The Metrics of Backpacks
artpractical.com
artpractical.com
At the end of the essay, the vague sadness I felt was joined by a pretty unsympathetic “well, what did you expect?” kind of feeling. I didn’t like that, it put me into the shuttle bus of coyotes she might have been talking about.
But she doesn’t like technical backpacks, or people who like technical backpacks, and she took a job in a technical backpack factory.
There's no easy reaction to all the engineers and technical staff that don't love making tech products, maybe don't even like it. I want to explain to them why I love it in the hopes they'll start to feel the way I do and be happy. But people are too complex for that. And you can't just be like "get some other job" because there are very few other jobs that won't leave them struggling to make rent, at least not without moving far away.
> Surrounded by transplants, we together inhabit a prehistoric California of 1970s sedans, rickety on the highway, hot air blowing through open windows into the backseat. [...] Our coworkers had moved here to be a part of the future, but we were left over from something that had already passed.
I haven't been compelled to comment on how much I loved a literary piece like this since someone posted A Kingdom from Dust on HN.
If you liked this, you might like it, too: https://story.californiasunday.com/resnick-a-kingdom-from-du...
Whenever I took a decision to fire somebody, I always made a point of openly taking responsibility for it. I thought it was the right thing to do; I was sick of people who couldn't stomach making a decision, and that I could at least look the person I was letting go in the eye and try to explain, in the most honest and open way possible the reason for my decision. Same for declining to hire someone after an interview.
But reading this, it felt unnecessary cruel; now I wonder if it's sometimes best to just let these things work out themselves. May be not everyone is like me, and some people don't really need this conversation.
One thing for certain though: Dustin had no self-interest in having this conversation, after author have already been informed about the decision.
Some might want to know who fired them when it is not obvious, but few would actually benefit from knowing this.
Since it was about a hiring decision—not just a termination of a 1099 contractor—I’d take it to the California labor board.
> Social scalability is the ability of an institution –- a relationship or shared endeavor, in which multiple people repeatedly participate, and featuring customs, rules, or other features which constrain or motivate participants’ behaviors -- to overcome shortcomings in human minds and in the motivating or constraining aspects of said institution that limit who or how many can successfully participate. Social scalability is about the ways and extents to which participants can think about and respond to institutions and fellow participants as the variety and numbers of participants in those institutions or relationships grow. It's about human limitations, not about technological limitations or physical resource constraints.
https://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2017/02/money-blockchains-...
Meanwhile Global Warming carries on... reality doesn't care what we think.
People say that. But then they are horrified when someone kills another one because it made them angry. Or when a man rapes a woman because he couldn't control his senses.
They say they want a "human touch" and "emotion instead of logic", but don't like the consequences of truly doing that.
Spare a thought for those whom numbers don’t define. The ones who draw strength from stories of humpback whales. The ones who hear the redwoods’ cry.
Spare a feeling for those whom see through the self-congratulatory lies. The ones who know that the X in UX is a haphazard lie. The ones who know that sometimes even numbers can cry.
Spare a tiny piece of your heart before the day you too get left behind and become undefined while feeling you’re seeing through the lies.
On another note and only because I am a paying, very satisfied customer, I have to recommend MasterClass. I was originally simply interested in watching Gary Kasparov's chess class with my 10yo son, but when I saw the list of experts in writing, music and media production, we decided that $90 for one class was inferior to $180 for a year of all the classes (and we live in public housing so this was no easy investment). It has been an outstanding decision. I literally did this within the past week and watching Judy Blume and Neil Gaiman and Margaret Atwood with my 12yo daughter has been nothing less than revelatory. I also have enjoyed Will Wright and Herbie Hancock and Malcolm Gladwell and Frank Gehry and Hans Zimmer; excellence and passion inspire us. The production on the classes is its own master class in educational video creation in the internet age, but their choice of educators is its own special kind of genius.
My favorite, however (and surprisingly, to me), has been the poet Billy Collins. We need more poets' hearts in this digital world of MBAs ruthlessly squeezing the populace and our beloved Mother Earth for everything the laws they crafted will allow. I applaud Victoria Gannon for her wonderful piece of poetic prose. Her poet's heart has inspired me this morning and I need all of that I can get in this world of callous competition.
All that is important is living and telling one's truth because, in the end, most people don't even know who Dunning & Kruger are, let alone that McArthur Wheeler bears a great resemblance to the vast majority of humanity in the early 21st Century.
Who has time for literary beauty when so many dumb things occupy one's mind :D
This is how I operate these days I'm afraid. I subconsciously attribute some vague numerical value to anything I do and should it fall under some equally vague threshold the effort is abandoned.
I think the more I work as a coder the more I allow my behaviour to become algorithmic :D
/r/myog
I don't read a lot of introspective stuff, I focus almost entirely on learning something from what I read, but this piece is truly exceptional and it gave me a much deeper insight to what working in a tech center city really feels like.
And it confirms my decision to leave the "Big City" long ago, before the tech boom, and to not go back, was a great one.
The writers melancholic stream of thought in the context of working at a tech startup is great.
To me this feels like someone with ADD trying to tell me something but gets distracted every other sentence. is it just me?
I'm sure you have a point, I wish you wrote about it in a clear way instead of implying unhelpful things about other authors.
Parent you're replying to is lumping those further up the comment chain with the people described in the article. She says they often talk about how to get their wives to watch more science fiction movies.
I felt it landed perfectly given the context of the article, YMMV.
Gotta give it some attention, this is lit/literature. Reading that communicates a novel way of thinking requires attention. Then when that thinking is commonplace later, it may become "more readable". Consider what it felt like to read more adult literature in high school.
I was hoping for a backpack article that would suggest tips, tricks for people like me/us. Travelers with laptops. I was initially disappointed until I started reading. Thank you for this.
Though I imagine I would conclude that either the person doesn't trust me or they're an idiot if they don't incorporate my data into their world view.
We need to push as a species into Space. To mine asteroids and setup bases. We need to get our home planet off fossil fuels and maintain it as a haven of life, with a smaller and more productive human workforce.