Annoying Questions I'd Like Answered...

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Fri Jun 17, 2011 6:00 am

Kaelik wrote:
Maj wrote:I think you've pretty much forgotten what the topic is. It's SlutWalk, not sluts.
So Slutwalk was the main topic of conversation for the last 5 pages, and Harley Quinn's outfit, and the gender issues of comic book women was just an aside that was thrown in the last paragraph of a post about slutwalk.

Or wait, it's the exact opposite, and the issue has been sluttiness and slutty dressing for the last 5 pages, with slutwalk showing up in five posts.

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Maj · Post by **Maj** » Fri Jun 17, 2011 11:43 pm

Kaelik wrote:Or wait, it's the exact opposite, and the issue has been sluttiness and slutty dressing for the last 5 pages, with slutwalk showing up in five posts.

You must have missed the fact that Cynic specifically asked me about it... That's what I was responding to.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Sun Jun 19, 2011 4:14 pm

Kaelik wrote:So Slutwalk was the main topic of conversation for the last 5 pages, and Harley Quinn's outfit, and the gender issues of comic book women was just an aside that was thrown in the last paragraph of a post about slutwalk.

Boy did I miss a good thread. (Of course I've been out of the comic strip loop for decades but really a thread about what Harley Quinn wears? The former sidekick of one of the most sickest bastards of all the entire Bat Man universe ... even in the mushy days of censorship. Hell, she looks damn conservative in that suit. Honestly I think someone must have started out with one of those stupid character generation programs and then gave the result to a real artist.)

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Sun Jun 19, 2011 9:03 pm

So...speaking of slutwalks and chicks who wear very little, how do you thaw Sausage quickly?

I hate the microwave because it always seems to cook it a little.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sun Jun 19, 2011 9:22 pm

We have an infrawave oven. Those are cool.

But if you have no need of going out and purchasing a new appliance, put the sausage in an air/water-tight plastic bag, squeeze out as much air from the bag as possible, fill up your sink with hot water, and put the sausage in it for 15ish minutes (depends on the sausage and its shape/packaging).

If it's not all the way thawed, you can start to cook it on a lower temperature (start on medium-hi until the pan gets hot to get the fat into the ban in order to prevent burning, then turn down to medium/medium-low). The lower cooking temp will take longer, but the cooking will be more thorough without causing the sausage to be overcooked. ... Or you can let it thaw longer.

If you're using a sausage that's low in fat (like chicken), opt for leaving it in the water longer to give it more time to thaw. It has low endurance on the stove and can get really tough and dry very easily.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Jun 19, 2011 9:22 pm

Cynic wrote:So...speaking of slutwalks and chicks who wear very little, how do you thaw Sausage quickly?

I hate the microwave because it always seems to cook it a little.

put the package in a shallow dish (maybe a casserole dish?) and turn the faucet onto a lukewarm or room temp trickle, allowing the dish to fill and overflow, then just leave the water on till it's thawed. If the water is too hot, it'll cook the sausage a bit too, so make it no hotter than you'd give a child, basically (like when you're warming milk, I mean).

Maj's method would work, but this is better, I think. less water, less chance of starting to cook the sausage, and maj's method allows the water to cool as the sausage temp and water temp even out.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Sun Jun 19, 2011 9:54 pm

Maj: the infrawave oven? My wife's been eying them for a while, now. Do you like it?

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sun Jun 19, 2011 11:37 pm

Cynic wrote:Maj: the infrawave oven? My wife's been eying them for a while, now. Do you like it?

Yes, I really do like it. We don't have a microwave, though, so I'm pretty sure that affects our appliance usage preferences*.

A lot of research into various aspects of an infrared oven before we bought one. And we bought it because it's faster and more energy efficient than using the oven, but the food comes out really quite good.

We bought this one {OK, Amazon, Chinese Knock-off} because it was cheap and had the features I wanted (generous size, glass bowl, fan, infra red heat source). We use it every day. It's good for defrosting as well as cooking, and it produces food that's pretty succulent. The temperature and time settings on this model aren't exactly the most convenient, though they work fine for us (there's no memory for the settings, so they always reset, and you can't set the cooking time for longer than an hour). The glass bowl is also very heavy.

Food does cook faster, though it's not a microwave by any means. And while there's a lot more forgiveness in temperatures (ie: you can cook something at a temperature that would normally be too hot, and it will still turn out OK provided you take it out when you notice it's done), it is still possible to overcook food in an infrared oven, contrary to a lot of people's impressions, but that does take work (alternately, excessive negligence). And unlike a microwave, you can do stuff like cook bacon and baked goods (though we don't eat a lot of baked stuff, so I haven't experimented with that) without things getting grim. Food also heats more evenly, which is a huge bonus.

And this particular oven has a couple features that are annoying: it didn't come with a cookbook, so we've had to do a lot of practice runs to get things right. Ess still doesn't feel comfortable using it for some things, though, so we could get even more use out of it if we bought a cookbook.

My mom has a Black and Decker Infrared oven that looks like a toaster oven, but it doesn't have a fan, so her food doesn't cook as quickly or as evenly, but she loves it. She likes to make roasted veggies and fish in hers.

*Note: We ditched the microwave because we changed the way we were cooking, resulting in using it less and less (cooking food in a microwave rarely does anything to improve the texture and taste of food - most of the time it's worse). Eventually it became a very large tool used solely for heating mugs of water. At that point, we ditched it to save counter space.

Count Arioch the 28th · Tue Jun 21, 2011 12:05 am

Sounds cool. I have to sell my microwave to buy rise o eat. I mistt my microwatve

The Vigilante · Post by **The Vigilante** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 7:59 pm

How much should I charge a company to translate an instructions manual ? They want me to give them a rate but I really have no idea how much I should charge. I don't want to be greedy, but I don't want to get screwed either.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 8:09 pm

Well, you can do by the page, or the word count.
You could do, "this will take me X hours to do, and I get paid X per hour"

What language are you translating from and into?
You're doing this self employed, so remember all the super sucky tax issues, I would go with what ever works out to $40-60 an hour, depending, probably closer to $40 honestly.

Unless you're translating from/into chinese/japanese/a language with a vastly different alphabet Then I'd go up to 80-100 an hour equivalent.

PoliteNewb · Post by **PoliteNewb** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 8:13 pm

sabs wrote: You could do, "this will take me X hours to do, and I get paid X per hour"

When I did independent contracting (very minor), this was how I figured it...with "how much can they afford to pay me" influencing things a little bit.

The Vigilante · Post by **The Vigilante** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 8:27 pm

sabs wrote:Well, you can do by the page, or the word count.
You could do, "this will take me X hours to do, and I get paid X per hour"

What language are you translating from and into?
You're doing this self employed, so remember all the super sucky tax issues, I would go with what ever works out to $40-60 an hour, depending, probably closer to $40 honestly.

Unless you're translating from/into chinese/japanese/a language with a vastly different alphabet Then I'd go up to 80-100 an hour equivalent.

I would be translating from English to French. What I am afraid of by charging by the hour and converting it into words is that I could greatly overprice or underprice if I can't estimate my rythm accurately. That's why I would like to know what the typical rate per word would be.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 9:40 pm

You might try checking someplace like oDesk for translation job (though their prices tend to be on the low end) to get an idea, but I think reasonable would be around three or four cents per word. Depends on the length of the manual, though.

Count Arioch the 28th · Tue Jun 21, 2011 10:22 pm

This might be more of a rant rather than a question, but what's with my generation's problem with being boomerang kids? I am in my early 30's and so many of people my age are still living at home. And most of them make a lot of money, I'd say only 1 of them are eaither as bad or worse financially than myself (and he has mental problems and isn't really able to hold down a job, so at least he has a cromulant excuse).

I know one couple that lived with their parents until recently. One of them is an optical assistant and the other is an auto mechanic, both of which pays more than my job. And yet somehow they make snide comments about me working at a box store? I did tell him that he bitched more than anyone else on the planet, so at least I didn't let it slide unchallenged, so whatevs.

I have refused to date 2 women so far because they lived at home still (learned my lesson from the last 3 times it happened

)

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Wed Jun 22, 2011 12:54 am

Personally, I don't see a huge problem with it. Living with your family has been common through history, even until recently. Hell, it's a good way to save up for a house or something, or school, etc.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Wed Jun 22, 2011 1:41 am

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:This might be more of a rant rather than a question, but what's with my generation's problem with being boomerang kids? I am in my early 30's and so many of people my age are still living at home. And most of them make a lot of money, I'd say only 1 of them are eaither as bad or worse financially than myself (and he has mental problems and isn't really able to hold down a job, so at least he has a cromulant excuse).

This could have to do with the housing market issues. Did they move back in because they lost their homes? If so, they might be a bit more risk averse this time, and want to make sure they've saved up a good down payment before giving it a second shot.

My cousin has been with his parents for several years now and he just turned 30 last week. This was a combination of getting divorced and losing his job at nearly the same time, and hasn't been helped by his refusal to get a new job.

Count Arioch the 28th · Wed Jun 22, 2011 7:07 am

In this area, there's a glut of housing and rent is the lowest its been for almost a decade. People who live at home because they're too good to rent someplace can eat all the dicks as far as I'm concerned. I can count on one hand the people in my life that can afford the extravagant luxury of owning their own house. People need to get over the fact that hard work doesn't count as much as circumstance and grow the hell up.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Wed Jun 22, 2011 1:07 pm

When you said "boomerang", I thought you meant that they moved back rather than not moving out in the first place. Yeah, I don't know what to make of that.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Wed Jun 22, 2011 2:33 pm

If I ever have a family, I hope to make it tradition that we will primarily live out of a single, gigantic house. It just seems cool.

RiotGearEpsilon · Post by **RiotGearEpsilon** » Wed Jun 22, 2011 4:10 pm

Presuming that they don't want to move out, and their family doesn't want them to move out, and living together meets all their needs, why should they move out?

Count Arioch the 28th · Wed Jun 22, 2011 4:27 pm

There is nothing wrong with that. There is something wrong with the people I know both lording over me that I have so little and yet not accomplishing nearly as much. Also, the adults I know IRL that live at home have entitlement complexes a mile long and act like gigantic children.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Wed Jun 22, 2011 10:23 pm

They're just making up for being incredibly insecure about living at home.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Wed Jun 22, 2011 10:28 pm

Chamomile wrote:If I ever have a family, I hope to make it tradition that we will primarily live out of a single, gigantic house. It just seems cool.

My mom is like that. She would also be perfectly happy with one big piece of property with lots of little houses on it for each section of her family (because we need a place to put our stuff, right?). That's how her family was growing up.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Wed Jun 22, 2011 10:36 pm

We moved in 2.5 years ago from Texas to my parent's place in NJ. My situation involved other issues like my disability, my wife needing a support system, not having jobs, etc... But, even after she found a good job and I did get enough money out of my disabilyt, the overall situation was still financially unworkable.

THat is Housing + food expenses + medical + daycare, camp etc.. for the kid.

So, housing isn't often the issue.

We were just recently able to move out on our own again. Even with that, we only did it because the house we are renting right now is dirt cheap because our friends did not want to go through the hassle of selling in this market. Our neighborhood apparently has houses that haven't sold in a year or so and are still on the market.

ALso, I hate living in one big family house.

Until a year ago, my sister and her family lived in the same big home, as my family, and my parents.

So while the property was huge, that much family interaction just grated on my nerves. I love my family but I can't live with them for an extended period of time.