yofuckreddit
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User ID: 646
yofuckreddit
2d ago
Yes it's worth going to the end. It's not as legendary of a finale as, say, The Wire. But it's a hell of a lot better than the sopranos.
I rewatch mad men every couple years, it's that good.
yofuckreddit
5d ago
People's opinions on this are going to differ, but I personally really like being able to passively keep up with people I was once close with.
The tall awkward girl who flirted with me in high school is now married to an indian guy and is a therapist out in LA, my study buddy from college is swimming and biking a lot and recently changed jobs, another reconnected with the girl we always knew he was destined for and has a kid....
I do see these people in real life occasionally as I travel back home, attend a wedding, or put together a guy's trip. Being able to launch directly into relevant conversation is worthwhile, and I still actually do care about what they're up to.
Sure, there were some folks who went off the deep end in some sort of way, and changed beyond recognition or value as people. But is a tweet or some harebrained shit from reddit really more worthwhile content than staying connected to the mostly-good people I've met? I'd argue no. I miss Facebook quite a bit.
yofuckreddit
5d ago
Sorry, I did not consider that you didn't have an account. I personally think it's worth having one to lurk. It's still a great source of info.
Here's the image describing it but to summarize, the methodology uses an AI model trained by experts about "meaningful" commits. In other words, not Lines of Code, which I agree is an imperfect metric at best.
How well do you think it translates to other jobs?
Probably well, on the balance. First, it's probably the profession best positioned to be analyzed in terms of measuring output. Second, if any job can be effectively executed in a WFH context, it has to be software. There's no other industry with more capabilities to deliver value remotely. This is probably the absolute best case for WFH advocacy. Even the sub-disciplines near software engineering like product ownership are even more hilariously ripe for grift.
As I mentioned in another comment, I am a big WFH advocate. It's made my life measurably better, and the company I work for deals with its benefits and drawbacks very well.
But I think most places are not, and very few (no?) frontline workers are interested in being honest about the downsides.
yofuckreddit
5d ago
That would make the study's conclusions even "worse" in terms of proving that WFH is bad for most software shops.
It's pretty intuitive and not that complicated. The best engineers have an enormous amount of leverage. They can demand the best and most flexible jobs, and can be so effective in less time that they can take the most advantage of WFH while still providing high value.
The grifters who benefit from low accountability will also gravitate to those positions.
I work for a high-performing organization that is extremely WFH friendly. We have many elite engineers and have built our culture around it. Even so, we have to fire grifters every once in a while.
yofuckreddit
5d ago
The twitter thread shows the methodology. Please actually read it.
It's my industry, so I think it's as good as it can reasonably be.
yofuckreddit
5d ago
This is fun to think about, but while this only applies to software engineering, the gist of the most recent and comprehensive study I've seen is that:
- WFH orgs have the most top tier talent (> 1x engineers) but far more "ghost engineers" (<.1x)
- On the balance, WFH orgs have less overall output
We'll see how it pans out, but if any industry is ripe for WFH fraud it absolutely has to be the government.
And then hire who? The industry's biases are endemic. Even if you have a pragmatic and fair HR leader, it's insanely difficult to find non-racist/sexist HR professionals.
Then, government is its own animal. You need to both know and understand how it works, and be comfortable with being part of the grift machine. They're checking boxes. Affirmative action made things easier for them: You have two hires, they've all lied about their qualifications, and you don't have to think about work ethic or intelligence. You just say "Darkest Wins" and move on.
Sorry for the blackpill, but an EO changes far less than you would suggest. Maybe 10% improvement. This needs to be enshrined in law, and even then it can't be 100% effective.
yofuckreddit
6d ago
Bluntly, I didn't consider this downside. I still think the inevitable dilution of entitled incompetents may be worth it.... but I can see this changing the algebra there.
I don't like this continuing tradition of using executive orders to run the government. From what I remember this started in earnest under Bush 2.
It absolutely did. I'll put it this way, I'm preparing my soapbox and case for my next lefty-friend gathering around precisely this. You have to be a numbskull of the highest order to look at these Day 0 edicts - many of them simple see-saws of EOs from the last administration, which were the same of the n-2, which were the same of n-3... to be unable to recognize how ridiculous this all is.
Many of these leftists work in the military industrial complex. They are simultaneously bemoaning this election and shitposting virtue signaling crud, but will have now spent the majority of their careers building muder machines for republican presidents.
I will be begging these people to think about the next election, or perhaps reflecting on how previous ones have led to this. I don't expect success, but at least appreciate the vibe shift may at least allow some sort of basic conversation.
yofuckreddit
9d ago
Not sure how prone you would be to cheating but really avoiding even the first step that would lead to that process is key.
Specified date nights is big, but then occasional phone calls when you're free and walking somewhere. That can help alleviate her stress if she's an anxious texter and you aren't a big one.
Possible to play a game with her at the same time? Could be anything - animal crossing for instance
yofuckreddit
14d ago
Others have commented advice and armchair diagnoses. I would agree, and suggest you stay talking here even if you're not slinging it out in the political threads.
Your ennui is familiar to me and appears in cycles. The difference (perhaps) is I have spent another decade investigating what can pop me out of it. I have a suite of activities and people that are reliable sources of semi-religious joy, and have mentally exercised enough to silence or survive the yawn of the god-shaped hole when it appears.
Put another way, it could get better. Even if it involves some lame bullshit like medication or therapy! I'll echo self_made_human and say it's worth a shot.
yofuckreddit
15d ago
A tool here would be to look at how this worked in the past, before HFT was enabled. Were things better or worse in terms of pricing?
I think the markets not functioning as effectively on weekends is pretty garbage, for instance, but we've long passed the point where HFT software can lead to major failures, not to mention the thousands of smaller ones that bugs can introduce. The capabilities of AI to analyze and make decisions with HFT capabilities is only going to make things worse.
Maybe I'm just latching onto it for the heck of it, but the fidelity of time a second provides should be slow enough to keep a human in the loop and reduce the iterations for software failure.
As I talk through it, though, I'm still unconvinced that this sort of regulation is possible. With the time horizon of a second, I have little-to-no doubt that shadow markets would develop between traders, even if explicitly outlawed.
yofuckreddit
15d ago
Thank you for having tactical answers to this question. From the basic research I've done, it seems like the primary way to fix this stuff is to slow things down.
The only convincing steelmen I've heard for keeping things "as fast as possible" is:
- Sub-second trading helps prevent more massive price swings
- If US markets artificially slowed trading or rounded prices, activity would move to other countries
Any others you can think of?
I finished Continental Reckoning: The American West in the Age of Expansion. When starting it I wrote:
The title is hilariously "standard" for a history book, but I'm very into it so far. At one time as a child, I had an abject fascination with the California gold rush after getting a basic book about it from my San Franciscan cousins. Anyone living in the Bay Area probably considers it played out, but for a guy in the Southeast, it was exciting stuff. Reading about it with the level of fidelity a book like this provides (just in the first 25 superdense pages) is a treat. I'll wait to recommend it, but so far, it's been good.
The middle of the book slumped a little bit for me. At the end of the day, this is still a modern history book. There are land acknowledgments at the beginning. There's definitely a major tendency to minimize native-on-white violence. The language shifts are subtler than your average twitter thread, but it's all still there and super annoying.
Another disappointment is that because it is such a rigorously researched book, 100 pages are eaten by citations and footnotes. It's a dense typeface but I bought a physical copy, and so there was a bit of a let down when a big fraction of the pages were not pure content. (The footnotes were still entertaining).
Probably the worst sin is that the last chapter read like a high school essay - a summarization of the sections before it. Unskippable because there were also great vignettes interspersed throughout that were one of the strengths of the book.
The bottom line is that it is still well-researched book, and entertaining for many reasons. The author does an extremely effective job of using facts and figures to underscore how the age of expansion/the gilded age was. I find the 19th century fascinating across the board, and the effects of the telegram, rail, steam power, and cheap firearm rifling on the world are a hell of a combination. I'd give the book a 4/5.
For those who want to get to some of the meat without reading (Spoiler tags do not work I believe):
- One thing the author underscored convincingly is that the West was devoid of slaves not because they wouldn't be useful but because of the social movement of "Free labor." This same philosophy factored into why the Chinese or factory workers on the east coast were hated so broadly. I find it fascinating that the Chinese effectively came to the country, sending almost exclusively men and a couple of prostitutes, panned for gold, built a railroad, and then left, all without meaningfully assimilating at all.
- The amount of violence in the West was staggering. The author seemed to take the approach of giving simple numbers for violence and alcoholism to let you draw your conclusions, so it's pretty easy to conjure up how unbelievably rough it would be as an individual.
- The final non-summary chapter digs extensively (heh) into the physical and financial technology required to support mining, and effectively describes the magnitude of environmental damage that happened as a result. A great example is the pumps required to pull water out of the Comstock Lode - One of the most powerful had a flywheel that was a quarter million pounds.
- It does take the opportunity to show nuance where appropriate. The killers of buffalo were rightfully scorned as opportunistic monsters (demand for their hides surged after production of hides from Argentina slowed, and hunters would typically target pregnant cows), many aspects of Indian policy were at least compassionate in intent, and defenders of the West's natural beauty were not a put-upon minority.
In any case, it made me more eager to take on The GDMBR at some point before I die, or at least get out west again. I've gotten to visit CA, CO, and NM quite a bit and still find most of the region very romantic.
I'm about to dig into Different Seasons, four novellas by Stephen King. I'm not a fan of the person he's become, but I've typically very much enjoyed his writing. A friend got me a used physical copy, which I thought was a remarkable gesture. I hate the waste of buying new-print books since I saw thousands constantly being destroyed after not selling while working at a bookstore chain. It's just too durable of a good to throw away. I'll admit I'm dreading having to keep my bedside light on while my wife tries to sleep a little bit. I'm used to the convenience of a Kindle and the ability to read any book (regardless of size) anywhere without disturbing anyone else.
yofuckreddit
15d ago
I'm actually largely with you that the minute optimizations that these guys build in "The Market" are generally pretty worthless, and probably outstripped by the other perverse incentives and distortions they create.
I view them as an inevitable side effect of capitalism, and I don't think anyone's smart enough to carve out what should be banned and enforce it. I think China would more effectively compete with us overall if Xi didn't treat their economy the way he does.
It is always satisfying, though, to read about what China does occasionally to stomp on corruption or other frivolously antisocial bullshit like this. No pussyfooting around with fines: people go to prison, get tortured, or executed. The second order effects suck I think but my paternalistic/animalistic monkey brain loves it.
yofuckreddit
15d ago
Thank you, just downloaded Private Citizens to check out!
yofuckreddit
17d ago
To put it in perspective, I was able to put together a decent Yelp clone within 8 hours. I had a webserver framework and Adderall but that'll give you an idea of what a ~3x engineer can do. With AI that's probably gotten better.
yofuckreddit
18d ago
Forgive me for one last suggestion - I use a steel vacuum insulated water bottle instead of a Nalgene.
- I won't drink tepid water as much as cold, and a little ice in a bottle with a straw will stick around all day.
- A Nalgene is also going to require you to carefully unscrew it and slowly tilt it to avoid spilling, which is more work than flipping open a straw.
- Finally, the default Stanley top can't endure the water bottle tipping over or being tossed around, which is another reason I go for a sealed straw. I like getting larger sizes to minimize how often I fill it up, but also consider if you'll be bringing it with you in the car.
Basically: I minimized friction between me and water as much as possible, and all the bottles cost the same, so just do what's best for you.
yofuckreddit
19d ago
I’m loving Emily Wilson’s translation of the Odyssey
The CW blowup about this seemed so ridiculous, with a couple extracts cherry picked to make it seem bad (and the counter-argument that misogyny was driving the hate). Glad you're enjoying it.
yofuckreddit
19d ago
I'm a bit ahead of you in the process, and did not quit cold turkey - only took a major step back.
You have eloquently described my exact feelings when cutting my consumption and some of the initial benefits. I hope you find it comforting that the downsides you're experiencing fade with time, especially when you combine quitting with lifting.
Another note if you end up not being able to fully quit forever: I still force myself to work out when I do drink the night before. This generally works out since if I have a big night drinking I wake up very early while my family is asleep. Am I getting the same amount of benefit from a hangover workout? Not even close. But my ability to defeat a hangover is now better than its ever been, and reminding myself a workout is still on the other side of this drink helps me start switching back to water earlier in the night.
yofuckreddit
19d ago
Funnily enough, I disagree with Mr. Dizzler - I think out of these "higher perceived than actual value" activities, travel is the one with the closest value, and live music second.
Typically when I see someone read a ton of books, they're crappy modern romance novels or self-help slop. You can read 50 pages/hour of these sorts of books but they're not providing any value, especially not over a great movie or TV show (much less a video game).
Think about the current state of music, too. We aren't even listening to nice CDs anymore. A hard core of hipsters and status chasers have vinyls, but I don't know anyone with an actual high quality sound system besides me. We're all listening to the equivalent of 192kbps MP3s from spotify. Especially for bands that open for others, they have access to only the crappiest recording studios. The difference between hearing them live and on a streaming services is significant, and then the concert experience of being around people is fun.
For travel, the reality distortion field around locations and cultures has never been stronger. Every secondhand report about a country or city from a normie is colored through a political lens, and common attractions have never been more accessible/overwhelmed because of the internet. To paraphrase a reddit comment I made a few years ago:
I've been able to rant with a rare italian libertarian in his castle apartment covered with cherubic frescoes, get invited to a BDSM convention, experience the underappreciated beauty of a Croatian white wine, join the world tango festival, and belt out songs in a crowded pub. The french, german, and chinese people that have visited my southeastern hometown city have come away with a new love for football, meat and three cuisine, and guns.
These are all experiences that required travel, and don't even touch on any of what I've gotten to do domestically or the incredible natural beauty I've gotten to experience firsthand. I absolutely wish I could do it more, and regret not having done so before having children.
All this being said, however, I largely agree with you. I find that these hobbies are venerated in a way far outsize their value for precisely the reasons you describe. I love travel, shows, and reading, and hate social media flexing for all 3 with passion.
yofuckreddit
21d ago
Uh, I kinda hope not to hear the answer, but can you find a case of a preteen girl outside of a war zone being gang raped by multiple groups of western men in the same day without any apparent coordination?
So - this is not the exact same thing, but a reasonably popular song by TI (ft. Kendrick Lamar and Kris Stevens) reminiscing about childhood opens with TI talking about gangbanging someone with mental disabilities:
Aye, in my apartment a long time ago
I knew a bad bitch, but she was kind of slow
Still gave it up when it's a few of us
She let me finger fuck her on the school bus
We used to cut school with her and run train
She want to hang with us, we want one thing
Just penetrating her throat, dawg
She choke on it like smoke, dawg
These, of course, weren't men, more kids of the same age, but consent-wise, it probably balances out with her being a simpleton. Multiple dudes fucking underage girls happens in the west too.
yofuckreddit
21d ago
I came to this thread today hoping to find a steelman somewhere, so thank you.
Is there any additional steelman for the cases themselves? The screenshots on twitter from official reports that show 13 year olds being gang raped multiple times by multiple groups in single days, being pulled out of police stations to be raped in cars, are all just.... insane.
What's the median rape case here? A troubled girl exchanging sex for alcohol and drugs? (I don't ask this to diminish that as a crime). I can't possibly believe examples like the above are anywhere close to average across 3,000 kids.
yofuckreddit
1mo ago
^ This is correct.
One of my favorite movies of all time. I played drums at one point in my life (horribly) and love music. Very few films have felt as intense. I've seen it twice and it was worth a second run through for me.
May reply more substantially later, but maybe you just leave this typo (?) up:
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