rockbier1218
No bio...
User ID: 1794
rockbier1218
7mo ago
Bro the wedding itself was absolute ass honestly. My wife and I both hate being the center of attention and that entire day you are the center of attention and there are so many expectations of you particularly if you come from a non-western family like I do.
Dealing with venues and vendors, who to invite, seat placements, etc. was fucking painful. Not to mention the money involved.
So it’s not weird at all that you’re excited for the marriage part instead of the wedding.
Congrats though, I’m not trying to be pessimistic just saying I feel your pain :)
rockbier1218
7mo ago
What are the finance books? Anything interesting you’d recommend?
rockbier1218
8mo ago
I do think there are good dentists out there but man I agree. Sorry to any mottizens who are dentists but I really don’t feel like dentists deserve to be called doctors in any sense, they seem more like Nurse Practitioners if you’ve ever dealt with such people.
sure they’re knowledgeable but their “hit rate” in terms of good ones vs. seeing specialized doctors (what they claim to be) makes it apparent that they’re not in the same tier of healthcare professional.
rockbier1218
8mo ago
The northwest corner is full of groups of junkies and psychotic people screaming at each other.
Here’s a NYPOST link, obviously they are a bit of a tabloid but what they report is true. https://nypost.com/2021/05/29/washington-square-park-drug-den-horrifies-greenwich-village/
Try walking through there on your next visit and compare to the rest of the park, there’s a very distinct vibe shift and I’ve seen a lot of wild shit there.
rockbier1218
9mo ago
I would not say Greenwich Village is meaningfully better than the rest of lower Manhattan on this issue. The crowded parts closer to Washington Square Park are full of psychos. The park itself has a corner that is essentially Hamsterdam and the only place that’s worse in lower Manhattan is the area around the Bowery and Grand Street station in Chinatown
rockbier1218
9mo ago
Any of the reasonably wealthy countries/cities that are also highly authoritarian, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Singapore, etc. I would assume China too but I have no first or second-hand experience of this.
A college friend from Luxembourg and I were in Montreal once and a homeless man asked us for money. He was shocked and said that would be unthinkable in Luxembourg.
I’ve also spent a lot of time in Istanbul and while there are a lot of Gypsy beggars and post-Syrian civil war a LOT of refugees, I do not recall ever really seeing a “homeless” person. I think there are a couple of reasons for this:
- Turkish police do not give a fuck about civil rights. Obviously this varies by class but I mean to say that if you looked like the classic American zombie psycho homeless person, they would happily beat your ass and chase you away or throw you in jail and be lauded for it.
- Much stronger familial ties, way less likely that you will end up as one of these zombies in the first place. Related to this there’s still a strong element of social shame in the culture.
- I may be reaching here but there is a near-total absence of Christian slave morality and its woke ideology offspring. No risk that you will end up on TikTok for beating or chasing a homeless person away and getting cancelled. In fact probably the opposite will happen.
rockbier1218
9mo ago
Impossible to predict moving forward. Even retrospective takes like yours need a lot of time and hindsight to parse out the effects of the technology.
I’ll be bold enough to make one such prediction though. Democracy/republics as we think of them in the west depend almost entirely on the written word (on paper) being the dominant form of communication. This allows one time to think, consider arguments as a whole, and respond with their own measured argument.
The shift to image-based and video communication becoming dominant will lead to entirely new political structures and forms of organization. Add in the sprinkle of chaos from these forms of communication being dependent on rent-seeking corporations that own the platforms and crucially have juiced the platforms with unbeatable and irresistible addictive potential and we will see some crazy shit in 100 years. Probably nothing good IMO.
rockbier1218
9mo ago
Any dentists on here?
Is there any truth to some of the things I read about much of dentistry’s research literature being bullshit? Or just that the generally accepted recommendations aren’t really proven empirically?
I’m curious as I’ve been trying to take better care of my teeth as I get older but can’t really floss as my bottom teeth are very close together and even the “shred-resistant” floss gets destroyed. I tried using the Glide floss which worked extremely well but appears to be made of 25% forever chemicals and I don’t want something like that anywhere near my digestive system.
So I’ve just been using a Waterpik but I’m unclear on how effective it is, but I keep seeing that flossing in general does not have much evidence to support it, and maybe even fluoride/brushing in general?
In particular I’ve seen that nano-hydroxyapatite may be more effective than fluoride and there are a few studies that seem to support this.
Any dentists or otherwise knowledgeable parties willing to set the record straight?
rockbier1218
10mo ago
Is it just itch or dandruff too?
I had pretty bad dandruff for most of my life despite using Head and Shoulders religiously.
The only thing that worked when I was a teenager was T-Gel but I stopped using it as an adult because of the slight cancer risk (you’re basically rubbing tar into your scalp).
I suffered through some more dandruff until finding what I THINK is the solution: Nizoral shampoo. Since I started using it a few years back my dandruff is like 95% gone unless I don’t shampoo for a few days and even then it’s far less than it ever was and comparable, if not slightly more effective even, than the T-Gel.
I still use the head and shoulders because I’ve gotten so used to it and I have no idea if the effect is synergistic between Nizoral and Head and Shoulders but my understanding is that both are antifungals so I think it might be. Regardless I don’t want to risk a regression because dandruff is truly awful so I basically just use both.
Routine is basically: 2x head and shoulders 2x Nizoral 1x conditioner
And I shower about every 2 days and do that every time. I should add that since your original question was about itch, this has also basically eliminated any itching, which I believe was tied to my bad dandruff.
rockbier1218
1yr ago
Why do women seem to be pursuing the Botox/lip filler/cheek filler look at younger and younger ages? It could just be my perception but I see women doing this in their early and mid 20s, which is bonkers to me. It’s understandable once you hit 35-40, but why do it when you’re young and still in your sexual marketplace prime?
At that age it tends to give your face a very eerie quality and actually make you look older and less attractive. This seems to be the consensus view among men, so presumably high-status men would also overwhelmingly feel this way. Are women doing it for instagram and to compete against other women? If that’s the case it’s counterproductive and actively harming their sexual marketplace value in the large majority of cases.
The other argument that I can buy: maybe I’m just not noticing all the instances of those touch-ups being applied with a milder hand. If done properly, it can increase a woman’s SMV? I don’t necessarily agree with this, I think straight men are extremely fine-tuned by millions of years of evolution to detect unnatural things like this, but I could be wrong. I certainly seem to be able to distinguish the odd and uncanny-valley quality it lends to a woman’s face.
rockbier1218
1yr ago
Count of Monte Cristo is in my top 5. Hopefully you got the translation by Robin Buss from Penguin Classics. The older public domain translations are very antiquated.
rockbier1218
1yr ago
I used to be like this too. What worked for me is to imagine having that same argument with the person in real life. And crucially, imagining that person as either a 12-year old who doesn’t know shit, or the biggest neckbeard stereotype of all time. Oftentimes that wouldn’t even be far off the mark.
Once I created this visualization it stopped bothering me and indeed I don’t engage in any kind of argument online at all anymore. It just seemed so absurd to imagine shouting at a 12-year old or a foul-smelling fedora-toting beast in real life.
rockbier1218
1yr ago
What's a reasonable base/canon of Western literature to be familiar with to call oneself "educated" like a man from the early 20th century? I want to read in chronological order the great works and ideas of western civilization and am hoping Mottizens can help me fill in some gaps. I'm mainly interested in literature but of course there is room for philosophical works as well. Obviously this can be a really wide range of works, but I'm looking for the absolute indisputable foundation, things you cannot skip at all.
What I have so far (very basic in rough chronological order):
Iliad/Odyssey by Homer
Dialogues by Plato
Metamorphoses by Ovid
The Bible (King James version for the literary value?)
Beowulf (already read this one)
Summa Theologica by Aquinas? (Not sure how foundational this is)
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Divine Comedy by Dante
Shakespeare's Works
Paradise Lost by Milton
Don Quixote by Cervantes
Moby-Dick by Melville
In Search of Lost Time by Proust
Thoughts? Please help me fill in some gaps!
rockbier1218
1yr ago
Specifically, how the hell did they always have perfect quality x265 files for movies with a very reasonable file size (<2.5GB)?
Even 5GB files from other places are shit quality in comparison
rockbier1218
1yr ago
Blindsight was a bit tough for me to get into. I think Watts went a touch too abstract with his plot and it was something I felt I had to force myself to finish.
On the other hand, Solaris by Lem conveyed the same idea of the absolute alien nature of non-human intelligence in a very evocative and beautiful way.
rockbier1218
1yr ago
Totally agree that it seems something catastrophic happened and there’s very little chance they’ll be rescued or even found. They’re probably already dead.
Forgive me if somebody else has already posted about this. What’s going on with that submarine that tried to tour the titanic wreckage?
Is it a stupid idea in the first place? Is there any chance they’ll be rescued?
I’ve been fascinated by the fact that even the richest among us are only surviving because Mother Earth decided not to crush them today. Seems like these people just had their luck run out, and maybe made a really stupid decision?
rockbier1218
1yr ago
Does anybody have experience with bouncing back from a negative performance review in a software engineering job?
Just had mine recently and was somewhat surprised to receive a “Needs Improvement” rating. I can see some of my manager’s points but I mainly feel a bit blindsided because I constantly asked for feedback and only rarely received areas of improvement. He would give me certain things to improve upon, but during later check-ins he would say I’m back on track etc.
I don’t think my job is the type to treat this as a formality before being fired, but I would appreciate some advice from other mottizens who may have gone through something similar.
I do like the job and it pays well so I’m going to try my best the next few months to perform and constantly check in and be more explicit about asking things like “do you still think I’m underperforming” etc.
rockbier1218
1yr ago
Not much advice, but I agree that there’s a huge gap in Turkey for this sort of thing. Start small and see what happens, just be careful not to translate anything too spicy or Baskan will come knocking.
rockbier1218
1yr ago
It all depends on your risk tolerance and how much healthcare you think you’ll require in those 3 months.
If you’re otherwise healthy just get the catastrophic option, it shouldn’t be more than 400-500 per month depending on your state.
As far as I’m aware there is nothing better than what you’d find on the marketplace given your circumstances.
rockbier1218
1yr ago
There’s at least one prison that is famous for hosting white collar criminals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Correctional_Institution,_Otisville
rockbier1218
1yr ago
I often wonder just how deep and widespread the second-order effects of this situation are.
My job as a software engineer occupies a lot of my cognitive capacity even outside of work hours. This includes time spent walking outside in the park, commuting on the subway, etc. Any time I encounter a violent or deranged person in the park or on the subway, fight or flight immediately kicks in and I lose my train of thought for 15 minutes minimum and it probably results in diminished cognitive capacity for a lot longer because I’m now on edge and scanning my surroundings even subconsciously.
Multiply this across every white collar worker in NYC and the drag on research and innovation is probably unfathomably large. It would probably horrify most people how much further along we could be on the road to curing cancer if our public transport was like Singapore or Tokyo.
rockbier1218
1yr ago
This is a great point. We don’t have any kind of standard for that, and I think having my colleagues categorize their comments and forcing them to think about if it’s really a blocker would be helpful.
Cheers.
rockbier1218
1yr ago
Where are my fellow software engineers at?
How do you all deal with not taking PR comments personally or not allowing yourself to get frustrated by them?
It seems like half the time I have to end up arguing over minor bullshit with colleagues that boils down to “I wouldn’t have done it that way” or “it’s not absolutely perfect” or “did you consider doing it this way?” (This way being probably the more “idiomatic” but often far less readable way).
Obviously I’m not going to get offended if a colleague catches an obvious mistake I made, or asks for more documentation or comments because something is unclear, but usually it’s what I described above.
Do I just need to develop thicker skin with this shit?
Man I feel you, as somebody whose high school best friend kind of turned into a lazy stoner with severe relationship instability who just keeps making bad decision after bad decision, believe me I understand.
But you really need to put some distance between you and your friend. Although we definitely have some responsibility towards our friends and offering them a place to sleep or some financial assistance during a hard time is maybe even an obligation if you are close enough, the key factor there is: “are they earnestly and honestly trying to get themselves out of that position?”
If yes, then help without question. If no, cut them off. Even people who are trying to improve their lot in life or get out of tough circumstances don’t always succeed, to not even try and instead to leech off of other well-meaning people is a recipe for disaster that you want to be as far away as possible from.
Seriously, start eviction proceedings tomorrow. You don’t owe your friend anything anymore. If you were in his shoes, would you expect people to tolerate your bullshit? Would you ever stoop so low as to treat your friend the way he is treating you?
This sounds harsh but I have been in your shoes with my own friend. This guy was like a brother to me but at a certain point I realized I would never have abused the friendship to the extent that he did. I have plenty of other friends who are losers with no financial or romantic prospects, the difference is they don’t take advantage of me and treat the friendship with respect.
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