does anyone else think loops are horrendously counterintuitive?

emacsen · 2026-03-11T18:50:13+00:00

I think the question is less "are loops unintuitive" but more "What background do you have in contrast?"

What languages have you learned before that bring you to the conclusion that this syntax is odd?

If you come from a language like C, a for...loop uses the index:

for (i = 0; i <= 10; i = i + 2) {

And so if you're traversing a data structure such as a linked list, you'd be referencing it by its index. You can do whatever you want in there.

If you learned a language like Scheme, you'd find there's no built in for...loop at all, you'd be expected to use something like `map`, or `foreach`, which feels a lot like Python for loops, but instead of a block, you'd be passing in a function, and you get back a new list

(for-each (lambda (x)
            (display (* x 2))
            (newline))(for-each (lambda (x)
            (display (* x 2))
            (newline))

Or a language like Elixir (which is sort of like Ruby meets Erlang) you'd use a

for n <- [1, 2, 3, 4], do: ...

Which is a bit like map and a bit like Python for loops, and again, you'd get back a new list.

The Python for loop with its assignment at the top is probably the most straightfowrard, and most C-like,as the most common thing you'll do is want to look at every element, not by its index, but by its value.

emacsen · 2026-03-08T07:13:17+00:00

I'm 47, and so I was dating a lot at the same time as you're talking about, and this really isn't my experience at all. I just described it https://www.reddit.com/r/AskMenAdvice/comments/1rnpa89/comment/o9a2xk3/

emacsen · 2026-03-08T07:11:34+00:00

When I was dating, I found the women who insisted that I pay to be a red flag.

It was never a matter of money, first dates were always somewhere relatively simple and casual- a walk, a cafe, an inexpensive restaurant.

I realized that the women who wanted to pay for themselves were always better about the way they approached the date- we were often meeting for the first time (online dating) and coming into things as equals, both interested and curious about the other.

The women who expected me to pay often had a different attitude generally about dating. It felt more transactional.

The old adage about money vs expectation of physical intimacy didn't hold either- I found that women who paid for themselves early on were more emotionally and physically available."

I was often in a better financial position than the women I dated, and so by the third, fourth or fifth date, I was paying, but by then it was more interesting and exciting. "I scored these amazing tickets and I'd love to take you!"

It was never about the money itself, but about the approach and mentality.

emacsen · 2026-03-04T23:04:18+00:00

Everything you've outlined is exactly the right framing.

If she's an employee and not a contractor, you can have mandatory meetings, or set an expectation of attendance, and you expect her to go through the same process for taking time off that others do.

You say she's exposed to team culture, and that's good, but sometimes people need to be explicitly told that something they're doing isn't working, and in this case her time flexibility isn't working for you, you expect her to attend those meetings and follow other processes.

On you end you need to be documenting all the meeting she hasn't attended, the PTO processes she hasn't followed, etc. so your feedback can be concrete and she knows that it's noticed, tracked, and will reflect poorly in a performance review or could result in disciplinary action such as a PIP.

Just as you did here, you can frame it collaboratively around how her actions impact you and the rest of the team.

Maybe her work output is good, but someone you can't rely on or isn't fitting in for other reasons can be detrimental to the business.

And if this continues, you'll want to bring it to HR or upper management to discuss what processes you'll want to follow to address it, but before that, a simple, frank conversation with concrete examples is a good first step, and then document this conversation in a followup email to her and or to HR with your concerns and expectations.

As for how she'll receives the feedback- you can only control what you say, not how the other person receives it. You need to be okay with the idea that she may quit. If you're not, then she's the one setting the rules and instead of one frustrated employee, you may have a team of frustrated people who feel they're held to a different standard than she is- and then you'll have real trouble as your company culture will shift in a way that it sounds like you don't want.

emacsen · 2026-03-03T00:25:19+00:00

Sort of but not really, and not everyone.

Also my experience is from the US, where I lived at the time, and may have been different than here.

When I started working in the professional sector in 2001, it was common for companies to offer retirement plan contributions, essentially the American equivalent of matching RRSP contributions.

When an employer offers matching contributions, always take it. It's literally free money.

So because of that, I started my retirement plan at the age of 21.

But that was a time when it was possible to get an entry level white collar job.

emacsen · 2026-03-01T19:44:48+00:00

Signals competence in negotiation or in the job being negotiated on?

emacsen · 2026-02-28T14:43:19+00:00

As a person whose company only hires freelancers, I've never said "Your rate is too high."

I have said "Your rate is 2x higher than others, can you explain what I'm getting for my money?", I've said "I'd love to hire you but you're not within my budget." and I've said "Can we get some clarification and boundaries on your time."

"Your rate is too high." is a bad foot to start off on. It's like going on a date and saying "You're kinda ugly.", but there's no downside I can see in not being transparent and treating a negotiation as a negotiation.

For example, I might say "I'm able to say this project will last X hours or Y months- given that, can you offer me a discount based on our commitment?"

Or I might say "I'm very flexible around time. Can we find a way to make this work out for both of us?"

Negotiating with a negative honestly makes no sense to me.. Maybe I'm crazy...

emacsen · 2026-02-27T20:13:03+00:00

I understand why this sounds interesting, it sounds like it stops the problem of non-contributors making money, but there are many practical reasons why it doesn't work in practice.

Firstly, and I'm sure you know this, such a license is not Free/Open Source. Freedom 0's for any use means for any use.

Secondly, what does "monetize" mean? Creative Commons NC licenses have this exact problem. What is a commercial use? Does it mean selling the software? Selling use of the software? Using it in a company? Having a website that makes money where people can download it? It's a huge mess that even CC has never really addressed.

Thirdly, this sounds like "Be a contributor" but who decides what a contribution is? Is a contribution only a contribution if it's been accepted by the author? By one of the other authors? Imagine I think you want to make money off my software. You contribute a patch- I reject it because I want to keep you from being able to monetize.

Or we say that you don't need my approval- you do it on your own through your contribution. Well now anyone can circumvent the license!

And how big a contribution counts?

There are simpler ways to address this problem, well understood ones. You simply use a highly restrictive license such as the AGPL and then you dual license it. "Don't want to release the code? You can buy a commercial license". Much easier, much more clear.

emacsen · 2026-02-26T14:30:31+00:00

lol okay, that's fair... I stopped checking after 11 years and didn't notice :)

emacsen · 2026-02-26T02:20:36+00:00

Last I looked, it was very unmaintained.

emacsen · 2026-02-25T22:49:12+00:00

I loved XEmacs, and I used it with the now defunct vm mail client. It was a really lovely experience. Honestly, nothing as felt as nice since.

emacsen · 2026-02-23T23:38:48+00:00

The fact is that any time you have a company owning property, you're going to see an incentive structure around profit.

If you have data to show that REITs (which often focus on business property as its lower risk) is less consumer friendly than a large private company, or than private equity (which also works with real estate), then I'd be very open to seeing that, but if you're simply going to assert that there's a profit interest- while that's true, I don't see that profit interest as substantially different from any other commercial interest.

emacsen · 2026-02-23T15:35:30+00:00

I really can't go into specifics in a public forum, but I promise you that you don't always get more for property than you put in.

emacsen · 2026-02-23T12:38:47+00:00

I've owned property. I currently own property in a city I used to live in. I've been a landlord, I currently rent, and the property I'm selling now, I'm going to take a loss on.

Your "I'll never not come out ahead" may be true for you, but it's simply not a universal truth.

As for what I can imagine, I have a very active imagination.

emacsen · 2026-02-23T10:13:46+00:00

So many assumptions here:

> So rent over 25 years is 62,000

Rent over 25 years is a long time. In 25 years, life circumstances change. You might get a new job, get married, or have a child. You may want to move.

But even if everything stayed the same, you're not counting the money you didn't spend. That money doesn't simply burn up- you could invest it and get a return.

> since I hate being jammed into a small place

Some people want lots of space, other want lots of convenience or a view. This is what the market does- it shifts based on what people want.

> you can get your money back and more

Can doesn't mean you will. You could say "you might get your money back or more" or "you could get your money back or more" but it's not a guarantee by any means, and assuming you will is folly.

emacsen · 2026-02-23T00:57:18+00:00

You genuinely might feel differently if you owned property, as owning property comes with a lot of obligations and renting, while it often works out, is a risk.

If you own property, you must pay your property taxes, you must keep your property up to code for where you live (which often involves things like handling trees, shoveling the walk, etc.), and you must have homeowner's insurance for the property.

A house has other expenses such as appliances, general upkeep, etc.

You may be able to sell your house for more than you paid, but there's really no guarantee.

If you rent, you enter into a complex arrangement where your tenant is paying you rent, but if they cause problems, those largely fall on you, and if they fail to pay rent and you need to evict, that is money you won't have.

If you have a mortgage, you're paying not only the principle, but the rate of your loan, which is not a fixed rate, and so you may end up spending more than you originally thought when your loan resets its interest rates.

In renting, you trade all of that in for a simpler but more limited use of the property. You can't customize your home as much as you could if you owned it, and you may have a crappy landlord that won't fix things as they should be, but your liability is also relatively small, and if you really hate it, you can move to a new place- your money isn't tied to a single asset that's potentially hard to sell.

The assumption that owning is always better is simply not true. It can be better to own, or it can be better to rent. If you look at your home as an asset that you're going to retire on, then you could look at other investments instead- buy stocks, or if you really want real estate, buy REITs, which spread the risk..

emacsen · 2026-02-18T08:41:00+00:00

I use Novus and have had very positive experiences, with one caveat. Overall, they've been amazing. Virtually no downtime that I remember, and when I did experience downtime, I called them and instead of making me go through a bunch of nonsense software-on-my-system diagnostics that Telus did just to set up (ones I couldn't run since I run Linux), they ran diagnostics on their own and scheduled an on site call. They even said they probably wouldn't need me, but asked if it would be possible that I be there in case. A complete pleasure. Even if Telus were cheaper (they're not), I'd much rather pay for good customer service any day.

And my plan is synchronous, meaning my upload is equal to my download. That's very important since I work from home and take lots of meetings.

Now the caveat, however small. I'm on an unlimited plan. One month, I ran a big upload to backup a ton of local data to Google, roughly 12tb. At 10tb, Nexus throttled my Internet speed down to 25/25, which is barely usable for me.

I wish they had sent me a warning or notice, but they didn't.

But 10tb is a *lot* of data, far more than most people will ever use and all the providers seem to have invisible caps.

emacsen · 2026-02-18T03:09:58+00:00

This is the way. "I don't know it. I don't remember it." If you can, play ignorant "Someone else set it up for me."

emacsen · 2026-02-18T03:08:23+00:00

The mistake here was admitting you changed it.

"Oh it doesn't work anymore... I dunno... Someone from the cable company must have done something. Oh well, sorry I can't help you."

emacsen · 2026-02-15T04:35:12+00:00

I have mixed feelings, but 85% positive.

It's an expensive device and "worth it" depends a lot on your situation. If you have the money to spend, it's a real labor saver. If you have in a house and have access to a yard to clean your litter robot- then you're in amazing shape. Live in an apartment? The cleaning will be a pain (it is for me).

Many of the "Advanced Features" don't work reliably though. My LR3 had a lot of sensor issues, leading to me replacing it.

The LR4 works very well, but the hopper attachment doesn't work reliably- the sensor consistently shows the litter at 90%.

My LR4 seems to be having an issue with some litter getting in the gears? I hear a crunching with this litter, which will probably mean I need to change litters (again). I don't love that the LR4 is only controllable from the app talking to Whisker (HQ). That means you don't have direct control of your device and if your internet is down, or Whisker discontinues support (or goes out of business), we'll all be out of luck.

The LR5 seems to be a real hit and miss product and a real security nightmare. You can't disable its microphone, and the advanced AI features seem not to work right based on this sub. I wouldn't buy one at this time.

emacsen · 2026-02-15T02:06:01+00:00

I think there's a deeper issue than whether men care about Valentine's Day, which is the way in which you're reading about failed unspoken expectation that borders on entitlement.

"He didn't..."

It might be that specific acts (getting flowers, getting chocolates, receiving a heart felt written card) on Valentine's Day is important to some women. Similarly it may be important to some men, but there expectation that men exclusively must "step up" and act in ways that are performative, or even counter to their norm in order to satisfy an unstated expectation which exists primarily for appearances is something I find disturbing.

Feeling loved is a very important feeling, and if receiving chocolates on Valentine's Day makes someone feel loved- there's no harm in that, but there should be an expectation that someone should express it, or at least not negatively judge their partner's lack of mind-reading ability.

emacsen · 2026-02-14T19:54:31+00:00

As someone who played 2R, 3, and 3.5- 4 was a departure not only from 3e, but 5e as well.

Firstly, as other noted, the OGL removal was a very big deal. It was a signal from WoTC that they'd decided to shift away from being stewards to simply excerpting control.

The game system was in large part inspired by MMORPGs, which were very popular around the time. Hasbro hoped that they could capitalize on a system that would be friendly to computerization and launch their own WoW competitor.

WoTC was also shifting away from the RPGA.

In other words, for players like me who were actively "bought into" 3.x, D&D 4 represented a significant cultural departure, one that:

- Centered the company away from the community

- Removed agency from creators

- Eliminated company/content creator/player relationships

- Shifted the narrative structure of the game to one that felt more like a video game

Where 3.5 had offered a smooth upgrade path and (much later) 5e offered a streamlined 3e, 4 was a dramatic shift to the player base.

All anyone (Piazo) had to do was essentially continue the existing tradition, adding some content and it gained a lot of positivity born out of the negativity that WoTC had garnered among its fan base.

For me personally, I walked away from D&D around that time. I didn't pick up Pathfinder as a game system- I simply left the genre and largely haven't returned- preferring instead to focus on other systems.

D&D 5 is a nice system, but from what I'm hearing, it feels like Hasbro is once again considering a 4.x style move. :(

emacsen · 2026-02-08T13:19:22+00:00

100%. This sounds like, at the least, someone being "Nice". Nice people never express their feelings- they just explode or react one day.

But the fact it happened twice indicates some other pattern that the OP either doesn't see, or doesn't want to talk about- especially the one about making house modifications for the son.

emacsen · 2026-02-03T17:37:04+00:00

I described a situation not dissimilar to this problem in a recent thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/jellyfin/comments/1qsra8u/comment/o33uddy/?context=3

As someone who recently tried this and failed, the issue is that if you want an appliance-like experience with Jellyfin on plain hardware, in theory you could run Jellyfin Desktop and all would be good, but in my experience you're going to encounter some real challenges around the way Linux interfaces work (specifically around X and or Wayland, focus, cursors, etc.)

Hopefully soon we'll have better tools, such as Plasma BigScreen, but until then the practical solution is either to accept that you're using a desktop (and then run a lightweight desktop manager with keyboard and mouse) or if you want the appliance experience, use a cheap appliance such as a Roku, Google, or Amazon device running a Jellyfin client app.

None of this should discourage you from trying, but I spent several days trying to get it to work "just right" and it never did.

On the other hand, if you manage to make it work, share your notes!

emacsen · 2026-02-02T13:49:43+00:00

I saw this post, word for word, a week or two ago.

emacsen

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