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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 9th, 2023

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  • On this type of latch (mortise) the third screw is often stripped (because it’s a set screw that holds the lock barrel in place and often the notch in the barrel is misaligned) but it should unscrew easily.

    The barrel itself, however, is usually finely threaded and can require a fair amount of torque to get started, especially without using the key for additional purchase. If that gives you trouble I would recommend a strap wrench, channel lock pliers over silicone/rubber material (to protect finish), or perhaps a jar opener. GL!


  • First off, it’s OK. We all make mistakes and misrepresent our feelings sometimes, which can affect others in ways we don’t intend. The particular social accident you describe is also quite common. I promise she will quickly recover from the inadvertent rejection.

    My answer is: practice. 8-9 years is a long time to be out of practice at anything of this sort.

    There are a variety of ways to actively pursue that practice, some more creative than others, but the most natural way is simply to invite interaction with others in general such as, apparently, drawing on a bench at the park :)



  • I think you’re describing an important step of online mental hygiene. The reality is that humans have not evolved with the daily emotional bandwidth necessary for one to handle a planet’s worth of grief responsibly and without inuring oneself to others’ suffering.

    I’ve seen people criticize this as head-in-sand, that you should remain available to amplify voices and causes in online discourse (especially theirs). I see that criticism as unthoughtful, bordering on unkind, and a critical problem with how we do online advocacy.

    (Aside: “conflict” appears twice in keyword list, which has no effect now but can cause unexpected behavior later)


  • I’ve been checking out the localhost tracking vulnerability and there’s something I can’t work out: it’s not even a terribly obscure or convoluted exploit, especially Yandex’s implementation that’s been chugging for more than 8 years over basic HTTP. It’s just a glaring sandboxing workaround that’s been exclusive to this OS for more than a decade.

    No matter how many ways I look at it, I haven’t come up with a reasonable explanation for how it was ignored, by demonstrably capable engineers, unless Google itself had use for it in the first place. And that fits a pattern of selective competence in information security that they just can’t seem to quit.

    In short it’s the data collection backdoors they leave themselves that defeat the otherwise top-tier security of their consumer offerings, and it’s why I’ll probably never trust anything they’ve touched until I’ve taken it apart and put it back together again.

    So no, you probably shouldn’t use it. Trusting the privacy or security claims of any adtech company will always be a mistake.



  • Prioritize the maximization of unused horizontal surface space.

    Have you ever noticed that restaurants and bars often decorate their walls with stuff that would easily be considered clutter on the floor? Apparently “clutter” is a highly relative descriptor, and the visual-spatial bias behind it privileges horizontal surface space. You can leverage that knowledge to quickly de-clutter spaces without investing in lots of new storage furniture and organization systems. It’s by far the cheapest trick I know.

    Simply move and reorient items from horizontal surfaces (like table tops, floors, chair seats, etc) to vertical ones (like shelves, hanging storage, cabinets, upright bins, baskets and boxes that can sit on top of cabinets, wall-mounted dispensers, etc). Even just stacking stuff can make a space look less cluttered.

    Once you start getting creative with this concept, you can build it into the layout of your living spaces. For example, you might figure out what stuff can live in wall-mounted dispensers instead of occupying the space of a counter/vanity/floor. Similarly, you might find visually appealing ways to store “clutter” out in the open, such as a ceiling-mounted pot rack or a stainless steel prep table used as kitchen island storage.





  • I would say it’s absolutely normal and quite common to feel out of place, or like you don’t belong, and what fills in the blank of what’s on the other side is mostly arbitrary.

    What’s more, having grown up in many countries and hearing something like this from other young people, I would say it’s not just normal in Germany, or even the West. It’s normal everywhere.

    I think the easiest way to gain a fuller perspective of cultures you’re curious about is to live among them, and while now might not be the best time to visit the US, I think you can gain exposure to lots of new global cultures just by spending time in one of the many world cities, the closest of which is Berlin. From there, many others are just a train away.

    Long short, it’s normal to wonder where you fit, and it’s a question you must answer yourself, but the tried-and-true method to figuring it out is to go and find new parts of yourself in these places. You just might find that, by the end, not only can you belong anywhere you choose, but those places also belong to you.