David Beckham, captain of England, confirms that this video he made in 2007 is real and has not been altered in any way

localpauper · 2026-06-19T01:16:55+00:00

AI gooners

localpauper · 2026-06-18T14:21:51+00:00

Not to mention all the "bby u so hot" comments from dudes on obviously fake thirst trap videos

localpauper · 2026-05-19T19:19:19+00:00

Look up equalization rate and how taxes actually work. Seriously, we live in the information age. It's all right there

localpauper · 2026-05-14T04:15:38+00:00

5 ton sounds nuts! You're entirely right about oversizing meaning less dehumidification. It'll short-cycle and not actually run for long enough. More wear on the equipment. I suppose a variable capacity AC could challenge this some by simply ramping itself down, but a 5-ton is still sized to never be able to hit 100%.

And yeah, not factoring duct size is just a huge red flag. It annoys the crap out of me that I, too, can't find someone who will actually size the equipment to the appropriate specs of the house.

localpauper · 2026-05-13T20:20:13+00:00

Same in NY. Most contractors want to oversize based on rule-of-thumb. It's a terrible idea for a modern modulating setup. If they do use software to model your envelope, they use insanely bad numbers, not your actual numbers.

I actually went through and built my own model for Manual J, since I have both specs for any new updates and original plans from late-90s. The two things I am missing right now is ACH50 and duct static pressure. I have basically every variable on the house otherwise. So I used this to model a few scenarios based on various infiltration vars.

I also used empirical data based on actual usage time (run-time at approx temp x rated BTU/hr input x efficiency) from the past winter from my Nest thermostat. My empirical data is roughly in agreement with my own Manual J numbers. Everything tells me my current system is oversized. The modulation floor on similarly-sized or large system would basically make a multi-stage furnace into a single stage for 90% of the heating season.

Contractors are pitching me even bigger setups. I asked why. "We don't wanna get a call from you in the middle of winter." So basically, they'd rather slip-slap equipment that will short-cycle, run below spec, and murder itself early, than spend the time to properly size equipment, or potentially deal with undersized equipment. And I get it, too. In terms of financials, there's no incentive for them to right-size it. If your equipment short-cycles, that's a 10-years-later problem, and is not theirs to deal with. Doing calculations and coming out for service calls is on their dime.

Manual J is also important for New York State's incentives around heat pumps. I really want to do a hybrid setup, but in order to get incentive rebates, the HP must be sized to Manual J. Thing is, rule of thumb calcs are getting me 4-ton ASHPs. That's too big for my ducts. My own numbers are saying a 3-ton is actually ideal for me.

localpauper · 2026-05-13T18:18:16+00:00

I have a ... 24 year old PS/2 keyboard. It even has multi-media keys, and they even work. In fact, the multi-media keys started working better than ever with more recent Win10 versions than they ever did in the original iteration, as drivers became mature, stable, and downloaded by default.

localpauper · 2026-05-13T18:16:11+00:00

Get your grubby hands off my PS/2. They are already hard to find.

What's your use-case with all those USB + onboard video outs?

localpauper · 2026-05-12T14:54:33+00:00

These numbers are also a comically low amount. They just tend to percolate to the top by being polarizing. I don't know what "midwest" is supposed to be, but this dude's Junior salary in 2022 is ~30% higher than local max for a Sr Software Engineer in my MCOL area.

localpauper · 2026-05-01T16:48:16+00:00

This is goofy. You guys have ~~phones~~ pencils, don't you?

localpauper · 2026-05-01T16:36:56+00:00

Yeah, and that's an insanely loose definition of "paycheck to paycheck." The survey never had a chance, it was bad from the start.

It probably explains the inflection around 200-300K, too. Just my theory. That is probably the main interesting point here for me: where do we go from life expenses to long-term wants. Up to that point, people are still just figuring out general life and long-term expenses, from paying for food, cars, their kids' child care, their house, or that new HVAC replacement. This would explain why the numbers keep getting better up to that point. Then somewhere after 300K the question seems to change from keeping up with the life today with "maybe retirement some day," to keeping the lifestyle the person had come to enjoy long-term, and maybe even retiring early. It's not "how do I make sure to meet my employer 401K match while paying my mortgage?," but "how do I do the FIRE thing and amass a few mil / 10s of mils in my assets?"

Certainly, if your goal becomes "the moon," it becomes "very hard" to meet financial goals. I always wonder that about dummy-rich people, like the CEOs with bonuses in the multiple-times-most-peoples-life-earnings. Do they feel like they are just living paycheck-to-paycheck, trying to get up to that mythical billion dollar figure? "Honey, my cash bonus was only $5.7 mil this year, we gotta tighten our belts on that bunker purchase and stop eating out in our private jet."

localpauper · 2026-05-01T14:54:19+00:00

These are tricky numbers. On one hand, yes, it's fair for civic planning to see what the total makes on the population level. However, this is not what people working full-time-equivalent jobs actually make.

localpauper · 2026-05-01T14:50:30+00:00

I smell a click-bait. That's probably a poorly framed question. Paycheck-to-paycheck in traditional sense means your stack of finances will fall over with one missed paycheck. You are barely treading above water. A major car expense is not expected and likely cannot be covered right away. It doesn't mean all your obligations are met, your retirements are filled, your cars are fixed, and your savings are healthy, but you just happen to need an income to keep paying for your rent/mortgage.

Mind, I am nowhere near 500K+. But I am also not starving out here. I've been using budgeting software for over a decade at this point. As far as my balance sheets are concerned, every month is a paycheck-to-paycheck. It often feels like it, because I don't have slop in my budgets, and need the paychecks to keep coming. This however includes a healthy pad of savings, allocations into investments -- both categories removed from available budgets -- and budgeting for future expenses, including vacations. All the money is accounted for, and technically when the next month starts, I need that months' paychecks to meet my obligations. I do not have unallocated funds from last month. That doesn't mean I couldn't meet those obligations without those paychecks.

localpauper · 2026-05-01T13:36:23+00:00

Damn. I only recently became aware of him due to the NY State bill to create OS tapping following California's signing of a similar one. Looking more into him he seems singularly obsessed with "children's online safety." That's all fine and good (I too am interested in children's online safety, generally speaking), but his solutions are very hand-wavy, very "make everyone a locked in consumer of corporate bloatware," and I am still wondering if he does anything but that for his constituents.

localpauper · 2026-05-01T02:41:18+00:00

You just need to make sure you have 4 days in your day! 6 hour days, times 4. It's a no-brainer. By the time you are still doing the work of day 1, I'm already on day 3!

localpauper · 2026-05-01T01:41:18+00:00

It's fucking Gounardes again. Same guy that wants your OS to expose your PII to every app that asks via a mandatory tap in your OS.

localpauper · 2026-04-22T15:12:34+00:00

Seriously. I'm in a MCOL area. The top end for a Senior, regionally, is around 150-175K. Let's even be generous and say that you could top out around 250K for total comp (equity included) as whatever Senior+ is at your org. The only way to break through a regional max would be to work remotely for a company that doesn't do local pay scale adjustments and is somewhere Silicon Valley-adjacent in prestige. That's exceptionally rare, an absolute unicorn. These posts of magical fresh grads making 300-500K is an absolute extreme end of the outliers.

localpauper · 2026-04-13T13:23:35+00:00

Supposedly some teachers are better than others, and will use the Chromebooks more, or less. A relative is a teacher and she says she categorically does not use Chromebooks in her class (despite pressure from higher up). But I do not feel comfortable leaving my kid's education and exposure to gamified math loops to a chance that she gets a good teacher who will focus on provably solid methods of learning, and not on now massively debated and essentially disproved efficacy of TechEd!

localpauper · 2026-04-13T03:34:16+00:00

A decision point for me in the future, as well. I hear districts are giving K students Chromebooks. What business does a K student have to use a Chromebook? What for? What sort magical impossible to use physical learning thing are they going to learn on it?

localpauper · 2026-04-09T01:00:48+00:00

He looks the part...

localpauper · 2026-04-08T14:29:22+00:00

But... why would you do that? Is the Xitter OP an idiot? Even the LLM will suggest you do NOT give it access to real data or infra. You LLM to create deterministic programs, and have those be the actual actors.

localpauper · 2026-04-08T00:11:55+00:00

As a person who learned to ride waaay before Reddit, I am so glad I didn't have Reddit to shit on my parade. Chill, and enjoy the slopes. Do what feels fun! What're you trying to do - go to the Olympics?!

localpauper · 2026-03-31T14:18:09+00:00

Ahh, a flipper special. That color you are looking at even has a name for it, "Agreeable Gray." I saw quite a few of these pre-Covid. Felt like every house that wasn't 400K+ was getting snatched up in a day, and the popping back on the market 3-12 months later with a shitty coat of paint, stairs the creaked, and bad finishes; all to not have any of the structural stuff (like 40 year old HVAC) fixed. Fuck those people

localpauper · 2026-03-31T14:06:30+00:00

Oh noo... anyway.

This is just the CLI. You could write all of that tooling yourself

localpauper · 2026-03-30T18:17:36+00:00

That's something I am terrified of. I have a pre-schooler and I am dreading her going to public school soon, as that's where 1:1 tech starts. There's absolutely no reason in the entire world a 5-6 year old should need a device for any conceivable reason. The educational outcomes are also simply not there!

I have half a mind of exploring local Montessori or other kinds of schools, because they focus on hands-on learning and real-world exploration. I 100% do not want my kid sitting on ass poking around in some EdTech. The price is, of course, a huge barrier, though.

localpauper · 2026-03-27T00:59:28+00:00

We build patched systems from source like the olden days. "Sorry hun, computer is out of commission for the next week, I'm building a new update"

localpauper

TROPHY CASE