bluGill

Asking about the culture and work environment is what you are supposed to be doing when they ask “are there any questions”. I’ve never had a problem finding a job where I’m expected to work about 40 hours and go home. Once in a while they ask for extra work in an emergency, but that is rare and they have all made it up to me somehow.

The protection isn’t great I’ll agree, but it isn’t hard to find places that don’t treat you like that. Don’t work for the rest no matter how interesting the job is.

Exempt employees are expected to get their work done, but the work does need to be reasonable. If they give you 40 hours of meetings you can have a good case they are asking too much to expect anything more. While hours are not given by law, there is still an expectation of reasonableness.

Which is to say they cannot fire you for not getting your work done. However at-will means they can let you go - but that is not firing you for cause and there is a big difference in how the law treats that.

That does happen. The law doesn’t back them up, but many companies have that culture and good luck proving you were let go because of that vs something that is legal.

There are plenty of jobs that are more reasonable. They tend to be boring jobs though, so many are willing to pay the price to work a more exciting job.

There are plenty of people who openly admit that they don’t want anyone to own guns. Gun control doesn’t have to mean you won’t be able to own guns, but it is a reasonable fear of those who want to own guns that it will mean they can’t.

The bigger point about cloud that most miss is make sure you are paying them a reasonably price for the service. So long as you are the customer and not the product the cloud can be good.

That has not been my experience. There is always more work to do than I have time. However it doesn’t pile up because lower priority work just doesn’t get done.

First question: what will you do about data backup? Nextcloud and Immich both imply important data that you don’t want to lose. You say you have some harddrives, so look for some computer that can take more than one harddrive and then setup RAID with snapshots. I’d go for a RAID setup such that you need two drives to fail before you lose data, but there are plenty of debate. We often say RAID is not a backup - you should start thinking about the next step in your backup setup soon.

Used vs new is always the question. In general the newer the system the less power it will use to do the same work. However ARM will almost always use less power than x86 even if the x86 is much newer. I specified work here, your computer will nothing most of the time so idle power matters too.

In the cases where I’ve been asked to do things like this it was instead of my regular work, not on top of it. US labor laws are tricky, but in general they need to assign you an amount of work that can be done in a reasonable amount of time. (contact a lawyer for details)

I can think of few things teens do more embarrassing than making someone else change your dirty diapers.

China was a really backward country 50 years ago. I expect that China has paved a lot of roads which are still in good shape. Europe by contrast has had paved roads for a long time and those older roads via normal wear and tear are wearing out. The question then becomes when do you patch, recover, or replace - this is in order of both cost and how nice the road is after. Give China a few more decades and their roads will become less smooth because it isn’t worth the cost to make them perfect.

Exactly what the article was getting at. It is more important for the left to point fingers at the right than work with them to make it possible and so nothing can get done.

I’m sure there will be several “whatabout” pointing fingers at the right thus proving my point. And plenty of downvotes from those unwilling to accept there are problems in the mirror. But maybe someone will look in their own mirror and change their ways for the better…

Amtrak needs to start with the NEC. Boston-NYC-DC should be easy mode for running a train system. Until they get that working as it should, NYC-Chicago is next. Places like the PNW or the rest of the midwest need service, but the low handing fruit needs to be first.

Please lets work together and force them to run good service where it is easy and develop experts in running good trains. So long as you are pushing for the PNW and I’m pushing for my home we are divided and nothing will get done.

America is not a capitalist society. It is a clasical liberal society. The core concept is you can work for whatever you want and thus obtain it.

Your safe following distance on gravel at 50mph is more than that. 3 seconds is your minimum following distances on normal surfaces (used to be 2, advice has changed), you should have a 4 second following distance on gravel. https://www.drive-safely.net/safe-following-distance/

No tides as a large moon would knock any other moons out of orbit - this means the moons are too small to support a tide.

If people are willing to pay for luxury apartments that says there are not too many. Let me know when more than 20% are empty. If it is less than 20% empty but more than 5% that is a good thing: it means that people who want one can find one, less than 5% and finding an apartment is too hard. The economy has ups and downs all the time which is why 20% is still okay, since when things come back those will get filled.

All new apartments are luxury. People who want/need cheap apartments are looking for something 50+ years old that has had the minimum remodels done since those are always much cheaper for the same size. Building an apartment is expensive and that needs to be paid for by adding some (relatively cheap) features that are luxury today.

Those who build apartments have a good idea how much parking is needed. They have incentive to figure it out because while it costs money to build parking it costs them when someone who wants parking decides to rent elsewhere where they can find it. Getting this balance right needs to be figured out for each block though, and so the city is too big to have a code.

Location matters. Cheyenne with a population of 65,132 is large enough to expect good medical care (though I didn’t look this up - you should!), and is only a few hours drive from Denver. It is also small enough that you can live practically in the city while also being in the rural exurbs. Something like this may be a good compromise depending on exactly why you want live in a rural area and what you want. There are other “cities” with good enough medical care available (and don’t forget to look just across the border at other states). Maybe you can find a best of both worlds situation.

That said, you should be thinking about what next. Because at your age things can go downhill fast. You need to have good long term care for a nursing home (make sure it is good - you don’t want to be in a nursing home that stinks like a sewer system so don’t buy on cost). Make sure you have a plan on how and where you will move “back” when/if life forces it on you.

Remember farming/ranching is dangerous. Make sure you understand all the safety processes and don’t cut corners. You are doing this as a hobby so feel free to lose money or hire out things.

That said, staying active in old age is your best way to get and stay health such that you can do those things. Those who sit around on the couch after retiring tend to die quick. My great-uncle ran his North Dakota ranch until 95 and only stopped because he couldn’t care for his wife’s Alzheimer’s and run the ranch, I believe the activity is part of why he lived so long.

Versital perhaps but overrated since there are plenty of other chemical mixtures out there and a different one is usually better.

I have known a lot of good looking girls who I only want to see via binoculars - that way I can enjoy the eye candy but their terrible personality is invisible. Fortunately there are plenty of nice girls that are also good looking that I can get close to.