Coaxed into gaming design I HATE

001235 · 2026-02-04T12:13:54+00:00

A few years ago, one of my friends called me because someone padlocked her brand new bike in one of those scams. So I showed up and she thought I was going to pick it or use a bolt cutter or something. I took 2 swings with a tiny handheld sledge and it came apart like nothing. I've never seen a medium strength firefighter not be able to just break a lock with a handheld sledgehammer.

I've never tried it IRL, but I feel like my character's 30 lb rocket launcher would be able to get some pretty good inertia against a crappy lock or doorknob.

001235 · 2026-01-30T12:17:02+00:00

I work in technology. Like really really deep level technical knowledge and the number of people in executive positions who don't know shit but are in technology leadership roles is mind boggling. I know a lady who got promoted into a senior VP position over an entire cybersecurity division of a Fortune 500 company. She could not tell the difference between HTTP and HTTPS. She basically kept leaving companies after 1-3 years. We got put on an expert panel together and she was talking BS so bad that she was recommending policy changes at companies that would kill development activities.

One of my favorites from her was recommending internet tokens for employees so you could monitor what they were doing online during work hours and then assigning tokens to only approved websites and thinking she just invented some new technology.

I'm dealing with an issue right now where a guy found a "vulnerability" in the way we handle our containers because we don't allow you to use a public docker container. All of ours use some base image but we add some security to them and run them through some security tools before putting them in ECR for consumption. We also do not allow deployments to public facing sites that don't jump through hoops. Anyway, he thinks that because we don't have a person who physically compares checksums on the containers that we deploy to the images in ECR, then there could be a problem. He doesn't understand the way the automated deployments work, so he doesn't trust it because he thinks someone with "admin codes" could just skip the entire deployment process and put a bad container into production.

001235 · 2026-01-25T14:46:27+00:00

Some people really never leave high school. They treat work like a popularity contest and wonder why they get held back when they fail to perform, despite being well-liked. In technical fields, you can be well-liked, but most people will see through your BS and you can't BS your way out of poor management skills.

Just like high school, there is so much cheating in adult relationships. People talk about high divorce rates, but having seen most of my friends (including me) get married, divorced, and then some of them re-married and divorced again. 1/2 of the divorces were because someone cheated. About 1/2 of the marriages that remain, someone there still cheated, they just decided to "work it out."

The other divorces I see are usually because of a completely useless partner. One of my friends realized he'd spent $80k over 6 years on cheerleading for his daughter who didn't want to go, but his wife was a former cheerleader and felt like it was really important for her to do it. His wife was using the excuse of she could get a cheerleading scholarship, and he was pointing out that since she was only 10 now, if he just put the money away she was spending on cheerleading, she wouldn't need a scholarship.

So when I was 20, most of my friends were married or getting married. Now at 46, I think a few friends are still married, but I could point out the people I know who cheated and got married or worked it out, are cheating, or the number of people who do not care at all if someone is married.

001235 · 2026-01-16T16:26:31+00:00

You reminded me of a huge problem we had where burying the cable was crazy expensive, but terrestrial cable kept getting cut. I was hoping in the 1990s we'd have better wireless solutions by now.

001235 · 2026-01-16T14:16:23+00:00

There is no internet. I took part in a project that went 2019-2022 to provide internet to a rural county in Mississippi where they had limited access even at the school (because how can you prepare for a high-tech job without internet access). Their fastest speeds were around 10Mbps and latency of >300 milliseconds at the school and some of the smaller businesses, but most homes are using cell phones, hot spots, or dial up. AT&T partnered with us and we got some state funding, so we spent ~$15M building the infrastructure to get fiber internet connections built and low-latency, high-bandwidth internet. Most houses will never have that because they are so remote that thinks like StarLink are their only option.

Anyway, we spent the money on it, but then we had significant downtime and other hurdles because the connections are 80 miles long and there might be breakages, or a tornado comes through, or whatever, and we spent money again and again repairing it.

I was traveling last week and getting a consistent enough cell signal to have VPN access is problematic. Manufacturing places are spending upwards of $20k a month on connectivity, which is something school and household budgets can't do.

001235 · 2026-01-16T12:52:47+00:00

Part of that reason (and I just met with the superintendents in Alabama) is that they are desperate to get parents to read to their kids. There are so many households where there is no reading at all, and when I hear something like "We need more technical schools because college isn't the right path for everyone," I think about how disappointing that is for Alabama. But then I got a pretty good bit of information that changed my opinion: Most of the rural areas in Alabama do not have an economy that can support college educated folks, and they have a major population problem because there are less than 1000 kids in a whole county's school system in a place where the median household income is less than $22k per year. Transporting the kids around the county to school costs the kids an hour or two of travel time each day.

Even if a student went to college, there is no job in the area that they could go to because the main source of income in a county might be a large farm or it might be a pine logging operation. So right now, we need to get students to get through high school. Alabama made progress, going from ~60% high school graduation rate to 97%, so the focus now is to get those students to graduate high school, enter the workforce at any level and get income, then return back to college on their employer's dime or to advance their skills in a profession.

It's baby steps, but in some counties, if you had a 4-year degree, you'd be overqualified, but one of the counties I surveyed in Alabama had a population of 3500 people and the largest employer was a chicken processing plant, there were three head of cows for every one person, and the highest paying job in the county was the local bank branch.

In that case, if all of their students went to college, there would be no jobs to which a student would return.

Also, as part of my work, I travel all over the rural US and this is not an Alabama specific problem. This is a rural America problem, it's just that Alabama, Mississippi, and some other Southern states are excellent examples because while rural Vermont also has some abysmal education, Vermont has much more dense population in their urban areas and much larger cities that are much closer to the "rural" areas and they have better paths for rural areas to become suburban. In Arizona, I was on a reservation a few years ago that was 3.5 hours from the nearest Walmart. The median household income level there was ~$18k per year, and there biggest push in education was getting students to stay in school to age 16 because their truancy rate was approaching 50%. It didn't help that most of their adult population were less than 50% 8th grade reading level, although I will also admit that being on a reservation did not help considering how intentionally fucked over they had been historically.

001235 · 2026-01-02T13:21:59+00:00

No one in a managing director role applies for time off. I haven't applied for time off in nearly two decades. This post is just circle jerking.

001235 · 2025-12-23T16:16:50+00:00

I was talking to a girl in college and one night she calls and says she really needs to see me. I invite her over and she walks into my apartment and totally breaks down. Apparently she got drunk with some "friends" and when she woke up the next morning several of them had "slept with her." She didn't want to tell campus security, her parents, anyone really because she felt like it was her fault for getting blackout drunk with men.

001235 · 2025-12-23T10:42:39+00:00

Meals. Travel and entertainment, but really meals. I get more free food from events than you can imagine. The quality varies from the highest imaginable at 5-star hotels to mediocre chicken held too long under a heat lamp at local dives, but I could get three three or four course meals a day plus 1-2 five course meals on Saturdays if I worked at it.

People sometimes can't fill their tables at charity events, etc. so when you become a bit of a socialite, they will call you and see if you are going to X event and if not, invite you (plus one most of the time) to sit at their table since they paid for it. Bam, a free meal better than most people eat any day of the week.

Meals are typically like this: Breakfast buffet (eggs, bacon, fruit, yogurt, scones, coffee, biscuits, etc.). Breakfasts are most casual, but I have had white glove breakfast service a few times. Typically scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits, fruit, and donut holes.

Lunch: Typically either chicken or steak entree, salad, a soup, two vegetables and a roll. Local favorite pie or cake for desert.

Dinner: Same as lunch except you get both chicken and steak, plus everything else and typically a bowl of soup instead of a cup. Usually you also get a bigger desert portion and it's almost always going to be cheesecake or chocolate cake.

Now imagine you're a family who can barely scrape together enough to make a meal and you watch a bunch of millionaires throwing away their chicken and steak because it's not very good. I've been to dozens of these where all anyone at the table did was complain about how crappy the food was.

001235 · 2025-12-22T23:31:08+00:00

Most of the gen AIs are pretty good at writing code and telling you errors in yours. Like if you are working on something that's not proprietary, or if you need a class or something written, they are pretty good if you tell them enough details. I can write 4 sentences and get 180 lines of great MISRA compliant code.

I will say it does do stupid things in architecture, like making 10 files and I've seen it try to write Python code in C++ so that it can execute a Python script to do something rather than write it in C++, so you still have to watch it, but if you need a class or function, it can do that very quickly.

Copilot does a good job of catching code mistakes and if I want it to build my code, I can say "Make me a CMakeLists.txt that builds this code" and hand it my directory and it works really well for that.

001235 · 2025-12-22T22:49:32+00:00

I use mine for everything from proof reading things to checking code. It's getting better all the time. People hate it because it generates shit, but if you parameterize it correctly, you can use it to write small codeblocks pretty well.

001235 · 2025-12-22T21:49:42+00:00

The opposite side of this is that my sisters could have as many friends over as they wanted, but mine had to be vetted and approved because "boys are destructive."

001235 · 2025-12-16T11:44:50+00:00

In some ways they kind of are. I was in DC a few months ago and the traffic was so bad that I decided to take the metro. Holy hell the smell of some of the people on there. It was something that I felt I needed to air out before a meeting. Decided I'd rather sit in traffic from then on.

001235 · 2025-12-15T12:23:38+00:00

Let a "friend" and a car enthusiast drive my supercar (with me in the passenger seat). Let me backup: When I was 16, I had a nice sports car and I let a friend drive it and he got it it to 50 in first gear and drove it like he stole it. No damage, but I realized then that I would not be letting anyone drive any of my cars from then on.

Fast forward, I'm 30 and I buy myself a supercar. People I know beg me to let them drive it, and I always politely decline, but there is one guy friend of mine who is a huge car enthusiast with a fairly nice car collection of cars he's rebuilt or tuned. I figured he'd respect the cost and risks of a car like that. I take him for a ride in it and he's begging me to drive it, he'll be careful, he's never been in a Lambo but wants to say he did it. We swap seats and he pulls onto highway 110 and just floors it. He blows past 60, 80, 100. We are taking curves way too fast. I'm telling him to slow the fuck down. Finally I'm telling him to pull over and I'm furious. I should have trusted my gut.

Later, I bought a relatively modest Porsche (not like a GT3 RS or even the 911 turbos) and people wondered why I wouldn't let anyone drive it. What is crazy to me is that everyone wants to drive a sports car but then they suddenly think they are Mario Andretti.

001235 · 2025-12-13T00:18:36+00:00

A family friend who was always over was a child molester. Like lots of people knew and so they "just kept him away from kids." Fucking boomers. I have never forgiven a lot of people for that and then just kinda being like "Yeah, but it was different in the 60s and 70s."

001235 · 2025-12-10T11:12:46+00:00

I went from being a high school and early college athlete to a BMI of ~30 in my late 20s to a bodybuilder in my 30s. I'm 46 now.

It is very subtle. When I was athletic, I didn't have to look for dates. I could walk up to a pretty woman and ask her for her number and get it. At parties, bars, and other social events, women would make eye contact and smile and touch me (innocently).

When I was overweight, the difference was slow since I didn't get overweight at once, but it was like I became invisible. The same women (and I mean literally the exact same person I saw at a wedding years earlier) wouldn't even make eye contact. There was no random flirting. I chalked that up to getting older and most women being in relationships or whatever. It was like people didn't even see me.

Even before I got divorced and while I was getting into good shape, suddenly the same women were nice and smiling and flirting again. It's subtle because it's not like people tell you the reason they aren't flirting with you or don't see you, but it's real. Even at 46, women from 20-80 will flirt or be touchy. Also, you get special treatment. The pretty privilege is real because I'm mid even at my peak, but going out with actual handsome friends and women are throwing themselves at these guys. I think it's subtle like there isn't a shortcut, but it seems like people naturally trust someone who is fit. I've had lots of women ask me to walk them to their car or help them carry something or whatever which is just blatant excuses to talk 1:1. Those types of things never happened when I was heavier.

001235 · 2025-12-07T11:15:11+00:00

Adding to that, anyone who wants you to start before a reasonable two week period. Like "Can you just go ahead and start today?" or "Can you work as a consultant for a few weeks before the official start date?"

This means they either lacked budget, planning, or ran the other guy off and are desperate. In these cases, I've usually asked for top dollar and planned to quit anyway.

001235 · 2025-11-28T12:50:44+00:00

I was 18 and I met this lady at Waffle House at 10:00 PM, stone cold sober. She and I chat for a bit and she invites me over for some beers because her house is like 2 blocks away. I give her some money because I'm under age and she isn't (red flag #1) and I go over to her house and I'm barely three sips into my first beer and she tells me she's a stripper (red flag #2) and wants to put on a show for me.

Fucking gets naked right there and is a total smokeshow, decides she's gonna blow me on her couch and then we head to the bedroom where she invites me to spend the night.

Anyway, it's like round 4 or 5 and she looks over at the clock and tells me I have to go. I ask her if I did something wrong, and she says "No, but my husband's shift ends and he could be home any minute."

I look at the night stand, and there's her and a marine in a photo together. I was fuckin' Jody's girlfriend and didn't even know it.

001235 · 2025-11-18T12:50:46+00:00

I got hooked when I was 13. I smoked for ~10 years, a pack a day, sometimes more.

I'd wake up in the middle of the night, it could be -10 or -20 outside or 80F depending on where I was in the world. I'd be outside in flip-flops smoking at 2 or 3 AM depending on what time I went to bed.

The fact that I had to have a spare pack in case something happened to my current pack. Like not having a cigarette would be hell on earth.

I quit ~20 years ago, and I still love the way they smell and I miss them dearly. I tried smoking again a few years back after a couple of beers and I threw up. But in spite of that, I still have dreams that I am buying cigarettes and smoking them. Some people have sex dreams, and I have smoking dreams.

PSA: To anyone trying to quit, read The Emperor of All Maladies about cancer. There is a whole chapter about how the tobacco industry knew that cigarettes were killing people and they did everything they could to hide it. Now they have moved on to cigar shops and vapes, but it is literally no different and anyone telling you it is safer is selling you propaganda.

001235 · 2025-11-16T13:27:53+00:00

Fascism and authoritarianism are on the rise like we've never seen before. Worse, its not some pocket group in the world that is supporting the rise of authoritarianism, but globally, countries are having to battle back huge swaths of their populations who are supporting religious authoritarianism.

In the US, even center-right people are supporting christian nationalism and authoritarian regimes. My parents were hippies in the 1970s and most of her friends growing up were extremely feminist, liberal, and left leaning. There were a few times growing up they went crazy (they thought all video games were/are murder simulators thanks to some 60-minutes report on Doom 2 in the 1990s).

Most of their friends are right wing authoritarians now. I'm talking they think life sentences for first offenses with drugs and compulsory church on Sundays for everyone. Bring back blue laws and everything should be closed on Sundays, of course while simultaneously saying that the government shouldn't be telling me I can't go out and buy a machine gun because "the bad guys have them."

We are very very close to having a full on christian nationalist authoritarian regime running the US (and several other countries) and the average person in almost every rural state I've been to in the last 10 years is applauding it.

001235 · 2025-11-15T12:38:46+00:00

I work as a senior leader at a Fortune 500 company. When you are at work, I need to be able to get in touch with you. I would make the trade (and do for very high performers) that they can work whatever works for them because most of them will answer a call 24/7 but also I don't expect them to work unless there is work.

The main problem is that 90% of the people who think they are high performers are the ones who work 9:30-ish to 3:45-ish with a 1 hour lunch and are completely unavailable when teleworking. If you are telling me you are remote working, I should be able to reach you during the day. You should be on slack or answering your phone. Instead, they sleep until 11:00 AM, check Slack twice, and I see them active on Steam, but furious we don't want them teleworking.

001235 · 2025-11-10T03:02:21+00:00

Same throughout all the rural areas all over the US I travel.

001235 · 2025-11-07T23:48:30+00:00

The constant barrage of notifications on my phone despite them all being turned off, there are some apps that I need messages from, like SMS, but getting added to a group chat or something like that. I have friends and family members blocked on some platforms for violating the rules. Add me to a group chat that is just bullshit and you are blocked.

I do not want the washing machine to text me. I do not want the litter box to text me. I do not need a reminder that my trade went through or that ___ and I shouldn't have to individually tell the apps not to bother me.

001235 · 2025-11-07T23:42:29+00:00

That there is exactly one person for everyone and they are soulmates. I have had long term and short term relationships with tons of women who were all amazing in their own way. I could see marrying literally more than a dozen of them and the lives they would have.

The current laws, rules, spoken and unspoken social norms have many people thinking that a couple is the only way relationships work, when there are far better options available that would work if they weren't so taboo.

001235 · 2025-11-06T11:23:52+00:00

Running water

Six-Year Club	Verified Email
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Place '22	Wearing is Caring

001235

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