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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   2056 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 31, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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Anyone know some ways for a person — one without any particular skills at either coding or handicrafts — to make a few extra bucks online?

A few ideas I've had over the years:

  1. Operate a small machine shop that makes replacement parts for mining equipment
  2. Develop improved release agents, emulsifiers, and icing stabilizers used in the commercial baking industry
  3. Open a shop that does custom letterpress printing, which uses old-fashioned metal type. Every major city can support a few of these, most of the business coming from wedding invitations and the like.
  4. Get an M.D. and buy the kind of machine that's expensive enough and used infrequently enough that it makes more sense for doctors to have someone else come in than to do the work themselves. I neurologist I used to know made a nice living going to various offices to do EMG and nerve conduction tests, with the added bonus that he didn't have to deal with patients calling him or operating his own office.
  5. Find an application where a Wankel rotary engine makes the most sense, and corner the market on them
  6. Develop some kind of get-rich-quick scheme and sell books about how to implement it in late-night infomercials hosted by Richard Karn or some other washed-up B-celebrity.

These are all good ideas for someone with a fair chunk of startup capital, not someone who's trying to figure out how to afford food.

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