in roughly chronological order… got convinced by friends to start a magic the gathering team. took it from 6 -> 20 people not everyone pictured got engaged to my college sweetheart and the love of my life been waiting a while for this one. took a trip to Japan where I played in 12+ magic tournaments, got invited to dinner with locals, and found my best man left to right: new tokyo magic friend, me, best man ...

Most SRE-aligned engineers will tell you they have a home lab. Depending on how grey the beard is, it may be an old blade they acquired when a company moved data centers, an intricate setup of Raspberry Pi 4s set up in a custom cooling rack, or like me and many others, it may just be an old gaming computer they no longer use but cannot bring themselves to get rid of. Whatever it may be, it’s usually used for learning, tinkering, or to run some of the /r/selfhosted favorites. ...

It’s a system (sigh) built on getting people to buy things they can’t reasonably afford through the veil of “it’s only X a month.” Unnecessary consumer debt sets people up to fail by putting them on a treadmill of excess consumption they believe is under control. Sticker shock is a good thing. If you see the price tag of something and it has your head reeling, there’s probably a good reason you shouldn’t be buying it. ...