My partner has a old 2003 Ford Focus and I want to change the radio from stock to something that has bluetooth.
Here's my understanding on aftermarket radio:

• Every car is different, depends on the dashboard and the radio harness thing
• Finding out what what radio to buy/how to fit it is usually done by finding old YouTube videos from someone with 100 followers from 2008
• Sometimes it can be really easy and sometimes it can be really annoying to fit

Is my understanding correct?
I've tried this before with another car I had (a 2009 Mitsubishu Lancer) and it was such a nightmare I gave up. So I want to double check with any car nerds that I'm not missing anything obvious or there's no source of truth or something to go checkout/learn.

Any help would be appreciated, otherwise I'm going to go and find some 180p videos from 2008 to watch.

Edit @smithsonian, @Weldawadyathink, @scottc
Thabks for your replies, the site looks great for what I'm looking for. I'm not US but they do ship internationally. Plus it will at least help me work out what parts I might need!
Glad something like this exists, thank god.

I have a bit of a curveball for the kind folks of tildes. I have a fairly successful, flourishing and comfortable business of manufacturing-export in India which I handle with my dad.

I handle communication with customers, some documentation work like invoicing, the wages for the workers (we employ a 150 people). I also handle the manufacturing schedule, the quality team and the product development along with planning for material.

It is a fairly technical line of business ;processes range from press stamping, welding, milling, drilling, turning, hot forging, polishing, chrome plating, zinc plating, powdercoating etc.

Alot of my work is just looking over what my team does and just guiding them, motivating them and making sure they are taken care of.

I have worked hard to reduce the Labour turnover and uplift my workforce financially. It's a big family, albeit with hiccups from time to time.

But I have learned from mistakes and kept on improving.

Now on to the advice bit. I got married and my partner moved from the UK to be with me. We discussed all the challenges and thought we could make it work.

But it has been extremely difficult for her to move here. Quitting her job, leaving her family and not being able to settle here is affecting her mentally.

Seeing the state of the country she doesn't want to raise our kids here. Which I wouldn't mind either, but it will be extremely difficult for me to start afresh in another country.

The business is very hands on, and I'm not sure I can handle it remotely even if I find someone to handle the supervisors. Training someone alone for that role will take a lot of time, trial and error.

To find someone who will care for the work and put in the effort will want a good amount of money, and finding someone you can trust in itself is a challenge for a small business.

30% of my revenue goes into salaries, rent and electricity. About 40 to 50%% into material and maintenance, not to mention unanticipated expenses like bribes. So there isn't a lot of margin to experiment with big hirings anyways.

A big reason for our profitability is because we're quite lean.

Winding up the business would also be difficult. It would take a few years to do, it would be difficult emotionally for my parents and me. I know the amount of work my dad put into it.

They will want my happiness so it's not impossible to do. They could live their retirement years on rental income and me taking care of them.

The final challenge would be finding a job in UK or Europe (wherever we move). I'm not sure how employable I will be in a corporate environment. I don't have any other work experience other than an internship in Toyota in supply chain during my mba days (I have an economics background with an mba in marketing)

I know ultimately only I myself can figure this out. But I just needed a sounding board and just share as much as I could.

If anyone read this far ahead, thanks for taking out the time, really appreciate it.

I think we can do this once again. The last one went okay and there has been some other recent threads on blogging and the state of the internet and sharing good blog posts we have found is a good alternative.

So please share links to both your own recent blog posts and interesting posts you may have read recently.

Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

Just wondering if any other tildan electronics/radio hobbyists are playing around with Meshtastic. I got my first two nodes (right under the wire before the tariffs!) and set them up last weekend.

I got my first response today on the public channel from someone else a couple hops away and it honestly feels like 1993 again with that "can anyone read this?"-vibe the first time I posted on a BBS. The more I see how the internet becomes hostile to humans, the more I think something "human community-based" like this is the inevitable future.

Is anyone else on the Mesh yet? Are there a lot of nodes in your community? What do you think Meshtastic will amount to?

For as long as I can remember, I've been unnerved by passive infrared motion detectors. You know the ones, those that have a milky-white lens and on occasion blink red when they detect motion. They're absolutely terrifying to me and I don't know why.

I got a few other strangely specific phobias as well - I hate bathroom extractor fans, specifically in bathrooms with high ceilings (which are very common here in Europe), I can't bear to be near industrial light signals even if they're off, and when I recently went to the US, the absolute ubiquity of emergency battery backup light fixtures paralysed me in more than one building. My worst irrational fear is that of horn-style speakers, especially in public spaces or industrial settings, and in those, especially those that fire downwards. (Incidentally, sirens on emergency vehicles, even when they suddenly go off, never triggered this phobia)

So apart from my weird damage, I have to wonder - what are some of your weird uncommon phobias? I don't mean stuff like a fear of needles or spiders, those are quite common and well documented, but something truly odd you can't make sense of and you kind of know should not be able to scare or disgust you.

I've had this idea rattling around in my head all day and feel I need to get it out. I apologize in advance if my thoughts seem jumbled or unoriginal, I'd just like them to escape.

As a preface, I speak of being a step-parent to young children through adolescence. The dynamics change when you are older and your parents remarry.

What does it mean to be a step-parent? I've wrangled with this most of my life in some way - my grandparents divorced before I was born, and I had a step-grandma from the start. Being around her always came with extra rules. I would later realize this was always the case with new step-parents, after my own parents divorced. Is that really what it means to step-parent though? To come into a situation and impose your own new rules and routines on this child that isn't yours, who has no real connection with you? I chafed with these restrictions and impositions. I disagreed many times, and it hurt me when I felt that my parents didn't support me, their child, and instead agreed with this impostor.

Of course this is a simple, childish view, but it was certainly correct in some ways. Most often, I simply felt confused and angry about why these adults who were not my parents were pretending to be. Much of this is likely unresolved trauma from the divorce itself - it was very messy.

At times though, I was right to mistrust these people who had step-ed into my life. My stepmom was (is) emotionally abusive, and my dad enabled and supported that behavior. My stepfather tried to force religion on me, nearly kicking me out of the house over it. Fortunately in that case my mother was ready to leave with me (literally, with packed bags) and he backed down.

So how does one handle a step-parent? How does one be a good step-parent?

Years ago I met a woman who I came to love. She came with two children, who I became a stepfather to. Now I was in the position of the impostor, the interloper to this family dynamic which was already established. I really tried my best to figure out where I should draw what lines. How would discipline be handled? What rules did we need? How would I know that I didn't overstep some boundary or line? Given my history, I felt both prepared and utterly lost for what to do. I didn't feel that I'd ever had a positive model of a step-parent in my life. The closest was my stepmom in some moments where she truly supported us - between the abuses. I certainly wasn't going to be just like HER though.

Like any rational human being then, I talked to my wife about this at length. We established a few ground rules: We would do our best to be consistent (between mom, dad, and me), We would always keep the best interests of the children in mind, and we would never badmouth/doubt/cast shade on the decisions or actions of the other parents involved - at least not to the kids. These gave a good foundation, and we are also fortunate in that the adults in the room could get along and act in good faith with each other.

I work as a teacher, and fell back on that role often - a person of authority, who isn't a parent, but is certainly there to help you succeed and work with the parents. This seems to be a good framework to build off of.

What does it mean to be a step-parent? For me it means being a co-authority, a sort of triumvirate of care for the children. It means accepting that complex situations mean there are few easy, simple answers, and being able to navigate that. It also means knowing where your boundaries are, and not butting up against them, or worse, going over them.

If you are a step-parent, or have had one that's been a positive influence for you, I would love to hear your thoughts. Even if you aren't, or don't, I would love to hear your thoughts. Thank you for reading my messy opinion piece, and maybe for the next one I'll write when I have more than an hour to work on a post!

Or, let’s be honest, firstly as a novelty. I don't know anyone else personally who has bought, or would buy, a copy. I figured it would be interesting to see what it was like.

My wife and I stopped on Valentine’s day to buy a copy, and I think we were both surprised by the print. I knew Playboy magazines produced some notable interviews in the past, but a dozen important conversations over several decades isn’t exactly going to outweigh the sea of photographs they’re known for. The new edition was a surprising $20 in-person. It felt like a bit of a gamble, but I think it was worth it.

By the numbers, it’s ~125 pages long and features 3 pictorial photoshoots. Beyond a few pages of photos, the rest is basically all writing. There are a few ads, but nothing like the volume of ads in other magazines I’ve read recently. I figured the magazine would be full of risqué photos, but it’s more of a tasteful inclusion alongside other, more substantial discussion. It is essentially all writing, and it’s good writing.

From the outset, the Editor’s Letter (Mike Guy) sets the tone of the new printing:

Five years have passed since an issue of Playboy rolled off a printing press, and they have been strange years indeed. We’ve passed through the wreckage of a pandemic, sat on a violent political see-saw, and watched as discourse shrinks to tiny digital moments that explode into divisive range at precisely the time we need reason. Just as Playboy was frustrated with the conservative norms of the ‘50s, we want to challenge them now, too. This can mean just showing up, listening; it can mean choosing connecting and pleasure over sensation and isolation. It means rejecting poisonous, meme-driven narratives, as writer Magdalene Taylor urges in “The Rise of the Beta Male” …, her disturbing report from the front lines of our emerging dystopia about young men who have given up on sex. … The internet - OnlyFans, TikTok, and the rest - has stolen sexuality and fed it into the meat grinder of the attention economy. We’re doing our part to steal it back. As the poet Wallace Stevens wrote, “The greatest poverty is not to live in the physical world.”

I didn’t anticipate an article detailing a first-person investigation into the rise of anti-semitism, or an article about a far-out apocalyptic billionaire party, nor did I expect a humorous memoir about the rise of Nashville as the bachelorette party destination. But, these were funny, interesting pieces that spurred much discussion in my house. My wife and I have taken turns reading these long-form articles aloud each night. The article on an ultra-exclusive sex party in LA fell inline with the sort of topics I expected, but the writing and description of a beautiful spectacle made us pause and say, “that actually sounds like a fun time.”

It turns out you really can read Playboy for the articles, and more importantly resonate on the value of re-engaging human connection, disarming hate, building up our communities, and challenging our preconceived notions.

I'm quite a few years out of highschool, and recently went back to school.

I'm enjoying the environment (weekends and sometimes online), which was one of my biggest worries, because I tried doing more school right after high-school and it did my head in.

However, I'm struggling with actually learning the more dry stuff. For a few of the courses there's stuff to calculate, there's problems to solve and such, and I can get that to stick and not dread doing it.

That is not the case with the very dry legal things... how do I learn stuff like that? Any tips? Because right now I'm looking at basically trying to brute-force it by hoping to be lucky and re-re-re-reading the entire book hoping the right stuff sticks for the exam.

I tend to buy 1 pair of shoes that are my "go to" shoes. Thus i like them to cover a variety of roles while fitting a few requirements. These are worn basically every day barring literal special occasions. I'll wear them to work, disc golf, a walk, a light hike, anything less than the fanciest of dinners or occasions, and can get away with them if I have to even for those. Oh and while I find it matters less these days, i'm an 11-12 foot size which tends to limit my options in physical sores.

I like slip ons at this point, both as an aesthetic and from a practicality standpoint, and due to my "do it all" requirement generally want something that is comfy, looks half decent, is in black, but also has decent grip on the bottom.

I've currently burnt through my keen slip on's. I got these almost exactly a year ago in black, and they've been "good enough" for $60-75.

That said I'm not in love with them, and I'd also like a dress shoeish equivalent like these rockports . However i've heard they're garbage, especially for the price.

I'm throwing this on here because I'm not against spending more for better quality shoes, but I've spent 2 or 3 times as much as the keens, and gotten very similar results. Hell i'd LOVE if I could just take them to a cobbler to get them fixed every X years, but seems that's really only a thing for heavy duty work boots at this point (which led me down a rabbit hole of looking for a specific kind of redwings, but those also were no longer being made)

Merrell went from quite good many years ago to just garbage that didn't even make it 6 months, and on the other side of the coin I found some Lowa "snow shoes" that fit my requirements and lasted I think 2-3 years, but were no longer being sold by the time I needed new ones.

Does anyone have some suggestions, or am I just better off getting the cheapest thing that I like the look of because they're mostly all going to be burnt through? Even then, any suggestions on half decent brands?

Going to try something a little different, guess we'll see how it goes. Main thinking is just getting baseball discussion going. So, meaning not just talking about spring training and not even just about MLB - any baseball discussion what so ever.

Don't know baseball? Good place to ask :)

I figure a kind of more casual thread to get to know other fans here would be a good thing to have before the season starts - and people can just set it a single thread to ignore if they have no interest.

I'll leave some top level comments as starting points

Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

In an age of increasing misinformation and division, I've found that it's increasingly easy to find yourself in an echo chamber of opinions (of people and/or bots). And when I go searching outside that echo chamber, I usually don't find well reasoned discussion, but a different echo chamber with the opposite opinion.

This is especially true on sites like Reddit and Twitter, but also applies to pretty much every website (including Tildes) to some extent. Even newspapers aren't helpful as they are all largely owned by a handful of billionaires with an agenda. And real life isn't much better. My friends and family all share similar values and ideals, which is great for getting along, but it doesn't help me figure out how many people actually support something in particular.

The closest thing I've found to objective polling are elections. Unfortunately, they largely group everything into one of two buckets and don't have room for nuance on individual topics. Also, a lot of people don't even vote, which doesn't necessarily muddy the data, but it does leave out the opinions of a lot of people.

Is it even possible to determine this without an individual referendum on each topic? Am I worrying too much about something unknowable?

This is a topic I keep revisiting. It's constantly evolving, with new laws in different parts of the world happening pretty often. And also there's a lot of grey area with vague or incomprehensive language that hasn't yet been tested in courts.

I recognize that it's a bit of a niche topic, but I think there are a lot of us at Tildes who have to think about it. After all it potentially impacts anyone maintaining or building a non-platform web presence. It also applies to less obvious things like running an advertising campaign that involves media requested from a server you control (which can therefore potentially log requests).

For my part, I've needed to research laws relating to PII in order to come up with policies and practices in various contexts. In broad strokes it's pretty simple but as you get into details what I continue to find is that there are a lot of conflicting opinions both from professionals and lawyers. A lot of it is still open to interpretation.

I'm wondering what kinds of experience other tildenauts have around data protection and PII? Have you implemented solutions? Do you wonder about it for your own websites? Have you been involved with it at companies where you've worked? Do you have questions about it?

The recent topic on grammar errors that actually matter got me interested in all of your opinions about style. Working in academia, I have developed a surprising number of strong opinions about style and formatting over the years. I'm curious to hear what you all care about. I am also curious to see if I can be persuaded to cool down some of my own hot takes based on your responses. I'll share a few to get us started.

1. For the love of all that is holy, do not put a footnote in a title or in an abstract.
2. Similarly, do not put a citation in a title or an abstract!
3. An abstract should be... an abstract, not your life story or even a summary of the paper. It most certainly should not develop and defend arguments.
4. Does a published manuscript really need to be double spaced?
5. I'm in the punctuation-inside-quotations camp, but I am open to the alternative. I am somewhat of a weirdo in believing that individual authors should be free to use either style (so long as they remain consistent in their usage).
6. Bibliographies should prioritize the language of the original source; meaning, it is ridiculous to transliterate the titles of non-Latin works in a bibliography. What are you going to do with that information? If you don't know that language, then it is utterly meaningless, and even more so because you can't even do anything with that transliterated text. Plus, good luck getting a standard transliteration out of anyone. All this does is just obscure the fact that these sources were cited, at least as far as indexers are concerned. It would make more sense to just include translated titles next to the original, but eliminating the non-Latin text altogether is so absurd (looking at you APA).
7. On a similar note, foreign words should not be italicized or emphasized any other way just because they appear in a text. All this does is fill up the text with needless emphasis that distracts from the things you do mean to emphasize.

Okay, I will stop here before I cross the threshold where I won't be able to get anymore work done today! :b