Look on the bright side: I bet a fair number of folks like me didn’t know about this and now it’s on my front burner to-do list to check it out! Thanks for the good work.

Greenshot is so handy. I’ve successfully converted several of my coworkers to using it. Some of our corpo contract IT folks are secretly pissed about it because unlike us they aren’t allowed to use open source software (LOL) so they have to put up with windows snipping tool

Honestly I’m shocked at the number of people that stayed on twitter. Like… just why? It’s zero effort to leave and minimal effort to find another platform.

I realize many people choose not to care who owns the companies that make their stuff. And to be fair, sometimes it’s actually worse to throw away the product than keep using it despite the associated image. I still daily drive my Tesla model 3 that I bought in 2019. Throwing away a car creates a shitload of waste, versus just continuing to drive it. I’d never buy another tesla, which solves that issue.

But unlike throwing out a car or even throwing out something with actual value like youtube, ditching Twitter as far as I see has no downside.

Seconded. Learned this the hard way. Even using a microfiber to scrub it on won’t help because bkf has grit/grit-like stuff in it that can wear down and flake off the coating.

Just a sidenote, I absolutely love the website’s warning for adding this to your cart.

*Note: By adding this product to your cart you confirm that you are not Anish Kapoor, you are in no way affiliated to Anish Kapoor, you are not purchasing this item on behalf of Anish Kapoor or an associate of Anish Kapoor. To the best of your knowledge, information and belief this material will not make it’s way into the hands of Anish Kapoor.

Hell yeah lol

No, I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to make it sound like being vague was a bad thing. I just wanted to make it clear that I can only speak to my perspective. It is 100% fine to be worried about being identified online.

My acquaintances (or friends)…

At some point you’ll need to ditch those “friends.” Real friends do not behave like that. Real friends will genuinely listen to you. That is part of the definition of being a true friend, not my expressed opinion.

Not sure where you’re currently living as you didn’t say, but where I am (US) the conservative chunk of the nation is generally hostile toward any type of minority and will happily spread lies about them. Some “progressives” will as well, honestly some are progressive in name only and are just as bad. As an LGBTQ person I’ve had to cut people out of my life because they chose that cult of intolerance over being able to be a fucking human and listen to people’s problems.

Difference is I have the luxury of being able to hide that status at work by not being visibly out. I know things would be much harder if I wasn’t able to mask my status. So, I know it doesn’t fix anything, but I’m really sorry that people treat you that way.

If you are looking for a permanent cable run, rather than those fuzzy-brush covers (which have zero insulation or fire-block potential) you can get in-wall ethernet wall plate ports that will seal air out and provide a permanent ethernet receptacle in the wall. The advantage of these is that once you install them, you can disconnect the cable from either side of the wall if necessary, rather than having to snake the cable back out of the the wall again. In your case, even if you’re just going from one side of the wall to the other, this is worth doing if the cable would stay there permanently or if you plan to pipe Ethernet in even after moving the modem to the garage later (not that I recommend that - just keep it inside if you can).

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Commercial-Electric-Category-6-Jack-in-White-10-Pack-5016-WH-10PK/305193884

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Commercial-Electric-White-1-Gang-1-Decorator-Rocker-1-Duplex-Wall-Plate-1-Pack-5001-WH/206428112

If you use foam to fill any voids or gaps around the cable, make sure you use fire-blocking foam inside the wall (can get it at any hw store). It’s required by code in some areas, better safe than sorry. This is for inside the wall, i.e. you don’t want to see it because it’s typically a bright orange color.

I recommend you use a shielded and outdoor-rated Ethernet cable if possible to cut down on interference. Most good quality cables now are shielded, but wanted to mention just in case.

Hank Green is just so… awesome. Both Hank and John are, really. I’m not saying everyone should be exactly like them (they’re both white, both men, etc) but I wish more people would take the initiative to cultivate the positivity that they exude. I know I could do a fair bit better at being positive myself…

At the risk of being condescending… don’t worry too much about it for now. I assume the reason you can’t switch is because your parents or someone else is paying for it and won’t allow your input. If that’s the case, when you get to the point of being able to pay for it yourself, you get to choose exactly what you want.

Becoming self-sufficient is pretty wild, come to think of it. Also mildly traumatizing and occasionally terrifying, but mostly great. Need a new phone? You get whatever you want, if you can. Same with housing, transit, etc. If shit wasn’t so unbelievably expensive it’d be even better…

No no no. Ok, I mean this kindly, but this is bad advice, and please don’t do this. It sounds fine but is dangerous in practice.

As a general rule we never want to intentionally create any extra pathways for energized equipment to dump load to ground through a water pipe (or anything else). We also want to avoid ground loops. There should only be one good connection to each run of metal water pipe to ground, and no more.

This is how people (unintentionally!) turn their entire houses into shocking traps. Someone goes to touch a metal faucet with old-school metal or newer stainless piping and suddenly you’ve got 120 or 240 going through the handle into them to get to ground. They might be in a different part of the house - or even outside! A common place to get electrocuted by water pipe ground faults is on outside spigots because the connection is usually all metal and very simple.

In this case, the safe thing to do would be to ensure that the washer is actually connected to the ground (green) terminal of the outlet via it’s cord. Some lazy installers don’t make sure the ground is hooked up on the washer/dryer side, and many (really) old machines don’t have one. Adding a ground wire manually isn’t preferred but could definitely be done by someone qualified or who knows what they’re doing.

Using an outlet tester to confirm that the ground actually works is a good idea too. There might be a ground fault somewhere else in the circuit.