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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 7th, 2023

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  • Technology has moved from nitch nerdy thing to general public usage and as it did so it became usable without knowing what’s going on. Gen Z doesn’t know shit about technology, they just know how to use it.

    When I was a kid, if you wanted to get a computer working you had to screw with the RAM settings or build the computer yourself from components. If you didn’t know how to do this you talked with someone who did. I’ve forced my kids to learn at least some of this, but the idea that they’re more tech savvy is ridiculous. They’re users of tech, but it’s become too complicated (and more user friendly), so they don’t know what’s happening behind their screen.




  • About 15 years ago I was giving a presentation at a technical conference. This was me giving a presentation in front of a room full of about 50 other engineers. At this point in my career this was still pretty new to me, so I was nervous. It was getting time for my presentation and I needed to do a last minute nervous pee before I did my presentation.

    I went to the bathroom, peed in a urinal, and then went to wash my hands. I pushed down the bathroom faucet and it exploded sending up a geyser of water about air a foot or two into the air. Now had I really been on a TV show, my pants would have been soaked in the crotch area, but luckily in real life I stepped back and didn’t get wet. However, this was the perfect setup for a young nervous engineer giving a technical presentation to be thoroughly embarrassed. Luckily I’m either not on a TV show, or I’m not the main character.


  • Spent $800k on a house remodel. We gutted it and rebuilt it.

    I did all the plans myself, I got them approved by the city, I made all the interior design decisions (my wife had veto power but left 90% of it all to me). In theory, in my area, the house has gone up in value by equal to or more than what we spent… but realistically I overspent. The amount I pay for loans is enough to make my very hefty salary seem low, but I don’t regret spending the money (It didn’t help that interest rates went up right before we pulled a $500k loan!). The house is awesome and it’s MY/OUR house since I did the design myself and I worked with the contractors throughout the entire process. I know every trade off we made and I can tell you why we made every decision. Doing this was a bucket-list item… but yeah… I overspent.












  • That’s an interesting read, but I think it misses a point of where that 25% GDP is really coming from. The US makes 25% of the GDP because they outsource. To use other country’s labor, other countries people, other other people’s brains, and they take a huge chunk of profit from it. They then claim that’s their GDP.

    America is a very efficient country, with a lot of skilled workers creating a lot of cool products and stuff, but it’s not 5x other countries. The only way to get those numbers is by leveraging the work of other people and claiming it for yourself.


  • Mainly 100% removal from Ukraine (not unreasonable, but also not going happen without Ukraine doing much better on offense) and a shit ton of reparations for all the damage done and people killed (this is never going to happen).

    IMHO The most likely scenario is Russia keeps 50 to 80% on land they’ve already captured and Ukraine agrees not to join NATO and the war stops. Keep in mind much of the land that they’re currently fighting over will be useless for a generation due to all the mines and shells shot into it. (Maybe “useless” is too strong, but it will take a lot of work to make it safe for living and farming.)


  • The reality is that both sides are laying out unrealistic terms for surrender right now… and that’s fine. The start of a negotiation is always to start with a stated position and go from there. This war will end at the negotiation table… at least we hope it does becuase unconditional surrender won’t come from Russia, but it could come from Ukraine.

    The real question is have both sides suffered enough for a negotiated end to this war? Look, it sucks, but that’s the truth of it. It would be good to see an end to the fighting and dying in Ukraine. Wars suck. The only side winning in this war is the US. They/we spend a pittance of money and watch Russia burn their future generation, military reputation, and global standing to the ground. That’s the #2 political opponent the US has in the world, and it’s acting as a great example for to show China (the #1) why it should behave itself over Taiwan. Win win!

    But wars suck. It’s easy to sit on the sidelines, but there a lots of people fighting and dying over there who have nothing to do with make the decisions for war. Yes Putin’s demands are ridiculous, but so are Ukraine’s. That’s fine. Put them in a room and hopefully they can figure out way to end the killing that’s in between the two.