I'm far too lazy to dig it up, but I remember reading about a dairy farm that was highly invested in the idea of potty training cows. They harvested the manure for methane generation to power the farm, and it would have been so much more efficient if they could have gotten the cows to dump on command, so all the waste would have been easy to scoop up. It was an abysmal failure, and the conclusion was that cows are hopelessly unable to be potty trained.

Anyway, any sympathy I ever had toward cows as thinking beings ended one summer in high school. I was at a really cool summer adventure camp, the likes of which have disappeared from the world. (I tried to enroll my kids in similarly fun summer camps, but nothing remotely like the camps of yore was on offer. Liability concerns, I imagine.)

One of the things we did at that camp was go caving, and one of the cave entrances was in the middle of a cow pasture. It so happened that I got to see a wet baby cow that had just been born, nuzzling up to its beloved mother's udders for precious sustenance in the most adorable and vulnerable sort of way. Wobbly leg baby cow nuzzles up to mo PISSSSSSSSSSSSSS! SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT! mmy cow, and ends up a four-legged toilet. It was sad.

It also made it easier for me to enjoy eating animals that have utterly zero regard for their young. My mother was an abusive alcoholic to be sure, but she never pissed or shit on my head. Not even once. Score one for Mom!

If my drunken rant about my deadbeat dad replacement man child and suicidal life was a cry for help, then I guess it kind of worked.

My last liver test was bad, and I "studied" for that test by changing my drinking habits in advance. This time, I drank before the night of the test. He said my liver enzymes are still elevated, but not as bad as before. I should watch it, but I'm not in imminent danger of liver failure. He's pretty understanding about how "these things run in families." Alcoholism does run in families. I'm of Scots ancestry, and my people are notorious drunkards.

It's no ideal, but it's survivable, for now. At least I'm a long way from eating a bullet. I will probably eat a bullet before I die of natural causes, but not anytime soon. I've been contemplating suicide since 8th grade, and that means I've been suicidal for... um... 38 years and counting.

So I got some flight stick thingies and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, and I've been having fun with that. My house is in the game! It's not quite right, but it's there. Landmarks near my home in Nowhere, USA are all in the game. It's ridiculous! I'm about to invest in a bigger monitor, and an arm to position it more optimally. I just earned $1500, which seems pathetic, since it averages to about $21 an hour, but this is the most I can make with my skill set. I'm qualified to do far more noble jobs that don't pay shit, and it is what it is. July 2027, the light at the end of the tunnel. If I can make it to July 2027 without going bankrupt, I'm home free.

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. Meanwhile, I will throw the RTX 2060 into the old Linux box, and move the old 28" 4k monitor there. Maybe I will even get inspired to figure out Git and do a new set of icons for the app I used to work at, so that it will behave sensibly at 4k. This is something I've been meaning to do for literally years, but I never got around to giving myself access to a Linux box with a 4k display.

I like the idea of the self-compassion button. Nice mental image. I have to work 70 hours a week, or else move into a trailer park. There really isn't any middle ground right now. Believe me, I've been looking. I can't earn enough to make the bills doing anything else. I need to get some of this divorce debt behind me before I can slack up. July 2027 is when I get to the light at the end of that tunnel. It's a long slog from here, but there is light out there.

I definitely get what you're saying about the neediness, but I'm there now. I have my dogs. I'm out in the world doing things, and I'm totally self-contained. If I spark, I spark, but I probably won't spark today, and that's okay. It took a long time to get to this place, and it seems like the place from which "you'll find someone when you stop looking" could happen, but it ain't happenin'.

It's fine. I only waste mental energy worrying about it on the weekends, and now it's time to go back into the meat grinder, and get paid to listen to audio books for 70 hours. My job could be worse in that respect.

I just learned that my son has never actually played The Witcher 3 either. He built a gaming rig as soon as he got a job, and he makes sure to carve out time in his work life balance to have plenty of time for gaming. He lives with me, because it's cheap, and his rent checks never bounce. Anyway, that guy is orders of magnitude more of a gamer than I will ever be, or have ever been, and he never played that game either, even though I got my copy from his Steam library.

I don't feel so bad now.

Also, I went in there to play the game, and spent over an hour dicking around with SignalRGB. I'm like that divorced guy who gets a Corvette as a midlife crisis, except with RGB lights.

While I'm blathering, I might as well enumerate the specs on that bad boy. For once in my life, I wanted to just say yes to everything. I couldn't quite manage to spend that much (I skimped on the graphics card originally, for example), but it was a pretty insane build.

• Phanteks Evolv X case
• Core i9 12-900KF
• NVIDIA RTX 3080
• WD Black 2 TB SSD (7000 MB/s read!)
• 32 GB DDR-4

It kind of kills me that I don't run Linux on that thing. I like Windows 11 as far as Windows goes, but in spite of everyone mocking me for that choice, my real computing home is my Konsole on desktop 10 with 10 xterms open. Back when I was a FOSS developer, the only IDE I could ever stand to use was Vim.

It is what it is. I use this old Linux box for real stuff, like drunk shit posting on Slashdot, editing graphics with Inkscape and the GIMP, doing docs and spreadsheets with OpenOffice, and so on. I just use Windows for audio, video, and eventually gaming. I have a 750 Ti in this box (that's how old it is), and I did run Steam and the proprietary NVIDIA drivers for awhile, but I gave up on that. Kubuntu kept defaulting to the Nouveau driver, and it kept screwing up my resolution, and after a few stabs at hacking around that, I got fed up, and turned the Intel HD Graphics back on in the BIOS. No more Linux gaming for me. Not that this box is worth anything for gaming anyway. (Old Core i5 something or other... model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4460 CPU @ 3.20GHz

Anyway. Blather, blather, blather, I'm probably guilty of flagrant attention whoring now.

I used to be somebody.

No budget for a better monitor. I barely managed the 3080. I have a single ASUS TUF 4k that caps out at 60 fps, which is kind of okay, since a 3080 should be able to manage 60 fps at 4k in almost anything except Witcher 3. I should probably go play that. I've piddled with it a bunch of times, but I've never sat down to actually play it.

While I'm blathering in these comments, I might as well share an insight. I'm a creative guy who has a bunch of expensive tools for creation, and I haven't really created anything of note all year. I have a blank canvas on my easel. I made a lantern pinion for a clock last year before the cold closed my unheated machine shop for the year, and I was going to finish the clock this year. Or at least do more work on it. I have a better drum kit than most touring bands I've seen, and a great recording rig. I've got guitars and basses and horns, and a green screen with decent studio lights. I've got a DJI Air 2S drone, which is nothing to sneeze at. I've got a wood shop, and a supply of wood. I've got a good DLSR, with some good lenses, and a couple of GoPros. Why am I not using any of that stuff?

One reason is because the only audience I have for any of that is my ex wife. She left me, and has been banging some spectacular loser for years, and I would be so much better off if I never contacted her again, but I don't have anybody else to share that stuff with. Nobody else. Not for lack of trying. I've gotten a few dozen numbers this year. People subscribe to my Youtube channel, and my Instagram, but nobody ever interacts with me. No feedback. Performers like to show off for an audience, and I don't have one. Except her, and sharing any of this stuff with my ex wife carries a lot of emotional baggage I'm better off without, so I have mostly just closed up shop, and stopped creating.

So I guess all this blathering is me showing off for an audience, which seems totally pathetic when I analyze it. Look at me! I'll make a big production out of being an obnoxious drunk, and then drink in all the attention, even if it's negative.

That's so sad. No use beating myself up for how pathetic I am though. I'm just a dry sponge, starving for a drop of moisture. That doesn't make me a bad person. If I'm pathetic, here I am forgiving myself for that, and moving on.

To go play Witcher 3 now that my rig has a decent video card.

A short day when I slept too late and I've got to go, I still almost always manage one mile with the girls. When I have more time, 2.5 miles is my daily deal, and I like to go on longer adventures on the weekend. I was much less depressed during the summer, when I could hit three or four different trails before sunset, and run their furry little asses off.

I was still depressed during the summer though.

Anyway, the climate is more accommodating here, but not exactly tropical, and so far I have slogged through every kind of weather with the girls. It's silly how they won't go outside in the rain without their coats, and then they jump into puddles. Today was cold enough I got out my gloves, and put on their winter coats, and... puddles. Idiot dogs.

Not being alcoholic enough for the alcohol to kill me seems like a really low bar, but it's what I have.

As far as that goes, I did seriously ramp up my fitness this year. Getting this puppy was great for me in that respect. Well, the almost grown puppy, and now the puppy's puppy. I take my girls everywhere except the grocery store, and have a hundred conversations. I meet lots of people, and lots of women especially, but there has never been any spark.

I haven't experienced one spark since the breakup. I used to click with women all the damn time when I couldn't do anything about it.

Sigh. Oh well. It's laundry night. I'm not drinking. Not yet, anyway. The longer I put it off, the shorter my bender will be.

That actually was a really nice way to handle the ranting drunk.

So basically, I saw something about TV, it reminded me of the life I used to have, and I went into pity party mode. I do that less often now.

I don't like the life I have now, but it's the life I have. As far as the whole incel thing, I'm afraid it's true. I was the only guy at Party U who cared about good grades, and I was a virgin. Someone started stalking me. I didn't like her that much, but she was unmistakably available. I let her have me, and I was kind of her man child until I finally grew up. When I did, she dumped me, and found a new man child. I kind of got caught in limbo, where I am too grown up for the kind of woman who wants a man child, but not grown up enough for the kind of woman who wants a man. I've thrown thousands of dollars at the problem, read tons of self-help books, hired coaches, paid for premium memberships at places like eHarmony, and this is just who I am now. I'm an incel. I'm a whiny, butt-hurt loser who couldn't get laid in Thailand with $10,000 in my pocket. I'm also self-aware enough to hate that side of myself, and to recognize how pathetic it is. It's in the "things I cannot change" column now. I've been trying to focus my life on something else, but I haven't really found a good focus yet.

That's what the Windows box is all about. It started life as an audio recording and video editing box that I intentionally crippled for games, so I could get work done. After years as a Linux audio developer, I moved to Windows, because I had need of hardware I couldn't get working with Linux. I didn't look back. All that stuff is sooooo much easier on Windows, and prettier too. The software I use now has functionality I couldn't remotely develop myself. It's nice leaving the driving to someone else. And the debugging, and the coding. I hate writing software. I only did it, because nobody else was doing it, and I wanted it done.

I failed to cultivate an audience, and I no longer write music or make videos, so I decided to make that little-used monster as game worthy as possible for the smallest possible budget. I scored the RTX 3080 gently used, and I installed it, and got all the nifty lights working. Beyond that, I don't even know what to do with it. I'm not really a gamer.

Since the wife left, I bought a PS4 Pro, and played Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Red Dead Redemption 2, and then Horizon: Forbidden West. I finally got a PS5, but I haven't been able to re-engage with Forbidden West or any of the other games, and it has just been sitting there for months. I played God of War until I got stuck. I usually get stuck. I was always a god mode player back in the DOOM days. Story mode is usually way too hard for me. I work 70 hours a week, and I have to walk my dogs all the time. I don't have enough time behind the controls to get good, and I don't have the patience either. So yeah, having bought a PS5 that I don't play, I decided to spend the same amount of money to make my PC barely capable of playing games that I don't really play.

It still feels like it could work. I think you would agree that having something to do to distract me from feeling sorry for myself would make me less likely to drink myself to death. Drinking isn't a compulsion so much as the thing I reach for to make empty time go away. There is a lot of empty time in the winter months. No friends, no family, no holidays. The next holiday I'm looking forward to is Groundhog Day, because it means the darkest part of the year is finally behind me, and I have things to look forward to again.

I'm probably not the only old Slashdotter turned midlife incel. When I was married, the TV stayed on 24/7/366. She actually used some kind of time dilation device she hid somewhere in her woman bits to round that year out to a full 366 days of non-stop TV. Then she left me for a spectacularly obnoxious, unemployed deadbeat dad after 30 years, because he is more of a man than I am, and then I tried Tinder and all the new dating stuff, hooked up once with a post-rehab drunk alcoholic train wreck who still gives me nightmares and rescue fantasies years later, and here I am.

"You were more drunk than I was." Yeah, but I can go for days, weeks, or literally months without a drop of alcohol without dying, and you can't say that. I know that look. I've seen that look before. Mom.

After 20 years as a Linux hacker, I eventually migrated back to Windows. I just got done using some Arduino components to hack the RGB lights on my Windows PC. This probably explains why the only women who will touch me are on the wrong side of rehab, but whaaaatever. I'm eventually going to figure this out, and get it working, without buying a proper cable. I've just got generic patch cables bent and twisted and crammed into each other, and I'm making progress.

My point, diffused through the fumes of all the alcohol I shouldn't have drunk the night before my appointment for a physical to assess how close I am to dying of bad health, is that I cut the TV cord when the Ex Mrs. Spuggleink fled the scene, and I haven't looked back. I watch a movie now and again. I've watched "The Martian" like 300 times. I don't watch any of those networks anymore though. The main reason is that for every 15 seconds of content, they blast you with 92 seconds of generic ads. If you're going to make me watch ads, at least make me watch ads for improved suicide methods or alcoholic products or sex bots or something useful. I don't care about tampons anymore. There are no tampons in my life anymore.

My life is devoted to my two Great Danes, and my Core i9 12-900KF RTX 3080 ridiculous I couldn't have bought it without the assistance of alcohol to dull my self-preservation algorithms PC.

Featuring Windows. So sad.

Windows 11, no less. The Windows gamer people hate this OS, but it's the most Linux-like Windows I've ever seen, and it's narrowly tolerable.

Yeah. I probably deserve to have literal decades of good karma downvoted to oblivion, and I probably deserve to be driven out of this place too. I'm a borderline troll, and I'm almost certainly an alcoholic. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Then again, it's Slashdot, and the most impressive hacker I ever knew self-destructed 20 years ago. Being good at hacking and sucking at living life kind of go hand in hand. I made it to 51. If my liver hangs in there a bit longer, I might even narrowly live long enough to see retirement.

Also, TV is garbage. Except for "The Expanse." But I watched that on Amazon Prime, so TV is still garbage.

This message brought to you by Jim Beam, and suicidal depression.

Downvote away!

It can't be any worse than the native config tool for my Thermaltake stuff. I set it up. It works as desired for a few days. It reverts to default. I have to reboot to get the light working again.

If I had it all to do over again, I would have skipped the stupid lights, but I just wanted one of those fancy computers with the glass door and the pointless lights inside, just because.

It does look cool when it works. And yes, the lights are distracting as hell while gaming. I don't actually game much though. It was a stupid purchase decision. For once in my life, I just wanted an extremely high end machine, and I had one, for a whole year, before Intel one-upped their old top CPU. Alas.

It's crazy thinking back on DOOM. I found a bug, so I went looking for someone to tell, and I eventually ended up exchanging several emails with some guy named John Carmack.

John Carmack wasn't as big of a deal back then, but even so, an equivalent rising star today would surely be far too busy to talk to some random college kid at such length. The internet was a different place back then. For all we have gained, we have lost a lot too. It has been years since I really felt like I made contact with another human who had hopes and dreams and a personality. Now my interactions are almost totally random, with people I will never encounter again. Nobody is mailing anybody Christmas cards or the like anymore. Not that I was that close to Carmack. I barely made it onto his radar, but I did make it onto his radar.

Trippy, looking back.

After scanning this, I went down memory lane in my head. I switched to Linux in 2001, and I can't recall ever mounting a floppy for anything.

That kind of surprises me.

I'm confused.

My speed sucks? Honestly, I grew up on a 300 baud acoustic coupler modem, and this seems fast.

That's pretty much my thinking as well. I popped for 600 Mbps service, and I'm getting what I paid for and then some. I just ran Ookla Speedtest and got 947 Mbps down and 26 Mbps up, which is significantly more than I'm paying for. (This is Comcast. It doesn't suck everywhere, apparently.)

In reality, if I go download a big file or do practically anything useful, I won't get a tenth of this speed. Nobody's servers can feed data fast enough to fill up a pipe this big. This would only be useful if I had several family members all streaming 4k porn at the same time or whatever.

I only have one family member, and the two of us aren't even putting a dent in our bandwidth. When the promotional deal expires, I'm going to downgrade it to 100 Mbps service, and I won't be missing anything.