Your plumber is probably making a good choice. Valves that don’t get exercised regularly can be all but guaranteed to be a pain in the ass when you need them to work.
We have a calendar reminder to exercise the valves in our house yearly, and the fact that they’re easy to get at helps make sure it’s a quick job, not a tedious one.
Not a plumber, but have lived in enough old houses with iffy valves to have been bitten a few times.
Microsoft did (does?) Installable File System plugfests. The anti-virus vendors always had a pretty full dance card because they go to great lengths to scan files, which is sometimes at odds with other drivers.
We had a hierarchical storage management driver, and getting files released to remote storage and keeping them released until the users actually wanted them back was helped greatly by actually being able to talk to the AV vendors and understand their criteria for when to scan.
At the time, a lot of AV filter drivers were legacy model drivers, which led to some serious shenanigans getting a second minifilter installed above the AV layer in the stack to distinguish between user and AV generated reads.
I've always wanted an excuse to write a minifilter or similar and solve a real problem and totally not at all hose my system's performance. Windows kernel development calls to me for no good reason.
> I've seen this recommended a few times here, and I've listened since the beginning.
That, uh, might be my fault. I’m the one who recommended it earlier this week. And I tend to recommend it any time anything related to English pops up.
One of the absolute treasures of our time is The History of English Podcast. 186 episodes in, and he's just gotten past Shakespeare. The first 30 or so episodes might run a little slow for you for lack of written sources, but it really does pick up and has been hours of joy.
https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/
For the prurient, Chaucer's Vulgar Tongue is a great place to dip a toe into it:
To suggest another decompression / interesting podcast, "The Fall of Civilizations" by Paul Cooper. I do like the visual episodes he releases later on YT - its not just random stock photos but directly relevant to what's being discussed, but they release awhile after the audio. The audio is splendid as well though.
I haven't listened to this podcast, but if you want another one, the history of rome podcast by Mike Duncan holds a similar place in my heart. He's kind of monotone but I was entranced and would you believe that I couldn't listen to the episode for the final emperor because I didn't want the roman empire to fall. lol. What a good series.
The revolutions podcast is perhaps one of my favorite podcasts of all time. The American, French, and Russian revolution seasons are all incredibly enlightening to the world that we live in, while plainly also being just so entertaining.
I've only listened to the French revolution, but it was absolutely electrifying. I would listen on my car ride home -- one day I burst through the door to my house and yelled "CHARLOTTE CORDAY MURDERED MARAT!!!" at my wife like it was breaking news.
You're thinking of the The History of England podcast, not The History of English. The History of English Podcast does cover English history, often going deeper than is strictly necessary for tracing the evolution of English, but its primary focus is language. It's also very cozy, something you could listen to while sipping tea by a warm fire, and its consistency, clarity, and depth has made it my favorite podcast.
As a dude who is 6’ 1” or thereabouts with a 32” or thereabouts waist and a 34” (or thereabouts) inseam: can confirm.
Carhartts size up a waist size to account for shrinking, and I can almost reliably find a 34/34. Finding 32/34 in other pants is a challenge. On the subject of vanity sizing, I’m 15 pounds heavier than I was 20 years ago, and I still wear a 32/34. Which is why all those measurements are qualified above.
Finding shirts that fit is a similar challenge. Fitted shirts can usually be found in 16 34-35 with an athletic cut. Letter sizes are a total crapshoot. Sometimes I’m a L, sometimes an M. If I’m an M across the gut, frequently the shoulders are far too tight.
Not that I’m complaining as such, but I do agree that the sizes encompass too little information about body shape.
I'm 6'0 34/32 and even still feel some of this; L shirts are baggy, but M shirts (and sweaters) are often too short in the length and arms, especially after a wash.
And it's not my imagination; I have a few custom made dress shirts from Maxwell's and those absolutely do feel correct in both dimensions.
A tall medium where available will typically work for me but most brands don't have it at all and those that do it's a special order so what's even the point of being in the store; I might add well have just done a blind buy online from home.
As a dude who is 6'7" with a 35" waist (34" in brands that do vanity sizing) and an inseam that can handle a 34" even if it's not quite long enough, I agree that it's tough. One of the more annoying problems is that the MT shirt size doesn't seem to exist where I shop and LT flares outwards at the bottom. At least it's pretty easy to get a shirt taken in.
For work casual (and formal!), I was thrilled to discover tailored shirts. Not bespoke, but actually getting fitted in a store like Jos. Bank that handles the alterations.
The value proposition is comfort and they last a decade.
I have only ever owned cars with manual transmissions for my personal vehicles.
I would 100% get a vehicle without a manual for my next car if it’s an improvement over a manual. I’ve driven a handful of Priuses. I would definitely own one. I would definitely own an EV.
I have no desire to own an ICE-only vehicle with a CVT, automated manual, or conventional automatic. They add complexity and opaque failure modes. Last year I lost reverse in our plow truck (an automatic). Totally undiagnosable for me, nevermind fixable. Had a new used transmission put it, and it started bogging and lurching from a stop and up hills. Can’t work around it, can’t fix it. Sold the truck for $300 to someone who’s going to part it out (the engine wasn’t great either) and moved the plow onto a new used truck.
We’re not all stuck in the past. Some of us do understand the system well enough to be picky about believing something is an improvement.
Another example: CFL lightbulbs flat-out sucked. Avoided them as best as I could. Bought CREE LED bulbs at $20 apiece as soon as they came out at Home Depot.
I have noticed the balls in my local dicks have occasionally been smaller than advertised as well, I wonder if there is some trend or fraud being perpetrated
Breakability, among others, I suspect. I've never cooked commercially, but I did work at Cinnabon long enough ago that we made the rolls out of things that were identifiably ingredients. All the staff cups were plastic because things get moving pretty quick on a busy day.
The one Christmas Eve I worked in college was bananas. We had both ovens running (doesn't happen outside the holiday season) and were putting pans in and taking them out about as fast as we could make rolls and proof them.
I think it's that, but just as much that glass glasses are unitaskers, and delis are some of the most multifunctional things you can stock in your kitchen.
Or if you have an already incomplete set of scrabble tiles: attach magnets to the backs of the ones that spell "dirty" and "clean". Whichever isn't scrambled on the door is the state of the dishwasher.
Or simply don't rinse the dishes before you put them in[0]. I've never had trouble telling.
[0] Exceptions: uncooked eggs, yogurt, and for some reason, salsa? None of which ever come off for me if they sit for long before you run the dishwasher.
We have a calendar reminder to exercise the valves in our house yearly, and the fact that they’re easy to get at helps make sure it’s a quick job, not a tedious one.
Not a plumber, but have lived in enough old houses with iffy valves to have been bitten a few times.
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