PhantomPhanatic

Except for one instance of uncharacteristic anger that he took out on a wall, I never felt uncomfortable around him. He immediately apologized and never did anything like that again.

I wouldn't say I ever really felt unsafe or afraid he might hurt me though. I think he was extremely self aware of how his actions made us feel. He expressed regret that his father was not supportive of him and worked very hard to make sure I was not raised that way. He was not psychologically hurtful, distant, or mean-spirited in any way. He was completely supportive of my opinions and beliefs.

I felt supported, encouraged, safe, and secure when in his company.

I have experienced the other side as well. I lived with my wife's family for some time under the constant threat of physical and psychological abuse from her stepfather. I never felt safe in his company and it has made a lasting traumatic impact on myself, my wife, and her family.

I really wish that my wife could have met him. I feel that if she could experience what it could be like to have a good dad some of the trauma might be alleviated. I know it can never truly rewrite what has happened, but there are good fathers that care and support their children. I'm truly sorry you (and others) have not experienced what can only described as the blessing of having a good father. I feel extremely lucky to have had him as long as I did and wish for others to have similar experiences. I hope this answers your questions and that you can find a way through the generational trauma.

As a son who had a great dad who passed too soon, yes I really loved him and I miss him terribly. I feel robbed of my chance to have had an adult relationship with him.

In my experience he was not like having a male mom, but no two parents are going to be good at everything anyway. Good parents will usually offer qualities that compliment each other.

My dad taught me a lot of practical knowledge about building and maintaining tools, devices, cars, and homes. He also fostered my interests in airplanes and engineering. He was a role model for me when it came to simply being a nice and caring person. He encouraged me to do things that I liked and supported practically anything I was interested in. He is the sole reason I am into Star Trek and enjoy all kinds of other Sci-Fi.

My dad was one of the nicest and most caring people I have ever known. He always did everything in his power to make people feel welcome and loved.

I miss him every day and wish I could hang out with him again.

Exceed is still the only program that handles graphically intense Unix X11 sessions properly for Windows machines. It's still not great though.

Some of us still have to slog through old CAD applications that have long been abandoned.

This is not true at all. You're right that planes aren't like cars, but airlines absolutely do their own maintenance. The maintenance program is initially provided by Boeing and modified by the airline based on statistical monitoring of issues.

His speculation about total fuselage failure due to the door departing is completely off the rails and bordering on fear mongering.

There are lots of stupid people.

Same. It was a shock to me reading all the replies of people not just turning down the master volume. Usually there is a button on you keyboard specifically for that!

How is it exploitation to offer a service to someone for money?

You're mixing up the Fermi paradox and the Drake equation.

Assuming you meant the Drake equation, more than half of the variables we have absolutely no statistical basis to decide on a fraction. Obviously they are non-zero, but they could be extremely improbable. We only have one example of intelligent life developing radio communications. Any estimate of a statistical likelihood of that using Earth as an example is meaningless without other examples.

Some pessimistic estimates give solutions as small 9.1 x 10^-13 which indicates we would be alone.

The Fermi Paradox riffs on the optimistic answer to Drake's Equation. If other intelligent life is a certainty, why haven't we found them yet?

engineerguy (Bill Hammack) is a great channel where Bill explains all kinds of different things.

I haven't tried Jellyfin yet mostly because I rely heavily on the native Plex apps for my TVs and phones. Outside network streaming without having to set up a proxy or VPN is another big reason.

I haven't liked the direction Plex has been going for a while, but it's hard to beat the convenience.

I finally overhauled my home server. I built a 12TB storage and media server using a few parts from the old server but am running it on Linux using docker rather than my old gaming PC's windows 7 install. Should be much better for security and easier to upgrade or move.

Paid for PlexPass finally since hardware transcoding is locked behind the paywall.

Dropped Netflix after over a decade of using it regularly because the prices went up and I had been using it less.

Have used ChatGPT for help planning trips and developing goals and plans at home. I was restricted from using it or anything like it at work so I haven't been able to properly use it to my advantage much.

Finally upgraded my router to WiFi 6 and my Internet bandwidth to gigabit from 250 mbps. It's refreshing! Probably the best decision I made in 2023.

Dropped reddit (to include blocking the domain on my pihole). I still waste time but less of it is on social media.