I know the days of driving to the factory when it's dark out and leaving when it's dark are coming for me soon. It sucks. I try to cozy up and do more comfortable leisure activities in the winter, esp with my dog who loves to cuddle. It's written into us as a species.

This game truly reminds me of how games once were. No hand holding, sometimes frustrating but ultimately satisfying, resource management and strategically saving and healing, backtracking and finding shortcuts, and it's deep in terms of exploration and progression. It's incredible

Also duck store song goes quack quack quack

People say that a lot about harbor freight / cheap tools but what actually happens is you end up always having either the cheap one or then two of the same thing. It's actually really hard to break a tool. I am always working on stuff and I've only actually broken a tool to the point of being unusable like a handful of times.

I'm not saying go out and get top notch stuff either. My tools collection is a random mish mash of stuff I've acquired over the years. I am absolutely terrible about losing drill bits so I tend to buy cheap ones for example lol. I agree second hand tools from flea markets, pawn shops, or yard sales is a great way to start a collection.

Also harbor freight has really stepped up their game in the past few years. They still have the reputation of being the budget brand, which they are, but there's some great stuff there. I personally don't like the feel of some of their hand tools, but I just got a carpenter's vise that feels like top of the line despite being $70.

If there's a 200A subpanel that is kinda weird tbh. But if they only have lights and a few receptacles or whatever on it, then it's effectively drawing no current and can be ignored. If it was for things like welders and saws, there'd still be outlets for that stuff mounted on the walls. Probably a grow operation tbqh but no concern now that it's gone. At least you have a big ass sub if you want to add some more workshop type stuff

Seems very region dependant. Unions are notoriously hard to get into around here for highly skilled trades like plumbers, electricians, steam fitters. There's a few like sheet metal workers, boilermakers, carpentry or masons that would probably take anyone, but I have friends in them and they are absolutely worked to death. Body crushing 60+ hour weeks every week, one kid I know fought through cancer as a 20 year old in the boilermakers, dunno how he did it but he's better now.

The union plumber I know is similarly worked like crazy the past few years. Seems like if you're good and get your journeyman card and then master's license like he just did, they're gonna dump a lot on you. He barely has time to see his kids because he also lives over an hour from the city so he commutes that each way, sometimes is fixing a water main break in the middle of the night in the winter. It reminds me of my dad, he was always out of state in the IBEW when I was a kid.

Trades can be rough, on the body, on the mind, no time for yourself and you get covered in crap a lot, construction can be a culture shock, etc. I've worked in some of the sketchiest steel mills in the country. You do not wanna be even near a pickle line haha. Hot, humid, sticky, nasty, acidic, just gross the whole time. You can taste it in the air.

Think of the worst dude from your highschool, that's what most construction sites are lol. Guaranteed you're gonna have an asshole for a boss quite a few times over the years.

I'd encourage anyone to take up the career path if it's something that interests them. Just know what you're signing up for is all I can say. I love it and don't want to do anything else. I've turned down promotions to work in the office because I just don't see myself as that guy, maybe when I get older.

Unions can be tough to get into. I took my apprenticeship test twice for the IBEW (electricians), passed twice, had experience the second time and my dad was in it for decades which is some sort of plus (even tho I think it shouldn't be because it leads to nepotism for selecting apprentices), still didn't get selected either time.

This was 10 or 12 years ago so it's way too late in my career now to go back to starting apprentice wages. I fell into a niche of controls work anyway that they wouldn't recognize my hours.

Sucks, but it is what it is. Unions aren't the end all be all. I'd encourage folks to find something else in the trades if getting selected for an apprenticeship doesn't work out.

There is a massive gap of skilled labor, experience, and knowledge in the trades right now. What I mean by that is there are green workers and first year people in them everywhere you look but not as many experienced folks. Especially with all the boomers now retiring. Getting experience is what counts right now.

Yeah. Pragmata was a pretty cool original IP that came out recently. But it's seen as a risk to be original now

This is the dumbest shit. I'm doing home reno stuff constantly and we live in a world where everyone looks up info online constantly. Sometimes I need to reference an old reddit thread or whatever. It's usually better than whatever garbage Google AI spits out at you by default.

Sure just guide people to doing stuff wrong. I'm so glad a few decades ago we invented this amazing source of knowledge and information and communication that is easily accessible for the first time in human history and yeah let's just purposefully fuck it up.

Seriously, it is a huge pain in the ass exploring a niche subject and you get some scrambled comment because "reddit bad".

I did this a few years ago. I knew as soon as I walked out of the interview I didn't want the job, it was literally just stripping cables building harnesses all day in a room in the back by myself. They also started at like 4 AM "to beat the traffic" and it was in a part of town that would be miserable to drive in the snow to. Lots of turns and bendy roads through the woods.

But for whatever reason they still offered me a higher pay rate than my job at the time which included control panel assembly, wiring, fabrication, testing, design work. I still acted interested and had them put the offer in writing and egged the dude on for like 3+ weeks as if I was interested.

Reason I did this was I knew I was quitting my job, and there was a different one I had interviewed at that paid better than both, has way more responsibilities and career opportunities, is way more interesting custom work where every day is something completely different. Also my old job knew I was quitting so it felt better to have something in my back pocket if they just told me to get fucked. But after my first interview the manager wanted me to come back for a second round to meet his boss and carve out my role in more depth.

Well they were both in the field so scheduling another interview took another few weeks. I felt a little bad for the wiring harness guy especially when I finally called him and told him I accepted my current job, he was like yeah I was holding off on making offers because I thought we were gonna hire you. He was a super nice guy

Oh well, life goes on, I'm sure they found someone. Companies do this kind of crap to people every day.

I'm really excited to see their upcoming Lord of the Rings game

I have 8k albums in my personal collection, but I've been building it for years, most everything is pirated or shared between friends or purchased on bandcamp. I stream it while via plexamp when I'm working or not at home, it's very nice.

I can also connect to my friends Plex servers. My one friend has 35k albums.

in case someone doesn't believe me haha

Edit: damn he's up to 39k

"striking" would imply they were performing any work in the first place lmao