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[knitting fails] Slouchy hat turns into a "mushroom"
  • Did you use the same yarn the pattern called for? Yours looks like a chunkier yarn with less drape which would definitely effect the fit.

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    [US] End of year PF tasks
  • As a retiree, my main EOY goal is to manufacture income for ACA and tax purposes. I also rebalance my allocations as needed.

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    [US] Consider a brokerage account for your main bank
  • I'll second this. I ditched my bank for Fidelity three years ago. So far no issues. Their web interface for bill pay isn't as nice but its functional. Its also nice at tax time because I only need to wait for the one 1099.

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    Knitting resources for beginners
  • I've been knitting for ten years and charts give me a headache trying to decipher. I can work them but it takes a lot more mental work for me...so I stick to written patterns.

    When I was first learning, someone suggested trying to learn new skills with each project. I think a hat would be a good next step and then maybe mittens. Once you can master mittens, sweaters aren't that much different skill-wise. Just take it step by step and come back with questions if you get stuck.

    Another recommendation,when you find a good tutorial for some skill don't forget to bookmark it. It usually takes me several projects to remember new techniques. If I forget to bookmark the good tutorial I wind up getting frustrated and wasting time sorting through all the bad tutorials.

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    What's you plan for your digital legacy?
  • In the US it can even vary by state. Dying without a will or transfer on death assets can be a nightmare for the deceased family. My father died without a will and my mother and I spent a year jumping through hoops and dealing with lawyers trying to get everything straightened out.

    I encourage everyone to take a look at their local laws related to the subject. You may be surprised at how things would work out without some planning on your part.

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    Trump calls for the return of mental institutions
  • Yep, that was the first thing I thought of after reading the headline. I read 'The woman who.would not be silenced' and it left a big impression on me.

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    Your ‘Set It and Forget It’ 401(k) Made You Rich. No More. — WSJ
  • I couldn't get past the pay wall to read the article buy I don't put much stock in people trying to forecast the future. They have no clue what the future brings.

    With that said, I don't think were seeing any more turmoil than at other points in history. If you look back at history there have been major disruptions about every decade (give or take) with more minor static in between. Covid, financial crisis, 911, gulf wars, oil embargo, Vietnam war, Korean war...etc.

    People that thrive over time have their investments diversified and adjust as circumstances dictate. Setting and forgetting may not yield optimal returns but you'd probably do just fine long term. The key phrase is long term. I'm talking 40-50 years not just a few years.

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  • Opinions on Gnucash

    Is anyone using Gnucash? I've been on a kick of streamlining my finances and want to simplify from my current spreadsheet for tracking expenses. I have seen Gnucash mentioned around and am considering it. Is it easy to use and import transactions from credit cards?

    I hate manually entering each purchase because I invariably typo an amount somewhere and spend hours at the end of the month trying to figure out why I don't balance.

    I've downloaded it and tried playing with it but it seems clunky. I'm wondering if it gets easier once you get past the learning curve. Thoughts/experiences?

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    [NEW TECHNIQUE] Knitting Two at a Time
  • It's not that bad if you have a nice cable without memory (I use chiagoo). It takes a bit of practice but once you get the hang of it ...it's great. I've been obsessed with socks and mittens lately. This technique makes perfectly matched pairs with less row counting and tension differences.

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    Advice for Helping Older Person with Spam
  • I dramatically reduced my spam by switching to proton email and requesting removal at the big data brokers. Inteltechniques.com has a list of data brokers and how to request removal of each. There are a ton of brokers but I just did the big 6-8 brokers that they recommend starting with. I went from hundreds of spam a day down to 20-30. YMMV.

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    Did Michael Bazzell, really, join a KPop group?
  • Yep I've been working through the old shows and remember him talking about that. This was weird that all the episodes were removed..even recent ones. I just found his podcast so I'm hoping its just a temporary hiccup.

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    Did Michael Bazzell, really, join a KPop group?
  • The podcast is currently down. A new show was published the other day and then quickly deleted as well as all the old shows. It's not clear whats going on with it....legal or technical issue.

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    If you work remotely, your bosses are probably using software to track you. Here's how they'll catch you slacking off.
  • This can go way beyond 'tracking' software. I used to write software that my company used in its core business activities. Almost everyone in the company used some portion of this software. The logging for that system included timestamps and user IDs the captured general high level activities. If we had a system issue we could ramp up the logging to much more granular levels. If mgmt asked we could query the logs and get a pretty good idea of how much or little you were using the system. That wasn't the main intent for the logging but it had been used for employee performance monitoring on more than one occasion.. In all my years of coding, every app I worked on had similar logging.

    If you are on a work PC, assume your activity can be monitored and/or logged in some fashion.

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    Anyone else find the TV series, “Witness to Murder: Digital Evidence”, to be interesting from a privacy standpoint?
  • Oh yeah. Don't fuck with cats was great. I guess I knew in theory that sort of thing was possible but to seeing real implications was a serious gut check. It made me seriously consider my online activity and things that I was revealing g unintentionally.

    Edited for grammar

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