The vibes in NJ feel pretty great right now. The convergence in outcomes is the best I've ever seen.
Over the last 5yrs, a group of ~10k people - guys who own paving companies, guys who own marinas, ShopRite deli managers, Wawa shift leads, and a guy named Sal - have quietly become millionaires and nobody knows because they still drive a Silverado from 2008. Back of the envelope Taylor ham estimation.
Everyone outside that group feels like they can work their well-paying (but <$500k) job their whole life and easily get there. My cousin works at PSE&G. He has a boat.
Better yet, hiring is in full swing. Many tradesmen feel like their life's skill is more useful than ever. The day to day role of most jobs has stayed exactly the same for 40 years.
As a result,
1) Everyone's settled into a tried and true set of career paths: take over my uncle's HVAC, get my CDL, get into landscaping, marry into a pizza place. People are switching diners less and less. You can't betray your home diner.
2) There's a deep contentment about work (and its future). Why chase "tech" when you can own three rentals in Hoboken and complain about your tenants at a barbecue. Will my job exist in a few years? This is Jersey. The job is paving things. You hear the "I'm never leaving" conversation a lot, especially from people who tried Brooklyn for a year. They come back saying the energy was off. The energy was fine. They missed their mom.
3) The mid to late middle managers feel energized. Many have families and plenty of energy to open a pizzeria with their cousin Anthony. Not that Anthony. The other one. They don't particularly have any AI skills and they don't need any. Middle management is alive and well at PSE&G and you get a pension. My uncle retired at 58. He's been on a boat since 2019.
4) The rich aren't particularly humble either.
They're at the shore house. They've been at the shore house since 1987. Some have gone from <$150k to >$5M slowly, through a paving company, or by buying a duplex in Jersey City in 2003 and just kinda holding it. For some, they escape to LBI to live life, which means sitting on a deck. For others, they buy a boat just cuz, use it four times, and describe it as the best decision they ever made at every party for the rest of their life. I asked a contractor friend why he didn't retire. He said "and do what, Donna does NOT want me home all day."
I understand many reading this scoff at the simple pleasures of the Garden State. They live in places where the bagels are bad and they've made peace with it.
But the truth is, you can surf Belmar in the morning, skate the Asbury bowls in the afternoon, hike the Delaware Water Gap, and camp the Pine Barrens by nightfall. You can drive an hour and be anywhere. You can see Bruce at the Stone Pony for what feels like the 400th time and cry about it. The slice somehow tastes better than every slice in every other state. It's the water. It's always the water.
Unlike many other places, knowing a guy, having a guy, and being a guy is tightly correlated with outcomes in NJ. Need a permit? Tony's brother. Need a kidney? Probably still Tony's brother. Call him.
Ironically, a frequent side effect of this clarity is to spin up the very pork roll egg and cheese making everyone happy in hopes that you too can SPK your way to economic enlightenment. Salt pepper ketchup. Hard roll. Don't ask for it on a bagel. That's how civilizations fall.
Why do we not have any communication satellites set up around the moon so they could connect and beam the communications around the moon - we could have sent them on the last test run....
BREAKING๐จ: The Artemis II astronauts will go through the most tense moment of the mission on April 6, 2026. This is the highlight of the entire mission. The Orion will pass between 6,400 and 9,600 kilometers above the lunar surface.
But there's a detail that makes this moment even more intense: as it passes over the far side of the Moon, the spacecraft will lose communication with Earth for about 30 to 50 minutes, blocked by the Moon itself.
"For the 45 minutes when we'll be closest to the lunar surface, we'll also be out of contact," said Victor Glover, the mission's pilot. "I'd love for the whole world to be cheering and praying for us to reestablish the signal."
During that time, the astronauts will photograph and observe regions of the Moon's far side that have never been seen by human eyes.
The crew will also attempt to capture new images of the so-called Earthrise, the planet emerging over the desolate lunar surface.
Google uses C++
Meta uses C++
Microsoft uses C++
Amazon uses C++
Apple uses C++
Netflix uses C++
Adobe uses C++
NVIDIA uses C++
Intel uses C++
Uber uses C++
Dropbox uses C++
Cloudflare uses C++
Spotify uses C++
Whatโs stopping you from learning C++??
Hey you. Yeah you.
You can literally download ClawdBot right now and by the end of the night have an autonomous revenue generating 24/7 AI employee working for you. 0 programming required.
Why tf are you doom scrolling instead
Crypto: let's invent fake Internet money and then obsess over its imaginary value.
This applies to everything except Cardano obviously. Cardano is real.