Month: December 2018

Home Slice

Chill Uncategorized

I look at houses a lot. My partner does, too. Mainly so we’ll know what we want when prices inevitably get the shit kicked out of them again, which they will. It’s inevitable. Then we’ll be ready to buy. And I see all these places with words on the wall, like this one:

“Home?” Like, did you forget where you were? The Alzheimer’s getting to be a little too much?

And this is another one I found. I made an addition, though. Doesn’t look as good as it could because I don’t have Photoshop on this compy:

I don’t understand it, especially that latter one which looks like it was scrawled by a third-grader.

Two Day

Chill Regular-ass Post

The main reason I use Amazon is reliable two-day shipping, so I really have no plans of stopping that.

I don’t understand why people are celebrating old retailers so much? They were and are no better than Amazon in worker treatment, etc. It’s like celebrating Obama. He was a terrible president. Let’s make Amazon better (and break them up), and force even two-day shipping to be environmentally sound, not throw everything great about modern life in the trash like some two-year-old having a tantrum.

I will never get on board with the liberal puritan view that we must throw the best of the modern world in the rubbish bin to be environmentally friendly. This liberal dream of living in featureless concrete boxes eating turnips and composting is not appealing to many.

Two-day shipping is something I love. Not giving it up.

Narrowness

Chill Regular-ass Post

Yes. I had a friend who could basically solve any equation. He, however, didn’t understand what any of them actually meant. He was just good at math. This is true of all too many in the STEM fields. They are so narrow they could slide under a door.

Math is not unimportant, but understanding it is not a key to some great mystery. It’s just another tool. It’s not a substitute for everything else.

Tradeoffs

Chill Regular-ass Post

All of life is tradeoffs. Too many people both politically and personally believe they can just opt out or negate this — which is itself a tradeoff.

A lot of unhappiness and anomie I believe extends from not recognizing that better decision-making can occur when you embrace the necessity and even freedom of using the idea of tradeoffs and marginal improvements to your advantage. Assuming, that is, that your basic needs are already taken care of.

I started pondering this as I was considering why Stoicism was not for me, and its flaws. This is a small result of that thinking.

Russian to Judgment

Chill Regular-ass Post

Indeed. Anything that upsets the status quo is immediately blamed on Russia — even if it harms Russian interests. It reminds me of how when you fix someone’s computer, every problem, even five years later, is your “fault.” It’s the same irrationality and magical thinking.

Finding

Chill Regular-ass Post

Absolutely. I don’t know nearly everything about virtualization and networking. But I know a lot, and more importantly I know how to find — with celerity and accuracy — what I don’t know, and put it to use just as rapidly.

The other day, I was working on a problem for a company for which my company is a vendor. It was an infrastructure problem and unrelated to our product, but as I’ve noted before I end up doing a lot of free infrastructure consulting for various reasons (mainly that many companies have shockingly bad infrastructure teams). This problem 3-4 people had spent nearly a week working on.

I solved it in 10 minutes through knowing how to find what I needed and how to put that knowledge to use. I know I get paid a lot. But I often solve things in 10-15 minutes that teams of people spend weeks looking at. And that’s because I know how to find what I need and know that I know it’s right very damn quickly.

Crazy Crying Amazon

Chill Regular-ass Post

Hate Amazon? Try Living Without It. My dad was a longtime labor activist. He despises what Jeff Bezos built, but he can’t quit it.

I have no plans to quit Amazon, but it’d be very difficult if I tried. Other retailers are comparatively terrible, despite Amazon’s deteriorating site. If other retailers were at all close I might give it a shot. But the simple fact is they are far behind, and many are getting worse instead of better.

CT

Chill Regular-ass Post

Agreed. That’s also what the Church-Turing thesis says, and I believe it. We aren’t based on magic, therefore we could build something also not based on magic. Though it’ll likely not be built by us, but perhaps evolved by us.

I’d say human level AI is possible now with current tech, we just don’t know how to create the software. That might take another 20 to 1,000 years.

General

Chill Regular-ass Post

I generally concur with this, except in one field: economics. That 90% of economists agree isn’t really a sign of anything much, just that the field has been corrupted by the desire to placate or ingratiate themselves to the patricians and panjandrums.

If an economist says it, it’s not necessarily wrong, but I’d take the assertion with an enormous, Cheops’ Pyramid size grain of salt.

Anderson

Chill Uncategorized

How is it that Pamela Anderson (yes, that one) has a better take on the gilet jaunes movement than nearly all journalists and pundits?

Don’t get me wrong — I was under no illusion she was stupid. But we have tons of “educated” journalists and commentators who have no understanding at all of what’s happening and why, and who are all getting schooled by Anderson here. She even cites Philippe Bourgois to make her points. It’s just embarrassing what our corporatized press has become. It’s their job and they largely are clueless.

If the world really were based on merit, those Ivy League numbskulls would be cleaning the toilets and Anderson would be reporting from France officially.

The Narrative

Chill Uncategorized

So the narrative about the gilets jaunes has shifted from the idea that it was just about some fuel taxes to that the Russians and Putin (obligatory maniacal laugh) are behind it all. This of course is being used by neolibs to deny the movement has any legitimacy or real grievances.

Though the grievances are very real, the movement will run into the same problems as Occupy Wall Street did. Especially as it’s up against people like Kevin Drum and worse. It’s essentially leaderless, without real goals, and doesn’t have a chance of using power well even if it takes any. This is not totally its fault; the entire world is structured to make anyone but the rich having possession of power and political understanding impossible.