Author: Chill

Shenan

Chill Regular-ass Post

Most likely poorer. There’s less chance I would’ve gone into IT and less chance I would’ve done any stock market shenanigans. Both of those things, particularly when I was younger, were very male-coded. For IT I would’ve been discouraged from pursuing this field explicitly and implicitly by the pervasive misogyny and sexism present there in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

So even assuming my personality and proclivities would be roughly similar as a different sex, I’d probably be poorer by a large amount.

Tonality

Chill TV Shows, Video, Video (TV show)

This show was not completely successful, but I love this scene at least partially because it and the show itself feels really tonally different from all the other shows recently which seem so monotonous and ultra-pasteurized.

And here’s the same clip by someone who didn’t understand the “terrible” dialogue was intentional; this is two people interacting who are socially inept, stunted, having had very few normal interactions and both living in repressed, horrible societies. The woman is the extrovert side of that and the guy is the introvert. They have zero social skills and very little experience with anyone different from them. That’s the whole point of the scene — that is, them learning how to interact despite their chasm of inexperience and social cluelessness.

It’s fascinating how many people can watch something and just not understand it at all. Like, not in the least.

Close Cut

Chill War

Eventually, Russia is going to run out of stuff. They are able to produce war materiel at about 1/10 the rate it’s getting spent on the battlefield. However, Russia has a fucking lot of stockpiled stuff.

What Russia is attempting now is to hold out until Trump gets into office and Ukraine’s support is slashed. Then they might win. But they are already cutting it close, using thirty-year-old rocket engines and tanks donated by movie studios and the like.

Chill Links

Trust in scientists hasn’t recovered from COVID. Some humility could help.

Bird brain from the age of dinosaurs reveals roots of avian intelligence.

This $8,000 Suzuki From India Received A 5-Star Crash Test Rating.

‘Achilles heel’ of antibiotic-resistant bacteria discovered in life-saving breakthrough.

Trump Reminds Everyone: He Wants US Soldiers in US Streets.

Trump’s demolition of the US state.

First Stand-In Attack Missile Delivered To USAF.

The Three Pillars of the Bro-Economy.

Tech jobs are mired in a recession.

Harm to women is perceived as more severe and unacceptable than identical harm to men.

What We Do

Chill Prediction, War

This is not the direct setup for the Taiwan invasion. That’ll occur in 2026-2027 while Trump is at his weakest. This is a test to see how the US and Europe respond to provocations. This is a common Chinese tactic that produces extremely valuable real-world data on likelihood of aggressive retaliation, determination of actual effects of communications being severed, and movement of forces in the area in which the sabotage was conducted and in other areas as well.

This is a dry run for a future, much larger operation and not the operation itself.

Grillax

Chill Tech

This is also true:

We end up with every problem. Developer code problems, putting together BBQ grills1, electrical issues, lighting, copiers, doors, staplers, and any complex business task no matter how little it has to do with actual systems — it all winds up in my department eventually. I’ve done a lawyer’s job, an accountant’s job, an engineer’s job, an insurance adjuster’s job, a graphic designer’s job, a developer’s job, a DBA’s job, a lecturer’s job and many many others. And no, I am not talking about making sure their computer works and that they have access to the tools they need. I mean actually doing the work they should be doing 2.

The peril of being the only team that can troubleshoot and reliably solve problems is that you end up as the dumping ground for all problems. And then are hounded ceaselessly about them even if they have nothing to do with you or your department.

It is not fun.

  1. No, I am not making this up.
  2. I absolutely refuse to do this anymore. I’d rather be fired.

IT Stings

Chill Tech

These are indeed the main problems with working in IT. It’s so oddball how everyone expects you know everything about anything that runs on electricity of any kind. I will never understand that. I don’t even assume a tax attorney knows anything about contract law. However, the hoi polloi believes that because I know how Linux works, I can troubleshoot an issue involving some obscure code they wrote in 1998 or fix a coffee machine.

It is completely mystifying.

Fears

Chill Regular-ass Post

Do men ever feel unsafe?

Of course. Men are just not allowed to talk about it as much, and men aren’t believed (or are belittled) when they say they are afraid or something bad actually happens to them.

When I got my ass kicked in middle school, that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was being made fun of for it afterwards, even by teachers, etc. There’s nothing worse as a man than being perceived as weak and an easy target. I think women have a lot of trouble understanding this.

Then I learned how to fight. The hard way.

But men seem fearless to women for these reasons:

1) Showing fear makes it so much worse for you as a man. Makes you into an insta-target for other men and even women. So we don’t.

2) We feel fear and do it anyway.

Women are allowed to express fear. Men are not. Simple as that.

Chill Links

A chief characteristic of our contemporary dating discourse is that we take it—and by extension, ourselves—much, much too seriously. Agreed. One of the reasons I said “yes” to any and every date is to see what sort of crazy shit would transpire.

We must think about the resiliency of an economy before the crisis.

A Tiny Gladiator Uncovered in England Tells of the Reach of Roman Celebrity.

It was back then, in early 2014, that Russians started with contradictory ideas. To people with left-wing ideas, they spread the idea that Ukrainians were somehow Nazis. To people with right-wing ideas, they spread the idea that Ukraine was the forefront of a gay takeover of civilization.

Why Big Oil Doesn’t Mind Big Regulation.

How Democrats Blew It on Inflation.

World’s 1.5C climate target ‘deader than a doornail’, experts say.

It hit me how absurdly dystopian life in the UK has devolved to when my significant other had to have “the talk” with me.

Florida Faces Exodus as Residents Declare Insurance Crisis Final Straw.

Trump’s attack on the enemy within will delight America’s real foes.

Stealth firing or ethical dismissal? Why employers terminate staff for minor offences.