alchemist
2yr ago
I use uBlock Origins, which is very good for websites, I think, but doesn't seem to do anything for YouTube. Any recommendations?
alchemist
2yr ago
I've taken a beating, down 20-25% or so I'd say, mainly due to being seriously overweight in the tech sector (company stock), compounded by generally being tech bullish. I have some diversification, including some energy funds, so that's helped a bit, but not a lot. Still I'd gone up a lot over the last N years, so I can't really complain.
I have bought in a bit more occasionally on the way down, and considering doing more, but it will be slowly and carefully, no 3x ETFs you madman! For various tax reasons, it generally makes much more sense for me to buy single stocks now, which sucks (broad ETFs is the way to go!) so I'm looking at things like INTC, GOOG, APPL, MSFT, AMD, MRNA, BTI, BRK.B (those last two as counterweights to the tech heaviness).
alchemist
2yr ago
I think you could make an amazing adult series out of Malazan or the Black company, but the writing wouldn't be easy. The former is crazy complicated. The Lies of Lock Lamore could work too.
For kids ... I like someone else's idea of an animated series in the Harry Potter world. I haven't read them for a long time, but Dragonriders of Pern, Xanth, and the Riftwar saga seem good. A more modern source would be The Ranger's Apprentice series.
Apparently Percy Jackson was good, but very poorly done as a movie, so that would be an option too.
alchemist
2yr ago
This feels like the right take to me. The recent cut of two internet cables, hundreds of miles apart, that resulted in the trains not running for hours in Germany seemed like another flex -- your infrastructure is vulnerable, stop supporting the Ukraine or things will get worse.
I'll admit, this aligns with my bias of the Putin as the bad guy, rather than the US. I do find the idea of the US taking pressure off the German politicians an interesting one. The gas shortfall is not getting as much news attention as I would have expected, yet fairly serious steps (e.g. all public pools and saunas being closed to save heating costs) are being taken, which does suggest a "this is serious, but don't cause a public panic" type approach.
alchemist
2yr ago
It's not that it's diversity, at least with endangered species, it's the finality of it. If you wipe out the last one (or nearly the last one), the entire species can be gone forever. If you kill an extra deer, there's lots more elsewhere. In some sense, deer are fungible (a sentence I didn't think I'd ever write).
It's less clear to me, but I'd also say Hitler was extra bad because he targeted innocent people for something they had no say in, AND he was trying to wipe out entire groups (that hadn't done anything to him). There's something hateful about that, and I think it's more about the finality and arbitrariness than a desire to maintain diversity.
alchemist
2yr ago
I'll just say I've known a number of excellent women programmers. My personal opinion is that the main issue is just different interests (and often other options). Research seems to support that (roughly, women are interested in people, men are interested in things), it's one of the most repeated findings with biggest effect sizes in psychology.
As to teaching CS, I can't really remember what worked well for me. My sense is to focus on solving problems, and building out the world of tools, knowledge, and techniques that allow you to solve larger and more complex problems. I think it's important to have something concrete to attach abstract things to when learning. But that's just a first thought.
alchemist
2yr ago
Ha! I'll make sure to pass it along ;), but sadly, it does not appear that that is what they meant...
alchemist
2yr ago
I very much doubt anyone in the head offices of Amazon or Sony or Disney is saying "Fuck next quarter's earnings, we need more diversity in this place, dammit!"
The thing is, I think they really are saying that, they just don't realize they are saying that. I'll skip RoP, because, while not great, I'd say it's also not awful (although it's trending downwards). Instead, look at Wheel of Time, which was a major shitshow, and one where the woke aspects really ruined the story. Isolated village where exceptional character stands out now looks like a NY subway stop. Central tenet of the entire magic system and primary plot point depends on differences between the magic of men and women, and they undermine that, claiming the dragon can be a woman. Some of the most noble characters are undermined so the women can look better.
It really really hurt that show, and I think it must have been somewhat clear it would.
alchemist
2yr ago
I think the biggest thing to me would be not wanting to be a chump. I have a pretty strong aversion to cheating, but if my class were grading on a curve, and I knew most of the others were cheating, and the administration knew and weren't doing anything, I would feel the honest people shouldn't be punished.
alchemist
2yr ago
I think you've nailed it -- and part of it has been an erosion in the social judgement against cheaters & defectors. I somewhat hate to yield to the 'blame the woke for everything' bias I apparently have, but I think they have definitely amped up the excusing & rationalizing. There was a big thing about various people should be allowed to cheat at school, it was just bogus and unfair to them anyway.
I think once you let people justify that cheating is okay, many indeed will.
And I find it really sad, because I think it makes the world a worse place for pretty much everyone.
That's partly why I get extra grumpy at scams that take advantage of people's better nature (money for gas, help for grandkid in a foreign country) -- it ruins things for everyone.
alchemist
2yr ago
I think they're talking about it because things keep happening, the most recent being the chess.com report saying he had likely cheated at least 100 times (in online games), and apparently admitted to it when confronted with it (I haven't dug in though), including fairly recent games (within the last two years) and in games for prize money.
Is there a summary of that anywhere? I seem to have missed it. Was it something in the SciFi community?
*Thanks y'all, that was a wild ride.
alchemist
2yr ago
I agree it's a bit too much, but they don't have to be evil to destroy everything. I think many of them have good (if unexamined) intentions, at least at a surface level. I think they still tend to fundamentally destroy things, rather than make them better.
alchemist
2yr ago
The problem is, some -- too many -- do treat them that way, and have banished the use/mention distinction. It's like the Jehovah scene in Monty Python. So rather than risk crazy people trying to ruin your life, people avoid the words.
I prefer to take it further, and talk about either Voldemort or "the letter-after-m word". Well, actually I generally prefer not to talk about it at all, since there are too many rabid, crazy people out there. (yet here I am, oops)
It's probably too late now, but I'm pretty sure once upon a time I was on hiring committees at the same company, and you should have told that recruiter's manager (the recruiters are almost always TVCs, who only care about hitting their hiring targets) about that. They shouldn't waste yours and others' time, and they shouldn't be getting incompetent people hired.
I too have set my interviews / week to zero.
*edit: should -> shouldn't
alchemist
2yr ago
But these days you won't know the skin color of an artist unless someone goes out of their way to tell you (which they will in certain cases).
Discrimination is a completely bogus reason to explain why some works are popular and others aren't.
I tend to think fine art, especially contemporary art, is mostly a scam anyway, but the cries of racism here just ring painfully deceptive.
alchemist
2yr ago
Yes! My company wants to increase the representation of "Indigenous+" in Europe, and make no effort to explain what that means. I'm in Germany, so I assume they want more Neanderthals....
alchemist
2yr ago
I always thought that was a great response to the women's soccer pay thing in the US. They're not playing the same sport, any more than the U15s are. The hard question would be "should the U15s be paid the same as the men?"
(Yes, I know that in the end they were actually getting paid more, AND they chose that model after rejecting the same contract as the men. Such a shit show of lies.)
alchemist
2yr ago
Doesn't that lead one to wonder: "How did the Patriarchy ever gain power?" Are men just better at organizing? Women were too nice? But doesn't that suggest general differences between men & women.
It's an incoherent (and inconsistent with science and trivial observation) viewpoint.
alchemist
2yr ago
What does that have to do with anything? That was the best way, and those table were painfully calculated (e.g. by series expansion), and then shared with others so they wouldn't have to repeat the work.
With phonics (and word attack skills, as they were called when I learned them), you have a better way than "memorize each answer).
Even tables are better than this -- you interpolate between the given values to get the ones you need.
(Also, in some domains tables is pretty close to how those things are still done, it's just the computer is doing it for you. Admittedly for most there are fairly good functions or HW that converge on the answer quickly, so that's done rather than just a table, but even that is something of a blend, where a number of coefficients is saved, and the computer plugs the number into a long polynomial).
alchemist
2yr ago
FWIW, "sight words" can complement phonics, it doesn't have to replace them. I think it's actually a good thing both for some tricky spelling, and for quicker reading -- as long as it doesn't exclude phonics.
Sadly, there was a similar movement in Germany, where regarding spelling they allowed all manner of misspelling -- as long as it "looked like it would sound" (which doesn't really make sense as a concept). This has led to a ton of kids who can't spell properly, for no apparent gain (and lasting surprisingly late in life). It's really annoying. I see it in my kids, where I'm a much better German speller, even if they are better speakers (as they are native, and I'm not).
alchemist
2yr ago
Jesus, on r/ comics there are regular comics that I guess are intended to be "slice of life" from a woman and there is nothing funny or enlightening about them at all. It's "wow airplane food sucks" level stuff, and it keeps getting upvoted, and I don't understand that at all. Even on reddit, I really don't understand it -- there's just nothing remotely funny.
(Seriously, if someone likes them, I'd be interested to know why, each time I read one I just kind of shake my head, and feel incredibly out of touch.)
alchemist
2yr ago
Yes, it feels (ha) like there is an increasing war on meritocracy, and truth. And it also seems like it's having consequences, making the world worse for everyone.
If you haven't read it, Scott's Contra Grant on exaggerated differences is a fascinating an enlightening read.
Short version: it's primarily different interests and options.
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