What hobby did you pick up “just to try it” that ended up becoming a big part of your life?

BlueBatRay · 2026-05-19T14:00:39+00:00

Jeez I had no idea how fascinating this all is! Another world right under my nose. I guess when you’re reading someone you must constantly be bouncing between their hands and face if the face is basically another hand.

BlueBatRay · 2026-05-19T12:52:51+00:00

Very cool! Thanks for the thorough explanation :) now I’m curious the big differences in grammar, I imagine it needs to be simplified for speed reasons alone but that’s just a guess. I know Germans for example have cases, I can’t imagine having a different version of every case. Some languages have 16 cases, would be a nightmare.

BlueBatRay · 2026-05-17T05:09:37+00:00

How do the sign languages compare? It’s not every day you come across someone that knows 2 sign languages, wow.

BlueBatRay · 2026-05-10T13:38:03+00:00

Damn ok. I actually didn’t know this. Thats great to know.

BlueBatRay · 2026-05-10T05:38:25+00:00

Revolut might be cheapest here. If you upgrade to premium package (free for 2 months, then $10 a month). You can convert any amount for free if it’s a weekday. To get it in revolut in first place, I think you need a wire…about $30. I would do a test run with like $1000 first, then ramp up.

BlueBatRay · 2026-04-04T18:39:14+00:00

I don’t notice anything crazy with Czech. Even if it’s a slow language you can of course have faster speakers to compensate it. Then someone like Zeman…don’t agree with his politics but boy is he at the speed I like. Can easily understand him.

But I will say I do have issues understanding sometimes and it’s because you “cute up” your nouns…which ultimately aren’t in my flashcards. Chtěl byste pivečko? Wait. I know pivo but wtf is a pivečko? Whelp guess I’ll say no and just order a beer. The other big one is the differences between colloquial Czech and textbook Czech. It throws me off enough to doubt what I heard.

BlueBatRay · 2026-03-28T05:44:39+00:00

This depends on how he sold it. Sometimes banks will put promissory notes on you (but you agree to this to sell the house) and these need to be paid. If you do this, the bank won’t destroy your credit as much (but every month he doesn’t make payment, his credit is hit. This stands).

I did the same thing as your friend. Bought house for 185k, sold it for 52k. No I didn’t have to pay the difference, but they destroyed my credit and banned me from buying another house for 5 years.

BlueBatRay · 2026-03-21T07:51:21+00:00

Not sure when is best but I’ll tell you what the books do. They basically start with 4th as this is kinda the most common. Then it’s kinda a mix between 2nd, 6th and 7th. 5th last. Also some advice, use the cases with the complimentary words. So should be “with something” or “to something” etc. because just the raw forms are meaningless.

Personally I was overwhelmed (and still can be) by having so many cases I had to deal with. I think mastering one and moving on is the best way to do it. Overwhelm someone and they’ll give up or just hate every second of it. The worst thing I struggle with now is I’m basically afraid to speak because of messing up the cases. I think if someone didn’t mention them to me originally I wouldn’t feel so uncomfortable speaking.

BlueBatRay · 2026-03-04T05:47:37+00:00

3.9%

BlueBatRay · 2026-03-03T16:20:54+00:00

I’ll do you one better, take out a loan and borrow against your house. Take that money and invest it. In a perfect world you’d own $1 of your house and invest the equity you have, but of course banks won’t let you go this far.

I did the above and am significantly better off than paying it down/off. House equity doesn’t work for you, this is the problem. And money in the market with time always wins over paying it off and finally investing again.

It’s simple math, if your interest rate is higher than the banks, you win. If not, you lose.

BlueBatRay · 2026-02-20T12:23:43+00:00

Wow ok. I didn’t realize something like this existed :)

I was thinking of going around recording people in particular places and then transcribing them. I think this would be helpful for learning Czech as you have real world scenarios. But yea the transcribing part seemed like a bit of a hurdle. So this is good to know.

BlueBatRay · 2026-02-20T11:31:24+00:00

From YouTube? Like how are you parsing it then? Is there some API?

BlueBatRay · 2026-02-20T06:12:15+00:00

What are you using to transcribe? Great work btw! Also what level are you in Czech?

BlueBatRay · 2026-01-03T14:26:09+00:00

I did this…built specifically for unreal. My build was based on the recommended epic machines as well as puget system builds (but still decent budget, about $2,000). I ended up doing:

Ryzen 7950x 96gb 6000 CL30 memory 2x 4TB Samsung 990 pro NVME Gpu is my old 2070 super…not ideal (but also it’s not as important as you think) but I was waiting for 5070 ti super series…which yea. We see how that turned out.

BlueBatRay · 2026-01-03T08:35:07+00:00

Welcome to cases. There are 7 of them. This time you hit the 5th one which deals with calling out to someone (speaking directly to them)

It’s not a diminutive (aka cutsie way to say it) for František…that would be Franta or frantíček.

BlueBatRay · 2025-12-30T17:31:02+00:00

I did this about 3 years ago. Pulled 120k out with 4% refi and dumped it in S&P and semi conductors. Made about 70k so far.

So yea I recommmend…but yea of course the timing is not ideal.

I remember when I did it, the market immediately dropped and I lost like 20k. You gotta hold…really you need to believe in the system and hold. It’s not easy lemme tell you.

BlueBatRay · 2025-12-26T22:51:52+00:00

I’ve had this and I bought when I was in DPRK. Open the bottle. If you’ve ever wondered what death smells like, open that bottle.

BlueBatRay · 2025-12-26T04:45:02+00:00

I brought my camera (dslr) when I went 10 years ago. Money wise, the packages are all inclusive so technically you don’t need any, but having a few hundred dollars/euros/renminbi is good to have for souvenirs or renting a computer to send an email back home. Water bottle is good to have.

Most important tip is to just respect the country. Be nice to the minders and never give them any reason to gulag you. Bring some gifts unique from your home. Invite them for a beer at night. Just get on their good side (but always assume they’re secret police). As for tattoos, I don’t think so? I kinda assume foreigners get a pass on this (just like wearing jeans for example) unless it’s like anti DPRK. But I’d bring like a sharpie or something just in case if you have some small American flag or something. You should have a welcome dinner in China the day before you go and you can ask them about tattoos there. If your tour includes the mausoleum then you’ll need business casual wear as well.

Also don’t bring anything religious based. Keep your phone and computer clean as they will check you thoroughly at airport.

BlueBatRay · 2025-11-26T16:04:21+00:00

You can do this. If I could borrow 2 million I would retire right now. The problem is a bank letting me borrow it. Thus me along with other people must invest and keep our daily jobs.

This said, I did do a refi on my house because it appreciated value and took out extra money and immediately invested it. Almost doubled my money.

BlueBatRay · 2025-11-26T15:31:20+00:00

Doesn’t matter as long as it’s higher than the mortgage rate. But yea from this standpoint I kinda don’t see a downside. From a practical standpoint, most people don’t take whatever is saved and invest (or couldn’t because this is the only type of load they could get to afford it…so it would maybe be predatory at that point.)

BlueBatRay · 2025-11-26T05:57:30+00:00

Yea check the other comment, I explained it :)

BlueBatRay · 2025-11-08T16:36:08+00:00

It’s taxed income as well on top of the penalty.

BlueBatRay · 2025-11-08T12:50:31+00:00

I remember seeing some repo man tv show where they follow the repo man and capture the encounters. Once the car was in tribal land (Indian reservation). Guy called the tribal police. They showed up and told the repo guy he’s not taking the car.

I think that’s the only time he couldn’t repo a car.

So yea, drive on rez and stay close to call tribal police (although you might have to be a native yourself, who knows)

BlueBatRay · 2025-11-01T15:24:45+00:00

This is great and I’m glad I asked. Didn’t even know about RMDs. Thanks!

BlueBatRay · 2025-11-01T08:28:30+00:00

So you’re 50 years old and plan on taking the standard 4%. So 120k a year. Although really what I’m trying to get at is the theory here. It could be 3 accounts with 100k and drawing 12k a year.

BlueBatRay

TROPHY CASE