Bad At

I can do none of these things and don’t care to learn them.

This is why I pay people. My partner is also far better at this stuff than I am and if she wants to do them, she’s welcome to do so. I will be the muscle if required. I have tried several of these things and it inevitably ends with me destroying something expensive (not out of rage, but out of pure incompetence) and then it costing 10 times as much money and 20 times as much time than if I’d just let a professional have at it from the start.

Just not worth it. The reason I have money is to avoid doing shit I’m bad at.

Beefeater

The show Beef is good because it explores the forbidden joys of a vendetta for bringing meaning to life. It’s also funny.

That vendettas don’t turn out well isn’t the point. We all know that. But they sure are motivating even if counterproductive.

No Change

I’m glad Faine has noticed that nonsense as well. It’s pervasive now because as Millennials are beginning to accrue some political power, it’s important to gaslight them into believing everything is fine so they don’t attempt to make any changes that would inconvenience Boomers.

Just Shoot

This is why I never turn around in people’s driveways, especially in rural areas, and never go onto private property anywhere in the US if I can possibly avoid it. Here, people will just fucking shoot you.

Shore Leave

Millennials Are Doing Just Fine.

This is bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit peddled to shore up the status quo. This like Quantian’s clown crap and uses many of the same lies and obfuscations.

It requires believing that the household income tells you much that is useful, that the inflation numbers are a relevant measure for most people of items and purchasing habits that matter, that TVs getting cheaper helps afford crazy high housing prices, that debt loads don’t really matter, and that apparently made-up numbers he found on the back of a bathroom stall are real.

Anyone who believes this is a massive dumbass. A friend of a friend bought a nice house working part-time as a contract electrician in the mid-1990s in Charlotte, NC. Try that today. Ain’t happening.

Get Smart

All the smart people are leaving Florida because it is the smart thing to do. If you don’t, unless you’re a full-on MAGA clown, you’ll probably regret it. This will be true for all red states.

Railroaded

The same for many things. “Public transit will never work in the US!” We already had it — it was taken away.

“Small regional airports will never work!” Already had those too, and airline consolidation and high profits prioritized over all else killed those too.

“Free college will never work!” Already had that too, when we were collectively much poorer.

So many things that people claim are impossible we once had in living memory and yet people often cannot even accurately recall their own lives and experiences. Both aspects of this greatly puzzle me and I need to think more about them.

Value Add

I bought a 2022 MacBook Pro (without the fucking notch) and it’s an amazing machine. I used it fairly heavily for nearly three full days and it still had more than 60% of battery left. Try that with any other laptop. My also-expensive work laptop is lucky if it gets four full hours before crapping out, and it weighs 40% more than my MacBook.

The MB is also faster than any other computer I’ve ever used. In fact, it’s not even close. It makes my 2020 iMac feel putt-putt. And it’s dead silent and cool too. The engineering that went into this machine and its chip is unfathomable.

People say that Apple is more expensive — and that is true. But this laptop does things you cannot buy anywhere else, for any price.

Exp Pants

I know nothing of embarrassment, so the key question is, how expensive are the pants?

The Rub

You think I was exaggerating about the red states going to hell?

We are two of the smart and productive people fleeing — the vanguard of what will be a vast exodus of anyone with two brain cells to rub together. We’re among the first but the trickle will become a flood.

It’ll be a multi-hued Great Migration this time, until most red states resemble rural Alabama in most places. It’s going to get very ugly. But I sure won’t be here to see it.

Song 90

Favorite 90s song(s).

There were a lot of good songs from that era, but if I had to choose one it’d be Stereolab’s “Lo Boob Oscillator,” which was released in 1993. That song was what got me interested in learning French, along with Rimbaud. I wanted to know what Lรฆtitia Sadier was singing without having it translated.

This is another favorite of mine from Stereolab; a video I’ve never seen before.

Error Error

I do this all the time. It’s simply amazing how many people in my field and developers cannot read logs and do not read nor understand error messages.

Co Cis

I have done this very thing. It’s terrible. The Cisco VPN client is a mess.