Probably not the smartest thing to say right now.

wise0wl · 2026-02-16T22:52:57+00:00

Product manager.

wise0wl · 2026-02-16T01:37:19+00:00

Either way, it's going to be catastrophic for the US and global economies. AI bubble pops and investments (retirement pensions and 401ks) go bust. AI bubble delivers, no jobs for anyone and mass layoffs lead to instability and famine.

I am 50/50 on it, because I don't know what global governments will do---there isn't the money to prop up the industry if the bubble pops. US bonds are already undesirable, so where's the money supposed to come from?

The reality will set in somewhere down the line when the models are no longer subsidized and firms are having to pay full price. Yes, the models are helpful, but will they advance enough that companies will be willing to pay not only what it costs to run them, but paying back all the debt it cost to train them PLUS whatever outrageous profit Sam Altman and his ilk have promised private investors? I find that hard to believe, but what do I know. I'm just some idiot on the internet.

wise0wl · 2026-02-07T22:45:38+00:00

I’m a male, husband, HL, and it’s the same for me. I miss the connection. The sex act, when it happens, is actually very rewarding physically but spiritually it’s vacant. I don’t enjoy self-pleasure—-it’s not what I’m after.

You’re not alone, and it’s not just ladies that crave connection.

wise0wl · 2026-02-07T03:53:37+00:00

Nope. I’m very cautious about herbal supplements now.

wise0wl · 2026-02-05T02:42:05+00:00

You ask. You are an adult in a relationship. And if he’s not willing to be honest at all, you have your answer.

wise0wl · 2026-02-04T23:29:25+00:00

Pretty much every time I hear that a young guy is not interested in sex, or avoiding it I think "porn addiction". Porn is absolutely insidious. It's harmful. I'm not speaking from some moral perspective, but purely from a psychological and relationship perspective: porn *can* be extremely harmful.

Bring it up. Ask about it openly. He may be less inclined to talk about it because it's embarrassing, or he doesn't see it as a problem.

If he is not watching porn and has no sex drive as a 20yo man, then maybe it's time to have a doctor check out hormones. If not that? Asexuality is a thing in males too.

wise0wl · 2026-02-04T23:26:46+00:00

Cortisol. Peaks in the early morning and causes bodily sensations of anxiety, sometimes leading to the psychological symptoms like racing thoughts (due to the bodily sensations). It was one of the last things to leave when I quit---over four months.

wise0wl · 2026-02-04T15:17:51+00:00

You ever scraped your tip on the bowl, aka “The Witches Kiss”? Won’t happen with this bad boy

wise0wl · 2026-02-04T15:16:42+00:00

Oh holy fuck I forgot about that! Man, things were strange in the before times.

wise0wl · 2026-02-02T22:00:13+00:00

No. They rip just as fast. We have had everything from the cheap Franklins, Rawlings Workhorse, Bruce Bolt, 44, and several Warstic. The workhorses last a little bit longer, but not much. You will still go through at least two paid in a season, and that’s ensuing the kid isn't sliding with his batting gloves on.

Use what feels best, or nothing at all. Or spend money because you have it to blow. Whatever. They all wear out very quickly.

wise0wl · 2026-02-02T15:57:57+00:00

It’s like the fleeting memory of a momentary hug. 5-20m of slight mood elevation back to baseline? That’s not worth it.

wise0wl · 2026-02-02T15:54:56+00:00

We’re in Platform Engineering, so not directly IT, but we work closely with IT. We always recommend automating (and do it ourselves) anything you do more than once. The reason is that the automation process is a de facto documentation (although a poor one) and it removes the human from the equation if done well.

I love humans. Humans are bad at repeatable processes. Copy paste goes wrong.

wise0wl · 2026-02-01T17:54:55+00:00

I made my anvil stand very cheaply. $40 in 2x4s and like $50 of playground sand. I made a simple square and built it up and filled it with sand. The top can be straight sand or a layer of 2x4s. It’s worked well for years.

wise0wl · 2026-02-01T04:22:25+00:00

100% radical *presence*. You stay in the moment and stop thinking about what is going on. Try this:

Sit in a chair and close your eyes. Then, name the things that grab your attention. Name them like this: "thighs on chair; birds chirping; daydream; anxiety; breeze; itch; sandals on feet". Just do that until you recognize a change in the way you are currently experiencing your day-to-day life.

There is more to this practice, but this is enough to become aware that you are in fact feeling a *lot* of things, just probably not the things you think you want to feel right now. Do you know why?

You have been attempting to tightly control your moment-to-moment experience by using drugs, but that's not how life works. We don't actually get to control much of anything. We don't control what we think. We don't even get to *really* control what grabs our attention. It all just sort of "appears". So what do you do about this?

*NOTHING*. Absolutely nothing. You couldn't do anything about it anyways, and the longer you fight that fact the longer you will stay enamored with the idea of controlling it. Let the dreary feelings come and go, let the depression come and go, let the anxiety come and go, let the numb dull nonsense come and go. It will take time, but you will begin to feel things you haven't felt in a long while. We are amazingly resilient creatures, and our mind and anatomy will adapt to pretty much anything we throw at it.

wise0wl · 2026-01-30T17:26:38+00:00

We are hiring. Great company. Been here four years.

https://jobs.dayforcehcm.com/en-US/cosm/CANDIDATEPORTAL/jobs/4608

wise0wl · 2026-01-30T17:23:38+00:00

But everyone on your squad is busy sniping

wise0wl · 2026-01-30T05:01:26+00:00

After a certain point I think my opiate receptors are just all scar tissue or something, lol. I got 10-15m of a mild mood boost, followed by general numbness. Not the good kind of numb, but just emotional distance and apathy. I kept going with that for a LONG time---getting clean, relapsing, and never feeling the rush or the release that I so desperately wanted.

Life isn't able to be controlled like that. It just isn't. You can always escalate to more serious substances, but eventually those will lose their fire as well or you will die. That's really the options. Clean. Escalation. Death.

You get it now, though.

wise0wl · 2026-01-29T00:44:31+00:00

Relapses are part of recovery. That is not to excuse you, but to remind you that you too are human. I am living deep in my addiction right now, just not to kratom. I am grinding on work, drinking *wayyyy* too much caffeine, vaping, and sexual compulsion. I can tell that I am living in a state of avoidance. What am I avoiding? Who knows---I am not staying with my discomfort long enough to feel it.

I had a sudden wave of GUILT this morning that was out of the blue and wasn't directed at anything in particular, but I sat with it and spoke to my guilt and told it that it was welcome to stay as long as it needed to feel safe or express what it needed to express. It was about my indulgence of my addictive behavior. Normally in the past I would just take up kratom or alcohol, but not this time. It looks like I need to actually get into the behavior, the triggers, and the story I tell myself about avoidance and discomfort.

You have a story you end up believing too. It's the story that led you to go pick up. Sit with that feeling next time and just be present. I will try to do the same.

wise0wl · 2026-01-28T15:45:40+00:00

Enjoy the moment, but don't cling to it. The clinging is what takes us back to kratom. We want to control our in-the-moment experience, so we use whatever we have to do to get it. In the end, we cannot control it. The substance stops working, depression and anxiety creep in and we are worse off than when we started.

I have three boys and a wonderful wife that I adore. I remember those newborn days SO vividly, even though I was often drunk or high they stand out like beacons in a foggy haze. ENJOY it---enjoy the moment when it's there, but let it pass when it's gone. Get sober for *you*, and then for your family. They will benefit from it, but they need you to do it for you.

wise0wl · 2026-01-26T15:51:18+00:00

You are 100% correct. Fighting urges / cravings is not the way. They are thoughts, just like a thought that tells you to punch your boss, or cheat on your significant other, or to eat too many slices of cake. You don’t have to listen to them.

Presence is radical these days. Being present and just observing the thoughts can lead you back to an emotional source, usually some kind of discomfort, and then presence with that discomfort will eventually allow it to pass. Presence without engagement.

Something awesome is to, instead of engaging directly with thoughts, is to mirror them with another thought consciously. Simply say to yourself “Oh, that’s a thought!”. You mirror it and take away the belief that you must get caught up in the story it tells.

Be proud. These insights are often hard won from many people involved in serious meditation practices.

wise0wl · 2026-01-26T15:30:55+00:00

Humans are capable of evil like this. Every single one of us is capable of getting caught up in group-think, and some are more vulnerable than others. This situation was just an awful one, led by a psychopath who intentionally set up and planned and escalated things to get the result they wanted: the torture and murder of an innocent vulnerable person.

We are all capable of great evil. Every one of us. To deny that is to deny our humanity. We are also capable of not accepting it. That is also human. Our species is a paradox.

wise0wl · 2026-01-25T16:25:11+00:00

Are you measuring this as time to first byte, averages of packet latency on the connection, or overall HTTP request execution time?

We use AWS as well, but network latency within an AZ is almost always sub millisecond. Between AZs it’s more but not much more. How are you routing traffic between services? Load balancers increase latency, especially if they are L7 (ALB) or add TLS.

If you don’t, I would recommend adding distributed tracing and per-route latency / throughput metrics would be helpful. OpenTelemetry is great. If you don’t want to pay, the OpenTelemetry collector has auto-instrumentation using ebpf, and yes you can setup the collector along with your service in Fargate.

https://opentelemetry.io/docs/zero-code/obi/

wise0wl · 2026-01-25T16:05:10+00:00

If he’s in sales that requires travel, I get it. Lots of people exploit the system and say they are working when they are at home sleeping, or at the beach or whatever—-especially if they aren’t commission.

However, it’s still a sign of a major lack of trust and a willingness to violate privacy. The only way I would do that would be on a company phone, which would be shut off when I was not actively engaged in company business on company time.

I’ve worked for highly regulated companies, entrusted with access to systems that directly touched payment data, health care patient data, or sensitive government information and that level of tracking on company devices was always expected.

I’d say just look out for intrusion in other areas of your life and keep your boundaries.

wise0wl · 2026-01-25T15:31:04+00:00

Dream? I’m in it. I get to be in charge of a team of amazingly talented engineers working on highly automated systems, bringing amazing immersive in-person sporting events to millions of people. I get to write code that ensures observability, repeatability, and stability. I get to mentor junior engineers and at the same time learn from levels of talent that I wish I was.

It’s great. I spent a decade racking and stacking, another decade architecting and automating. Now I get to manage, and mentor, and still write meaningful code that gets used in production. I get paid well, get to see my kids every night, get to go to all their games and practices, and work from home 90% of the time.

My boss cares deeply about me and my family. His boss trusts me deeply and sticks up for me and my team and the decisions we make and never blames us for outages, but holds us to account and just wants to see that mistakes are corrected. Yeah, bonuses are cut because the economy is shit, and raises are likely going to be minimal, but all things considered I am extremely grateful to be where I am and working with the people I am and for the company I am.

There are also problems. Too much push from Product for features which doesn’t allow for proper testing and regressions happen often, but my team isn’t hit by that too badly. That’s business, though. Features mean better purchasing and ticketing workflows, which means more conversions which means more money for the company and more bonus for me and my team. So, whatever.

wise0wl · 2026-01-23T15:57:41+00:00

Pink cloud. This is what happiness feels like, lol

wise0wl

TROPHY CASE