• 0 Posts
  • 62 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 10th, 2023

help-circle


  • Years and years ago I built my own 16 bit computer from the nand gates up. ALU, etc, all built from scratch. Wrote the assembler, then wrote a compiler for a lightweight object oriented language. Built the OS, network stack, etc. At the end of the day I had a really neat, absolutely useless computer. The knowledge was what I wanted, not a usable computer.

    Building something actually useful, and modern takes so much more work. I could never even make a dent in the hour, max, I have a day outside of work and family. Plus, I worked in technology for 25 years, ended as director of engineering before fully leaving tech behind and taking a leadership position.

    I’ve done so much tech work. I’m ready to spend my down time in nature, and watching birds, and skiing.


  • Some suggestions, either online or local;

    Bookclubs
    Walking groups
    Chess, board games, table top
    Theater groups (meetup groups to go to the theater as a group)
    Escape room group meetups.

    Depending on if you are in a city or a smaller town the locals options will vary. I’d look at meetups site and browse local activities. For most any activity you will find a range of ages, but some will skew more one way than another.

    Best of luck!


  • The article says that steam showing a notice on snap installs that it isn’t an official package and to report errors to snap would be extreme. But that seems pretty reasonable to me, especially since the small package doesn’t include that in its own description. Is there any reason why that would be considered extreme, in the face of higher than normal error rates with the package, and lack of appropriate package description?



  • Yeah, this is one of those situations I have mixed feelings on. On the one hand, in a perfect world what consenting adults do on their own time wouldn’t change perceptions of their competency or leadership.

    Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world and executive leaders do carry the expectation to keep their private lives private, and if something is public it shouldn’t be controversial.

    My two cents is that the guy was naive in thinking this wouldn’t undermines his executive role as leader of a campus. And naivety isn’t a great trait in a leader. But the president shouldn’t have made disparaging remarks about him and should simply have left it at a vague “differences in judgement.”


  • I read a NYT article on this and the videos included them having sex with the pornstars and they also published their own porn videos.

    In an interview on Thursday, Mr. Gow and Ms. Wilson said that they believe they were fired over the videos, which included sex scenes together and with others under the username Sexy Happy Couple. Both said they felt it was wrong for the university to punish them over the videos, arguing that doing so infringes on their free speech rights.

    Mr. Gow, 63, said he and his wife, 56, have made videos together for years but had decided recently to make them publicly available on porn websites and had been pleased by the response. They said they never mentioned the university or their jobs in the videos, several of which have racked up hundreds of thousands of views. The couple also has made a series of videos in which they cook meals with porn actors and then have sex.

    The article also includes some basic legal history that doesn’t make it seem like they will have much recourse.

    NYT gift article


  • I look at the long arc of history and see that progress is not monotonic (always increasing or decreasing). We are experiencing setbacks to overcoming our challenges, as have those who came before us. But while we can read about years passing in a paragraph in a history book, we have to live and experience those years. And with all the challenges comes new technology and drive and awareness to solve problems. As unfortunate as it is trouble breeds innovation and commitment to change far better than comfort and easy times.



  • I’ve lived on East and West Coast in the US, visited most states and the places you mention in Canada, and I just moved from Washington to Maryland.

    Realize that everything you listed as a preference is the same for millions of people. Lots of people like paddle boarding, nature, and the cities you are looking at, so those places are going to be expensive. Without knowing more about your acute needs to move I can only give general advice.

    First, don’t move without a job lined up or at least a plan in place. Look at college towns including in more states than you listed. They are more liberal on average, and have a baked in supply of people looking for roommates. Even older grad students are looking for roommates and are often quiet.

    After that, look for things to minimize costs like public transit. You say south of Maryland, but that covers a whole lot including places with pretty bad public transit.

    When you do move make sure you have any vehicle titles or purchase documents as you will need them to get new titles and registration. Update your insurance policy with your new address. Make sure you have your birth certificate, social security cards, and photo id so you can get a place to live and get your new state id. Make sure you know what it costs to do all of that (likely hundreds on the title, registration, new id). Even more if you don’t have one of the necessary documents and you have to pay a notary to send a form to get a new title mailed to you.

    Look at room mate apps or sites to potentially vet a low cost place you can move into more quickly than getting your own place and going through the credit checks and down payments for a lease.

    And look at your credit to make sure you don’t move just to find that you won’t clear the checks they will perform.

    Open a bank account at a bank or credit union with branches where you are moving to, or at least part of a no-fee ATM network. E.g., I can get cash from my credit union account without any fees from 7-11 and they are everywhere.

    Make sure you have a few blank checks on your wallet for oddball expenses or deposits that don’t take cards or have fees to do so. Have a little cash as well.

    Once you have a job planned, costs figured out, make a spreadsheet. MAKE A SPREADSHEET! You do not want to move across the country to find that you didn’t factor state income tax or vehicle registration costs and suddenly can’t make rent. Include all likely costs and see if your budget has some wiggle for miscalculations and other issues.

    Make a spreadsheet of all the tasks you need to do. Keep track of them because the details of moving will screw you hard if you don’t mind them.

    The more money you have while moving, the better you can solve problems. Hard truth for life in general.

    If the above sounds overwhelming, then you need to plan all the more carefully.

    Make sure you don’t make unrealistic assumptions about the culture of where you are moving and get taken advantage of our targeted for violence. Even in the most liberal places there are places and people unfriendly to LGBTQ people. Don’t be a victim.

    Best of luck and happy to answer questions about specific cities, I’ve been to many.


  • I use a terminal whenever I’m doing work that I want to automate, is the only way to do something such as certain parameters being cli only, or when using a GUI would require additional software I don’t otherwise want.

    I play games and generally do rec time in a GUI, but I do all my git and docker work from the cli.


  • Right. Which gets us full circle, to never give investment advice, lol. That being said, at some point someone may sincerely look too you for guidance and you need to make a call as to whether you want to take that risk, what advice you give, and are you sure it is good advice.

    I used to mentor student employees years ago, and when they wanted advice I always told them to max out workplace matches first, and then after that if they can save more, put it in tax advantaged savings programs that let you buy into indexed funds and never sell. In those cases you usually can’t even sell unless certain conditions are met and you sign disclosures, unlike most brokerages. Now, students you are giving them advice for the rest of there life and they likely don’t have $40k to panic sell/buy/sell to zero.




  • Yes, times a thousand. But I would go even further.

    Never give investment advice. You might explain what investments you have made and why you made them, but never give advice and never urge or prompt someone to invest. You should also end every conversation with “but that’s not advice and I’m not an expert.” It is too easy for either the investment to not work out, or for them to do it wrong (wrong timing, panic sale, misunderstood the options, etc).

    The last thing you want on your conscience is someone investing a life changing amount of money just for it to go down in flames. I might invest $1000 in something that I think might pay off, tell someone they should invest, and next thing you know they drop in $40k and panic sell on a dip in two weeks, when I was planning to hold for five years. You never know.





  • I don’t know your local customs, but I would say it is normal for a large group to have one or two people not buy something, but also normal to enforce a no outside food or drink policy. Personally, I wouldn’t feel weird not ordering, but I wouldn’t eat or drink outside food or beverage while there.

    If someone commented on it I’d just ignore them and if pressed, tell them if the bar has a policy they need to post it. Her getting upset is likely second hand embarrassment due to their own insecurities.