topgrain2

6 ms·

1.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
I picked beeswax because the petroleum-based ones smell terrible, and I found some that weren't much more expensive than unscented soy. They have a nice smell! But burning non-petroleum candles a couple hours each evening (and I found
2.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
Almost every time I see a halfway polished “solo developer” game, they did not do all the work themselves. Especially, they usually hire out the music, maybe other sounds, and much of the artwork. Sometimes they also have freelancers doing
3.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
Extracember
4.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
Lots of the central-eastern portion of the state is the beautiful Flint Hills area, which is obviously… hilly. Much of I-70 (the main route across the state east-west) features long horizons but lots of low hills in the distance. The West,
5.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
Should they avoid doing that because it’s working really well at putting their opponents in a bad spot, while costing them almost nothing? Those ships are bearing goods from (or taking goods to) countries that are hosting US forces attackin
6.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
> A practical example is health care. US Gov gives free healthcare to service members. This is in the military budget. A different gov which already gives free health care to everyone, would have this in a different budget even if its ef
7.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
> The tailings from the mining operations are referred to as “chat” and were deposited into massive piles of small rock. We would play in these “chat piles” as a kid. Probably exposing ourselves to heavy amounts of lead and zinc dust. I
8.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
> It was wild growing up in that area with the chat piles hundreds of feet tall towering over these little towns. Especially when the area is extremely flat. Town I lived in (near, but not, Galena), the only places it was possible to s
9.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
I once experimented with beeswax candles as my only after-dark light source. This meant no hyper-stimulating screen activities whatsoever, too. TV, phone, video games, browsing the web? Nope, nope, nope, and nope. Just dim, warm light from
10.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
Knowing how things work, knowing what should be possible and where “there be dragons”, and having a pretty well-developed “sixth sense” for all kinds of things is proving just as valuable with LLM-heavy programming as it did before. … but I
11.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
> Individual gains from llm seem much larger than net productivity increases. I think a major source of this discrepency is people creating more work for their coworkers at the speed of slop. Especially the people with no idea. Lots of
12.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
Yeah, “ackshually it’s a republic” is usually a case of midbrow “incorrecting” (political scientists regularly use “democracy” to label a basket of political systems that include democratic republics, it’s not just normal vulgar usage, th
13.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
> If you have ever used nice commercial high-temp silicone spatula, it's an incredibly versatile and easy to clean spoon for cooking. A bit expensive at like $20 though. Pair with nice nonstick pan and polycarbonate cutting board (d
14.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
Microsoft accounts being an absolute pain in the ass to set up and manage, and the new launcher being aggressively terrible, are salt in the wound even if you finally gave in and migrated your account. Also, good luck running Microsoft’s Mi
15.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
I half-assed try to avoid plastic in contact with (especially very) hot food or drink, and avoid it in long-term food containers, in no small part because I've seen things like plastic cooking spoons losing non-microscopic parts of t
16.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
Things like glass food storage containers are really expensive compared to plastic. And they still have plastic lids; like, I don't know what you'd even do without at least the seal-part being some kind of plastic, I guess you&#x2
17.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
MBA dorks do dumb things to language for no good reason, creating unnecessary jargon. Even dumber people around them hear them use it, and misunderstand the specifics of how it was used and the context that made it sort-of be reasonable (th
18.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
> My current power move in the age of AI: do nothing. This was also my strategy before AI. At some point in my late 20s or early 30s I all but completely stopped doing any development in my free time, because I was entirely over any fun
19.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
Pretend confusion, especially over the very terms of the discussion, is a really common shitposting tactic all over the Internet. Though yeah it’s maybe more common here. Possibly because it falls under the category of trolling that doesn’t
20.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
I’m pretty sure all the benefits of social media exist in aspects other than the engagement-driven “algo” feed.
21.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
> The Steam Deck is the only device I've seen that works 100% perfectly with Airpods, for instance, including Apple devices. Oh weird, mine have always made weird clicks and dropped audio here and there and shit like that when using
22.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
You’d have to also have a qualifying healthcare plan so you could have an HSA in the first place, and enough income to easily cover any medical bills without having to touch your HSA balance, after maxing out other tax-advantaged retirement
23.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
Yes, it provides some benefits to fund one's HSA even if one spends all that money in the same year, but the cost of the program (in terms of tax income lost, including the time-cost of it) is far higher for accounts that don't
24.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
> The military thing is a much bigger flywheel. A lot of technology really comes out of military research or is supported in key ways by military projects. Yeah, I wouldn't call all our military spending unproductive waste. I&#x27
25.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
Requiring certain healthcare plans to access HSAs is the only thing that keeps HSAs from primarily being (in terms of amount of tax income lost to the program) a benefit for the upper-middle-class and higher, i.e. a regressive redistribut
26.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
See also: the healthcare system, and the military. We pump spectacular amounts of money (~10% of GDP in the former case based on diffing high-end-of-normal healthcare costs for peer states with ours, and who knows how much in the latter but
27.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
> c) high possibility of own consciousness ceasing to exist Yeah, death being the subjective end of the universe is kinda high on the list of reasons it bothers people, I think.
28.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
Fuck, I spent all these years developing a thoughtful writing style that leaned toward clarity for the reader, even if it meant extra work to achieve precision, or adding affordances like “excessive” hyphenation, and now I guess have to lea
29.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
Did you move? There are huge differences between states in what’s available, all the way from “just sparklers and other tiny stuff that doesn’t fly” up to “anything that doesn’t require an explosives license”, and within states areas near c
30.
by topgrain2 2mo ago
The Secret of NIMH

More ›