Did you use the same yarn the pattern called for? Yours looks like a chunkier yarn with less drape which would definitely effect the fit.

I so need this on a sweatshirt!

Yep, that was the first thing I thought of after reading the headline. I read ‘The woman who.would not be silenced’ and it left a big impression on me.

Apologies…I misread that

Try removing bitwarden and do the same test. Ibet bitwarden is checking for updates that it needs to sync.

I see all 5 pics. That is gorgeous.

This can go way beyond ‘tracking’ software. I used to write software that my company used in its core business activities. Almost everyone in the company used some portion of this software. The logging for that system included timestamps and user IDs the captured general high level activities. If we had a system issue we could ramp up the logging to much more granular levels. If mgmt asked we could query the logs and get a pretty good idea of how much or little you were using the system. That wasn’t the main intent for the logging but it had been used for employee performance monitoring on more than one occasion… In all my years of coding, every app I worked on had similar logging.

If you are on a work PC, assume your activity can be monitored and/or logged in some fashion.

Oh yeah. Don’t fuck with cats was great. I guess I knew in theory that sort of thing was possible but to seeing real implications was a serious gut check. It made me seriously consider my online activity and things that I was revealing g unintentionally.

Edited for grammar

I love shows like that. There is one called something like ‘How I caught my killer’ which usually involves digital forensics of some sort. It’s cool and super creepy at the same time. It also makes me wonder how far I should go with trying to be anonymous. If someone had a Grapheneos phone bought anonymously and only used e2ee communications on a VPN…what sort of hindrance would that be if that person was murdered. Lol these are the thought exercises that I go through while I’m walking the dog…that and how to keep the dog from noticing that bunny in the next yard.

Long story short. I googled my name and city and was sufficiently creeped out. Ive been online a long time and just didn’t notice how much privacy had eroded around me. It’s like that parable about how to cook a frog. They just slowly increased the temp on me. Fortunately I’ve jumped out of the pot before I got cooked alive.

In the Midwest, some farm.

Have you factored in old age costs? Lawn care or household help when it gets to be too much for you to handle on your own. I didn’t factor that and am now thinking I will regret that as I’m currently watching my mom start to decline and need more help.

It does get easier. At 100k is about where I started to see the effects of compound interest really take hold. Hang in there. It is so worth it.

I’m already retired but here’s how I structured my days. Mornings start off with breakfast and walking the dog. Then I focus on chores that I have to do…mow the lawn, laundry, groceries. After lunch is left open for fun things or projects I’m working on. Lately I’ve been splitting afternoons between digitiznig old photos, genealogy, reading and knitting. If my SO is working in the office, then I do afternoon dog walking duties too. After dinner is watching TV with the SO. I kind of fell into this pattern after I found myself wandering around the house bored trying to figure out what to do with myself.

Pretty much. Reduce your consumption so you need less stuff. Build skills that you could use to barter for things that you would otherwise need to buy.

Are you in the US? I can’t speak for other countries but I would have a hard time believing the US economy could devolve into that kind of situation. If it did, I think my original arguement still holds. FIRE seeking folks would still be better able to adapt to the situation. They would just step up their intensity.

Growing your food > making meals at home > eating at restaurants Walking/biking everywhere > public transit/carpooling > driving everywhere

Dealing with that sort of extreme situation would require extreme changes to your lifestyle. Building up skills to be more self sufficient and lower your spending to absolute minimal levels. If you are really interested in this, you might want to check out the Early Retirement Extreme book and forums. Jacob was an early FIRE blogger that focused on building skills to lower his expenses. I believe he was living on < $10k a year. That community is pretty hard core on slashing spending and closer to the prepper mentality it would take to survive hyper inflation.

I think the FIRE community is best suited to handle inflation. Let’s face it, if your seriously pursuing FIRE, you probably aren’t buying a ton of stuff. Housing, food and medical expenses are going up but when you aren’t spending on a ton of other stuff it doesn’t hurt as much. It makes saving tougher but not impossible. I think our current inflation is also a good reality check for people that haven’t experienced the ups and downs of inflation before. We have to account for that in our financial planning because it isn’t always a rosy 1-2%. The 7% mortgages that you are seeing today are laughable to someone like my folks whose first mortgage was around 13%. It’s all just part of the long term financial cycle that we have to find the best way to deal with. The best way to beat inflation is the best path to FIRE. Keep your frivolous spending low, invest in a diverse and well balanced portfolio and be flexible to change as life changes.

I’m in the Bitwarden camp. There is no other way for me to have complex/secure passwords and remember them for my gazillion accounts.

As a former programmer, I appreciate the hard work you folks are putting in so the rest of us can putter away our free time. You’re doing great. Thank you.

I love not having a set schedule. Ive wanted to do volunteering somewhere just for the socializing but having to commit to a set volunteer schedule has held me back from following through on that.