Asklemmy @lemmy.ml

12mo ago

What small piece of advice you would like to give that isn't heard enough ?

Computer related:

Don't be your family computer savy guy, you just found yourself a bunch payless jobs...
Long desks are cool and all, but the amount the space they occupy is not worth it.
Block work related phone calls at weekends, being disturbed at your leisure for things that could be resolved on Mondays will sour your day.

Buying stuff:

There is expensive because of brand and expensive because of material quality, do your research.
Buck buying is underrated, save yourself a few bucks, pile that toilet paper until the ceiling is you must.
Second hand/broken often means never cleaned, lubricated or with easy fixable problem.

193 comments

Proof-read your writing; even when writing titles.
- hahah, noted.
  
  Titles can be edited on Lemmy.
- A good exercise is to read your essay from the bottom up. Start at the last complete sentence and when you're done read the one above. You'll catch more things that way because your mind has to change the perspective.
  
  I change the font and size, it snaps my brain out of "I already know this text has no errors, I've been looking at it while writing it" mode and allows it to more easily read it anew

One that sticks with me from chemistry classes: "Hot glass looks exactly the same as cold glass."
- Another from chemistry: "small dangers are still dangers, don't underestimate them".
  This was in my first uni. The person saying that mentioned how he never saw students harming themselves with cyanide, nitration solutions (sulphuric+nitric - highly corrosive and explosive) or the likes. No, it was always with dumb shit like glacial acetic acid skin burns, or a solvent catching fire.
- Reminds me that this is the same logic I use on the road.
  As a motorcycle rider I've become a very cautious car driver.
  I'm a paranoid driver and I always assume that people on the road are always going to do something stupid. I'm wrong most of the time and I don't mind that but whenever I happen to avoid an accident because I was too careful, it reminds me why I'm always paranoid.
- A girl in my chemistry class learned that the hard way. I have never seen a burn blister form so fast.

Read the entire error message very carefully before asking for help, or even searching for a solution.
For folks in tech this means reading and understanding the stack trace, too.
- Only works for software that tells you the problem...
  
  1 that is true
- And often it's very easy to understand if you break down the components.

You don't have to have an opinion about everything.
- i disagree.
- That's quitter talk!
- Corralary would be "It's fine to admit I don't know". Being open to my ignorance and blind spots allows me to learn. This is good advice to everyone, but especially to those who are used to having a lot of knowledge, or at least think they do.
- Lemme guess, blackbird for a wife?
- All the people up voting this just don't get it.

When driving don't be nice, be predictable.
Eg.: If you are on the priority road, drive - don't be nice and slow down to let someone in from a side road. That's how you get rear-ended.
- This is really good advice I also want to emphasize this when it comes to motorcycles for the love of God just take your turn at stop signs and lights do not wave them on. I have been apart of and seen people almost die from it.
- In Portland, these "polite" drivers WILL STOP for people who want to cross in the middle of the street.
  It drives me insane as a pedestrian.
  
  I'm in Portland as well, and as a cyclist, it annoys me no end when a driver with no stop sign stops and waves me through my stop sign. I call them "niceholes".
  
  Quick question, you American? If yes; well, duuh
- My main transport is a bicycle. I do my best to be predictable, and obvious about it. And when someone tries to 'be nice' and let me go first when it's not my 'turn' / right of way, I start with all sorts of body language that says I'm not moving till after you do. Put my foot down, look at the sky, look 180 degrees away from the 'nice' car, look in the direction the 'nice' car is supposed to go, point in the direction they are supposed to go, shake my head point at the ground, cross my arms, etc, etc till they give up and just go. I've even had the opportunity to verbally explain the importance of predictability and Right of Way, but it usually doesn't go that far. LoL, we all just want to get where ever in the heck we are trying to get to, after all.

Relating to relationships: You can say 'no' to anything, but you can't say 'no' to everything.
- I think of this as a jar, saying no all the time will fill it full, saying yes too will fill it. Saying no at one time, then yes is essential, to "cancel out the no" and jar remains empty, empty for any judging 😅

"don't attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity" is good advice for friends and family.
It's bad advice for salesmen, politicians, corporations, etc. They are more sophisticated than you and will take advantage of your willingness to extend trust after bad behavior.
- I've been in a surprising number of hostile situations professionally that defied any explanation that did not include both malice and stupidity :D
- It's bad advice for salesmen, politicians, corporations, etc.
  I dunno. It's pretty easy to attribute their misdeeds to malice.
  Or at least to greed and malicious indifference to your concerns.
  
  I think that's what they were saying. For those, it is likely indeed malice. For friends and family, it's likely just stupidity or ignorance.
  
  Doing bad things ("evildoing" if we want to express it in a morally absolutist way) is generally not for the pleasure of it, but it's simply doing what's good for oneself with little or no limits (if one can get away with it) on how bad the consequences for others are of one's personal upside maximization actions.
  Whilst "malice" is per the dictionary a specific kind of doing bad things were one actually wants to harm or hurt others, hence that saying with that word specifically can't be easilly turned around (especially as actual malice is pretty rare), if you use "calous selfishness" instead the reverse saying ("don't attribute to stupidity what can be explained by calous selfishness") is often true, especially when it comes to people intelligent enough to be able to figure out the broader consequences of their actions.

Learn how to change your own brakes and filters, and save hundreds of dollars.
- Just to add to this, a lot of basic vehicle maintenance/repairs may seem daunting but are really pretty easy once you know what you're doing.
  For anyone who has a 10+yr old vehicle and needs a repair manual for it, (2013 or older) https://charm.li/ has probably got a digital copy for you.
  
  To add to your addition, Chris's Fix on Youtube has videos for a lot of the common things you'll need to do on a car & he also mainly only uses hand tools to try and keep his content approachable for the average person.
  YouTube in general is a fantastic resource for stuff like this.
  
  Too add to the comment: the biggest issues I've experienced usually isn't replacing the actually piece I need to replace, but accessing the piece i need to replace and learning how to do certain things.
  To change my water pump, I had to creatively figure out a way to hold a rotating piece, while also loosening a bolt on it. After taking 30ish minutes looking for ways to do so, I can now do it in like 5 minutes.
  I also had to learn that lowering my engine makes the above easier which required a specific set of tools to make the job possible/faster.
- Just did mine this week. Really helps to have a 'Caliper Piston Cube Wind Tool' or something similar when you have to rewind the piston back in.
  
  You should be able to use a c-clamp to push back the piston. The only specialized tool I bought related to changing brakes was the tools for installing and uninstalling the drum brakes. Even those aren't necessary but they do help and I've done my brakes enough where the extra cost is worth the time and frustration I save personally.

Buying second hand is underrated. I’ll often try buy something second hand first and just give it a good clean, I’ve saved loads like that.

"Measure twice, cut once."
- I cut it twice and it’s still too short!

Unless you make a scene, nobody pays any attention to you ever, or will remember you later. You are invisible and anonymous in public.
- As long as nobody is recording and giving your data to companies that have resources to analyze ever pixel of you ten times over.
  
  They may know my speed or my position, but not both at once.
- I recognize the regulars on the train. You can call me The Looker.
- This.
  Unless you make a scene,
  One day I was sick of how staff treated the students using the internet on the school compounds. Went on school official website, copied the school motto, and principal email, and burned the meanest staff. Baam! Didn't bother us ever.

Don’t be your family computer savy guy, you just found yourself a bunch payless jobs…
Disagree, while my family didn't pay me in cash, they made me food and such. They took care of me.
- Depends on who it is. I'll spend 10 hours on a pc issue for my mom but if it's a cousin and it takes more than 10 minutes I'll either say it's outside of my knowledge or straight up say I would have to charge because of time commitment.
  
  Depends on your level of agency as well. As a tech savvy teenager I felt I wasn't allowed to say no to my family asking for computer help. Now I follow what you outlined, close family and friends, free. Not so close family, 10.00 to look at it. 20.00 if it's difficult.
- Same. I owe a lot to my parents. The stable nurturing home they provided was a huge leg up in life. Showing them a thing or two on the computer was the least I could do.
  
  The whole thing has degrees. I very much like to help my mother to update her browser. I really don't want to help choosing a printer to my cousin's second brother's wife AND install it during Christmas when we are home and I want to just chill with my close family.
- My family did not and it just added another avenue they could sap my energy. I down play it a lot more these days.

Assume the best of people and the worst of circumstances. It just makes my life a little bit happier giving my friends and family, and even strangers, the benefit of the doubt.
- Attribution bias. We have a tendency to attribute our own behaviours to external circumstances (“I’m driving slowly because I have good reason”) whilst attributing others’ behaviours to personal traits (“That person is driving slowly because they are incompetent”). It’s nice to remember that situational factors may be affecting a good person’s behaviour.
- It makes everybody else happier, too!

It is absolutely okay to say, “I don’t know.”
I’d argue this is true even in instances where you should know as it will save time, damages, and/or misinformation.
- The smartest people in the room are the ones who are the most excited by the answer, regardless of who answers it. You see them say "I don't know but I'll find out" and watch them pull someone who might know.

Hit Cancel instead of Reply after typing a response to that moron. 9/10 it's not worth the effort and your life will be better for having moved on.
- I'd say don't type out anything you wouldn't want to send, not even as a joke. On multiple occasions I've seen people type a text or email as a joke, and then accidentally send it instead of erase it.
  By that same token, don't send things you wouldn't want others to see (or perhaps, be aware of unintended audiences). How often do we hear about nudes being shared? In another example, I once worked at a company that had too many bosses, and one of them shit talked me to my boss in an email. They replied back and forth a bit, and then my boss had a question for me about the project they were now discussing, so he forwarded me the entire email chain. I saw exactly what the other boss said about me, and there was no denying he was the one who said it. I immediately and permanently lost all respect for him.
- Yea, if someone on the internet got you heated just move on. It's not worth letting dumbasses online affect your mood.
- Omg! I just had one of these earlier this week. Dumbass with a confirmation bias needs the size of Texas and a case of Dunning-Kruger that would make that one guy auditing a intro to "insert technical field" course that always knows the answer jealous. I am a degree holder in multiple integral fields to the topic, work adjacent to it and am a weekend researcher in the field and he was seriously trying to tell me that he didn't need to understand anything to tell me that his opinions were empirical fact that didn't need support. I tried to educate initially, but it became clear that all he was going to do was cherry-pick details out of context to support his opinion. I spent way too long. I just hope some other readers found the educational bits informational.
- Ah yeah, great advice! I've also seen it expressed as "It's possible to have an unexpressed thought". I remind myself of that often!

Refurbished is not second hand. It’s an item that has been returned to the retailer for one reason or another and gone through thorough diagnosis for any existing issues and repaired. You can save money over “new” to buy something that you now know has been scrutinized. Sometimes there may be blemishes, but depending on the product that matters very little.
- I saw a video, I believe it was about refurbished gaming consoles, and the guy was showing that often times companies just blow dust out and don't do anything of value to refurbish the consoles.
  Considering that you get a shorter warranty with refurbished items, I don't think it's worth it unless you know what exactly was done to the item.
  
  It varies company to company.
  And it can still be "used" and then refurbished.
  Like, if you trade in a cell phone, a company could just wipe it down, call it refurbished, and sell it on Amazon as "Amazon refurbished" which makes it sound like a return that was inspected and repaired.
  On the other side is "manufacturer refurbished" that is sold direct from manufacturer. Those have been returned for an issue, and likely repaired. Depending on the product, you'd be taking zero chance on a manufacturing flaw and getting a lower price.
  But they're likely be scratches and stuff
  So, for like a washer/dryer combe, definitely go for manufacturer refurbished. But something where looks matter more than function, the cosmetic damage might not be worth it.
  
  Tronixfix does a number of those videos, and sometimes they do a lot to clean it and make sure it's good, other times they don't even blow the dust out
- Nah you’re just buying a returned item that was reboxed.
  If you think companies selling an amalgam of $0.05 plastic components are gonna meticulously disassemble , diagnose, repair and clean/replace all parts, then reassemble them only to resell at a reduced price, I have a refurbished bridge to sell you.

Be mindful that a soldering iron cable can pull a soldering iron from your hand, so don't have too loose of a grip. Learned that one the hard way :(
- Also, a falling soldering iron (or knife) has no handle
  
  I would have grabbed the wire 😄
- Ouch; I can feel that burn.
  
  Haha, luckily wasn't too bad because it only nicked my finger for a really short amount of time. It rotated past my finger when it flicked around. Could have been much worse

Rice is a cereal and therefore a valid breakfast food. Fry last night's rice with some chopped veg and garlic salt for a nutritious and easy breakfast.
- Fried rice keeps better than steamed. Make it once a week and massively reduce your time/resources spent on the daily. The secret is the extra sauce with 45% spicy mayo, 45% teriyaki sauce, and 10% Worcestershire sauce or similar Roman garum-like fermented fish sauce. Put that on top of fried rice to make a killer meal.
  Fried rice is basically just eggs and rice at the simplest form; breakfast.

Assume positive intent. Amazing how much lower stress your stress levels will be if you don't feel attacked (on the road, on social media, in conversations, etc).
Oh yeah, and buy a bidet. Your bum will thank you.
- That really agressive driver? She/he probably just has to poop real bad. Instead of raging at them, give them directions to the nearest gas station bathroom.
- We have bidets pretty universally in Vietnam, we were quite puzzled about the whole toilet paper thing during Covid in North America!

Frozen veggies have all the nutrients of fresh, and will still have them when you finally get around to cooking them.
- And will lack flavor and have a horrible mouth feel.
  
  I guess it depends on the brand (mostly the method of freezing them). We use both fresh and frozen but it also depends on what meal we're making.

invisible ink uses heat (friction) to turn invisible. so dont leave an invisible ink pen in the sun, if you want to use it again.
- Oooh! That's why those tiny printers make "almost" grinding high-pitched sounds! I just learned something new today. Thanks

You can just change careers whenever. No one cares. When I was younger it seemed so set in stone like you learn a trade you're a plumber for life. Go to college your major is what you're doing for life. It's not true I knew a philosophy major that was working as an elevator engineer. Do HVAC for 20 years then do something else. It's fine
- The exception now is that people go into 80k debt expecting to easily pay that off with a job that matches their major. If they switch to something more fulfilling, there's a chance that they won't make enough to pay it off in a timely manner. The main thing this applies to is engineering.
  
  Yeah. The problem is that even inside IT I cannot really change because I'll be the junior immediately and they'll offer half my current salary in a new place. The more applies to a complete switch. I have a mortgage, a child, a car, some expensive hobbies, and some goes to savings. I have a certain lifestyle. I simply cannot afford to lose any of my current income.
  But I really hope some day I'll have enough in savings to make the switch.
- My resume these days is pretty eclectic and I honestly think it's been a plus. Interviewers like to ask about it and seem genuinely interested in the different things I've done. It demonstrates a pretty wide range of skills and versatility.
  
  Yeah the place I'm at now was like 'great your somebody that we can move around/learn things'

If you find blood on someone who is incapable of verbalizing if they're injured or in pain, consider if they had a dark red jello with lunch before you carefully inspect their entire body looking for the injury.
- Corollary: if you feel fine but appear to be shitting blood, consider whether you ate beets recently. (And same for your baby/small child)
  
  That... Happened to me more times than I would like. :-D
- If in Canada consider Ketchup chips. Fuck you Stacie you scared the shit out of me.
- Uh ooh 🤣

Don't Panic
- This frood knows where his towel is.

You may not be the smartest person in the room, but if you are well prepared you can certainly look like you are.
- All you need is to be silent, and a subtle grin on your face. Talk only when asked, talk short and clear.

Most "rules of thumb" become awful advice when used indiscriminately.
People assign slightly different meanings to the same words. You need to acknowledge this to understand what they say.
Words also change meaning depending on the context.
When you still don't get what someone else said, it's often more useful to think that you're lacking a key piece of info than to assume that the other person does.
Hell is paved with good intentions. This piece of advice is popular, but still not heard enough.
Related to the above: if someone in your life is consistently rushing towards conclusions, based on little to no information, minimise the impact of that person in your life.
Have at least one recipe using leftovers of other recipes. It'll reduce waste.
Alcohol vinegar is bland, boring, and awful for cooking. But it's a great cleaning agent.
Identify what you need to keep vs. throw away. Don't "default" this indiscriminately, analyse it on a per case basis.
The world does not revolve around your belly button and nature won't "magically" change because of your feelings.
You can cultivate herbs in a backyard. No backyard? Flower pots. No flower pots? Old margarine pot. (Check which herbs grow well where you live.)
- That vinegar one feels way too specific to have come about naturally. Did that happen to you at one time?
  
  Long story short: someone else's advice ITT reminded me a uni professor talking about a student hurting themself with glacial acetic acid. That reminded me how often I'm using alcohol vinegar for cleaning (alcohol vinegar is basically one part of glacial acetic acid for 24 parts of water), but I don't see people doing it often - instead they often buy expensive cleaning agents that they use everywhere as "magical" solutions.
- When you still don't get what someone else said, it's often more useful to think that you're lacking a key piece of info than to assume that the other person does.
  This. Could be a difference between a Fiona and a Karen. It's okay to always ask for a clarification. (Or just repeat what they said, LOUDER, only for them to feel like they are being trolled 😂, and successfully clarify)

When you feel out of control in life, identify where you have agency and focus your efforts there.

If something breaks and there is no warranty and cost of repairs are to much. Repair it yourself. You don't know how? What you gonna do break it again?
- Unless it's something dangerous and you don't know what you're doing. Don't want to get a garage door spring to the face
  
  Microwave repairs are a good bad advice to give to people you don't like as well
  
  You mean to the brain
  
  The trick is knowing what's dangerous. I feel that a lot of people I've met have a poor handle on this :D
- Very good advice. There is probably someone on YouTube that had the same problem and filmed their repair. Ive repaired an AC unit and a garbage disposal this way.
  
  I recently changed out the alternator in my car by watching/following YouTube videos! Saved me $500. Never touched a car engine in my life before then.
  
  How I got into phonerepairs. Ovens , cars, and minor plumbing to name a few things

I think my favorite allegory is the "We'll See Farmer".
Once upon a time, there was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically, “you must be so sad.” “We’ll see,” the farmer replied. The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it two other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed. “Not only did your horse return, but you received two more. What great fortune you have!” “We’ll see,” answered the farmer. The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune. “Now your son cannot help you with your farming,” they said. “What terrible luck you have!” “We’ll see,” replied the old farmer. The following week, military officials came to the village to conscript young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. “Such great news. You must be so happy!” The man smiled to himself and said once again. “We’ll see.”
Only time can yield the ramifications of an event. There is no luck, good or bad. Things happen. On balance, they are neither good nor bad, just events to be dealt with. Be patient and continue doing the best you are able to with any given circumstances. I have always tried to keep a goal in mind and move through life's circumstances in the vague direction of those goals. Things have happened that have ended up having positive impacts, and things have had negative. None of them were clear at the time and only in hindsight can I see which were which.

“proofread before submitting”

Read books to your toddlers

You can't change people
- This. Rather than try to demand behaviour change, find ways to change the environment.
  A employee who is notoriously late won't suddenly fix their behavior. Instead, schedule for them to arrive 15 mins earlier to "help out". If they come earlier, great! If they're late... They're less late than average.
  Or just fire them.

It's all class struggle.

It's never too early or too late to do that thing you've been meaning to
- 4 AM is definitely one or the other.
- I was meaning to touch my toes before the year 2000. How is it not too late?
  
  It's not too late to stop being pedantic anyway :o
  
  Definitely didn't mean this

You’re good enough. Start where you are.

Being polite costs you nothing but may buy you much.
- Alternatively, being angry may cost you some elevated blood pressure but may buy you so much.

Buy a fire extinguisher (type ABC is best for home use), and check its pressure regularly. Many of them come with a simple wall mount that is very convenient.
Also, NEVER add water to a grease fire. It will explode.
- Adding to this, depending on where you live you might be able to get a free fire extinguisher from your local fire department. One fire extinguisher in a kitchen turns a three engine call into a one engine call.

I am a big fan of the advice CGP Grey gives regarding solutions.
Don’t pick the first solution that comes to mind for a problem, it is most likely the least effective.

Memento mori.
- I usually twist this into "memento mori, quoque uiuere" (remember [that you'll] die, also [that you'll] live).
  Like, not trying to become worm food full of regrets is nice and dandy, but remember that you'll suffer the consequences of a few of your actions while you're still alive.
- It's Latin and it says we must all die
  But I tried it for a while, it's a load of boring shit
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3r0JIXVabk
  
  It’s Latin and it says we must all die
  There's no "must": it states for a fact that you're to die, not that you should/need/must.
  A rough translation would be "remember that you'll die", or "remember that you are to die" (keeping the infinitive). Or even "remember death", it's close enough in spirit.
  fons: egomet, latine loquor.
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  https://www.piped.video/watch?v=Y3r0JIXVabk
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

When someone has had a health issue, ask the people around them how those people are doing. When I was first diagnosed with epilepsy, a person asked my mom specifically how she was doing. She hadn't really stopped to reflect on her own emotional state because she had been so focused on me. It was a great comfort to have someone guide her through thinking about herself.

Water dripping? Don’t call a plumber yet. Get on your hands and knees and try to figure out exactly where the water is coming from. You might need a $5 part and 10 minutes watching a YouTube video instead of a $400 callout. The same concept applies for most things in a home or vehicle. But don’t screw around with electricity if you don’t know what you’re doing.
If you’re shopping around based on price, make sure you’re factoring in the cost of gas and your time. Driving an hour to save $5 actually costs you money.
Need to quickly determine if a caller is a scammer or legitimate? Just ask who they’re calling. If they don’t know your name, you can hang up immediately.
Maintain your things. All your things. If you use something until it’s no longer working, it has moved from inexpensive maintenance to expensive repair.
- Life's a DIY

Being really good at the intersection of two different things is often a much more valuable skill set than being excellent at just one thing.
Exist outside the box.
- Noted

Don't put WiFi dongle and wireless mouse dongle in neighbouring USBs, they are probably working at the same frequency and will interfere with each other.
- Use cable stuff as much as possible

Live a little. We'll all die at some point.

Always remember that on any given day several people are having a shitty day.

Learn to let things go, you're not special.

Don't believe the hype.

What do you mean by 'buck buying'? I've never heard this term before.
- I think they mean buying in bulk.
- Probably an autocorrect from bulk buying
- Bulk
- Guessing it's a typo of "bulk" buying.
- bulk buying
- Is supposed to be 'bulk buying', I assume.

"A man's mind changed against his will is of the same opinion still."
The only argument you win is the one you avoid.

Life exists within the grey area that is constantly bombarded by polarized extremism. Don’t buy into the “all” mentality. Because in reality it’s always just “some.”

Put the seat of your toiled down before you flush if you don't want to end up with shit microparticles on your toothbrush.

193 comments