what do you mean by corrupted here? like you're able to get a file but there are issues when you try to play it back? or do you mean that it's not able to actually complete the download of the video? because that would be an entirely different problem, that is more of an indicator of your provider perhaps missing a few blocks.

if the latter, you should share what main provider + what blocks you have. you may need another block from a different backbone to get better results and it may not be an indexer issue after all

again, the subwoofer powers itself. the yamaha AV receiver is not powering it either, so any difference you're perceiving between connecting the dayton one way or another is not a power issue.

it may just be that the yamaha is using a higher frequency for the crossover (those are always adjustable in any AVR, but are not always adjustable in active speakers) and hence your dayton sounds better with it.

the downside is that generally you can't combine receivers with active speakers so I'm not sure you'd be able to use the daytons + the yamaha AVR + your fluance speakers all together (DON'T connect the yamaha speaker-level outputs to your fluance, it might fry them. the fluance expects line level input) . you may be able to macgyver something using a Y cable such that you have your line-level source (e.g. a cd player or whatever) going to both the fluance directly and to the yamaha. and then the yamaha to the subwoofer. but that's definitely hacky and may cause some perceptible lag. it's prob a topic for a new post if you wanna try something like that

gotcha, I'll look those up. thanks!

thanks for the suggestions, I was not familiar with the last two. I don't see any mentions of a buffet for Tara on their yelp page, do you still remember a ballpark of how much this used to cost?

can you give some examples of those ayce places you mentioned?

I know there's like kogi gogi for $35 but that's a bit above what i would consider 'cheap'

lol I've heard of that place.. one that isn't a strip club would be preferable tho

I am sorry this happened to you but it may help put things in perspective to realize that you were scammed by a shitty person, rather than that investing is bad.

many of those financial advisors or stockbrokers don't have a fiduciary duty to you or in other words, they're not legally required to do what is in your best interest. and what is in *their* best interest is to put your money in crappy managed funds with high fees. that way, regardless of if your investment goes up or down, they make money off you with the high fees. it's pretty shitty.

however, unless you have dozens of millions of dollars, you don't need to deal with any of those middleman. you can buy some ETF or fund yourself that follows the total stock market, or the top 500 companies. that's historically pretty safe over time and your money will be worth more than (as opposed to losing what its worth due to inflation. 100 bucks today is worth less than 100 bucks 10 years ago). look into VTI and VTSAX. the expense ratios are super low, like 0.05% of your investments, and the stock market typically goes up by an average of ~10% each year (some better years than other but the rule is to not look at the money and leave it in the market, over time it will recover. it has literally always recovered since the beginning of time, as long as you don't panic sell)

I hope this helps you reconsider.

I'd also suggest looking up r/personalfinance they have a lot of useful financial advice on there

start by setting your subwoofer crossover knob to its maximum on the dayton. if you don't already know this, the subwoofer won't play frequencies above what the crossover is set to, so if you set it to too low, it's not going to play a bunch of things. so start at the max, see how it sounds then, and only then work your way down.

there is not such thing as your active speakers not 'powering the sub enough' because the sub powers itself. what they may have been talking about with the edifiers is again the crossover: some active speakers have a crossover knob, but in that case it works the opposite way, the speaker will only play sounds *above* what the crossover is set to, and will send only the sounds *below* the setting to the subwoofer. in your fluance, the crossover is not user adjustable and as per the manual, it will send anything below 80hz to the subwoofer. this should be fine but it's good to keep in mind that even though you sub CAN play frequencies above 80hz, it WON'T because the speaker won't send those frequencies to it. that's pretty much the only impact the active speakers have on the subwoofer (aside from some possibly horrible design where they may distort the sound etc), they don't actually influence in power ( loudness) itself since, again, the sub powers itself.

for music listening, most people suggest a ported sub. but for sub advice in general, you can also ask r/hometheater
SVS and HSU are some of the most frequently recommended brands if you want really thumping bass, but their prices start at 500 and up. do keep in mind they will shake your floors so you'll have to be mindful if you share walls with neighbors, and you might not be able to use those subs to their full capacity in those cases

in general I agree. but not quite everything. in florida you can get all you can eat pizza for like 6 bucks. here you'd be lucky to find even a single pizza for 6 bucks

with that said, if anyone has any little-known cheap ayce options in SF to recommend, I'm all ears

sure you can PM me but my experience was more convoluted than most because I'm an immigrant. I work a more research-oriented job as a data scientist (although research scientist would prob be a better name for my role) so in my case I went back to school for a masters degree.

however, most folks in tech are software engineers who only have a bachelors. so you don't even have to go back to school. lots of people are self taught, some take online classes, etc but you don't need another certificate or degree, you just need to learn the basics and then get a junior job. after the first job, getting the next ones will be much easier.

r/cscareerquestions is a very useful sub. however, it focuses on getting jobs at FAANGs, which are admittedly the highest salaries, but also have the higher bar for entry. you can probably switch to tech faster by learning the basics and getting an entry level job at a not so competitive company, and continuing to learn more on the job, and then taking your experience elsewhere with better pay. that's what a lot of field-changers do

honestly I'd just call it a sabbatical, then most people won't care much. retiring in your early 30s is something so unusual it brings a lot of questions. the easiest way to avoid them is to not volunteer the information you're retired.

you can also pretend you freelance as a consultant. that's just remote work with a computer and no one would know

Granted, I retired in my early 50s, but still ....

thats a huge difference though. also, lots of people can't tell by looking at someone if they're early or late 50s, so they might even be assuming you're older and just look young or something.

retiring in your 30s is entirely different and raises a lot of eyebrows

well I'm not meant to WFH forever, but have been WFH for over a year now due to the pandemic (office is optional)
~200k and the rest is very variable on company performance, but hopefully at least another ~100k

I work in tech in the bay area (so assume the money has about half the buying power as it would in an MCOL city)

45 other offers & 26 other offers on two other houses

damn I admire your persistence.

I'm not looking to buy a house now but I am dreading when the time comes, hearing all those stories of how much work it takes to find one that will accept your offer

but also, I think that's just human nature, you compare yourself and set goals for yourself based on others around you in a similar situation.

if you're a highly paid professional in NYC, you're not gonna compare your savings to someone living in a farm in a rural area and making minimum wage because what's the point? they live a different life, make less but spend way less too and have a different day to day.

similar to how if all your coworkers do the same job as you and they're all making 120k while you're making 80k, then you're gonna feel underpaid. in fact, in that case you ARE underpaid. it's not gonna matter that 80k is above the country's median, because what matters is context.

for most people, their perception of average is whatever is average among their peers. not what is average in the state, country, or much less the entire world (in which case the average american with no savings would be considered rich by comparison). and I think that's normal too

not much at all tbh. I'd much rather work 40hrs at a pleasant job than 20h at a bullshit job.

I've worked bullshit jobs. the mental drain takes more of a toll than the hours if you hate it imo

I feel I've read some research on this but I can't recall what or where. I do feel like it's easier to be caught up contemplating the meaning of life and your worth etc *after* all your needs and most wants are met, and you don't have a lot of goals, but have a lot of empty time to get caught up in your own head.

I think the 'easiest' existence in a psychological sense is the one of a middle class worker whose basic needs are met (food, housing..) but who still has small/medium life challenges everyday. living in poverty is obviously difficult

but I think the fact that so many trust fund kids who are born rich end up depressed or addicted to drugs are also a sign that being born in the 'finish line' is also not the best thing. people are also drawn to people like themselves, and being very wealthy also means there are fewer people you can relate to, and they usually have smaller strong social circles. something about how relationship bonds are strengthened through difficult times (of which there are fewer if you're living a comfortable life)

for most humans, the feeling of working towards a goal and achieving it is what makes them feel good about themselves. and it's usually proportional to how hard you worked for it. it could be getting a promotion, home ownership, taking your kids on a special vacation etc. if everything can be achieved at the swipe of a card and you have no challenges, and hence no 'wins', lots of things don't feel special in the same sense anymore, and it also doesn't feel like an achievement

idk how old you are or your interests, but if you like tech and aren't close to retirement, you could always consider a career change, like so many people do

tech is one of the fields where they don't need to see a CS degree for you to get a job, you just need to be able to do the job and do some interview prep. I switched from EE, and have worked with people who switched from way more different fields, like film, psychology, arts.

it's not for everyone, but for some people, it's quite doable

well walmart sells their mainstays toaster oven for under 20 bucks. I've had mine for 3 years and it's still kicking. might wanna consider it if you find yourself wanting to heat up this sort of stuff

congrats. here's some unsolicited advice. how many times have you visited germany and for how long? I'd strongly encourage you to start with an extended stay, maybe a sabbatical, before you decide to move for good. 'the grass is always greener' syndrome is real

there are pros and cons, but really not everyone will adapt. I lived in germany for a year and no amount of money in the world would have me trade the US for germany, or anywhere in europe to be totally honest (I'm an immigrant who was born in neither of those places)

the culture is different, the weather is different, the food is different, everyday life is different, the people are so. freaking. different.

I just think that it would be good to get your feet wet with a temporary stay before uprooting your entire family. if you already know germany very well and have lived there before, then you can disregard

.. its pretty common to have a cleaning service come in every 3 or 4 weeks. people who live with roommates are doing it to save money so they typically want to spend as little as possible, very rarely do they have someone come in every week. during that time you do a light cleaning.

they could have more than 3 roommates too, in which case it may cover once every 2 weeks. and in some areas you can get a cleaning service for 100 bucks/day

lol I'm sorry you're getting downvoted, this has to be people who don't work in the field or who have never been to any of those tech hubs

you're absolutely right, in SF/seattle/NY, lots of very average and not particularly competitive companies are paying 100k+ for new grads. and FAANGs pay even more

it depends on the area. in the bay area, 100k is very doable for an average joe 25yr old software engineer that went to any random school. you don't need to join a special company for that, most average companies are paying that. the competitive companies like FAANG, unicorns etc pay well above 100k for new grads, often over 200k if you get a good enough offer.

however, the COL is astronomical. so for most people, it means having roommates and still having to be very careful with spending because everything is so expensive. assuming you do so, you can save a lot of money

damn I think you're right on the money

still seems like an insane amount of money to give away given the rest of their expenses, but I'm not religious so

I think also the fact that whoever made this can’t picture a budget without a cleaner shows how out of touch it is lol

no, this is the only part of the budget that I agree with. when you have roommates, you're already saving a ton on rent and this is not the place to skimp on.

chances are you'll have at least one lazy roommates (maybe multiple) who won't properly do their chores and 30/mo is well worth the money to not have to deal with that shit and also not have to clean yourself