discussion Rants etc.....

[ipaine]

Haven't had any issues with kickstater backed things. But that said, pretty much everything I have backed has been by legit established businesses. Usually comics/art books/etc. I've had a few from smaller outfits that take a little bit longer than hoped but never been "scammed" with it.

 

[gingerbee]

The damn price of Toro brake spring, just had to order 2 for my wife's snow blower, it was 40 bucks for 2 springs and that was the best price I could find in the last month, crazy thing is in the US they sell for 5-12 bucks, but of course they don't ship here lol.

 

[Marzipan]

The damn price of Toro brake spring, just had to order 2 for my wife's snow blower, it was 40 bucks for 2 springs and that was the best price I could find in the last month, crazy thing is in the US they sell for 5-12 bucks, but of course they don't ship here lol.

awww! your wife has a snow blower? do the two of you go out on snow blower dates? so cute!!!

 

[FreeKnight]

Haven't had any issues with kickstater backed things. But that said, pretty much everything I have backed has been by legit established businesses. Usually comics/art books/etc. I've had a few from smaller outfits that take a little bit longer than hoped but never been "scammed" with it.

Only 'burn' I had IIRC was I backed Richard Gariott's 'Shroud of the Avatar'. I never played Ultima back in the day but heard so much good and it was coming off the heels of a lot of good kickstarters (Shadowrun, wasteland, etc) so I thought I'd give it a try.

It did release, it just really fucking sucked haha. Garbage tier game from my hour or two with it.

 

[Izerous]

Kickstarter (and others) hosts a lot of ideas that are just outright dumb and impractical in the end as well and sometimes people just fall for the hype.

Just an example there was a machine that claimed to generate water from this air only using electricity and well it was basically just a fancy dehumidifier. But people backing them and eventually got them but out in the desert thinking they were going to get buckets of water to be disappointed it barely produced anything... Well when your relative humidity is that low it isn't going to produce anything.

So a lot of projects like that do come across really scammy because the "designers" are literally taking advantage of people's lack of understanding of how things work.

But there have been a lot of good things on there as well.

Software is a dangerous one because of a lot of people who do "passion projects" don't understand the differences between. MVP - Good Enough - Perfect. You get these people who don't think it can go out unless it is perfect. Or the other side where they think they have the next $1m idea but they don't realize it is going to take $2m work of effort etc.

I have seen people work days on a single art asset for it to be visible for only a few moments of game play from a certain perspective.

 

[gingerbee]

awww! your wife has a snow blower? do the two of you go out on snow blower dates? so cute!!!

Well sadly we have 3 snow blowers ( its a long story ) 2 stage husqavarna and 2 single stage blowers, the first year we were hear it was clear to me that my wife could not use the big blower, it was far to heavy for her to use easily, so we grabbed a cheap used toro power clear 99cc single stage blower incase I am in the hospitale and she has to clear our driveway. It works great for the engine size.

But no snow blower dates, lol.

 

[clshades]

So the new Ameristar furnace is in. It took him 3 hours to pull the old one out, modify the intake and outflow ducts and install the new one. He said he normally charges $5500 plus tax. You can buy an 80,000 BTU furnace for about $2200, plus another $200 for the filter rack and misc. parts. Give it another hour to pick up the furnace and drop the old one off at the recycler. He's making upwards of $400 an hour. But he has his plumbing ticket and gas-fitting ticket, which I don't. He replaced my main PRV valve at the same time as he said it had failed and that's why my hot water tank PRV was dripping.

So, what I'm really saying is I hope my middle son gets into the plumbing and pipefitting program he's applied for at his highschool.

Let me explain something so everyone doesn't get confused because I honestly can't stand posts like this. I see them... All the time.

You aren't paying $400 / hour. Get that nonsense out your head please. You're paying for someone with years of experience who's gonna come straight back if anything goes wrong, honor his warranty, back his work, etc etc etc. As far as I'm concerned he isn't charging enough.

I see these kinds of posts on Facebook constantly, sorry man it's not cool.

 

[SugarJ]

Let me explain something so everyone doesn't get confused because I honestly can't stand posts like this. I see them... All the time.

You aren't paying $400 / hour. Get that nonsense out your head please. You're paying for someone with years of experience who's gonna come straight back if anything goes wrong, honor his warranty, back his work, etc etc etc. As far as I'm concerned he isn't charging enough.

I see these kinds of posts on Facebook constantly, sorry man it's not cool.

He's a friend of mine, I've known him for over 25 years. He's also the richest guy I know personally because he hustles. He could easily have taken his time and made the install last all day but busted his butt so he could make it to another call replacing a water tank that afternoon. I remember when he got his gas ticket 10-12 years ago, it was solely for doing furnace installs. I wasn't complaining about what he charged, far from it. He saved me a lot. Like I said, I hope my son gets into the plumbing & pipe-fitting program he's applied for as he will do just fine once he has his ticket.

 

[FreeKnight]

He's a friend of mine, I've known him for over 25 years. He's also the richest guy I know personally because he hustles. He could easily have taken his time and made the install last all day but busted his butt so he could make it to another call replacing a water tank that afternoon. I remember when he got his gas ticket 10-12 years ago, it was solely for doing furnace installs. I wasn't complaining about what he charged, far from it. He saved me a lot. Like I said, I hope my son gets into the plumbing & pipe-fitting program he's applied for as he will do just fine once he has his ticket.

I'd suggest plumbing/gasfitting over steamfitter/pipefitter in Alberta if he's considering either. Pipefitting is more niche and your career route is basically "Pipefitter to 'hope you get into foreman/gc/superintendent or qc/inspector/client-side'. There's a lot less opportunity to start your own business outside of being a single person working as a limited company (which basically means you're hoping to get inspector work). Far more likely to get stuck doing fly-in/fly-out or plant work on rotation as a steamfitter/pipefitter too.

Plumber/gasfitters can easily startup work doing residential, commercial boilers, heaters, hvac, etc. and can more easily hire people to work under them (profit off their labor, etc).

At least that's what I've seen as someone who's had a steamfitter/pipefitter ticket.

 

[SugarJ]

I'd suggest plumbing/gasfitting over steamfitter/pipefitter in Alberta if he's considering either. Pipefitting is more niche and your career route is basically "Pipefitter to 'hope you get into foreman/gc/superintendent or qc/inspector/client-side'. There's a lot less opportunity to start your own business outside of being a single person working as a limited company (which basically means you're hoping to get inspector work). Far more likely to get stuck doing fly-in/fly-out or plant work on rotation as a steamfitter/pipefitter too.

Plumber/gasfitters can easily startup work doing residential, commercial boilers, heaters, hvac, etc. and can more easily hire people to work under them (profit off their labor, etc).

At least that's what I've seen as someone who's had a steamfitter/pipefitter ticket.

I'd suggested focusing more on the plumbing side, I've worked in construction for 30+ years. Focus on new construction and not repairs. It's his choice, however. I think there's a lot more work for sprinkler fitters than there used to be around here as the building code now requires them in all multi-family construction. I think anyone that has their red seal and wants to work will have lots of opportunity over the next 20 years or so as the current journeymen retire.