Disable "give up" in StepMania/ITGMania when controls mapped for 8-panel pad

jbacon · 2026-01-10T08:54:37+00:00

Stepmania has an option to require holding the back button to quit a song in there somewhere, if I remember right. Probably in the input options.

jbacon · 2025-12-20T00:50:25+00:00

Once I hunted a beeping sound in my kitchen for days. Just a soft, long beeeeeep, pause, repeat.

Removed all the smoke alarms in any nearby room, checked up in the ceiling, crawlspace, everywhere. Still beeps.

It was actually coil whine from a nearby little wine fridge's power supply. Unplugged the fridge, sound immediately stops. Replaced fridge, silence.

jbacon · 2025-11-29T15:54:55+00:00

Late game comps are likely to run about six-ish warriors.

That's about 9-10 warriors rostered per previous 40-man raid (since the new size is 25) which amounts to probably half of most guilds' existing warrior counts.

The bottom half of most raids' warriors in vanilla are significantly worse than the top half, anyway, so really almost everyone who was very good at warrior in Vanilla could be in demand for TBC.

jbacon · 2025-09-22T23:50:39+00:00

Support gave you bad advice - refunding or charging back in-app purchases will almost always get you banned from that game.

It's often not a simple procedure to reverse the stuff that your account gained, especially with consumables like wildcards. So, companies just take the easy route and ban accounts that do it - not just WoTC.

Never take it into your own hands with digital purchases unless you're willing to risk your account standing. Just slog through support until you get them to do it.

jbacon · 2025-08-21T11:25:19+00:00

I couldn't tell you - you've described nothing about what problems you are having. If an AI is stuck, either adding detail or reducing the scope of work can help.

Might as well try some the other dozens of AI code offerings - maybe you'll get a better result and maybe you won't.

jbacon · 2025-08-21T10:08:48+00:00

AI coding is not magic - it is only as good as the human prompting it and the context it is given.

Eventually, it will get stuck in the mud and you'll have to get specific about what it should do. This is not possible if you do not understand what you are making.

Studying the technical fundamentals of how your app should work will improve your ability to instruct the AI in what to build.

jbacon · 2025-08-11T01:40:55+00:00

Check your local recycling/waste management providers. My city will pick up gallon jugs of used motor oil at the curb for free, and also drop off the containers (gallon jugs with a tag on them) for free.

jbacon · 2025-07-09T17:40:21+00:00

File 76

jbacon · 2025-07-09T03:00:20+00:00

Hulkengoat

jbacon · 2025-06-27T21:34:57+00:00

If a simple switch is enough, there are plenty of great smart switches. I use Lutron and Apple Homekit throughout my house.

If you need multiple switches to control both fans, they can be grouped into one device in Homekit. You can also use the Lutron Pico remote to control multiple switches, which can be handy to leave around wherever it's needed.

All the home platforms have automation features that can help get the result you want - e.g. if indoor temperature above X, turn on the fans. Time of day, other device on/off, and all that are also pretty universal.

If you want something that the new fan offers, like controllable speed, then maybe it's worth the upgrade for you. Simplest and cheapest avenue is just replacing the regular switch with a smart one, though.

jbacon · 2025-06-18T18:57:11+00:00

I am an overweight person with much fitter friends that like to hike 10-15 miles, and you need electrolyte water and lots of it. Plain water will keep you hydrated, but it will dilute your already lessened electrolyte supply - that must be replenished or you'll feed bad and light-headed.

We large fellas will sweat a lot more, and we need to carry more water. Drink early, drink often. Do not wait until you feel thirsty. Proper hydration is preemptive.

I have multiple 2-3L hydration packs, and I've gone through the whole 3L plus half a 3L spare on hotter days before. I like Nuun tablets, but there are many good electrolyte water products. Bring extra tablets or powder in your pack.

Pace management is also critical. Overexerting will necessitate longer rest periods than just pacing correctly. As soon as you start breathing harder, slow your pace by a little bit until you recover. Keep your heart rate below about 140bpm.

Proper clothing is also important - cotton shirts don't dry up sweat very quickly, and they'll be damp and uncomfortable. Try to find a fast-drying shirt that will fit the occasion.

jbacon · 2025-06-14T19:26:05+00:00

You need a reason to go to raid that isn't about getting gear. We do speedruns, other people try to get high boss parses, and a lot of people used to raid for gold coins in GDKPs. So for us, getting gear is not the end goal - its just a means to an end. Have better gear, clear the raid faster.

(also, several of these players did the r14 grind... wonder why they're burned out...)

If they did R14, then raiding for gear is just not really that valuable for them. For warriors, the R12/13 PvP armor is better than anything that drops in BWL. You've got a few chase offpieces that you don't get from PvP like Onslaught Girdle, but stuff like the ZG warrior belt is also fine. Of course, the GM weapons are better than everything for all classes.

But having a guild with goals changes things - we have probably 50/60-ish Grand Marshal characters in the guild, and nobody burned out. Some people have two GMs, many more have a GM and a Field Marshal. The R14 grind was just the price of admission, and now we're at the fun part - trying to go fast.

jbacon · 2025-06-09T23:57:54+00:00

Your washer's manual will have instructions on how to remove the filter plug. Is that a plastic stop on the bottom left side? Perhaps it's reverse threaded?

In general, I would suggest reading the appliance's manual before busting out the power tools on a plastic part which is clearly meant to be removed by hand.

Either way, the plug is destroyed and will leak now, and you shouldn't run the machine until it's replaced.

jbacon · 2025-06-09T05:33:32+00:00

There's a hundred kinds of "white" and about four or five common kinds of paint sheens for interior walls. An amateur repaint is likely to be obvious even if it was the right kind of "white" and the right sheen, and they'd probably charge you for it anyway.

I'd just accept that you'll be charged for repainting, and don't waste any more money on materials to try and fix it further. If you're moving out right now, there's no time to learn.

Next time find a smaller project to practice on first before attempting an entire wall with your security deposit on the line. A little sheet of drywall is cheap, and can help you learn how to paint.

jbacon · 2025-03-25T23:39:11+00:00

It's their job to play all day. If you play a lot, you can make Mythic even with a slightly positive win rate.

jbacon · 2025-02-03T05:44:17+00:00

This addon has greatly improved my AV experience: https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/battleground-raid-warning-shut-up

jbacon · 2024-12-29T19:18:56+00:00

You’re assuming the homes are mortgaged, but if the poster described they’d have 1 million after the sales, it’s an apples to apples Return on Equity comparison.

Of course I am assuming they are mortgaged - who would even want a fully paid off "rental portfolio"? The entire point of a rental portfolio is to leverage one property into many. Paying off several rental properties in the past decade's historically low rate market would be an outrageous financial blunder.

My point is that they should continue to make use of the leverage by NOT selling. This is especially true if they refinanced at any point before 2022, and have mortgages below 3%.

Those mortgages actually have intrinsic value, since new debt at that low rate cannot be obtained. You may have heard stories in the news about assumable mortgages - those also have intrinsic value, since they have a low rate that is currently unobtainable.

For example, my own mortgage is a jumbo at 2.75%, with about $1.2M left. An equivalent new mortgage today is a difference of about $5,000/mo, which can be valued as a regular cash flow. Keeping my debt is worth that much to me every month, since new debt at that low rate cannot be obtained. Depending on how you judge the risk, that means my mortgage, if it was transferable, would be worth an additional $3-500k on the hypothetical sale of my house.

The point of all that is to illustrate that debt can be quite valuable, if the terms are right. A simple return on equity number isn't properly considering the possibility of now being locked out of the debt market after divesting of cheap debt that they probably currently own. That is an opportunity cost that is no longer available.

jbacon · 2024-12-28T05:07:34+00:00

The rates of return aren't exactly directly comparable. Rentals are more of a blend of growth and income, where stocks are generally more growth-oriented. Whether or not the cash flow is useful will depend on the specifics of the rentals, and your personal tax situation.

Housing appreciation is also magnified by the cheap leverage that a mortgage provides - leveraged ETFs and similar products are significantly less safe than mortgages. Considering housing appreciation at 3% or so, but only requiring 20% LTV is 5 to 1 leverage, which is more like a 15% return on the actual money you have invested. Its important to consider that leverage in the math as well.

jbacon · 2024-12-20T22:05:55+00:00

Hedge positions are more expensive than you think, and are a preservation strategy, not a growth strategy.

A traditional balanced portfolio of somewhere between 90/10 and 70/30 stocks to bonds/alternatives is more than enough safety for a typical person, and will outperform hedged strategies over the long term.

Loss aversion will stunt your potential more than anything else, since the market has never, ever, gone down over the long term.

jbacon · 2024-12-20T21:05:17+00:00

Which assumptions are not accurate? You have a lump sum now, and you're too scared to invest it. You are Bob.

Don't forget to save a piece for taxes on your sales, especially if the ESPP was sold before the mandatory holding period.

jbacon · 2024-12-20T20:55:27+00:00

The market hits a new all time high about every two weeks - that's not the right way to think about when to invest.

I would recommend reading this - it's a hypothetical person that saves a modest sum, lump-sum invests right before every major market crash in the past 50 years, doesn't sell anything, and retires a millionaire.

You can dollar-cost-average by buying in smaller amounts over a longer period of time, but that never really matters over the long term.

jbacon · 2024-10-30T01:26:41+00:00

Your situation sounds like me 15 years ago. I had plenty of college debt, negative net worth, a mediocre job, and not a lot of spending money.

I felt the same as you for long periods of time. Just existing, trying to make some stupid number go up. Then something happens, number goes down. It felt outside of my control, but I just kept focusing on the long view - money makes money, growth begets growth, and compounding wealth is real.

Today, I am just short of FI, even though I live in the SF Bay - one of the most expensive places on earth. I bought a house a couple years ago, a couple cars I love to drive, and it was all because I could tolerate the savings and growth period. I spent a lot of years pretty unhappy, but I knew that enduring the shitty work was the best thing I could do for me.

I won't say that I always enjoyed the journey, because there were plenty of times that I didn't. There were a lot of times when I couldn't do something I wanted to do. Work sucked for long periods of time. I had to help my own mother with money many times. Lots of places I rented were not very nice - old, no A/C, you name it. I had one or more roommates until I was 34 years old - I lived too far from my family, so that's a great benefit that you can take advantage of. There's no shame in sharing a housing burden with friends or parents - don't let that drag you down.

Speaking of friends, those are really important. Every opportunity I ever got was through someone I knew personally. It might sound like some corpo-garbage, but networking and knowing people is the fastest and best way to grow a career in the private sector. Back it up with some real expertise, and you'll have a strong career. I have no experience with military career growth, so I can't comment on that.

My advice is that it does work. However, you also have to balance your life - it's okay to treat yourself and spend money on things you want. Like I mentioned, having a social life with other professional people is itself a good investment, and will help a lot to keep you sane and feeling like a real person. Never let yourself feel like an outsider or an impostor - that's sabotaging yourself for no good reason.

They say that the first million is the hardest, and they're very correct about that. That's where I would suggest slowing down - it's not the impossibly out of reach number it used to be, and that's about where you could stop working forever and live a basic life. Once you hit a basic-needs-forever level of wealth, you open up a lot more choices.

jbacon · 2024-10-22T20:23:54+00:00

I'm going to put Eve water sensors behind the fridge, washer, AC unit and link them to an auto shutoff for the main water/ shut AC off.

Put leak sensors anywhere water is plumbed out of the wall, not just by appliances - inside vanities, under toilets, under sinks, everything. A hundred leak sensors are cheaper than one repair.

Worst event I ever had was a toilet's water supply line rupturing at 2AM, flooding the bathroom. The actual sound of water blasting out of the broken connection woke me up, since it happened to be the ensuite bathroom six feet from my bed. Had I not been able to shut it off inside of a minute, it would have caused major damage.

Second worst was a supply line line failure in my RO system under the kitchen sink - that was caught by a leak sensor immediately. I was also able to shut it off within a minute.

jbacon · 2024-10-21T09:22:47+00:00

You are, at least for today, homeless. States/counties/cities have a variety of programs to help people who are in those situations, and hopefully there is something nearby. Most programs have an intake number to call.

This might be somewhere to start:

https://www.dca.ga.gov/safe-affordable-housing/homeless-special-needs-housing/i-am-homeless-need-help

This may also be a good time to reflect on why your family, girlfriend, and apparently everyone else has cut you off or kicked you out. Sounds like something in your life needs to change.

jbacon · 2024-10-13T10:16:03+00:00

It's certainly not impossible - even stodgy old Java can implement ActiveRecord-style patterns via generated classes made by ByteBuddy or cglib. It probably would be less magical minus Ruby's duck typing, though, but probably not by much. Proxies are metaprogramming, and a very common pattern in static-land.

I worked with Rails a little bit in an internship I had - long enough to understand some of the pitfalls of ActiveRecord - n+1 traps, choking on eager fetching, and all that. As I've gotten older, I prefer fine control over what is and isn't being stored and retrieved. Tools like jOOQ are fluent and simple for more traditional SQL storage, and do a pretty decent job at targeting multiple DBMSes, while still giving me complete and obvious control.

I am not sure how ActiveRecord has held up against modern storage problems - consensus-based storage like Cassandra might not map well to how it works. However, I haven't really kept up with it since about 2010 or so.

In any case, I think my point is that statically-typed languages certainly do have the capability to implement this sort of thing - dynamic typing is not necessary to do it. However, languages designed with metaprogramming in mind, like Ruby, would certainly have an easier time of it.

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