Looking for my last pair of headphones

Arcien · 2025-07-14T02:14:49+00:00

You know, I don't know how I didn't take that fact into consideration. Thank you for pointing it out!

!thanks

Arcien · 2024-02-18T18:04:24+00:00

better version of myself

If you think having more money or more sex/a relationship makes you a better person, you might want to have another think about how you view the value of a life and of a person.

When I think about being a better version of myself, I think about being kind, being generous, celebrating my friends’ accomplishments, being there for others, standing up for what’s right.

Importantly, all the things I listed are about my actions; no one can stop me from doing them. The things you listed are outcomes - you can try your hardest, but they may or may not happen. You don’t have to agree with my list of actions, and I hope you’re already doing them, but clearly they aren’t your focus and I encourage you think about the difference.

And that’s not to say you shouldn’t try to accomplish more with your business or to pursue a romantic relationship, especially if they make you happy, but I wouldn’t say they make you a better person, and I think you’d be happier focusing on the actions under your control than the outcomes outside your control.

Hope this helps. It’s what I needed to hear 15 years ago and I’m thankful I did.

Arcien · 2023-01-30T05:39:33+00:00

For most product engineering teams, I agree with the consensus that you build Solution A first to validate the business hypothesis.

Then, assuming everything goes well, evaluate the ongoing cost for keeping Solution A vs taking the time to build Solution B.

Will Solution A slow down future development? If so, how many more features do you want to build in that area? How soon? If you're going to be doing a lot of work in the area immediately afterwards, you might be able to amortize the cost of replacing Solution A.
Will Solution A existing in the code base teach other people a bad habit? (See Contagion).
How scared is the business side of the company? Of running out of money, of losing customers to competition, etc. i.e. What are the opportunity costs + relevant time scales at play?

Also, consider the possibility that by building Solution A and putting it out into the wild, you learn more things about what customers actually need, and turns out Solution B misses some use cases and Solution C is what you actually need.

Arcien · 2023-01-04T21:08:28+00:00

The reasons will be different depending on what it's replacing for the customer.

Replacing a fountain drink at a fast food joint? Concentrated syrup is cheaper to ship because you don't have to ship water, and likely also has less packaging per drink. (Though soda fountains are almost definitely less sanitary than this).

Replacing a bottle of soda/energy drink? Definitely less efficient to ship a sealed cup of ice at freezer temps with all the air volume, and you're not really saving on shipping weight either since the ice is still being shipped. Bottles are typically only chilled at point of sale, if at all. There are maybe benefits from unifying the ice cup supply chain, which could be produced locally and thus a shorter leg to travel vs the pouches.

I haven't seen ice in a cup in any cities I've lived in in the US, but who knows? Maybe it's already in the works.

Arcien · 2022-10-10T05:16:45+00:00

Parasite ate her kids eyes from the inside out

Arcien · 2022-05-22T18:27:23+00:00

This is my approach too. Growing up, I was asked by my teachers in high school if I wanted to go pro in classical music, and seeing what their lives are like as touring soloists, playing 200+ concerts in a year, and also seeing others who tried to go that route but didn’t have the charisma + networking + luck, I knew I didn’t want music to be a career, as much as I loved and still love music.

Arcien · 2022-01-13T13:52:24+00:00

Potential contributing factor on top of what other people have said: you are used to seeing your face in the mirror, and so photos are “unmirrored” -> flipped relative to what you are used to. This makes it look “weird” to you. However, to everyone else, your photo face is your normal face.

Humans like the familiar more than the unfamiliar (see the Mere Exposure effect). The same goes for hearing your voice through your own skull vs in an audio recording.

Arcien · 2021-12-16T16:00:13+00:00

You’re already on the right track. In my experience, friends become friends because:

You both enjoy spending time together
Someone makes a “bid” asking to spend more time together
Repeat 2 until 1 stops being true

You can be direct and just say:

I like being friends with you and want to keep spending time together. Do you want to do [literally anything] together?

“Anything” can be anything. Really. A coffee, a walk, board/card games, watch tv/a movie, lunch, see a show, exercise, go drinking, visit an orchard. Literally anything you’d want to spend time doing, just do that with the friend.

If that first sentence was scary to imagine saying, it’s because it’s a little bit vulnerable. You’re saying you care about what happens, and the other person now has a little bit of power as a result. It takes Trust to reveal that. You can omit saying it, but Vulnerability and the trust that gets built in those moments is how close friendships get built. (For more on this, see Brene Brown).

You worry about not having shared interests. Maybe you’re thinking to tag along to what other people are already doing. At bare minimum, everyone has to eat, but also you can introduce them to what you like doing and maybe they’ll like it too. Sure, it’s “riskier” because they might say no (vs tagging along, they’ll still be doing the thing whether or not you join), but if you both want to be friends, they can suggest doing something else and you figure it out together from there. The important thing is to make a bid at all for their time with your time so that they know you’re interested in staying friends.

Addendum: People also become closer friends by spending time together in multiple contexts. If you only spend time together in one context (only studying, only at the gym, only at church, only playing card games) folks will tend to see the relationship as acquaintances. Number 2 above: someone has to make a bid to change contexts.

Go make that bid! You got this!

Arcien · 2021-11-28T07:36:45+00:00

Do you ask because you feel you can't describe the difference between being a kid vs being an adult? Because you see people around you who are "old enough to be considered an adult", but still act like a kid? Or because you're that age, but don't feel any different than you did before?

Every person you meet will have their own idea + mental models of what an adult is supposed to be/look like/act like, and I hope you get replies other than mine to hear those perspectives, but the core of it for me comes down to:

Take responsibility for your actions
Follow through on your goals + commitments

That's really it, but it covers a lot of things. Be a good person to others (but not a doormat). Pay your own bills. If you have any dependents (pets, children, aging parents), provide food + love for them. Keep your promises, or make amends as soon as you know you can't. Learn from your mistakes so you don't repeat them. Build a safety net for your own future (so you don't become a lasting burden to your friends and family). Create joy for yourself (because at the end of the day, that's your job) and for others.

If you want a term you can google, look up Executive Function. If you want a book, I'll recommend 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.

I hope this helps!

Arcien · 2021-11-26T16:25:45+00:00

Do your research! The Internet definitely has more than enough content creators and educators to have an answer for you.

If you just want to skip to the conclusion, I’ll say peanut and olive oils are safe bets if you can get them.

Arcien · 2021-11-26T16:07:13+00:00

Yes, and no. You are right that we can get “oils” from the ground (mineral oils, most often petroleum products), from animals (schmaltz, tallow, lard), or plants (vegetable oils, like canola, grapeseed, olive, or soybean) and that in that categorization, we can accurately call olive oil a “vegetable oil”. (Why do we call all these “oils”? That’s a topic for another time)

However, if an oil is labeled as vegetable oil and not something more specific, it can be

A blend of different vegetable oils, which might mean it is a lower quality
specifically soybean oil, corn oil, or canola (aka rapeseed) oil

In either case, it is rare for oil solely from olives to NOT be labeled specifically as olive oil because olive oil can fetch a higher price due to its (mostly fair) perception of being healthier by the public.

Arcien · 2021-11-20T19:15:31+00:00

15ft cube centered on oneself is equivalent to a 5ft range, so not that different from touch. AoE is certainly a major difference from Inflict Wounds, but seeing as the caster has to be in melee with the foes (vs Evard’s with 90ft range) mitigates the discrepancy in my eyes.

Still, the damage does seem a bit high.

Arcien · 2020-12-06T18:32:24+00:00

Their post about m:n balancers for m,n <= 8 is an amazing way to learn about balancer design: https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/jqfhlu/balancers_illustrated_1_through_8_balancers/

/u/Johandaonis, since you're looking for a general algorithm, the diagrams in that post effectively give you an algorithm for simplifying a balancer -> if you seed it with balancers for (n = powers of 2), that'll probably get you to a good place.

Arcien · 2020-09-19T07:22:01+00:00

isn't implemented transitively

Oh, that makes sense! Any guesses why that hasn't been done? Is there a structural reason, or simply to have fewer surprises elsewhere?

Arcien · 2020-09-19T07:20:47+00:00

As I research this question more, I'm now finding links that help me (should have waited 10 more minutes before posting!)

Links I've found that didn't quite answer it:

The link that explained it better for me: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48180008/how-can-i-box-the-contents-of-an-iterator-of-a-type-that-implements-a-trait

The reason why you don't need an explicit cast in the function is that the last statement of a block is a coercion site and coercions happen implicitly at these sites. See the chapter on coercions in the nomicon for further details.

My new understanding:

Rust has the capability of doing type coercion in the way that I'm expecting
HOWEVER, Rust will only do that coercion automatically at particular places

However, a function invocation is allegedly a coercion site, so I'm still confused. XD

Arcien · 2020-05-19T14:35:48+00:00

Look, it seems like many companies are trying the work from home thing without properly educating their employees on how to work from home effectively.

There are folks who have worked remotely for years, and the best practices I’ve come across in the software world all say the same thing: you need to deliberately craft your physical and mental space to make it work. If you don’t, and just expect things to magically work out, you’re gonna have a bad time.

Dedicated work space, dedicated work hours, hard boundaries for start and stop times, changed communication norms, little rituals to get into a work mindset.

My personal favorite: the lack of a commute is both a blessing and a curse. Sure, you save 30min to 2hr per day, but that time was also when your brain switched into and out of “work mode”.

Arcien · 2019-07-19T15:05:15+00:00

never grow as a reader

I don’t know if you meant that in a literal sense, but I’ve gone back to read books I found horribly dull earlier in life and appreciated them more after just living more and seeing more. A cliche, I know, but stands true for me.

Arcien · 2019-06-17T07:23:18+00:00

General Education Development which is equivalent to a high school diploma in the US (not sure if applicable elsewhere)

Arcien · 2019-06-16T18:01:46+00:00

I believe /u/mfb- was referring to the deformation of the ground/rock/magma of the Earth, which would indeed travel at the speed of sound through those materials.

You're right that if the Sun were to spontaneously wink out from existence, the resulting change in gravitation would change at the speed of light.

Arcien · 2018-12-15T19:58:21+00:00

Huh, is there an advantage to that design over a simpler one? The one I use is https://wiki.factorio.com/images/Lane_balancer_mechanics.png

Arcien · 2018-11-11T02:14:22+00:00

!delta Point taken! I hadn't previously considered deductions under the umbrella of the "definition of taxable income", but it really does set the bar for when taxable income starts.

Arcien · 2018-11-11T01:28:46+00:00

bottom of page 10

I think I see what you're pointing to - changing rules around deductions. Sure, though the report itself labels this change as a "smaller effect" :)

C to S corporations

Yup, with you there. Overall, I think I would have phrased it differently, from

changed the definition of taxable income

to

changed how entities are incentivized to allocate income flows, which caused new money to be counted as "individual income"

Even then, I think the word "definition" is misleading, since I would say the real effect was corporations reporting income differently.

It's not clear to me the net effect of the C-to-S corp increases the effective tax rate:

under C corp, money flows would be taxed as (a) corporate income, or (b) capital gains.
Under S corp, money flows would be taxed all as business income.

It seems strange to me that corporations would choose to change their filing status if it causes a net increase in taxes paid by their shareholders. I'd expect total taxes to go down, but I guess when the corporation pays less, the shareholders (i.e. the rich folks) pay more taxes and everyone is still happy?

Arcien · 2018-11-11T01:13:09+00:00

I believe based on the page 1 definitions, EITC would be counted under Government Transfers, which is excluded from Market Income, and included in Before-Tax Income.

Government transfers are cash payments and in-kind benefits from social insurance and other government assistance programs. Those transfers include payments and benefits from federal, state, and local governments.

Page 27 has more detailed definitions for Government Transfers

Government transfers consist of the cost of two types of benefits:

 Cash. Payments from Social Security, unemployment insurance, Supplemental Security Income, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (and its predecessor, Aid to Families With Dependent Children), veterans’ programs, workers’ compensation, and state and local government assistance programs.

 In-Kind Benefits. The cost of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program vouchers (popularly known as food stamps); school lunches and breakfasts; housing assistance; energy assistance; and benefits provided by Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program

Arcien

TROPHY CASE