keeringplastik

Its really not. If it sounds like a dishwasher it just isn't the same.

That being said, it is rude to use excessive throttle in residential areas after hours.

Sounds like a bunch of grumpy grandpas in here today.

"Those hogs are too loud!" "My delicate hearing!"

I can agree though that the "loud pipes save lives" argument is silly.

The truth behind the loud Harley mystique though, is much simpler and obvious to those who have ever ridden one: crack that throttle and a smile is inevitable. It just feels good to ride a big, rumbling, thundering internal combustion engine. Yes, you might channel your inner knuckle dragging primate, but it doesn't mean you are one, or need to be one to understand it.

I was expecting a lot of ambitious projects would be mentioned, but it seems as if a lot of HN wants the same as me.

I would Unplug.

Take the kids camping, explore a national park for a couple weeks and let nature do it's thing. Take the guitar, leave the tablet. Try to catch some fish, which I have never done.

Read a couple books that have been put off for too long. Maybe some Heinlein or Asimovs foundation series (which I seem to have never gotten around to reading). Definitely some Alan watts.

I would also try some of that legal cannabis I keep reading about.

Also: Take a nap every day.

I tossed a milk create full of old omni magazines from the late 80s and early 90s about 6 months ago. Did not realize they were at all desirable. I almost donated them to a local kindergarten class but thought that the robot-insect artwork would be too scary for the little ones. Not to mention all the cigarette ads!

Anyone interested in some "fine homebuilding" magazines from the 80s? They are destined to end up in the bin as well.

Every time I read about arctic ocean ice cover and warming of the north pole it reminds me of the work of Ewing and Donn.

They theorized that the ice age cycle is driven (in conjunction with malinkovitch cycles) by loss of sea ice which then drives increased 'lake effect' snowfall across the landmass surrounding the arctic. If the snowfalls are sufficiently deep to resist summer melting, then it begins accumulating each year, increasing the albedo of the polar regions and decreasing temps.

Thus a warm ocean/cold landmass equilibrium is established which results in consistent glaciation over the ensuing millenia, until the oceans drop low enough that the source if arctic moisture is no longer present, and the rate of snowfall is less than the rate of melting.

This obviously raises the possibility that anthropogenic global warming ironically hastens the arrival of the next ice age. Could the tipping point occur within our lifetime? Something I pondered this past summer as I camped where not 100 years ago 300 feet of ice rested at Anderson glacier.

Because we have been conditioned to defend the honor and virtue of arbitrary political tribes by attacking viewpoints and ideas that do not align with our own preconceptions.

If there was a buzzword contest for 2016 I would nominate "cognitive dissonance". It requires far less intellectual effort to be dismissive of ideas and concepts that produce cognitive dissonance, than it is to wrap ones mind around the petty divisions that weaken our society.

Divided, to be more easily conquered? We could all do with a little Sun Tzu these days. Seems it might put our predicament in context.

Saw this one described as the "ministry of truth" on one of the alt-right websites. I like how they emphasize that it will be deployed/instituted under the direction of the trump administration. Maybe Bannon could take the helm? He knows how to craft a few clever messages.

The mental gymnastics required to spin these last weeks of pax obama for political ends, let alone comprehend them, must be keeping more than a few people up at night. Imagine if this new center found some connection (funding, content, editing) between Russian or Israeli foreign propaganda efforts and domestic channels like breitbart or infowars (divide and conquer!). Not suggesting its likely but yikes!

When such a center tasked with the full support and capabilities afforded by the US government to "recognize, understand, expose, and counter" foreign influences surely some surprises will be unearthed?

My old man says it's going to be an "interesting year". I'm increasing fearful that he is right.

Thank you for this little nugget of wisdom! It puts one of my past employers into a relevant context.

kickstarter link:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/718167420/the-spooky-gi...

Good kids, all of 'em.

"Nice guy trump" isnt really the campaign he ran, or what got him elected.

Class conflict is a constant in politics, but still doesn't explain "prince trump for the little guys"

Ok

I understand the rural/urban divide. I recognise the inherent value differences separating farm country and the major metropolitan areas.

What I can't wrap my mind around is that the champion of these folksy rural farmers and former factory workers, the hero of the common bud light swilling, chevy driving, fox news watching red blooded, god fearing American turned out to be Donald Trump!

Here is the epitome of big city, tax dodging, 80's tastless excess in the mold of Gordon Gecko. A pompous and self absorbed celebrity from New York city. A former Democrat and friend of the enemy with ties to wall street and the sell out of the American worker.

Reading through some of the recent HN comments concerning this election is disconcerting, as it shows that this divide is deep and has poisoned even this normally reserved and cordial community.

However, tell me hacker news, why is Donald Trump the savior of traditional American values?

Yup, I'll buy that sauce.

Been there, done that, not again.

Testify, brothers!

That makes sense. I was indeed doing some hovering and dithering over tents.

What I found curious however, is the fact that I have never ordered anything from REI on my phone, nor logged on to any REI website (no cart, no account). All REI purchases go through my wife's account for the dividend.

How does casual browsing connect with an email address, excepting the Google search?

Sometimes I wonder if the Web has already passed some basic level of sentience.

You guys will let me know when that happens, right?

REI knows how to close the deal:

I was shopping a while back for a new tent. Wondered if I should wait for a 20% off single item coupon event like they do a couple times a year. Googled "when is the next rei 20% coupon?". I got the expected results: probably around labor day.

Lo and behold, a couple days after this I received an email from REI with a 25% off single item offer code.

I don't know of I should be frightened or not, but I got a new tent!

I went through a phase in my late teens where I used an old typewriter to record my screeds on life, politics and technology. It was fun to get that rythm going with the keys clattering and the hammers indenting. It made it feel like you were really writing something important (I would italicize but for the phone).

I guess I was a hipster before hipster was a thing. I might have to dig through my files and see if I still have any of it...

What did you do prior to school? Seems there may have been some time between HS and uni. What was going on that led you to pursue a business field? Why did you choose business administration?

To be fair, getting a degree in business administration is basically asking for a soul crushing corporate desk job.

My java script fatigue led me to disable it on my phone.

Seriously. I's been about nine months.

I use the exceptions feature to add in common sites where it is required.

I have been surprised over the course of this experiment by how little it is really needed for casual browsing.

And it has led to a decline in my consumption of garbage Internet by forcing me to take the time to add the exception which leads me to question whether this content is really worth the effort.

I think about building a feature that can do quick, single instance, javascript exceptions.

However, I fear it would undo the good done by the natural filter on my surfing.

And as a bonus, my data usage decreased considerably.

Or at least until "rich" becomes your identity, then you defend your position.

http://paulgraham.com/ineq.html

"A candle against the sun" or something like that.

I wonder if the gamma bursts from nuclear testing are discernible from the solar noise? It would reduce the distance to about about 60 light years.

If some ET were looking in our direction, I imagine the radiation signature would look like camera flashes on the far side of a dark stadium where a pyrotechnic performance was occurring on stage.

So long as your eyes are not blinded by the main event, a burst of sparks off to one side might catch your attention - if you are watching during those precious few years when such events happen, and the orientation of all relevant celestial bodies are favorably aligned.

Now, having put it to words, it becomes a hopelessly unlikely signal.

Relevant? Maybe just food for thought.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/08/do-what-...

What do they have you doing, and what you would like to be doing?

If the difference is insurmountable (or if your career goal is different from the job reality) then you are on the losing end of the deal.

As soon as you can identify what is wrong with where you are, and where it is you need to (or should ideally) be, it is time to find something closer to that thing, and move on to it.

This is in that venn overlap between what you are good at, what you like to do, and what other people will pay you to do. Life is full of tons of other things, but this is just the core of this situation.

When life squeezes on the Venn until any of those three things (or other important things) are no longer overlapping, it is time to change something, like switching to a new job that overlaps better with your particular venn idiosyncrasies.

Hope that gives you something to mull on instead of dwelling on the suckiness of this one job, which, I can attest has been the case for me on multiple occasions in my life. It isn't fun when you feel like little more than another seat warming robot and not a valued contributor.

I have had the luxury of quitting my job without having another lined up, but I still have had to take another critical look at my work/life arrangement and try to ensure that whatever is next is really what is best for me and my unique venn diagram, which as I have gotten a bit older has become complicated by mortgages/wives/families/etc.

Ha! Now I am going to go try and actually draw mine out!

Cheers

Could be just a case of run of the mill depression. What else has been going on in your life the past 6 months? First job? Recent move? Girls?

What kind of personal projects do you have going?

I went through the same process this past year: my job had gotten to the point that the most challenging part was trying to accept the level of dysfunction that had become so entrenched. I was in my chosen field, getting to work on the exact thing I wanted to work on. However I could not shake the feeling that the organization could give two shits about my actual performance, and really just wanted a seat-warming sycophant. I had been in this position for almost three years, and all the economics (profit sharing, benefits, etc. ) were favorable.

Leaving a "good" job is not easy, even when you have another "good" job lined up.

Luckily my wife gave me an out in the form of becoming the stay at home dad for some time while she became the breadwinner. It's a tighter budget, but doable. It also aligns with our desire to avoid having to resort to daycare for our very young children.

I did not really want to leave just as I was moving onto the work I really wanted but the nagging feeling was still there: do I really want to hitch my cart to this drunk pony?

My solution was to do the things I was specifically directed, but to get those out of the way as fast as possible, as opposed to the usual milking it out and "looking busy" until the next task came by (this was common between large projects). With the rest of my time I dug deep into the things I believed were the most critical to the company, were related directly to my position, and were also problems I could solve. Without getting into too much detail, I sought to improve some of the processes that were either outdated, outright wrong or maddeningly cumbersome/tedious.

I did this for about six months in a few different areas I was involved: systems modeling, database management, and radiant heat transfer were the three that I focused. I wrote some simple proposals, some mock-ups of what I was building and presented it to my superiors.

The response was utterly unsurprising given the the track record of the company: "we have always done things this way", "it has always worked fine so far", " we need that cumbersome software because someday, it might prevent an expensive mistake", "I make the decisions and am responsible so you just need to accept these practices and move on" etc. I pointedly asked my boss (the chief engineer) if he had any questions, anything, about one of my proposals (maybe 25 pages long) and the answer was a flat "no".

That was the last straw. If my best work was going to be so curtly dismissed, I would rather change diapers all day.

Granted, I was being one of those "if I was in charge this is how I would do it" types, but I was A: putting it in detailed written form, and B: confining my proposals only to what applied directly to my job. It wasn't water cooler bitching, and it wasn't about telling anyone else how they should do their job.

Don't cope with an unsatisfying job any longer than you have to. My advice: decide for yourself what you can do for your company, and then do it (enlist your fellow drones of you can). If your boss/employer (go as high as you feel comfortable) does not at the very least recognize your work ethic, tell them to shove it.

TL;DR It feels great to leave a sinking ship after you tried, and were told not, to fix the hole.

Uh-oh. If recent legalization expands, and results in Bill O'Reilly's nightmare nation of "stoned slackers", will America be psychologically prepared to deal with Putin? Or Xi? We are doomed! Also, I don't hear any (new) voices when I smoke, but I would agree that psylocybin is very much like communication with an alien "other" consciousness. Or maybe I've just read too much Terrance McKenna.

"Chaos",James Gleick

Maybe not the best book for understanding chaos theory, but I have not stopped seeing stochastic patterns and applying concepts of fractal geometry to things I come across in life as I attempt to wrap my mind around some of the deeply complex phenomena in the universe. Whether being enraptured by the flitting and fluttering of a curtain in a breeze, or in observing the fundamental structure of a trees growth and branching. The whole concept of the poincare section completely blew my mind open, even though the math was well over my head. The book stunned my feeble mind. Even though it has been about 15 years, no scientifically centered book has resonated as strongly since.

As an aside: GEB has come up so often it has reminded me that it was on my short list of books to read once upon a time, alas, before the internet stole my time.