I second solder paste, and it can be used with a regular soldering iron in addition to with a hot air rework tool! Solder paste with very conservative use of a soldering iron is actually my favorite way to solder, mainly because (a) it gives you tons of flux on each joint, and (b) I have one fewer thing (the solder) that I need to hold steady.

With solder paste, the main thing is being careful with how much heat you apply and for how long. As I mentioned, solder paste contains a LOT of flux. That liquid/gel flux winds up with way more surface area in contact with the solder particles in the paste than the flux core of wire-type solder, so the heat distributes in it much quicker. And since so much flux is involved, I find that solder paste gives me better joints and even better coverage when tinning stranded wire than with wire solder!

Best wishes for your project! You got this!

This makes my heart happy. You may have just become that teacher in his life who gave him the lightbulb moment he needed of “wait, math is useful for stuff that actually interests me?!” <3

When I was in college (so maybe 20 or 21 years old), I asked my mom when I would start feeling like an adult. Without missing a beat, she said “I dunno. If you find out, let me know!” <3

I guess I started feeling more like a “real” adult when I started working full-time and rented a house instead of an apartment, though now even that pales in comparison to when I finally purchased my own home. Each phase of life feels more “grown-up” than the last, with new perspectives, greater understanding of my relationships with God and people, and matured confidence going into the new phase’s challenges. And yet I’m still me at heart–as I like to call it, “a big kid with bills.” I am very blessed.

+1 on the great documentation! Have I ever used Arch? No, and there are enough distros out there that I’m not sure I ever will. But have I ever referenced Arch’s wiki? Yes, often, and plan to continue to do so. <3 to the Arch Wiki authors!

Like many in this thread, I like to wash shirts with designs/print on them inside-out to wear out the design more slowly.

For pants, in addition to not wanting rivets/buttons to catch on other clothes, I turn pants inside-out for washing–but I made it a personal rule that I only turn pants inside-out once I have checked and emptied the pockets. So if I’m putting things in the washer and find any right-side out pants, I know to check the pockets (and turn them inside-out) before sending them on their laundry journey. As a result, I don’t remember the last time I accidentally washed something in a pocket. 😊

Congrats on the new job! I’ve found Superfeet insoles to be supremely helpful, both for walking and standing. My orthopedist recommended them a few years ago, and I’ve been using them ever since. Superfeet’s website has a nice “Insole Finder” to help choose the right type of insole for your needs, which I found accurate for my feet.

I see some other Nivea mentions in this thread, but not what I use: Nivea in-shower lotion. After rinsing off body wash/soap, I use Nivea in-shower lotion, then make sure the body parts I put it on get wet again (water activates it) right before I turn off the water. Then there’s no need for additional post-shower lotion.

I just learned that my local library network has craft supply swap days! Anyone can bring craft supplies or tools they no longer need and/or walk out with supplies and tools that someone else brought to give away. It’s only once every few months, but that cadence apparently works well for this area (smallish city).

I lived in a city for a while that had a small number of loanable tickets to a family-friendly local attraction or two (e.g. zoo or aquarium) people could check out for the day. Especially popular with families with kids on a budget!

You reminded me of one of my favorite pieces of early-ish internet history that is still up: the Traffic Cone Preservation Society

-Ahl here! Human-readable sizes and get rid of . and ..!

edit: format code so …! doesn’t look funny :D

First thing I installed when I moved into my current rental!

Or ctrl-/command-click!

And in some locations (e.g. Atlanta, last time I checked), there is no non-emergency number–you call 911 regardless and the dispatcher directs the call.

I cheat and use Loc-a-Sok sock holders. I still may take forever to get my laundry out of the dryer, but almost never lose a sock!

Oh wow, you may have just solved the issue I’ve been having with email chains I pin coming back! I’ll have to give that unpin trick a try–thank you! That workaround shouldn’t be necessary, of course, but I’m happy to have another option to try to unpin some of the long-past-relevant conversations that have been pinned in my inbox for over a year 😅

And thank you as well for the info about Teams phones. Some folks at work floated the idea of switching to Teams phones instead of our current VOIP setup, but if they don’t show missed calls, I’m glad that idea never came to fruition!

Oh goodness, the Windows filepath limit has caused so many headaches at work. Even if you enable longer filepaths, not all applications pay attention to that, since at some point, Microsoft promised a specific filepath length and some applications hard-coded it in, so Microsoft is kind of locked in to supporting that being the default max filepath length. Not sure if any Office applications fall into that camp, but given that most filepath length errors I see are from Windows itself silently failing to finish extracting a zip archive, it wouldn’t surprise me!

Whenever I’ve read that passage, I’ve usually considered his underdog-ness to be from him deciding to not wear even the king’s fancy armor, and from him being the youngest child in his family. So he looked even more dwarfed by Goliath than he would have had he worn armor, and since he wasn’t one of the elder children in his family (despite being a teen or adult), no one in the culture at the time was expecting him to become a hero–much less a king later! But him eschewing the armor in order to keep his agility and range of motion for using a sling makes total sense–I think King Saul was just miffed that his offer of his own personal armor was rebuffed 🤣

EDIT: minor correction

Thank you for introducing me to Wirth’s Law. I’ll be citing that whenever I write code that takes forever to run even on powerful compute 🤣

Interesting! My last biology class is a tiny speck in my rearview mirror, so I’m not sure that I’m understanding it the way your class meant for it to be understood, but I think that that makes a lot of sense. Too much of one kind of input to a living thing without an output to balance it out can be disastrous.