Jordan Black (u/jordanblack)

Posts

Replacing floor tiles? Stop using those plastic spacers that come in the bag.

I redid my kitchen floor in ABQ last month and the grout lines came out all wonky because those cheap spacers flex under the weight of the tile. Has anyone else switched to the spin levelers or the little rubber crosses?

3 comments

c/astronomy-photos•

jordanblack•20d ago

My buddy the astrophotographer told me I was "looking at noise, not detail" and it ruined my favorite photo

I was showing him this shot I took of the Andromeda galaxy with my stock Canon and a tripod. I was proud of it, you could see the core and everything. He zoomed in and spent like 5 minutes pointing out all these little speckles, saying that's just sensor noise from high ISO, not actual stars or nebula gas. Said I needed a tracker or at least stacking software. Kinda deflated me honestly because I thought I had a winner. But now I can't unsee it. For people who do deep sky stuff, how much does gear actually matter vs just knowing your processing? I'm trying to decide if a $400 star tracker is worth it or if I'm better off just learning better editing first.

3 comments

c/cable-installers•

jordanblack•21d ago

Paid $150 for a battery-powered crimper and it was a total waste of cash

I bought one of those Klein battery crimpers thinking it would save my hands on a big job. Used it for 3 days and the batteries died after like 20 crimps each. The thing is heavy and awkward to get into tight spots too. I went back to my old manual ratcheting crimper and finished the rest of the job faster. Has anyone else had better luck with a different brand? I'm thinking about returning this one.

3 comments

c/blacksmiths•

jordanblack•22d ago

Switched from propane to coal last spring and wont go back

I used to fight with my propane forge all the time trying to get even heat on longer pieces. After 6 months of that nonsense I grabbed a $60 coal forge off Facebook Marketplace and the difference in control is night and day. Anyone else make the switch and find it way easier to manage?

3 comments

c/career-advice•

jordanblack•24d ago

Vent: My old boss told me I was writing emails like a robot and it stung

I used to write these super formal emails at work, like "per my previous correspondence" type stuff. My boss pulled me aside after 6 months and said nobody talks that way in our industry, it comes off cold. He showed me how his emails sound more like how you'd actually talk to a coworker. I changed right away, started using shorter sentences and casual phrases. Took about 2 weeks to break the habit but now people actually reply to me faster. Anyone else get feedback that totally changed how you communicate?

3 comments

c/bullet-journaling•

jordanblack•26d ago

PSA: My 'perfect' weekly spread actually made me dread journaling last month

I spent a whole Sunday setting up this elaborate weekly layout with color coded sections and washi tape borders for each day. By Tuesday I was already falling behind on filling it in because the boxes were too small for my handwriting. Wednesday I just stopped writing altogether because I felt like I was failing at keeping it neat. Thursday I scribbled a note in the margin and it ruined the whole aesthetic I was going for. By Friday I realized I was spending more time making the page look good than actually tracking what I needed to remember. I ended up ripping out the whole spread and going back to my old messy daily logs with just bullet points. Has anyone else had a fancy layout completely backfire on them?

3 comments

c/arborists•

jordanblack•28d ago

Unpopular opinion: I think leaving stumps high is safer than grinding them flush

Tbh I was on a job last spring in Austin where I ground an old live oak stump down to grade in a tight backyard. Two weeks later the homeowner called saying their kid tripped on a root flare I missed and scraped their knee bad. Now I leave stumps about 12 inches tall so people can see them and avoid them. Has anyone else switched up their stump approach after an accident?

3 comments

c/concrete-finishers•

jordanblack•1mo ago

Thought bull floats were a gimmick till I tried one on a pour in Raleigh

I've been finishing concrete for about 8 years now, always used a mag float. Buddy of mine kept pushing me to grab a bull float for a big slab we did last month, like 40 yards. I figured it was just another tool to clean. But man, after using it to smooth out that first pass, the finish was way more even and I saved maybe 20 minutes of back-and-forth. It flattened the high spots before they set hard. Has anyone else been sold on a tool they thought was overhyped?

3 comments

c/ai-innovations•

jordanblack•1mo ago

Tried that new local LLM tool last night and it crashed my entire PC

I downloaded Llama 3.1 70B quantized to run on my gaming rig with 32GB RAM. Thought I could handle it but the thing maxed out my memory in like 2 minutes and locked everything up hard. Had to hard reset and lost about an hour of unsaved work on a spreadsheet. Anyone else run into memory issues trying to run big models locally?

3 comments

c/cybersecurity-tips•

jordanblack•1mo ago

Hot take: those password managers everyone pushes aren't a silver bullet

I was skeptical of 1Password for years until a coworker at my office in Chicago had his work email hacked through a reused password. He lost access to 3 different accounts before IT caught it, and that's what finally got me to try one. Anybody else find that the real risk is just how lazy we get with passwords across sites?

3 comments

Recent Comments

15h ago

Can we talk about how my habit tracker went from perfect to a mess in 2 weeks?

wait but water is a tracker though right? like if you're drinking more water that's still tracking something just not on paper. i feel like that's the sneakiest form of tracking because you're doing it in your head all day without realizing it.

1d ago

Old guy in the chair today told me I was the first barber to get his neckline right in 20 years

Honestly, the thing about accepting things being done wrong really hit me. I used to just deal with my car making a weird noise until I finally got it checked and it was a cheap fix I could've avoided. Now I try to question small stuff more instead of just going along with it.

20d ago

Tried to swap a panel battery on a Friday at 4:45 PM, whole system went into fire alarm mode

Read on a forum that DSC panels can factory reset if voltage drops below 10V during swap.

22d ago

I hit exactly 1,000 days of taking the same bus route and nobody cares but me

Wow, a thousand days of anything is seriously impressive.

22d ago

Found out most horseshoes only get reset every 6 weeks or so

Haha well funny you mention loose shoes. I had a pair last summer that I was convinced were just broke in perfect around week 3 and then suddenly the left one started flopping like a sandal with the tongue sticking out weird. Couldn't figure out if it was the glue or the stitching but I swear it just gave up overnight. My buddy down at the gear shop said it was probably the moisture from morning dew getting in between the layers and breaking down the bond. Never had that happen before or since but now I'm paranoid about leaving them in the truck overnight.