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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 5th, 2023

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  • This is my solution. I’ve said it before, but think it should be repeated. The global population was half of today’s when I was born. 4 billion instead of the current 8+ billion.

    That means if half the population disappeared today, we’d just be back where we were in 1975.

    Not having kids is the best thing I can do for both the environment, and myself.

    Has the added benifit of leaving me as a passive observer who doesn’t have a biological need to care about the future.


  • I went into one of the larger local shops to buy some risers or something to try and adjust my old setup. Older sales guy about my age took one look at my gear and said “Your knees must hurt like hell”.

    I had the money, so I just went full in on new gear, and came away with something I would never have picked for myself.

    Not only did he size everything proper for me, he made sure all the pieces were right together. For the first time in my life toe and heel line up exactly with the edge, and where they belong on the pressure points. I’d always riden too small a board and had far too wide a stance to make up for it.

    I was still skeptical, but he told me if I didn’t love it he’d do a full price exchange.

    Even though it’s about the longest board I’ve ever had, the banana camber makes it feel half the size. Took about three runs to actually trust the board, and I was completely sold, you couldn’t pay me to ride the old gear again.



  • It’s like going from moms station wagon to a high end sports car. Do I need the performance sports car? Usually no, but those few times you push it, it’s ready for all that and more.

    Thermal form boots are a must, though I guess that tech is more than 15 years old in ski boots at least. I no longer cringe and grunt when I put on my boots, they are as comfortable as any footwear I’ve owned.

    The flexibility in modern plastics means the straps and bindings themselves are stiffer where they need to be, and have give where they don’t. Combined with the boots there are no more pinch points at all, and all the force you put into riding goes where you want it.

    I ride almost exclusively in the midwest US, so hard, rough, icy conditions that most people wouldn’t consider snowboarding in are the every day. A board with reverse camber, often called banana, and magna tractions, serrated edges for holding grip on ice, are a must.

    “Turns ice into powder”, well I dont know if I’d go that far. I can lay into turns in the worst conditions and completely trust the edge to hold. When you get that horrible downhill edge that wants to catch and slam you into the ground, the newer complex curves in the camber means more often than not you will pivot out instead of hanging up. I can’t count the number of times I’ve felt that edge wanting to catch and end my day, only to slip around switch and get away with it.

    I’m sure there are more now, but a product called 3DO gel was the first I saw. Flexible and soft normally, it turns ridged under force. I have pads of that stuff basically all over my body, knee and elbow pads, but also tail bone, forearms, and in the liner of the helmet. Saw a demo where they were hitting a guy with a shovel and instantly thought “That’s for me”.

    If I had to pick one, a board with C2 or C3 gen camber from lib tech, or its equivalent makes the biggest difference. The over all package of a new setup bought and sized together for my cough, um, “modern” weight requirements, took riding from a painful and nervous experience, and made it relaxed and enjoyable again. Due to many old injuries, I used to ride an hour, maybe two, and had to quit. Now I can ride a full evening, and feel good about doing a few hours the next day as well.


  • The advances in material science and manufacturing in sports equipment in the past 15 years has been amazing.

    That means boots, bindings, and a snowboard that would have seemed like alien technology to me when I started riding. Same goes for all the saftey gear, knee pads, helmets, integrated wrist guards in gloves.

    The performance, comfort, and saftey offered by modern equipement means I can still enjoy my favorite sports at 50. The thought of getting on a hill with gear I had just 15 years ago makes me shudder.


  • My earliest gaming memory is my dad taking me to a local hotel bar to play Pac-Man when it came out, which suggests spring of 1980.

    I know I played pong, river raid, and pitfall on home consoles as well, not sure which was first.

    One xmass we got an Atari, but when my dad realized it came with a poker game he returned it a few days later.

    First system I had actual private access to was a TRS-80.






  • The office is 3 day a week onsite, w Mon and Fri remote.

    I have to be on site Tue - Thur to support the users.

    I go in most Mon and Fri because it’s the only time I know I have physical access to the systems.

    My support work is largely “remote”, in that I can manage my systems 99% of the time better from my office than in the room, and I really like my setup.

    Aside from physically rebooting hardware that’s too frozen to reboot remotely, or replacing defective hardware, I can work 100% from anywhere I have internet.

    Thing is, I love the company I work for, the end users and various IT and facilities staff that support my work are all great people.

    The only close friends I have all moved far away decades ago, so the “water cooler” is the only real social interaction I get.

    I do spend a ridiculous amount to live 15 minutes from the office so the commute isn’t a concern.




  • I’ve sunk hundreds of dollars into Rocksmith 2014 on ps4 to learn to play the bass.

    The game, DLC songs, two guitars,as preamp, and cables.

    I absolutely love it, and feel I am still getting better over time.

    It so saddens me to know that one day Ubisoft will shit down the servers and a that investment will go to waste.

    From everything I’ve read Rocksmith+, their subscription model new version, just sucks in comparison to 2014, and I hate that their answer to people wanting to play games they ready own is “Well, just play the new one”.

    Loved farcry 2, 3, and 5, hated farcry 6.

    While I’ll always be able to play 2 and 3 from disc on my PS3, 5 will one day crap out as well I’m sure.

    Companies who take servers required for single player games offline should be required to either patch the game, or release the server source code.



  • There are a lot of both dark themes and on screen deaths and violence, many of which are pretty graphic.

    Fallout as a franchise is well known for some pretty horrific elements, often painted over with bright colors and upbeat music, but horrific all the same.

    If Game of Thrones or The Boys were too much for you, then Fallout certianly is.

    That said, it is an absolutely brilliant and faithful adaptation of the source material, and as a long time fan of the games, I loved every minute of it.


  • My cat was 16 or so years old and in good health, though pretty under weight, when we brought in a 6 week old kitten.

    Having been a loner all her life, she wasn’t so happy to have the kitten around, but left her be. My only concern was the kitten was so small she might kill her.

    By 18 months, the kitten was larger than my senior cat, but had been put in her place so many times they mostly left each other alone.

    Occasionally they’d scrap a bit, but that was just the kitten wanting to play and the old one hissing and swatting her away. Honestly, I think it gave her some needed excercise to be chased around a bit and stalked.

    I made sure they each had their own food, water, and litter box, and there never was any real issue.

    They both had their spots, the kitten up top of the cat tree, and the old lady in her bed. I think so long as they have enough room to get away from each other it will be fine. They never became friends, but they learned to live and let live well enough. It even reached the point they could both sit with me on the couch and not fight.

    Had to put the older cat down a few weeks ago, and as sad as that was, it was very nice to have the kitten at home so the house didn’t feel so empty.


  • I get it from my father. He was one of the smartest people I’ve ever known, but if you asked him anything, you better have a lot of free time cause it is going back to first principles.

    I know his reasoning was that he wanted me to learn how to understand and find the answer, not just be given it, and now I’m guilty of the same thing.

    I don’t do it at work, or at least I try not to, as they are paying me for the solution not a dissertation, but if friends or family ask for tech support, they are getting the whole explanation while I solve the problem.

    I guess another part of it is that like me, he really didn’t have anyone to talk tech to other than his family, and really just enjoyed the time being able to share things he was knowledgeable about.


  • I use three at the office, and two at home.

    In both setups the laptop is my keyboard and small screen, above it is a 34 inch 21/9 aspect ratio curved display. At the office I also have a standard monitor off to the side.

    The large screen is my primary work space, with various code editors, UI dev tools, web browser, reference docs, and terminal windows.

    The laptop screen has email, all my short cuts, and a virtual version of the UI I’m working on because it is also a touch screen.

    When I have the third screen I use it for teams, a few system monitoring tools, and youtube for music.

    I used dual side by side monitors for years, but found that having the split in the center meant I was always sitting with my neck turned, and this lead to a lot of pain and headaches. Having them top / bottom is a lot more comfortable and my large screen is high enough I now sit up straight.

    A curved screen at the right distance also means a lot less eye strain.