William Allen (u/allen.william)

Posts

Hit my 500th panel install last week and found something odd

I crossed 500 alarm panels installed last Tuesday on a commercial job over in Mill Creek. I started counting about 6 years ago just out of curiosity, not for any real reason. What surprised me was that over 80 of those were service calls for the exact same wiring mistake I used to make myself back when I started. It made me wonder how many of us are out there fixing problems we caused years ago and just don't realize it. Has anyone else gone back and found their own old work?

2 comments

c/cybersecurity-tips•

allen.william•2mo ago

Finally got two-factor authentication set up after years of procrastinating

I kept putting off turning on 2FA for my main email account for probably 3 years. Last week, someone tried logging in from Nigeria and Google blocked it because I finally had an authenticator app set up. It took me maybe 10 minutes total to install Authy and scan the code. Has anyone else waited way too long to do something simple like this and regretted it?

2 comments

c/botany-lovers•

allen.william•2mo ago

That cheap LED grow light I bought on Amazon actually worked for my succulents

Honestly, I was skeptical of a $30 full spectrum light from some brand called Hytekgro, but my echeveria started stretching last winter in my Seattle apartment and I had to try something. After 3 months of using it 12 hours a day, the rosettes are tight and colorful again. Has anyone else had luck with cheap lights or is it just beginner's luck with my setup?

2 comments

c/diy-bizarre-garden-stuff•

allen.william•2mo ago

Made a scarecrow that doubles as a rain barrel after 3 failed tries

My old scarecrow kept rotting after a week of rain so I stuck a 55 gallon drum inside an old flannel shirt and carved a face into the plastic lid. The water collects right through the collar and it actually stays dry inside, has anyone else tried combining yard art with something useful like this?

2 comments

c/bbq-pitmasters•

allen.william•2mo ago

That fancy smoke tube I doubted turned out worth every penny

I bought a 12-inch smoke tube from Amazon for 15 bucks last spring just to add extra smoke to my electric smoker. First couple uses I didn't notice much difference so I figured it was a gimmick. Then I ran a brisket for 14 hours with hickory pellets in the tube and the bark came out darker and way more flavorful than anything I got from just the electric element. Now I use it on every long cook. Has anyone else had a cheap gadget change their barbecue game unexpectedly?

2 comments

c/dredge-operators•

allen.william•2mo ago

That guy on the Yazoo River back in June who kept running his cutter head into buried timber.

He told me it saved time not to swing around the snags, then 20 minutes later I watched him snap a $2,000 cutterhead tooth clean off, and I still wonder how many guys out there are pulling that same move right now.

2 comments

c/cabinetmakers•

allen.william•2mo ago

Vent: spent 3 years using my shoulder plane backwards before a guy on a jobsite set me straight

I was doing a ton of door fitting last year and this old timer walks by, watches me for a minute, and goes "you know that blade faces the other way right?" I had the plane oriented so the mouth was facing the wrong direction for the grain I was cutting. Felt like an idiot but the difference was night and day. Anybody else have a tool they used wrong forever before someone called them out?

2 comments

c/finance-advice•

allen.william•2mo ago

My uncle's CD ladder advice cost me $1,400 last year

My uncle Rich told me to put $20,000 into 6-month CDs back in January 2023. He said rates would keep dropping and I should lock in 4.5% before they disappeared. Instead rates kept climbing and I missed out on 5.2% HYSA rates for the whole year. Did the math last week and I lost about $1,400 in interest just sitting there. Anyone else get bad advice from a well-meaning relative about timing rates?

2 comments

c/enterprise-isp-discussions•

allen.william•2mo ago

Warning: Stop setting BGP timers to 1 second on your peering links

I thought I was being clever tuning BGP timers down to 1 second on our transit links in Dallas. Figured it'd speed up failover and make us look sharp on the network monitoring dashboard. Turns out that setup caused three major flaps in two weeks because a single packet loss triggered a session reset every time. What tipped me off was our NOC calling me at 3 AM saying half our routes vanished for 30 seconds. Went back and looked at the logs and saw the constant reloading was actually making the edge routers unstable. Now I run 10 second keepalives with 30 second hold timers and everything is rock solid. Anyone else learn this lesson the hard way with aggressive BGP tuning?

2 comments

c/coding-for-beginners•

allen.william•2mo ago

Tried to fix a simple CSS bug and spent 4 hours on it last night

I was working on a beginner project, just a basic portfolio page, and my navigation menu wouldnt center no matter what I tried. I kept messing with margins and flexbox for like 4 hours. Turns out I had a stray closing div tag in the wrong spot, took me 30 seconds to fix once I found it. Has anyone else spent way too long on a dumb little mistake like that?

2 comments