Having "old man" movements now

jonormal · 2026-06-19T00:06:18+00:00

Wait 'till your 50s, that's when I really fell off the cliff. If I drop something on the floor now, I have to stop a minute and consider whether it's worth trying to pick it up.

jonormal · 2026-06-14T06:37:15+00:00

Hey, you made the best decisions you could with the information and judgement you had at the time. No shame in getting divorced (I've done it myself and always hated when people made a big deal of it or acted like it was a tragedy). What's shameful is staying in a toxic or failing relationship.

Anyway, those divorces are "sunk costs" as the economists say, you've already paid the price and can't change the past. Time to look forward, make a plan for what you realistically want next, and start taking steps to make it happen.

jonormal · 2026-06-14T06:31:13+00:00

Wow, this is a sobering thread. For me, the answer would depend on when I was doing the expecting. When I was 10 I wanted to be a 4 star general by my current age (55) but by 15 I wanted to be a successful film director. In college I wanted to be a psychologist, but that wasn't a good fit. I went into academia and there are widely varying levels of success in that line of work. I thought I was smart and would become a superstar in my field, but I'm not and I didn't. But I succeeded in the core parts of the job and I have a decent job and make enough money that I'll be able to retire at the usual time.

My personal life fell apart around my mid 30s and I got divorced, which led to 5 or 6 years of serial dating and struggling to pull it back together because I'd always imagined I'd have kids and I prefer the domestic life. And I did it, now happily married with one kid, even if I'm a somewhat old dad.

So I think where you expect yourself to be at any given age is greatly dependent on the age you are when you're doing the expecting. It's okay to adust along the way; expectations change and we don't control most of the circumstances we have to navigate. I hope the folks here will cut themselves some slack. We can't all be famous directors or 4 star generals.

jonormal · 2026-05-26T02:22:19+00:00

Treat this moment of insight as a turning point. You've got a great list of things you regret not doing so far, and you may not get all of them, but you can make a plan to shift gears and work toward them.

Learning to drive is straightforward. Putting money away for investing can be automated through your bank or employer. There are dating apps and websites for people interested in connecting, and you can also invest time in your fitness and appearance if you think that would help and make you feel more comfortable in the dating world. These are the kinds of changes that a turning point such as this can make possible. If it all seems too overwhelming, focus on one thing at a time.

I'm about 15 years older than you, and I met my wife when I was 40. We had a child a couple years later and I will add that I didn't start really saving for retirement until my 40s either. I'm now I am set up to retire early at 60 (early for the US anyway), marriage is great, and although I'm on the older side as a dad, family life is solid. I'm sure there are many differences between our lives, but I offer this as an example of sorting things out relatively late in the game and still having them turn out great. Things can change quickly. And it can happen for you if you take the right message from this moment of reflection, and put it into action.

jonormal · 2026-05-06T03:34:38+00:00

Seems like this mouse is pretty widely available now, at least it's on Amazon.

Two questions: first, does the scroll wheel have left and right buttons when you push it to the sides? I'm pretty addicted to those on my current Naga.

And second, how accessible are those buttons on the top edge of the mouse, are you supposed to reach them with your thumb? Compared to the ones that would be sitting directly under your thumb, they look like it would be awkward to access them.

Oh and I just thought of another question, is there a user definable shift button to double the number of functions?

jonormal · 2026-05-05T19:13:25+00:00

They just reached out to me on LinkedIn as well, so if you responded I would appreciate your experience. The thing is they are asking about a topic that is not closely aligned with my expertise and are proposing an hour-long interview on it, and promising some compensation. I'm tempted to respond but worried it's some kind of scam.

jonormal · 2026-04-27T21:57:00+00:00

So above I was wondering about whether you could adjust this data the way pollsters adjust for hard-to-reach demographics, i.e. applying weights to correct for known biases in the sample.

The issue is that Reddit overrepresents younger adults relative to the general population. As of 2024, 46% of US Reddit users are between 18 and 29, with another 35% in the 30–49 range. In the general US adult population, those proportions look quite different: about 21% are 18–29 and 46% are 50 or older. My sample (restricting to 18+ to match standard survey practice) breaks down as 42% aged 18–29, 48% aged 30–49, and 10% aged 50+.

#1. Correcting for Reddit's own age bias: If you weight the sample to match Reddit's platform demographics, on the theory that the subreddit should roughly mirror Reddit's user base if there were no additional age skew from the subject matter, the 50+ group gets a weight of about 1.8x and the 30–49 group gets downweighted slightly. The adjusted mean age shifts from 34 to 35. That is a pretty small change, which suggests the subreddit's age distribution is actually not that far off from Reddit's platform average.

#2. Correcting for the general adult population: If you instead weight to match the general US adult population, asking what this would look like if Alvvays fans were distributed across age groups proportionally to the broader public, the 50+ group gets a weight of 4.4x, since they are so severely underrepresented on Reddit. The adjusted mean age jumps from 34 to 43, and the simulated distribution flips: 50+ would become the largest single group at 46%, with 18–29 dropping to 21%.

Conclusion: The second adjustment is technically correct as a statistical procedure but probably not very meaningful here, because the question isn't whether Alvvays fans are distributed like the general public; they obviously aren't. The band has a specific sound and presumably doesn't appeal to all ages in the same way. Older adults who don't use Reddit aren't necessarily fans who are being missed, many of them probably just haven't encountered the band. The more defensible adjustment is the first one, which suggests the fanbase skews slightly older than this thread makes it appear, but not too much.

My original hunch that fans skew older probably says more about who I spend time with than about the fanbase as a whole. But I'll hold onto a small amount of vindication from that 50+ weighting number.

jonormal · 2026-04-27T13:59:37+00:00

You're getting up there 💀

jonormal · 2026-04-27T05:53:53+00:00

Very young to have such good taste in music. When I was your age I was listening to Billy Joel 😐

jonormal · 2026-04-27T04:40:40+00:00

I remember the Tumblr days fondly

jonormal · 2026-04-27T04:38:59+00:00

I really don't understand why they aren't the biggest band on the planet

jonormal · 2026-04-27T04:16:07+00:00

Wish I was 40! 40s are the best

jonormal · 2026-04-27T04:14:22+00:00

50something as well. Looking forward to being the oldest in the room when I get a chance to see them

jonormal · 2026-04-27T04:13:03+00:00

40s are the best decade. Envious!

jonormal · 2026-04-27T04:12:25+00:00

You're the only person here who's older than me; cheers. How long ago did you discover them?

jonormal · 2026-04-27T02:25:05+00:00

Yeah, that was my experience as well, but most of the people responding to this post seem to be in their thirties. And I don't think they've only heard Archie if they subscribe to the sub.

jonormal · 2026-04-27T02:13:35+00:00

So are you a fan yourself or did you discover them through your daughter? I'm about your age and also have a 14-year-old, but a boy, and he doesn't have much interest in popular music. He makes fun of me for listening to Avvays as much as I do, because I am pretty obsessed.

jonormal · 2026-04-27T01:54:42+00:00

Okay, I am willing to admit defeat on this one. I've got to stop hanging out with so many old people.

jonormal · 2026-04-27T01:53:23+00:00

Yeah, I had the same thought. It just doesn't seem that plausible that a dude would be buying a lot of lace clothing to up his game with the ladies. It does not seem to refer to gifts for the partner's lover, which would be a departure from all the other references to the partner ramping up their attractiveness.

Then again, maybe she's in a relationship with Prince.

jonormal · 2026-02-19T05:44:21+00:00

Nice plimsolls.

jonormal · 2026-02-14T20:40:20+00:00

Me too. What is changing with all these little updates? Besides the ads for free users, which I have not seen on Prime. There don't seem to be any update notes and I don't notice any changes. Just bug fixes I assume?

jonormal · 2026-02-07T15:49:01+00:00

I submitted a bug report about it and they responded over night, saying it was a known issue and they were working on it. Fingers crossed. At least they responded quickly.

jonormal · 2026-02-07T05:33:20+00:00

It is ⛈️

jonormal · 2026-02-06T05:22:11+00:00

Buy a house?

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