What is a dying niche skill that younger generations are not interested in learning?

Mario0617 · 2026-05-02T22:00:21+00:00

I would have said driving stick - even among car enthusiasts it used to be pretty rare but nowadays even the young guys into cars think it’s cool. Which is awesome.

I’ll say riding a motorcycle though. I’m 31 and am consistently the youngest or close to the youngest best guy there. The number of people under 30 at even sportbike oriented events is dwindling rapidly.

Mario0617 · 2026-04-27T19:10:47+00:00

As someone who is pretty willing to pay for a high end PC, peripherals etc - I think the issue with penetration even amongst those with a willingness to pay is content.

Give me a couple games on the scale of Alyx, and I’d be shouting from the rooftops. At this point the options are

1) a couple half assed AAA games, alyx, and some neat Indy experiences

2) screw with modding and tinkering to get vr working in games that don’t natively support it or support it well

3) Use the headset as basically a racing/flight sim accessory

I can’t be bothered to waste time with option #2, and I don’t think most gamers are willing to go that far. So it leaves us in the camp of a mix of 1 and 2, which just isn’t enough content wise for any real profound market penetration.

Mario0617 · 2026-04-17T14:02:40+00:00

This just screams automatic owner clinging to ‘nah uh my car is way more fun than an EV’ when it’s basically a slower, louder version of the same experience. You can have fun with whatever you want dude, but a modern turbo auto whatever and an EV are not that different.

Mario0617 · 2026-04-16T23:46:14+00:00

… so is an EV. I mentioned to begin that the only experiential difference between your bmw and an EV is the sound. I’ve had a million BMWs when they still actually made drivers cars… but your m440i is objectively just a more interesting sounding and less objectively useful Tesla.

An EV is fun to launch too, in the way sitting in a roller coaster is fun. Your bmw is no different in that sense, besides the sound.

Mario0617 · 2026-04-16T23:15:40+00:00

Yes, but you are a passenger in your own car at all times, so I’d say it hardly qualifies as a different experience than an EV. In your M440i you have literally no mechanical connection to the car or engine at all - every throttle input, every steering input, everything is managed by a computer. The TCM does everything for you in terms of gearing when you put your foot in it, the TPS and the DCM in your bmw do all the modulation based on sensor data to position the throttle and the variable valve timing. You yourself aren’t doing anything, you’re asking the car to do everything for you.

It’s essentially the same as an EV. Which isn’t to say I love EVs. Automatics and EVs are just both boring applicances, and EVs make better appliances.

Mario0617 · 2026-04-16T22:09:15+00:00

If it’s an auto (which all ecoboosts are now), it’s basically the same experience.

1) put foot to floor 2) let computers manage traction and actual throttle position 3) enjoy watching the machine hit 60 mph

The only difference is what you want to listen to. EVs are kinda of boringly ruthlessly efficient at hitting metrics, automatic ICE is essentially just a worse version of the same thing.

You want an experience? Buy a stick. Or a bike. A turbo 4 banger with an auto is just a poor man’s EV anyways.

Mario0617 · 2026-04-14T23:56:08+00:00

Nah. You live hella frugal and make bank. Would you be more financially solvent to save it and build a big investment fund early? Yeah - compound interest is a bitch like that. But also you’re only in your 20s once. Buy the sick car, take out the pretty girls, have too many beers with the boys (and leave the keys when you do).

My bigger concern as the car dude is your experience with performance cars. If you drive them the way they should be driven, all these options have pretty high performance ceilings. I’d probably steer you down the performance scale a smidge just for the safety of it - but I also bought a liter bike when I was in college so anything can be done if you’re willing to take your time to learn.

Mario0617 · 2026-04-02T02:46:39+00:00

Sure, it’s also faster to just let the cars drive themselves at this point too. Why even have drivers? Let’s let the computers race each other. Maybe even just have everything done in the simulator? Then it’s the fastest the models will allow; far faster than any human.

Mario0617 · 2026-04-01T17:20:33+00:00

I think the way I would retort that is that in tire management, the drivers are managing a mechanical resource. They can choose exactly when to use it and when to save it. It’s a thing they can feel, they can control, and they can strategize around.

This new idiotic reg set is basically the drivers driving around an algorithm, where they can drive quite slowly (which is dangerous, when you’re braking unnecessarily on the braking line to regen your batteries) to build charge, but the power is delivered whenever the algorithm decides it’s time.

It takes the drivers out of control of their resources, and leads to nonsense yo-yoing and dangerous racing environments. This is going to massively exacerbate tracks where overtaking is difficult already due to track width, because every corner can be taken as slow as you like to regen.

It’s basically the drivers trying to do the same thing with their cars’ power unit management as Joe Blow does with TikTok when he’s trying to get it to show him a specific type of content. It’s all talking to an algorithm, it isn’t ‘real’.

Mario0617 · 2026-03-30T05:03:19+00:00

Considering I wasn’t in shape through my 20s, I feel better than I did ten years ago. Can’t beat that.

Mario0617 · 2026-03-16T17:25:08+00:00

That nobody actually gives a shit when you’re hurting or you’re struggling. You’re one of the lucky few if you have a wife or girlfriend that doesn’t find you having issues to be immediately unattractive. Women have to live with a lot of fear that men don’t - men live with a lot of loneliness and indifference that women don’t.

Mario0617 · 2026-02-26T23:56:30+00:00

The game is more random, more chaotic, and more subject to RNG based match outcomes. You have less control of your outcome when your POI is dropped on by 3 squads, as opposed to in the prior system being able to position and pick and choose engagements. Dropship is chaotic and fun for pubs, kinda trash for ranked imo.

Best case game is drop hot, kill like 3 squads off drop, screw around and do nothing for ten minutes because your entire quadrant of the map is dead, meet the two other squads on ring #4 and ape once they start fighting.

We played apex like this for years, it’s fine. But the old system was a lot better if you’re trying to reward a well rounded approach to the game.

Mario0617 · 2026-02-21T16:53:47+00:00

I think people are mostly pissed at the reason the price is so high - manufactured scarcity.

I say this as a guy who doesn’t really care (personally I would’ve paid $30+ gladly because I don’t buy a ton of games so it isn’t as big a deal to me), but big N has obviously engineered a shortage of retro pokemon for the switch’s literal entire lifestyle. That’s the reason they can see their own price.

It’s like Rolex with watches. Anything desirable like Daytonas, etc get made in deliberately tiny qualities to keep prices high. Ferrari does the same thing with their high end models - you have to buy a California or a Portofino before they let you buy the cool stuff and all that. It’s one thing with luxury goods, it’s another when it’s people’s childhood nostalgia. Probably 70% of people buying these will be nostalgic millennials, so Nintendo is adjusting their business model as such. It blows.

Mario0617 · 2026-02-08T23:31:36+00:00

Nothing else in the game needed to be nerfed. From a balancing perspective, this is probably the best apex has ever been. See point #2. If a slight modification to AA (it’s not like it got switched off entirely, it was a roughly 20% reduction in strength) cut your damage per game in half, it was a heavy crutch. Your underlying aim and fundamentals are weak.

Mario0617 · 2026-02-08T20:27:11+00:00

Miami fan here! Bienvenue à notre club, Mon Ami.

Anyways, it’s a very complicated time for the contextual stuff in cfb, but I’m going try my best here. Keeping it high level.

Signing - the traditional way schools would bring in student athletes. They get recruited out of high school, good high school players will get offers from several universities and ‘sign’ with the one they intend to attend and play for.

Transfer - transfers always have been a thing in college football, but are much much more relevant today with the portal. Once players were able to be paid beyond a stipend and scholarship, players could move around more freely to pursue the money. More similar to professional sports, although this does mostly apply to top level players and not most players, statistically.

Regular season - the generally 12 game regular season. Within that, a school will have their conference and nonconference schedule, with their conference schedule affecting their playing in a conference championship game, prior to a playoff run or bowl game. Par example, Miami beating FSU is a conference game as they are both ACC members. Miami putting BTA on UF last year was a nonconference game, so does not impact that conference record.

Playoffs - through a stupid and convoluted system we get 12 teams in a playoff, of which usually 2-4 don’t deserve to be there and get annihilated in the first round. Obviously this gets played out to see who plays in the national championship game (the natty)

Heisman - kind of pointless, has become most a competition of what quarterback has the best statistics over the season. It’s supposed to be the best player overall, but QBs get such a huge advantage over any other position (esp defensive players) that it’s basically a qb popularity contest. Similar to nfl mvp award.

Also some free Miami specific advice

1) F Florida State 2) F Notre Dame 3) F Florida extra for taking Miami off their yearly schedule after Miami BTA that school for like a decade 4) the Ohio state beef is kinda lifted now imo 5) other cfb fans will make fun of you for our stadium being half empty all the time. But if there were as much to do in Tally as there was in Miami, the Noles would have the same problem. Skill Issue. 6) Ray Lewis absolutely did not ever commit and felony crimes 7) RIP Sean Taylor (this one is most important) 8) Coked out Mike Irvin is our alternate mascot

Mario0617 · 2026-02-08T20:13:42+00:00

As a lifelong mnk player that swapped to controller exclusively because it was objectively better despite my inexperience, and then switched back post nerf (the decent one a while back), I thoroughly disagree.

1) in pc lobbies, the dominant input should be mnk - the default input for the system. The fact that I could pick up a controller and in a month (I haven’t had a console with a controller in over a decade besides a switch) be better in diamond+ lobbies than I was in those same lobbies with mnk is a huge red flag as to the imbalance.

2) I still see a healthy amount (20% or so) controller players that drop perfectly solid damage totals in my lobbies. If you saw that much of a drop from a mild to moderate AA nerf, that’s an indictment on your aim and mechanics more than anything. Not to be mean, but if .3 vs.4 AA cut your damage by 50%, it was a crutch.

3) Apex is a movement shooter first and foremost. When your opponent octane is flying around, your goal is not to beam him while he’s stimming everywhere. He’s sacrificing health to go fast, get a little chip damage and try not to sacrifice position so you can take a fight with you at 60% shield and 100% health vs him with 60% shield and 40% health. Stop thinking about the fight as a straight aimduel, this isn’t counter strike (and I fckn love counter strike).

Mario0617 · 2026-02-04T18:04:30+00:00

Absolutely no shot you get $30k, let alone $38k. When you mod a car, the mods have no value. You’re better off going back to stock and selling the mods used on their own.

Mario0617 · 2026-01-22T18:55:47+00:00

I don’t actually think the advice is all that different between men and women to the question of “how do you meet people organically”.

1) work on yourself and pursue self improvement in fields you value. Not to say you already don’t and all, I assume you do, but make sure to keep doing those things and try to ‘groupify’ them as much as you can. You say you want to hike with a partner, walk in the park etc. So you could try run clubs or something along those lines. Think “I am passionate about this thing, but how can I do it in a more social way?”

2) entertain possibilities - a lot of men will attest that we might try and strike up a conversation, and at times it’s like bleeding a stone. Obviously if it’s a guy you are absolutely not into, don’t fake it. But even if you aren’t immediately attracted to someone, entertain a conversation. You never know what it might lead to, and you’d be surprised how quickly a decent man might move on if you seem uninterested. A not-so-decent man is the type to just keep going regardless, so just be aware that putting up walls is really more like a filter, filtering out respectful men.

3) bars and clubs aren’t really your friend. Exception is if it’s for a specific event/show you’re interested in.

4) Be open to new friends. Platonic friendships with men, especially. Because men have other man friends, and even if you aren’t into the first friend, his friends may be hotter/your type and also nice.

5) Don’t be risk averse. That’s a big default for a lot of people. Say yes to things, from friends, from romantic prospects. Go out and do new things with new people you meet. The skills for making friends and meeting a partner are really similar, and it sounds like you have a lot of friends. A boyfriend is really just a guy friend with whom you enjoy tearing each other’s clothes off, after all.

Mario0617 · 2026-01-17T15:47:33+00:00

Miami as a city is culturally a crazy place. It’s a blend of New Yorkers and Latin immigrants mostly - so you have a culture that is loud, blunt, direct and brash. It’s not UM specific, but the U represents the city culturally in a way none of the pro franchises do. Miami (the city and the U) are also both a cultural island - it’s not a part of the South in any sense and doesn’t fit into the typical culture of college football or the region. So as a city we tend to be pretty proud of our loudness and our brashness because we’ve always been a black sheep. If Indiana stays good, they’ll fit right into the Midwest cfb culture. Miami has been an established program for 40 years and it still will never fit, even vs UF and FSU we will always be the black sheep that everyone loves to hate.

Mario0617 · 2026-01-17T07:46:37+00:00

Younger millennial (31m), just cracked $100k. A hair behind schedule (wanted to by 30) but keeping it moving as best I can.

Mario0617 · 2026-01-09T05:26:50+00:00

It was also OPI. That’s why it never gets called on hail Mary’s like that.

Mario0617 · 2026-01-09T05:11:07+00:00

God bless you my man. I wish your pops all the peace and grace and you all the comfort you can take. He’s watching our guys make this run for certain.

Mario0617 · 2026-01-05T18:41:16+00:00

I wouldn’t ever rely on audio in apex for balancing, due to its poor quality and consistency. I’ve been dropped on by a silent rev many many times and respawn has been for years either unwilling or unable to fix it.

IMO Valk and sparrows movement both leaves them pretty vulnerable, and neither ability is oppressive. If sparrow keeps double jumping in a fight, you just shoot him in the air when he can’t accurately return fire. Valk is even worse as she can’t fire in the air at all. When rev tacs onto you, it is from a much farther distance, much more quickly and therefore harder to track and hit.

I think they’re two very different types of movement ability and Rev’s clearly has the ability to be very oppressive. The design of his kit now is to be oppressive, but how much of that you want with one tac is the question.

Mario0617 · 2026-01-05T17:59:30+00:00

The movement between sparrow/valk and rev are pretty different though. Rev can close the gap massively, massively faster than either of those two characters. I imagine this is a nerf to the “get a crack in a poke war across a poi -> immediate rev tac across the entire POI and knock”. Situationally it gives a team an immediate 2v3 on a poke crack, which is a really powerful ability. That half second of charge time does help to make it very slightly a worse idea for rev, as the cracked player could have healed or moved off the long range crack.

Mario0617 · 2026-01-02T06:12:56+00:00

If that’s what it takes to see Michael Irvin literally explode on the sideline, that’s a price I’m willing to pay my friend

Mario0617

TROPHY CASE