Act II: The Father of Death, by The Protomen.

The story, the music, it all works for me.

Thank you, Mr. DingDong.

I didn’t speak to that at all. Intentionally.

What I think about what people will or won’t do has nothing to do with your divisive thinking.

Pretty bold of you to claim us nerds don’t do hard shit. I’m only going to speak to my experience, but I’m only one small slice of the nerd demographic. My background is in network design, security, availability, and global network design. I started out life in a car parts factory, graduated to being on the line crew here, before going inside to work on computers.

How much of your logistics would crumble without us? Exchange of knowledge around the globe? Sales and interfacing with other corporations and customers? Security to keep personal information somewhat protected?

I’ve contracted with several fortune 100 companies in all sorts of different industries all over the world, from manufacturing to attorneys.

You sound a lot like my family. Only hard labour is virtuous, if you aren’t sweating you aren’t working. Do you look down on people who do what you consider menial labour? I doubt you’ll admit it, but I’m pretty confident you do.

Civilization doesn’t work if we think like you. Every single person in my life, from the guys picking up my trash to the surgeon that saved my life are important and necessary to making modern life what it is.

Trying to be divisive between blue and white collar in the working glass is definitely a suspicious fucking take in this climate.

Yeah, that sounds about right. After a heart attack scare, a night in the hospital and all the cardiac testing that went with it, I received a letter in the mail from some company I’ve never heard of that determined my tests were necessary and would be covered. Weeks later. Like, motherfucker, what was the other option? We all thought I was dieing… ER had me admitted in less than 2 hours. It was bad … And someone needed to contact a fifth fucking party to make sure I deserve to live?

Fuck me. I wish I could leave this place and get my family someplace sane, where they are safe.

I’ll add that I got an a03s this week to use as a backup while my primary is on the healing bench.

It is garbage for use. I would have been less irritated setting those dollar bills on fire than I am trying to use it.

To give an example, this morning I went grocery shopping. Conncted Bluetooth headphones, opened only Spotify and my shopping list in notes. Every 45-90 seconds the music would hang, didn’t matter if the phone was in my pocket, in my hand locked, it in my hand unlocked with Spotify in the foreground.

To open YouTube, with nothing else open, to type three words that bring the desired video to the top of the search, and to start playback takes minimum of 30 seconds. I don’t bother with any video on here.

Typing this post has taken entirely too long because the fucking keyboard/autocorrect shit is too slow and causes all kinds of input lag.

I was going to end with saying it’s great for basic communications, but honestly… It’s shit. It’s motivated me to fix my regular phone as quickly as I can. Something I’m not prone to do without motivation, if at all.

Edited to add that even network speeds are garbage. Wi-Fi is far worse than cellular data, and that’s not great. Did some side by side testing with the other phones on the same network. The speed difference isn’t small, I didn’t write anything down so I won’t give numbers, but it’s bad. Real bad.

Not just any funky bunch, THE Funky Bunch.

You might like Incelcamino too, I shamelessly stole it from someone else here.

She sounds like an amazing girl, I’m glad you had each other.

Been using NextDNS as well and happy with it. I went the opposite way. Had piholes and figured that yearly expense was cheaper than me messing with them when something broke. Now I get to be annoyed with someone else instead when something breaks!

12 ga, not sure if slug or shot.

Gun was held to my head for 20-30 mins during some gang stupidity involving a family member not wanting to leave a party I was supposed to pick them up from. I left, came back and the place was crawling with police and EMS. The same gun, held by the same guy was used to shoot another person in the face.

I ended up having to give statements, got subpoenaed, and myself, family, and friends being threatened by same gang for a number of years.

Thank you, will give in it a watch soon as I’m back home.

I appreciate what you are saying, and I know I am loved. I know what I deserve even.

How long is reasonable for me to wait before I give up on feeling any kind of peace? As it stands, I have 8 years before I can even consider any other options.

Started with the cutting and suicidal ideation as a teen, and now I’m in my mid 40s now. I don’t really even know if I know what it feels like to be happy. I just keep pretending everything is ok, under the surface I’m screaming for someone to put me out of my misery. Willing my heart to stop when I’m not otherwise engaged. Wishing I wouldn’t wake up every night before sleep. And all desperately knowing that would be the worst for my child. But.

When does it get to be my turn to stop hurting.

Two Bonobo tracks have really been catching me lately. Stay the same and Shadow.

Same, ready to poison data against fascists anytime.

Will it get us there in one piece? Probably

Friendship drive charging

For it to have any chance you’d have to get it introduced in med school and brought with so those gods can demand the hospital cater to their wills.

I fucking hate that things are so fucked that I actually took a second to evaluate that. In ANY other context I would giggle and move on.

Well done. I hate this timeline

Thank you for what you do, it’s absolutely necessary and we need people like you. I wouldn’t for a moment say it’s not worth doing.

I don’t blame them for not wanting to do construction. I ran fiber optic cable on poles, underground, into buildings for a long time. Not quite construction, but also not easy work. Pay was terrible, I was young, and they took advantage of me. for almost 10 years. I’ve roofed, I’ve framed, I’ve been a programmer, I’ve been a network engineer. ALL of those jobs were basically the same in that regard, decent pay sure… But the hours required, the recovery I had to go through. Nothing is worth that. I’m sad that I took this long to figure that out, I missed a lot of good times with my kiddo. I can never get that back.

That’s the same thing that’s happening to all of us at this point. There’s NO reason there isn’t enough money in the pipeline to get things built that need to be built, paying people a wage that they can live on, and without eating nearly all of their time ‘off’ work. If you have to take so much time to recover that you feel like it eats into your personal job, your work life balance is way out of wack.

I don’t want to sound like I think your career isn’t valid, or isn’t important. Every single person that’s a part of making our lives work deserves to get paid well. No matter their job. There are so many resources available to the world we could all have better lives, but then a small group of slime would have fewer 0’s in their bank account. Otherwise, they wouldn’t even notice.

To speak to the other side, there are a number of people that thrive in that environment. My dad was one of them. He’s at the end of his life, dying of Parkinson’s and now seeing the relationship I have with my kiddo. I can see the pain in his face. He wants to have had that with me, but decided that money was more important. He’s going to die a multi millionaire, I hope those dollars comfort him.

That took a turn, I’m sorry. But it feels good to get out so I’m leaving it.

You see that none of that is a good thing right?

I don’t want to work a job that destroys my work life balance for any pay. Doesn’t matter how much. Nobody should have to give up their life for money.

Young people are more likely to want to take care of themselves and not have the toxic mindset you and I were brought up with. They aren’t just taking it on the chin, or putting in their time, or whatever bullshit platitudes my generation and older like to sling at young workers or those not willing to eat shit for peanuts.

You are just perpetuating that toxic mindset, in servitude of the moneyed class.