AugustusFerdinand's recent activity

  1. Comment on What's something you're "in too deep" on? in ~talk

    AugustusFerdinand
    Link Parent
    As someone that prefers the JDM and the less common and has a Z32 (the racecar) I'd vote Z31 and probably encourage importing a RHD example.

    As someone that prefers the JDM and the less common and has a Z32 (the racecar) I'd vote Z31 and probably encourage importing a RHD example.

    1 vote

  2. Comment on Texas becomes first state to end American Bar Association oversight of law schools in ~society

    AugustusFerdinand
    Link
    The tl;dr of why: Cheeto-in-Chief is racist and ABA has DEI requirements.

    The tl;dr of why: Cheeto-in-Chief is racist and ABA has DEI requirements.

    17 votes

  4. Comment on What did you do this week (and weekend)? in ~talk

    AugustusFerdinand
    Link Parent
    Thanks for all the suggestions, added to my list of places to check out!

    Thanks for all the suggestions, added to my list of places to check out!

    1 vote

  5. Comment on What did you do this week (and weekend)? in ~talk

    AugustusFerdinand
    Link
    Try to plan and get as much as possible planned before leaving for Tokyo in a few hours for a solo trip. Feel like I'm forgetting something, but at this point I'm screwed if it's something major....

    Try to plan and get as much as possible planned before leaving for Tokyo in a few hours for a solo trip.
    Feel like I'm forgetting something, but at this point I'm screwed if it's something major.

    Anyone in here in Tokyo?

    1 vote

  6. Comment on What's something you're "in too deep" on? in ~talk

    AugustusFerdinand
    Link
    So some of you have heard me talk about my 1983 Toyota Tercel SR5 Wagon Big Block Project for awhile now. If I go back through comments I've made here, I've been talking about it for five years...

    So some of you have heard me talk about my 1983 Toyota Tercel SR5 Wagon Big Block Project for awhile now.
    If I go back through comments I've made here, I've been talking about it for five years and while I am in the final stages of getting it going, it's also been five freaking years that I've been building the car.
    A car I got for free.
    A car that might be worth $4k when I'm done (not that I'm selling it).

    Sure, I pretty much only work on it on the weekends.
    Sure, a year of that was with me in a different state than the car and so I couldn't work on it at all.
    Sure, I skip a lot of weekends because of other commitments, weather (all but about 8 months of this time it was in Texas where 6 months of the year are too hot to do any work on it), and any other thing that might get in the way.
    Sure, the weekends I do work on it are only a few hours at a time, so collectively if I cut the 5 years down to 4 for the year I was away from it, down to 2 because 6 months of each year in Texas are unusable, multiply that by 52 weeks in the year, then double it for two day weekends, then multiply by four hours per weekend day, I've got maximum of 832 hours working on it, which is about 21 full 40 hour workweeks. It's a lot for a car that's still not running and has been moved to different places thrice.

    At multiple points I've hit a roadblock and needed to find a solution. Original engine exhaust was on passenger side, now it's on the driver's side and the clutch cable exists where the exhaust manifold does as well. Original carburetor throttle plate rotated clockwise, new throttle body rotates counter clockwise with a spider's nest bracket to change its direction. Original brakes are unvented, small, and underpowered, new brakes were never meant to be on this car and required parts from four different vehicles to work properly. Original fuel pump is engine driven, new is in-tank, doesn't fit original tank, lines are too small and go right where the new exhaust will be and are on the wrong side of the engine bay. The list goes on and on and that's just the latest on my mind...

    Ultimately, it'll be a car I've touched on nearly every single aspect of in order for it to be as new and refreshed as possible when it is completed. Every suspension component is new, every bushing replaced with polyurethane, a new engine that's never been installed in this chassis, larger brakes, fuel injection, new wiring, custom-made-or-adapted-by-me nearly everything on the car to make it as close to an OEM+ build as possible and all done properly.

    At the end it'll be a fully restomodded classic car, but it's still one long ass road for what amounts to a funky Japanese econobox off-roader that I got for the low low price of "come and get it".
    Did I mention I have a racecar waiting in the wings for a similar treatment?

    16 votes

  7. Comment on One piece of news from every country in the world in 2025 in ~news

    AugustusFerdinand
    Link Parent
    Unfortunately, the Animaniacs list would be quite outdated. I, too, am old.

    Unfortunately, the Animaniacs list would be quite outdated.
    I, too, am old.

    8 votes

  8. Comment on One piece of news from every country in the world in 2025 in ~news

  9. One piece of news from every country in the world in 2025

    ~news Video 42:40,  published Dec 24 2025
    14 votes

  10. Comment on Tablet suggestions? in ~tech

    AugustusFerdinand
    Link Parent
    By what metrics?

    but an iPad Pro is better than a surface by a similar margin.

    By what metrics?

    3 votes

  11. Comment on USPS announces changes to the postmark date system in ~society

    AugustusFerdinand
    Link
    The USPS will no longer necessarily postmark mail at your local post office on the day you mail it, a change that seems to have been made suspiciously quietly. Instead, it may be postmarked when...

    The USPS will no longer necessarily postmark mail at your local post office on the day you mail it, a change that seems to have been made suspiciously quietly. Instead, it may be postmarked when it reaches a regional processing center, which may be days later.

    The USPS is now claiming that a postmark was never meant to indicate the date something was mailed, but only when it first goes through an automated processing machine. Since many state and federal governments have laws referring to "postmarked by" dates, such as tax filings, tax payments, court documents, and mail-in ballots, I'm going with *cough* bullshit as there's zero chance all of those people and governments totally thought postmarked meant whenever it gets to a processing center.

    About 20 states, both red and blue, have an election laws that refers to the "postmarked by" date for mail-in ballots. This change by the USPS opens up the possibility for certain anti-mail-in-voting-fascist-pieces-of-shit to issue, say, an executive order to hold mail at specific local post offices for days before sending it on to the regional processing center to be postmarked, voiding them all.

    46 votes

  13. Comment on The tools bookmakers use to block data-savvy gamblers, and how to get round them in ~life

    AugustusFerdinand
    Link Parent
    Article covers it, if only briefly; exchanges don't offer the money that bookmakers do and if you find someone willing to exchange big, "they probably know more than you do" and so sharps avoid them.

    Article covers it, if only briefly; exchanges don't offer the money that bookmakers do and if you find someone willing to exchange big, "they probably know more than you do" and so sharps avoid them.

    1 vote

  14. Comment on The hydrant directory in ~design

    AugustusFerdinand
    Link
    Showed this to my dog, he tried to piss on my computer. Cheeky bastard. [click label, click joke] Interesting site, was expecting more of a guide to and less of color palettes of uniquely painted...

    Showed this to my dog, he tried to piss on my computer. Cheeky bastard.

    [click label, click joke]

    Interesting site, was expecting more of a guide to and less of color palettes of uniquely painted hydrants.

    6 votes

  15. Comment on I feel that Destin (SmarterEveryDay on Youtube) is straying from the path in ~talk

    AugustusFerdinand
    Link Parent
    Yes, there definitely needs to be some distinction (and outright definition by what they mean) made by people using conservative in this thread. Capital-C Conservative is a political leaning,...

    Yes, there definitely needs to be some distinction (and outright definition by what they mean) made by people using conservative in this thread. Capital-C Conservative is a political leaning, conservative is... who knows what in here... but I certainly don't see sir/ma'am as having any political leaning or anything beyond politeness. I grew up in Texas, having only left last year, and sir/ma'am is just politeness and I use it constantly for everything from coworkers to random people that might hold the door for me.
    Hell, I've coined a gender neutral version I use called th'am for the nonbinary homies in my life because it felt wrong to use sir/ma'am and to not use it at all. It's just politeness and in my head calling it "conservative" (be it with or without a capital C) sounds like saying the "liberal" version is something along the lines of "Thanks, asshole" and from the time I've spent in the northeast, probably wouldn't be far off.

    5 votes

  17. Comment on Offbeat Fridays – The thread where offbeat headlines become front page news in ~news

    AugustusFerdinand
    Link Parent
    White is a color, so you're wrong from the outset. Secondly, it's a shade of white, which is just as nuanced as the shades of any other color. The exact same can be said of every color they have...
    1. White is a color, so you're wrong from the outset. Secondly, it's a shade of white, which is just as nuanced as the shades of any other color.
    2. The exact same can be said of every color they have chosen for color of the year. No one needs to purchase any of the colors they choose and arguably, they don't. Pantone chooses a color, hopes that the next year's designs focuses on that general color, but no one is going to swathe themselves or their homes in a a single color.
    3 votes

  18. Comment on Offbeat Fridays – The thread where offbeat headlines become front page news in ~news

    AugustusFerdinand
    Link Parent
    How so?

    Pantone people are laughing at us aren't they. Openly this year, I mean.

    How so?

    2 votes

  19. Comment on Falling price of cocaine forces drug traffickers to reuse narco-submarines, say Spanish police in ~finance

    AugustusFerdinand
    Link Parent
    Law enforcement (and therefore articles covering law enforcement actions) are also notorious for grossly inflating the alleged value of the drugs as well. There's no detail if that's the wholesale...

    Law enforcement (and therefore articles covering law enforcement actions) are also notorious for grossly inflating the alleged value of the drugs as well. There's no detail if that's the wholesale value, street value, street value after cutting, etc.

    11 votes