I was the kind of kid to get good grades without really trying, and I think I would have been better off if I had been challenged. Instead I just coasted, and when I got to calc2 I failed. I still don’t have great learning habits.

We were about to lose our biggest client because we (not including me) had agreed to an impossible deadline to deliver a piece of software for them. I spent two weeks basically living at work and we (meaning mostly I) were able to deliver a bare-minimum product on time and keep our contract with the client alive. This kept our company intact long enough for us to be acquired by a major west coast tech giant - at which point I was rewarded with a layoff notice, while my bosses got millions in stock grants.

Did this radicalize you? This would have radicalized me.

How is Nigel still alive and just walking around? Oh wait, he’s only 61? Fuck he’s going to be shitting in the pool for like 40 more years at this rate.

Well, for one, they know they’re lying but they don’t care. It’s a tactical advantage for them to lie because a lot of people aren’t going to know.

If you’re pretty smart, imagine being drunk. All the time. Just moderately sloshed. That’s what I think it’s like for an average , kind of stupid , person. Poor memory, surges of emotions, incoherent thought. And they can’t ever sober up.

Outside of like NYC you have a car. It’s a bad system economically, ecologically, and socially, but many people are kind of stupid and reactionary. You show them how putting in a bike lane and adding a bus stop will lower car traffic, improve air quality, and increase economic activity and they just go “no because I feel so”. Or, “one time I had to move a refrigerator so we need to prioritize large privately owned vehicles”.

I would prefer basic, subtle, black. I don’t want rainbows and lights. I’m very function over form.

I’d also rather play a game on medium settings where it runs flawlessly and doesn’t make the fans go hard, than at high settings with worse performance.

This is incredibly wasteful

Dislike:

• poor search engine results
• relatively small

I want it to get to a level where you find the good stuff reddit used to have. Like niche hobbies, detailed analysis, etc.

I’m doing my part, I guess

Sadly, they make a ton of money from AWS (amazon web services). A large portion of the internet relies on it. It’s difficult or impossible to avoid using any amazon services. Like, you use a website and their backend uses s3 and rds. No way for you to know, much of the time.

I avoid shopping on amazon anyway, but the problem is wider spread.

Though the details of the Bezos wedding are highly guarded beyond the rumored $10-million budget

Ok so I’m not going to say that we all need to eat dirt so long as anyone is worse off than we are, but that’s a lot of money that could be spent on anything else.

I’m not christian but camel through the eye of a needle, man. You can’t be a good person when you’re sitting on that much wealth, and Bezos isn’t even trying.

Aren’t great on… median? Majority fall below some arbitrary standard of “decent”?

The most important thing for people, and by people I mean all of us at times, is in-group belonging. None of us are immune to that. We look to our peers for cues on how to behave and what to believe.

Some people consider like scientists and experts in-group, and trust them. Some don’t.

This need for in-group cohesion is more important than facts and figures. It’s more important than the text of some book.

So when all your friends and family are saying that Christianity means one thing, it’s unlikely you’re going to disagree.

I know it’s not for everyone, but for me I feel like buying music I like directly from the artist/label or via bandcamp has been a better experience. Now I have a library of DRM free music, and I know the musicians got a better cut.

Oh yeah. Cars are bad on like every metric.

Socially they isolate people. You don’t interact with anyone when you’re driving except to get angry. The micro interactions you have on the train matter. Seeing people that aren’t just like you, also annoyed that the train is delayed, or just having a nice time with their kids, matters. More than makes up for when other people are annoying.

Economically they hurt. It’s much harder to just pop into an interesting looking shop when you’re cruising along at 40mph. All the space dedicated to parking could be used for other stuff- housing, commerce, communal space, whatever.

They make spaces less safe. Other than the direct impact (no pun intended) of people getting hit by cars, or crashing into stuff, a space that has steady foot traffic is generally safer. If everyone was in their car instead, you’d probably be alone on foot with no one to help if something happened.

They’re bad for the environment. Air pollution, micro plastics, whatever.

Drunk driving is way more dangerous than drunk “riding the train”.

The more non-car options are built out, the better it will be for people who need to drive for whatever reason.

Cars culture is trash and if we ever escape from it, it’s going to take years.

I don’t think I know anyone who’s cheated. But I also hang out with a lot of polyamorous people, where cheating is possible but I feel like is less common.

Huh. I don’t think I know anyone who cheats so I guess I got lucky. Your post is plausible

I think my cat chews on plastic because he knows I’ll come running out and interact with him. I’m like, you could just meow. If you meow I’ll come, too. He is old and set in his ways.

games? I found a civilization port for the phone and it sucked up a lot of time. Turn based so you can do it for a few minutes at a time: https://yairm210.itch.io/unciv

learn a language? duolingo and other apps are out there

I had an issue with installing mint. Never figured it out. Got the older LTS and it worked fine though. Maybe try a different version?

Funny, because when I go to the suburbs or other sparsely populated areas, walking around without anybody else feels dystopian. Feels like a post-apocalyptic setting, where everyone else got taken by aliens or plague or something.