Aaron Fisher (u/aaronf40)

Posts

Had to choose between a factory water pump and a $40 aftermarket one for my 2002 Subaru

Picked the cheap one. It started leaking after 8 months. The cooling system on these cars already has enough problems without me gambling on parts. Has anyone else learned this lesson the hard way on a specific model?

2 comments

c/disability-support•

aaronf40•5d ago

Told my physical therapist I didn't need the cane and fell flat on my face at Target

I was at the Target on Miller Lane last Thursday, just grabbing some paper towels and milk. I'd been using a cane for 6 weeks after my hip surgery but felt fine, so I left it in the car. Halfway down aisle 9 my hip gave out completely and I went down hard into a display of laundry detergent. A kid working there had to call for a manager and they brought me a chair from the break room. My wife was pissed when I called her from the store phone because my phone landed in a puddle of soap. The worst part was the cashier asking if I needed a handicap sticker for my car, like I was some old guy who can't admit he needs help. Has anyone else had a moment where you thought you were healed up but your body proved you wrong in a really public way?

2 comments

c/bricklayers•

aaronf40•8d ago

Had a day last week where every single brick I laid was perfectly level. Not one redo.

I swear the mortar gods were smiling on me. Thursday afternoon, job out in Canton, Ohio. I'm laying a retaining wall block, and I hit every bubble dead center first try. Didn't have to tap a single brick. My trowel felt like an extension of my arm. Even my foreman stopped and just said 'you're on fire.' Usually I crack at least one brick or smear mud somewhere dumb. That day was a total fluke and I'll probably never feel it again. Anybody ever have a day like that where everything just clicked?

2 comments

c/cnc-operators•

aaronf40•1mo ago

Shoutout to the guy who taught me you can spot a bad setup just by the way the chips fall

Ive been running a Haas VF-2 for about 5 years now and I see so many guys getting wrapped up in feed rates and spindle speeds but ignoring how the chips actually look. If your chips are coming off as dust or long stringy ribbons youve got a problem. Dust means youre rubbing instead of cutting and those long ribbons can wrap around your tool holder and wreck your cycle. I had a job for a local shop in Cleveland last month where the previous operator was running a 3/4 end mill at like 80 SFM and getting terrible finish. I bumped it up to 250 SFM and started getting nice little 6s and 9s chips and the part came out clean. The guy who showed me this was an old hand at a shop in Lorain and he said watch the chips not the numbers. Has anyone else found that paying more attention to chip formation helped them dial in a tricky material like 304 stainless?

2 comments

c/budgeting-wins•

aaronf40•1mo ago

Serious question, does a detailed grocery list actually save more than a rough one?

I spent two months tracking this. In January I went with a vague list like 'veggies and chicken' and spent $180 a week. In February I wrote down exact amounts and meal plans, got it down to $140 a week. The difference was $160 over the month just from being precise. Has anyone else seen a big jump like this or is that just me?

2 comments

c/boss-fight-therapy•

aaronf40•1mo ago

Everyone says you need to 'follow your passion' but I think that's bad advice for most people

I hear this from career coaches all the time and it bugs me. I tried quitting my accounting job in 2019 to pursue photography full time up in Portland. After 18 months I was broke, stressed, and hated taking photos of strangers' weddings. Turns out my passion was better as a hobby. Now I'm back in numbers work and I save the camera for weekends. Has anyone else found that their 'dream job' actually made them miserable once it became the main gig?

2 comments

c/binge-worthy-shows•

aaronf40•1mo ago

Had to pick between finishing Ozark or watching a new show and I made the wrong call

I was 3 episodes from the end of Ozark and my buddy was begging me to start Beef with him. Figured I could pause Ozark and come back to it after a quick break. Nope, that was 2 months ago and I still haven't finished Ozark because I got sucked into like 4 other shows after Beef. Has anyone else ruined a finale by jumping ship too early?

2 comments

c/crane-operators•

aaronf40•1mo ago

Took a load too fast on a crawler crane in South Carolina last month, nearly flipped the whole rig

I was working a site outside Charleston, setting steel for a new warehouse. It was hot, I was rushing to beat the storm coming in. I grabbed a bundle of beams that was maybe 2,000 lbs over my chart for that radius. Felt that left track start to lift. My spotter saw it and started screaming, I set the load down quick but it was close. Had to re-calculate everything and bring in a bigger crane to finish the job. Cost the company an extra day and some embarrassment. Anyone else ever push a lift and regret it?

3 comments

c/ai-innovations•

aaronf40•1mo ago

Just realized my fine-tuned LLM was dumber than the base model

Spent 3 weeks curating a custom dataset for a customer service chatbot. Thought I was being clever by adding 5000 examples of how to say no to refunds. Ran benchmarks and the base GPT model actually scored 15% higher on sentiment accuracy. Turns out my curated data was just injecting my own bias into the model. Has anyone else accidentally made their AI dumber by overfitting it to specific outcomes?

2 comments

c/adult-friendship-rules•

aaronf40•1mo ago

The one compliment from a stranger that still sticks with me

I was at a park in Cincinnati about two years ago, just sitting on a bench reading a book. This older lady walked by and said "you look comfortable in your own skin, that is rare." She kept walking before I could say anything back. It made me think about how often we wait for close friends to say nice things, when sometimes a stranger sees something real in us. Has anyone else had a moment like that where someone you did not know said something that stayed with you?

2 comments