Opinionhaver

I quite like this new spot - it’s so remote that it’s unlikely anyone else will stumble here.

Finnish Defence Forces don't have any so I assume it belonged to the Royal Air Force. First one I've ever seen in person. Neat!

There's probably a better community for asking this, but I haven't been able to find that one either.

What I'm looking for is a place to discuss ideas that encourages good-faith conversation, staying on topic, and being decent to one another - while actively discouraging mean-spirited, facetious, or bad-faith responses that focus on criticizing the person asking the question rather than engaging with the substance of it. And by “discouraging,” I mean active moderation with very low tolerance for that kind of commentary.

This English article doesn’t seem to mention it, but this happened during practice for an airshow.

I can hear a bad bearing again, but in my infinite wisdom, I didn’t bother to write down what types of bearings this motor uses the last time I had it disassembled. So here I am again, trying to breathe some new life into these rusty mofos - hopefully, by the time I need to do this a third time, I’ll have clean, new replacements ready for all of them.

Also, I have no idea what I’m doing here, so here’s to hoping all the parts find their way back to the right spots and I don’t break anything else in the process.

Also, note to self: just buy them damn lockring pliers.

EDIT: I didn't fuck it up.

If you’ve got a job that’ll take a week, contractors will basically fight for it - but if it’s just something that takes a few hours, it’s apparently a real struggle to get anyone to show up.

I just installed a new kitchen sink and hooked up the faucet and dishwasher for a client. He said they had called eight plumbing companies, and all of them either refused outright or said they’d get back to it but never did. One company agreed to come install it but wouldn’t do the hole in the countertop for the sink, so they would’ve needed to hire a carpenter separately - and you can imagine how thrilled a carpenter would be about a job that takes less than an hour.

This is an incredibly common story among my customers. I’m a plumber by training, but when I went self-employed, I expanded my services to cover all kinds of handyman work. Clearly, I’m filling a niche, considering the amount of gratitude I’m getting from customers. I literally received a gift basket from one just last week. I should’ve made the jump a decade ago.

I've been thinking lately about why, in debates (usually) about highly emotional topics, so many people seem unable to acknowledge even minor wrongdoings or mistakes from "their" side, even when doing so wouldn't necessarily undermine their broader position.

I'm not here to rehash any particular political event or take sides - I'm more interested in the psychological mechanisms behind this behavior.

For example, it feels like many people bind their identity to a cause so tightly that admitting any fault feels like a betrayal of the whole. I've also noticed that criticism toward one side is often immediately interpreted as support for the "other" side, leading to tribal reactions rather than nuanced thinking.

I'd love to hear thoughts on the psychological underpinnings of this. Why do you think it's so hard for people to "give an inch" even when it wouldn't really cost them anything in principle?

It’s not the correct answer I’m after - it’s the conversation. If that were the goal, I could’ve just googled it myself. I’d much rather spend a few minutes speculating with you about what bird it might’ve been than have you immediately look up the right answer.

In most cases, when you feel tempted to take out your phone during a face-to-face interaction, you probably shouldn’t.

As someone who's been dealing with a lot of low mood lately, it really brightens my day to hear someone express gratitude for my anonymous, unauthorized trail maintenance.

Text blurred for privacy reasons.

Nice to know I hadn't been saving all those different size keyrings for nothing. Fast fashion? Not on my watch.

It’s been a few years. I chuckled a bit at this - it looks like a couple of nests stacked on top of each other. Also, it makes me feel weirdly proud to see that birds have accepted my self-made houses for nesting.