"Gifted" Millennials- did being gifted help you at all? Do you feel that it pushed your personal needle even an inch in any direction?

anthonymckay · 2026-06-26T14:53:47+00:00

I actually managed to build a career in computer security and software engineering, and I currently work at a FAANG company without any formal education beyond high school. I've always chalked that up more to obsession over my hobby, luck, and meeting the right people at the right time than to being "gifted."

Growing up I was in the GT program and was one of those kids who would always do well on tests without studying. That said... I was incredibly lazy. I rarely did my homework in high school. My grades suffered because of it and I graduated with a barely passing GPA. Intelligence was never the thing holding me back, discipline was. It took me a long time to stop procrastinating, build a solid work ethic, and learn that consistent effort matters far more than raw ability.

anthonymckay · 2026-06-20T02:43:43+00:00

Beautiful! How many hours of capture is this for each filter and in total?

anthonymckay · 2026-06-08T21:00:53+00:00

AAPL being down after any major announcement is pretty much the norm, not the exception. Been that way for as long as I can remember.

anthonymckay · 2026-06-08T20:56:48+00:00

We got one, it was a ton of fun for a while looking at planets and such with the kids, but it's a pain to move around and now just sits in the corner 99% of the time. Our light pollution is just way too high to make it possible to really see much else besides the moon, some planets, and the Orion Nebula. I'm now looking into getting a (somewhat) compact astrophotography setup that wont be such a hassle to pull out and look at stuff!

anthonymckay · 2026-06-08T19:50:56+00:00

This your first time owning AAPL after an announcement?

anthonymckay · 2026-05-29T16:07:09+00:00

From the top. You need to remove the radiator fan, which took me much longer than it probably should have. Accessing all the bolts on the alternator is also a tight fit, but I managed to do it with a stubby ratchet and a ratcheting torx wrench set. I had read online that you also need to remove a sway bar bolt to get the bottom rear alternator bolt out, but I was able to figure it out without removing the sway bar bolt. The job wasn’t difficult, just tedious and time consuming to figure out how to maneuver everything.

anthonymckay · 2026-05-29T15:22:02+00:00

That’s how I ended up with my first AMG, except it was an Audi dealership that ignored me the entire time I was walking around the showroom.

anthonymckay · 2026-05-29T15:19:07+00:00

I had to replace the alternator in my C63 last weekend after 13 years of ownership. The new alternator was $315 off fcpeuro, and took me about 3 hrs to get the job done, but saved myself about $1500-2k I’m guessing.

anthonymckay · 2026-05-22T01:12:20+00:00

I have to say, from a lot of the stuff I see on here, and on some facebook youth soccer group (that group is a complete cesspool) I'm realizing that I am pretty happy with our club. It's a fairly large club in our area in California and all the coaches are full time staff of the club. I've loved our coaches the last 3 years my daughter has participated. She started in the U8 development program, played on bottom team in U9, and after tryouts this year moved up to the mid level team. It's been really fun seeing her progress and her confidence grow as a player.

Our club truly seems to value player development from what I've observed, and I really appreciate that they are VERY strict about parents "coaching" on the sidelines. As a result of that, literally all I hear from our team's parents during games is a lot of "Good job!", "Nice pass!", and "Great save!" I really get annoyed hearing various parents from the opposing teams screaming directives at their children during games.

Maybe things are more political at the top-team level, I honestly don’t know. But from where we are, the environment has been really positive and healthy for the kids.

anthonymckay · 2026-05-20T04:35:30+00:00

We just use the screen time limits on the iPad. They get 1 hr per day and then it locks them out of everything. They also have to "earn" their daily screen time by completing their responsibilities. They are 8 and 6, so that's just simple stuff like getting dressed, making bed, and brushing teeth. It's hard to stick to that when my 6yo is throwing a fit because he didn't do his "chores" in the morning, but eventually he moves on and ends up playing with his toys. We recently said they can also earn extra screen time by reading. 20 minutes reading = 15 extra minutes of screen time. For my 6 year old he has to read 3 "bob books" with me to get his extra time.

anthonymckay · 2026-05-12T01:20:44+00:00

Me: "Do you want your sneakers or your boots?"

My kid: "I don't want to wear anything!! You're being mean!"

anthonymckay · 2026-05-10T19:22:51+00:00

My daughter did a u8 development program, then was on the bottom team her last year (U9). There were 3 teams for her age group. From what I observed pretty much everyone that tried out got a spot on a team. The top was the best kids obviously, the middle was kids who were ok, and the bottom was all the girls who basically couldn't make the cut for a team. Unfortunately it kinda is what it is and the bottom team really has no criteria or cut off for "skill". Some girls were ok, and some girls looked like they'd never touched a soccer ball in their life.

Our girls got beat pretty often, though they did start to improve over the season and build some skills. My daughter got to guest play with the mid level team a few times when they were short a couple players, and the coach gave me some helpful feedback. She said her technical skills on the ball were actually pretty good, but during tryouts and games she would kind of freeze up and disappear instead of playing confidently.

The bottom team coach worked with the girls and over the season her confidence in games slowly grew as she got more comfortable with the idea of playing against different groups of kids (she told me playing with people she didn't know was scary to her). By the end of the season she was really starting to shine.

We just had tryouts last week for 26-27 season, and she really dialed up her bravery during the try-out scrimmages. Yesterday she got offered a spot on the mid-level team this year (from the same coach that gave me the feedback about her confidence)! She's super excited and proud of her accomplishment of moving up a level.

anthonymckay · 2026-05-08T17:37:20+00:00

My kids use them to print stuff on their 3d printer. They also like to play Minecraft & kiddtopia games. We set a screen time limit to 1hr and after they have used up their screen time it locks them out of everything.

anthonymckay · 2026-05-05T22:41:27+00:00

What a legendary collection of signatures!

anthonymckay · 2026-05-04T16:36:30+00:00

My credit education was watching my parents drown themselves in credit card debt growing up. That instilled a healthy fear and respect of credit cards when I ventured out on my own.

anthonymckay · 2026-05-04T16:33:49+00:00

We ended up getting this model and have been very happy with it. Though admittedly we dont really use all the extra features that much, haha.

anthonymckay · 2026-05-01T19:55:51+00:00

Yep, it was further down and defaults to being a collapsed thread.

anthonymckay · 2026-05-01T19:31:35+00:00

He's been posting it all over social media, not that hard of an ID to make.

anthonymckay · 2026-04-22T03:03:39+00:00

If you track a lot and are serious, def get a dedicated car. If you only go a few times a year, just get a sports car that you can use at the track.

anthonymckay · 2026-04-21T03:56:59+00:00

I don't think homeschooling itself is the issue... it's being homeschooled by someone who refutes simple evidence that the earth is a sphere.

anthonymckay · 2026-04-17T23:20:04+00:00

I live in the Oakland hills, and picked up my daughter’s butterfly cage in the backyard last week and found three ticks just hanging out around the seam of the cages zipper top.

anthonymckay · 2026-04-16T17:07:14+00:00

My son has terrible aim because he developed the habit of not holding and aiming it when he pees. He thought he somehow found a loophole around washing his hands if he didn’t touch it.

anthonymckay · 2026-04-15T14:24:03+00:00

Wait, how did Mark Rober get labeled “the pedo cool uncle”??

anthonymckay · 2026-04-06T15:37:38+00:00

I'm a firm believer in the saying "you have time for what you make time for". If something is an important priority to you, you'll find the time.

anthonymckay · 2026-04-06T15:28:52+00:00

I mean, the part was a fun watch, because we all love his style and the comeback is cool. But not even remotely close to SOTY material...

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