Reading an old code book from the 80s and one rule blew my mind

Found my grandpa's NEC book from 1984. The ampacity for 12-gauge NM cable was 20 amps back then, not 15. That changes how you look at a lot of old wiring. Anyone else run into old codes that would fail today?

Vent: Tried the 'no salt until the end' pasta water thing and it was a total fail

I saw a bunch of posts saying to only salt your pasta water right before it finishes cooking, so I tried it on a batch of fresh fettuccine. The pasta came out tasting flat and the texture felt off, like it didn't absorb anything. I did a side-by-side test the next day with my usual heavily salted boiling water from the start, and the difference was night and day. Has anyone else actually cooked with this method and gotten a good result, or is it just theory?

My neighbor in Springfield swears by her 'secret' pie crust recipe, but it's just the one from the back of the Crisco box.

She brings it to every block party and acts like it's some family heirloom. I recognized it because my grandma used that exact recipe for forty years. It's a good, solid crust, but the mystery is gone once you've seen the yellow shortening tin. Anyone else have a local legend whose secret isn't so secret?

TIL a client can't just 'pay you later' if you didn't agree first

I finished a website build for a local bakery, and the owner said 'the check is in the mail' for the final $1200. Two weeks go by, nothing. I called, and they said they were waiting for their own client to pay THEM first. I never put payment terms in our email agreement, so now I'm stuck waiting. Some freelancers say you should always get a signed contract with clear due dates, but others say that scares off small clients. Has anyone else had a client try to make their cash flow problem YOUR problem?

Got schooled on hydrangeas at a wedding in Asheville

I was doing the flowers for a big wedding at the Biltmore last weekend, and the head gardener saw me dunking the hydrangea stems in hot water (like I always do). He quietly said, 'Try ice water next time, they hold up better in the heat.' I switched a few stems to ice water as a test, and by the end of the night, they looked way fresher than the others. Has anyone else found a better trick for keeping hydrangeas from wilting fast?

Watched the new Trigun remake after binging the 90s version last month

The old one just felt deeper, you know? Vash's goofy act in the 1998 series hid real pain that hit harder. The new animation is slick, but it rushed through the July incident in like two episodes. I miss the slow build. Anyone else think some remakes just lose the original's soul?

Spent three hours yesterday because I forgot a single semicolon

I was writing a simple function in JavaScript to add two numbers together. Everything looked right, but the console kept throwing an 'unexpected token' error. I checked my brackets, my variable names, everything. I finally found it after scrolling line by line for way too long. I'd missed the semicolon at the end of the line where I declared the function. Anyone have a good trick for catching these tiny syntax mistakes faster?

Okay, the constant 'lost city of Atlantis' hype every time they find a submerged settlement is getting old

It's not some mythical advanced civilization, it's usually just a Bronze Age port that sank from rising sea levels or an earthquake. Like the recent find off the coast of Croatia, they're calling it a 'mini-Atlantis' when it's clearly just Roman docks. Does anyone else get annoyed when media does this for clicks?

I thought letting cake layers cool in the pan was fine, but my last batch proved me wrong

I mean, I was always in a rush and would just leave my vanilla cake in the metal pan for like 45 minutes. The last time I did it, the edges got super dense and gummy, almost like a rubber band. I finally tried the wire rack method my friend kept pushing, and the texture was way lighter and even. Has anyone else had a cake turn out weird just from cooling it wrong?

Warning: The new BBQ joint in Austin is using pellet smokers for their brisket, and the bark just isn't right.