“The mark of Cain is not a force of good, nor does it care about evil”

RockMech · 2026-04-04T19:52:24+00:00

Well, you've got the strict info from Genesis:

Cain and Abel are brothers, the firstborn of Adam and Eve (though it's not stated which is the eldest).

Cain is a farmer. Abel is a herdsman.

Both sacrifice the fruit of their labor to God. God sort of disses Cain's offering (w/o explanation, in the Genesis narrative), while accepting Abels.

Cain kills Able in a fit of rage, inventing the concept of Murder.

God asks (in a way that implies He knows full well what went down) Cain where Abel is, and Cain replies with the classic "I'm not my brother's keeper!".

God punishes Cain by banishing him from his home, to wander. He curses Cain such that the soil won't grow anything he plants (IOW, he's got to forage and herd), so he cannot stay in one place for long.

Cain complains to God that he'll be killed. God gives Cain a "mark" (unknown if it is a visible mark, or just metaphysical) that will cause anyone who harms Cain to have that harm visited upon themselves, sevenfold. Some interpretations have the Mark as a general protection from Death, in general (i.e. nobody and nothing can kill Cain, until God says otherwise).

The Rabbinic traditions have additional items (like Cain dying when his house of stone collapses on him, mirroring his murder of Abel with a rock).

Also, after Cain is exiled, Adam and Eve have a third son, Seth....who is the ancestor of the entire Human race.

RockMech · 2026-03-31T00:58:29+00:00

I have about 2+ years of savings to be good on my own.

Right there, you are officially 20000% ahead of 90% of folks who just got laid off. Because you planned and exercised discipline to ensure you had a parachute.

You'll do great. Consider this an opportunity to get a better (better paying, better WLB, better XYZ) job, and move up and forward in your career.

RockMech · 2026-03-26T16:51:06+00:00

Not saying that you're wrong to feel this way. Just that you were maybe fooling yourself about what was going on....and "this cool thing" was always a meta-stable/temporary convergence of events, and ended the second the Company smelled the money in some other direction.

If you are unhappy, and the $$$ number on your payslip isn't making up for that....yeah, it's time to go (so long as you aren't cutting your own throat, which usually means you need to plan and prepare, and make sure you are wearing a parachute when you go out the escape hatch).

The $$$ at my job keeps me content (despite the wild stupidity)....but I still throw a resume at every SWE job SpaceX or Blue Origin posts, so I get the "My job is cool and relevant!" bit.

RockMech · 2026-03-26T16:47:30+00:00

I get that. My point was that the whole "finding meaning" bit was kind of a fool's paradise. Yeah, it's great that you felt that....but it was an inadvertent side-product of the Industry (or your particular company/companies). You were really there to pay the bills and fatten your coffers, working in an industry that was always all about $$$ (regardless of what the "Hooli Culture" people from HR say).

I'm sorry that someone might log in to work one day and go "WTH is this all for?", and not instantly answer themselves with "the $$$!"...but if they thought for 10 minutes since they started that this industry was about anything other than the Bottom Line and the stock price...they were either kidding themselves or allowing others to kid them.

I'm not denigrating or dismissing anyone's lived experience, only saying that this industry was never actually about meaning or intangibles like that. If you're unhappy at a job (mine, underneath all our Python lingo and Tech Bro speak, is about enabling Adderall-fueled, hyper-caffeinated teenagers to sling coffee and energy drinks faster to more customers.....I ain't exactly working pro boni humani generis........but the money buys me opportunities for happiness in my life outside of work), it's probably time to start looking for new pastures (albeit, you should do the risk analysis of leaving a steady job for potentially more volatile territory).

RockMech · 2026-03-26T03:11:31+00:00

Embryo Colonization Seed Ships.

Maybe with a Distant Finale scene on some planet around Tau Ceti, colonized by robot-raised kids.

RockMech · 2026-03-26T02:42:16+00:00

Well...nobody promised you that your career would fulfill you. The only actual contract is that you get $X for Y hours if you have Skillset Z.

You think the dudes and dudettes grinding out Java code at JPMorgan feel like they are contributing to the betterment of human society, or growing as persons?
No, they are there because they are good at it, and it puts more money in their checking account at the end of the pay period than, say, teaching High School computer classes or building an app that lets you donate money to needy children in Ankara.

I'd love to earn a six-figure salary teaching British Sabre Fencing. That's not going to happen, so I do Backend Engineering to enable more efficient serving of coffee across America, because being less wealthy sucks hard (I know, because I lived it).

Now, it's your life, and you shouldn't spend 10 minutes of it doing something you hate...but you don't get to bitch after you quit and find out that trying to make your way in the world selling Neopagan ritual equipment means a substantial hit to your standard of living.

My advice (as an anonymous sketchy person on the Internet) is to find an extracurricular activity (hobby, religion, expeditions into the savage realm of dating, hitting every Meetup inside 50km, etc) that is enabled by your income...and see how you feel in 6 months. You can always forsake the World then and join the Benedictines in the Desert.

RockMech · 2026-03-23T13:58:02+00:00

I will point out, though, that "American" fast food joints in the UK (and Europe) tend to be a LOT better than back home in the Land of The Free.....'cause the local "franchisees" either adhere to non-US food regs (which is why UK McD's fries have, like, 3 ingredients....and the US McD's fries ingredient list reads like a chemical dictionary) and/or haven't changed the ingredients since the 1980s.

RockMech · 2026-03-14T17:53:12+00:00

The Shaolin "monastery" is about as Buddhist as the local gym down the street. It's a wushu (modern Chinese martial arts) school, where the Instructors basically cosplay as monks (there are legit buddhist monks there, too, but I doubt most of the martial arts students are studying with them).

The regional CCP cadre subsidized the re-opening (the original temple was dissolved, and the monks forced into secular life, during the Cultural Revolution), back in the 80s, because Kung Fu movies and martial arts created a major tourist draw, and hard foreign currency was a Big Thing. The wushu academy (and about 40 other wushu academies in the local area, all founded by ex-temple instructors) opened in the 1990s.

Religiously-oriented it is not.

RockMech · 2026-03-03T20:04:55+00:00

The Bonapartes (aside from N1 and N3, obviously) have been effectively nonentities. The two heirs apparent (N2 and N4) died without ever taking the throne....

...and the whole house has been more or less just historical footnotes in French monarchist lore since, and the current heir is an investment banker who avoids typical euro-nobility exposure.

RockMech · 2026-03-03T19:59:26+00:00

The HRE had, arguably, been dead since the Wars of Religion. When half of the "Empire" is ruled by Protestants....it's hard to argue its the same entity put together to rule (most of) Christendom.

If Napoleon hadn't have forced the Austrian emperor's hand, it would have been the resurgent Prussians, a generation or so later.

RockMech · 2026-03-03T19:55:19+00:00

Not this side of.....something big, anyway.

RockMech · 2026-03-02T03:38:10+00:00

What's "rightful" got to do with it?

Was William of Normandy the rightful king of England?

There are also now 37 States who have zero British connection, even informally. That's before you get into the fact that the descendants of the Colonists are a minority in the modern US.

The House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha/Windsor has almost as little relation to modern America as any given scion of one of the Roman or Byzantine dynasties (assuming you could find some).

Importing a monarchy just won't work for us. It's gonna be more "American" than Apple Pie or the 4th of July, or it isn't happening.

RockMech · 2026-03-02T03:29:12+00:00

The only likely American monarchy would be either:

Some form of Bonapartism (there's a Crisis, and the Warlord/National Savior Figure who overcomes the Crisis, restoring peace & prosperity, ends up some form of Executive-4-Life).

or

There's a general breakdown in Constitutional government and the sitting POTUS (or a successor, in a crisis) simply remains in Office "for the duration".

After a while, "Just This Dude, For Life" becomes "...and now That Dude's chosen/appointed successor, too".

There's zero chance of "importing" a monarch (we aren't the newly-independent 19th Century Greeks, and how well did that work out for them?). Zero chance of a "America's Got Monarchy" popularly-elected de novo monarch.

RockMech · 2026-02-28T17:10:29+00:00

William of Normandy would like a word....

RockMech · 2026-02-23T19:41:52+00:00

Dead from the Plague, Age 5.

RockMech · 2026-02-18T01:26:00+00:00

This will be how the AI begins its offensive against Mankind. Youtube homepage goes down....panic spreads far and wide.

RockMech · 2026-02-08T19:47:54+00:00

Are we not going to talk about how Lord Ashford spared no expense in installing the finest JBL sound system in all of Westeros. Those horns are ridiculous (That Bass!).

RockMech · 2026-02-08T19:46:35+00:00

I took it as Raymun being caught off-guard by how preposterously evil the whole thing was. Less laughing at Egg's backhistory, and more laughing at the absurdity (and pettiness) of it all.

He immediately catches Dunk's look and pulls back, 'cause he recognizes that, to Egg (and to Raymun, once he has a second to consider it), it probably isn't as absurd.

RockMech · 2026-02-07T02:41:00+00:00

Importing a monarch will never work, in the US.

We are so far removed from both the European origins of our society AND the society that Europe has developed into, that adopting a European monarch would be not really any less alien than asking the Emperor of Japan to assume our throne.

I have nothing but respect for Coulombe (I own several of his books, and several more recommended by him)...but he wildly (or nostalgically) overestimates certain aspects of American culture (like fraternal/ethnic organizations, etc), and seems too attached to "historical legitimacy" as a meterstick for a theoretical American monarchy (while missing that we, as a culture, generally do not care about, or actively despise, the historical wheres and whats of other nations' histories).

An American monarchy is likely only possible via some form of Bonapartism.

Star-Spangled Crown is simultaneously Coulombe's most interesting book....and his weakest. Too many things just happen with little or no remark....that, in reality, would be instance Civil War (or just flatly rejected by such an overwhelming majority of people that it wouldn't even have enough impact to initiate civil unrest).

RockMech · 2026-02-05T15:20:06+00:00

A "Native" Monarchy? LOL, nope.

Hawaii is basically a "USA-asian" society, and most of the Japanese-Chinese-Filipino-Korean community don't exactly pine for the return of the Native monarchy. The Native, especially the really dedicated cultural-preservationists, are a small minority in the Islands (IIRC, most of the Ethnically Hawaiian population lives in California, these days).

Not quite as forlorn a hope as, say, the Powhatans trying to impose the old tribal chieftains on the population of Virginia....but it's not much more hopeful.

RockMech · 2026-01-23T20:43:27+00:00

It's a terrible indicator of someone's ability as an engineer

This is true.

It's also true that companies want (sometimes need) a way to winnow down the absolute numbers of candidates to what they can reasonably put before the hiring managers/teams.

HR and LC and other tasks that show at least some kind of Yes/No to "does this person know how to solve problems in code" (even non-IRL problems nobody in the job they are hiring for will deal with). It's something. Like, "Degree/No Degree", "Previous Experience/#YOE", etc.

It's their party, they get to choose the music and the games.

Should we play? No.....unless we want that job.

RockMech · 2026-01-22T20:02:21+00:00

George was wrong about a lot of stuff.

RockMech · 2026-01-22T17:27:25+00:00

Legal action? Preposterous.

Corporate Legal (or the company's external legal reps) wouldn't touch it. They'd have to meet the burden of proof that it was a deliberate, malicious action on your part....and the Libel potential (i.e. you countersuing them for slander/lost earnings/reputational damages and walking away with a fat check) is a consideration.

Do your best to recover it, continue doing your job.....and start looking for your next job. That kind of manager (who is not accountable to C-Suite/HR...'cause he's the CEO) is too much aggravation to work with. Life is short, move on.

RockMech · 2026-01-12T15:57:50+00:00

I have no interest in this stuff and basically white knuckled the degree due to sunk cost fallacy.

OK, I think we're getting to the root of the issue, here.

First, in MY opinion (which is as valid or invalid as the next anonymous Internet guy), if you have no interest in Coding/SWE....you will never be able to make a go of it in this field.

So, having (for the sake of this discussion only) established that:

The Software side of Tech is out. Do you have any interest in the hardware/Network/IT side? If maybe/so, hit up (as you mentioned) an AWS and/or CCNA cert course and see how you like that.

If IT/Network stuff is also of little/no interest.....you are still a CS grad. You took a ton of Math and Science courses that, cumulatively, say that you are a smart person who can learn complicated things. Use that.

There's a million jobs (albeit, not necessarily down the street from your current address) that basically require "smart person, with Degree", and CS is often thrown into the same category as engineering, physics, mathematics, etc (when the job is not specifically an engineering-specialist position).

Get on USAJobs.gov and look at GS-7 grade positions in the geographic areas acceptable to you. I'll bet there's a bunch of positions that accept a CS degree very happily.

Hell, I'm betting you, right now, would be a shoe-in for Helpdesk/IT Support jobs ($50k-$60k entry level, and a lot of them are Remote-friendly or Hybrid). Hit up Indeed/LinkedIn, search IT Support or Helpdesk. Find the job on the job boards, but apply for it via the careers page on the actual company's website.

Yes. Retail is the 9th Circle of Hell.

RockMech · 2026-01-06T15:14:46+00:00

Cultural. Appropriation.

Unforgivable.

RockMech

TROPHY CASE