u/mitchare

just got our monthly invoice and I almost choked

40% increase. nothing changed. same workload, same number of calls, same storage. but somehow we're paying 40% more than last month.

I've spent the last 2 days digging through the billing dashboard. network egress. it's always network egress. we're serving recordings and call logs to agents all over the world and apparently that costs money a lot of money.

I'm looking at options compressed storage different regions. maybe even move to cold storage for older recordings. but I'm not sure if that's going to actually save us money or just shift the cost somewhere else

I swear, why does almost every "quick 5 min setup" video just tell you to run everything as root and chmod 777 your entire drive??

Spent my whole afternoon trying to figure out why my new containers were behaving weirdly after following some guy's guide. Turns out i basically left the front door to my OS wide open. Had to sit down and actually read a server mania breakdown on container security just to realize how badly i completely botched the basic permissions

if you are new to this stuff, pls don't blindly copy paste sudo commands from random tech bros without understanding what privileges you are actually giving away. My brain is melting

A translator friend played our demo last week and pointed out that three of our jokes would make zero sense outside English. Now I’m rethinking our localization plan before we launch.

It’s a dialogue-heavy RPG, roughly 18k words, and we’re considering FIGS plus Japanese first. I found allcorrectgames while checking how established teams handle translation and LQA, and their workflow looked promising. Still, I’m unsure whether a studio or separate freelancers would make more sense for a small team like ours. Maybe I’m overthinking this before the script is even locked.

For anyone who has hired localization help, what did you use to judge quality beyond a portfolio? Is a short paid test normal? Should we budget separately for in-game LQA, and what rates are realistic in 2026? I’d also appreciate recommendations from translators or localization teams with shipped game credits. No rev share - this would be paid work once our scope is finalized.

the commitment is wild. 4-6 hours a day strapped in. then measuring then tracking then worrying if you're doing it right.

using a basic extender. does what it's supposed to.

just the mental load of it all. some days i'm too tired to even bother. then i feel guilty for skipping.

anyone else feel like this takes over your life

been up here exactly three weeks and darwin is already humbling me.

Came up from melb for a 12 month govt contract. Honestly thought the hardest part of the move was going to be breaking my apartment lease down south, but that was weirdly the only smooth part of this entire circus (the property manager at ray white southbank just processed a lease transfer to a new tenant in like a day without making a huge fuss)

But man... nothing prepared me for the actual housing up here. what is the deal with louvre windows?? They literally don't seal. I can hear my neighbours breathing and there is a gecko living behind my bathroom mirror that I'm pretty sure is plotting against me

The main crisis though: I opened my wardrobe this morning and my good leather work shoes are literally growing white fuzz. is this just my life now?

do you guys just run the split systems 24/7 or is there some secret local trick with damp rid and moisture absorbers I don't know about? Terrified of what my first jacana energy bill is gonna look like tbh

Been grinding the job hunt for like 7 months now (marketing analyst, 4 years experience), and last night my friend laughed at me because I spent our whole Netflix night filling out the same Workday form 6 times in a row.

Out of frustration I started googling “automated job applications” at 1am and saw a bunch of tools that auto-apply on company career sites, answer screening questions, etc. One of them was called Jobity and a few others looked similar - you set up profiles and they just fire off apps all day.

On paper that sounds amazing, but I’m worried it’ll just blast low quality apps everywhere and get me flagged in some ATS blacklist or something. Maybe I’m looking at this the wrong way, but part of me feels like if everyone did this, recruiting would get even worse.

Has anyone here actually used these auto-apply services? Did it help, hurt, or just spam your inbox with rejections? Do recruiters hate seeing apps from those tools, or do they not even notice/care? Would you recommend trying it or avoiding it?

I’m a 27 y/o guy and I’ve been dealing with anxiety/depression stuff on and off since high school, but it’s been hitting harder lately. Trigger for this post was a convo with my sister last weekend where she casually said “you know you can just call someone, right?” and it kind of stuck in my head.

I’ve done therapy before (on and off) and I’m on meds, but there are nights where it’s like 2am, my brain is buzzing, and I just scroll in the dark instead of reaching out. I see people mention hotlines a lot and I was late-night googling, ended up on sites like mental health hotline and a few others, and it made me wonder if I’m missing out on a tool that could actually help in those moments.

For anyone who’s actually called a mental health hotline: what was it like? Did you feel judged or rushed? Did they just read from a script or did it feel like a real convo? Also, do you ever call even if you’re not in full-on crisis, just really struggling?

Maybe I’m overthinking this, but I’d really appreciate honest experiences or tips.

I run a small online shop for niche pet products (think picky-cat and anxious-dog type stuff). Last week a regular customer joked that my site “looks like 2014 but the treats slap,” and it kinda sent me down a late-night research spiral.

I ended up reading stuff like netpeak.us and now my feed is full of AI tools promising “predictive this, sentiment that.” I get the theory, but I’m not sure if I’m thinking about this the right way for a small store with limited budget and time.

Has anyone here actually used AI for things like forecasting search trends, personalizing emails, or tweaking product pages specifically for pet owners? Did it move sales or just eat your time/cash?

If you were doing ~low 5 figures/month and wanted to reach 6, what would you focus on first - SEO, AI-driven ads, email personalization, or something else entirely? Any concrete tools or “do this first, skip that” advice would help a lot.

Extract from Title: Best way to clean up low-res SD renders without wrecking the vibe?

So I was showing some of my older SD renders to a friend on my crappy living room TV last night and wow... all the noise and mushy details really jumped out. Stuff that looked fine in the preview window suddenly looked like upscaled potato.

I’m mostly using SDXL + a few anime/realism LoRAs, and I often generate at like 768 on the long side, then upscale. The problem is, a lot of image “enhancers” either oversharpen or give that weird plastic skin / watercolor smudge. I don’t want to repaint everything in Photoshop every time.

I was googling around half-asleep and found sites like imglarge emage enhancer and a couple similar ones. They look decent on paper, but I can’t tell if they’re actually good for AI art or more for phone photos. Maybe I’m overthinking this, idk.

How are you guys cleaning up low-res SD outputs for prints or big screens in 2026? Any tools/workflows you swear by? Do you run them before or after upscaling, and how do you avoid that “AI filter” look?

i love relaxed bohemian style with natural fabrics and easy pieces i can wear every day. my favourite brands are free people, spell and a few smaller australian ones that have that same laid back feel. i used to spend ages hunting around different sites and sales to find them all in one place.

recently i found the freedom state and they had almost every brand i like in one spot with decent prices and free shipping over a certain amount. has anyone else found good online spots for this kind of clothing that actually have fair prices and regular sales? any other places worth checking for similar styles?

got silver earrings and a silver chain. but i've been looking at stainless steel bracelets and wondering if it'd look off mixing metals.

saw some clean ones that caught my eye. but i'm not sure if it's better to keep everything matching or if mixing is fine.

what do you guys do? all one metal or mix it up?

had this gem today. woman calls in absolutely furious. screaming about how she's been a loyal customer for over a decade and how dare we treat her this way.

I pull up her account. she signed up in march of this year. 10 years not even 10 months.

but the whole call is like this. she's yelling about how we changed our phone system and now she can't get through to anyone. I check the logs she was in queue for 47 seconds not even a minute. she hung up before anyone could pick up and then called back to complain about the wait.

the thing is, I knew she had called before because the system logs everything.

she's saying I'll take my business elsewhere and I'm just sitting there thinking. okay but you're not even a real customer yet. you've been here for like 8 months what exactly are you threatening.

I don't even respond to that anymore. I just say I'm sorry to hear that and move on. there's no point. anyway. just another day in customer service

running a small online kitchenware store and honestly the cash flow gaps lately are BRUTAL. stock flies out the door but suppliers want payment upfront with long lead times, so im constantly scrambling to cover orders while waiting on payments that always land like a week late. feels like im running a logistics company instead of a store sometimes lol

had to turn down a big restock order last month cuz i couldnt front the cash even tho the demand was there, lost like $7k in potential revenue. my accountant keeps saying were "profitable on paper" but that doesnt help when im staring at a $0 balance on a tuesday morning tbh

my neighbor runs a trades business and mentioned he uses a broker for short term working capital when his clients pay slow, checked their site and it seemed pretty straightforward, unsecured loans up to $500k with fast approval. anyone else tried something similar for cash flow? im losing sleep over this and just wanna get back to selling kitchenware instead of playing banker lol

Had my 2021 Tacoma fully wrapped about a month ago. Went with a satin bronze color that looked really good in the shop photos.

Now that it’s been out in the sun and rain I’m starting to notice how different it looks depending on the lighting.For people who’ve wrapped trucks before… how well do these hold up after 6–12 months of actual daily driving and weather? Does the finish stay consistent or does it start looking uneven? Just trying to get a realistic idea before I fully commit to keeping it.

I’ve been dealing with lower back and hip pain for almost 5 months now. It started after a long drive and just never went away. Some days I can barely sit for more than 20 minutes without it flaring up, and it’s starting to affect my sleep and mood pretty badly.

I’ve tried rest, stretching, heat, and basic exercises but nothing is actually fixing it. The pain is constant enough that I’m getting pretty desperate at this point.

I have an appointment coming up and I’m hoping they can finally figure out what’s going on.

For people who’ve dealt with stubborn lower back/hip pain, how many visits did it usually take before you started noticing real improvement? And did anything specific in the treatment make the biggest difference for you?

splitting professional fees or transitioning away from open ended hourly billing feels necessary right now, so i am curious how others managed shared accountant costs and advisory retainers while going through a split.

trying to figure out asset reporting during a split brings a mountain of paperwork and quarterly bills that never match what was expected, especially with joint overseas accounts in the mix.

paying by the hour for every little question about foreign income or asset division gets old fast when a five minute chat turns into a massive charge, so flat monthly packages from places like Wardle Partners sound tempting even if it is hard to tell if they actually cover complex multi country messes.

Got a 2020 Mazda 3 and had the windscreen replaced last week. Ever since then the lane keep and radar cruise keep throwing warnings and sometimes just shut off completely. Cleaned the camera area already but no change.

Booked it for a proper calibration next week cos the local shop said they don’t do that kind of work.

How long does a full camera + radar calibration usually take on these? And after it’s done do the systems normally come back straight away or do you need to drive it a bit first before everything settles?