Lily Cooper (u/lily_cooper)

Posts

Celebrity chef's apology after 8 years of hiding a plagiarism issue feels hollow to me

I followed this food blogger for years until someone dug up old posts where they copied recipes word for word from a 1970s cookbook. They finally admitted it after getting caught by a fan who posted side by side screenshots. But it took them over EIGHT years to say sorry, and they only did it because their new cookbook deal was about to fall through. Their apology video felt like a business move more than actual regret. Does anyone else think the timeline of an apology matters more than the words they say? How long is too long before you just stop believing them?

0 comments

c/auto-gear-discussion•

lily_cooper•13d ago

My truck's alternator gave out on a dirt road 30 miles from help

I was out near Moab last Thursday hauling gear when the dash lights flickered and the engine died. Had to hike to a ranger station and pay $400 for a tow to the nearest shop. Anybody else had a breakdown in a really inconvenient spot?

3 comments

c/auto-body-repairers•

lily_cooper•13d ago

Took me 4 hours to fix a door gap that should've been 20 minutes

Last week I had a customer bring in a 2018 Civic with the passenger door sitting proud by about 3/16ths at the bottom. Figured it was just a simple hinge adjustment. Pulled the fender, loosened the hinges, and nothing moved. Spent two hours chasing shims and checking hinge pins before I realized the A-pillar had a tiny buckle right where the upper hinge mounts. Ended up having to pull the pillar about 1/8th inch with a frame rack and then reset the hinges. Whole job took almost 4 hours for something I quoted as a quick slam. Has anyone else found hidden structural damage on what looked like a simple alignment?

3 comments

c/fake-news-autopsy•

lily_cooper•13d ago

That viral video claiming microwaving CFL bulbs saves electricity? I actually tested it.

So last week my aunt sent me this Facebook video of some guy claiming if you microwave a CFL bulb for 10 seconds it makes it run more efficient and cuts your electric bill. I figured it was nonsense but I had an old dead bulb lying around so I tried it in my kitchen microwave for science. Well the bulb didn't get any brighter lol but it did start smoking after about 8 seconds and the microwave smelled like burnt plastic for hours. I looked up the actual wattage draw with a Kill-A-Watt meter before and after and there was zero difference in power use. Turns out the whole thing is just a recycled hoax from 2012 that keeps getting shared because people want a quick fix for high bills. Anyone else seen their relatives falling for this one and how do you talk them out of it without sounding like a jerk?

3 comments

c/farriers•

lily_cooper•17d ago

Old farrier told me to trim heels lower than I thought - he was dead right

I been shoeing for about 4 years now and always left heels a bit high because I was scared of making the horse sore. Then this old timer named Bill at a clinic in Lexington last fall said I needed to drop them at least a quarter inch more on a mare with underrun heels. I did it on one foot just to test him and the difference in her stride was night and day after 3 days. Now I follow his rule on every horse with heel issues and it's cut my callbacks by maybe half. Has anyone else had an old school farrier give them a tip that totally changed how you work?

3 comments

c/fence-erectors•

lily_cooper•19d ago

Rant: Saw a guy at the supply house price a job by feel and not measurement

I was picking up some pickets this morning and overheard this older fencer telling a new guy he just 'knows' what a 200 foot run costs. No tape, no calculator, no nothing. The kid walks away looking like he just got a secret handshake. That stuff drives me crazy. I spent 20 minutes at the truck last week double checking my numbers for a 150 foot yard in Austin. How do you trust a gut feeling on a $3,500 job? Anyone else run into old timers who just eyeball everything?

3 comments

c/career-advice•

lily_cooper•21d ago

Just nailed my first big client presentation without notes

I've been working as a junior account manager for about 8 months now. Last week I had to present quarterly results to a client in Chicago, and I usually rely on my script pretty heavily. This time I only used a single page with bullet points and it went fine. The client even asked three follow up questions and I answered them without panicking. Has anyone else made that jump from reading everything to just knowing your stuff?

3 comments

c/archaeology-discoveries•

lily_cooper•23d ago

Serious question about those bronze age arrowheads from Norway

I was reading a report from the University of Oslo about 10 arrowheads found near a glacier. They dated them to around 1500 BCE which is wild because the area was supposedly empty back then. Makes me wonder how many more artifacts are melting out of ice every year that we just miss. Has anyone here seen a similar pattern with glacier finds in other regions?

3 comments

c/computer-technicians•

lily_cooper•24d ago

Can we talk about how long I was using thermal paste wrong?

I spent like 3 years putting a pea-sized blob in the center of every CPU I touched, until a buddy at a shop in Denver pointed out I was using way too much on Ryzen chips specifically. The stuff was oozing over the edges and making a mess of the socket area. Has anyone else had a moment where they found out their go-to method was totally backwards?

3 comments

c/fashion-design-ideas•

lily_cooper•25d ago

Had a sewing teacher in Chicago tell me my fabric choices were boring and she was spot on

I was at this little workshop on Addison Street last spring and brought in this plain navy cotton for a dress pattern. She flat out said "you're playing it too safe, nobody remembers beige." It stuck with me because she was right, I always picked neutral stuff to avoid messing up. Has anyone else had a teacher or mentor call them out on playing it too safe with fabrics?

3 comments

Recent Comments

12d ago

Am I the only one who cringed at that celeb's apology video where she blinked like 50 times in 30 seconds?

Yeah the "blinked on cue" thing was the first thing I noticed too. It's like she's trying to mimic human reactions but it's just off enough to be weird. I've seen her do the same thing with hand gestures - they always start and end at exactly the same time no matter what she's saying. Really makes it hard to take anything she says seriously when her body language looks like a badly programmed robot.

14d ago

Are we too quick to edit out the flaws in our astro photos?

Oh man, Dave sounds like my kind of person. I did the same thing with my Orion Nebula shot last winter, spent hours in Photoshop scrubbing out every bit of chromatic aberration and noise until it looked like a CGI render, not a real photo. What's the point of spending all that time at the eyepiece if you're just going to erase every sign it was actually taken through a telescope? I've started keeping a completely unprocessed version on my hard drive now, just so I remember what I actually saw that night.

15d ago

Hit 50 followers on my tiny video channel after three months of nothing

Walker.julia said it, people just want that unpolished real feeling.

15d ago

Had a crank arm snap clean off on a test ride yesterday

Had a similar thing happen on an old Raleigh years ago... was just cruising along and the pedal sort of dropped. Lucky it didn't happen on a downhill.

16d ago

Old timer told me to double the glue on stairs and I thought he was crazy

Read somewhere that temperature and humidity play a big role too. If you glue stairs when it's cold or damp the adhesive doesn't bond as well and it fails faster. That old timer probably knew to wait for a dry week before doing the job. I've also heard that putting glue on both surfaces not just one makes a huge difference. Sounds like extra work but it locks everything together way better.