Past poor decisions have taught me this:

Don’t do anything you’re going to have to lie about. If you do, don’t lie about it. If you do, make it right as soon as possible.

I have plenty of problems in my life but a guilty conscience isn’t one of them.

You forgot the incredibly expensive scam that is American “healthcare”.

Back in the days before cell phones, when landlines were ubiquitous, people in more rural areas had what they called “party lines.” It was a single telephone line shared between multiple houses. You knew which house an incoming call was for based on the ring pattern. Your neighbors could also pick up the receiver, very quietly, and listen in on your phone calls if they wanted too.

Party lines are long gone but Internet communications have their own ways of being “listened in on.” A lot of traffic transmitted over the Internet is encrypted; with TLS for instance. But, some of it isn’t. If you use traditional DNS – UDP over port 53 – everyone in between you and the DNS server can see which websites you’re visiting.

I’m not concerned about my privacy because I have something to hide. I’m concerned about it because my personal business is my business. Not anyone else’s.

Understood. My experience deepthroating N64 controllers is …uh… limited.

Better have a long tongue to reach the “Z” button with.

“Well God can use ‘imperfect people’. Just look at King David.”

How that story actually went…

David: Has an affair with Bathsheba and has her husband assassinated.

God: “Listen here you little shit. I gave you everything you could ever want and you decided that wasn’t enough. I’m feeling merciful so I won’t kill you like you killed Uriah. Instead, you can spend the rest of your miserable life suffering the consequences of your evil deeds.”

I’ve been seriously thinking I need to go back to therapy. Thanks for the motivation!

The stove is hot so the fan is just trying to cool itself down. Duh.

Honestly? The last few years have been like a slow motion Trainwreck. My wife developed serious chronic health issues a few years ago and I’ve been unemployed for almost a year and a half. We’ve gone from being in a very good financial position to being virtually bankrupt. It has not been a good time.

I see you left that short stint at WorldCom off your resume.

I’m still looking for a good solution that includes support for notes. I’m migrating off Exchange Online and using mailcow temporarily but the built in notes feature is sorely missed.

I still write thank you cards. People really like getting them. In my mind, it’s worth the [small] investment of my time and effort to show my appreciation for something.

I use Tom’s of Maine because I’m allergic to HAWK SHARK deodorant.

Fraternal orders. Elks, Moose, etc. The internal vibe is exactly like church but with beer instead of sermons. You do not have to be religious to join but some of them do require a belief in God.

I’m still a member of the Elks, although I haven’t been active in a number of years since I moved too far away from any local lodges. I made a lot of good friends when I was active. One thing that was always nice, back when I had to travel for work I could stop by a lodge, if there was one near by, and they would usually treat me like I belonged there. I always appreciated that.

What other things would be a big difference with the people today?

The lack of cigarette smoke everywhere, at least in the US and probably most other developed nations. In 1965, around 43% of American adults smoked. Today, just over 11% do. You no longer have to sit in the “non-smoking” section of a restaurant that still smells strongly of stale cigarettes. They no longer put ash trays or cigarette lighters in vehicles, which were a standard feature up to at least the late 90’s.

Altman, a regular user of X since 2008, has been forthright about his frustration with the bots on it. In September, he posted to X that “somehow AI twitter/AI reddit feels very fake in a way it really didn’t a year or two ago.” A few days earlier, he made a similar point, citing dead internet theory, which posits that since 2016, the internet has been overrun with non-human activity. “I never took the dead internet theory that seriously but it seems like there are really a lot of LLM [AI]-run twitter accounts now,” he wrote.

CEO of glorified bot farm complains about effects of bot farming.

There’s nothing I want more than to be a mid-level cog in the corporate state political machine.

/S

Many moons ago, I lived about 20 feet from a Union Pacific railroad track. Gotta give credit to the engineers. They really tried to quietly sneak by every morning at 2:00 AM. As quietly as you can sneak a freight train anyways.

I kind of wonder if that’s a better or worse experience than living right next to a major highway.

On one hand, I’m genuinely curious to see how the JP Morgan suit pans out. They have vast financial resources, an army of lawyers, and unlike some of the other defendents in Trump’s recent lawsuits, a potentially dangerous precedent to be set by settling.

On the other hand, they’re both scum and they deserve each other.