The first ten on today’s playlist:

The first ten on today’s playlist:

Maybe there is a scam I’d fall for. Probably involving pizza. But that the woman below fell for that is fucking ludicrous. There is so much clown-level shit that the government never does, that never, ever happens, that should’ve been completely obviously wrong — and she went right along with it. Can people not think? Can people not consider for once second how ridiculous what scammers are asking sounds?

How can she be a financial journalist and fall for this? And how can she not know how investigations are conducted, how police and federal agents actually contact you (hint: you’re never told you’re being investigated; they just show up and arrest or serve your ass), or that no one from the government asks you for fucking money, especially in cash or gift cards?

That scam has so many red flags it looks like a mayday parade in China. It boggles the mind how little people think.

How I Fell for an Amazon Scam Call and Handed Over $50,000.

Christ, how do people fall for this shit? Someone calls me up and threatens me, I’m gonna make it my life’s missions to hunt them down and put them in the ground, not hand over $50K to them. I just fundamentally cannot understand.

Having a prickly personality really pays off in the modern era.

Men, what is it that women seem to get wrong about you?

They think I lack confidence because I am quiet. However, I’m absurdly confident. Some even say arrogant. But I’d disagree with that assessment, because I say what I’m gonna do and then I do it. It’s not arrogant if you can actually do the thing. In my book, at least.

Contrary to what a lot of people believe, being quiet does not mean lack of mettle. In fact, most (but not all) of the loud, demonstrative, noisy dudes act that way to conceal their insecurities and fears. I simply do not have those so I do not need to do any of that extraneous crap. The extroverts make a lot of noise but do very little.

Women far more than men seem to think, “He’s aggressive, violent, and noisy, so confident!” When in reality, the opposite is usually true. Men know this but women are fooled by this display. I wonder why?

What event in your life still fucks with you to this day?

This is more general than the OP is looking for, but I still resent that even when they had money or that someone else would pay for it, my parents wouldn’t support or pay for anything I wanted to do if they weren’t also interested in it or thought I shouldn’t be into it. They didn’t give a whit what I was drawn to or cared about — or in the case of my dad, he hated it if he thought what I liked was unmanly and/or stupid.

Growing up in rural North Florida makes you stunted in many ways that you don’t realize until you get out in the world.

What’s a ‘background’ sound from your childhood home that you didn’t realize you missed until you moved out?

I lived on the Santa Fe River in North Florida for a while as a kid. Mullet and sturgeon frequently do epic leaps out of the water there and make quite a splash. I got used to hearing that sound every so often. When I moved into town from living on the river, I really missed hearing the fish jump. To this day, that sound reminds me of happy times from my childhood of being on the river, fishing and exploring.

The first ten on today’s playlist:

Literacy crisis in college students: Essay from a professor on students who don’t read.

No human being can read 30 pages of Hegel in one sitting, for example.

Just found out I am not human.

The article overall points the finger of culpability correctly, though: the smartphone. Rarely in human history has any device caused so much harm and destruction of intelligence so devastatingly quickly. They should not exist in their current form, or perhaps at all. My proposal would require obtaining an expensive and difficult-to-get license to be able to purchase a smartphone. And that no one under 18 should have one.

What is the dumbest criticism you’ve ever received at work.

That I was solving and closing helpdesk tickets too fast and making the other techs look bad. Closed sixty tickets the next day, and I was not cherry-picking the easiest issues either. The next-nearest tech closed 18.

It’s not my problem if the other people are slow as hell.

Is it possible to attain a physique like Alan Ritchson from Reacher without steroids?

Yes, for a short time, but you must have the genetics to do so. Henry Cavill does not do any form of steroids and has a great physique — and also exceptional genes. Even without that genetic advantage, though, you can still look quite good. Hollywood bodies are never quite real, however, absent even steroids. For any shirtless scene in an action movie, the male leads are dehydrated and have usually done a quick workout beforehand to make their muscles blood-filled.

About a year ago, my muscles were most impressive-looking after I was quite sick and lost some weight from not eating. That was despite me being weaker than normal. This comment is also correct.

If you gave me a month, I could look extremely shredded and lean. But it’s not sustainable and in fact actors do not sustain it. They plan for it and back off it when it’s not required for a scene as it is not healthy. Remember that anything you see on a screen is not reality, nor is it meant to be; films and shows are the collective dreams of our society.

This is exactly right.

I think the reason a lot (not all) of older single women end up bitter and angry is because they are now experiencing what it’s like to be a man in dating.

A lot of women imagine they’d prefer to be invisible like 98% of men are their entire lives. However, when they actually have the experience of being disappeared they do not like it so well at all. Ask Norah Vincent — well, you could if she were still alive. Her project of dressing and acting as a man for 18 months contributed greatly to her suicide. She also mostly recanted her incorrect beliefs about men’s lives and experiences (which most feminists still hold).

Glad I’m not in that market now. Most women are utterly, hilariously undateable. Their over-inflated self-regard is only exceeded by their girth and unappealing personalities.

It’s really creepy that there’s a large age gap between parents and kids. Huge power imbalance there, right? That shouldn’t be allowed at all. It’s just weird we condone that as a society.

Obligatory just got fired post.

A three month ramp-up period in an infrastructure job? Even in fairly simple environments most people would need six months to be competent. Sounds like they just didn’t like the person for other reasons or wanted the proverbial purple squirrel and didn’t get that.

Because I was born lucky (big brain) and have a lot of experience of my company purchasing and then me and my team integrating other company’s infrastructures, I’m exceptionally good at learning other environments quickly. I can generally learn a new-to-me environment in 2-3 months. But of the IT people I’ve met, for most it takes 6 months to a year. In that area I’m one out of a thousand. If that sounds arrogant, well, good for you but it is the truth*.

Three months is just not long enough for most people and I would not expect it of anyone.

*I worked at a hosting company with a very complicated environment. I learned it in three months to where I was doing large projects completely on my own. Most people there were only assigned any sort of project after six months and large ones only after a year. My manager said he’d never seen anyone ramp up that quickly.

The worst thing about this job is that it forces you think of everyone as stupid and incompetent FIRST before they prove you wrong.

That’s right. That’s what you see the most of on helpdesk or even as a sysadmin (because items the helpdesk can’t solve bubble up to you). So your experience is an endless cavalcade of human stupidity. And just as with retail, even though the vast majority of people are not actually clueless clowns, nearly all that you directly experience are in fact fully dressed as Ronald McDonald.

And as with retail (again), it makes you terribly jaded and misanthropic. Any IT person who has done helpdesk or sysadmin becomes a bit of a jerk for a good damn reason.