I feel exactly the same. Work to live and don’t leave the house feeling miserable. And, going off on a slight tangent: when you’re 17, 18 and have to decide what you want to go and study/learn, most of the time they really don’t have a good grasp of that either. That’s why I always told my students: you’re young, try it and if you don’t like it, find something else. That’s much healthier than just wanting to get it right immediately. I didn’t decide to do a PhD and work in higher education until about two weeks before I handed in my MSc thesis.
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Nowadays that would definitely end with child protective services coming to visit (or some super popular TicTocs, don’t know what would be worse 
). I feel that links back to what I said: the mentality seems to have changed these days (again, strictly talking about my part of the Old Continent).
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Yeah, not having a target is huge and shouldn’t be as terrifying as everyone thinks that it is. I went in to the military straight out of school (waivered so I joined before 18) so I could afford school or just do my 20 years and retire. I liked it well enough but wanted to see what else the world had to offer, so I used my GI Bill for college while working ~40 hours the whole time. I floundered in school precisely because I HAD no target, so I showed up and put max effort into classes I liked and blew off the rest but I always really just wanted to work anyway. Never did graduate but I feel like I gained good perspective from it all so nothing was really wasted time (and I have no student debt as a result, so that helped as well). Found a lot of different hats to wear in the ensuing years and I always espoused to the younger generations to just try a bit of everything and don’t be afraid to fail or change your mind. Hell, what I do now (and will probably do for the rest of my life) isn’t something I ever imagined doing in a million years, and had I known this was where I’d end up I would have gotten into it decades ago and had a better target for what degree(s) to pursue. Ironically I now spend a lot of time consulting and teaching people that have degrees how their processes and equipment actually work even though they’re the process engineers lol.
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That’s also something a lot of people fail to understand: when they get fresh out of college, they are (as we say over here) ‘competent to get started’ but not ‘competent to do the work’. Those process engineers rarely have ever seen what it’s like in the real world. Doesn’t help that internships are being phased out because it ‘takes too much time’ (which often is code for: why would you want to know what the real world is like to begin with?). I used to be in a department where there was a full professor in Leadership Studies who taught executive courses but never had any experience with what it’s like in the real world. Ever. And no one thought that was weird 
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I like to call that “Engineer’s Brain” and it’s a real thing across all fields; just because your drawings or numbers SHOULD work doesn’t mean that they actually do, or that they’re even accurate to what was built if you haven’t personally confirmed it as such.
We actually end up using some of those still, although just as often it’s foreign exchange with young engineers from plants the company has in other countries. Our main serviced industry in particular (Corn Wet-Milling) tends to be a bit “incestuous” so that even if someone interns or starts at one company, they are just as likely to move to a competitor in the same field based on offers and geographic location (lots of companies have mutliple plants in the same states as well, especially Iowa/Nebraska/Indiana). Whole lotta Purdue Engineering Students end up with either Primient or Ingredion because of this, but can then end up spending the majority of their careers with Cargill, ADM or a start-up instead. It’s actually pretty neat, back before everything became ‘corporate-ized’, you would have poaching or personal recommendations based on who worked with who coming up in the various plants. A lot of the old-heads that are retiring (or dying) now have people from all kinds of the competition or vendors they knew showing up to their funerals and retirement parties like it’s a high school reunion, trading old stories and discussing who went where and when.
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I like that, engineer’s brain. Sounds a bit like Silicon Valley what you’re describing, I mean the way it was before everything became corporate-ized.
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Some incredibly ancient yews in churchyards (you probably know all about this) because a lot of churches were built around already sacred groves. So they were 100s of years old even before the church was built there, which is often 100s of year old itself by now.
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Throwing in my 2 cents on the work topic. (even though my sector is very niche)
I do see a fairly obvious shift in attitude towards work motivation/ethics/effort when you drop below a certain age point. There are always exceptions, but still…
Example: My best friend is fairly high up the management chain at Mearsk Lines. Mearsk has a special program to attract university students in their last year by offering them a starting position with a fast track course to fill in a management position. It’s basically winning the employment jackpot. My friend was the 3rd round interviewer for this program. He told me about some of the demands and expectations these students put before him. The entitlement is ridiculous. Some examples: Saying that 6000 euro after taxes as a starters wage is not enough (average income after taxes in Belgium and the Netherlands is somewhere between 3200 and 3400 euro). For that pay they also think that working 3 days a week is enough (in a management position in a company that operates 24/7 with offices all over the world?!). Then there were demands regarding vacation, cars, cultural/ideological demands, etc.
In 2023 he blocked 97% of the applicants from going to the final interview. It pissed him off so much that he took up another position in the company and is now working on a classified project between Maersk and NATO.
I understand him completely on this. We met in college where we were in the same classes. Both of us started with bottom of the barrel jobs (I started on a container terminal, opening the gates for truckdrivers and printing out their receipts). We both actively worked our way up to where we are today. So having these punks come in with a bunch of unrealistic demands based on a twisted world view is outright infuriating. And this a problem where the school system also bears alot of the blame imo.
And meanwhile we are having alot of trouble finding people for both our office positions (we went through 3 operational planners in the past year because they couldn’t handle the stress and need to solve problems on a fingersnap. We had to beg an old planner to come back to us.) and crew on the barges. Just finding normal sailors is a challenge, but finding captains is next to impossible. Nobody wants to put in the effort anymore, even though the pay is ALOT better that most office jobs.
I can agree that young folks have a really shit time these days to get their housing etc sorted, but the lack of motivation to work your ass off that I often see now isn’t exactly helping the situation. (again, there are exceptions. But it’s these exceptions that end up making the cut)
You start out by working your ass off, grabbing every opportunity that crosses your path and over the years slowly evolve to an equilibrium of financial stability and satisfaction in your profession. At least, that’s how I see things and it’s worked out for me doing it this way.
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Matches what happens over here in The Netherlands perfectly. Entitlement nicely sums it up.
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Ate lunch in car in the rain 
Enjoyed it completely
An oddly soothing song 
one of my favorites that is in Kai’s playlist
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That looks quite appetising! Hope the rain brought some refreshment.
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Most delayed set ever for me.
It’s almost on it’s way.
Stoked…STOKED
PMG, 622B Ti, Storm are my 3 infinity stones. Hope this joins em and I have a 5th spot open with nothing in sight.
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Is anyone else waiting, somewhat patiently, to see what Xenns is cooking with UP?
Saving the best for last perhaps…
Have some intel to share?
Meanwhile…I got tired of the hugely distracting beer keg looking ends on the Valhalla cable, also with no slider/ cinch…now that it’s modded…am much happier and aesthetically speaking, for me, this wins hands down.
Early sign of my sons awesome imagination …we were roasting marshmallows out on the deck, all of a sudden John tears into the house frantically looking for his crayons… I get him set up and he goes at it like a demon possessed, then says "Daddy, the best part about being a dragon is you can roast marshmallows whenever you want! "
If I could only bring one thing out when the house is burning…likely that pic. John as yet still doesn’t really understand my attachment/fondness for that. It was the uncomplicated pure joy and innocence of the entire event, that grounds me when I recall it. When we can approach our lives like that, and carry through with those things that excite us, to their fullness, we win.
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Little budding genius/ special talent in society inbound 
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Is that the original cable modified, or a totally different one?
Og modified… Ali Express… found some stainless barrel connectors, then some short 2 pins, red and blue that sit nice and low, and an aluminum slider. Also removed the plasticky earhook wrap…that made a nice difference for flexibility.
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I’ve also been wondering whether they’ll update the Up to a pro version like the other two. Seems like the logical move to make.
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I saw one reviewer on Youtube who was so impressed by the Asteria that he sold all his IEMs to buy it… I like how they advertise it as ‘Imagine having two subwoofers in front of you, that is what we hope to emulate with the Asteria.’
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Word?
I missed that blurb.
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I thought the description was surprisingly devoid of hyperbole as well. The innovations they tout sound entirely reasonable (to the layperson, i.e. me). Not like some IEMs that recently debuted.
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