Asklemmy

You’re good enough. Start where you are.

I am a big fan of the advice CGP Grey gives regarding solutions.

Don’t pick the first solution that comes to mind for a problem, it is most likely the least effective.

Don't put WiFi dongle and wireless mouse dongle in neighbouring USBs, they are probably working at the same frequency and will interfere with each other.

Live a little. We'll all die at some point.

Water dripping? Don’t call a plumber yet. Get on your hands and knees and try to figure out exactly where the water is coming from. You might need a $5 part and 10 minutes watching a YouTube video instead of a $400 callout. The same concept applies for most things in a home or vehicle. But don’t screw around with electricity if you don’t know what you’re doing.

If you’re shopping around based on price, make sure you’re factoring in the cost of gas and your time. Driving an hour to save $5 actually costs you money.

Need to quickly determine if a caller is a scammer or legitimate? Just ask who they’re calling. If they don’t know your name, you can hang up immediately.

Maintain your things. All your things. If you use something until it’s no longer working, it has moved from inexpensive maintenance to expensive repair.

Always remember that on any given day several people are having a shitty day.

Being really good at the intersection of two different things is often a much more valuable skill set than being excellent at just one thing.

Exist outside the box.

Don't believe the hype.

What do you mean by 'buck buying'? I've never heard this term before.

Learn to let things go, you're not special.

"A man's mind changed against his will is of the same opinion still."

The only argument you win is the one you avoid.

Merlin Mann has collected his version of such a list here: https://github.com/merlinmann/wisdom/blob/master/wisdom.md

I very much enjoy reading it from time to time, even if I disagree with some of the points.

There is expensive because of brand and expensive because of material quality, do your research.

If "do your research" means take a couple minutes to make sure there aren't glaring red flags about a purchase, then yeah that checks, but I see this phrase used as a more serious concept which just doesn't seem realistic given my experiences.

I feel like if you don't already know what to look for in your specific product of interest it's impossible to do research and have confidence. Like when I don't know where to start and try to research products through a search, I go through so much SEO bullshit in such a short timeframe that I have no confidence in anything I'm looking at, including the stuff that looks like it has a good chance of being legit. Maybe I can find a forum of some sort, but I'll need a way to tell that the users aren't just talking out of their asses (or bots, or paid sponsors). Major review sites are a mess.

The phrase "do your research" is way overstated, because someone who knows what they need to look at is already going to do research and is not the target audience. The time it takes to filter through all the nonsense and form a coherent opinion researching something from scratch is so enormous that it's hard for me to imagine someone actually doing that diligently for anything less expensive than a car. What actually happens is you just give up partway and make your best guess like you would have done in the first place. At that point your research has led you to seeing a bunch of ads and a few conflicting opinions. Yeah, that will influence your decision and possibly be helpful, but the benefits are marginal compared to the time investment, it's rarely worth more than a few minutes if it's not a major purchase.

Or maybe everyone else is a lot better at this than me and I'm making a fool out of myself by posting this.