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Couldn't we just replace the sulphur with some other kind of element?

This is incredibly smart.

Although the risk is that if the machine somehow gets damaged/malfunctions or if a car crashes into it, the setup can become more of a liability than a benefit.

Any ideas on actual roles?

I think the thing that kills me is the mental exhaustion of software development. Just thinking about how to solve problems all day is mentally taxing.

I feel a large part of it is that companies are getting regular employees to do more of the interviewing, so it's like they get people in simply so they can train those employees interviewing skills.

I know at the previous company I worked at you couldn't get promoted unless if you were partaking in interviews, so I feel that might be a potential reason.

I feel that's a bit like saying that you can only send and receive X number of emails, or only create X number of sticky notes in Miro. It's inherently prohibitive to the core idea of the product.

The absolute worst case where I see this is in generating acceptance criteria for tickets. It drives me insane, because so many of the acceptance criteria needlessly overlap so it's even harder to figure out what's going on.

My first impression is that teachers would primarily be doing this if schools are understaffed and teachers are overworked.

But I'm sure there's a million other factors as well i.e. you're saving time regardless.

"This time will be different."

One way I've been told to understand this is that money is actually growing at around 6%, which is to say that money growth is highly inflationary.

Of course this is way too high, so to offset this there are deflationary measures, primarily increased productivity, technological improvements etc.

The problem with this is that we end up working permanently harder and it reaches a point of unsustainability. For example, now you generally need two incomes to sustain the same lifestyle as previously, because we need more people working etc.

Other deflationary measures included the opening of the Asian labor market, and then other globalisation measures.

Correct, but you're describing the problem.

I had the exact same experience with Bitcoin back around 2014. Only now just getting back into investing as I realise it's an important thing to do for wealth preservation.

I suppose it's not uncommon for people to have this kind of experience, so I'm just glad I had it young.

I think my issue with ChatGPT is that I feel like I have to spend more time/effort figuring out what to tell it, as opposed to Google where because the search results have been optimised, I can be a lot more concise with it or literally just post in the error and it will just know what I want.

I think you basically summed it up by saying that we're terrible at long term thinking.

But back to democracy, why should we care if parties are only elected for 3-5 year terms?

Absolutely it's going to end in disaster, but also, that's just how the system is currently designed.

I've been discussing housing a lot with my friend lately, and I think a large part of the problem is simply that democracy in it's current form does not incentivise affordable housing.

Why would those who do own houses want to see their assets depreciate because of increased supply etc.

It's that "it's only going to get better" part that is driving the bubble, I think.

The market has this idea that over the next year, we're somehow going to have AI that's literally perfect. Yet that's not how technology works, it takes decades to get there.

It'd be like if the first LCD TV was invented, and all of a sudden everyone is expecting 8k OLED by the next year. It just doesn't work like that.

How would this make sense if the market is a bubble? Bubbles pop by definition and you end up losing everything? Not sure what it has to do with your employment.

It's possible to love something for a period of time, and then no longer love it as you find other substitutes for it.

Well, tech is a bit different in that because it uses a computer (and a lot of roles aren't highly monitored, if at all i.e. WFH) you have the choice to do things other than your job.

I imagine most people working with a computer in a corporate role, are spending maybe a few hours of their time actually working, and the rest of their time doing things they actually enjoy doing.

How can you be all for it, when you've explained that it's affected the results in such a significant way? What is the "correct" way of doing it?

The thing I don't get about spacial computing is: why?

I feel like being able to see everything open at once would be incredibly distracting. I like how I can swipe between app screens on my desktop so that I'm only focusing on one app at a time.

Of course I imagine there are some applications where it's useful, but to me it just feels like the Apple Vision Pro is just a very large screen and they haven't quite figured out what to do with it.

Interesting, do you have any examples/literature on this idea of a progress meter? I think I might try that. Especially the whole 20 hour idea, I think will be really useful for me.

Because I did enjoy drawing in the beginning. It was my approach which made it anxiety-inducing over time.

I think it began from the moment that I realised that I needed to study in order to become better.

That's when things became more deliberate in terms of focus, and I think in the process of doing that, is when things became more difficult to reason with.

But it's a catch-22. In the case of music, I felt demotivated making music, because it didn't sound like how I wanted to. But then focusing on study also demotivated me, because I wasn't making music and it felt like I was going off into another realm.

Thanks for that.

Having both played many instruments and getting into music composition, I can say that music composition is fundamentally quite different.

Instrument practice is easy in that there is no ambiguity. There is the piece and there is you.

There is simply no guidance with music composition, so it is incredibly open-ended. But I think you're about the attitude of a practice.

Another issue might be that because it's a hobby I have to try and wedge in between the busier aspects of my life, it might feel that I simply don't have the time to truly dedicate myself to the things I'm passionate about, and that's really where my disappointment lies.

Thanks for that.

I agree with what you say and I've definitely considered and thought about what you've said in the past, but it never quite works like that in practice. But that's also to say that I'm being unreasonable.

In the case of music for example, I had the realisation that part of the reason why I struggled is because I simply had no idea what I was listening to. This lead me to spend around 4 months familiarising myself with every single EDM genre and the kinds of sounds they use, and although I now find this knowledge invaluable, I'm not sure how I would have done this whilst also maintaining practice. In my mind, it was a necessary evil that I just had to knock out of the way, to the detriment of actual practice.

I guess my issue is my all or nothing attitude, which I really struggle to avoid and somehow even if I do start balanced and focused on practice, it somehow ends up becoming "all in" on a single way of learning.

But a question if you're available:

- How do you maintain that interest/curiosity without going "all in"? You say the feeling is irrelevant, but what is the drive? How do you maintain consistent curiosity?

I often think that the mania is a coping mechanism for a lack of curiosity/interest, and perhaps as well to mask the anxiety/boredom that art can bring.

Magic is just one example, but to be more specific with another hobby, I'll use music as an example.

The problem I have with music, is that I can't get it to sound like the other music that I like. And no amount of just "making music" will get me to sound like that.

Instead, what you need to do is actually study other people's music, through analysis, studying genre, watch tutorials etc. And this has helped me significantly. The reason I say that this is because I've had so many epiphanies about how I've been doing it completely "wrong" in regards to what I thought I should have been doing vs what I actually should have been doing.

In addition, if I just focus on making music I get demotivated cause it just doesn't sound like how I want it to.

The problem is that it's really hard to balance between making music and studying music. When you're studying music, it's like that becomes your focus and it consumes you. Which also demotivates you from making music.

But yeah, obviously I'm aware of what the issues are, but I'm not quite sure how to approach it all in a sustainable way.

This is not to sound contrarian, but I genuinely believe and have had the exact opposite experience to everything you describe.

Method 1 is preferred for me, because it's actually going out there and "doing it". It makes me focused.

Method 2 is where I spiral. Because it's ambiguous, because it's safe, instead of actually making art, I continue just improving the art station. I stall. I go into a kind of "gathering" mindset where I just collect and collect and collect (also known as GAS, gear acquisition syndrome) and I never actually end up making anything.

But I think there is some truth in what you're saying. I think what's missing for me is that feeling of "comfort". Instead, I get a feeling of anxiety when I approach art, but I'm not exactly sure why.

It's actually for this reason why I couldn't continue drawing as a hobby. It would just make me feel incredibly anxious, like I had to force myself to do it. Any literature or advice on this would be fantastic.

I think the issue is that I'm incapable of having that relationship with lists.

Kind of like how some people can't help themselves with alcohol, and others are totally fine with it.

Thank you, what techniques resonated with you?

The thing is, what if you're learning something particularly complex? How do you go about documenting what you need to do, because a simple list like that wouldn't seem to suffice?

Maybe my issue is how I go about documentation, as opposed to lists.

It might also just be that I don't know how to make a list not end up being an obligation. Aren't they obligations by definition, a thing you need to do?