• 2 Posts
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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • Sounds like this is a good opportunity to learn something about yourself. It sounds like you don’t have any immediate needs for this windfall and it sounds like you don’t have strong desire to spend it frivolously. That’s good. Maybe you’re looking for an excuse to spend it frivolously. A lot of young people, given a big wad of cash, will rush out and spend it on some aspirational thing or experience - generally something that’s been all over media, or that their favorite influencers have raved about - then be left with the thing, which isn’t as cool after a few weeks or months as it seemed, or the memories. That pile of money came easy, left easy, so it doesn’t feel any different to be without it. That’s a trap known as the hedonic treadmill.

    You can do this experiment on yourself: take some of that gift - enough to feel like “a lot” to you - and get yourself a nice bit of bling. Something you’ve had your eye on for a while, but never thought was realistic. Write down why you chose that thing and maybe a 1-10 scale of how much you think you’re going to enjoy it. Come back to that page in six months.

    But I would definitely put most of it into some broad-market index/mutual fund, whatever’s available in Sweden. Making saving/investing part of your money habit early in life is a hell of a lot easier than trying to change bad habits later. And I don’t think your sis/BIL will offer you retirement the way they did your parents.


  • The short answer is: any amount of money is ‘worth’ investing.

    $10k at 6% for 40 years is $100k. That might let you retire a couple years early. Conventional wisdom, among people, let’s say 40+ years old, is going to focus on retirement, wishing they’d started saving earlier, and the incredible power of 40 years compound interest.

    At 19, though? You’ve probably got college and the potential for student debt coming up. Your first car. The down payment on a house. All of those things can be considered “investment,” too. They might have much better benefit to you, both in the short term and the long term. Or, if your BIL is ready to drop $15k as ‘pocket money,’ maybe you have enough family support that none of those things will be a concern. Hell, maybe you have enough family support that working a job from which to retire isn’t even a concern.

    This is a marshmallow problem. Do you want to buy a car, take a fantastic trip somewhere, or just gamble like a big shot right now, or would you rather have less college debt, buy a nicer house, sooner, or retire earlier? Nobody else can tell you what you’ll enjoy more.




  • My understanding is that they removed “MMRV” - the combined Measles, Mumps, Rubella, and Varicella - shot, presumably in favor of “MMR+V” - on Measles + Mumps + Rubella shot and a second Varicella shot, which has been the ‘default’ practice for under-4s anyway. Parents have had the option to use the 1-shot MMRV instead of the 2-shot MMR+V, and removing MMRV from recommendation will (I assume) eliminate that option.

    Slightly ironic, given that RFK Jr was just complaining how kids these days have to get “90 injections” to be fully vaccinated, that the MMRV move will essentially add an injection to the vaccination schedule.


  • MAGA hasn’t changed. Whom they believe will be the targets of government intervention has changed.

    “My hate speech is free speech” but “Your hate speech is intolerable”
    “My tiktok propaganda is patriotic” but “Your tiktok propaganda is treason”
    “My military actions promote world peace” but “Your pointless wars are unsustainable”





  • I’ve used a retired desktop for my home server since 1999. It doesn’t have the fancy web-UI management of commercial NAS, but I’m comfortable with command line and config files.

    At some point, I realized I could use its wifi card and hostapd to replace my WAP. That was a bit of an adventure initially finding a card that really supports AP mode and setting up hostapd, but has now allowed me to migrate from 802.11g to n to ac much cheaper than buying whole new devices,

    Recently converted to an N100 with 4x ethernet ports, which let me unplug my little 5-port switch.

    Managing this doesn’t feel like a second job: it’s stable and just works. Automatic updates, with kernel blacklisted; periodically log in, update kernel & reboot. It does give me the opportunity, when I get inspired, for a weekend project, like adding hostapd or a new service, either via docker or bare metal. I like that I have one device doing “NAS,” WAP, and router jobs.



  • Not the person you replied to, but a shoulder plane is kind of specialized tool. The blade goes all the way to the edge of the shoe, which lets you plane right up to square corners, such as a tenon, and the shoe is narrow, which lets you plane into grooves, such as dadoes, where general purpose planes won’t fit. The narrow shoe means you have to pay a lot more attention to keeping the plane square/flat to the surface, and the relatively short shoe means you have to pay a lot more attention to overall flatness of your work piece. If you need to true-up twisted & warped wood, a general-purpose bench plane will be a lot easier.