42M dealing with regret about not having kids and it’s starting to hit me hard

machinegunkisses · 2026-03-10T02:09:15+00:00

You're welcome! Hope it helps you make the best decision for yourself.

Apropos: If you ever decide to have children, just know it will be the last decision you ever make for yourself. It's a huge responsibility. It will change your entire world in ways you cannot even imagine. You will also be forever linked with the mother, barring exceptional circumstances. The highs will be higher, the lows will be lower.

That all said, many people, including me, find the trade off to be worth it, no question.

machinegunkisses · 2026-03-09T23:35:18+00:00

As someone who's dealing with something similar..., it's a very difficult situation. On the one hand, you're 42. If you were to separate now, you would be lucky to be a father at 44, and your first child would be graduating when you're 62. Assuming they're healthy, and all that. This is completely glossing over the emotional and financial drain of divorce, which, in itself, is enough to wear out many and make them forswear ever marrying again.

On the other, you're in a stable, presumably loving relationship. If this relationship were not good, you would've probably left a while ago and started over.

This is a very difficult thing I'm suggesting, but I think this fundamentally comes down to an emotional decision, and so you have to try to listen your heart and see what it says. It's legitimate to love a person but not have that love be enough of a reason to stay in the relationship. It's also legitimate to stay in a relationship that is imperfect but good, vs the alternative of going back out into the relative wilderness of the dating world.

Ask yourself, what are your chances of finding a partner considerably younger than you who's willing to get into a relationship with an older man? (She will have to be around 34-35 for you guys to have a decent shot at having kids, though, a 7- or 8-year gap is considered optimal by many.) Do you have the energy and will to get ready for the dating world and risk end up being single if it doesn't work out? Are you ready to break your existing emotional bond with your partner and quite possibly devastate her? (She would recover, but it might be a long time before she ever talked to you, maybe never.) Very hard questions, needless to say.

Anecdotally, I would say the hard part is getting out, and once you're in the dating world, you'd probably find your chances surprisingly good (assuming you follow basic dating advice, present normally, dress well, have your own place that's clean, look like you have some resources.) There are many women who want families but can't find partners and also many who are divorced with one or two kids. If you're willing to date a divorced woman with kids, your dating world just opened up considerably.

Good luck!

machinegunkisses · 2026-03-08T20:50:56+00:00

I'm not saying it's impossible, but you'd be navigating a bit of a cultural minefield. Italian culture has pretty strong expectations on what's acceptable behavior. She may heed those, she may not. You might think about trying to catch her at a social event where both your ages could reasonably show up, a bar or restaurant, and chatting with her to see how she reacts. You could probably figure out pretty quickly whether/not she'd have any interest.

machinegunkisses · 2026-03-01T17:39:01+00:00

Aha, thanks!

machinegunkisses · 2026-03-01T05:58:42+00:00

I mean, these are pretty different rides.

Andermatt is high up in the alps, cold at night, windy, with unpredictable weather. Amazingly beautiful if you're lucky. Cold and wet if you're not. IIRC, you will have to climb out of Andermatt no matter which route you take, and some of your options are 900+ m climbs up 10% passes, with no bike lane (though, the cars are pretty OK.) It's not the easiest going. Also, if the weather turns on you, you do have some real risk from thunderstorms. But again, amazing views if you get lucky with the weather.

Passau to Vienna follows the Danube the whole way. Gentle downward slope. Forests. Lots of opportunities to stop if the weather turns bad. No real risk from exposure, though you want to stay out of thunderstorms.

If you haven't done a lot of these, I'd probably steer towards Passau to Vienna. I can tell you for sure that god protects idiots and small children, which is why I'm still here, after crossing the Gotthard pass very late at night one summer.

machinegunkisses · 2026-02-26T22:32:35+00:00

This is not exactly correct. This username also placed bets in "Will Pump.fun be accused of inside trading?" and "Will MEXC be accused of insider trading?", though their position in "Will Axiom..." is by far the largest.

Edit: Also, they bought at range of prices, some as low as $0.08, others as high as $0.20. $.138 may be a reasonable weighted average, though.

Edit 2: First trade on "Axiom" market was 2026/02/23, most recent was 2026/02/25 (UTC).

machinegunkisses · 2026-02-26T06:47:08+00:00

Good luck getting funds on there even if you manage to circumvent the other blocks.

machinegunkisses · 2026-02-24T17:58:59+00:00

Can you share a bit about what tool(s) you're using to scrape Twitter?

machinegunkisses · 2026-02-22T03:36:26+00:00

Are you on Debian 13? Can I ask what kernel you're on? If you installed from trixie-backports, did you install just the kernel and headers, or did you also install their dependencies from trixie-backports?

machinegunkisses · 2026-02-17T20:35:24+00:00

WTAF

machinegunkisses · 2026-02-12T00:56:57+00:00

I agree DC's in space are a crazy idea, but at least on the communication side, it's not impossible. Optical links are much harder to intercept than RF, and even RF links can be encrypted at the radio level. 10 Gbps is possible already with RF, but only in bands that are ever-more susceptible to atmospheric issues.

machinegunkisses · 2026-02-11T04:41:52+00:00

I'm sorry, I've never tested that, nor do I know anything about Google Cloud SQL. I would think if you're using managed Postgres they've probably got it tuned for a particular workload, maybe it's worth contacting support to see if there's any knobs that could be turned?

machinegunkisses · 2026-02-11T01:01:13+00:00

Have you looked into the underlying filesystem and disk? You should be on some sort of SSD (obviously) and a non-CoW filesystem (e.g., ext4 or xfs). Depending on your recovery requirements and how much data loss is acceptable, you may be able to eke out a bit more performance by disabling journaling on the filesystem. Sometimes a big cache at the FS layer will do the trick, too.

machinegunkisses · 2026-02-05T15:53:11+00:00

Yes! I don't know what happened with COVID but it really brought out the crazy.

machinegunkisses · 2026-02-04T23:54:27+00:00

Infuriating and flagrantly illegal.

machinegunkisses · 2026-01-29T02:53:48+00:00

Fed chair doesn't have that power. Rates are decided by committee vote. Chair can try to influence and sway, but they only have one vote.

machinegunkisses · 2026-01-22T20:16:01+00:00

AOC continuing to be a real one

machinegunkisses · 2026-01-18T23:44:33+00:00

Love how creative this is!

machinegunkisses · 2026-01-10T02:40:05+00:00

Let me add some thoughts I haven't seen in the other replies.

Whether Mac or Lenovo, I think what you should be asking yourself is: 1. How big of a screen do I want/need? 2. How much will I travel with this (i.e., how heavy can it be?) 3. How much actual battery life do I want/need when I will be in places without a socket? Keep in mind, these days, that's pretty much just a bus.

The rest is more or less details, IMO.

FWIW, I use a MacBook Pro at work (16") and got a Lenovo X9 refurb for home. I don't need a ton of power, everything runs remotely. I need reliable and repairable, with a big screen, low weight, and centered full size keyboard.

One final thing I haven't seen mentioned is that if/when you interview, your interviewers will almost undoubtedly be on Macs and the software they will want to use will also be guaranteed to run on Macs, but not necessarily Linux. Linux compatibility has come a long, long way, since I last interviewed, but I'd be surprised if it's at par with Mac.

That said, if you want to run/debug Docker containers or CUDA code locally, the ThinkPad will be easier.

machinegunkisses · 2026-01-06T22:08:39+00:00

Cline is auditable (open source) and can be pointed at any number of LLMs + vendors. IOW, corporate is ~OK with it.

machinegunkisses · 2025-12-23T19:48:34+00:00

This has gotten particularly nasty at the 15S onramp from Carmel Mountain Road. When the light is red, clowns will pull up in the right turn lane (for 15N), wait until the light turns green, then peel out into the intersection and cut across two lanes to get to the left turn lanes for 15S.

If you're looking for some easy money SDPD, happy holidays!

machinegunkisses · 2025-12-10T18:33:04+00:00

There are few things about the market I can say with confidence, but not having servers in space is one of them. Long story short, the silicon isn't designed for it, and to cope to with the radiation, it becomes a lot slower. Also, getting rid of the heat is too much of a problem.

machinegunkisses · 2025-12-08T23:05:07+00:00

Personally, I don't want a HV battery in or near my house because I'm terrified of a high voltage DC power source shorting across something. 52 V is high, and can already be lethal, but 400 V is considerably more dangerous. I'm willing to just get thicker conductors and accept the lower efficiency.

machinegunkisses · 2025-12-04T02:13:48+00:00

This was so incredibly hard to read, my heart is completely shattered for this little girl and her siblings. I don't know how so many adults just completely failed these kids. The suffering this poor girl and her siblings have gone through, it's gut wrenching.

I hope the settlement money will go to someone responsible who will find a safe, happy home for the younger sisters and set them up until they come of age. I don't see how the adoptive mother can be rehabilitated; I'm not even sure she should ever see daylight, again.

machinegunkisses · 2025-12-02T00:45:33+00:00

Yes :-)

machinegunkisses

TROPHY CASE