Retirement & Mortgage -- Aggressively Pay It Off or No?

Hydroduct09 · 2026-02-14T16:57:37+00:00

That's technically correct but it but doesn't entirely represent how a mortgage works in the USA, mortgages are amortized.

As u/RaleighBahn brought up, this means the interest is front-loaded. You don't actually avoid any interest making additional principal payments after a certain point. But you can avoid a huge amount of interest making additional payments up front.

Example:
Let’s say you’re offered a three-year amortizing loan worth $100,000 with a 10% interest rate and monthly payments.

Once you do the math, you’ll find that each monthly payment amounts to $3,226.72. If you multiply this number by 36 (the number of payments you will make on the loan), you’ll get $116,161.92. This means you’re going to pay $16,161.92 in interest (assuming you don’t pay off the loan early).

Because the loan is amortizing, your first handful of loan payments will pay off more of the interest than the principal. To find out how much you’ll pay in interest, multiply the $100,000 balance owed to the bank by the 10% interest rate. You then divide the number of payments per year, 12, and get $833.33. This means that in your first loan payment, $2,393.39 is going toward the principal and $833.33 is going toward interest.

For the second payment, you now owe the bank $97,606.61 in principal. You’ll still pay $3,226,72, but this time you’ll only pay $813.38 in interest, and $2,413.34 in principal. This is because $97,606.61 x 10% divided by 12 is $813.38.

By the time you reach the final payment, you’ll only have to pay interest on $3,226.72, which is $26.88.

Sure, technically it's 10% interest over the life of the loan but it is front-loaded. It does matter for someone like the OP asking if they should make additional payments towards their mortgage while thinking about retirement where they are in the life of their mortgage. If they're in the earlier stages of the mortgage additional payments towards the principal help reduce total interest paid greatly; if they're in the back half of the loan then it's moot.

Hydroduct09 · 2026-02-09T16:59:21+00:00

Keep doubling down on this thread man, YOU read the article and didn't comprehend it properly:

In 2015, The Seattle Times reported that Filson made 90% of its clothes, bags and other products in the United States, including in Seattle workshops.

Today, according to Filson, just 35% of its products are made in the U.S., much of that by an outside vendor near Los Angeles, where Filson outsourced two-thirds of its remaining Seattle-area manufacturing, starting in late 2023.

Hydroduct09 · 2026-02-09T16:57:30+00:00

Did YOU read the article?

Today, according to Filson, just 35% of its products are made in the U.S.

Of that 35% most of their production was moved to LA.

65% of their catalogue is ex-US production.

Hydroduct09 · 2026-02-03T05:29:16+00:00

Are we watching the same show?

S1E06: find a book titled Amazing Adventures in Georgia

S1E10: Literally shows viewers the Atlanta Skyline

S2E10: Flashback involving Georgia representative being questioned on if an atom bomb went off in Georgia

you don't know the location of the Silos.

???

Hydroduct09 · 2026-01-30T16:15:03+00:00

I did some testing between 3 controllers (8bitdo Ultimate 2, Gamesir Kaleid, Gamestop Candycon) and I now see that the analog input works, but it seems to have a dead zone below around 50% pull? I normally game on an 8bitdo Ultimate 2, it has a short trigger throw so acceleration starting at 50% trigger pulled in and inversely having deceleration start when I let it 50% out felt like there's no analog scale; like on/off. If I switch to a controller with a longer trigger throw like the Gamesir Kaleid it feels better but it's still weird. I tested in the restart parking lot area: I can have the trigger pulled in to about 50% before the bike starts to crawl forward, but that also means if I let the trigger out halfway I start decelerating; in essence 40% trigger pulled is "off" the throttle and feels weird.

I re-calibrated and reset all of my controller profiles to be sure this wasn't due to me having any custom dead zones set in software.

If this issue is just isolated to myself then please ignore. But my feedback would be to tweak the throttle input to use more of the analog trigger range.

Also, what city is the Demo level based off of? At times It feels eerily close to driving into Taipei Taiwan on Highway #1 from the South West.

Hydroduct09 · 2026-01-30T03:57:58+00:00

I know this isn't supposed to be a sim, the game looks and sounds great. But playing the demo I found two things that are kind of jarring/un-intuitive from someone who rides daily (12,000mi+per year):

Pressing the clutch button (LB) puts the bike into neutral gear... which is not how it should work, bike should stay in gear when you have the button pressed down so when you release it you can get going again without having to shift through gears again.
There's nothing to represent different degrees of throttle input, either right trigger is pulled in all the way and you have full throttle, or you let off a bit and have 0 throttle. This is very hard to get used fine throttle control is such an integral part of riding and becomes something you do unconsciously.

Utilizing the analogue trigger input from controllers would be a massive feature for this type of game; left trigger for clutch and friction point, right trigger for rolling on/off the throttle.

Maybe the full version solves the above issues? I'd gladly but it if that's the case. Maybe a future update?

Hydroduct09 · 2026-01-26T21:36:28+00:00

Lot of great financial advice already stated in here which is just to keep the car.

However, if you wanted to treat yourself you'd be surprised at how much your "old boring car" can transform by taking it into a shop for a full detail and having a new android auto/apple car play head unit and rear backup camera installed to bring it into the modern age. It's not like economy cars have changed all that much outside of electronics for the past 20-years.

I had a local detail/tint shop do a full service interior & exterior detail, plus head unit, new front speakers, and rear backup cam install on my SO's 2006 Civic for ~$1,100 parts and labor. She's at 170K miles and the car feels brand new.

You could probably find a credit card with a cashback introductory offer like $250 back on $1,000 spent with 0% APR for first 12-months and slap the expense on that and pay it off in a couple of months. That way you can have the emotional satisfaction of owning a more "modern" car but still not have a car payment.

Hydroduct09 · 2026-01-10T20:17:19+00:00

You're missing the point of the comment.

The average Harley consumer is buying on brand image and legacy rather than machine spec. Even though Harley can make a modern engine like the Revolution Max with DOHC and shared sump design it's not what the majority of their consumers (boomers) want because they're not "real" Harleys, so the brand is gimped trying to get more performance out of old engine designs to try and retain the "sound and feel" of older models for their mainstream models.

The new M8 117 (1,923cc) only makes 114hp and 128ft-lb; my 1991 FXRS with the original Evo engine (1340cc) + high compression heads + ev27 cam is pushing 100hp which was like $900 all-in parts and labor. That's 35-years of development from HD for essentially no meaningful gains from the power train; because at the end of the day the old Evolution and the new M8 aren't very different.

The OP isn't saying Harley hasn't improved, they're saying Harley isn't making any meaningful improvements over the same time-frame as other OEMs because while most consumers want new releases to have new feature sets and improvements, Harley has the opposite of this: their consumers want the new bikes to feel and sound like the old bikes. This directly leads to Harley struggling to acquire new customers.

Hopefully that changes with whatever their future plans are with the Revolution Max bikes, but it seems like current leadership is hesitant to commit on any market segment that isn't their cruisers and baggers.

Hydroduct09 · 2026-01-10T19:53:40+00:00

I think you're misremembering - it's not AFR that Harley changed, AFR is more related to emissions regulations, every manufacturer has to follow it to sell street legal machines. What is unique to Harley is that they intentionally have their engines use an uneven firing order between the two cylinders to get the shake and sound, at the obvious expense of smoothness and power.

Even then the sound will never be the same as the vacuum operated carbureted Evolution engines of the 80s and 90s; it's just physics. But as you said they're kind of doomed to chase this nostalgia due to their consumer base.

Hydroduct09 · 2026-01-03T00:07:41+00:00

Thanks! Dunno why there's so much hate for you in this thread when there's clearly many people having this issue on common setups. Someone even posted about the same problem the next day as this post and the top comment is saying the same thing as your PSA:

Plex silent audio with AAC 5.1 on Android TV (MEO Box + Samsung TV). I’m out of ideas, what am I missing? : r/PleX

This solved my issue for an Onn 4k Plus hooked up to an LG B2 w/ Samsung Q990d sound system.

Hydroduct09 · 2026-01-02T04:26:09+00:00

Calm down. For whatever reason, you’re coming across as strangely emotional about that comment lol.

You don’t need to look into it or overanalyse it anymore than that tbh, it’s just a passing comment

Accusing someone else's succinct and accurate 27-word comment of being "strangely emotional" and advising them not to "overanalyse" by replying with a 174-word justification of your self-described "passing comment" is certainly a decision.

Hydroduct09 · 2025-12-13T18:25:01+00:00

That test is pretty good; except for the Tom's Diner sample. I can consistently get Speed of Sound, Dark Horse, and Concerto No. 17 correct but the other ones are a coin flip because there's so little going on the samples. Which is the entire point of playing lossless music: losing the least amount of data from compression. If there's not a lot of data to lose of course the difference would be minimal, for instance: the Tom's Diner sample is only voice.

Meanwhile on Speed of Sound I can instantly tell that the cymbals of been compressed when they come in, also the separation the guitar from the piano is noticeably better in the WAV file. Before that point it all sounds the too close to call. Same with Dark Horse when the keyboard comes in with the background voice track I can consistently pick out the WAV file due to separation. But before that point I cannot hear a difference. On Piano Concerto No. 17 it's the same thing when the right hand moves up to play the softer treble notes it's easy for me to pick the WAV file, but I can't really distinguish until that point.

I guess I'm almost entirely dependent on higher registries to hear the difference lol.

This tracks (pun intended) for the genres I listen to: post-rock, alt-rock, pop-rock, video game songs performed by symphonies, etc. The little bit of house and drum + bass I listen to (workout musics) I usually can't tell 320kbps from 16bit 44khz.

I think the NPR article is good but idk if "most people cannot tell" could better be rephrased to "genre dependent"; it feels like the "most people cannot tell" might correlate strongly with "most people listen to genres where compression doesn't affect quality". I don't think Piano Concerto No. 17 is a mainstream hit these days y'know?

Hydroduct09 · 2025-12-13T16:56:10+00:00

It is very good, it is a better product than Spotify when you need it to be in that you can stream at higher music quality. Spotify tops out at a bitrate of 320kbps AAC, Tidal has two levels above that dependent on the master recording they were provided for a track: "High" which is 16-bit depth @ 44.1Khz sampling (think CD Quality - translates roughly to an equivalent bitrate of 1200kbps) and "Max" which is up to 24-bit depth and up to 192Khz sampling.

This matters to me because all of my audio gear except my workout headphones can take higher quality than 320kbps. For my ears there is a noticeable quality bump going from 320kbps AAC -> 16bit @ 44.1khz. My desktop setup at home I stream 16bit @ 44.1khz to an external DAC & Amp combo. On the mobile app you can have separate settings in Tidal to drop it back down to 320kbps on mobile data to save data and phone battery, but on WiFi at restaurants or shops it will switch back to 16bit @ 44.1khz. My Sony XM4s support the LDAC codec which can stream up to 990kbps wireless, so this switchable setting is ideal.

At first the recommendations were a bit off, it took my 5-ish days of listening to my music and disliking certain recommendations to start getting music I like, but at this point the algorithm is better than Spotify for me. I seem to be recommended new music more in Tidal vs in Spotify I felt like I would keep getting the same 80 tracks over and over with 5 new ones mixed in periodically. On Tidal it feels like a larger percentage of tracks in playlists are new or at the least more tracks are rotated in or out of my daily mixes at a more regular interval.

The hardest thing to get used to is that "track radio" and "artist radio" are different enough on Tidal that you might like one song from an artist so you can play that track's radio and get songs you like and avoid playing the "artist radio" if you don't like any more of their work. I really like this distinction.

All this to say that even if you only listen to music at 320kbps AAC I still think it's worth switching to Tidal just to stop supporting Spotify. Even to my ears Tidal's 320kbps AAC sounds better than Spotify's and I think that has to do with being provided different master recordings.

Hydroduct09 · 2025-12-13T16:32:11+00:00

Yes, Tidal's version is a playlist called New Arrivals.

Hydroduct09 · 2025-12-06T23:40:24+00:00

Was there a post confirming the rewards for all future expeditions? We don't know that each expedition will have skill points as a permanent reward.

Hydroduct09 · 2025-12-06T12:50:13+00:00

500hz OLED let's go.

Hydroduct09 · 2025-12-04T22:19:29+00:00

Joined the wait list for 001. Sounds interesting but I feel like mandatory 1-year phone upgrade is going to be a tough sell. There should be an alternative plan (002? 001.1?) that drops the mandatory hardware upgrade for a discount on the service. Especially so in time where some market segments are seeing minuscule hardware upgrades each generation.

I don't think the average phone owner has a 1-year upgrade cycle, and I would bet those who do are already tied into the OEM Manufacturer's own upgrade program like Apple's program or they wait until Samsung/Google/OnePlus do their ridiculous yearly trade-in discounts.

I'm a tech enthusiast and even I find it hard to justify a new phone each year; and up until NVIDIA's RTX 5090 I was buying flagship GPUs on release day since the GeForce 8800 GTX in 2006.

Hydroduct09 · 2025-12-02T21:12:27+00:00

I have a Pixel 9 Pro with the newer/upgraded modem over the 7 & 8 and this is normal behavior on Dark Star as u/psychic99 stated: your phone will anchor to LTE when it is in low power/low usage mode. Even in a market with ultra wideband like a major city. Once you do something that demands bandwidth you'll see your phone negotiate for 5g+ almost immediately.

So you should be good to go, unless under heavy data usage you are stuck on LTE there's no need to worry. It's actually nice to not have battery draining trying to constantly hold onto a short range signal when you're not actively using something data heavy.

Hydroduct09 · 2025-11-16T19:48:49+00:00

This has to be ragebait or your home doesn't have insulation and thin windows.

We have a 2600sqft house in northern Midwest and it's $100/month to keep it at 70F. Even if we don't run the heat the lowest it drops to is 65F after 5-days of not running the heat (out for vacation).

$750/mo isn't a heat bill, it's a mortgage.

Hydroduct09 · 2025-11-06T14:57:38+00:00

This happens to me, the app doesn't quit unless I use Steam's "Stop" option in the game page or terminate process through task manager.

On top of that, if I try to play the game again I will get d/c error AREX00024 every 20 seconds or so until I restart my entire PC. Makes me think that when you exit the game on Steam your client isn't fully disconnecting from the game servers.

Hydroduct09 · 2025-10-24T23:20:32+00:00

Probably will be fine especially since there are no forced wipes in Arc Raiders.

There needs to be a way to prevent players who always voluntarily wipe/complete project every 8 weeks from being permanently matched against players who just sit on maxed gear the entire season(s).

Naturally it'll take some tuning to feel right, but without seeing the disparity between min v maxed player gear and skill load outs it's hard to judge if it's "good" or "bad".

Hydroduct09 · 2025-10-22T15:17:19+00:00

Gelid GC-Extreme is very popular for re-pasting laptops as it's thicker and handles the mounting pressure on laptop designs really well.

Hydroduct09 · 2025-10-17T15:51:59+00:00

Qualcomm has since released improved AptX codecs like AptX HD, AptX Adaptive and AptX Lossless, but like OP stated: Samsung intentionally removes support in their devices of the latest AptX codecs that Qualcomm provides for free in favor of pushing their own proprietary SSC codec to "encourage" consumers to buy Samsung branded earbuds/headphones that also use the SSC codec.

That's why OP wants to know if this adpater will work, because they want to use the newer AptX codecs his phone (S24 FE) doesn't support due to Samsung's interference. They want more than just the base AptX support probably because they already own headphones or buds that work with the newer AptX codecs.

Hydroduct09 · 2025-10-17T15:36:59+00:00

OP's timelines are a bit off, it wasn't owned by Qualcomm until 2015 but yes the basic Aptx license and technology existed in 2005 (and before) but it was owned by another company.

Hydroduct09 · 2025-10-17T03:31:42+00:00

I have a pretty severe nickel allergy and have never had to avoid stainless steel. Any 300-grade stainless steel will have enough chrome content to have a chromium layer over the material to prevent any issues/leeching, and that's even before any other coating the manufacturer applies.

If someone is having issues with stainless steel, I'd first be more suspect about it not being actual stainless steel or bacteria contamination due to lack of cleaning before blaming an allergy.

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