This title might not be accurate, but I think it gets the message across. I realized the other day that the only reason I keep video games I don’t want to play is that I don’t want to pay for them again if I change my mind. When I bought my Switch, I made the […]
Author: risky
The Resolution of Inner Torment
The season I’m in is very unusual. On its surface, it’s a time for study and a time to prepare for a major career shift that could steer the course of the rest of my life. But under the surface, something much deeper is happening. Several times this past year, my jaw became sore during […]
Structural Demand and Exploitation
I don’t believe in grand conspiracies, but I do think that the various people in power employ similar tactics to maintain their power, and the collective effect of these tactics over millions of people can easily create an unofficial alliance of opinion. For example, it is rare for society to endorse a high savings rate. […]
Being Capable vs. Being a Tool
I’ve been watching a channel on YouTube that talks a lot about socialism, and although I don’t think anyone will ever convince me that socialism is a good thing, the guy who runs the channel has some pretty fascinating criticisms of ‘capitalism’, or at least, how this appears to function today. Several of his points […]
Self Investment and Career Path ROI
It frustrates me when people choose not to invest in themselves. It doesn’t frustrate me from a moral perspective, as if productivity or achievement was some weird moral obligation, but from the perspective of hoping people can realize more of their own potential. I gave up on cyber security years ago because I was afraid […]
Meta-Politics: Lifting Others Up
The other day, a friend made a long post on Facebook regarding women’s rights and and how trans rights have skewed several important issues regarding women. I was inclined to agree with what was being said, and was going to “like” it, but I was also too lazy to read the whole thing and as […]
Life Strategy and Ecology
There are so many different temperaments and circumstances among people that I don’t think it makes sense to take any one financial strategy and hold it up as the one, true way. The investments that are available to you are also specific to your country, its laws and institutions, and the time period in which […]
Life and Money: More Reflections
In an effort to organize my thoughts, I’ll break this down into three categories: updated thoughts about my mom’s condition, reflections from the job search, and other. Updated thoughts about my mom’s condition I don’t think it would be wise for me to cash out my 401k to pay off my mom’s medical debt. This […]
Reflections from a Rough Patch
Things haven’t been great lately, but while talking some of this out with friends can be helpful, some things are simply easier to write. I’m going to try to organize these thoughts, but they could still be scattered. The day before my first certification test in December, less than a week before Christmas, I got […]
Contributions to History
Over the past few years, I’ve managed to scan several dozen old mining catalogs, bulletins, and pamphlets and have uploaded them to the Internet Archive. But the thought of doing more makes me sick. It started with trying to build a PVC scanning rig in a manner made popular by David Landin, known frequently as […]