As someone who lives near an industrial coast, oil rigs aren’t exactly sightly. They’re hideous. The decommissioned ones turn into artificial reefs eventually but I imagine wind turbines would too and never explode or spill oil in The Gulf.

If Nintendo calls me, we’re gonna have words about that Wii Zelda game.

I said six as a joke but I thought I’d put together a list anyway.

• The knife is Global. I was a sous chef in New Orleans and everyone on the line had their preference. I like Japanese steel Santoku knives even if it cost more to resharpen. If I’m chopping a hundred onions, it matters. (I can sharpen a knife but when it’s your job, you get a professional to do it. Cheap knives, I just sharpen myself.)
• My jacket doesn’t seem to have a brand (or it’s faded away). I bought it off the shelf because I was wearing a white T-shirt and jeans while traveling with a stylish woman and she was like, “That looks amazing on you!” In retrospect, she was lying and just wanted me to look credible instead of a shiftless transient wearing a stupid t-shirt.
• Lodge or (better but overpriced) Le Creuset enameled cast iron pots will last you forever.
• Osprey bags, in my experience are solid. They’re probably overpriced now but not having your bag or zippers be a problem when traveling for work or pleasure is worth $50 every time.
• I worked construction for awhile and I stick with DeWalt tools. They did a battery volt switch thing that maybe wasn’t necessary — it was an advancement in battery tech — but the adapter was cheap. I don’t need my drill or sawzall often but when I do, it better fucking work.
• To give a modern example, I’ve had good experiences with Cotopaxi bags and pants. My boss bought a bag from them after seeing my bag last. And you can wash the pants in a sink if you’re into hiking.
• Thule has also served me well. But that’s a specialist thing so I didn’t include it in the top 6.

To be clear, every single one of these companies might have been bought by a private equity firm that intends to ruin it and milk the brand equity while making everything worse. I’m not endorsing any corporation. I just have found those companies to be worth paying a bit more for compared to generic.

I know they make money off the store but making a quality, repairable product and selling it at a reasonable price is a really good business model. Other companies should try it. When Steam Deck 2 comes out, I’ll be buying it. And probably repurposing my original Steam Deck as a media server or something.

There’s like six companies left on Earth that do that and they’ll probably be around forever. I know it costs 30% more for quality and Valve has the store to supplement it. But I have a 20 year-old leather jacket and an even older kitchen knife. I saved up for both because I was broke and in my early 20’s. They’re probably both better today after going through their paces. I know a guy who works at a shipyard who gets his boots re-soled because he likes his boots. Same boots for decades. Occasional maintenance required.

Every single Ivy League school and many prestigious (like top 75ish) schools in America have an “endowment” worth x amount but also a whole separate money cannon if you piss off the alumni. I don’t donate directly to my university but I would if Trump came for them. And I’m, sadly, not a billionaire but they exist.

You can tell I’m not a billionaire because if I were, I wouldn’t be posting on this broke ass web site. I’d be off the coast of the Riviera in the hot tub on my yacht getting a foot massage from a mysterious, ethereal beauty known only as “La Marionnette.” (I’d have a team of old timey whalers to fend off the Orca attacks. I’m not as stupid as a real billionaire.)

They should just ban the sale of spark plugs, fuel injectors, pistons, timing belts, exhaust pipes, etc. one by one each time one of these bills gets passed. You can buy an ICE vehicle if you want but you better know someone who will drive you to Nevada to get spare parts.

I try to support Mozilla (and more obscure open source projects we take for granted) through donations and subscriptions. But I never used Pocket or Fakespot.

I don’t think it should be a forced payment but I’d pay a few bucks a month for a true developer edition. The current one is essentially just the early beta for extension developers but something really developer focused with no bullshit and developer tools at the forefront. I don’t know if that’s something other people would pay for but I feel like it’s easier to shell out cash when I’m using it for work. A lot of people could probably expense it.

It likely wouldn’t replace the Google money but it’d be a start.

I hope they pretended to be enthusiastic like when a cat brings you a dead mouse in exchange for all the cat food you’ve given them over the years.

I left a job over a decade ago because they selected Microsoft Server over the objections of the entire IT and software staff. I was just like, “Deuces✌🏼Enjoy your progress bars that aren’t even accurate.”

https://xkcd.com/612/

Walt Disney would never have endorsed this except in his 1938 cartoon “Nazi Superheroes are Our Superiors.”

Reference for the youths and non Simpsons fans: https://youtu.be/nhWTkT89W_w

I do that all the time. No big deal.

Good. There was a scientific paper in the last week that didn’t fully discredit lab leak theory but made an extremely persuasive case—based on genetic analysis—that it was spread from bats to other mammals who were then hunted and brought to the wet market by randos.

Original paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867425003538

NY Times summary (gift link): https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/07/science/covid-coronavirus-bats-genetics.html?unlocked_article_code=1.I08.JwTo.IDxqWwXodYVf

China (responsibly, to stop the spread) did cull some animals between the bat cave and Wuhan. No one who cares about science will ever say something with 100% certainty unless it breaks the laws of physics or whatever. And we’ll never find the pangolin (or whatever) someone sold at the wet market. But very little from scientists points to lab leak. It’s all political actors making that claim.