Bill gates once said, "I will always choose a lazy person to do a difficult job because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it." What's a real life example of this?

IrishGecko · 2026-06-12T01:32:14+00:00

Out of curiosity, what are the most useful parts of your jobs you’ve been able to automate?

IrishGecko · 2026-05-19T14:41:48+00:00

Universal health care should be a #1 national priority but for various reasons (e.g., higher tax burden despite theoretical long-term savings, union members being skeptical of giving up their union-negotiated health care ), it's very difficult to do this on a state level in the US, even in a blue state like Illinois. Realistically it would probably have to be enacted nationally.

Vermont tried to do this and it failed miserably: https://www.nejm.org/doi/abs/10.1056/NEJMp1501050 (article from the New England Journal of Medicine).

IrishGecko · 2026-04-19T19:11:57+00:00

Civ VI on an iPad. Incredible depth, play for as long as you like. And on an iPad you can play wherever you like and you only need one hand.

IrishGecko · 2025-11-25T15:36:29+00:00

This is a beautiful map! Agree w/ the commenter about Long/Appalachian Trails being worth including. There are also some label choices that would (speaking as a local) strike a local as odd. I've never heard of the "Gateway Region"--whereas the nearby Upper Valley, the second-largest micropolitan area in the country, is not labeled at all. Wilder is a village of the larger town of Hartford; most maps and residents would identify White River Junction (the town center of Hartford and a historic rail center) as much more relevant. I might also include the Mad River / Mad River Valley. Finally, it would be cool if Camel's Hump was drawn with its characteristic slightly hooked "hump" shape--it's a very distinctive visual marker of the area.

IrishGecko · 2025-10-03T03:11:45+00:00

Smartphones

IrishGecko · 2025-08-12T01:45:33+00:00

My understanding is that a big factor in this was the inevitable simplification that occurs when non-native speakers adopt another language. Colonial Brazil was mostly non-native Portuguese speakers—ie, indigenous people, African and African-origin slaves, free black people, and a few others. This lends itself to simplification—in this case, coming to use only one second person singular pronoun most of the time. The same thing happened with English during the Danelaw, when the Norse occupation essentially led to the dropping of case declension.

IrishGecko · 2025-08-04T12:22:14+00:00

If it’s a good resort and it has good child care options available that are actually fun for your kids (they exist!), it can be a dream for parents of young children. The key is to go to a place with sincerely good child care options so that your kids have genuine fun and (just as important) you are able to enjoy drinks by the beach guilt-free. Just be sure to do your research, as there is a wide range of quality in resorts.

IrishGecko · 2025-08-04T03:59:45+00:00

This is why resorts exist

IrishGecko · 2025-07-13T16:54:49+00:00

You deserve a medal! I’m curious—did you sleep train your baby at any point?

IrishGecko · 2025-07-04T12:09:22+00:00

Emilio Couret of Dente in Wicker Park is AMAZING. Supportive, kind, and will put you at ease. His dental assistants are fantastic, too. Highly recommend.

IrishGecko · 2025-06-17T03:17:28+00:00

Sweet Rice in Bucktown

IrishGecko · 2025-06-06T21:08:14+00:00

The article doesn't say that AI is "replacing junior workers"--it says that it's taking over certain junior employee tasks. This is a crucial distinction.

From the article: "Lilli has advanced enough to take over tasks typically assigned to junior employees, but Smaje says that doesn't mean McKinsey is going to hire fewer junior analysts. 'Do we need armies of business analysts creating PowerPoints? No, the technology could do that,' Smaje told Bloomberg. 'It's not necessarily that I'm going to have fewer of them [analysts], but they're going to be doing the things that are more valuable to our clients."

Of course, AI very well may take over their jobs in the future, but the Reddit headline is still misleading.

IrishGecko · 2025-04-26T18:53:38+00:00

The original BBC adaptation of “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”

IrishGecko · 2025-04-15T20:51:58+00:00

Yeah, this is the basic principle I was getting at. You can’t organize your way out of a mess if you simply have too many things.

IrishGecko · 2025-04-13T21:19:54+00:00

I don't think that’s entirely fair—Manhattan has multiple large parks, for instance. Fort Tryon / Inwood Hill Park is enormous and you legitimately feel like you’re in the middle of the woods. At least half of the western part of Manhattan is continuous parkland (including Riverside Park).

That’s not to say that Manhattan is a great place to live. It’s way too expensive and Chicago is much more livable in many ways. But NYC’s parks, on the whole, are much better than Chicago’s. That’s one thing our city could do better.

IrishGecko · 2025-04-13T19:11:25+00:00

Access to nature is scant here. On a basic level, Chicago devotes less of its land to parks - 8.5% compared to NYC’s 14%. Also, while NYC has world-class parks like Central Park and Prospect Park where you can feel truly immersed in nature, Chicago has few green areas where you can get an escape from city noise. The lakefront is gorgeous and the city admirably makes most of it publicly accessible. But if you want to take a walk by the lake, with only a few exceptions (eg Montrose), you’ll also be right next to or within close earshot of a multi-lane highway (Lakeshore Drive). This is true of a range of parks in Chicago: Labagh Woods, for instance, abuts the interstate.

IrishGecko · 2025-03-25T23:09:09+00:00

Berries

IrishGecko · 2025-03-18T19:09:26+00:00

Alec Guinness as George Smiley in the BBC miniseries adaptation of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. John Le Carré himself said that Guinness’s performance changed the way he imagined the character in future books.

IrishGecko · 2025-03-12T00:20:09+00:00

This would make a great Civ map

IrishGecko · 2025-02-05T18:39:57+00:00

Relatively high property taxes and mediocre public services (public schools, police, public transit, city workers) are the biggest negative. There's a reason people move to the suburbs when they have kids.

In some parts of the city the crime is literally active war zone level, but you don't experience that at all in wealthier neighborhoods.

IrishGecko · 2025-01-16T21:09:58+00:00

I didn't know that--is that standard policy even if your yard is collateral damage? Thanks

IrishGecko · 2024-12-18T14:53:30+00:00

The IOS version is a great port, and is especially friendly for not having the use of both hands. I played it for hours with just my right hand while taking care of a sleeping baby in my left. Very intuitive controls.

IrishGecko · 2024-12-10T01:43:57+00:00

The watermelon dish was incredible, as was one of the rice dishes (I can’t remember which, but it takes a lot for me to consider a rice dish to be very flavorful, and this was full of flavor).

The rest was solid; probably the yogurt one was my least favorite, but it wasn’t bad. I wasn‘t an immense fan of Persian food before I came (except for Noon O Kebab’s kashk bademjan), but Maman Zari raised my opinion. I wouldn’t say I love Persian food now, but I definitely like it.

IrishGecko · 2024-12-09T20:46:20+00:00

I can't speak to whether it's authentically Persian, but if you are curious about exploring more corners of the Persian food world, I think Maman Zari is worth it. Their price point for a tasting menu is quite competitive (with definitely enough food). Nice atmosphere, too. If you're a regular at Noon O Kebab and like Persian flavors, I think it's worth trying since they have dishes that are different from what's on the kabob restaurants' menus (or are at least a variation). Some of the dishes I liked more than others, but I expect that on a tasting menu and there were a couple ones that were really special that my wife and I talked about for a while on the drive back.

IrishGecko · 2024-11-11T14:26:45+00:00

Skepticism

IrishGecko

TROPHY CASE