My SO and I split when we ended up going to university. Our universities were a 7 hour time difference and we both knew, that just wasn’t going to work. Our last date was updating each other’s dating profiles. She found a guy, and I was at their wedding. Super cool dude and I’m extremely happy for her.

The no shirt part was a result of the hipster movement in the 1970’s, and that’s originally how it was for over a decade. The no shoes part was because of lawyers and liability, hence why sandals are allowed, but barefoot is not.

If it sounds like a duck and looks like a duck, I’m calling it a duck.

Once it stops being slop, I’ll stop calling it what it is.

I think it should be percentage based, not fiscally based. That way it can adapt and grow with the times. I also think all income should be taxed, as it stands only certain types of income are taxed, and at different rates. Not surprisingly your W-2 taxes (taxes taken out of your paycheck) are one of the highest tax rates you can have on income. I also think tax breaks shouldn’t be a thing at all either. If the government wants to promote something they can offer a rebate so there’s a cap on how much they promote it, and it’s not an endless give away. Finally, expenses are the cost of doing business, and you shouldn’t be able to hide income because you paid money to make money.

The fact that I can buy a property, get a tax break because I’m paying interest on a mortgage, rent the property out for more than my mortgage, claim that as a business, then claim the mortgage as an expense for said business, and end up not paying any taxes on charging someone else to pay for my mortgage, is insane.

In my ideal world there would be no tax breaks period, you pay what is owed end of story. Anything below the median income (50%) isn’t taxed, anything above the median is taxed at 1.5% for each percentage point above the median. If you are in the top 10% and make more than 90% of the nation, you get taxed at 60% above the median and can take home 40% of that additional income after the median. In the USA this would be ($251,036-$80,610) x .4 + $80,610 or $148,780.4. If you are in the top 1% ($731,492) that would be a take home of $253,093.73. If you’re Elon Musk (est $400,000,000,000 last year alone) that would be “only” $100,000,000,000. Keep in mind in 2024 he didn’t pay any taxes, and in 2021, he was the highest tax paying individual in US history at $11 billion. Yes he would still be ultra rich, but there would be $300 billion going to taxes last year alone, or roughly 7.5% of all tax income.

This means rich people can still enjoy their money, while still paying their fair share, and if you’re just trying to get by, don’t worry about it, we got you.

I posted this a while ago, but my ex and I ended up on a 7 hour time difference and that level of LDR is really hard, so our final date was updating each other’s dating profiles. It was very amicable, simply recognizing that it was the situation not the person that caused us to not be together.

I’m ok with things relying on ads to make a product free. Someone has to pay for a product or service, if I don’t want to pay for it, then show me an ad and let someone else pay for it. The thing that overwolf and more specifically curseforge do that keeps them out of the enshitification category for me is they simplify modding of games.

I’ve been around since the early days of video game modding and know how hard it used to be. They have streamlined it to the point that if someone has created a mod it is a simple button click to download, and install, and then keep the mod up to date. You can even create and share collections of mods and mod packs. And if a modder has added a donate button, it’s a single click to donate to the modder. It’s everything I want out of the modding community with none of the headache, and it’s been like that for years.

Voicemeeter

Overwolf

Reaper

VLC

PCPartpicker

Ninite

There’s probably some others I’m missing.

I’m about 6ish years away from retirement (the goal is Dec 31 2031). I’ve been doing a lot of work in stock markets as a result of preparing for it. The thing with the stock market is you only lose money when you sell. If a bubble pops, but you don’t sell and you keep it in there, you will eventually make your money back and recover. Diversifying your portfolio also helps, if the housing bubble pops, the entertainment sector will likely grow because people need escapism. The AI bubble is huge right now and when that pops it will be worse than the dot com bubble, even though that bubble popped, websites are still around and that industry is larger today than it has ever been. Like websites AI is here to stay, and will eventually become larger than it is right now. It’s just time, wait it out and it will normalize.

I played D&D.

Apparently I’m a satan worshiper now.

The only RGB I run is for my keyboard and only because I sit in a dark room and everything is black, so it can be difficult to see where the keyboard is. Back when I ran a regular mouse I also had an RGB mouse for the same reason, but carpal tunnel forced a trackball so now the mouse never moves and it no longer needs RGB.

The only person I know who supports these actions is literally known around my neighborhood as crazy Mike, because he’s crazy. He also openly admits he’s hypocritical, as he will condemn an action democrats do, but praise the same actions if they’re done by republicans. He knows he’s hypocritical but doesn’t see anything wrong with it. Like I said he’s crazy.

I’m a sound engineer, I have to go to concerts, it’s kind of my job.

That little nod by the drone was beautiful.

There’s a lot of things under the streets of New York, many of them cause heat. In order to cool them off the heat is vented outside and the warm moist air meets with the cool dry air and condensates into droplets that we see as steam. Same affect as breathing out on a cold day, you’re not creating steam but it looks that way because the warm moist air from your breath is condensing in the cool dry air.

I am all for a period of time, I do not think it should be at the death of the artist but a set time from creation date. Say 10-15 years, gives the artist time to make their money, while not locking the creativity behind money.

I took a different approach, I put my keys on a carabiner so I jingle when I walk. It makes it really hard to accidentally startle people.

Part of my job involves operate hoists that are lifting several tonnes over the general public. Anything that is even impairment adjacent, like being tired, will get you removed from that position. If you are actually impaired you’re fired no questions.

It’s cyclical, years ago, video quality improved dramatically, and then stagnated for almost 40 years as prices fell until it was economical for video quality to improve again. We likely won’t see a meaningful improvement for another 15-20 years, then prices will come down and then we’ll see another improvement.