Losers almost alway have an excuse for their failure, and it never ever involves them. It's always the system or at this time, those damn boomers.

And yet, there are successful millennials and GenZ. Those successful ones tend to take accountability.

Trigger alert!

From a Boomer to a Doomer - if you are right down at the bottom of the barrel, the ultimate victim of the horrible system, the person whom the system actively grinds down...

Perhaps a little introspection is in order. Yeah, I'm a boomer. Big deal, there are boomers among the losingist losers ever. You doomers didn't invent losers.

My millennial son is doing just fine, rising in his company, and is going to buy a house soon.

Wife's best friend has 2 millennial sons, gainfully employed, and own houses.

The same with other friends children, I just give three examples.

Things to ponder:

Maybe it has something to do with attitude

No one owes you anything.

No one owes you a 6 or 7 figure job.

No one owes you a one skill-set for life - if your skill-set becomes useless, develop a new skill-set.

Bring value added to your work.-If you bring no value added to your work, you are mediocre at best Tha man is not your enemy, unless you choose to make tha man your enemy.

For my own case, I've been called to work after retirement because it was difficult to find young people to fill the position. They stressed over minutae. They wanted really high pay without experience, and they had absorbed the teaching that they were the most important person in the universe, before, or now, or forever after.

They all crashed and burned, usually sinking into depression when they found out they were just 1 out of 8 billion people, and about as special as a grain of sand.

So while I probably gave you super high blood pressure, just consider that my advice might have some use, or you can revel in being a loser - it is after all, easier than the work to be successful.

> Then what are you bitching about?

I'm not the only one who got screwed.

> And how successful can they be when they only last an average of five years?

The fuck are you talking about?

Failed? I've started four successful businesses since 2001. I can't be fired. Ever. You know why? Firing me requires my signature.

What, you think I've gone 23 years without a meal? How about you take a break from congratulating yourself and learn to read? Jesus.

Here's what happened in tech. I can speak with authority because I was there.

During the 1990s, when corporate America was caught in last place technology-wise, they had no trouble hiring and fairly paying people to help them build what they needed. I was one of those people, and because of my hard work, knowledge and skill I multiplied my salary 500% in seven years.

This was all funded by hard investments in technology infrastructure, and it is when all the key platforms were invented or perfected: browser, TCP/IP, streaming video, high-speed graphics libraries, multiplayer gaming, ecommerce, Flash, LAMP, etc.

By early 2001 I was unemployable. I haven't had a job since.

What happened? Simple. Plowing money into derivative shit became more profitable than tech stocks. (See Commodities Futures Modernization Act) All the capital and jobs were taken away so mortgage bonds could be monetized. That led directly to the housing crash, which led to bailout culture which led to mailbox money and then to rampaging inflation and finally to here.

They took our jobs, houses, women and money. Now they want our vote. We went from the greatest economic expansion in human history to the verge of ruin in one generation.

I couldn't rent a job now. Among the reasons nobody would ever hire me (despite the fact my experience and skill catalog runs close to 20,000 words and the fact I've built four successful businesses single-handed without one dime of outside investment) are: too old, too opinionated, too experienced, too expensive and so on. The situation is the same for everyone in my generation. We took the leading edge of the post-employment economy right in the teeth. We were educated and trained (by lifetimes of hard work on our parents' part) for an America that no longer exists. The world we grew up in doesn't even remotely resemble the one we live in now.

We're the ones who will never have homes, families or legacies because we were thrown off the train and we landed next to the very tracks we built.

All this bullshit about worker shortages and skill shortages is just that: bullshit. Stories like this are proof. Getting hired is pointless now anyway. You'll just get fired no matter how good a job you do.

P.S. For those of you who think you beat the system, just keep this in mind: your kids will never own a home, have a family or have a real job. They'll also never elect anyone to office. Have a nice day.

Nothing to disagree with you there. I suspect that a limited scope is part of the design. I'm thinking that in the use cases this is designed for, that the doggo will head out maybe 50 feet from the human operator, spray a firebreak, then had back and be turned off, or maybe reloaded. It might be more busy when used for a controlled burn.

But that limited scope thing. Controlled burns are not particularly safe, and firebreak setting is really dangerous. pretty near the fire, and there is the possibility that the fire could crown, and you probably won't survive if that happens, it's a game of inches at that point. So you really don't want the thing to carry a whole lot of gasoline. If you had a I>big fire spitting doggo, and it was caught and disabled during a controlled burn, the control might be lost.

Before going too far, people who use flamethrowers against others, especially in t-word usage deserve being terminated with extreme prejudice. At least in my estimation.

But this pretend doggo with a flamethrower on top is aimed at a practical market. firefighting and controlled burning. As a tactical weapon, it is pretty lame. Simple to take out.

For all of that, it has pretty much the same possibilities that all of the flamethrowers of the past had. The question is why would one with the form factor of a canine suddenly cause people to use them as a tool against people in a never before thought of way? And it is not designed for an environment in which others are trying to destroy it. Sneak up on it from behind, grab it and whack it with a hammer. Or carry a shield and encroach it, then whack it.

But these other possibilities...Organic farming, a worthwhile endeavor uses flamethrowers as devices to "weed" fields. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... I can imagine anti -personnel uses for that.

And if you want to really get scared, WD-40 makes a pretty decent short-range flamethrower.

In the end, it isn't that this might be used for nefarious purposes. It's that darn near everything can be used for evil.

All true. It "walks" like a dog, and has that doggish look. The awkward thing is that yes, the doggone thing is kind of cute. Until it spits at you, of course.

That's assuming it is a weapon. It isn't.

Aside from fear culture writ large, these things have very practical uses. Firebreaks, control burns that are hella less dangerous for the humans already putting themselves deep in harms way.

Here in the US at least, we have a lot of land that is prone to fires, so firebreaks and control burns are really important.

So the cute little robodog with the tiny flamethrower mounted on it is not remotely set up for weapons use. It has zero armoring, and if people are trying to fight it, it would be simple to disable.

But not too lazy to post wildly offtopic. ;^)

Robot flamethrowers have existed for a long, long time, and arson even longer.

The only thing different about this is the somewhat cute robodog. But if a person is nasty enough to want to kill others in this heinous way, the old standby molatov cocktail will suffice.

We probably don't see that too much because those who might use it know what is likely to happen if they do.

Most will be used by the forest service for controlled burns and fighting forest fires. Limited liability for controlled burns, and all bets are off in the event of forest fires.

The insurance risk will be for any used for entertainment. At least here in verdant Pennsylvania, we take our forests pretty seriously. If you are burning trash and it turns into a wildfire, you are going to jail. So this flame-spittin' doggobot is probably not going to be used too often for entertainment. At base, insurance will be hella expensive, and there is a fine line to be crossed that turns using it into a crime.

Perhaps the emotional reaction to this is the so called "robot dog". Because civilian flamethrowers are and have been in use for a long time, largely used as firebreaks these days. The US has a lot of area prone to wildfires. In addition to fighting fires with firebreaks to limit their spread, we have a lot of controlled burns. The controlled burn is a weird but successful concept that since an area simply will burn at some point from natural causes, you do a controlled burn during a time when it is least likely to spread. clears the litter and even enriches the soil.

This flame throwing robot makes it hella safer on humans fighting fires or control burning. Monkin' about with a tank of gasoline on your back is kind of scary and dangerous.

The fact that it is freaking awesome is just a side effect to its utilitarian uses.

Yeah. I'd expect journalists to know basic grammar and not use present tense when talking about last year.