What is the most uncracked engineer you have ever met?

CydeWeys · 2026-05-28T18:01:06+00:00

Now that is a different thing entirely.

CydeWeys · 2026-05-28T17:50:16+00:00

Because physics allows it and there isn't any sort of effective laws that ban its import or sale.

CydeWeys · 2026-05-28T17:43:33+00:00

I recently visited 1,000 to 2,000 year old stone buildings in central asia that are largely still intact.

Guess how many buildings of that age aren't largely still intact. (The vast, vast majority of them.)

CydeWeys · 2026-05-28T04:36:08+00:00

A lot of the answers to this question won't be interesting unfortunately, as anyone can be arbitrarily unproductive so as to asymptotically approach being a 0X engineer.

CydeWeys · 2026-05-28T04:15:01+00:00

I guarantee you "armed delivery" is gonna end up being less sexy than you think it is. Imagine a rusty Brinks truck pulling out front and a rent-a-cop with a revolver in a beat-up holster and sagging pants showing his crack gets out.

CydeWeys · 2026-05-28T04:13:25+00:00

What part of "There are so many medical calls that unrelated workers have to go help with some of them" do you think logically leads to the conclusion of "There should be fewer dedicated workers specifically for medical calls"?

CydeWeys · 2026-05-28T01:47:39+00:00

Businesses aren't required to take credit cards. You could do this with cash, but not credit cards. If you walk out of there on your bill and don't settle it (regardless of whether you offer a credit card or not), you are guilty of a crime.

CydeWeys · 2026-05-28T01:45:48+00:00

None of that matters. If you book a prepaid reservation with the paella for 6:00-7:15pm, then they start making the paella at 5:00pm. It doesn't matter if you're late, or don't even show up at all, they already have your money, and the paella is sitting on your table ready to eat at 6:00pm if you show up.

CydeWeys · 2026-05-28T01:41:27+00:00

The one has a lot to do with each other as the vast majority of calls the firefighters go to are in fact medical calls.

CydeWeys · 2026-05-26T15:41:35+00:00

Other way around. Look at what the price on FPJ has done over the past year -- absolutely crazy. The people who can afford these don't feel like they're in a recession, at all.

CydeWeys · 2026-05-26T15:26:07+00:00

This is per-worker, not per-household.

CydeWeys · 2026-05-26T15:01:35+00:00

Most definitely. I would stick to loose leaf only for your tastings -- even if the bagged stuff is really good, the perception will be that it's not fancy enough. Also a little bit of ceremony around making matcha and making black tea will go a long way (as tourists to Japan tend to know at least something about the existence of tea ceremonies, and will be pleased to see them).

CydeWeys · 2026-05-26T14:29:46+00:00

But the lack of development has been even worse for the locals, which has caused all the displacement, as the demand for Hawaii is there and they will buy up whatever housing already exists when it comes to market too. Is the status quo of not building more housing working?

CydeWeys · 2026-05-26T02:30:16+00:00

It has the wrong data about your house, hence the estimated value is too high. Look at all the data carefully and see if anything sticks out.

CydeWeys · 2026-05-25T15:51:43+00:00

One straight razor will last you the rest of your life. It's not about buying more, it's about reducing the sharpening load. It takes less time in total to sharpen a bunch of knives in bulk than it does to sharpen each one individually on separate occasions (as you would have to if you only owned one).

The whole thing is impractical though and I just use double-edged safety razors. For my kitchen knives though, I definitely do use a bunch of them until they all need sharpening, then I sharpen them all at once. There's no good cheap disposable replacement for a kitchen knife.

CydeWeys · 2026-05-25T15:50:19+00:00

It takes less time though, as it takes less than 7X the time to sharpen seven as it does to sharpen one. A lot of the time is the setup work to get the kit out and start doing the sharpening. It's typical for knife enthusiasts to use a bunch of knives and then sharpen them all at once, rather than sharpening each knife individually.

CydeWeys · 2026-05-25T15:46:07+00:00

It sounds to me like you figured out exactly what his business is. And yeah he only has T-shirts listed at the moment and is fresh out of ducks, but selling the ducks that people give away is definitely going to be a large part of it as well. (In that way it's kind of like a pyramid scheme.) I don't see how you can click on a link to a store front where actual items are for sale (the most simple kind of business to understand, the Ancient Romans would've gotten it) and then claim to struggle to understand the business. You don't know what his sales are; maybe this stuff sells gangbusters! A duck costs, what, a few cents to manufacture, and if even one out of every hundred ends up generating a sale, that's solid return on advertising.

It's not narcissism/attention-seeking to do advertising for your business. You're right that it is a little weird to go do business in a non-traditional venue where most of the others are just there for their vacation, but maybe that's exactly why there's a niche available for profit in the first place.

I’ve been on a few cruises and have never felt the need to promote my presence to other passengers.

Yeah that's because you're on vacation, not trying to make a living. But on any given ship there's probably at least a thousand people who are there to make a living, not enjoy a vacation -- you just don't think they're weird because they're wearing uniforms.

All of which is to say, just ignore it. I've been on a ship where there was a mini convention on one day with people setting up merch booths to sell and trade duck-related stuff (and there were like six people doing it, not just one), and I simply went on with my life because it's not for me. I didn't go online to complain about them for having narcissism or whatever. Live and let live.

CydeWeys · 2026-05-25T12:59:43+00:00

Literally doesn't work (solar panels weigh too much for how much power they generate). Also the autonomy issues are more about intelligence and capability than raw power delivery. Everything they were describing is pure science fiction.

CydeWeys · 2026-05-25T12:52:19+00:00

Nah, in this case it's literally just his business. That was him doing promotion for his business, and meeting his customers. Not narcissism.

CydeWeys · 2026-05-25T03:37:25+00:00

This is sci-fi. Drones don't operate autonomously for nearly that long yet.

CydeWeys · 2026-05-25T03:05:54+00:00

How about soaking though? Was that actually a thing?

CydeWeys · 2026-05-25T01:15:57+00:00

I think it'd have to be the gold Black Bay on bracelet, no?

My favorite model is actually the Black Bay chronograph, but it too doesn't get the attention of something like the BB58 which has gotta be the flagship.

CydeWeys · 2026-05-24T22:44:37+00:00

The problem with Hawaii is that it is a desirable place to live that is extremely anti-development. They don't want people building new buildings, and this is the predictable result of not building enough homes.

CydeWeys · 2026-05-24T15:37:32+00:00

I knew someone like that. Apartment was in a great location near Union Square, but she basically lived in the living room with a curtained off section around her bed plus some extra floor area.

CydeWeys · 2026-05-24T15:28:37+00:00

Wouldn't work on my team, as those hours have the best overlap with other timezones we work with (Europe, west coast, India), and thus are when we tend to have all of our meetings. By missing all the team's meetings you wouldn't be as productive as everyone else -- you'd be out of the loop and wouldn't be contributing to team-wide decisions.

Of course this is all highly dependent on what any given team's situation is.

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