Shahar Goldin

I bought an old (1970s) backhoe for my property on advice from this forum and I love it but (and I think it’s a big but) I get a kick out of working on these things. I also am very bad at planning in advance to know how long to rent an excavator, and know myself- if I rent it for a day I will work too late on that day and risk the machine or myself when I get too tired and haven’t finished the task I rented it for. Owning mine is much more relaxing for me, even if it’s been sitting with a seized transmission for the last 6 months.

If you’re thinking of buying an old big machine, I’d recommend watching some Farmcraft 101 on YouTube, and maybe a little bit of Diesel Creek on YouTube to see if working on it sounds like fun rather than like an obligation, because obligation is poison.

If you don’t think you’d get a kick out of working on it, I’m gonna strongly agree with everyone else- do not buy one of these new, do not buy a cheap mini backhoe from alibaba for $4995, do not buy an old one and hope/pray/expect that nothing will go wrong. Lease what you feel comfortable operating, hire out what you don’t.

A friend of a friend sent me this YouTube video that I think y’all might get a kick out of

like that, or I could have searched for the podcast episode and found the thread on Paul's pseudo blog (oops)

I just posted a thread in tinkering with the site because I didn't immediately find this one and I was impatient- oops!

anyway I feel like people concerned with this topic should be informed, to whatever degree they feel they'd like to dig into the numbers past this headline, that young people are drastically less conscientious than they used to be: https://ifstudies.org/blog/conscientiousness-is-declining-among-young-americans-why

Basically because of phones and tiktok and the like


so anyway I'm sure everything is going great and there's nothing to worry about (... in a world on the verge of social collapse ...)

I'm a podcast person more than a forum person but one time out of ten someone will say something on the podcast that I would like to ask a follow up about or I think it might be helpful to add some context from my experience

For example from the podcast that was published this week - I wonder if Paul is aware of the recent science showing that young people are drastically less conscientious than they used to be: https://ifstudies.org/blog/conscientiousness-is-declining-among-young-americans-why

basically because of smartphones/social media/tiktoks

Anyway it would be cool if every podcast had a thread to discuss the episode in.

I would watch a few Torque Test Channel videos about specific tools you need.

The only real downside I know of (and this may not be valid anymore) to Milwaukee tools is that last time I checked they were the only brand that didn’t have battery adapters. When I met the partner I live with they were already on Milwaukee and I was on Bosch and I couldn’t find any battery adapters- they’re available in both directions for Bosch, dewalt, makita, and I think some of the less popular brands too, but Milwaukee was distinct.

I’m not sure how the lawn care stuff is, I’m on EGO for that.

it's only really dangerous if someone gets it into their umbrella

I just heard part 2 of the AI podcast and was thinking about the AI companies that just have warehouses full of Indians pretending to be AI chatbots

And then the almighty algorithm showed me this https://youtube.com/shorts/xyHOWXhRNMs?si=vRkYqSATcdKniH9H