u/GladiusAcutus

For context, my mother is an older baby boomer woman who English is not her first language, so maybe the advice came off as sounding off, but I think I understand what she meant (sort of). My mother has dated several men in the past 20+ years or so since my dad died back then, so she has a lot of experience with dating in America (I was born and raised here in the US).

Anyway, she said that "women don't like it when you make yourself too available". You think this is true ? Or no ? What does that mean to you exactly ? Was she saying that you shouldn't text or call her all time because it makes you look too clingy ? Or maybe you should make your life more "busy" to create this appearance that you are an important man with important things going on and you're not making your life revolve around the girl ? What did she mean exactly ? And do you think it is good or bad advice ?

This post is not to debate whether climate change is real or not. The climate is changing and has been changing all the time all throughout history. Iraq use to be very green when the mesopotamian empire was present and now it is a desert. The climate is always changing, but the debate is not whether it is changing or not, the debate is whether the government should do something about it.

I've been reading articles about the European heat wave and I've been shaking my head about UK local councils telling people to remove ACs in the name of climate change or French politicians telling people that AC is bad and it is not a solution. The thing about left leaning people is that they don't realize that climate change will (and already is) used a justification for authoritarianism and it is blatantly obvious.

Along with policies like no ACs, they also want you to stop driving gas powered cars. Not only that, but it will be used as a slippery slope and it can and will lead to policies like "no using electricity after 9 PM", "you can only fly on a plane once a year", "you can not eat meat anymore", etc. I know a lot of people would read that and think its hyperbole, but I'm telling you: sit and listen to climate change politicians. They would really do want that. Just listen to a WEF forum.

The thing that left leaning people don't understand is that the politicians they vote for will not follow their own rules. For example, there are reports that the high ranking French politicians have AC in their offices but they say you (the commoner) shouldn't be able to have AC. Gavin Newsom wants you to stop driving gas powered cars by 2035, but him and his wealthy family will fly around on private jets. Gavin Newsom says climate change is an existential threat, but he flew on a private jet from Sacramento, CA to Davos, Swiss. How can anyone take these politicians seriously if they are like this ? You all know that Mamdani's office has the AC blasting but he told you to set it to 78 F, right ?

How can people vote for people like that ? I don't understand how people can respect these politicians when it comes to climate change. If you're a leftie, you will be glad to use no AC to save the climate, but the politicians you vote for will not follow their own policies. You should never vote for policies that the politicians would not follow themselves. Climate change is being used as an excuse for authoritarianism. Sure, you can use electricity all throughout the day for now, but don't be surprised 5-10 years from now they would be like "no using electricity after 9 PM because we got to save the climate". But remember, the politicians you elect will of course use electricity after 9 PM, because they are better than you and they are in charge.

I've been using NordVPN for 3-4 years now and I did not have a lot of complaints. However, recently when I'm on the VPN sometimes, my wifi adapter on my laptop craps out and the internet doesn't work. To fix it, I go to device manager on windows, then disable my wifi adapter, then enable it, which makes it work again.

The thing is that this only happens when I'm on the VPN, not while off it. Is NordVPN the culrpit here ? I have a newish expensive gaming laptop, so I don't think its the laptop, this only happens on VPN. Has anyone had this happen to you all ?

I'm going to Colorado to climb 3-4 14ers in the span of 9 days or so. I already got my hotel and everything. I am a pretty fit guy (not marathon level) and I have a GPS with the .gpx files of the 14ers I want to climb. I'm definitly doing Elbert, Massive, and Harvard and I think its pretty safe by myself.

However, I really really want to do Longs Peak, but I'm worried it might be too dangerous by myself since I don't have that much mountain experience. Would it be safe to do this by myself if I have a Garmin GPS with the .gpx file on it ? I am also asking if there are any hiking groups I can join to do Long's ? I'm not worried about the other 14ers because they are class 1 and 2, but Longs I feel like its sketch by myself. I was wondering maybe there is a guy out that there that I can pay $100 to take me to the top. I just need to see people's footing on the scrambling section. If I go with a professional mountain guide company then they would want me to dish out like $700 - 1000 (I checked).

Or maybe there will be so many people on the trail since I'm going in peak season (early August) ? I don't want to awkwardly force my way onto a group I meet on the trail, but maybe people are nice ? Long's is kind of wigging me out man.

In my opinion, the world cup would be way more fun to watch if each country only had their native ethnic players. Meaning, England would only have ethnic British natives, the France would have only actual French people, Iran would have only Iranians (which it is like that already), and...exceptions would be made for the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand because these places were soley founded on immigration, so they get a pass. You hear that ? I said they get a pass, don't "..but" me.

You look at the French team and it looks like an African team. What they do is that they find the best players in the world (a lot of them are African) and offer them citizenship to play on their team. That is no fun, what is the point of having a "world cup" if you can just hand citizenship to anyone from around the world so your national team can be better ? I wouldn't say its cheating, but it makes the world cup less fun. It would be fun to watch ethnicitys play against each other instead of citizens.

And don't call me a ethno-nationalist, I'm just saying it would be more interesting to watch. Then you could see which ethnic group of people are the best at soccer/football.

EDIT: It's very interesting reading the comments. There are users that don't even think ethnicity is a thing. Ethnicity is a real thing man....lol. You can find out your ethnicity through DNA tests.

This is so damn frustrating. Most of you all knows whats going on with the UK right now after the Nowak case and the beheading case. People are so pissed off at the immigration policies and I've been reading articles about how Kier Starmer is saying Elon Musk and JD vance are stoking violence and are "trying to infere with our democracy". Interfere with our democracy ? So you think when Americans criticize your policies on an American platform (Twitter/X) that is interfeing in YOUR democracy ? Is this guy seriously blaming Elon Musk and/or JD Vance for the unrest ? Are you kidding me ? So your policies are not the problem, it's Musk ?

Lets say Kier Starmer gets his way. Lets say he sends British SAS to blow up all of Twitter's servers and kills Elon Musk, he is still going to have British citizens that will protest and be mad at his policies. The beheading video will just get shared on other platforms. What ? You're going to take down those platforms too ? You want to censor things because it makes your government look bad huh ?

This makes me so angry man. These people (like Kier) blame everyone else except their own policies and their own way of thinking. They want to censor platforms for their citizens and then these people call you a fascist. It's unbelievable. This shit is not on the right side of history. Remember, the migrants are not the problem, its Elon Musk and JD Vance making comments that are the problem /s. Interfering with our democracy ? Like people like Kier don't make comments about Trump and our country (US) ? Smug left wing European politicians never "interferes with our democracy" ? This guy has some damn nerve.

I'm not a bot or an activist. Stop calling everyone a bot who criticizes left wing policies and politicians. Vote these people out already. Are you all really stuck with this guy until 2029 ? I feel so bad for British people man...

EDIT: Typeo on the title "Elon Musk is not THE problem..."

It's just crazy. I'm not expecting people to vote Trump or Republican, but mass amounts of people are voting for Nithya Raman, who said its not a big deal when homeless people camp at least 500ft from a school. Isn't that a really radical position ? Also, LA has so many problems, homeless and crime everywhere, but they are like "everything is fine, we'll vote for the same people." Like Karen Bass was in Ghana while the Palisades were burning down and people really are voting for her again ? She also went to Cuba when she was younger as a communist working for communist programs. She even said that "it was a great loss to Cuba" when Fidel Castro died. Can you imagine Republican candidates being a part of white supremacist groups when they were in college ?

Also, California has such a high gas tax and other high taxes. Are the people there not sick of it ? $25 billion was given to anti-homelessness NGOs and that money straight up dissappeared. These voters are cool with it and are like "whatever" and vote for the same people ? Are regular Angelinos not sick and tired of the way the city is ? Is it like a tribal thing ? Maybe they hate Republicans so so much that they will continue voting Democrat because their tribal brains tell them to ?

I'm not telling these people to vote Republicans, but they can't vote for a moderate Democrat ? My theory: so many middle class people left California and so the largest populations there are rich white liberals/leftists and very very poor people who need welfare. Both of those groups usually vote Democrat.

It's just insane how these people pay all these taxes and when their house started burning down, their fire hydrants had little to no water in them when the Palisades fire was going on. And then they vote for the same people...

And don't "Trump ! Trump Trump !" me. I'm tired of the deflection. Trump doesn't exist in this post.

You know how progressives talk about systemic racism or institutional racism ? They make the argument that the entire "system" we live in is racist and is keeping minorities down. They think that racism is everywhere and even the way white people act , despite being liberal, is systemic racism. I never liked this ideology. I think it was such a cope. They seey poor black people and then they easily blame the entire system for it. I think it is such a cop-out and not being accountable for yourself.

Anyway, I think Henry Novak was a victim of institutional and systemic racism. I think it is fair to say that the UK government and police force are trained to have two tier policing. They are trained to understand that white people are bad because of colonialism and whenever there is a problem between a black/brown and white person, they are trained to assume that the white person is in the wrong, or to assume the white person is guilty. It's obvious they are trained like this. By definition, this is systemic racism. You want to say there is systemic racism ? Well here it is, it's just towards whites. I love reading people waking up about this progressive ideology making things worse.

Some call it wokeness, some call it progressivism, but whatever the hell you want to call it, it is a shitty ideology and I'm glad less people are liking it. Progressives had made people more racist. If they just left it at "treat everyone equally" then we wouldn't have such racial tensions. It's obvious they don't want to treat everyone equally, they want special privledges for black and brown people as an apology for British colonialism (for example).

Anyway, its ironic isn't it ? I truly think this ideology is on the wrong side of history and historians are going to look at the Novak bodycam footage to see how wrong this thinking was when studying its prevelance in the 2020's.

The Leetcode problem of the day is "Destroying Asteroids" and it is labeled as a "medium" problem, but this problem should be easy. I've seen "medium" problems with dynamic programming solutions and a bunch of BS required, but this one is medium like those too ? Who is deciding what is easy or medium ? This problem is an easy problem. You hope you get this in an interview and I'm not even that good at Leetcode. Here is my solution:

class Solution {
public boolean asteroidsDestroyed(int mass, int[] asteroids) {

Arrays.sort(asteroids);

long currentMass = mass;

for (int i = 0; i < asteroids.length; i++) {

if (currentMass < asteroids[i]) {

return false;

}

currentMass += asteroids[i];
}

return true;
}
}

I've seen this before with problems like "Reverse Integer" that are labeled medium but should be easy. You hope you see these problems in a job interview.

Explanatory title. I'm a mid level softwar engineer (6-7 years experience) and I work for a Fortune 500 company now, but I would love a pay increase, so I want to hop on another job for a pay increase. I'm sick and f**king tired of having to start leetcoding again so I can hop on another job. I have several interviews with good companies, and they all do "CodeSignal" and so now I have to fucking leetcode everyday. I'm sick and tired of this shit dude. I hate it, but I still do it. A part of me thinks its a game, but a part of me is so fucking tired of this shit dude. You already have to memorize the f**king DSA textbooks already, on top of Leetcode. This shit is ridiculous...

Anyway, if anyone has the solution for the 3121. Count the Number of Special Characters II then let me know, I could only pass the first "...special characters I", but I don't pass this second one. I'm so f**king tired of this shit. I like coding, but this is ridiculous.

So I'm sure you all know Giant grocery stores, they are all over PA are they not ? Anyway, Giant is more expensive, but if you check your mail, you see fliers that shows the things they have on discount. I saw that they were advertising lobster tails for $6.99 each (which is extremely cheap, it never gets that cheap) for memorial day weekend.

So I went to Giant, I had my proof of the sale (I cut out a section of the flier) and once I rung up the lobster tails and I put my Giant card/phone number there, it was trying to sell it to me for full price. The cashier said sorry, that's the price. I had to act like a Karen and get the manager and then the manager had to look at sales flier closely and then manually give me the price for $6.99 each. We looked at the flier together and we saw that the price was for memorial day weekend including memorial day, so I was in the right.

I'm making this post because this isn't the first time this has happened with Giant. I don't know if it was a mistake on their system, but they seem to bait and switch and hope you don't notice they are charging without the discount when you check out. Has this happened to anyone ? This has happened with other products at Giant as well. Make sure you see that it is discounted before buying. This sh!t should be illegal man. Giant is sketch...

Honestly, that is my true feelings on Helen of Troy's casting. If someone were to tell me to close my eyes and think of the most beautiful woman, I would think of a white woman with blue or green eyes (she might be blonde, or a pale brunette, or hell, even a redhead).

Anyway, I have no problem with black women, I hope they find love with good men, but to be honest, my sexual instincts are bothered by the casting of Helen of Troy. It makes me not want to see the movie to be honest. I'm also pissed that this is a Greek story and they had race swaps, but that is another conversation for another day.

There, I said the quiet part out loud to Christopher Nolan. I swear these very progressive people do this to "challenge our beauty standards" or something like that. It feels like her casting is out of spite, its spiting all the men who like white women more. Like its a psyop trying to make us attracted to black women so we can live in a more "diverse" world or something. I'm probably overthinking this, but that is truly how I feel.

You see this with Democrat politicians when they are campaigning. "The billionaires ! The billionaires are the problem ! They are stealing from the working class !" and so forth. This is all BS. Democrats use people's natural feeling of envy to try and get them to vote for them.

Look, I'm not rich, but I have a great job. Somewhere up the food chain I have a billionaire to thank for giving me a nice high paying job. Billionaires provide products, services, and most importantly jobs. The government on the other hand provides some things to us, but they are really really bad at spending our tax dollars. Look at all the fraud we've been finding in the US these past years. $25 billion was lost when the California government gave that money to anti-homelessness NGOs and that money just straight up dissappeared. At least billionaires provide work and products. I'm pretty sure you all buy from Amazon ? You got a billionaire to thank for that. Some of you all own Teslas probably, you have a billionaire to thank for that. And some of you have good coporate America jobs ? Thank a billionaire. At least billionaires know how to spend the money they have. The government doesn't. We got politicians that have no business or accounting experience like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and they want those billions instead of individuals/companies that know how to spend it. Politicians are corrupt as hell, I would rather have individuals have that money instead of them. Companies know how to build and create things way better than the government. Look at the California high speed rail that is nowhere near from being completed. I bet if a company built that then it would be done by now.

Now sure, we need to pay taxes for roads, schools, military, etc. I support paying taxes, but I find it a cop-out when these people blame billionaires for everything, even though these politicians are the problem. I would absolutely rather have Bezos have those billions than politicians in the government like Warren and Sanders. At least Bezos gives us products and services and we all like and use. The government would just blow that money on NGOs that steal that money. Did you all see what USAID was spending our money on during the Biden administration ? It is not even defensible.

I do support unions, I think people like Bezos should pay people a little more because its the right thing to do. That's fine, but if billionaires didn't exist and if the government had all that money instead then that would not be good. We have seen this played out in socialist/communist countries. It just goes to corrupt politicians while they give you bread crumbs. Democrats just use people's envy to try and campaign, the billonaires are not the problem, the government is. Its also funny how they never complain about Pritzker or Soros, but that is another topic for another day.

I've been using Youtube premium for a few years now and I'm a big movie lover. However, a lot of the movies for free on Youtube have been movies that are ok, but not the most popular movies in the world. I know movies like No Country for Old Men and such have been free, but have you all noticed how many really awesome movies are for free now ? I feel like every great movie is for free now. Is this temporary ? Tonight I'm watching Children of Men. I see my recommendations and they have Hereditary, The Goog The Bad and The Ugly, The Excorcist, and a ton of other classic movies.

How does this work ? Do they make these big movies for free temporarily ? I've seen movies that were not free at the time, but then became free (like Child's Play 2 for example). If you all want to see movies, now is the time, especially if you haven't seen one of these classic movies. I'm glad Youtube is being less stingy, because Premium is expensive.