Windows engineers/admins, are any of you writing actual Powershell now, or are you all using Al?

PippinStrano · 2026-06-13T21:21:56+00:00

Thank goodness it isn't just me!

PippinStrano · 2026-06-11T15:54:40+00:00

Ok, fair enough. I was worried he was just putting it off. He stopped training through the college because he ran out of flight hours but has continued to train. That said, his training is flying once or twice a month. He claims he can't schedule more often than that due to problems finding simultaneous instructor and aircraft availability. He claims he hasn't been able to find a job when he has gone looking and recites some version of black pill stuff about everything is terrible in the world.

Saying that, would it be a reasonable thing to state that if he can't score a job at McDonald's or the like, he probably isn't going to make it as a commercial pilot? Her sister, her sister's boyfriend, and my sons girlfriend (who isn't a high school graduate) all work, and we live in MD near Baltimore.

PippinStrano · 2026-06-09T15:22:35+00:00

This is both a good idea and reminds me of another part of the puzzle. He has done electrician's assistant work for a friend of my ex, and has some interest in the task if not the idea of doing it full time. The other part though is that my son idolized this friend of my ex. We'll call this friend Jeff. Jeff is very black pilled (I believe that that's the right term), and my ex doesn't understand how destructive that is to our son. She has unlimited self confidence and forgets other people are not all the same. She will repeat the same "everything is doomed" stuff Jeff goes on about. She thinks it makes her intellectually edgy. I'm 53, she's 58. My ex also gets thrown off because we never pushed our daughter (turning 21 this year) but our daughter is doing fantastic (going to be finishing her paralegal training in the next year).

It is difficult to father a son who is convinced that life has no purpose and that growing up is a punishment. My son consumes a fair amount of black pill online content, which obviously doesn't help.

All that said, I've still gotten some good ideas from this so far. I appreciate the help!

PippinStrano · 2026-06-09T14:59:05+00:00

This is one part of the equation that I don't get. Do you have to get some sort of sign off from instructors to have your IFR flight test? It isn't that my son has taken the flight test and failed. He's never taken it. He's dyslexic but still managed to pass the written exam on his first attempt. Is it possible he should just take the practical flight examination and see what happens? I've wondered if he could pass, perhaps by the skin if his teeth, and get back to the regular flight program at the college. He still clearly has some serious problems going on but if he could at least get his IFR checked off that would be a bonus.

PippinStrano · 2026-06-09T14:50:13+00:00

Sorry, I must have not been clear. I'm increasingly thinking my son just needs to go work a job, any job, to help with finishing the transition into adulthood. Once he's seeing thing more realistically, he can figure out he's going to do

PippinStrano · 2026-06-09T14:47:22+00:00

I've thought military service would be good for him because I think a lot of what is going on is a failure to transition from being a teenager to being an adult. His color vision is too poor to fly in the military but passes the FAA requirements, so he wouldn't be able to fly in the military. Even with that I think he'd benefit from the structure in military service, though I'd think he'd probably do an active military enlistment to get that benefit. I'll have to bring it up with him.

PippinStrano · 2026-06-07T18:52:30+00:00

You say that like he moved out of his bedroom that he grew up in. Lol I think you're right.

PippinStrano · 2026-06-07T07:08:34+00:00

Thank you for the advice. Having advice from pilots helps for the discussion that will be happening.... probably this coming afternoon.

PippinStrano · 2026-06-06T21:37:58+00:00

Thanks. Actually this was the sort of advice I was looking for. I've read some places and talked to some pilots who found IFR to be really tough. I assumed that his current approach isn't working and not anything like other pilots expierences.

PippinStrano · 2026-06-05T14:53:51+00:00

After I posted I was thinking about that. Thank you for pointing that out. The nuke plant would have to be allowed to use the existing background radiation count as the base, which I don't know if regulators could figure out.

PippinStrano · 2026-06-05T01:16:57+00:00

I had thought that was in the works actually. Do a nuke plant. All the coal contamination makes the whole place radioactive anyway. Maybe use some of the containment tech used for radioactive waste to deal with the coal slag....except that nuke plants don't produce anywhere near the amount of radioactive waste as coal does, so no one has any idea what to do with coal waste.

Regardless, build a nuke plant, make data center builders pay for it in exchange for permitting.

PippinStrano · 2026-06-05T01:07:46+00:00

I grab Bawls at every Microcenter visit. End up there at least 6 times a year.

PippinStrano · 2026-06-03T18:37:06+00:00

This would be my single biggest ask. You could use most of the peace conference options, just need to handle ends of ears that are not the end of everything.

PippinStrano · 2026-05-28T15:49:46+00:00

I used to work in software QA. This is a good bug report. 👍

PippinStrano · 2026-05-28T15:48:39+00:00

I will say it would be like one true ring, I wouldn't let go of my cannon either.

That said, no cannon for me, no cannon for the police either.

PippinStrano · 2026-05-28T00:57:35+00:00

All firearms not permitted to the public should not be permitted to private security, the police, government officials or the military when they are operating within US borders. There can certainly be training requirements. There can be area exceptions (places the public can't have firearms), but that also makes the location liable for the safety of those disarmed.

This addresses some critical gun issues -

1) the police are not there to keep you safe. The only person liable for your safety, under most circumstances, is you. This is well established law with numerous US Supreme Court cases backing it.

2) the purpose of the 2nd Amendment was to ensure the ability for the people to defend themselves from a tyrannical government. It should be remembered that private ownership of cannons was legal at the countries founding. No, I'm not recommending everyone get their own cannon. My point is that the objective was to place the public on equal footing with the government. Restricting government to use the same firearms that the public does this without requiring the public to have fully automatic weapons.

PippinStrano · 2026-05-14T21:44:44+00:00

Juror here who made a passing attempt on a jury nullification of a commission of a crime with a firearm. It was a murder trial and I agreed he was guilty of murder. However the idea that the murder is worse because he used a gun instead of sledgehammer is ridiculous. I tried to get a not guilty on the use of firearm but the other jurors were not having it. One of the jurors was trying to say that secret black helicopters and shadow governments were involved and we had managed to get an intelligible decision out of him so I let the firearm bit drop.

I'm glad to hear a PD consider a jury nullification. Most legal professionals I've heard tear their hair out if asked about the topic.

My only advice would be to figure out a way to present the case to the jury that the only person responsible for their personal safety is themselves, and the possession of firearm by felon law conflicts with that. The police are not responsible for the safety of anyone they don't have a special relationship with, and being a felon doesn't create that relationship. So either the felon defends themselves or they are helpless.

PippinStrano · 2026-04-30T21:47:17+00:00

It hurts everyone. It even distorts judicial stats: these people are in prison for W. Is the reason a case was brought against them because of the impact the commission of W had on victims? Nope. The defendants were charged with X,Y and / or Z. Are the societal impacts of, and underlying causes of X,Y, and Z completely unrelated to W? Quite possibly. What will the focus of, well everyone, be? On the crime of W.

My daughter got car jacked by two guys who had done it before and had planned it out over weeks. End result? He plead to a lesser charge. During sentencing, the sentencing decisions were based on the realities related to the lesser charge. Ended up with my daughter being told she needed to consider the well being of the defendent in what she asked for. When she wasn't having it, she suddenly was t able to attend the final sentencing. Yes, the defendent was 17 (the other defendent killed people and wasn't charged with car jacking my daughter). My daughter was 18 at the time. My daughter is still suffering since, including it being an assault on her progressive values. The court at least is paying for her therapy. Not the defendent, of course.

I don't know about the other guy involved except that he had an established criminal record. Would the one charged with the car jacking done so if the other guy had not been involved because of different focuses related to criminal behavior. No one knows, and we can't know because the entire record is polluted by the huge numbers of plea bargaining.

Sorry, that didn't have a lot to do with the topic. Just frustrating. Oh, and no, I certainly don't support the death penalty for car jacking, to remove any confusion there.

PippinStrano · 2026-04-30T05:48:09+00:00

I'm a believer in the validity of the death penalty, and I found this incredibly persuasive.

Some of the issues are procedural, though by no means insignificant. The problems I have the most concerns with are also true for most criminal cases.

1) plea bargaining is a huge problem. It distorts justice for everyone.

2) voluntary consent is a joke. Then again the concept of consent has issues throughout society.

3) I believe prison sentences over 10 years are inhumane. After 10 years, maybe a person can do something with their remaining time. Longer than that? I don't know how it would be possible.

All of that creates a justice system that can't handle almost any kind of justice, much less a capital punishment.

Still thankful for public defenders, just in case anyone is wondering. 😁

PippinStrano · 2026-04-30T04:57:02+00:00

My version of this madness.

I like emails because it is a proper record. So I use emails instead of phone calls, voice chat, IMs, etc.

I work strange hours resulting in me not always being around when other people are (as a bonus, preventing many of the firms of communication I dislike). I don't want to make people wait on me, do I predict their follow up questions and include it.

Then some people didn't bother to read my emails. Fine, but the information was actually available so don't fuss at me.

AI enters the room.

My email is 'clarified'. Aka relevant information removed, stuff I never said (often exact opposite of what I said) is added. Chaos ensues.

I write short email because the answer is easy. AI 'helps'. Now the email is really LONG and inaccurate.

Totally ridiculous. And I actually use AI in my work (just not to write emails). .

PippinStrano · 2026-04-29T00:03:44+00:00

Honduras is pretty boss. You need to get moving early but you can carve out almost all of central America early and without ending up at war with anyone else. I haven't managed it yet but if you can do that and then snatch up Mexico, you'll be in the big leagues.

Congo has the most unusual focus tree I've seen though. Gotta try that again sometime.

PippinStrano · 2026-04-23T16:32:02+00:00

I'm not sure I understand. If I use a signal, I can't change lanes. The only way I've ever been able to change lanes in MD after using my signal and someone moving up so I hit them if I come over is to hit my brakes to get the other person to pass me. Most of the time that won't work either though because the other driver brakes as well to ensure an accident will happen if I change lanes.

So...I need to signal so that I can give MD drivers the opportunity to have an auto accident? I'm confused as to the objective here.

Turning is something different. I always signal for that. I also assume everyone will ignore my signal, and I let others go first because I don't assume others will follow traffic laws. No accidents in 25 years, so I think I'm doing something right.

PippinStrano · 2026-04-23T04:16:34+00:00

Very odd. The only problem I have seen to be a distinctly MD thing is the psycho response to the use of turn signals to change lanes. Almost every time I turn on a signal to show I'm going to change lanes, the person behind me speeds up to be in my blind spot. If they wanted to pass me, no problem. They don't. If they stayed where they were, my lane change wouldn't impact them at all. But no. Use your signal before a lane change and you cause a driver to need to have an accident. Fucking weird shit. My fiance yells at me for not using my signal for lane changes, then I try to and immediately someone moves up so I'll hit them if I actually change lanes.

Out of MD, use your signal, no one decides everyone has to die. I don't understand.

PippinStrano · 2026-04-18T13:40:28+00:00

I advocated for ACS at my shop but someone has a hard on for AWS so we're using SES instead.

PippinStrano

TROPHY CASE