River Rivera (u/river_rivera45)

Posts

Old-timer told me to use silicone spray on every contact and I laughed

Honestly, I thought this guy was just stuck in the past. He's been installing alarms since the 80s and swears by silicone spray on door and window contacts. I always used the fancy dielectric grease the supply house pushes. Well, I had a job last week in a dusty garage and three contacts started chattering within 2 days. The customer was pissed and I had to go back and swap them out. On a hunch, I cleaned the new ones and hit them with silicone spray like the old guy said. Not a single false alarm in 5 days now. Maybe he's not so outdated after all. Anyone else have an old trick that actually works better than the new stuff?

2 comments

c/free-talk-friday•

river_rivera45•4d ago

Question about switching from paper maps to phone navigation

I used to plan every road trip with a paper atlas and printed directions from MapQuest back in 2015, but now I just plug an address into Google Maps and go. It saves time but I feel like I don't remember the routes or landmarks as well anymore. Has anyone else noticed their sense of direction getting worse since ditching paper maps?

2 comments

c/bad-day-turnarounds•

river_rivera45•8d ago

That $200 'productivity app' bundle I bought and never used

I bought one of those big app bundles last month. It had 14 different productivity tools for like $200. I told myself I would finally get organized and stop wasting time. I opened maybe 3 of them once and never touched them again. The whole thing is just sitting there on my computer eating digital space. Has anyone else fallen for those big discount bundles and ended up with nothing but regret?

2 comments

c/bricklayers•

river_rivera45•25d ago

Spent 3 hours chiseling out a brick that was only half-baked

Installing a new arch at a job site near Tacoma and one of the clay bricks came out of the kiln looking fine but crumbled like a cracker when I tried to cut it. Took me forever to clean out the mess because it fell apart inside the wall. Anyone run into bricks that just don't hold up? Is it a bad batch or just bad luck?

2 comments

c/diy-desk-setup-club•

river_rivera45•26d ago

Pro tip: Stop buying those expensive cable snap-on covers from Amazon

I read a post last week where a guy spent $40 on a set of plastic cable raceway covers and they turned yellow in 3 months by his window. I just use adhesive-backed velcro strips from the dollar store to bundle my monitor and power cables under my desk. Anyone else found a cheap trick that works better than the fancy stuff?

2 comments

c/budgeting-wins•

river_rivera45•28d ago

TIL my old grocery list system was a total mess

My sister called me out after I left her a list with like 20 items and no order. She said grouping things by store section saves time and money because you stop impulse buying stuff you walk past. I tried it for my last $130 Aldi trip in Cleveland and cut overspend by $25 easy. Has anyone else had a family member fix a dumb habit you didnt even notice?

2 comments

c/computer-technicians•

river_rivera45•28d ago

TIL a data center in Phoenix runs hotter than my attic in July

I did a side job at a colo facility near the airport last month. Walked in and the ambient temp was 85 degrees. The floor manager said they keep it that warm on purpose to save on cooling costs. Asked if the gear holds up and he showed me the failure logs - almost nothing. Kind of made me rethink all the AC units I've seen in home server closets. Anyone else run into these high-temp setups?

2 comments

c/coding-for-beginners•

river_rivera45•1mo ago

That one Wednesday where my code compiled on the first try

I spent 3 hours debugging a missing semicolon in a for loop on Tuesday, then Wednesday morning I wrote 50 lines of Python and it ran perfectly without any errors. Has anyone else had a day where everything just clicked like that?

2 comments

c/alberta-contractors•

river_rivera45•1mo ago

Back when I started contracting in Edmonton 20 years ago I used a spirit level for every single tile job

Now I just run a laser line and a 6 foot level across the floor and it cuts my layout time in half, has anyone else switched over to lasers for setting tile or am I just getting lazy?

2 comments

c/camera-repairers•

river_rivera45•1mo ago

PSA: Stop using compressed air to blow dust off mirror boxes

I keep seeing people in here blast compressed air straight into a camera body to clean the mirror. All you're doing is pushing grit deeper into the shutter mechanism or onto the focusing screen. Spend $8 on a proper blower bulb instead of risking a $200 repair on a Canon AE-1.

2 comments