Curious_Canid

joined 1 year ago
[–] Curious_Canid@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 day ago

Possibly, but life is full of risks.

[–] Curious_Canid@lemmy.ca 8 points 2 days ago (3 children)

What you really need is a carbon fiber shoehorn. If you do manage to deform it the thing will go right back to its original shape.

[–] Curious_Canid@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 days ago

You've gotten a lot of good advice, but let me throw in a few random suggestions...

I use Tuf-Glide on all my knives. You can spray it on or wipe it on with with a cloth. The stuff dries and bonds with the surface layer of the metal. It's a great lubricant, but it also prevents rust and provides some physical protection.

There is nothing inherently wrong with pull-through sharpeners, but avoid any sharpener that uses carbide as the abrasive. There are some excellent and easy-to-use sharpeners with ceramic and diamond rods. My field sharpener is the AccuSharp Diamond Pro. It's easy to use, compact, and produces a surprisingly good edge. I've given the to all my friends and they've stopped bringing me all their knives to sharpen. :-)

There is some decent damascus out there, but most of what you get in lower-end knives is really terrible. Materials science keeps uping the game of knife steels, but 440C was considered one of the best maybe thirty years ago. It is still a solid performer with a good balance of edge holding, toughness, rust resistance, and ease of sharpening.

Don't use your knife for things it wasn't designed to do. Get yourself a small cheap prybar to pair with it. Something like 3" prybar will save your blade and do a better job of prying anyway. I prefer mine a little longer than that, so here's a 3.8" prybar.

Have fun!

[–] Curious_Canid@lemmy.ca 8 points 4 days ago

Thank you for bringing another of these gems to my attention. And for writing the great review. Otherwise my cupboards would be filling up these things.

[–] Curious_Canid@lemmy.ca 7 points 6 days ago

I understand the desire to get even, but it isn't likely to happen and it isn't likely to be satisfying, even if you succeed. You should focus on things that will make your life better and not things that will make someone else's life worse, even if they richly deserve it.

You are going to have to make some compromises. You are currently putting up with a situation you don't like, in exchange for the salary, side benefits, and location. That's isn't necessarily a bad tradeoff, but it is not likely to be a good long-term situation. Once management decides they have a problem with you, things are going to get worse sooner or later. It will be better for you if you leave rather than being forced out.

You need to make some decisions about which of the things you like about your situation you would be willing to give up for a better job. That will tell you what to do next. Maybe the answer is to hold out for a better position within your current organization, although the chances don't sound good. You may need to take a salary cut to find a local position that's better for you. You may need to move. You may even need to change careers entirely.

The key is to make your own decisions and not allow others to force them on you. There are a lot of factors you can't control. Focus on the ones you can. And don't stay in a bad situation with the hope that everything will work out the way you want it to.

[–] Curious_Canid@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 days ago

I suggest you try some other kind of sharpener. One of the inexpensive pocket sharpeners with crossed abrasive rods would work. Just make sure you get one with diamond and ceramic, not carbide. This is my favorite of those: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AU6CM2I/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[–] Curious_Canid@lemmy.ca 3 points 6 days ago (3 children)

The blade should always be oriented so the belt is moving in the spine-to-edge direction. Using it in the other direction (into the blade) will grind away the metal faster and less evenly, It sounds like that is what's happening.

It's also worth noting that any kind of inward curve is difficult to sharpen evenly on a belt (or any other wide sharpening surface). You may get better results if you try to work along the edges of the belt instead of the center. For hawkbills and recurves I generally use a narrow sharpener, like an edge of the triangular Spyderco Sharpmaker rods. It takes longer than using a belt, but it produces a very clean bevel and edge.

Best of luck!

[–] Curious_Canid@lemmy.ca 7 points 6 days ago

That is a life well spent.

[–] Curious_Canid@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 week ago

He's a beautiful croissant!

My 75 lb (34 kg) puppy has unusually long legs, but he's still figured out a way to fit in my lap. He has also mastered the croissant technique. Mathematicians should ask dogs for help with their unsolvable topology problems.

[–] Curious_Canid@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 week ago

G.

That is a cute puppy!

[–] Curious_Canid@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 week ago

It is wrong that we live in a world where some people's automatic response to anything they don't like is a death threat. People who think that way need to be educated, treated, or incarcerated. And we need to stop providing them with any form of enabling or encouragement.

Liu continues to impress me as a thoughtful and level-headed person. He seems to be dealing with his sudden fame with unusual grace.

[–] Curious_Canid@lemmy.ca 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Possibly the best line of dialog ever spoken from a movie screen.

 

A trebuchet builds trust.

"I wouldn't trust him any farther than I could throw him."

"That will no longer be a problem."

 

I've been struggling with how to make sense of what the far right likes to call patriotism. Our democratic system of government is at the core of what defines America, but many of them are willing, and in some cases eager, to destroy that.

It finally hit me that what they love is not their country. They love their control of it. That is why racism, misogyny, homophobia, and other irrational hatreds are so deeply tied into far right movement. Only people like them should be allowed to have a say. The acceptance of diversity that began as religious freedom and has expanded to encompass all differences, directly threatens their control.

I wish that insight pointed a way to deal with the problem, but it really points up how intractable the problem is. There is no compromise that will satisfy both sides when one side is demanding complete control over the other.

This may be one of those problems that can only be solved by newer generations, who tend to have less rigid views of the world, gradually replacing the hard liners.

 

I always carry a couple of good knives with me, but I have lately gone on a utility knife kick. I'm not sure I want to carry one, but I definitely like having them around the house for opening boxes.

I don't think I've found the perfect one yet, but I do have some a like quite well.

The Oknife Otacle Pro is my favorite. It is small and very slim, but provides a good grip. The blade is completely covered, so I can use hook blades without worrying about exposed edges. The mechanism provides one-handed deployment with excellent safety. There is a neat little clip that works well and doesn't get in the way.

The mechanism is actually very good, but it gets terrible reviews. That's because it desperately needs to be lubricated and it comes from the factory dry. Mine was pretty much unusable until I sprayed it down with ToughGlide. Now it's one of the smoothest I've used.

My second favorite is the Nexland Sliding Utility Knife. The mechanism is very clever. It involves just a few pieces of titanium with no fasteners or springs. It should be pretty much indestructible. It's easy to use with one hand. Changing blades is simple and quick without tools. It also gets extra points for preventing the blade to drag along the track when it slides.

My honorable mention is the Screwpop Ron's Utility Knife 3.0. The mechanism is incredibly simple, but it works beautifully. I can deploy it one-handed, although it takes some practice. Changing blades is obvious and easy. There is also a magnet that can be used to attach it to things. The price is low enough that you can keep several in strategic locations around the house.

It is also worth pointing out the Outdoor Edge Slidewinder, which may be the best choice for the average person. The mechanism is more complex than I prefer, but it works well. There is a spring that retracts the blade as soon as you touch the button, which is a nice safety feature. It's a little bigger than the others, but still small and handy. There's a decent clip. There is also a slotted and a Phillips screwdriver.

I have also discovered some annoying limitations along the way. I put Lenox Gold blades into all my utility knives, but I've run into several that don't work with them, or with many other standard blades. They frustrate me.

The Oknife Otacle (non-Pro version) uses a different mechanism from the Pro that requires holes through the central axis of the blade. That rules out most utility blades.

Milwaukee Utility Knives are among the best, but the Compact Slide, which I wanted for its relatively small size, will not work with blades that have more than two notches at the top. I couldn't believe it and ended up taking it apart, but it really won't accept them.

The Manker UTI Edge is a nicely minimalist design, but it is just a tiny bit too short for a lot of standard blades. A fraction of a millimeter difference would have solved that problem. I also have some concerns about how well its lock holds.

Has anyone else gone down this particular rabbit hole?

 

I'm pretty sure I used to get emails when I received a notification, but that hasn't been happening for a while now. I do have the "Send Notifications to Email" checked in my settings and I have verified that my email address is set correctly.

Are email notifications working for others? Can anyone suggest things I should change to get them working?

 

The rules seem to imply that pocket dumps are required. Can we also post reviews / comments / discussions of EDC items here?

 

There are plenty of politics communities, but they all seem to focus on posting and discussing articles. Is there a community for posting political ideas and opinions?

 

Can SnapRaid restore the a lost drive in the case where the other data drives have been written to since the last sync? My understanding of the principles is probably just lacking, but I worry that using parity based on the other drive's data would only work if the data on the other drives had not changed since the parity was last calculated.

So do I invalidate my last sync as soon as I write new data to a drive in my arrray?

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