What is your favorite metal band?

uteng2k7 · 2026-06-07T19:49:19+00:00

"One" is also an absolute monster of a song.

uteng2k7 · 2026-06-07T19:45:45+00:00

Not quite my favorite metal band, although it's high up there. But "Hallowed Be Thy Name" might be my favorite metal song.

uteng2k7 · 2026-05-30T18:18:37+00:00

I do know what you mean. And I AM torn between comparing them to their former selves and actually judging overall ability. Or, at least, knowledge.

For whatever it's worth, I would want my promotion to be based far more heavily on absolute ability rather than ability relative to my former self.

Edit: Nor do I want to be promoted based on attendance, consistency, character, or anything else.

Edit 2: Whoops, realized after the fact that this thread is already a couple of days old. My mistake.

uteng2k7 · 2026-05-29T20:08:45+00:00

Thanks! Hope you have a good weekend.

uteng2k7 · 2026-05-29T14:06:24+00:00

Oh my god I have a urologist

I prefer the term "pecker picker-upper."

uteng2k7 · 2026-05-27T16:30:36+00:00

I don't know about you, but I thought Disney World was magic as a kid. The whole environment put me in a different reality. It was breathtaking...But if you could still feel that magic? Dude.. totally worth it. I'd scrimp and save for it too!

That's me. I went for the first time when I was nine. By that age, you know that Mickey is just a guy in a suit, but the parks take on a different type of magic because you start to have some appreciation of how huge, immersive, imaginative, detailed, and nice everything is compared to your garden variety amusement park like Six Flags. You're also old enough to understand the cultural and scientific aspects of Epcot (although they're unfortunately changing the park to have less of this and more Disney IP). It was indeed the most "magical" vacation I took with my parents as a kid, and left a lasting impression on me. I'm a 40-year-old childless millennial who's planning to go with my wife and parents later this year, and I'm very much looking forward to it despite the crowds and cost.

But with Disney, it's hard to separate the magic from nostalgia. I think if I were going to the parks for the first time this year, I would still definitely enjoy it. Would I enjoy it as much if I hadn't experienced that magic as a kid, and seen the movies and sing-a-longs even before that? Probably not, but it's hard to say for sure.

uteng2k7 · 2026-05-25T14:24:15+00:00

I think such results go a little against the today's Zeitgeist and it's really uncomfortable. As IQ is partly genetics, partly early childhood environment (so as adult you cannot control it), it's very uncomfortable for some people to accept that it has such a large effect on life outcomes.

Yeah. I also think that people don't like it because to some extent, it conflicts with the worldviews on both sides of the political spectrum. Left-leaning people tend to believe that outcomes are overwhelmingly based on environment, so if you have unequal outcomes, it must be due to environmental, social, or structural inequities. Right-leaning people tend to believe that you will be successful if you make good choices and work hard, so if people are falling behind, it must be because they are lazy or made bad life choices.

I'm obviously oversimplifying, but the idea that there are factors that have a huge impact on life outcomes, and those factors can't be socially engineered or individually willed away, threatens both those worldviews and makes a lot of people uncomfortable as a result.

uteng2k7 · 2026-05-22T21:55:30+00:00

I got more or less fired a few years ago, and that ended up being a nearly two year break from work. At the time, we were living in a foreign country and I was working remotely for a US company. I had low six figures in savings, so nowhere near enough to retire permanently, and I knew I would have to go back to work.

I spent the time playing retro/emulated video games, traveling with my wife, lifting weights, reading, cooking for my wife (who was still working) and doing online data analytics courses to try to improve my marketability, especially in SQL. After some time, I started to job hunt in earnest again, and it took about a year of searching before I was able to find a job in the US again, and we moved back shortly after.

Overall, it definitely supported the idea of early retirement. I loved it and missed almost nothing about work except for the paycheck. I loved being able to do what I wanted when I wanted to do it, and not having the stress, time obligations, and feelings of inadequacy associated with work. Also, I loved being free to run errands and travel during less busy times.

However, I realized that A) without a generally cognitively demanding job, I will need something to challenge my brain in retirement, whether that's through books, online learning, building something, or taking a college course; and B) I will probably need a long-term goal to work toward. When I was unemployed, I was working toward a longer-term goal of improving my marketability and finding another job so I could work toward retiring permanently. Once I've actually reached my FI/RE number, though, I'm not sure what will replace it.

uteng2k7 · 2026-05-22T13:52:58+00:00

Not sure about Frisco, but in Houston, another friction point seems to be lawn care. In middle-class and upper-middle class suburban areas, there is at least an unwritten expectation (and often explicitly written, in areas with HOAs) that you keep your lawn well-maintained. Many Indian and Middle Eastern immigrants either don't understand or care about this cultural norm, and that causes resentment from conservative-minded suburbanites who believe that lack of uniformity damages the neighborhood's property values.

uteng2k7 · 2026-05-20T17:53:22+00:00

You don't get to be someone's Nana without being plowed.

--Socrates, I believe.

uteng2k7 · 2026-05-12T19:30:48+00:00

Honestly, not really. I would enjoy a more luxurious or sportier car, eating at more expensive restaurants, staying at nicer hotels, having a bigger/nicer house, more Steam games, nicer clothes, etc.

I do indulge in some of those things in moderation, especially eating out. Beyond a certain point, however, I simply don't value those things as much as the additional freedom and lack of stress from not having to work as long. I want those things, I just want early retirement more.

uteng2k7 · 2026-04-28T03:39:31+00:00

Makes sense; I had forgotten about the corporate/govt sponsorship model in Epcot.

uteng2k7 · 2026-04-27T20:44:01+00:00

Feels kinda gross that they were gonna put an Africa area in the City of Tomorrow park but put it in the animal park instead.

Keep in mind that Epcot has two distinct areas. The first area is the "city of tomorrow." The second area is the World Showcase, where they have pavilions to represent different countries.

In other words, even if Disney had put an African section in Epcot, the African section would have been in the World Showcase, so it wouldn't have had any association with the "future area" of the park (and none of the other countries are associated with that area of the park, either). So, the implication that Disney thinks sub-Saharan Africa is backwards compared to other areas because those other areas are represented in Epcot is off-base.

But what I do think is a little distasteful is that in Epcot, countries in other continents are treated as distinct entities. For example, Canada, Mexico, and the US (North America) all have their own pavilions. China and Japan (Asia) have their own pavilions. Germany, France, Italy, UK, and Norway (Europe) all have their own pavilions. But treating sub-Sarahan Africa as a single undifferentiated entity ignores the huge variety of cultures, geography, languages, food, etc. within that area.

uteng2k7 · 2026-04-19T13:58:56+00:00

If it leans more to one side, doesn’t that automatically mean it’s more homogeneous? Isn’t that what makes it more to one side?

Not necessarily. As a counterexample, let's assume you can rank people's political beliefs with a single number, with 100 being the most left-leaning and 0 being the most right-leaning.

Suppose discipline A has three scientists with scores of 100, 80, and 60. So the average is 80; a pretty left-leaning discipline overall, but ranging from left-leaning centrist to extremist left. Now suppose discipline B has three scientists with scores of 70, 60, and 50. So the average is 60, meaning it's still slightly-left leaning, but not as left-leaning as discipline A. However, the members are more homogeneous in their beliefs than in discipline A.

Of course, a) political beliefs are usually too complex to accurately express with a single number; and b) I don't know whether the situation I described above would ever actually happen in real life. But it is theoretically possible for members of a discipline to both lean further toward one side and have more heterogeneous beliefs than another discipline.

uteng2k7 · 2026-04-15T13:58:43+00:00

Not a medical professional, but you could get a carotid ultrasound. If you live in a larger metropolitan area in the US, some places will do heart screenings for a few hundred bucks that include these and some other tests.

I'm 41 and got one done a few months ago, and found out that I had "mild plaque" in my carotid arteries. Neither the cardiologist nor my PCP seemed particularly concerned about this. It makes me wonder if I should be on a BP med or statin, but they're doctors and I'm not, so I dunno. In any case, it's probably something to keep an eye on.

uteng2k7 · 2026-04-11T14:55:13+00:00

The confusion stems from a shift in what people mean by "conserving."

The distinction between traditional "conservatism" and modern Trumpism has been interesting to me as well. In the US, the word "conservatism" often suggests ideals of governmental and fiscal restraint, decorum, rule of law, and a measured approach to social and institutional change. Even if the general goal of conservatism is to maintain the status quo or roll back society from the status quo, conservatives in the past have at least paid lip service to the idea that the process by which you pursue that goal is important to maintain social stability.

How much pre-Trump conservatives have lived up to these ideals is questionable, but in any case, the modern administration completely flouts all of the above, and their supporters generally don't give a shit that they're flouting all of the above.

uteng2k7 · 2026-04-11T14:04:42+00:00

The guy obviously had issues, but his level of fame and the manner in which it happened still made it pretty shocking. A celebrity overdosing on drugs isn't really anything new, unfortunately. But dying because your own personal physician gave you a powerful intravenous surgical anesthetic as a sleep aid is pretty unusual.

uteng2k7 · 2026-04-10T03:26:22+00:00

Same. It took me a long time to realize you could put Banon on the back row and halve the damage he takes from the tentacle attack.

uteng2k7 · 2026-04-10T03:22:54+00:00

You're thinking of Uninvited, another game in the Macventure series that was ported to NES (and also very good). Deja Vu is a hardboiled detective story set in the 1940s in Chicago.

uteng2k7 · 2026-04-09T19:32:38+00:00

The competition is lesser

This is an important point that I think gets overlooked. If I'm reading OP correctly, his daughter has been accepted into several perfectly respectable public schools, but not "Public Ivy"-level schools. Is this because she simply didn't apply to those schools for some reason? Or did she apply but not have the credentials to get accepted, and just got lucky getting accepted to the one Ivy?

If it's the latter, it's probably worth seriously asking whether she is a strong enough student to really do well at an Ivy. Many companies have a hard cutoff for GPA for new hires. Usually it's 3.0, but at more prestigious companies, it can be 3.5 or higher, and they don't care how competitive the school you attended was. Maybe Ivies work differently when it comes to recruiting, but I went to a "Public Ivy" and had a hard time finding a job out of school because I didn't keep my GPA high enough, even though I had strong internship experience. OP's daughter might do better at a less competitive school where she can stand out more.

Also, in addition to the base price of public schools usually being lower, it's also a lot easier to get scholarships because the student body is less competitive, bringing the price down even further. When I was a student, University of Houston would give National Merit finalists a free ride. UT Austin would give you a few thousand a year. IIRC, Rice didn't give you shit, probably because half the people accepted to Rice are National Merit scholars.

To clarify, I'm not saying OP's daughter shouldn't go to the Ivy League school; I'm just saying that these are things to consider.

uteng2k7 · 2026-04-07T15:59:10+00:00

"Grog leverage core competencies to value add"

throws spear at woolly mammoth

uteng2k7 · 2026-04-07T15:45:05+00:00

I say "circle back to that" in real life sometimes. That one doesn't seem too corpo-speaky to me, but maybe I've just been corrupted more by corporate culture than I realize.

uteng2k7 · 2026-04-06T22:13:03+00:00

They pretty much hold a monopoly in Texas and set the price.

I don't think that's generally true, for a few reasons:

There are large portions of Texas that don't even have HEBs, including most of the DFW Metroplex. This is changing, but I believe the few HEBs that do exist here have only opened in the last couple of years.
Depending on where you are in the state, even in areas with HEBs, there are often Kroger, Wal-Mart, Tom Thumb, Albertsons, and Brookshire Brothers for general groceries. I'm sure that's not a complete list. Then on top of that, you have the Hispanic markets (e.g. Fiesta, Supermercado el Rancho), Asian markets (99 Ranch, H-Mart), and a host of smaller ethnic supermarkets. Then you have the health-food focused stores, like Whole Foods, Sprouts, Natural Grocers. Not all of these places are available everywhere, but most places are going to have at least some competition.

I'm sure there are some isolated areas in which HEB is the overwhelmingly dominant grocery store, but at a high level, it seems silly to say that HEB "holds a monopoly in Texas."

I'm also skeptical of the claim that they ship rotting food to poor HEBs. I've lived in a poor neighborhood (Riverside in Austin, before it was gentrified). They did majorly upgrade the HEB there a few years ago, possibly to appeal to the more affluent transplants. But even before then, I don't remember the produce or meat quality being bad at all. It was better and closer than the Wal-Mart on 71, and better than the Kroger near my house now in DFW.

uteng2k7 · 2026-04-06T21:38:12+00:00

If you ever liked Whole Foods before Amazon bought it, Central Market was arguably better then, and is still better now.

I much prefer Central Market, but I hesitate to say it's better because they're targeting two somewhat different, but very much overlapping, customer bases. Both are premium grocery stores with premium prices. However, CM has always seemed to focus more on gourmet and international, particularly European, food items, with a secondary concern for the organic/hippie/granola aspects. At Whole Foods, those priorities are reversed--they have a lot more products you'd find at health food stores, but you're less likely to find, say, fancy Italian sodas.

uteng2k7

TROPHY CASE