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Are Dysons worth it vs. knockoffs?
The Great Enshittification of Everything means I can't trust internet reviews any more. Real humans: will a half-cost Dyson knock-off cordless vac meet our needs?
What exactly does professional bookkeeping do for a small non-profit?
As a non-accounting person, I'm vaguely aware that accounting can be complicated. Since starting in my ED role about two months ago, though, I'm not sure that our operation is complicated enough to warrant what we spend for a large external accounting firm. This is not related to auditing, which is done separately.
Many more details about our specific circumstances inside.
Rules-lite and ready to fight (or not)
What are some of your favourite micro-TTRPGs from the last several years?
Paid search engines: do they work and are they worth it?
I'm trying to fully extricate myself from the Googlesphere personally. I know engines like DuckDuckGo and Bing (ugh) exist, but does anyone have experience with paid search engines they could share?
Best KeePass for PC + iOS?
I use KeePassXC on the PC and would like to use it on my iPhone and iPad. There are lots of options.
Can I make and sell t-shirts completely anonymously?
I have a pretty great idea for a shirt/other clothing, but it gets into light satire/trademark infringement with a company I have some friends that work for, who may not take it in the spirit intended. Is there a way to make/sell shirts with no trace back to me?
Trouble swallowing leading to chest pains?
This evening, I was having a pretty normal dinner with my wife when I had some trouble swallowing, followed by what felt like all the muscles around my chest contracting, like I was being squeezed like a clamp; it was at the point where I couldn't breathe for about 30 seconds before it eased up and I could breathe again.
What's up?
What's a cost-effective projector for across the street?
The building across the street from my study window is a huge, blank vinyl wall and (with permission) I'd like to project old-timey cartoons across the street for Hallowe'en.
A highly specific shopping list for a booking calendar
I'm willing to pay for software that will let me run a public booking calendar, but with some fairly specific requirements...
Why do you **love** your job?
I've got a job that I should love on paper, but frequently... don't. Hearing from people who love their jobs, and what about the jobs they love, might help me look at where I'm at with fresh eyes and find new joy.
Help me name a cursed sword!
I'm embarking on a D&D game where I'm inverting the "person with a cursed sword" trope by having the character be the cursed sword, with an endless succession of doomed schmoes picking it up. Not too on the nose (Bloodthirster, Skullcracker), but not just goofy (Killbot, Swordy McSwordface).
Service/people to help plan garage reno
I have a very old garage, zoning-grandfathered to the property line. I'd like to fix it up, but could use help with ideas and planning; possibly later drawings. What should I look for?
Podcast recommendations: debunky, chatty, science-y edition
I love Maintenance Phase and If Books Could Kill and would like more podcasts like this.
Low-cost platform for rolling conversations + filesharing?
I'm part of a pan-university consortium setting up a series of events across Canada. We'd like to find a way to have Teams or Slack-style chat, as well as sharing files and resources, and create a standalone presence for it. What do you recommend?
Can you recommend a generator-free PA suitable for outdoor events?
I feel like there should be good options in 2023 for something that runs off a rechargeable battery/pack, and is loud enough to cover a gathering of about 100-150 people in a small outdoor park. Do you have direct experience with a unit you'd recommend?
What is the best Canadian jazz of the last 10 years?
Canadian* jazz, 2013-2023, hit me.
Parents of college-aged MeFitelings, share your recruitment stories
My institution is looking at adjusting our approach to admissions, and rethinking the personal statement component. If you are somebody who is or has recently applied to college, or a close friend or relative of same, I'd love to hear about the best and worst "beyond grades" admissions tools you've seen.
How are spammers getting images past my no-image default?
I use Thunderbird as my PC mail client. It doesn't allow images to load by default, and I have to allow image loading to let images into my browser. Recently, a lot of spam images have started appearing in my email, with no option to block the remote source. How do I stop this?
Signing into Windows 10 post-offline install
I have built "around" an old PC using a mix of new and salvaged parts, and thought I'd install Windows 10 "clean". I built on a workbench and didn't connect to the Internet while doing the initial Windows install, and now it's asking for a product key.
Ads that feature many people talking, one after the other
It feels like a very common ad archetype, but I'm having a devil of a time tracking them down. Can you help me find ads like this one, but without the preamble, where it's just various people saying stuff, on camera, one after the other, usually with a very similar setting or backdrop.
I don't know how to find a person/company to develop an app
I'm exploring an idea of an app for work that is beyond my ability to create, but also seems much simpler than the kinds of things companies build. How do I find a right-sized app developer?
Is there a way to find out who made a YouTube mix?
I happened to click on a generically named "My Mix" playlist on YouTube today and it is uncannily 75% exactly music that matches my esoteric tastes, and 25% stuff I don't know but really like. Is there any way to find the mix "author" and see if they have created more mixes?
What tool(s) do I need to make a Goban/Baduk board?
I have what I need to cut and join wood to make a base (circular saw, table saw, mitre saw, biscuit joiner, plane). I have a Dremel Advantage (which I have no experience with; I've only ever used it with grinder wheels to cut off protruding screws/nails; it's long since discontinued, and apparently not compatible with the Dremel plunge router attachment). I'm capable of rough woodworking, and would like to make a Go board by cutting very straight grooves in wood in a grid, then filling them with a compound, then sanding and varnishing. What is best?
Can you explain how Mastodon instances interconnect?
For personal and professional reasons, I'm interested in setting up a Mastodon server. In fact, I asked about it in 2018, but that went nowhere. I think I've kind of wrapped my head around the idea, but am having a devil of a time understanding how instances interrelate.
What is Al Jorgenson doing with tone in "Everyday is Halloween"?
I don't have the musical language to describe what's going on here, but in the song (see this video at around 1:40, for instance) Al Jourgenson pushes his voice up, like, a half-step or something. "...all the people seem to stop and stare / They say why are you dressed like it's Halloween..." To my uneducated ear the rest of the music is unchanged; he's just forcing himself to be... musically off-tone, and it's subtly disconcerting (which I like). Is there a name for this? Is it a thing in music "oh yes, that's the Brechstein Tonal Squanch"?
Moving to freelance from a large organization: what do I need to know?
I'm exploring the idea of transitioning from a mid-senior role directing marketing and communications to freelancing as a writer/strategist. I've been working on establishing whether or not the market I know can support me, but wonder what I might be missing.
Syracuse or Rochester? Weekend suggestions at the end of November
We are sober vegan Canadians; on paper, the least fun people on earth. But in practice, we're a hoot! We like art galleries, funky cafés, bookstores, outdoor walks, creepy ol' buildings, cats, records, and a lot of other things. With a weekend to spend in upstate New York in late November, where would you recommend we stay and poke around?
Are career coaches really helpful? Have you been helped by one?
I'm at a bit of a sticking point career-wise and I'm not sure if "career help" services such as career coaches, resume writers, etc. are actually helpful, or just expensive chaff. If you've worked with and have benefited from these kinds of services, do you have advice on finding and working with them?
Is there a better explanation than... smokin' ghost?
Two non-smokers; we bought our house in 2015 and have lived here smoke free since then. Certain rooms of the house sometimes smell like cigarettes. Today, my wife's blouse smelled like cigarettes. What's up?
Recommend a large format (24"+) printer
My search skills are weak, and finding mostly (a) garbage listcicles and (b) ones that focus on 13" printers; I need something that prints on 24" rolls and can cut to length. Personal experience is a pretty big part of the recommendation, which I'm not getting from the TECH GORBZ' TOP 10 PRINTERS 2022 search results.
Best! Vegan! Lentil! Recipes!
My wife and I are strangely lentil-resistant! We cook great vegan meals with other legumes all the time: black beans, chickpeas, kidney beans... but somehow, when we look in the pantry and see the lentil jars, our first reaction is "ugh lentils." Do you have recipes that can help us turn the corner from lentil loathing to lentil love?
Why are obvious fake emails signing up for our institutional newsletter?
Where I work, we run a fairly dry institutional newsletter of very little interest to the general public. Recently, I've seen a run of obviously fake email/name pairings coming into our "sign up for our newsletter" form. What's in it for a spammer/hacker/whoever to sign up for newsletters via a garbage account?
Procmail: filter only first character of subject line
There's been a big spam trend lately to start email subject lines with "_". I am relatively new to procmail, and I think my regex skills are too weak to figure this out, but I'd like to auto-delete any email whose subject line starts with "_". Is there a way to set that up?
Building a screening room in a larger space as part of an office reno
I may have an opportunity as part of a space-changing initiative at work to propose a small screening room as a part of an overall office space. What would you recommend for something that's elegant, effective, and budget-conscious?
Did Batman ever live in a condo?
I have memories of a period of time -- call it the mid-'80s -- where in Batman comics, Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson and Alfred Pennyworth all lived in a condominium, with a private elevator down to a sub-basement with the Batmobile and all the Bat-Trimmings. I cannot find evidence of this online. Are my comic book wires crossed, or was there a point where there was in fact a Bat-Condo?
MetaCat owners: do your cats have a litterbox plan?
As a multi-cat multi-litterbox owner for decades, I've noticed that our cats tend to organize litterbox use in specific patterns, and those patterns change as cats come into and leave our lives. Is this common among cat owners?
Who is well known, based in Ontario, and not wild expensive?
I'm brainstorming ideas for a staff-appreciation kind of thing in a southeastern Ontario town and one of the wilder thoughts was "hire _____ to come in and drop in on everyone in the building to give them a high-five through the day." Ideally somebody who is recognizable enough that most people would go "hey, it's ____!" and be agreeably confused. Who?
Can I learn to love Stellaris?
I want to love Stellaris! I bought it on Steam ages ago, and have tried a few games, but it's just got a level of complexity that I find a bit confounding, and the various tiers of management / currency / politics a touch exhausting. Can Stellaris be for me?
Do you have recommendations or ideas for Nextcloud?
My web host (Opalstack) just set up one-click installs of Nextcloud, which is pretty cool... at a glance it seems to be a replacement for the Google set of apps, including a Dropbox-style file sharing system. We're a two-person household that I'd describe as tech-friendly but not sophisticated. Have you found any great uses in this context?
Two-person household, three cats: must our LVP be thicc?
We're self-renovating the kitchen and looking at luxury vinyl plank (LVP) as flooring. It seems to come from 4mm - 7mm thicknesses. Household is a couple (with three cats), but we spend a lot of time in the kitchen. How important is getting the thicker planking?
I hate autoplay videos. What extensions are best?
I use Vivaldi (Chromium) for most of my browsing needs -- extensions from the Chrome Web Store. What extension is best* to prevent videos from automatically playing on page load? And are there sites or pages I can use to test these extensions?
Sources for well made and durable two-handle kitchen faucets?
I'm looking for well made and stylish (i.e. not low-grade stainless steel) kitchen faucets, ideally two-handle. In Canada, but Canadian vendors are in the nice-to-have category, not essential.
Are there "exquisite corpse" enabling plugins for WordPress?
I want to connect more meaningfully with my overseas nephew (10) and my sister has suggested that he enjoys writing, and being online, so some sort of sentence-trade-off story writing idea seems cool. I have a personal blog on WordPress and also have the skills/hosting to set up standalone WP instances. Is there a plugin that would make this easy for a kid?
What resources help explain types of time / mental effort?
I have historically just divided my life into "work" and "leisure" and really struggled with figuring out the value of "in-between" things that I'm not getting paid for, find difficult or stressful, but choose to do anyway. A conversation with a friend recently opened me up to the idea that there are more... time categories. Any good reading in this space?
What are the most spectacular business failures of the past 25 years?
I'm working on a short piece about how "____ should be run more like a business" arguments are... ill-founded, to put it charitably, and hoping to broaden my scope of business disasters, especially ones that caused large social harms.
What cool Ukranian musicians can I support on Bandcamp?
I love music! I love Bandcamp! But I find their search functions to be iffy at best. Can you recommend Ukranian musicians and artists I can investigate and support on Bandcamp?
D&D 5e: what to do with a my 9th-level warlock?
I play D&D casually with friends online, and after having my character die (and be brought back) several times in subsequent sessions, am interested in a shake-up, on the premise that being brutally murdered and brought back over and over can kinda mess with you. I am not somebody who knows the game in and out. Looking for some recommendations...
Europop song, late '80s or early '90s, about Peter and the Wolf
I know the song exists, and I have a vivid memory of it from a mix tape a friend made in high school (long out of touch). It's the story of Peter and the Wolf, narrated by a John-Hurt-sounding type, but the music is 100% Pet-Shop-Boys-esque pop. When the narrator says "the hunters came out of the woods," there's a Frankie-style tribal drum riff. The song cuts off abruptly with a younger (still adult) voice saying "...and you know the rest."
What plays are they performing in high school these days?
Not a heavy question and a bit North-America-centric, but discussing our embarrassing theatre nerd high-school days with my wife and wondering if the same plays were still being done in high school as they were ~30 years ago.
Setting up a discrete social media persona from my work persona
Have you created social media profiles distinct from your professional self? I'm interested in process and logic, especially as regards which name you use for which, and how you establish the newer identity.