u/ju015

Been tracking this for about 3 months now. The guys from RenewCo Solar installed a 10kWh battery system at my place back in March and the numbers have been pretty solid. Average daily solar generation is sitting around 2832 kWh depending on weather, and the battery is covering roughly 85% of my overnight usage. Monthly grid draw dropped from ~620 kWh down to about 90 kWh. That's a real difference on the bill.

The install itself was straightforward, no issues. They handled everything from permits to commissioning.

Genuinely happy with how it's performing so far, especially the overnight coverage numbers.

For anyone who's done something similar, what storage capacity did you end up going with, and did your actual output match the estimates you got before install?

Invoices from my lawyer are stacking up. Can't pay them. Wanted to use the house equity but the bank locked the mortgage until the separation paperwork is 100% done. Just a stupid situation where I need money to get the papers signed, but can't get the money without the papers.

Looking at those deferred finance options now where everything gets settled from the house sale at the very end. Found JustFund New Zealand online while searching. Rates look to be around 10-13% plus setup and monthly fees.

Main upside is zero out-of-pocket costs right now, which is great for weekly cash flow since living on one income is tight. But the compounding interest makes me nervous.

Has anyone actually used this specific litigation funding before? Wondering if the fees are alright or if I should just try for a standard personal loan from a regular lender.

paid a builder from adelaide $8k deposit for a patio extension back in february. he came out, measured up, gave me a quote, took the deposit for materials. said he'd start in 3 weeks.

that was 4 months ago. i've called him maybe 50 times. texts go nowhere. drove past his house and his ute isn't there anymore. his office phone is disconnected.

i checked and his abn is still active but the address is just a po box. i feel so stupid. he was recommended by a friend who said he did good work for them a couple years ago. but now i can't find him anywhere.

i looked up my options online and found Sterling Legal who deal with construction disputes. but i don't even know if they'd take a case this small. $8k is a lot to me but probably nothing to a lawyer.

has anyone in SA actually recovered money from a builder who just disappears. is it worth going to sascat or should i just take the loss. feeling pretty cooked.

Idk if it's just a weird phase but i've been tracking some white opal auctions the past couple of weeks trying to grab a nice pocket stone and the price variance is just wild.

Like, i see some solid white pieces with beautiful neon green fire going for super cheap, and then others that look way more dull get into crazy bidding wars. Is it just random competition between buyers on these sites or has the demand for white and light material actually spiked recently? I always thought dark/black opals had the crazy premiums but the light stuff is confusing me so much right now lol. Anyone else noticing this?

i haven't been to the dentist in like 4 years. not because i don't care about my teeth but because i literally can't handle it. the sounds. the smells the feeling of someone's hands in my mouth. i start sweating just thinking about it.тlast year i made an appointment and got all the way to the parking lot. sat in my car for 20 minutes then drove home.

my teeth are starting to hurt now and i know i need to go but the fear is so much stronger than the pain. i feel pathetic. like i'm an adult and i can't handle a simple cleaning.

does anyone have advice on how to actually get through this? i need real advice not just just go it's not that bad because i've tried that and it didn't work

So I had a session last week that humbled me in a way I wasn't expecting. Been surfing about four years now, feeling pretty comfortable on overhead waves, starting to hunt out some bigger swells. Then last Tuesday I paddled into what looked like a clean set wave, got pitched on the takeoff, and got worked harder than I ever have before. Multiple hold downs, lost my board, swam in on fumes.

The thing is I've been in bigger wipeouts before, but something about this one just sat with me differently. I spent the whole drive home genuinely questioning whether I'd been overestimating my ability this whole time. Like had I just been getting lucky until now.

I talked to a more experienced guy at the beach and he basically said every surfer hits that wall at some point where the ocean reminds you who's actually in charge. Said it either makes you smarter or makes you quit.

Curious where other people are at with this. Have you had a single wipeout or session that made you step back and honestly reassess your level? Did it change how you approach bigger surf after that, or did you shake it off and paddle straight back out? Would love to hear how others dealt with that mental reset moment.

Long time lurker, first time poster. Finally committed to a proper overnight brisket cook this past weekend and wanted to share the details since this community has taught me so much.

Cut: 14 lb prime packer from Costco. Trimmed to about a quarter inch fat cap, removed the hard fat between the flat and point as best I could.

Rub: Simple salt and pepper, about 60/40 ratio, applied the night before and left uncovered in the fridge for a 12 hour dry brine.

Wood: Post oak splits the whole way through. Ran my offset between 225 and 250 for the entire cook.

Total time: About 18 hours on the smoker, then a 6 hour rest wrapped in butcher paper inside a preheated cooler.

What went right: Bark turned out incredible. Deep mahogany color, serious bitethrough texture. The flat stayed surprisingly moist, which has always been my struggle.

What went wrong: Lost my fire around 3am and temps dropped to 180 for almost an hour before I caught it. Pushed through and honestly could not tell the difference in the final product.

Biggest lesson: The rest is not optional. Previous cooks I was impatient and cut it short. Six hours made a noticeable difference in moisture and slice integrity.

Anyone else had a temp drop midcook and recovered clean? Curious how common that is.

just started a new dev contract and the onboarding paperwork is an absolute nightmare. they sent over like 5 different heavily protected NDAs and tax forms that completely break evince on my pop installation. literally every time I try to click a form field to type my name, the whole document viewer just freezes up

I was about two seconds away from spinning up a windows VM just to fill out a damn w4. I ended up just dragging all the files into xodo sign in firefox so I could just sign them in the browser and email them back without dealing with local pdf rendering issues

Its just wild to me that companies still send out these weird proprietary adobe-locked pdfs that assume everyone is running windows. how do you guys usually handle heavy corporate paperwork on pop without breaking out a windows machine? ngl it's the one thing about desktop linux that still randomly gives me a headache tbh

We all have that one session that put us in our place. The one where you paddled out feeling confident, maybe even a little cocky, and the ocean quickly reminded you who's actually in charge out there.

For me it was a solid overhead day at a beach break I thought I knew well. Took off late on a set wave, got pitched, and held down through two more waves rolling over me. Nothing crazy by experienced surfer standards, but enough to make me swim in, sit on the sand, and genuinely reconsider my life choices for about twenty minutes.

After that session I started being a lot more honest with myself about my skill level versus the conditions I was paddling out in. I also started watching the sets a lot longer before committing.

Curious what experiences other people have had that genuinely shifted their mindset or changed how they approach surfing. Did it make you more cautious, push you to improve, or both? And did you go back out that same day or did you call it?

No judgment here regardless of skill level. I think these moments shape you as a surfer more than any good session does.

I’m looking for some real natural opal. Not necessarily high-end or expensive, just proper 100% genuine stuff with no synthetics.

I do a lot of jewelry work with synthetics but my client wants the real deal this time. Will get it from Opal Auctions for sure but there are so many sellers so my question is: does anyone have recommendations for trusted ones?

Would really appreciate any tips!

Fogo Island in Newfoundland and Labrador caught me off guard.

Went in early fall and it felt like standing at the edge of the world, just jagged rock, tiny fishing villages, and ocean forever. Barely saw anyone on the trails.

Been running a basic bot for a while now, RSI and MA crossover on a few FX pairs, but it works. the problem isn't the strategy, it's the infrastructure.

Keeping MetaTrader alive on a Windows VPS 24/7 is honestly exhausting. Terminal crashes, random updates breaking the EA, connections dropping overnight. I probably spend more time checking if the thing is still running than actually improving how it trades.

found some kind of HTTP bridge that lets you execute trades on MT4/5 without keeping the terminal open. Didn't even know that was possible outside of the brokerside manager API stuff. Looks interesting but haven't gone deep on it yet.

Is this a known approach people use? Or is the general consensus just to deal with EAs and accept the VPS headaches? Curious if anyone has moved away from the terminalbased setup entirely

been running a small baking business from my kitchen for about a year now. Cupcakes, cakes, that sort of thing. most word of mouth and some Instagram. last month I get a DM from a guy asking if he could stop by to discuss a large order. I said sure, gave him my local coffee shops address because I dont meet clients at home.he shows up at my house anyway. said he found it online and figured he'd save us both the trip. took everything in me not to lose it right there.went down a rabbit hole after that. googled my name and there it was. my full home address. On Whitepages, Spokeo, Radaris, a bunch of sites Ive never heard of. also my phone number and my last two addresses. even my boyfriend's name lol.I never put any of that online not once.turns out when you register a business, even as a sole proprietor, your name gets linked to your address through public records. property tax stuff then data brokers scrape that, cross reference it with other databases, and list it like it's no big deal. now I'm trying to get it all taken down. what I've learned so far that might help someone else-

manual opt outs exist but they're a pain. whitepages took me 15 minutes and a phone verification. some sites want you to mail a handwritten letter. one of them asked for a notarized request. For a website. In 2025. even when you get removed, they just add you back later. because the public records never change.

people keep telling me to try removal services but I don't know if they're worth it. do they keep your info off long term or is it the same cycle but with a subscription fee?has anyone here solved this permanently?. I don't want to spend every three months re-opting out of 20 different sites while trying to run an actual business.not loking for just use a PO box answers. I have one didn't help. The damage is already out there.real advice please,thanks

I’ve been using the 17 Pro for a few weeks now and the performance is honestly kind of wild. After all the hype about the vapor chamber cooling and the 12GB of RAM, I didn't think I'd actually "feel" the difference in daily use, but the thermal management is a game changer, it stays cool even when I’m pushing it with heavy apps or multitasking. It feels less like a minor refresh and more like the "pro" tool it was meant to be.

No deep stuff just pure, irrational judgment.

I keep seeing really divided opinions on this, and I’m curious how people who actually like cars feel about it

on one side, modern muscle cars are obviously faster, safer, more reliable, and way more usable on a daily basis. They’ve got tech, comfort, and performance numbers that older cars just can’t match

but on the other side, a lot of people say the older muscle cars had something you can’t really measure raw feel, simplicity, sound, and a kind of personality that modern cars lose because of electronics and regulation

So I’m wondering where you stand on it. Do you think modern muscle cars are a clear improvement overall, or do you think they lost something important in the process? And if you had to pick just one to own and drive long-term, which direction would you go and why?