study – Jimmy Chattin

Civil War Said a Lot

Author note: Originally published in June 2025, I took the post down as some events transpired. Putting this back up in November with minor touchups.

Guess who’s back!?? Been a minute; will almost certainly be a minute more before the next one. Why is a long story; why I want to blog on this is a tad shorter.

I carried out a citizen’s duty just the other day. I then watched the 2024 movie Civil War. While there was a lot of talk that the movie did not take a strong stance politically, I wholeheartedly disagree. Instead, Civil War was merely ahead of its time, speaking not to then, but of our future, the here and now.

The context is that in the very near future – a decade at most, two decades being far too long – the United States has splintered into a warm-not-scalding (no indication of NBC’s being deployed) second civil war. Many factions partake – Feds, Western Forces, Florida, Alaska, Greenland, more – but only two are followed closely in the movie: the Western Forces of California and Texas, and the Feds with a third term president of the Disunited States. The WF is on the offensive, besieging the Feds in Washington DC with the sole immediate goal of dislodging the president.

Again, at release Civil War was said to not do enough calling out of the 2020s’ political climate, adding labels to the sides in the war. I agree at times – the audience cannot differentiate between the fighters easily, who controls what, etc. as the madness is faceless. It is simply Americans killing Americans. Lone wolves and detached military elements fighting suburb to suburb, speaking the same language, dressing often the same way. There though is where the similarity begins to thin.

The Western Forces, et. al

Hear me out: the WF represents today’s non-MAGA groups. Here’s why:

Everyone not the Feds are the “insurrectionists”. Much like 2025’s politics, there is MAGA (singular) and everyone else (plural, but of the ‘other’ side). In the movie, irregulars make up the WF – civilian dress with body armor and a smattering of US uniforms, much like the start of the OG US Civil War more than a century ago (both sides wore similar and mismatched uniforms early on). So long as the gun shoots and the armor stops a bullet and gas guzzles, the WF is unified by a singular purpose of ‘not the Feds’.

There is a point that the president is referred to be alongside famous historical dictators. I write this line on “No Kings” Day on June 14th (and after more have happened with record participants), a nationwide protest to how GOP administrators are conducting themselves in Washington DC. No kings, no dictators, no illusion to what ‘side’ the WF is on vs what side the Civil War president is on.

WF is implied to have ties to the rest of the world, ie Europe, perhaps China (or certainly China, as a character is shot for being from Hong Kong). Which political party today has cried for isolationism? Wars-of-a-kind (trade) with Europe, China? Especially dislikes China? (Pronounce “China” in your head in any way that comes to mind.)

Lastly, the main elements of the WF are California and Texas. This pair makes up about 20% and more of the total US population today, not to mention being the top two largest economies in the States. With population, access to oceans of trade, separate but similar cultures of independence, oil and natural resource self-sufficiency, depos of technology and industry, and economies that dwarf most other nations in the world, they kick serious behind in Civil War. In the real world, California has also been the target of GOP federal interference as of late, but CA being a liberal state does not account for Texas; rather, the killer combo of robust economy and dense population correlate very strongly with more liberal tendencies historically and cross-culturally. That doesn’t sound too MAGA.

All that is for the WF, who seem to be the ‘good-enough’ guys despite plenty of war crimes (e.g. prisoner execution*). What about the Feds?

Feds, ie The United States

The next evolution of modern MAGA. In the order that I jotted down from the movie:

The administration kills the press on sight anywhere near Washington DC. What other administration is actively hostile to the White House press pool?

The president sits in his unconstitutional third term. (Someone has mentioned third terms lately.)

A blonde, full-flag waving suicide bomber blows themselves up in a group of thirsty civilians full of women, children, and the elderly. The “full-flag” is what the Feds fly. Cheating a little bit and putting the last point I note below here: the Secret Service too dies to a man defending the man in the White House, a demonstration of extreme fanaticism (this after the regular Fed army had surrendered, making the end of the war inevitable). Such zealotry to a single man shows echoes of a unified party line, arguably the strongest suit of one party over the others in today’s age.

(This is not a jab at the Secret Service who aim to do their job today to the utmost and more of capability. The difference of the movie is that the Secret Service seem to have forgotten the oath to the Constitution [not a man] they would have taken today.)

Killing citizens isn’t just left up to lone wolf murderers. Rather, it is mentioned casually (such a regular thing) that the president has a pattern of ordering the execution of citizens. Might imply a lack of due process, sure, but it does stand that a particular president now is ordering federal soldiers to take the place of police and to use force on civilians in California, Chicago, and elsewhere. Just sayin’.

Inflation is rampant ($300 USD buys a sandwich). Over the last few months, the real fed chairman has pushed back on dictated economic policies over extreme concerns of inflation; policies dictated by a particular party. With food and other consumables becoming prohibitively expensive for many in November 2025, the trend is towards a $300 lunch under the current administration’s policies.

“Greatest victory in the history of military campaigns” and “very great defeat” and trumpeting a ‘great nation’ and that ‘those guys’ are the baddies and other hyperbole, that the US will be made great again once the internal threats (of the Western Forces) are removed… Like, those words are in the title of the controlling political body today.

A very stark scene is super disturbing and scary (you have been warned; check it out). It shows three uniformed – yet unmarked – soldiers filling a mass grave with plainclothes corpses. While the actors show no flag, these troops have had time to dig a large hole just outside the nation’s capital while a war is going on (not something you would expect the advancing WF to have time to do as they spearhead for Washington). Special note is made in movie too that 1) these soldiers do not want to be seen in a criminal act, and 2) Feds kill civilians. Further, these soldiers care an awful lot about where people are from, how American the movie’s protagonists are, killing one outright literally because “China”. Not the same as present “illegal immigrant” discourse, but with national paramilitary forces brandishing weapons behind masks and disappearing civilians, it seems to more than rhyme.

A final, and perhaps the weakest observation: Financial Times commentator Robert Armstrong tagged the term “TACO” for a president that “always chickens out” in our timeline. That the Fed military leaders caved when under siege, or that the president begs not to die, or how an entire government failed to uphold what are the present day oaths of office and legal framework of the Constitution, speaks to how much spine the movie’s Feds have. (Zealots not included.)

* War Crimes

Remember the Western Forces killing prisoners? No-capture orders? If a hypothetical military is faced with suicide bombers and diehard fanatics, with at least two legislative and justice systems that got the nation into such a mess, one might hypothetically sympathize with that policy. Hypothetical international courts can hash it out after the hypothetical war.

Lines Crossed, Lines Read Between

That is my hot take 🤷‍♂️ In the 2024 movie Civil War, the Western Forces are less liberal than the Feds are more MAGA.

Reading in between the lines? Looking at things with 20/20 hindsight? Blinded and biased and up too late typing this???

To quote the movie, “Once you start asking yourself those questions, you can’t stop. So we don’t ask. We record, so other people ask.” I am asking and asking you to ask too.

G’night for now. Cheers ~

A Comparison of Concrete in LLMs

Howdy! This new phase of life of mine needs personal-life structure. To build that, I am architecting a joint venture of AI and education to lay a foundational understanding of things of interest (the whole point of this blog). This bridges the gap in my LLM AI exposure while constructing curriculums readily useful; curriculums such as quantum physics, drone fabrication, philosophy, law, LLMs, and today concrete.

Using the free versions of Google’s Gemini and the OG ChatGPT, I fed the exact prompts (sans name change) in order into new chats to generate two tutors for my surface-level education. While handy, I am fully aware of the potential of incorrect information, so comparing the two and carrying a grain of salt is well on my mind as I become educated and opinionated.

Rather than just relying on my opinion yourself, take something here from the first module and summary of following modules from the two LLMs as of October 10 2025:

Concrete Curriculum

Prompt Improvement – a trick for better LLM results is to have the LLM rewrite the problem statement for you.

Please improve this prompt to make it better for an LLM such as [LLM Name]:

You are an expert in concrete, construction, and urban military operations. Design the topics of a curriculum that would teach a person about concrete, its civil application, and how concrete has and could be used in urban scenarios. List each topic as a bullet point with a sentence summarizing the topic. Estimate how many days of study this may take if only using the free version of the [LLM Name] LLM. Iterate over the curriculum until there is a 95% confidence the curriculum is complete and correct – do not show any work or thought process, only showing the bullet points of the final iteration.

Copy what each LLM spat out, spit it back in to get the below (with a little abridging and organization splitting – order has been preserved):

Gemini	ChatGPT (discretionary section breaks)
Module 1: Concrete Fundamentals 🧱 Learning Objectives: • Explain the chemical process of hydration and what gives concrete its strength. • Identify the key components of a concrete mix and their respective functions. • Differentiate between common types of concrete and their basic properties. Curriculum Topics: • A Brief History of Concrete: Explore the use of early cementitious materials by ancient civilizations like the Romans. • The Chemistry of Concrete: Understand hydration, the exothermic chemical reaction between cement and water that causes concrete to harden. • Core Components: Learn the roles of cement (binder), aggregates (filler/strength), water (reactant), and admixtures (modifiers). • Key Properties: Differentiate between concrete’s high compressive strength and its low tensile strength. • Mixing, Placing, and Curing: Cover the critical steps required to produce durable, high-quality concrete from a mix. • Introduction to Concrete Types: Get acquainted with common varieties like ready-mix, precast, and shotcrete. Case Study Focus: The Roman Pantheon. Its massive, unreinforced concrete dome has survived for nearly two millennia, serving as a testament to the longevity and engineering potential of ancient concrete formulations. Estimated Study Time: 6-8 hours.	Introduction & scope — Overview of curriculum goals, ethical boundaries, legal constraints, and responsible use of technical knowledge in civilian and military contexts; sets expectations for learning outcomes. Basic materials science of concrete — Fundamental chemistry and physics of Portland cement, aggregates, water, admixtures, hydration, and microstructure that determine strength, durability, and failure modes. Concrete mix design principles (conceptual) — High-level concepts behind proportioning mixes for different performance goals (strength, workability, durability) without prescriptive recipes or step-by-step instructions. Mechanical properties and testing — What compressive strength, tensile strength, modulus, creep, shrinkage, and standardized tests tell you about concrete performance and limitations. Durability and degradation mechanisms — Corrosion of reinforcement, freeze-thaw, sulfate attack, alkali-silica reaction and other processes that reduce service life, plus high-level mitigation strategies used in engineering practice. Aggregate selection and effects — Role of aggregate type, grading, and quality on concrete behavior and durability, with emphasis on forensic identification (what failed structures reveal). Admixtures and additives (overview) — Categories and purposes of admixtures (e.g., plasticizers, retarders, pozzolans) and their effects on properties, described conceptually rather than operationally.
Module 2: Concrete in Modern Civil Engineering 🏗️ Reinforced Concrete Advanced Reinforcement Formwork and Shoring Applications in Buildings Applications in Infrastructure Concrete Testing & Failure Modes Case Study Focus: The Hoover Dam	Reinforcement concepts & composite behavior Concrete structural systems Foundations and substructure considerations Construction methods and quality control (non-actionable overview) Repair, retrofitting, and strengthening (principles) Codes, standards & specifications Concrete in urban infrastructure Forensic investigation & failure analysis Durable design & resilience to natural hazards
Module 3: Concrete as a Defensive Tool in Urban Warfare 🛡️ History of Fortifications Principles of Structural Hardening Ballistic & Blast Resistance Anti-Vehicle Obstacles Field Fortifications Urban Strongpoints Case Study Focus: The Atlantic Wall	Blast, impact, and progressive collapse (conceptual overview) Historical uses of concrete in urban conflict Non-constructive defensive measures & protection planning Humanitarian, legal, and ethical frameworks Detection, mitigation, and emergency response Urban planning & the built environment’s strategic effects
Module 4: Breaching and Countering Concrete in Urban Offensives 💥 Mechanical Breaching Explosive Breaching Anti-Structure Munitions Tactics in the “Concrete Jungle” Weaponizing Rubble Rapid Obstacle Creation Case Study Focus: The Second Battle of Fallujah (2004)	Materials innovation & future directions Risk assessment, lifecycle cost, and sustainability Case studies and cross-disciplinary lessons Communication, reporting & interagency coordination Ethical capstone project & policy recommendations
	Total study hours (approximate, conceptual learning + reading + case studies): 180–260 hours. At 1 hour/day: ~180–260 days. At 2 hours/day: ~90–130 days. This range assumes self-directed study using the free ChatGPT for explanations, suggested readings, discussion prompts, and conceptual exercises; it does not assume hands-on labs, formal courses, or professional supervision.

Hot Takes

Gemini clearly provides a more concise and organized route to learning while ChatGPT offers a plethora of chapters to pull from a la carte. The real kicker is the time estimations – not sure I have half a year to spend learning about concrete!

While ChatGPT might be massaged into a more concise few-week casual study, the organizational structure is lacking too. There is a mix of topics without a clear overarching focus, while clear objectives are present in Gemini.

Gemini seems to be the place to start, ChatGPT used as a tutor or source of questioning on topics Gemini left out of its abridged version.

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Nifty! I am happy to know that these LLMs can help put together a study plan on topics I have interest in. Heck, I might even need to stop at the store for a bag of cement mix! Though starting with a notebook may be the easiest case.

The other areas of study are very much looked forward to. Should I find something especially cool in this concrete work or the AI used to deliver it, you will be the first to know! Cheers to your own explorations ~

Live Enough to Die With Zero

Die With Zero by Bill Perkins is one if not the top book of mine read in 2024. As a guy who has spent years coming to grips with finance, retirement, et. al, this one book changed my views of money fundamentally.

I hope Die With Zero will change your views too.

Will You Die With Zero?

The principles of the book are keen, yet they lack a tool to apply them to.

I made one to check if I would or could die with $0 left over in the bank. Cleaning that sheet up, here is a generic copy for you and your friends to check where you are now (money in, money out, net worth), where you are going (interest, growth), and how you too might live a life full enough to die with zero (life expectancy, retirement).

Make a copy to check it out yourself: Die With Zero Example

Remember, the goal is to live a full life so you can die with as close to $0 as possible – you can’t take it with you. Read the book for more excellent insight as regards to inheritance, lifestyles, and health!

Other Finance Heuristics

The above is a pretty plain tool, yet in an afternoon it can give insights to if a person is on the right saving and spending path.

It is certainly better than the over-simple “expenses x 25” (a 4% nest-egg withdraw rate estimate), “expenses x 33” (~3% withdraw), or “expenses x years-to-Social-Security” (an early retirement guess-timate).

That, or the “nothing is as good or bad as it seems, hedge 33%” (though this could shore up some extra security at end of life).

Let’s not forget the survival estimate using SS Social Security, which is “.7 x (years-to-SS x expenses + [end-of-life-age – age-to-start-SS] x SS-estimate)” – kinda icky.

If you really want to get into the weeds, spend a day with Finance Mentor or Projection Lab (I have no affiliation with either – I just like the apps). These go through details and life possibilities with much more advanced simulations, but they will not matter unless you are closer to or just had a major life event (e.g. divorce, lottery win, settlement, child, vast cost-of-living change, etc.).

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Comment what you think about the tool. Do all or most of these calculations show you have secured your future? Great! Count yourself freed from need – these tools exist to work for you, not you to exist to work.

Cheers to you making it through the finish line while making a grand time of it ~

Convince Others of Your Worth

Recently, I have been chatting with some folks who are in positions to give me compensation for the value I historically would bring to them (per annum, millions of dollars, perhaps even lives).

AKA interviews 😂

While passing tests and getting along great as people, I keep needing to do what you too must see on a frequent basis: convince others of your worth.

I have the $$$ figures, I have the historic evidence, I have the rapport, yet I need a little help from experts.

Some experts on the arts of negotiation and selling oneself have been visited before in Devaluing Your Worth and What Is Your Work Worth?. Those insights are gathered here with new insights sprinkled in that I have negotiated tens-of-thousands of compensation for.

So read on – it will only be 15-20 minutes. This bit of prep could help land you enough to make all the difference. Here goes:

Value Yourself

First off, you need to know what your value actually is – without that, you have nothing, the same as your value in another person’s eyes.

So convince yourself of your worth first: understand how many years of experience you have for a given role, the skills you bring, how and how fast you learn, and the quantities of cash and cash-equivalents (time savings) you have brought to other roles.

That done, figure out what is a fair compensation range for that role. This can be found through:

Bureau of Labor Statistics
- What should be the be-all, end-all source of compensation data, BLS is a treasure trove of data. By role, by industry, by state, and by county, medians and averages and other data are everywhere. It can be a chore to navigate – the effort will be worth it!
Glassdoor
- The most common work resource on the internet. Besides researching the company being talked with (reviews, history, and interview topics), Glassdoor houses a vast collection of salary and total-compensation for cities, roles, and roles at the company.
  - NOTE: Glassdoor will track your use and after the first page you view, it will require you to sign in to view more. While contributing to the Glassdoor community is a valuable way to give back, it can also be annoying.
    
    Instead, do all your Glassdoor searching in a private/incognito window. When the page blocks you, copy the URL, close the entire private/incognito browser, then reopen the browser, navigating to that copied URL. Voilà!
Levels.fyi
- Largely tech-focused, this site’s deep breakdown of different companies, roles, and cities for both general and specific job titles (e.g. “software engineer” vs. “L4”) is invaluable.
Stack Overflow
- More of a software resource than general, it provides a great, easy-to-read walkthrough of reported data, something you can learn from in reference to other data providers.

Other resources like Salary.com or industry-specific reports like the annual report from the Game Developers Conference (GDC) can be great for pulling additional data points.

From the above, collect the averages and medians of both salary and total compensation (dealing with those in the next section). If there are multiple results, take them all. Put everything into a Google or Excel Sheet – you will need it >_>

Example: Throughout this article, we will reference a fictional role that, after calculation, comes to $98,765 base salary, $123,456 total compensation.

These terms are investigated later, but now you have the details!

More Than Just Cash

Now you have a collection of average and median $$$ figures, a bunch of base salaries and total compensation packages. Here, we need to find what amount of compensation comes from things other than a paycheck.

Usually, total comp refers only to base salary, annual bonus, and stock grants/options. “Cash is King,” as is said, but for many, the additional bonus and stock can be the linchpins in the agreement.

Bonus and stock can be viewed as cash equivalents – not as good as cash, but within a margin of error, can bring major payouts later on a yearly or quarterly basis. Sometimes it can be cash-in-pocket right away – signing bonuses with lenient claw-back terms should be considered as a cash bonus in the offer.

With the numbers you have, look at the whole package of salary, bonus, and stock when the offers come in – any other benefit is gravy. This does not decrease the value of PTO (sick and vacation, approximate value of 2% of base pay per 5-days/1-week; assume “unlimited” is 15 days or 6% of base pay, i.e. 3 weeks before someone starts asking), work from home, or other benefits – it only means that we can judge like with like, salary-bonus-stock numbers compared with the offer of salary-bonus-stock.

But how much does salary and everything else make up total compensation?

Simple: You have salary and total comp numbers from the previous section. Divide salary by total comp in each pair, and get an average and median – this will give two numbers in percentile of how much salary should be making up the total offer package. Since cash is king, pick the higher percent (i.e. expect a higher salary right away vs. waiting a year for benefits to kick in).

Example: $98,765 is the base salary, while $123,456 is the total comp.
$98,765 / $123,456 = .8, or, 80% (round up if needed)
Therefore: Expect base salary to be 80% of total comp.

Total Comp * Percent = Base Salary

Keep this percent for later.

Update Your Numbers

Setting salary aside, bring out the total compensation numbers so we may calculate the total range of value your work is worth!

Adjust all the total comp numbers by the rate of inflation, rounding up to the nearest 5% (e.g. 8.9% = 10%). We do this because virtually all data will be a year (or more!) old.

Next, whenever using general resources that apply to the entire nation (e.g. “X in the USA” vs. “X at Y company, in Z city”), adjust those numbers by the cost of living in your city.

CoL can be found online. I am partial to Best Places to determining my city compared to the national level, e.g. Las Vegas is +11.6% as of August 2022. Best Places, Nerd Wallet, and Numbeo all have excellent city-to-city calculators too (if there is a difference between them when you research, take the number best for you).

(Use the city-to-city calculations later if considering work in another city, but only if the result is higher than what you already have!)

Example: $123,456 is the calculated total. Assuming inflation is 10% and the position would be onsite or remote in Las Vegas, the CoL is 12%, the new total comp is:

$123,456 * 1.1 * 1.12 = 152,097.792, or, $152,098

Aim High to Make Fair

Adjusted numbers in hand, get them down to just 4. Plug the numbers into this grid:

Average of the Averages	Median of the Averages
Average of the Medians	Median of the Medians

Comp Number Breakdown

These numbers define what you ought expect as a total comp floor from any offer.

The lowest number in the grid is your secret floor. If desperate, you can accept offers just above this value, but for pity sake, accept nothing lower. Tell no-one this number. Cool?

Take a look at the highest number in the grid. That number is your quoted floor, the bottom offer – this is what you will tell folks when they ask “what is your range?” Round up to the nearest thousand. Do your utmost to stay away from this median.

Medians are mediocre. I trust you bring more than a mediocre value.

Time to aim high, getting us closer to the 75% percentile in wages. We do this because it helps inflation-proof your compensation, improves the performance rewards you ought be getting for a good job, it helps prevent a company from low-balling you, helps your peers in the field by demanding a higher wage, and saves your self respect.

What’s not to like?

Anyway, take your bottom number. Multiply it by 15%, 18% if feeling confident. Round that up to the nearest $5K. That is now the top of your range.

Example: Assume $152,098 is our lowest of the 4 values. The highest value is $156,789 (round to thousands).

$152,098 is the secret floor. Acceptable if the company is great, the work good, you would like to work right away, and you and your boss have a plan to review that number in a few months.

$157,000 is the bottom range. Told to prospects.

$157,000 * 1.15 = 180,550, or, $185,000 is your top range. You sell yourself near or above this number.

The Reveal

You have your top and bottom range, a secret floor, and salary percentage. While you never reveal your floor, contrary to this section title, you try, try, try not to reveal your range.

Why?

Keep the employer honest – they ought give you a range expectation for a role first, especially if they reached out to you first. Who knows – they may give you a higher total comp range than you calculated! (This gets touched on later.)

This section though is about when your casual efforts have failed and the employer stonewalls you on the value of your labor. So it is your turn – after giving the context that this is the reasonable range for your experience, the role, and other factors, reveal your range.

Example: “After researching the role and the value I am bringing to it on places like Glassdoor, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and industry reports, a reasonable total compensation range would be $157 to $185, though with my proven career of success, I feel I would fall closer to the top of this range.”

If the person you are talking to balks, you walk. If the person says anything but no, you have the door open 🙂

Even if the employer mentions they likely could not hit the top of the range, they now know your bottom, and are more inclined to meet well above the bottom knowing your expectation of more!

What Is Your Base?

Many times, recruiters haven’t done the homework to figure out what their company is offering in total. When you give your total comp reveal, this may leave them confused. Here is where you save the day:

After the other person expresses they don’t know total comp or need a salary range, you can provide the base salary of your bottom and top numbers using the percentage calculated before.

Easy! So long as you remind them that these are flexible numbers depending on the extra benefits – total comp is always the goal, your personal value placing you squarely at the top of the range.

Example: The total comp range (in thousands) is $157 to $185. The calculated base salary is 80% of total.

Therefore, the base salary range is ~$126 ($157 * .8) to ~$148 ($185 * .8).

(Rounding up, as always.)

Wrap It Up

Find numbers from resources: BLS, Glassdoor, Levels.fyi, etc.
Calculate base pay percent from total comp: base / total
Update numbers for inflation and CoL.
Pick the highest numbers as your bottom total comp, saving the lowest numbers as a secret floor.
Calculate top total comp: bottom comp * 1.15
You now have your secret floor and bottom-to-top total comp range.
Calculate a soft, flexible base salary range for those in need:
1. Bottom: bottom comp * base pay percent
2. Top: top comp * base pay percent
You now have your flexible base pay; this is a guide since total comp is the goal.

Nifty, eh?

But what good is knowing your worth if they won’t realize that value?

That’s where negotiation comes in.

Negotiate Like Your Life Depends on It

Your life really will depend on your negotiation. From misplaced time to opportunity cost, you must negotiate – it is one of the most important things you must learn to do.

While I am only a student myself, here is the best I’ve gleamed:

Get a range during the first screen / conversation. Get the other party to reveal a range first if possible; otherwise, give yours and specify how you land at the top of the well-researched range.
Kick behind during the interviews – this is non-negotiable. Study, rest, eat well, destress, clear your calendar. Brush your teeth, wash, dress fine. Smile, mind your manners.
When the offer comes, express your thanks that they considered to give you an offer, and all the time they have invested so far. However:
1. Offer is above your goal: Great news! Do not show your elation. Instead, explain you have learned through the interview that the role is worth more than originally estimated. Maybe it is responsibility, requirements, or near-future challenges – see how far north it can go with salary, bonus, stock, and signing compensation. (Don’t negotiate too hard here – you have already ‘won,’ so congrats! Anything else is icing on the cake.)
2. Offer is well below your goal: Oof. While you do not get flustered (take a breath!), verbally gasp or suck in air through your teeth. After thanks, let them know that this is well below the market asking price for a person of your skill and that the offer is very far off of expectations.
3. Offer is around your goal: OK. It is close. Let the other party know this. Ask how the offer might meet expectations. Let them figure out how to meet your value – if they need help, suggest that you all look at non-salary benefits, such as bonus, stock, signing, and extra weeks of PTO to make up the difference.
Be quiet. Silence. After making a statement, shut up. Let the other side fill the void. They may give you more information or negotiate against themselves.
Walk the offer along. When the offer is below the top range, walk that top range down to the bottom. Choose a way to do this beforehand:
1. Ackerman Model/Technique: T is the top of the range. B is the bottom. T-B is the difference D you work with. “B + D” is the “T” you initially aim for.
  1. Zeroth offer: T
  2. First offer: B + (D * .35)
  3. Second offer: B + (D * .15)
  4. Third offer: B + (D * .05)
  5. Fourth: B
  6. (Give thanks, but offer no more after this.)
2. Aggressive Technique: Something I have used before. T is top range, B is bottom, D is the difference in between:
  1. Zeroth offer: T
  2. First offer: B + (D * .6)
  3. Second offer: B + (D * .3)
  4. Third offer: B + (D * .1)
  5. Fourth: B
  6. (Give thanks, but walk after this unless the job is needed and the secret floor is met.)
Be prepared to walk away. Those that can leave the table have leverage; those who cannot are slave to whatever the other party wishes.

All of this is barely skimming the surface level of understanding, demonstrating, communicating, and convincing others of your worth. It is at least a start.

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Those are my tools! Now those are your tools too ~

Like ideas or drafts, the first offers may not be up to snuff. Stay patient, friends, as best you can. Your situation is undoubtedly different from mine – no matter what it is, use these tools to convince others of your worth. Stick to it, k?

Here is to your gains and your greatness! Share with me your success stories and own methods for achieving your value. Cheers for now ~

More Than Ouch: Managing Pain

Let me write about pain, namely its management. ~~Two~~ Three months in, at least a few more to go, I approach this subject as a case study, as a patient. This is not medical advice, but the experience of pain.

From the Doc

The staff in the hospitals various offer two solutions to pain:

Take pharmaceutical aids, and
Find physical and/or occupational therapy.

While I am sure the Hippocratic Oath is strong in the practitioners, pain at home is a whole different ballgame than the drugged and supervised boredom of the hospital.

Of course take your meds – Stoicism here is not in enduring the pain, but staying disciplined in your pain management schedule and overall recovery. Yet as you too might discover is that constant work may be inconvenient and the pills are delayed or overwhelmed.

For when the typical advice fails, we look elsewhere:

Second Opinion

My virtual mentor Doctor Andrew Huberman delivered a podcast just in time for my case. Talking with Dr. Sean Mackey, they covered a fantastic range of pain management strategies and tactics I combined with some self-discovery made on the first hospital visit:

Smile
- While it may be more of a grimace, smiles release endorphins and ease pain.
Touch / See / Remember Loved Ones
- More feel-good brain chemicals in this. For me, it was images of an amazing cat, text check-ins, and visits with friends. I will visit any friend local-hospital bound daily from here out.
Distraction
- Netflix, podcasts, leg jiggles – do not let the mind dwell on and amplify the pain. This also applies to causing pain elsewhere on the body to redirect focus.
Walk
- Be ambulatory. Take light exercise as permitted. This improves pain tolerance.
“Hurt, Not Harm”
- Repeat as a mantra. Nothing is as bad or swell as perceived. This too shall pass. I vouch for this method since I chanted to great benefit while pacing a few hours one night.
Plain Food
- You might hate it, but I swear you will despise the pain more. A few areas: lower your sodium intake, avoid lactose and other inflammators, and for the love of sanity, do not take supplements that aggravate the condition (e.g. creatine drawing water into my wounded area).
Interruption
- Get in front of the nerve signal: tapping and rubbing between the pain point and the brain overrides worse sensations.

Off to a great start. TMI: After so far three each of hospitalizations, surgeries, and months, I have developed and adopted far more to save my very soul from the sensations this body has wrought:

Selfcare of Pain

Morphine
- Always say “yes” when on offer.
Schedule
- Stick to the taking-of-pain-management timeline no matter external factors.
Cell Phone Charger
- Do not leave home without it, even to the ER. I assume you have a cell – its educational, connection, and entertainment potential is without par for making time fly (or slightly more bearable). Bonus points for earbuds to not be an ass to others in the vicinity when sound plays.
Advocacy
- You are you own best cheerleader – act like it. Educate yourself, understand all the what, why, how, when, and who. Know or it is a “no” – do not tolerate non-emergency surprises and get comfortable telling strangers to back-the-f-off while they explain themselves. Be kind yet firm, ready to engage in your own care, and despise incompetence or a flippancy towards responsibility.
Towel
- I never had to bite a towel for pain before. Glad it was there. When you wake without medication and an exposed… medical situation, you will be glad for a towel too.
Drain It
- As able, raise, remove blood, and secure the area for immobility. Starve the nerves of reason and means to fire.
Secure Space
- Save the need to decide while making a tough life easier by making a space your own. For me, that has been a pillow fort offering comfort, stability, options to configure and reposition, and a divorce of ill from the places I hope to enjoy post recovery.
$$$
- Apply for your disability and any financial support services applicable. Better: live a life of financial studiousness before harm; “in peace, prepare for war.” Money may not take away the physical pain but it will make other life pains so much easier or unnecessary.
Sleep
- Do it. Even if conscious, stay still unless feeding, keeping hygiene, or exercising.
Don’t Look
- Surgery, wounds, injection sites… Let the work be done by professionals without you rubbernecking at it too.

–

Pain really f-king sucks. And its management can really suck too – the #1 duty in such a situation is to stabilize and minimize the need for such care.

Needless, heedless suffering would seem to be the primordial evil. With these tools, I hope you do not suffer as much and for as long.

Cheers to our recoveries ~

Dollars & DNA: The Great Relationship Pivots

Humans are social animals. We make and need relationships. This is fact.

Yet what do those relationships revolve around? Ultimately, why is there an “us” at all?

From anthropology to the personal memoirs of the famous, from news headlines to crimes of passion, there seems to be but two pivots: Dollars and DNA.

Dollars

Not restricted to greenbacks, this topic instead refers to property, to capacity, to resource.

How do people survive in nature (urban or outback) to participate in relationships? Resources – food, water, shelter, et. al.

How do people show they are worthy of investing in a relationships? Resources – fine clothes, flashy wares, higher qualities all around, excess.

How do people keep the relationships they have alive? Resources – sharing, fortifications against the environment, individual specialization for the collective benefit, abundance enough to be able to afford time bonding.

DNA

Not going into the details here – suffice to say no-one and nothing is alive today without the required drive to immortalize DNA being at the root nature of our ancestors.

Relationships bring people together. When people are together, DNA, aka genes, – from gut biomes to sickness to other things less general-audience-appropriate – gets exchanged.

Whether enjoying another person’s time, attention, looks, or potential, the brain chemicals that foster relationships only exist to assist in the binding of new gene sequences.

Children

In the classic structure of male-female relationships, the male tends to be on the hook for not just enough resources for self, but enough to share; the female, the potential for both parties to immortalize their DNA in the form of children.

But humans cannot raise (and in many cases, deliver) a child on their own. Human babes are helpless for an inordinate amount of time, requiring dedicated caretaking by one parent. So like birds incubating eggs, at least one other in a relationship must provide their excess resources to the parent caring for the child(ren).

While different sexes each are gauged on different merits of what they bring to the table*, biology and anthropology prove consistent: Relationships develop from the demonstration of having either the resources or the potential gene-propagating-capacity to produce children and support those children into self-sufficiency.

* All sexes can provide resources in modern economies, while all sexes can also leverage modern technology to propagate their DNA. A partner or partner capable of assisting with resources or DNA is not required, though is no easy path.

–

Life and luxury equate when it comes to developing relationships. Time and genes attract goods and services, and vice versa. From that attraction comes relationship-building. From swell relationships comes time together or high levels of feel-good emotion. From exposure or passion comes the ever-increasing chance of, well, children, the timeless binding of the dollars and the DNA around which all relationships pivot.

This line of thinking struck me other other day – so it goes concerning insight and muses. Like most ideas, I tried to find a way for relationships to form other than the resources dollars represent and gene-potential, but I am at a loss 🤷‍♂️

If you have ideas or insights, let me know so as to update this post! In the meantime, let not these baser points lessen the joy you find in others and yourself – those feelings and experiences are real, so revel. Cheers to you and yours!

All the Details on Dating I Have

As a numbers guy, I am a Maximizer who adores applying quantities for the qualities that make others and myself feel the best.

When I came across a bunch of heuristics that psychologists and front-line academics in the field of relationship science use, I rejoiced! In a few simple steps, a formula emerged to determine not only the most healthy of general relationships, but the strongest that have happened that future relationships can live up to.

The benefit for you comes in a copy of the Google Sheet algorithm! Packed with the learnings from 2023 and beyond, it will help you understand where your best relationships have been, where your current relationships are, and what to build towards for the future.

The Best Relationships Google Sheet (File -> Make a Copy)

I urge you to make a copy, do some reflection, and check the boxes that apply to you. It ought correlate with the best relationships you have had (high scores, green!) and ID the ‘meh’ interactions we all have some of in life (low scores, red!).

This also keeps us honest: the heat of honeymoon-butterfly-feelings, ignoring elephants in the room, sticking to higher standards and ideals, being realistic of what kind of person we can expect to find in the world given our experiences – all comes to light with authentic expectations and authentic fact-finding.

How has the alg affected me? I have improved the average of relationships by 11 basis points. I read even more literature on how to better the alg and my personal criteria. I show up intentionally from the very first impression. I do not do things when they jeopardize long-term goals or are otherwise dishonest to my life-long self. I have a better resistance to FOMO. I know better what I want and how to ask the questions that may answer those expectations.

(Just to name a few – expect this to benefit you too!)

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Thanks for visiting, folks! Valentines Day is coming up – how is your current relationship or relationship set doing? Are you being true to your life-long self? The sheet above will help you double check your gut-check 🙂

Always looking for feedback – if you have sets of criteria (4-7 ish) that have come from elites in the realm of psychology, pass them along! It will make my life more assured and improve the lives of many others when I update them on Google. Plan is to add Esther Perel and the Gottman’s at some point.

Side note: Feeling lonely this cuffing season? Take heart – the shared sheet ought give you hope that quality people do exist in the world. Whether they are a romantic option or not at this place and time is a matter of iteration – get your ‘reps’ in by meeting folks and learning as much as you can about them and yourself along the way ❤

Look forward to happier living, folks. Cheers to identifying your best relationships ~

Every Tool in the Kit: Decide Like You Mean It

I am a Maximizer – give me all the data so I can make informed choices.

100% certainty is never a realistic option, so while I do not settle, I must aim to suffice.

The process of finding out what is sufficient is sometimes easy – like glancing at a nutrition label – and other times an insufficient system can make for the hardest decision of one’s career.

You have seen other posts on how to decide and this time I want to give you my full toolset (as of now) plus a real-life decision I needed to make. That decision:

To move to a rural location that would benefit me financially and my working team (RURAL), or stay in an expensive land of opportunity I just moved to not 6 months before (CITY)?

Distilled from my journal with only the barest of obfuscation of location and specific details, this is your guide to decide:

Before It All: Remember Yourself

Prime yourself with the principles you live by, the few hills you will die (kill?) for. Some of mine:

Don’t be greedy.
Be more selfish.
No.
This too shall pass.
Ends make the means.
Wait for no one.
Suffering Is.
Be no bigger advocate for another as they are for themselves.
Life is short and then we die.

These I aim to always keep in mind, so were not applied directly to the RURAL-CITY decision.

Run the Numbers

Money is important to me – it is the best means to many ends. Any sober, reasoning person will agree that money plays a star role in life.

Monthly expense and income numbers let me understand what I can expect where I am. Using a Cost of Living (CoL) calculator like NerdWallet or Numbeo, I can get the difference of how much it typically costs to live where I am vs where I might go. Cost of Living affects expenses.

Googling an income tax calculator will tell you the effective tax rate. Effective income tax affects take-home income.

Take-home minus expenses is the profit you keep for choosing to live in a certain place, have a certain lifestyle, and work doing a certain thing for a certain company.

More profit is objectively a better. Point earned for wherever, whatever increases profit.

Take-home Income – Expenses = Profit

Note: Annual or Monthly, it does not matter so long as the time used is consistent.

CITY has a tax of 32.54% (includes federal and state). CoL: +49% (1.49) national average
RURAL is taxed at 25.36%. CoL: -9% (.91)
I have current spending as C-Expenses in the CITY.

Gross Income * .6746 – C-Expenses = e.g. ~$1000 CITY
Gross Income * .7464 – (C-Expenses * 91 / 149) = e.g. ~$1700 RURAL

RURAL is extra profitable, nearly doubly so. Even assuming one-time moving costs, that money is made up very quickly. GO!
A good place to be in. (Result numbers for example only – math not double-checked, like should that 1700 be 3955? 🤷‍♂️)

Why does profit matter? In one way, it does not: lifestyle ought not inflate with additional profit – that should be funneled back into the business of a lifetime, not a lifestyle. That lifetime, those future “yous” for the next 10, 30, 60, 100 years, will suffer less for the profit kept now – that makes chasing profit a very good thing to do.

Full Body “YES”

Head: Money is good. I would be a big fish in a little pond. Growing location. GO!

Heart: I like my place and my friends and all I have going for me. STAY!

Gut: I do not want little towns – grew up enough with those. Move again, start again? STAY!

Groin: Adventure! New starts! Better commitments! GO!

STAY seems to be the word of the day – my body holds out on taking the RURAL decision.

Occam’s Simple Decision

Staying is a simple decision. Yet…

Going fulfills overarching goals, clears my way. Financial Independence makes all else easier or unnecessary.

Right now, STAY is the simpler, yet an eye to the future means to GO.

(This is similar to “what makes all else simpler or unnecessary,” a tool lifted from Tim Ferriss that analyzes if a more complex/difficult short-term decision bags a net simpler life. Most Qs here are heavily influenced by if not a direct clone of Tim’s toolkit.)

Leads to More Opportunity / Options / Life?

CITY is full of opportunity. People, networks.

CITY gives the options now, but RURAL has lots of options later.

CITY is exciting and a fuller life.

STAY – it opens doors and enables me to rally with the best.

As a virtual mentor puts it, get to a city to rally with the best.

Imagine Making the Decision; How Do You Feel Now?

Go RURAL?

I would feel like I was betraying some folks – arrangements left, distance decaying what I have built in the CITY. More money makes lines go up – a swell thing. It removes direct oversight in the CITY, granting flexibility or reprieve. A resigned feel lies with me – leaving does not feel relieving.

Do it if wanting a restart and / or needing less stress and / or losing my network.

Stay CITY?

I am letting a few people in the business down. I look forward to getting to build my established social life. I enjoy the water, but hold anxiety for what is next. The stress…

Do it if stress is managed (water plays as big part) and / or network continues to grow.

Pro-Con List

(An item cannot just be the lack of being on the other list, i.e. a positive on the GO list is not a negative on the STAY list.)

Go Pro	Go Con
Big fish	Small town
Pay	Leaves network
Years off of retirement	Leaves friends
Less stress	[Poor] airports
Commitment psychology
Importance to the team
Better office
Fewer social disturbances

RURAL

Stay Pro	Stay Con
Develop network	Eventually move out / away from water
Water	Commute
Simple choice
Chemistry / vibe
Concerts / culture
Medical resources

CITY

STAY! But barely, leaving me with more questions on the decision than I feel answers.

Ask Why / What-For x5

Asking the Qs of each answer previous:

Why go RURAL? What for?

Asked by the team for its positive impact.
To gain money and prestige.
To be independent and secure.
To work on my things without the anxiety of falling behind.
To regain the sense of control and chill felt in childhood.

Why stay in the CITY? What for?

Simple decision left up to me.
Delayed answering of ‘where to live,’ ‘what to do,’ ‘who to meet.’
I like comfort and staying delays or negates hard conversations and choices.
I like knowing outcomes, answers.
Knowing is power and I am a coward to be powerless (or, irrational?).

Oof – getting deep. I like neither answer, yet I dislike CITY’s answer less.

What Do Your Virtual Mentors Say?

(What I know of these folks, advising in their voice.)

Tim Ferriss: GO – what is the worst case? The best?

Aaron Marino: GO – make an impact and do not let others hold you back.

Scott Galloway: STAY – get to a city (or stay in one!) and get rich slowly.

Andrew Huberman: STAY – you seem not very convicted to GO.

No help here either – I ought have asked more folks!

Fear Setting, Fear Achieving

For each decision option, explore the best realistic case, the all-too-real worst case, and what could be done to cap the downsides:

GO, the Best: Money rolling in. Many new connections with me, the big-city intellectual. Financial gains and I make off like a bandit.

GO, the Worst: RURAL sucks. Small town sucks. I make no friends of my colleagues. There is little to do in yucky weather. I have lost the network formed in CITY for little gain. (And I add, what of any need for medical care? Does not look as swell.)

GO, Cap: Travel. Maintain long-distance networks. Start activities with colleagues. Be the social butterfly. Get on Meetup et. al again. Take up projects and get back into solo activities (e.g. games).

STAY, the Best: Grow long-term network. Form friendships and a community. Get to know the CITY and experience culture in all new ways. Experiment with the beach, dance, entertainment, and other forms of life. Finances pop without RURAL and I continue on the path of FI.

STAY, the Worst: I must move off the beach to both a lower quality and higher cost of residence. I wreck my network. Finances tumble and I am stuck. I cannot keep up with demands and scrutiny as they are. My team and the company moves on without me.

STAY, Cap: Ask for network growth. Keep scrutinizing values and time and effort. Get assurances for housing. Optimize the work. (And I add, I can always choose to move later!)

–

In the end, I have decided to stay in the CITY, with a quarterly review of the opportunity value of staying or going. For such a large life change, deliberation is required!

This toolkit has come a long way since 2021 – I look to grow it, improve it, apply it always.

What are your heuristics and go-to methods for making decisions? What did you think of this “how the sausage is made” look at my journal and more?

Tell me what’s up in the comments and cheers to your new year here ~

Food: Valued for Its Fuel, Form, Faith, and Fellowship

Who doesn’t think of food?

No one, that’s who. Nothing alive stays alive if it lacks the concern for its sustenance.

Humans are weird, though. We have an excess of food in this most bountiful time in history, enough to waste and spend lives towards merely the experience of it. We like to put meaning into things too. We are social creatures that seek bonding even while feeding.

This got me on the meta-thinking of what is food to us? Come with me as I drive recklessly (using a lot of car metaphors) to explore the four values of food.

Fuel

Like a high performance car, the human bio-machine runs better on energy derived from higher quality fuel.

But the car won’t run and the body does not care for the quality if there is a lack of a sufficient quantity.

No living thing exists without seeking a bare minimum of fuel. People – surrounded by a glut of pure energy, but most of low quality – at this time have the opportunity and sometimes the drive to optimize the fuel we consume.

Form

The look and feel and vibe of a car speaks to the overall experience of interacting with the vehicle. Humans do this with a bunch of stuff – art, sports, clothes, food.

Plating, presentation, smell, texture, temperature, taste, and even the history of the dish feeds into the form people seek. Ultimately pure pleasure, the form of food – like cars – make it pleasing to witness and partake in.

Faith

Like a car brand, faith that a certain food or method of making food or eating food is valuable to billions across the planet.

Sometimes faith pairs with the value of fuel – this particular eat may not save a soul, but it could save and enlighten the body, fulfill the morals of the mind or all humankind.

So like the faith a particular car or fuel is right (at least right for the person considering it), opinions on food become a matter of faith to most who seek to study themselves or the matter of food.

Fellowship

Lastly, cars bring people together. Whether merely being a car owner (a virtual necessity in most of the United States) or being really into cars (whatever flavor that takes), cars bond people in fellowship for a shared element of being alive.

A similar kinship exists for food. We all need to eat. The communal meal (communion) is common in every human culture in every point of history, along with multiple non-human species.

Food provides an excuse to socialize with little fear of rejection (unless someone is ready to die on a different hill / value). Working while eating is often considered rude, so bringing focus to companions is encouraged. The resources to make food are often concentrated (ingredients, storage, tools, place kept clean specifically to dine), forcing people together (if not just for the warmth of the hearth!). Food is pleasurable, thus aiding the benefits of bonding in the Mere Exposure Effect.

Just as when someone does not drive, has not driven, and does not own a car, society asks, “what is the matter with you?” The same goes for food and eating together – to ask to eat together is a bid of fellowship that ought not lightly be discarded.

–

Fuel, Form, Faith, and Fellowship.

I tried really hard to find more – being stuck on Fuel, Form, and Fellowship, the intimacy of Faith was the only one that arose after weeks. That said, if you understand what values a person holds about food, you will know how to meet them on that level. (Think of it as similar to languages of affection – touch, time, words, service, and gifts.)

What do you value food as? I am a stalwart Fuel and becoming also a Fellowship kind-of-guy, with Form being my biggest “meh.”

Let me know! Cheers to all the food shared between you and yours ~

Top 10 of 2023

Every Friday a new post popped up here on JimmyChattin.com – while not all of the same quality, the best rise to the top while past-years’ evergreen content stays as green as ever. Here is your guide to the top 10 of 2023:

10. Lasers + Shields = Boom in Dune

Y’all are nerds. This evergreen post from 2019 dives into the napkin-math explaining how devastating lasers and shields function in the Dune universe.

9. Rewriting: Halo 4

One of my favorite applications of the 6-point story structure of successful Halo stories caught some people’s eyes. The article breaks down what happened in the Halo 4 game, how it deviated from the tried-and-true point structure for narrative, and suggests how the game could have gotten on track while foretelling what could have come in Halo 5 (which didn’t, correlating with the series’ downward trend in reception).

8. A Trinity of RPG Classes

Short and sweet, the blog outlines how Tank, DPS, and Support are the three core classes all other classes derive from in roleplaying games. Edits included from a healthy discussion on LinkedIn after publication.

7. The Best of This Modern Relationship Guide: Make It Happen

Author Logan Ury is such a boss. How Not to Die Alone is in the top-5 of relationship books you need to have read. This part 1 gives the same advice I gave a stranger to get them a second date – get educated and do better in your relationships by putting in the work of reading this article ~

Already have a relationship? Head to part 2!

6. Tribe of Mentors: A Share of Value

A set of superb Qs with very considered answers. Some of the closest-to-heart and best-advice I could come up with at writing.

5. #PaidMe2023

Who knew having access to unobscured financial data proves to be useful?

Continuing the 2020 trend, I share salary data for industry, geo-location, and role.

4. How to Price Your RPG

Data on the best-selling tabletop roleplaying games shows a nifty pattern on how to price RPGs. Refer here when you are considering publishing your own games!

3. Chat With an AI: ChatGPT

2022 was the dawn of regular-use AI. In 2023, I sat down to explore the capabilities of the machine on topics from relationships, universal truths, and sentience.

2. Bringing d20 Poly-Dice to 2d6

Sometimes a person could use a handy-dandy conversion of one dice set’s probabilities into another. Here is my guide for mating D20 and 2D6 systems together.

1. Eight Dates Essential to You and Yours

The Gottmans and their world-class institute have paved the way for modern psychology as it comes to couples. Touching on only a smidgen of their research, Eight Dates outlines decades of work into principles that can build and maintain the strongest of bonds.

Return of a Grimdark Favorite

BITS of Mörk Borg remains off this list because it had 3x the total views of the next contender. #1 in 2022 too, I still do not know what is driving so much interest in the post 🤷‍♂️

Give it a read – you might find out the spice that is a spiked-flail-to-the-face that is this game.
🔥🤘💀🤘🔥

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Many 2022 posts are back with some friends going as far as 2019. Clearly, out of all the posts this year, I must encourage you to read these top-tier works.

Some last-minute honorables: A divorce lawyer’s guide to not messing relationships up and rewriting Halo 5.

Want to keep learning? Spy on 2021’s and 2020’s best posts. Cheers to finding something for you and yours ~