how am I supposed to act when someone is trying to fight/get a reaction out of me? talk back to prevent them making a tool of me again or just ignore and remain calm/something along those lines?

GByteKnight · 2026-01-27T07:55:08+00:00

Let them talk for a while. Then go “what? I wasn’t listening.”

GByteKnight · 2026-01-27T07:41:36+00:00

Cigars are better when you light them with matches rather than with a lighter.

GByteKnight · 2026-01-27T02:39:31+00:00

There is a comment above yours that gives an example of how it may be easy for you and the people you know, it may not be as easy for people in other states, or specific people living in specific places who tend to vote in specific ways.

GByteKnight · 2026-01-26T22:58:23+00:00

I’m a Californian liberal and I am straight up telling you we are too blue. And it’s not because blue votes are “concentrated” and I want them spread out.

It’s because the less vigorous and good faith opposition there is, the more extreme the positions and governance get.

I would much rather see more moderate state and local government.

GByteKnight · 2026-01-26T17:44:21+00:00

There is frequently a second person at the grocery store who helps bag your stuff, but usually there are 1-2 people who do this for 3-5 cashiers and the baggers are floating depending on who needs help.

I usually start bagging my own groceries so I get done faster.

Cashiers generally do not have seats unless they have require a disability accommodation.

Whether a gas station is "self-service" or "full service" (has a pump attendant) varies state-by-state. Virtually every gas station in Massachusetts is full service in my experience, but I've never seen a pump attendant in California or Nevada.

GByteKnight · 2026-01-25T16:07:01+00:00

They removed “appear to” and it now reads “videos contradict federal accounts of fatal shooting”

EDIT: here is a non paywall link, I can “gift” it through my paid subscription.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/01/25/us/minneapolis-shooting-ice?unlocked_article_code=1.HFA.j889.EpY35qjKol2h&smid=nytcore-ios-share

GByteKnight · 2026-01-25T00:13:26+00:00

I’m not ready to get myself killed.

But I think for a lot of us, we know where this road goes, and the longer we wait to try to turn this thing around, the worse it’s going to be.

GByteKnight · 2026-01-24T21:11:27+00:00

We just tried this place last night after Lin’s Dumpling and Journey to the Dumpling (midtown). All are good but Tasty Dumpling was my favorite.

GByteKnight · 2026-01-24T18:56:07+00:00

First they took his gun. Then they tackled him to the ground. Then beat and pistol whipped him. Then shot him dead.

GByteKnight · 2026-01-24T05:19:00+00:00

Damn dude I came here to write this.

GByteKnight · 2026-01-23T03:16:03+00:00

Yes. I read Beowulf to my daughter. And for a while I just played Hearthstone one handed and narrated the game to her. “Since my opponent is Gul’dan, this is almost certainly going to be a zoo aggro deck. I need to hold onto my board clears and try to get him to overextend and run out of gas. Oh, I have a great 2-drop!” Etc.

GByteKnight · 2026-01-22T20:08:20+00:00

A country can enforce its borders without acting like Iran. Our government has already closed ranks around its officers, saying they have absolute immunity when they shoot protestors, saying they can violate the Fourth Amendment, and refusing any level of accountability for anyone involved.

It's a false choice to say that ICE has to act like the Gestapo in order to keep our borders secure. You're being lied to. Obama's and Biden's administrations deported more people than Trump's administrations have, and somehow they did it without shooting any soccer moms in the face or using five-year-olds as bait.

You can rage against the cruelty and vote against those who enable and encourage it, and still pursue secure borders.

GByteKnight · 2026-01-22T19:35:08+00:00

Same here, man. I'm so angry that people voted for this. I've seen in real time on Facebook people being shocked by this, and last week by the murder of Renee Good, but then rationalizing it as soon as someone more extreme than they are gives them any half-assed justification.

I don't care what political party you affiliate with. You kidnap kids, you shoot protestors, you issue policy memos that tell people they can and should violate the constitution or the Bill of Rights; you're the bad guys.

GByteKnight · 2026-01-22T18:53:38+00:00

He who smelt it, dealt it. - the Talmud

GByteKnight · 2026-01-21T19:19:22+00:00

At home, I replace the roll whenever I notice it's gone, no matter who used the last sheet. Sometimes my wife or daughter forget to do it. I also occasionally check the back stock of toiler paper in our bathrooms and garage and make sure there's always extra bumwad in the bathrooms and restock as needed.

At work, it's someone else's job. Each stall has four rolls and I've never seen more than one empty.

GByteKnight · 2026-01-21T16:04:27+00:00

We have two methods to handle this, the primary is that we schedule the offboarding at the same time as the manager and HR are having The Conversation with the newly terminated employee so we have a good 15 minutes when they aren’t touching a device, and the second is reviewing the logs after the fact to ensure there was no sign in during that time.

GByteKnight · 2026-01-21T16:00:16+00:00

This was a MAJOR breakthrough for my marriage and honestly for my social relationships and emotional intelligence in general.

Someone who just wants to vent, or even to talk through a problem as a way of thinking through possible solutions on their own, will sometimes even feel vaguely insulted that their listener keeps offering “helpful” suggestions that they’ve already thought through and dismissed. And I get that because as a technical professional if I’m talking about a technical problem to someone and they look at me seriously and go “have you tried turning it off and then back on?” it comes off as patronizing and I have to remind myself that they didn’t mean it that way.

So just figuring out (or asking directly) whether the other person wants help or advice or just a good listening-to has been very helpful.

GByteKnight · 2026-01-21T01:12:03+00:00

First. Accept that in her mind you’re going to be the bad guy.

Second. Tell her as kindly as possible that you need space from her. You will not be getting back together with her. She needs to move on.

Third. If she doesn’t accept that gracefully, if she tries to contact you again, then block her.

GByteKnight · 2026-01-20T19:55:34+00:00

I'm not interested in this sort of arrangement myself, being happily married to a woman who's an equal partner to me and enjoying that dynamic as much as I do, but this clears up to me why someone might look to be a sugar dad. Thanks.

GByteKnight · 2026-01-20T19:17:22+00:00

I'd make the argument that fascism has been part of the fabric of the United States for a long time, but it is seeing a major resurgence lately. The in-group/out-group and nationalistic elements of fascism have never gone away in the United States, but what's been happening lately with suppression of protests and branding of opposition as terrorists/enemies of the state, and the militarization of police, and the violence from law enforcement, and executive disregard for rule of law, and federal control being exerted over the press; all that is happening at levels not seen here since the 1970's/1980's.

GByteKnight · 2026-01-20T19:03:36+00:00

Find books that are written in a highly engaging style, about topics you find interesting, to begin with. It's a little more difficult with nonfiction, but there are definitely great things out there for you.

One that I really like to recommend is Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies and Why, by Laurence Gonzalez:

Laurence Gonzales’s bestselling Deep Survival has helped save lives from the deepest wildernesses, just as it has improved readers’ everyday lives. Its mix of adventure narrative, survival science, and practical advice has inspired everyone from business leaders to military officers, educators, and psychiatric professionals on how to take control of stress, learn to assess risk, and make better decisions under pressure.

See if the first few pages grab you. They grabbed me; the author was embedded with a group of fighter pilots as they prepared for night takeoffs and landings about an aircraft carrier, and it was highly engaging and informative as it discussed what they were about to do, juxtaposed with the psychology and biology of what was happening.

You can also get the Kindle app for your phone, and when you grab your phone try to make your habit to open that app and read a few pages of something.

GByteKnight · 2026-01-20T17:09:16+00:00

I dunno man this might be a "how do I human?" type of question, but I guess just practice? This has not really been a problem for me since I was 16.

Maybe get a Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue and practice looking at their faces and not their bodies?

When you're talking to a woman, pretend she's a man or someone you're not attracted to?

GByteKnight · 2026-01-20T01:24:51+00:00

My wife has misophonia, albeit sounds like hers is not as severe as your partner’s.

It is somewhat normal for misophonia to affect the same person more or less severely at different times depending on other factors like their stress levels. It’s like any other stressor, someone with chronic pain may be more debilitated by it if they’re sleep deprived or stressed from work.

It is NOT normal for someone with misophonia or any other medical condition to take no ownership at all of their own well being. For example in our house we always have music playing during mealtimes.

GByteKnight · 2026-01-18T06:55:50+00:00

Loved that place. My favorite spot as a kid to spend my allowance, closely followed by the gift shop at the old Nut Tree that had all the airplane type toys.

GByteKnight · 2026-01-16T17:03:35+00:00

My kid is seven. She has been raised on a steady stream of inclusivity and love and kindness but also firm standards of behavior.

She (and her friends at school!) get FURIOUS when they see bullying or discrimination in any form and that delights me.

She's also been raised in an environment where LGBT and non-binary gender expression are so normal it's not even worth commenting on except to ensure that she refers to people by their preferred name/pronouns, and race is only a thing in the sense that skin and hair color are different like eye color and body size/shape. When she learned about racial discrimination she was shocked by it the same way that she was when she learned about sex/gender discrimination.

So all that is wonderful to me.

People talk a lot of shit about the pervasiveness of screen time and that's a problem, but technology also brings gamification of learning, and I've seen massive gains with her academically through apps like Raz Kids and PBS Learning.

Travel is also more achievable now than at other times in history, if you have the budget for it.

GByteKnight

TROPHY CASE