My life, much better. My finances, not so much.

My father was a wealthy defense contractor, but an abusive sociopath. My mother was an alcoholic. My mother died and he threw me out before I finished high school. I graduated homeless. I am 57 now. I haven’t spoken to him since 1998 and I am not entirely sure if he’s still alive. But I do know the last time I had to do a background check on him for job-related stuff, he was still wealthy, remarried, and living in a multi million dollar condo with a huge yacht. I am not so wealthy, but I got a foothold during the beginning of the dotcom boom, and doing okay financially. At my age, my dad was remarried and still employed as a wealthy contractor. I think he retired in 1999.

Meanwhile, even though I am clinging onto a disintegrating upper middle class, I have escalated my career in unexpected and adventurous ways. I have had an exciting life, amazing friends, and held very weird jobs including science fiction author, president of a non-profit, bouncer for a roller derby team, emcee and cosplay judge, minor fandom celebrity, and written a comedy podcast. I have been married twice, widowed once, and had good marriages. I have a son now in his 30s. I have traveled, met celebrities, and survived harrowing health issues.

So, you know, I am not as “well off” as my parents at this age (I mean, my mom died in her 40s), but doing amazingly well outside of money compared to them. Sure, it would be nice to be wealthy, but I’d rather have the life I do now than his.

Yeah, like if you’re going 45 on the highway, go faster. But not 120.

To add to y’all’s reading list:

Dulles Airport (the big international airport that serves Washington DC and Northern Virginia) did the same: https://travelnoire.com/town-destroyed-international-airport

Also, maybe tangentially related, The Tulsa Race Massacre: https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=TU013

Keep in mind, whenever you think too hard about these sorts of things, this is one of those operations that could apply to Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” Many people make the incorrect assumption of something like, “They must have done some clever supply-chain wizardry," or “There’s a smart cost-reduction plan behind this.” When in reality, a lot of times, the actual explanation is something like a mid-level manager wanted a slide that said “cost savings," then procurement was pressured due to some personality ego problem, engineering objections were ignored, the math was never checked, and in the end, nobody involved actually understood unit economics. Maybe exchanging a $6 part for a $4 looks good in volume, but they only did this 20 times, resulting in $40 of savings which was erased by their reputation and incompetence.

I have worked government contracts. I have worked with shitty project managers. There’s a lot more of these mistakes than you realize powering economies.

Started with online BBS’s in the 1980s where you could get kicked off for being a dick (and your phone number banned) but Larry Wall’s “rn” for Usenet used to say before every post:

This program posts news to thousands of machines throughout the entire civilized world. Your message will cost the net hundreds if not thousands of dollars to send everywhere. Please be sure you know what you are doing.

The US National Park service frowns on people tossing anything into the volcanos. But the deep, deep ocean has no enforceable jurisdiction.

A statement which, in itself, is a generalization.

• Vacation (Annual Leave) for the EU is minimum 4 weeks (20 paid days) per year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absence_management
• The US has no federal mandate for paid vacation, where the private sector average is about 10 vacation days after one year, plus about 6 paid holidays, totaling around 16 days annually: https://time.com/4227072/job-benefits-united-states/

In addition, some European countries have more, like Sweden’s legal minimum is 25 paid days per year, with a special rule for new employees hired after August 31 granting only 5 days until the next April. Sick days 1–14: Paid by employer at a minimum of 80% of salary, subject to a deduction, and from Day 15 onward: Compensation provided by the state, typically 80% for 364 days, then 75% up to 550 days, with medical certification and administrative reporting required. https://www.e-days.com/holiday-compliance-guide/emea/sweden

Even if what you said were true, the “stupid” Europeans have it better than the US.

I have endured a Phoenix, Arizona heat at just under 120° F and opening my motel door was like opening an oven to check on something you’re baking. Our rental car had to have the AC on for about 3 minutes before sitting in the seats wasn’t searingly painful. It took about 5 minute for the steering wheel to be comfortable enough to grip for more than a few seconds.

This platform became “mature” with less downtime around the Reddit API disaster, and I wanted to support it. I still use Reddit, but I go here first.

“I WOULD WALK FIVE HUN DRED MILES AND I WOULD WALK FIVE HUN DRED MORE!”

I would imagine that they see your country as small, unable to fight back, and “full of savages.” I am SO embarrassed at this administration, they live in some weird childish fantasy land like 1950s cartoons. These are people with huge paintings of cowboys in their offices, like “Custer’s Last Fight” by Cassilly Adams, showing Custer somehow fighting off Indians dressed as Zulus (a lot of 19th-century artists sometimes portrayed Plains Indians in “Custer’s Last Stand”-style paintings with elements borrowed from Zulu warriors due to ignorance, theatrical flair, or lack of good references). Deporting these people to your country, which is probably seen as “generically Africa” in some undefined manner, “put the savages back with their kind.”

These politicians are a stain on anything good and decent about Americans. Again, on behalf of America, I am deeply sorry this administration is so immature and reckless. Reminds me of this joke from Johnny Dangerously

Specialization can breed a narrow limit of scope when it come to general knowledge. Sometimes the best lawyers and surgeons are complete idiots when it comes to falling for things like, say, internet scams. I am not sure if that’s what’s happening here, but I have known enough assistants of big skilled people that they always say “This guy is a brilliant surgeon, but doesn’t know how to cook or even how to shop for his own groceries.”

All over the map: Barracuda, SkyHawk, Ironwolf, Constellation, Cheetah, etc…

Three companies, kept track, but not after I left. It was always funny to me that they bought out Atlas and Maxtor. “Of course they did. Why not dominate the market on shitty drives? lol” I am surprised they hadn’t bought Deskstar.

“Don’t you think he looks tired?”

Yeah, but it’s Seagate. I have worked in data centers, and Seagate drives had the most failures of all my drives and somehow is still in business. I’d say I was doing an RMA of 5-6 drives a month that were Seagate, and only 4-5 a year Western Digital.

I have nothing to add but “thank you.” You really do make a difference. <3

I’d compare LLMs to a junior executive. Probably gets the basic stuff right, but check and verify for anything important or complicated. Break tasks down into easier steps.

Uber has been stuck at the same light for like, 20 minutes now. What is he DOING?

I mean… it depends on body type, I would imagine.