the people I meet from all over the state are usually very kind, but politically what many of them believe just confuses me. I just didn’t know what would ever change their voting bloc if things haven’t done so by now.



  • I think many may now be too young to remember, but in the 70s and 80s, this was a big issue.

    NY Times, 11 June, 1983 - DEMAND INCREASES FOR FIRE-SAFE CLOTHING

    Clothing that can erupt into flames is coming under increasing scrutiny of consumer and fire safety organizations. They say Federal regulations governing the safety of fabrics used in clothing are too weak to protect the people who are most vulnerable: the elderly.

    Those who most often suffer serious injury or death from clothing fires, safety experts say, are retired people who spend many hours of the day in such loose-fitting garments as bathrobes or housecoats. With the exception of children’s sleepwear, for which special regulations were decreed in the 1970’s, Federal standards allow clothing manufacturers to use all but the most extremely flammable fabrics.

    Plastic fibers can melt to your skin, which isn’t great considering you’re in contact with the seats and carpets of the car. In an emergency, you’re not prepared to deal with additional complications like that.

    The article I linked here is pretty good, so I recommend reading it if you aren’t familiar with this issue from back then. It will really help give you the other side of the issue to see why these chemicals are there to begin with.


  • Not sure exactly why you’re getting downvoted as that was essentially the point of the article:

    Flame retardant chemicals off-gas or leach from the seat and interior fabrics into the air, — especially in hot weather, when car interiors can reach 150 degrees Fahrenheit.

    Advocates argue that the risks of these chemicals outweigh the benefits.

    But health researchers have found that the average U.S. child has lost up to 5 IQ points from exposure to flame retardants in cars and furniture. And adults with the highest levels of flame retardants in their blood face a risk of death by cancer that is four times greater than those with the lowest levels, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association.


  • Impressive how much jerky is showing up on here, but that was one of my first thoughts too. I actually got a monthly jerky subscription for Christmas, and the packs are kinda little, but it’s fun getting new flavors every month.

    I’ll throw caviar out there. We tried a wide range of it for my gf’s birthday twice, and there is good stuff at every price range. Even the cheap whitefish stuff was good.

    The Bowfin and Spoonbill was our best bang for the buck both times. If you want a splurge without going bust, that’s my recommendation. Got it from Browne Trading if anyone is interested.

    It’s great right off the spoon, on a chip, on a blini, or as a garnish on something else. If you like salty, fishy, umami you deserve to try it.