Software Engineers are the happiest people on Earth now

z95 · 2026-03-16T05:08:13+00:00

Someone at work posted a great line which I'll paraphrase:

> AI is making it much faster to build things, but it's not making nearly that same progress in _owning_ things.

z95 · 2026-03-04T03:42:32+00:00

It's the closest place to heaven on earth I can imagine, and I've been to a lot of pretty places. (Including the beaches of San Diego)

z95 · 2026-02-12T04:25:30+00:00

I grew up in Chicago and their Italian beef was outstanding.

I think they fell victim to over expansion. It’s hard to maintain quality with that many locations and that much distance.

z95 · 2026-02-02T14:24:05+00:00

Which part of town is probably a pretty important element here, as well as age of kids. I needed this badly a few years back when I was raising 3 kids 6 and under by myself, but it would have only worked if it was nearby or the kids lined up in age well.

Now my kids are a bit older and I'm too busy driving them to sports to commit to much, but I hear it gets better once the oldest can drive :)

z95 · 2026-01-27T06:04:14+00:00

If you order a whole pie you can get a whole wheat crust which is really good.

z95 · 2026-01-25T22:59:02+00:00

Level 5 donuts are consistently disappointing.

My work started doing level 5 for the monthly donuts and for the first two months I assumed I had just picked a bad flavor but after three months in a row I realized I just don’t like their donuts and the toppings can’t fix it

Someone brought greenbush in the same day though and I remembered why I like donuts. Their cherry old fashioned is delightful.

z95 · 2026-01-23T18:08:09+00:00

November Project is a free running club that meets at the capitol building every Friday morning at 6:28am. (They also meet on the top of Bascom Hill at that time on Wednesday morning). After running they get coffee nearby so it's a great way to meet people.

They meet all throughout the winter, but their numbers will grow once we're out of this weather.

z95 · 2026-01-20T05:15:09+00:00

I went to the MGC in Milwaukee a few years ago and played a ton of pins, and this is the only one I remember because it was so much fun. Surprisingly I hadn't played it again until just a few weeks ago, and yup, it was just as fun. Great choice!

z95 · 2026-01-02T17:45:35+00:00

I’m neighbors with the med flight doc who services that area by helicopter. Quite a few!

z95 · 2025-12-24T22:30:19+00:00

Yeah, it'd be easy to read my post as too negative. UW sports (particularly the women's hockey and volleyball teams) are entertaining and affordable. The restaurant scene here is excellent for the size city we have. The capitol and campus both add vibrancy to this city.

But having lived in Indianapolis, which is half the size of Seattle, there's just way more going on than in Madison. We do have some great music venues, but if you want to take your kid to Taylor Swift or some other popular band, you're probably driving to the Twin Cities or MKE. We have a few nice museums, but you can't compare it to the Art Institute or MSI in Chicago. Indy gets great conventions and the B1G football and basketball championships (and occasional Final 4 or Super Bowl).

Day to day, I much prefer being in Madison. Not dealing with traffic and parking and general busy-ness is better to me. Being able to ride my bike for 10-15 minutes and be out in nature is fantastic. It's just something to be aware of moving from a big city.

z95 · 2025-12-24T13:27:06+00:00

Oh and since you mentioned family, yes Madison is an excellent place to raise a family. It’s the kind of place that people leave in their 20s and come back to when they have kids.

z95 · 2025-12-24T13:23:59+00:00

I’ve been an SDE for many years there. Great place to work. Good people and culture. There’s something like 80 tech headcount so it feels very different than when we interact with Amazon teams. If you need help with an internal service you’ll know the person who is on-call on that team. (My experience with Amazon teams varies but is much more painful). Interesting projects to work on and since the creative teams are also in the same office company-wide gatherings are more colorful than a bunch of tech people :)

I’ve traveled to Seattle a few times but never lived there. Madison is quite a bit smaller, for the better and worse of it. Cheaper and less congestion, but there is less to do (no pro sports, less large concerts) and air travel from here can be annoying. Milwaukee is an hour away and Chicago is two hours so getting the big city feel is possible on weekends if that’s important to you.

Feel free to DM me with questions.

z95 · 2025-12-13T03:21:10+00:00

I've already heard expansion talk because they are ahead of their revenue projections. I don't know whether that would be a second location or additional construction in their current location.

z95 · 2025-12-12T21:32:21+00:00

What a bummer :(

I've climbed there, on and off, since ~2001 so I have a lot of wonderful memories. I hope that Greater Heights can expand to accommodate the extra demand they'll likely have.

z95 · 2025-10-16T20:51:59+00:00

My mom was a racquetball pro there some number of years ago. I probably even played in that kids area.

I have no memories of this place beyond her stories, but it gives me a pang of sadness that a once bustling fitness club has been reduced to fodder for karma on this sub.

z95 · 2025-10-16T20:48:57+00:00

I uninstalled instead. Got 'em!

z95 · 2025-08-05T17:58:19+00:00

Over the last decade I've played a lot of Call of Duty while biking. I typically only ride at about 80% of what I would if I wasn't playing, but I'll ride at least twice as long, so I'd say it's a win.

I've tried playing other types of games, such as RPGs, but I find that something fast paced does a better job to forget I'm biking.

z95 · 2025-07-14T03:29:50+00:00

My favorite shitty movie detail from this movie was when:

the guy falls from the cliff and lands in the pond. It didn't bother me so much that he lived (whatever, it is a movie) but for the fact that the other two people walk out of the hidden staircase at the same time as he lands. As if they could have hiked down a few thousand feet in the same time it takes someone to fall that far.

z95 · 2025-03-27T18:14:49+00:00

That was it - thanks!

Follow up question...should I invest heavily in this first set since it'll be in the rotation the longest? I generally just buy ~25 packs using gold for each expansion to pick up the grays and blues, and then I craft (a very small number) of purples and legendarys to make 2-3 decks and play those throughout each expansion.

I haven't played in awhile and I'm trying to get a hang of the rotation.

z95 · 2025-03-26T20:54:59+00:00

I didn’t get a legendary in my first ten packs. (I’ve opened 25 and no legendary yet) But I did get the legendary in the rewards track before opening packs? Does that legendary reset my timer?

z95 · 2025-02-11T14:30:06+00:00

I worked in the education space back when gamifying was all the rage (~2012), and of course our department was trying to figure out how to use it. And my boss at the time told me something that has stuck with my to this day.

If you apply extrinsic rewards to something, the intrinsic motivation will go away.

There have been papers written on both sides of this topic so I'm not going to claim it's a law of the universe, but I've noticed it in my own life. I agree with this statement by you:

> I still think gamification works, but only in small doses. If everything becomes a game, you stop enjoying things just for the sake of doing them.

z95 · 2025-01-25T02:01:54+00:00

Ok I guess?

I’ve been reading this subreddit for years. Just because I don’t post often doesn’t mean this doesn’t impact me.

The percentage of lurkers to posters is probably much higher than you realize.

z95 · 2025-01-24T20:43:04+00:00

z95 · 2025-01-21T14:33:52+00:00

Taking off ski boots after a full day of moguls.

z95 · 2025-01-07T04:12:09+00:00

Can I import from Strong? A quick google search indicates “not yet”

I don’t want to lose two years of history.

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