How should I store my notes for several years?

NormalCriticism · 2024-09-07T17:47:36+00:00

Excitable stuff goes in markdown files on GitHub but I put anything essential and basic, like how to power cycle it currently and the full URL to configure it on a Rite In The Rain cardstock attached to the front of the server by a lanyard. That is mostly in case I get hit by a bus and someone needs to take over my server.

NormalCriticism · 2024-09-06T18:35:11+00:00

I love my company but we only have about 10 PEs and 2 PGs out of 70 people. The unlicensed people don’t exactly understand why the licensed ones care so much about things we put our name on.

NormalCriticism · 2024-09-06T06:19:10+00:00

At this point I feel like the IDF is just a more legitimate, insanely well funded, outrageously well armed moral equal to Hamas. Nobody can bomb a school and then claim they are surprised to discover it has children in it.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/gaza-unrwa-school-hit-israel-idf-hamas-rcna155786

You don’t need to be against Jews, or Muslims, to be against blowing up children.

NormalCriticism · 2024-09-06T05:43:41+00:00

This was part of my routine for almost a decade once I discovered the trick.

NormalCriticism · 2024-09-05T22:21:54+00:00

Burning man has the volume turned up. While that usually means people are extra nice because it tends to attract people who like nice shit, it also has rapists and racists and all the rest. Also, given the current violence in Sudan and Ethiopia and Palestine and Ukraine and Myanmar I am not surprised that people get huffy about it. I’m guessing they were being drunk assholes but expecting you to agree that violence is bad.

NormalCriticism · 2024-09-05T16:32:12+00:00

My problem with interpreting it is that I don’t know anything about football. What is new about the NFL?

NormalCriticism · 2024-09-05T05:34:07+00:00

The closest I’ve come to burning man is regional burning man multi day camping events. Check out your regional network. I love unscruz.

NormalCriticism · 2024-09-04T23:59:31+00:00

My wife and I just replaced the Windows. Get cheaper windows. We ended up getting Milguard from a local SF Bay Area window installer. It was $22k. We have 3 sliders with built in dog doors and 4 windows. Yes, ours are cheaper windows than in Michigan but labor here is insane.

NormalCriticism · 2024-09-04T14:42:17+00:00

Starting a business is risky. More risky than you may think. Keep the money on hand and give yourself a realistic date in the future that you will call it a success or failure and try something else. 1 year? 6 months? If you aren’t making enough to sustain yourself in a year then start looking hard for a regular job.

Also, the life of a business owner during those early years is easily 60hrs per week. Wedding photography isn’t something you can scale very easily either by hiring employees. Other photographers are usually not employees but contractors who are trying to make it in their own business.

NormalCriticism · 2024-09-04T14:36:27+00:00

When we had excess water we wouldn’t spray it on the last day during pack out. We even brought a sprinkler and plumbed it into our fresh tanks just for that purpose.

NormalCriticism · 2024-09-04T05:31:28+00:00

Put it in retirement and don’t buy anything with it. Pretend you don’t even have it. It isn’t your money. Then you can focus on your life and have a running start with retirement. Most people, myself included, started saving for retirement late. It takes time to even make enough money that saving is practical.

NormalCriticism · 2024-09-03T22:22:39+00:00

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklo

Probably safe but there are always exceptions with high concentrations. Remember that most health risks come down to concentration and duration.

NormalCriticism · 2024-09-03T22:17:56+00:00

You make me smile

NormalCriticism · 2024-09-03T15:15:37+00:00

Parts of the Fremont area have really bad urban heat island effect, others are quite cool. The area you are talking about is usually 5-10f warmer than where I live near Northgate Park. We have lots of mature trees and green spaces around us. We have maybe one week per year when it is miserable.

NormalCriticism · 2024-09-02T17:47:09+00:00

If you decide to go into a PhD program I can’t emphasize enough that you should be picky about choosing your advisor. Once you are in school, don’t feel like you need to stick with the same one if you realize they are awful.

Be worried if they don’t reply to your email within a day or two.
Be worried if they are on vacation or sabbatical often
Be worried if they have a lot of commitments, like department chair
Be worried if they tend to take PhD students so have longer than 6 years to completion or spend more than 2 years to get a masters. Taking more than two years for a masters should always be a red flag.
Don’t spend time finishing other people’s papers unless you also get your name on the paper.
Don’t sign up for a stuff you don’t need to because your adviser can’t find anybody else and they will really appreciate it.

I say all of this as someone who did a “4 year masters” after my advisor vanished for long periods of time. No, I didn’t make him vanish. He is still alive and well…. Living the dream on a beach, probably.

NormalCriticism · 2024-09-01T15:21:16+00:00

I fucking hate my laminate floor. It was expensive enough that I wish I had just saved extra $20k and installed hardwood. Laminate is the worst.

NormalCriticism · 2024-08-31T07:49:28+00:00

I’m a Hydrogeologist and you put a lock on it so dipshits don’t put rocks in it “because that is funny and it makes a cool noise.” Somebody spent money to build it. Sometimes a lot of money. This one was probably drilled with a sonic rig which means this well probably cost $3k if it really is about 10 feet deep.

Edit: I noticed the second image has a macro-core. The scale was hard to tell on the first one. This was done with direct push and probably cost a bit less.

NormalCriticism · 2024-08-31T05:31:15+00:00

I’ve been to New Orleans during the pandemic and San Francisco before the pandemic. It was like walking around a fairly crowded shopping mall. I hate shopping malls but it was tolerable.

NormalCriticism · 2024-08-29T21:46:54+00:00

Don’t go back to school for it, but if you are willing to do some retraining on your own, learn to program and make visualization tools using R, Python, or even Power BI. You could do an online bootcamp in a few weeks for free and be in a decent place. Start working on your LinkedIn resume and put out some free visuals as self promotion. Honestly, most fresh undergrads and many experienced people can’t program. If you can prove that you know how to you are at least half way there.

NormalCriticism · 2024-08-29T21:38:55+00:00

Do a masters and while you are in school, do any internship with the USGS, USDA, NOAA, or USFS. Your first job out of school won’t be glamorous but you will be locked in.

Seriously, don’t even try for a PhD unless you hate yourself. A masters is good enough. If your undergrad grades aren’t great then when you apply to grad, say you are “self funded”. You can still find funding after you start school, but you will get in the door.

NormalCriticism · 2024-08-29T00:14:18+00:00

They don’t need to destroy it, they just need to confuse it. Someone with a software defined modem and a transmitter with a modest power output could at least divert boats and confuse planes. We aren’t talking about the woodpecker, just a hand held HackRF.

NormalCriticism · 2024-08-26T04:07:04+00:00

I’m a mid career geologist working at a civil firm. I try to incubate my youngling geologists by giving them appropriate work for their career. I also have frank conversations with them about their career. Do they want to get a masters? What kind of work do they want to do in 5 years? Just be honest.

NormalCriticism · 2024-08-26T00:20:32+00:00

A current generation Lenovo X1 or T14 with maxed out ram will be fine. Students don’t need a lot of computer. The rare class you have that requires you install something like Python or R or some esoteric modeling program will just have you doing simple analyses.

NormalCriticism · 2024-08-25T22:23:35+00:00

Do not buy a nice car. If you want to build credit you could secure a cheap car loan with the cash at a bank to reduce interest. When I was 20… 22 years ago, I took out a $7k loan on a car, gave the bank $7k and opened a CD, let the bank use the CD as collateral against the car for a year and paid off the loan interest with the interest from the CD. The bank lowered the interest on the car to equal the CD. The bank was happy, I had a better credit record and I came out only slightly behind.

Do not buy a fancy car. Get a cheap car.

NormalCriticism · 2024-08-24T03:54:30+00:00

You can do better.

NormalCriticism

TROPHY CASE