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brezelnbitte

68 karma · joined July 21, 2021

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brezelnbitte··on Half-Life: 25th Anniversary Documentary [video]
This other recent documentary about NHL 94 is also fascinating. Explains why the game felt and played differently than any other sports game at the time. https://youtube.com/watch?v=NRFT3iQx1BY&si=k4Boaw4onAWNPy1P

This is produced by same crew as the Half-Life doc. SecretTape who produced HL doc is the for-hire arm of NoClip.

brezelnbitte··on 59% of 18-25 year olds in the United States are overweight or obese
It’s the ultra processed food. https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/pdf/S1550-4131(19)30248...
brezelnbitte··on In Switzerland, most people rent for life
> When you pay it off, you're not spending $thousands per month just for a place to live.

Not everyone wants to live somewhere long enough to pay off a place though. It’s no different than other financial choices. The best decision for the individual isn’t always the most rational.

brezelnbitte··on In Switzerland, most people rent for life
I’m with you on renting instead of buying. I owned a home until a divorce. It wasn’t for me. I had to develop a whole network of unreliable contractors, which was time-consuming and the repairs and repairs to fix bad repairs all added up. Then our property taxes doubled in a year, raising a mortgage quite a bit and would continue to rise. I didn’t want to stay there for 30 years and while it did go up in value, there really wasn’t much of a guarantee that owning it would lead to actually owning a house out right in the future. Seemed to me like I was renting from the bank instead of owning but responsible for all the costs of ownership. For me now the flexibility of renting is priceless. I can move around and not feel tied down by someone else’s dream.
brezelnbitte··on Ask HN: How to be a manager? Any good sources for learning how to delegate?
I consult internally in a large tech company on management among other org design and behavior topics.

I recommend Managing Humans and Bringing up the Boss. They are the most practical and useful day to day. Avoid Making of a Manager. It’s recommended often but it’s a memoir masquerading as a management book and way too focused on the writers specific situation.

Also get coffee with your HRBP. They are a wealth of knowledge and best to start the relationship before you really need them.

brezelnbitte··on Cal Newport: Overstimulation Is Ruining Your Life
But where are the psychologists to supplant him? And this advice isn't that bad. It's similar to diet advice.

Diet is complicated so experts just say to restrict calories whether that's through reduced carbs, reduced fat or pretending to eat like a caveman.

brezelnbitte··on Harvard professor Francesca Gino was accused of faking data
Its not just psychology. All science is affected. Stuart Ritchie’s Science Fictions describes cases from across many disciplines. The worst are cases of misconduct in medical research with maybe the worst case being Paolo Macchiarini who fooled the Karolinska Institute of Nobel fame into letting him experiment on patients with trachea replacement surgeries: https://news.ki.se/the-macchiarini-case-timeline
brezelnbitte··on Westfield Gives Up Downtown San Francisco Mall
NYC was founded as and continues to be a financial capital, its where deals are done, so that strong anchor among its overall diversified economy helped. SF is somewhat similar to Detroit in that their economies are less diversified but weather and geography is a major advantage.
brezelnbitte··on A novel about video games became a surprise best seller
This book was really disappointing. The characters were all underdeveloped, remaining angsty melodramatic teenagers until the end despite them all being adults. It also tries to deal with some heavy themes but fails due to the immature characters. There is a lot of exposition to keep the plot moving, which is simply bad writing. Show don’t tell!
brezelnbitte··on When Will AI Take Your Job?
There are plenty of students who can ace these exams but then utterly fail at getting things done at companies because they lack problem solving experience, a toleration for ambiguity or any number of interpersonal skills needed to complete complex projects. Until AI can just deal with other AI and not messy humans, there will be job security.
brezelnbitte··on On Taking Photographs
Lightroom is also the best I have found. Just this week I was able to send an album from a trip in 2012 to a friend and share some photos of a trail run last year with some new acquaintances at a conference directly from the iPhone app. You also get a no-code portfolio site included. I now just create best of albums for trips and text links to family, friends and coworkers. I don’t see any point in pursuing strangers approval of my photos and rarely is their ever meaningful and helpful critique on sites like Flickr.

Also, for context, I shoot JPEG only on a Fuji XE4 so don’t use the Lightroom editing tools much.

brezelnbitte··on Pole Mounted EV Chargers for Urban Environments
I live in a dense city without a driveway so hopefully these become more mainstream before I buy my next car.
brezelnbitte··on I won’t hire people who use poor grammar (2012)
His argument is based on an invalid assumption that grammar and languages is immutable or at least that there is only a single source of truth but that is not the case. Language varies with the geography and age and continually evolves and changes.

As long as the idea gets across that’s all that matters. No one will mistake too for to so it’s pointless to care.

I wonder if the grammar test is still used because for any non -writing roles he lacks validity to use it as selection instrument.

brezelnbitte··on DerDieDas.wtf: If you know the pain of learning the gender of nouns in German
Spanish is one of the easiest to learn based on the US State Dept’s scale used for training personnel. German is one category more difficult.

https://www.state.gov/foreign-language-training/

Norwegian I believe is easiest because it follows English sentence structure closely. Knowing German and English makes Dutch easy to read but not pronounce.

brezelnbitte··on Apple TV+ to adapt William Gibson’s cyberpunk novel Neuromancer
House of the Dragon was based on Fire and Blood, and I thought was much worse than LOTR. I felt like I was duped into watching Downtown Abbey with dragons.

Foundation was unwatchable but I liked LOTR. Not perfect but Galadriel's storyline was well done and nice to a female hero in a series that typically leaves them to the background.

brezelnbitte··on Maryland law limits homeowner association control over eco-friendly yards
I much prefer to be left alone in a “trashy neighborhood” (which is quite a claim based on some plastic cans being outside a few hours early) than be micromanaged by my neighbors.
brezelnbitte··on Smartphones wiped out 97% of the compact camera market
I hate iOS color rendering though and I tried RAW. I ran the TMB (100mi in Alps) with phone and compact film camera and only 1 iPhone photo made the cut. The colors are too saturated esp the sky with the fake polarizer effect and the color transitions more abrupt. Everything looks way too cool in tone and muddy when I try to warm. And this is on a 13pro. My damaged film (noisy from X-rays at airport) was still far better with softer color gradations and better overall rendering. Fuji XE4 is also far better than phone. I hardly use my phone camera.
brezelnbitte··on Ask HN: Has the iPad Replaced Your Laptop?
I had the same issue with battery being dead often when I wanted to use my iPad. I solved this by setting up a Siri automation to add a task in Todoist to charge the iPad whenever battery dips below 50.
brezelnbitte··on An opinionated guide to making friends
I have had this exact same thinking about travel and maybe thought I was just depressed. With how uncomfortable and stressful travel can be, I’m failing to see the point of it. I live in Maine and prefer to just find a quiet hotel or airbnb for a few days instead of getting on a long flight to follow the museum, church, cultural event pattern ad nauseam.
brezelnbitte··on Reading Ourselves to Death
Absurd. Reading and writing is the only reason we’re not stuck in caves. It’s allowed us to create a shared consciousness across time that has been necessary for progress. So the benefits of literacy certainly outweigh any risks.

Furthermore, how is oral communication any less of an abstraction? And what about the quality of the text.

Also, reading is reflection. We’re not investing words like food.

Article poses an interesting question but fails to explore sufficiently.

brezelnbitte··on People who are isolated from others do worse on cognitive tests: new research
The definition for socially isolated seems fairly extreme and unlikely to be met by anyone still working, “People were classified as socially isolated if they were living alone, had social contact less than monthly and participated in social activities less than weekly.”
brezelnbitte··on Ask HN: Alternative ways to move a dog, human, and some baggage overseas?
When I looked into a similar move (a dog who would need to be with me entire time) to Germany from the US, I found a cruise that went to Europe and then from there could rent a car or take trains.

You could try searching for how people afraid of flying travel. May have some creative solutions.

brezelnbitte··on The chemistry of cold-brew coffee is so hot (2020)
The Hario bottle has been my go to method for cold brew last couple years. It’s incredibly easy to use. Cold brew is so much easier on an empty stomach when I want to get some caffeine before my long runs.
brezelnbitte··on Ask HN: What Books Do You Recommend Reading for 2022?
Less is More by Jason Hickel and The Day the World Stops Shopping by JB MacKinnon to explain the true state of capitalism and why we never can work less despite being more productive, why wages have stagnated, and why companies and choose profits over sustainability. The history of capitalism at start of Less Is More is eyeopening to say the least.
brezelnbitte··on Those writing extensively on note-writing rarely have a serious context of use
Tangentially I always found it rather confusing that on YouTube so many tech reviewers call themselves creators when they only “create” recycled videos such as unboxing/what’s in my bag/office tour/new office tour/new new office tour video.
brezelnbitte··on AirPods don't “just work”
Airpod Pros are great for running but that’s it. I’m genuinely surprised to see them used in meetings given battery life and well with my ears they would fall out immediately. I can’t chew or talk without them wiggling out. I tried beats fit pro and were worse.
brezelnbitte··on Ask HN: What do you snack on while coding?
The hoppy sodas too can be a nice replacement for beer though my dentist told me to cut back on sparkling water bc the high acidity can cause excess wear on your teeth. I sort of listened.
brezelnbitte··on Summary of Atomic Habits
I read close to 70 books last year and learned to skim all the filler by scanning down the page, reading a paragraphs first sentence until I get past the filler. Or I skip complete sections/chapters based on their titles. Business books all follow a formula with clear chapter descriptions and authors guide to content in the intro. I haven’t found summaries valuable because it’s not always the authors main point that sparks ideas for me.
brezelnbitte··on Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
Why Fish Don’t Exist by Lulu Miller

Lulu Miller, a host of the Invisibilia podcast, turns what at first is a simple story about an obsessive taxonomist, David Starr Jordan, into a deeply personal and poignant exploration of the chaos that rules are lives. This part-historical non-fiction, part memoir brilliantly sets itself up for a grand reveal at the end that will stick with you long after you finish. By far my favorite of the 62 books that I read and one of the best books that I have ever read.

brezelnbitte··on Ask HN: What is the best book on data visualization in 2021?
Tufte is a waste of time unless you’re interested in history of dataviz. While he makes excellent points on the graphics of the time, he makes at least an equal portion of questionable points. He's a bit of a luddite when discussing the utility of computers and takes a dogmatic approach to minimalism and design that doesn't have room for differing opinions. His opinions also do not hold in light of recent research into how humans interpret visual information. For example, he often recommends tables over bar charts when it's now been shown that bar charts are processed faster and easier.

Better Data Visualizations by Jonathan Schwabish is the best. He combines all the insight from recent data biz books like Storytelling with Data or Cairos series into a comprehensive guide. Even has a practical section on visualizing qualitative data, which I never see.

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