My old boss always guessed the crane reach wrong by like twenty feet. It's basic planning to ask the people running the gear.

That thought about voice recognition being a lost cause is something I see everywhere now. So many gadgets get returned because people don't want to mess with the settings. But when you take the time to customize them, like tuning for an accent, they often work great. It's all about putting in the effort to make tech fit your life.

See how amateurs mess up dig sites.

On a big foundation pour last year, we had a tight three day schedule for the masons. Running two mixers non stop was the only way to hit it, probably saved a full week of labor overall.

My friend Chris tried to fill a dozen nail holes in his hallway all at once. He used way too much spackle and it shrank into these weird little craters. He ended up scraping it all out with a butter knife, which messed up the paint. Now he does one hole at a time with just a smear on the edge of a credit card. It dries smooth and he barely needs to sand it.