typhonic

I used to get testy when people rinsed the dishes before loading the dishwasher. Then one day I had to take it apart and dig out rice, plastic, beans, and other things that were stopping it up.

It wasn't always that way. The sugar industry in the Americas was heavily tied to slave trade.

I can't say I agree with you 100%, but I see your point. That is part of the reason I don't stop at the top comment. There's usually a lot of good information further down as well.

You are absolutely correct, but we are not near that point with amateur radio. If you haven't seen what's going on with amateur radio in a while, you might be pleasantly surprised. The hobby has not stagnated or gone away due to the advent of cell phones.

About 30 years ago I was being asked by some guy I barely knew to do something over the weekend. I didn't know how to tell him that I would rather just be at home with my family. Eventually and without thinking it through, I just said "It's my weekend with the kids." He instantly became apologetic and said he understood completely. And I instantly felt like a heel for pretending to be someone I'm not. I had accidentally identified with a group that suffers in a way I did not. It worked, but the experience has stuck with me. I don't like myself when I'm too afraid to be truthful and while I don't think I hurt the other guy, it was a close call. One that I try to avoid.

edit:spelling

The book Apollo by Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox shows a similar concept. In the investigation after the fire in Apollo 1, they found many possible near misses. But when each of those items did not lead to a failure, they became accepted. They poor designs or installations were allowed to slide and the accumulation of trouble spots kept increasing.

I agree with the exercise. For me it was Aikido. The addition of someone telling me me that I was improving really helped me.

I have had bosses and potential employers who could see through my insecurity. That helped too.

She still has a bit of fear and uncertainty, which I have learned to accept, but I do not believe she is worried that I will ever leave.

I convinced my wife to marry me. She was very pessimistic, thinking that I would leave her. It took six months to get a positive response to my proposal and another year of reassurance before we married. We have been married 41 years. The courtship was helpful experience for the marriage.

I wouldn't call the python page a cheat sheet. It's more of a concise index into the official docs.

At my company I find the culture mildly frustrating because we do so little to educate the new hires. Our method is to hire experience. So we now have a group of 25 design/engineer level people with a variety of project methods and a ragged list of skills. Because of this we can only accept small to medium projects. We would not be able to execute a large project because we don't have a large team, we don't have a uniform background or uniform method.

In my first engineering job there was training path and there was a "company way" of doing things. We hired all levels of experience and trained them on the skills and the company way as needed. I know a predefined method of project execution can be stifling, and that sometimes happened, but it was a good place to start.

At my current place, a person can roam the halls or chats and ask questions, but it is just too random. If someone is not delivering up to expectations, the engineering manager will visit tell them to improve. That is not what I call training. While it does work, somewhat, those who survive it simply reinforce whatever method of execution they develop in their own heads. The company grows by adding a small revenue stream, but not in the ability work together.

Finding your spot, developing your skills, learning your domain are mostly your responsibility. When you say "jobs were far to come by in my old area of expertise" that implies you are now in a better area to find a company more suited to you; maybe a more mentoring company. I agree with so much of the advice given to you so far. I will be working on myself using what I have read here. Some of the advice, however, was targeted at the time before you changed jobs. That is still possible.

Wow, finding (http://zty.pe) was serendipitous. Please don't include that world in the early levels, I'm not a good typist.

Invitation to Love by Fr Thomas Keating. While teaching about contemplative prayer, Fr Keating describes clearly the emotional programs for happiness (security, esteem, control) which we develop before maturity and which distract us as adults from knowing our true selves. I long ago picked my nickname from his description of our journey: reptilian, typhonic, mental egoic, unitive.

I've always been amazed by how widely the Stanford Prison Experiment results are accepted when a) the experiment has not been repeated and b) the experiment didn't even get completed. It was stopped when the researchers had made up their minds about the results.

A couple of years ago, right before my 58th birthday, I saw this posted on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6640430 It says more than I can, but I will add one thing. At about that same time my company hired an engineer a year older than me. He's still doing a great job. I'm not in precisely the same business as you, but it's close enough that I still read HN.

"In protocol design, perfection has been reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." This seems like a good chance to acknowledge the author, Antoine de Saint Exupéry.

Thanks, everyone for the help. I'll be talking to Dave and working on some of the other suggestions, too.

I worry that you are right. This is my fifth job in 34 years and the best place I have ever worked. So I was hoping to make an improvement from where I sit instead of looking for a better environment.

I am an engineer and I heard that from other engineers. I have gotten a little bit closer to management than average, not because I do superior work, but because I am not afraid of losing my job. So some other people here will tell me things they want management to know and some things are not mentioned to me directly because people think I am close to management. In other words, office politics and rumors.

I am compelled to echo the the first statements by quarterwave and kjs3. I was personally saved from a morning of mindlessness, and I will be soon opening up an IC or two to see for myself. You said I could do it. Thanks kens.

That is a good idea, too, but different from what I was thinking. If I, or someone else gets this working, it may have other applications.

I was thinking about writing a driver for laptops that have the touchpad in front of the space bar. Sometimes when I am typing, I accidentally move the focus by touching the touchpad, and my text gets entered in the wrong place. I think I could write a driver, or application, which recognizes that pattern and keeps track of the erroneously placed text. Then a magic keystroke combination could be used to invoke an automatic repair.

And how many people would choose to give their money to Larry Page?

I read it and understood it. You are wrong.

I was captivated by your statement. I am strictly middle class, not very accomplished, not well traveled, not a leader. You seem to have the ability to have an impact which will go beyond the ordinary. I think the effect of your future efforts will be very positive, but I have to admit the chance of failure; your failure and the failure of those who should support your efforts. Including myself.

I made another comment today. Maybe I should keep it up until I learn how to make a difference.

By the way, I like the significance of your login ID. In the long run, that's quite a good sentiment.

Wow, what lousy grammar for a Times article! It might be different if this were breaking news, but the article refers to an earlier story The New York Post.

None of us will know if Mark Cuban is truly happy. And we cannot tell for sure if you will ever be happy. What is clear from all you have said, is that riches will not make you happy. You have studied and worked to get where you are. You do not live in isolation so there must be others who have benefited from you being you. I do not doubt your temptation to give up, but I hope you choose to improve. Losing someone who has made such an impact would surely be painful to those you touched.

Though you should not strive solely for wealth, you do not have to refuse that which comes to you. I believe, along the way you can find happiness.

Hang in there.

A part of the consideration should be the cost of buying the tools. If you have to build all your own tools, there may be another element to the analysis.

You must have other interests. I suggest you look for a job in one of those areas. Some things can overlap with pure mathematics, game creation, for example. Some jobs can simply provide you with enough resources to pursue your other interests separately, sales, for example.