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symmitchryon Excuse Me for Being an Optimist in “The End Times” of Our Current World

> We aren't all doomed and, please, kindly, stop wasting my valuable and limited time and energy on listening to your crap about how we are all doomed, as if the world has never had serious problems before. Either roll your sleeves up and be part of the solution or at least get out of my way.

This is the conclusion. Don't even get me started on the "I'm a military wife" paragraph.

The environment is not getting better day by day, despite this woman's stressful parenting career.

symmitchryon A more detailed, colorful map

At the moment I am constantly surprised by how hard to read the maps are. I very often cannot see the roads because they are white no a white background (on my phone).

symmitchryon Lilly Wachowski confirms 'Matrix' series is a transgender allegory

That's definitely far-fetched. If anything, The Matrix is almost a word-for-word remake of Neuromancer by William Gibson (which is an amazing book). Plus a bit of Ghost In The Shell, perhaps.

symmitchryon Ask HN: I have $450K cash, what should I do to maximize my return?

You could be interested in retiring early (or immediately), or you could be interested in buying property overseas and spending your winters in Spain.

Also "minimize risk" is not consistent with "maximize return" so that's not even a valid answer. Someone might say "I wanna put it all on Black", and someone else might be saving for their child. Lots of really varied answers are possible.

symmitchryon Unauthorized Bread: Jailbreaking IoT toasters

Also this Brother printer has been rock solid: https://www.brother-usa.com/products/hll2360dw

symmitchryon Student group leader arrested on suspicion of inciting secession in HK

You believe that 3 million 'petition signatures' is even remotely equivalent to 2 million actual protesters marching the street?

symmitchryon Ask HN: Should a remote employee’s salary be tied to their physical location?

During hiring, it makes lots of sense. A Kansas candidate could certainly accept a lower-paying job than an SF one. It makes less sense when you move while already employed, since the cost of re-hiring would greatly exceed the delta they might save. I guess it becomes a question then of are you willing to put your job on the line and demand the identical salary.

symmitchryon Things I wish I’d known about CSS

When I read that section about rems and ems and ch and px it made me think of Python's "There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it."

CSS and front-end browser work drives me up the wall.

symmitchryon Ask HN: What are some skills you have that are worth learning?

General fitness. I've exercised most of my life, and I am constantly helping people start out. I am not a professional athlete, but I have a vast general knowledge of anatomy, physiology, training plans, etc. It makes learning new things ("I'd like to run a marathon") so much easier, safer and more efficient if you have some foundational knowledge.

symmitchryon I deleted my Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram accounts, and felt great since

Deleting Twitter was easy for me because the platform is so antagonistic on mobile if you don't use their app. I don't even click on links people send me anymore.

symmitchryon Dream Homes from the Past Century

Part of me loves architecture and seeing these amazing homes. Sadly, a bigger part of me cannot afford a 1 bedroom condo.

In my old age, my lower middle class 'lot in life' prevents me from really enjoying luxurious things.

symmitchryon Advice to new managers: don't joke about firing people

On our (very small) team, our manager jokes about it constantly. Every day. It's a running joke. But we all get along and know he's 100 % joking and he is very protective of his team. So in our case I think it's fine.

So to your first point, I think the managerial relationship is complicated enough that it warrants thinking about it, anyway.

symmitchryon Grid – A Lua Game Engine

Years of being extremely difficult to run on a Mac (no pip install), horrible website update (the old one was bad, but at least it was cool & functional), and on-going issues like this: https://github.com/pygame/pygame/issues/555

There's not even a note on the website that it's entirely broken in Mojave. It's just _always_ something.

Compared to LOVE and numerous other projects which just worked right out of the box. I'm a total Python guy, but Pygame has always been frustrating.

symmitchryon Grid – A Lua Game Engine

Does Python have any good game engines? PyGame project is a nightmare.

Lua's https://love2d.org/ is amazing.

symmitchryon NYPD Union Doxes Mayor's Daughter on Twitter

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doxing

The act of sharing it and aggregating it is the issue. The information doesn't need to be private.

symmitchryon Hong Kong’s security law is going to devastate its economy

Didn't they mandate learning Mandarin in schools, and remove English as the second language (some time ago?)

Here is another example: Mandatory Mandarin proficiency exams at university: https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education/article/213041...

I have lived in HK and know many people there, and their day to day doesn't seem impacted, but culturally I suspect a massive gradual change is inevitable.

It would be like asking: does living in China differ tremendously from living in the US, for you and I? Not that much really, on a day-by-day basis!

symmitchryon Captured Warplanes

Bizarre writing, too. I can't stand when writers enjoy their owner "clever" writing more than the storyline.

symmitchryon Joe Rogan got ripped off

They certainly aren't given Joe Rogan very much credit, that's for sure.

symmitchryon The silence of the owls

I was attacked by a huge owl recently. It drew blood, and really hurt. I can confirm it was entirely silent, in contrast to being attacked by a crow, which makes an almost-avoidable swooshing sound.

symmitchryon The Cost of Free Doughnuts: 70 Years of Regret

Coincidentally, I was thinking of Kia as a great counter example. Admittedly I don't know much, but haven't they started offering much nicer cars over time, as the brand as grown?

symmitchryon Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

Well, as a user, wouldn't it be nice if I could access 100 % of my battery for situations where I need as much life as possible? 20 % is fairly significant. It also cuts down on battery longevity, but plenty of people might not care at all.

symmitchryon What the Heck Is Pyproject.toml?

Python also doesn't support yaml in the standard library, interestingly.

symmitchryon Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco

I find the state of the environment so shockingly depressing, it's incredible. What would I give to see the world like that?

symmitchryon How do we stop people from blinding other drivers with aftermarket LEDs?

I think a nicer interpretation is: "I'm sorry about my bright lights, but I don't accidentally have my high beams on, thank you."

symmitchryon SUVs and pickup trucks are now too big for already gigantic garages

The rise of the Platinum F350 as a luxury vehicle is something I wouldn't have predicted. It's crazy how much money people are willing to spend on an impractical vehicle like a full-size pickup.

That being said, I really like big trucks. I guess it's selfish to want one, but I still do. Of course I don't live in the city, where it would be more hassle than enjoyable.

symmitchryon [dead]

No, but my recent experience with giving Ruby an honest shake was that very many repos/packages are abandoned or of poor quality, compared Python.

Although a language never dies, I was surprised at the level of decay.

symmitchryon Expert programmers have fine-tuned cortical representations of source code

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Tinsley

symmitchryon The Curse of Milk Sickness

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ageratina_altissima

symmitchryon Fibery – yet another collaboration tool

I worked for a company who had "Mobile First!" in their top 4 or 5 "product statements". We had two mobile devs. Both employed for < 6 months, one of which was basically fresh out of university.

symmitchryon Office Chair Is Hurting You

If standing is so terrible because of immobility perhaps a walking desk is the ideal solution.

Remember this amazing post? https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2019/02/seeking-the-prod...