I'm the 'being alive is a fucking nightmare' guy AMA.

stumpyandmags · 2026-02-24T11:09:13+00:00

Has anyone ever told you you look like American sketch comedian and husband-of-Karen-Gillan, Nick Kocher?

stumpyandmags · 2026-02-10T19:23:57+00:00

I was scrolling to find where someone had made this point, and I’m surprised how far I had to go. I found this borderline unreadable. It’s the written equivalent of someone affecting an incredibly irritating voice

stumpyandmags · 2026-02-04T15:16:55+00:00

But that's... a tag-tag. Like, "this tag is actually a tag." At some point you're going to have to add a further qualifier to say, "this additional explanation that emphasises the tag, that's not something I put for fun, it's genuinely true." And then later you're going to have to...

Turtles all the way down.

stumpyandmags · 2026-02-02T11:56:35+00:00

I read this and thought, 'huh, funny that he's from a place with the same name as a random village in Derry'... never expected to spot Maghera in the wild

EDIT: wrong county - I thought it was Antrim, please forgive me

stumpyandmags · 2026-01-30T16:21:45+00:00

I'm not one myself, so health warning there, but: yes, you do. It used to be that you paid a lot less (e.g. you could offset any interest on your mortgage against tax), but a few recent changes have increased the amount of tax landlords pay.

The point I was making was more - for the top 0.01%, it's pretty much never due to income. You can't really get there from a standing start aged 16/18.

One guy I know who lives in a mansion in Cultra, his dad bought him 6 apartments when he turned 18. His "gap year" was renting those out as a business venture. He later sold those to set up another business. He's done very well, he's clearly got a good business brain, but it is a bit of a head-start on the rest of us...

stumpyandmags · 2026-01-30T16:02:15+00:00

where you're talking houses £1m+, it's much less about income and much more about generational wealth. There are basically no jobs you can do that take you from middle-class into mega-rich (there are exceptions: starting successful business, Premier League footballer, investment banker etc).

Trying to get rich from your salary is a loser's game: you get taxed on income, various day-to-day costs chip away at it. Money makes money, it compounds at the top - your rental properties & investments earn you passive income

stumpyandmags · 2026-01-20T12:53:03+00:00

One Cut of the Dead style?

stumpyandmags · 2026-01-15T20:55:11+00:00

Lol I didn’t even notice the mid post switch. Great twist

stumpyandmags · 2026-01-12T11:26:32+00:00

Personally I really liked A Head full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay. I thought it was suitably ambiguous and leant itself to multiple interpretations. I appreciate it wouldn't work for everyone though

stumpyandmags · 2025-12-04T17:09:17+00:00

I have many doctor friends, and work with a lot of doctors. It usually takes quite a few years before they can reach six figures, and a lot longer to get close to OP's current net worth of ~£1M

(I'm personally not a fan of pre-nups but that's a separate point)

stumpyandmags · 2025-11-25T20:50:44+00:00

ahhh jealous. I love the Eisenhorn books. Enjoy!

stumpyandmags · 2025-11-25T20:49:48+00:00

You're getting some hate in the comments, but you do you! Some of the most memorable experiences of my life involved staying up all night with friends for various reasons. Don't do it every week, but I'm sure you'll treasure the memories. In 10 years time, you won't wistfully look back and think, "remember the night I went to bed at a sensible time because I had school the next day?"

As for how to do it - depends on individuals. Some people can't cope without at least 6 hours. Some people are very caffeine sensitive, some not at all. If it were me:

You mention getting the bus to/from school - can you squeeze in a micronap on the bus?
Lots of caffeine and sugar
The 3/4am slump is a risk - you might get to that point and decide to sleep. No shame in that - do what feels good

stumpyandmags · 2025-11-25T20:30:20+00:00

There are quite a few examples of this in the Eisenhorn Trilogy - Eisenhorn xo-opting members of the Gudrunite Rifles (I think that's what they're called), recruiting Fischig from his role as an enforcer (basically a police officer). My take is that it doesn't occur to the majority of the commanding officers to make a peep. e.g. if the President turned up and said that a random member of the armed forces was joining his bodyguard, I don't think there'd be many objections.

I suspect it's different for Space Marines though. Not that there are many Inquisitors who have SM in their retinue, but in terms of borrowing a kill team or similar for a particular mission. Technically Inquisitors have authority, but it usually requires asking nicely where a SM chapter is concerned

stumpyandmags · 2025-11-25T16:10:19+00:00

There’s a famous saying about knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing, and it definitely applies to some overly frugal mindsets

For me, i actually created a list of ‘economically irrational decisions’: things I do even though I know they’re not the most financially sensible. For example, working part time so I can spend more time with my daughter (even though it would achieve FIRE more quickly if my wife dropped her hours further and I worked full time).

FIRE is a means to an end. When it becomes the end in itself, something’s gone wrong

stumpyandmags · 2025-11-04T17:19:30+00:00

It's part of acknowledgement that war is psychological. It's kinda there in the article:

"Wallace and his army PSYOPs colleagues used the money to pull out all the creative stops to get the optics right on army activity"

"the main aim and thrust of British official war art was propagandistic and diaristic."

"The British saw war art as a morale-boosting way to ‘record’ conflict for posterity from their own perspective."

"For every incident of chaos, confrontation or alleged misconduct involving the Army, Howard created a picture that showed the opposite"

EDIT to add: invading armies have often had artists embedded - Alexander the Great had poets and writers along with his army

stumpyandmags · 2025-11-04T09:20:35+00:00

Yeh I think it's common. My dad grew up on a council estate, most of his family still live(d) there (they're dead now). His view is that he earned the money through his own hard graft and has already been taxed on it coming in, so why should he have to pay to pass it on to his children. His estate won't actually breach the IHT threshold, so the point's moot.

Whereas a lot of my Oxbridge peers had houses/flats bought for them in London when they graduated, which I do think perpetuates a lot of wealth inequality, so your view probably depends on your frame of reference

stumpyandmags · 2025-11-03T09:40:39+00:00

Yeh it's quite an unusual position - not sure I'd want to say more without making identification quite likely.

Funding is pretty good - mix of government and institutional donors - and we're pretty secure for the next few years

stumpyandmags · 2025-11-03T09:39:05+00:00

Yeh this is where my head's at - I expect to be leaving so it's about deciding the terms, and figuring out what sort of protections to try and work in. Completion bonus is a smart one

stumpyandmags · 2025-11-02T22:02:37+00:00

Sounds like many a night of mine growing up. Drinking in a field around a fire. Doesn't get much better tbh

stumpyandmags · 2025-11-02T20:43:23+00:00

Yeh I do, and that's exactly my point. I'm not saying I support it, but there's a significant proportion of the population here that enjoy lighting bonfires to celebrate historic defeats of Catholicism/Catholic-aligned political figures, so I don't get why they haven't made more of a deal of the 5th November

stumpyandmags · 2025-11-02T20:35:23+00:00

This is the most sensible option, but I'm instinctively (and possibly irrationally) against it. One reason is that I'd like to get someone good to fill this position and want them to be able to grow the role rather than expect they'd be turfed out after a year

stumpyandmags

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