cko

In 2004, as a senior in high school, I tried enlisting in the Marines (infantry, what was I thinking based on the year). I scored 99 on the ASVAB (finished way earlier than everyone else) with a high SAT score as well.

Passed all the physicals at Fort Dix. I was rejected.

Soon after an Army recruiter called me and said they are willing to take me.

Someone told me I was rejected because of high test scores. I didn't really believe them, but it kind of makes sense.

What is it with you guys and stallions?

I think he's implying that SpaceX's success is evidence that Musk can possibly deliver on the robotaxis and Optimus forecasts, thus justifying TSLA's multiple. I for one am skeptical.

ex-US index funds.

This may not make you feel better, but I was lonely until maybe age 25. That was the year I graduated and started my first job and made my first two real friends. Before that I sat alone in the back of the lecture hall in University and hated on all the fun-having classmates.

Age 25 was also when I met my first girlfriend that lasted less than a year. Age 34 was when I met my second girlfriend, who became my wife, and how we are separated. Long story short, I'm pretty content with my life now. You can say I'm a bit of a late bloomer.

I thought I would be alone forever too, so much so that in college I aspired to be a Buddhist monk.

What helped me was learning how to be less socially awkward through work interactions. When I was 32 I solo backpacked Europe which made me seem like a more interesting person. Also I'm a bit of a people pleaser and I was helpful to some key people in my life and they are now my good friends. Also I saved and invested a good chunk of my income which kind of helps overall with confidence.

People find me funny and when I do talk to people we have decent conversations (though small talk tends to bore me). However that doesn’t lead anywhere and doesn’t bring me any kind of comfort or fulfillment. I’ve attributed my lack of friends to something that places all the blame on me. Maybe I’m ugly, maybe I’m not funny enough, maybe I’m dumb.

I've felt all those things at some point. You don't have to be attractive or funny or a genius. I've always walked around with these recurring fantasies of being some secretly impressive superhero that saved the day publicly or had all these amazing talents and everyone would realize my worth. I realize now that everyone is too into their own lives to care, and even if they seem to admire something about you, they see it from the perspective of how it benefits themselves. This is absolutely fine, and human.

I guess what I'm saying is that you'll grow out of this phase. Right now I have all the friends I could ever want, ironically at a phase I'm my life I want to be more solitary.

"Users can create their own personalized color combinations with iPhone Pocket and iPhone."

You don't think that's innovative?

I use it because it offers a very generous amount of free queries, subsidized by VC money.

I once watched a video of a man holding what looked to be a bicycle battery walking into an elevator. After the doors closed, it seemed to have exploded and burst into flame in his hands, and the aftermath was charred remains.

After seeing this I refuse to sleep near my 20,000 mAh power bank. I saw this Jackery power station for sale for an ultra discounted price and noticed it was not lithium iron phosphate and I noped so fast.

Someone once told me that a person who doesn't believe anything will fall for everything. So if we don't know what to believe, do we all join our own conspiracy communities? Like on a grand scale?

I am a pharmacist who dabbles in web dev. We should easily be replaced because all of our work on checking pill images and drug interactions are actually already automated, or the software already tells us everything.

If every doctor agreed to electronically prescribe (instead of calling it in, or writing it down) using one single standard / platform / vendor, and all pharmacy software also used the same platform / standard, then our jobs are definitely redundant.

I worked at a hospital where basically doctors and pharmacists and nurses all use the same software and most of the time we click approve approve approve without data entry.

Of course we also make IVs and compounds by hand, but that's a small part of our job.

All the "Putin utterly defeats NATO" over and over again thumbnails

Look up Hindustan Times on YouTube and tell me based on thumbnails if they are a reputable news source.

I wasn't really arguing about benefit to society though. I just said the gears of the economy turn on the back of such "distractions".

Benefit to society becomes a philosophical argument. Personally I don't value most forms of entertainment, gambling, etc. Humans only need food and whatever basic needs there are. I enjoy classical music but I would even argue that music is just noise at the end of the day. On a scale of heroin to Chopin, I'd put the NFL closer to Chopin.

Nevertheless, these seemingly "worthless" forms of sense-stimuli are supporting a huge portion of our livelihoods at the moment.

By the way Saquon Barkley can squat 600lbs. Surely that's of value, no?

I'd argue that the reason for people to do any sort of productive work is to be able to spend it on such "distractions" (as you put it) like Taylor Swift concerts and sports events.

Think about these fantasy sports gambling apps, your coworkers who distract themselves from the drudgery of work by discussing sports, the financial institutions that take a transaction fee from money being passed around, the infinite scroll of content on social media, all because of athletes.

Not me, I spend nothing and invest it all, but all these investments are basically leveraging what society truly wants, among which is leisure and art.

Functionally, as a curmudgeon, my value to the economy is near zero.

Not investing enough in 401k up to the IRS max.

This is not always a given. If your income in retirement is much higher than your working years income, you will end up losing on taxes.

In fact, my employer didn't match at all so all my money is invested post-tax in a brokerage.

You should probably max out your Roth IRA, however.

Small businesses being bailed out was presumably because of liquidity issues.

Being underwater does not cause a liquidity issue.

COVID would be better because the sense of taste is also affected.

But what about dating? The nether regions should be washed in anticipation for certain activities. There are no diminishing returns for that.

In the past two years most of my Google searches were: "______ vs ______", <product name> review, and <subject> reddit.

Sometime in the last two months I noticed myself going straight to ChatGPT, and Gemini flash when my free credits ran out. And ocasionally some Reddit threads.

Every generation uses this. I had a 60-year old coworker who said this to me when she was training me years ago.

I'm a huge proponent of "good enough" in all aspects of my life so I fully agree. A two-year old used flagship phone is good enough. A cheap Thinkpad is good enough. Most clothes actually actually last a long time, even the cheap ones.

Anything above "pretty good at a reasonable price" has diminishing returns, and it attracts many of the people for whom vanity is the main source of enjoyment.

As someone who started a fully remote job (sedentary) 1.5 years ago, this worries me a bit. I've been reading that those giant bouncy balls and treadmill desks are a gimmick and that standing still for a long time gives you varicose veins.

What is a good routine? Do I switch positions (right now I'm slav squatting) and maybe throw in some short bouts of exercise every 30 minutes?

such as that the purchase of those last two social networks, WhatsApp (one billion dollars) and Instagram (19 billion dollars)

Makes me doubt the writer's authority

Christina Marie Chapman pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments in a US District Court on Tuesday.

Why not treason? Any lawyers know?

Thanks for the saga. It was an enjoyable read. You seemed more prepared than most, intentionally or not. Today (I'm in Romania) I went to buy a bunch of nonperishables. It was heartening to hear that people made the best of it.

I'm pro choice, but let me play devil's advocate.

If you view the fetus? embryo? as a human life, then abortion doesn't just affect the person having it, but also the life being aborted. Not only that, but what are the moral implications to the rest of society if "murder" is allowed?

So for some people it's not that simple.

Why are you having a debate here? People are trying to understand the benefit for Trump voters, they are not directly taking a position.

Abstinence and fidelity are good things, and so is curing diseases.

We had Japanese internment camps, Jim Crowe laws and McCarthyism and survived. Let's not write off American democracy just yet.

When I was Christian, we didn't want to call our system a religion.

Years later when I was exploring Buddhism, no Buddhist I met wanted to refer to Buddhism as a religion.

So the mentality seems to be that everything else is "religion" and what "we" have here is something deeper.

In 2015 I had a MAGA coworker walking around proudly saying "Trump is gonna fire everyone."

Turns out she was right, just a bit early.