Which one is hop into the basket and take it for a joyride?

Also a millennial here, on the older side of it. Got employed right after the .com crash.

Save, just save. $50 a month of you can. More if possible. Best time to start was 10 years ago. 2nd best time is now.

Don’t let yourself get stuck in the debt trap. There is no need to keep up with the Jones’s. Family and friends are by far so much better for your mental health than stuff.

There is no reason to get your burrito a chauffeur. Take life by the reigns and walk up and get it yourself. Even better, skip the premium and make one.

If you want to go to college, fantastic, do it. There are still plenty of schools without resort style athletics programs that are very affordable if you look. Community college the first two ear of matriculation is also an option. A lot of community colleges are now free.

If you live in the US, this country has perverted our sense of belonging so that the hustlers can squeeze you for every last almighty dollar. Don’t give in. Don’t let them win. Save some money, work on saving yourself.

So I’ve had this thought for 20+ years but can’t seem to get it to work. Maybe someone smarter than me can make it work.

The Curie point of Gadolinium is around room temperature. If you put a high powered magnet on one end and then generate some external heat and include a spring (or crank arm) on the magnetic end, you could produce a piston, similar to a sterling engine.

Now, if you add this cooling material as a heat sink, you could likely rapidly cool the gadolinium material back below the Curie point, making a more efficient engine, perhaps even producing something that could do a bit of work.

I made some prototypes back in the day, but the ferromagnetic material would always eventually get locked with the magnets. My rudimentary engineering skills could never get the external heat source quite right. Perhaps someone with a bit more ingenuity will take this and run with it.

Also, old broken microwaves are a great way to salvage some pretty strong magnets.

And be careful when handling gadolinium, it’s known to cause kidney and nerve damage.

Pork BBQ and Collards. Finish it down with some Cheerwine.

Left to my own devices, I am a messy person. My wife is very tidy. A clean sanctuary is respite for her.

I don’t know how we ended up staying together after those first few dates, but I do know our twice a month housekeeper is acting as our marriage counselor.

They’ve made their decision, now let’s see them enforce it.

Utilitarian - Row houses and small single family starter homes.

Detached single family housing is suffocating this country and the environment. I’d rather leave the woods to nature and nature walks, not streets and houses.

In addition to that, utopian architecture, like arcologies.

I’m much more a fan of the PBS/NPR underwriting model. Tell me who deliberately funds the show or video.

When the advertisement is so divorced from the show, is not relevant to the conversation or is not relevant to me, then the andvertisers are wasting their money.

If you show me the same ad over and over again, I am actually more likely to NOT buy that branded product or service because I’ve become so annoyed and numb from the ad taking what little time I have on this planet that I will actively boycott it.

However, I do have a nice space mug from PBS, a plot of land on Mars, the moon and Scotland, and a t-shirt for the Truth podcast to prove that I will spend money when the advertising is relevant to the content I’m consuming. So if you want the ad to work, invest your dollars directly into the content and providers I care about.

But for the love of everything, do not think for a moment that your contribution gives you license to control their messaging or content.

I’m not so sure. The dems will spruce up the place with lovely looking raised beds, herb gardens and other various fanfare, but the disfiguring foundational alterations carved out by these fascists will remain underneath for generations to come.

• Energy demand to power heavy industry that we all use (steel, aluminum, chemicals, fertilizers)
• • I don’t see these going away, so it’d be best to make their processes greener by repurposing the carbon into ag products, then institute a viable carbon tax and offset the rest of their footprint
• Use of concrete in construction
• • some promising technologies coming that crystallize the carbon and use it to self heal the concrete, carbon tax and offset the rest
• Shipping
• • bring manufacturing closer to consumers, global environmental manufacturing and shipping standards, improve right to repair laws
• Transportation
• • upgrade public transportation options where it makes economic sense to do so, make our cities and towns more people friendly instead of car friendly, raise the gas tax to fund these efforts. Reduce the amount of detached single family housing stock and encourage multi-family stock, particularly in cities.
• Heating and cooling
• • incentivize heat pumps, add taxes to heating fuels and fossil energy plants to fund it. Start a major campaign to educate people to keep temperatures around 68 (winter) to 76 degrees (summer). And encourage use of ceiling fans.

Mostly vendors. Often on-prem versions customized for their sensitive work and the versions are 30+ years now.

They very much go by the mantra “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” If you’re lucky enough to get one of those contracts, you’re on a gravy train, but brace yourself because you can expect to get a lot of complaints about how outdated and crap your system is. That and a whole lot of time dedicated to training and documentation.

You’ll also get the occasional person’s personal monument to themselves. “Joe’s been doing that GIS stuff for 30 years.” Whew those can doozies.

I am not an AI hater, it helps me automate many of the more mundane tasks of my job or the things I don’t ever have time for.

I also feel that change management is a big factor with any paradigm shifting technology, as is with LLMs. I recall when some people said that both the PC and the internet were going to be just a fad.

Nonetheless, all the reasons you’ve mentioned are the same ones that give me concern about AI.

Ed was all ready for his toe replacement until he met the donor.

Yup, this is going to end well.

The foreboding battle to begin. The music queued up. Brilliant, my friend!

The bedsheets were on the floor again. Stained, with God only knows what bodily secretions. No matter how hard she tries to scrub them, with time, sweat has a tendency to make cotton fibers dull and translucent.

It doesn’t help that, after a few months of this, I opted to invest in a black light. It’s been years since we’ve had the kind of sweaty sex that would produce bedsheets like that. And what is this now? Blood? Goddamn.

It’s always on a Saturday too. The day on the force that they force me to pull all nighters. The night I’m on the beat, I come home to this, and every Sunday I’m beat down.

And there he is, Dougy. Doug-o. Doug-ah. My childhood best friend. My confidant. Lying there on the couch every Sunday, like some kind of faithful lap dog. Playing video games on my console, on my TV, in my living room.

Been doing it for years, before I met Irene even. Kept me in good spirits after a long beat. He’d come around at 6 in the morning with a fresh box of donuts. We’d play the same old games and I’d conk out around 10. He’d stay for a more hours after, said he liked playing the games, but I knew it was just his way. I’ve got a dangerous job, I’ve put away a lot of dangerous people. It was just his way you know? He was keeping me safe.

And when I met her. Irene! Irene the doll! Irene the babe! Irene the light of my life! Well, it all stopped, you know, out of respect. I had her to watch over me and me to watch over her. And Dougy and I would just meet up after the shift at the coffee shop, and I got to be the one to buy him the donuts.

Until that one day when Irene had to go on that business trip on short notice. When Dougy and I came back to the apartment. Said he was feeling nostalgic or somethin. And we came to the door was all busted in. And her jewelry was stolen. Just your typical larceny, but it freaked me the fuck out. And so I asked him to start staying over again on the weekends, to keep her safe when I couldn’t.

It was me who let that gabagool in. The rat fuck was prolly the one who did the break in, just so he could get in with her.

It was at about that time that I started to get real proud of the work we was doing. When the perps were at their worst, we started putting more officers on patrol. More officers integrated in the community. The idea worked. Crime started to go down. We’d find em terrified of us, some would even dive face first into dumpsters, muttering in panic. Never understood that.

With the less crime, the beats got boring. Now I’m not one to sleep in my car, but damn, there’s only so many times you can drive in circles, you know?

So I decide to go home one night and splash some water on my face, maybe play a round with Dougy. I come in, no Dougy. I go to the bedroom, no Irene! I look at the bed…no bedsheets! What the fuck!

Well, needless to say, that woke me up. I’m more ways than one, you know what I mean?

A week passes, I’m outta my mind. I go back to the apartment. Same fuckin thing!

So I go the video store and I install cameras all in the house. But it’s weird. I see em they go in together, they grab the bedsheets. She, always the bedspread, him always the top sheet. With intent but all giddy like, you know? Like they’re getting away with something? They go out to the balcony, my balcony. They close the French doors. And they’re out there, for like, hours!

—-

It finally came. Today’s the day. It’s Sunday. It’s time.

And there he is, lying there on the couch every Sunday, like some kind of faithful lap dog. Playing video games on my console, on my TV, in my living room. After Fucking my girlfriend.

“Hey Dougy.”

“Hey “Sam! How was the beat?”

“Quiet now, the force has the streets safe.”

Dougy half cocks half smirks.

“But not this house.”

The smirk falls from his face and is replaced by concern.

“Put the gun down, Sam.”

“Why are you fucking my girlfriend, Dougy?”

“No…”

“Sam! What the fuck!” Irene comes out from the bedroom, fresh from a shower.

“It’s not what you think. We’ve been friends from way back. It’s not what you think, Sam.”

“What is it then!

“It’s not what you think!”

“Then what the fuck is it!” As the tears well in Sam’s eyes.

“We can’t. It’s not…”

“I did everything by the book! I kept these streets safe! I kept you safe, and this is how I’m repaid? I bleed for you, for this city, this is what I get?

“You did! You are! It’s not!”

“Then what the fuck is it!!!”

BANG!

sobbing

—-

“I told you this was too much. I told you he’d find out.”

“Irene wait!”

“I’m leaving you. I’m leaving this city .” She said through tears, as she picked up the bedsheets. She stormed out the door and into the pale morning light.

Ever since I lost her, I haven’t been myself, and it shows. Crime is back on the rise. I gotta shake this. I gotta get my head back in the game.

Oh look, 8.4 billion in more made up money.

In other news, I think I just learned why Elon got more weird all of a sudden about 6 years ago. P. Thiel funding his brain chips? New conspiracy theory just dropped.

• Hans Zimmer
• Johann Sebastian Bach
• Pyotr Tchaikovsky
• John Williams

Going with the OG - Super Mario Kart. 64 is close though.

Monster Party - if you haven’t played it, it’s a trip.

S tier

• Lufia
• Dragon Warrior 3
• Final Fantasy 3 & 7
• Sonic Adventure
• The Guardian Legend
• Ecco the Dolphin
• Silent Hill
• Mario Kart
• Dark Cloud 2
• Chronotrigger
• Zelda: A link to the past
• Submachine (flash)

A tier

• Oddworld, Abe’s Odyssey
• Resident Evil: codename Veronica
• Banjo Kazooie
• Mario RPG
• Donkey Kong Country
• Earthworm Jim
• Battletoads
• Wizards and Warriors 2
• Megaman 2
• Populous
• One Chance (flash)
• Daymare Town (flash)
• Abadox - hardest game I ever beat

B tier

• The Lion King
• Overlord
• Oregon Trail
• Dinopark Tycoon
• Snowboard Kids
• South Park
• Kid Icarus
• Sweet Home
• Monster Party
• Dr Mario
• Abobo’s Big Adventure (flash)
• Alice is Dead Ep 1 (flash)
• Starfox
• Shadowgate