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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: October 3rd, 2023

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  • Thanks for the expert advice! I didn’t realize sheet bends were so suspect, I’ll have to research the knots you described.

    Hmmm, maybe I tied the butterfly wrong or am remembering it wrong. I’ll have to play with it and see, it’s honestly been a year or two since I’ve put one under load.

    And thanks for the disclaimer! Yeah I didn’t mean to make it sound so easy to help someone with knots, I’ve never actually used a bowline for this purpose, I’ve just heard it explained that way for emergency use. But I agree it’d have to be an extreme emergency to risk using the wrong equipment or technique, better to just wait for proper help if it’s safe to do so.

    All of my experience is just novice stuff with Paracord, etc etc. My rock climbing experience is all just indoor bouldering 😬

    Thanks again!


  • I’ll add to this, know how to use good rope, learn a few knots, and you’ll be surprised at how often you use them even in your daily life.

    My favorites, and thus my recommendations, are these, in order of usefulness.

    1. The Bowline. Obviously. It’s one of the most versatile knots you can make. You use it to create a loop around something, and that loop will not move. It will not tighten or loosen, it can support your body weight and more. It’s often used to haul people up when they’ve fallen into a crevice or hole, because a noose would tighten around your chest and hurt you on the way up, but a Bowline will not.

    And, if you need a noose, you can make a small looped Bowline, and pull the lead line through it to make a noose that will self tighten on whatever your putting it around.

    Best of all, the Bowline is easy to remove. You know how hard a regular square knot is to undo? Especially if you’ve pulled it really tight? A Bowline knot, by design, is always easier to undo, even if it’s seen hundreds of pounds of load. It really is the best knot, in my opinion.

    If you can only learn one knot, make it a Bowline.

    1. Truckers hitch. I use this knot all the time. Have you ever tried to use rope to tie something down? And no matter how tight you pull the rope, by the time you’re done making the knot, the rope has slipped a bit, and it’s looser than you’d like? Especially annoying when trying to put up a clothes line at camp, and it’s all droopy.

    Enter the truckers hitch. This knot let’s you cinch the rope up super tight, and lock it in place, so it stays that way. Plus the finished knot always has a tail you can pull to easily undo it. This is useful for clotheslines, hammocks, tying stuff to your truck or bike, plenty of uses, easily my second favorite knot. Tied for first, practically.

    1. Sheet bend. Have a rope that’s too short? Need to extend it a bit to get the job done? Sheet bend, double or triple sheet bend depending on the load. Easily connects two ropes together, and comes undone easy enough when you need it to, unlike if you just used two square knots.

    .

    1. Clove Hitch. Quickly and easily tie the end of a rope to a circular object like a pole or tree. Goes on easy, comes off easy.

    .

    1. Butterfly. Make a non sliding loop anywhere in the middle of a rope. Don’t load the rope too hard though, this knot can be tough to undo.

    .

    1. Spike hitch, similar to butterfly, but more likely to slide, tightens like a noose on whatever you loop through it under load, but has a wide variety of uses that become more apparent the more you play with rope and knots. Fun fact, this knot is easy to learn, because it’s the basis for the Bowline and truckers hitch.

    There’s definitely more knots to learn, and others will have opinions on which ones are the best. But these are my favorites. Just learning the first two will be extremely helpful to you.

    Edit: wow that formatting really got away from me. I’m on mobile, so I’m leaving it, sorry


  • Window units are the best bang for the buck. Don’t worry about expensive ones, $100 goes a LONG way to cooling one bedroom. And it’s cheaper than doing the whole house.

    We have a big in wall unit in our apartment that can do the whole living space, but we hardly ever run it. We just run the bedroom one, set to like 70-75f, just to take the humidity out and chill it down a bit. A nice place to go cool down if you get hot while doing things around the house. We don’t run it when we’re not home, because even the cheapest Menards special can cool the room down in minutes, and it’s cheaper to not run it when we don’t need it.

    Beware of the units with the hose… You’re paying more, and trading the convenience of not lugging a big unit into the window (small ones really aren’t that bad), for the inconvenience of having to dump the water (unless you pay more for one that can pump it out the window).

    But by far the worst thing about the hose units, if they only have one exhaust hose, and no return hose? They are less efficient, because they create negative pressure in your house that sucks hot air in through every crack.

    For more information see here.


  • Upvoting for visibility, but this seems insane and impossible to me. When I take a cold shower, I can feel the water stealing the heat from my back, because it’s warmer when it hits my legs. It’s crazy.

    It’s definitely taking heat away, for me, and I would die if I tried to take a hot shower on a hot day.

    I start with a warm shower, like normal, then slowly turn it down until it’s nice and cool, almost cold. But not ice cold. Feel way better afterwards.










  • Oh man, I don’t know how this could be true. I work manual labor, in sneakers. I spend all summer recreational time in either flip flops or barefoot. So while I don’t have huge callouses on my feet, I’ve got some. Not tender baby feet.

    But still, one day it was like 70 or 80 out, I changed out fancy clothes into shorts, but forgot to pack my flip flops. I really wanted to walk down to an event that was going on, but I didn’t want to wear black fancy shoes with my shorts. So I went barefoot on the sidewalk, about 3/4 of a mile.

    I did like you said and walked in the grass a lot, but man the concrete was hotter than I expected. It didn’t hurt at first, but each new step I took found freshly warmed concrete that just heated my foot more. Keeping moving definitely wasn’t helping. Eventually it started to hurt, even with walking in as much grass as I could.

    I got to where I was going, grass covered area, and didn’t think too much of it.

    When I went to leave? Oh man. My feet hurt. Looking at them closely, I had several blisters on both feet. I cooked em. I couldn’t walk back, I had to call my friend to pick me up.

    That was on regular concrete. I cannot imagine doing that on asphalt, I wouldn’t make it a hundred feet.

    Maybe I really do have tender baby feet 🤔




  • As far as I understand it, you shouldn’t put peroxide on most, or maybe even any, wounds. It indiscriminately kills good and bad bacteria as well as your body’s cells. So it can make the wound take much longer to heal.

    Similar, but I think different, with iodine. You shouldn’t use it in most cases.

    The recommendation is to use warm soapy water to rinse/clean the wound really good. That’s all.

    If the wound is deep enough or gnarly enough that this doesn’t seem reasonable? Well, peroxide wasn’t gonna help you anyway, go to the doctor.

    I’m happy to be wrong here, to be corrected. But this is how I understand it.

    Also I do keep peroxide in my cupboard, as well as rubbing alcohol. Their uses just aren’t for wounds.