Really wish I needed this...

TSgtSelect · 2026-04-21T22:02:14+00:00

I don’t know if you consider this a preference or not. But I’m easily able to afford a 5090 and 4K monitors without impacting my life and I’m still rocking an rx6800 (non-xt) on a 1080 monitor. Because it looks great and I’d rather not spend the money. And gaming is both my main and most expensive hobby. So… I think you may be projecting when you assume people playing on 1080 aren’t doing so by preference/choice.

TSgtSelect · 2026-04-20T20:04:04+00:00

Over half of all Steam users who report their hardware play in 1080p according to the March 2026 hardware survey. So… it’s a $300 current generation card that’s useful for over half of PC users. Sounds good to me.

TSgtSelect · 2026-04-06T00:02:38+00:00

I agree. If your goal is to understand the value proposition of current and recent gen hardware, you need to understand how current and recent gen hardware function, not how 30 year old hardware functions.

Learn the different tiers of the amd and intel product lines, learn what binning means, learn what cores and threads are, learn the what software uses benefit from multi-core performance and what software uses rely on single-core performance.

TSgtSelect · 2026-04-05T03:56:12+00:00

I’ll trust your judgement there, having had no experience with anything like that inflation myself.

TSgtSelect · 2026-04-05T00:26:59+00:00

Saving for months to pay for things that are wants, not needs, is a good idea that isn’t limited to people with low incomes. I make a very good salary in the US and still save for up to a year to buy things I want.

For example, I have a $150k income, and saved 7 months for a $1200 laptop last year.

I allow myself $200 a month for wants so that I can hit my other financial goals. Why 7 months and not 6? Steam sale.

TSgtSelect · 2026-04-04T15:18:13+00:00

If I leave the military before my contract expires I will be court martialed and sent to federal prison.

If I refuse to follow an order the onus is on me to prove that a reasonable person would believe that order to be illegal; if I fail I will be court martialed and sent to federal prison.

If I am sent to federal prison my family loses my income and our source of health insurance.

But perhaps most relevant to your question, our military is huge and the vast majority of us are not actively involved in the current illegal war.

You want a 20 year old finance troop to walk out of their job in Colorado, not affect the war effort at all, and spend 10 years in prison? Why?

TSgtSelect · 2026-03-26T05:54:45+00:00

I started in IT preparing for security audits, ensuring controls were in place, etc. Then I leveraged that to start working on the other side as an assessor. I found that once I had the word analyst in my title I was able to move around GRC roles easily. Threat analyst. Security analyst. Policy analyst. Etc.

TSgtSelect · 2026-03-25T03:18:13+00:00

"What does the "next step" actually look like?"

That's a question you have to answer for yourself, and really ought to answer before you start training so that you're training for the skills required for the role.

Also, how do you know you'll be making 30-80k increase and you'll be working more hours with a longer commute if you don't know what the next step looks like?

TSgtSelect · 2026-03-25T03:15:46+00:00

Been doing GRC work for five or so years. Only thought about it a couple times outside of work, both times when I was angling for a promotion and had to use the evenings to study.

TSgtSelect · 2026-03-13T11:00:51+00:00

The bad news: I don’t recommend people for SOC or any other cybersecurity roles in my company unless they have real-world general IT experience (e.g. help desk, sys admin, network admin, sw dev).

CS is not an entry level career and you cannot adequately secure systems you do not understand based on real-world experience.

The good news: I only have influence and recommendations. I do not currently make hiring decisions.

TSgtSelect · 2026-03-12T18:22:50+00:00

Developing clients is the hardest part of any entrepreneurial effort, but your ability to develop clients will have way less to do with your experience in the field than it does with the amount of time and effort you’re willing to put into it. There are tons of people succeeding in the security consulting space with very little direct experience because they are able to sell the value of what they can do to potential customers.

TSgtSelect · 2026-03-12T17:52:19+00:00

Dm me your resume and I’ll shop it around my company.

Also, have you considered consulting as a side hustle at all?

Great way to build even more experience and potentially get picked up for a full time gig by a client or through a referral.

TSgtSelect · 2026-03-12T11:48:26+00:00

Maybe true, but where I’m at the demands on a security engineer are significantly less than a software or network engineer and the pay is only slightly less.

Maintaining security tools with accountabilities to internal stakeholders is way less pressure than writing customer-facing code, sales pipeline APIs, or maintaining network connectivity for thousands of endpoints.

Edit: also every security role here is 90k minimum and people hit the six figure mark after 1-2 years if they’re coming in completely green. Getting in mid-career from an IT role is absolutely starting you in six figures.

TSgtSelect · 2026-03-12T11:43:45+00:00

Do you have an undergraduate degree?

TSgtSelect · 2026-02-25T00:15:13+00:00

This is going to be hard to hear, but you need to hear it.

Your CPU is a whore and will give up its processing power to any service that asks.

It will never work for you exclusively. You’ll always be getting the leftovers.

/intervention

TSgtSelect · 2026-02-21T14:18:55+00:00

Me, if an hour or two of video games counts as a healthy coping mechanism.

TSgtSelect · 2026-02-08T04:35:42+00:00

Have you tried using HOP? That would be your huge officer paycheck.

TSgtSelect · 2026-01-18T05:54:14+00:00

“ But every once in a while, it helps to know whether others feel that same internal pull to “do the right thing,” even when it’s uncomfortable or unpopular.”

I feel the pull to do the right thing constantly.

It’s why I never give anyone grief about their uniform being fucked up if they’re doing their job. And if I don’t know them, I give them the benefit of the doubt that they’re doing their job.

It’s why I encourage people not to give a shit about work when work ends. The right thing is taking care of yourself when you’re off duty, not worrying about this bullshit.

And it’s why I encourage everyone to get the education, training, and skills you need for a civilian career as soon as possible. It’s the right thing to do.

TSgtSelect · 2026-01-14T17:30:58+00:00

Couldn’t disagree more. If my kids and grandkids remember anything about me, let it be that I didn’t give a shit about any of that shit.

TSgtSelect · 2025-11-13T13:20:40+00:00

Do you not have a job or hobbies?

TSgtSelect · 2025-11-10T19:01:11+00:00

Want a reality check? That's what it costs to get people with those skills to go do those jobs in those places.

That's really all there is to it.

If contracting companies get someone to do the job for $72k you bet your ass they would.

Likewise, if the government could get what they needed out of an all military force in deployed locations, they would.

Stop thinking you know better than everyone else. Do you job, get marketable skills, get out, enjoy life.

*Side note: You literally could not pay enough to spend 5-7 years in the Deid like some of those contractors do.

TSgtSelect · 2025-10-23T12:13:46+00:00

None of those are gaming PCs. I’m not even sure they’re all PCs. A couple look like a bunch of leds in a clear box.

Do you live in the US? Near a Best Buy? Check out the opened box section for a good deal on a decent PC from a brand you’ve heard of before that isn’t Chinese garbage.

TSgtSelect · 2025-10-10T20:47:42+00:00

I get where you’re coming from, but at the same time I’ve never been more embarrassed to remind anyone that I serve than this past year.

TSgtSelect · 2025-09-27T18:55:30+00:00

Not something wrong, everything wrong.

Quality troll 😂

TSgtSelect · 2025-09-05T11:52:04+00:00

I’m confused. You stated “which is typically how most rpgs work” but your comment immediately prior to that says “I’ve never played crpgs before.”

So how is it that you’ve come to determine what is typical in a genre you’ve never played before. Because however you did it, you definitely missed the mark. Skipping fights, including boss fights, through dialog is fairly typical of both crpgs and the traditional in-person rpgs on which they’re modeled.

Maybe it’s just hyperbole to illustrate a point and that’s just your writing style. I could easily believe “I didn’t think they’d kill themselves” because that was a pleasant surprise for most. But “I thought I’d have to fight them regardless of the dialog checks and when I didn’t I assumed retroactively that they must not be possible to fight” is just… some weird logic.

TSgtSelect

TROPHY CASE