Not a mechanic, but I work from home and my wife gauges how busy I am by the intensity and frequency of the swearing. Post checks out.

If that’s not the deepest black hole in space with a bucket of vantablack calling the kettle black, I dunno what is.

If you haven’t already, check out Upgrade, by Blake Crouch. Good book, similar premise.

When did you exit your positions and when do you plan to reenter?

I never had positions to exit. Was on the struggle bus financially for a long time and even had to declare bankruptcy back in 2013.

I started making more money and finally being able to really save and invest in late 2020/early 2021 but with Covid and everything being all crazy I wasn’t sure of the market as I’ve had no prior investing experience and didn’t even have a 401k. So I started aggressively paying down remaining debts and saving instead.

Currently my only debt is my mortgage, which I should be able to fully pay off (well ahead of amortization) in the next five years or so, and I’m currently living well below my means to save for retirement. Currently I have probably 18 months to two years of expenses in the HYSA.

I was planning to begin investing and putting funds in 401k or a Roth IRA this year, but Trump happened and I’m as lost as ever. I prefer the safe bet of the saving yield right now to potentially losing a ton of money, seeing as the markets are just falling everyday from what I can see.

250k is not a very big nest egg for retirement.

No, but you can have multiple accounts and each is insured up to the FDIC limit.

At this point I think I have more like 18 months to 2 years in my HYSA right now. I aggressively paid down my debts and as of January this year my mortgage is the only one left, but I didn’t start having enough to seriously invest until the last few years (maybe 2020 or 2021) and I’ve been aggressively saving since while I figure out where to put the money longer term.

On the bright side, I’m making so much more than I spend that it’s likely I’ll have my 30 year mortgage (27 years remaining) paid off inside of 5 years while still being able to continue saving, and paying the mortgage off will accelerate my retirement options.

I have to admit, I don’t know that it’s the best option, but all my funds are currently in a HYSA.

Not as high return as the market under normal circumstances, but it’s liquid, and it’s been relatively safe at between 3.5% and 4.25% the last several years, and the times we live in are anything but normal.

That’s great. So… what exactly was accomplished?

Hell if I know. I suppose that’s one of the multitude of possibilities of “what’s coming.”

All I know is I’m fine with getting out of the way while they get it. Preferably far away, where I won’t have to hear the bitching and blaming later when they find out what they asked for, what they voted for, and what they actually wanted don’t align.

Get out of the way and let us get what we have coming

Say no more fam.

Currently alternating between Half-Life 2 (I swear I’m actually gonna finish it this time) and Chrono Trigger (I swear I’m actually gonna finish it this time).

I think there’s a difference between people who voted republican (conservatives) who legitimately believed a lie or just saw what they wanted to see(single issue voters) and MAGA who knew it was a lie and deeply corrupt.

I honestly don’t think we should differentiate. Republican leadership in the house and senate have done nothing to stand against Trump and MAGA, and have completely facilitated this mess. Differentiating between “MAGA” and “Republicans” just gives them an out later. MAGA is Republican, and Republicans are MAGA, at least at the policy level.

The Republican party needs a dramatic shift away from utterly insane and corrupt politics and behavior, and that’s only going to happen with a heavy amount of pressure from their base and elsewhere. They don’t deserve leniency in this.

power vacuum

That’s a strange way to spell “block party.”

You’ll have to pry my 70% and 75% keyboards from my cold dead hands. Smaller keyboards are much more ergonomic if you need to also regularly use the mouse.

Trusting Trump is like trusting a rapist to treat you right.

FTFY.

Should be up on manslaughter charges. What the hell man.

I grabbed some more comparisons, this time from my tablet using the CRT-Consumer shader. Notice stuff like the bloom from the window and shading around the curtains, the kitchen appliances and plants, general shading around dithered stuff like the tent, and the trees on the world map.

Also these are best viewed on a larger screen, it’s hard to see the difference on a phone.

Yeah, it looks a bit different on my Steam deck and TV, maybe because they’re OLED displays. It doesn’t come across as dramatic as it is in person on the screenshot. In person there’s more bloom and higher contrast, the characters look more… planted in the world, I guess is the best way to explain it.

Like, if you look at the rounded parts of the big robot there’s a bit more depth and contrast that give it more rounding and image depth in shadows, but again, the screenshot isn’t doing the effect justice.

Also, the still image doesn’t help because the shader also impacts how the game looks in motion.

I took the screenshots on my Steam Deck, but hadn’t actually seen them until I uploaded here.

I don’t have nostalgia for the game, tried it a few years ago but bounced off. Not sure why, just wasn’t in the mood for a HRPG at the time I guess.

I recently gave it another go, been playing it on my Steam Deck and it’s been great. I’m a few hours into it in the future currently and I think it’ll stick this time, it’s great.

Only thing is the game feels like it was really made with CRT behavior in mind. Like the game has some amazing shading and almost 3D depth to a lot of the art but without CRT shaders you don’t see it at all. If you play the Steam version, reshade goes a long way. I’m using a combination of CRT-frutbuhn, EasymodeCRT, and vibrance and it looks amazing.

Edit: quick comparison with default look vs. with shaders: