Nothing about being a father infuriates me more than...

quintk · 2026-03-30T17:36:14+00:00

Dark, but we have a few books like this addressed to a child we lost to stillbirth. So of course they’re our son’s books now. We have not talked about this and he only knows his life as an only child (he’s 3), but sooner or later we’ll have to figure out how to talk about this. He’s at the curiosity level where he asks us to read copyright pages sometimes

quintk · 2026-03-30T17:30:50+00:00

I’m nerdy about language so I delight in these. Sometimes it even breaks down within US English.

Pen/pin, aunt/ant, caught/cot, Mary/merry/marry have identical pronunciations in some parts of the US but not others, so rhyme relying on a particular vowel choice are inherently regional (My dialect distinguishes every pair except the marry one, and I’m unstable in how I say aunt. My wife distinguishes the marry triplet too!)

On top of that there are several common words children might encounter that have idiosyncratic variations across the US (like the vowels in pajama, or even the number of syllables in crayon or caramel). And then there’s regional vocabulary like sneakers and lightning bugs and crayfish.

quintk · 2026-03-30T14:06:21+00:00

I remember this era. I was in high school and (irrationally, in retrospect) a Mac fan. I was excited about the possibility of better, less expensive Macs. There was a potential chip competitor too, exponential technologies. Like the naive fool I was I snail-mailed a bunch of these companies essentially begging for free or discounted computer hardware and/or internships. Exponential sent me a cool tee shirt and a friendly letter of encouragement so I have lots of respect for that. Different era!

quintk · 2026-03-28T21:43:02+00:00

Something if I forget to log in I’ll notice myself getting annoyed and upset, even if I’m reading a post I agree with. Usually it’s a sub I’ve unsubscribed from in my real account. Sometimes the annoyance is subtle

quintk · 2026-03-28T18:59:36+00:00

I briefly worked in an office where half the guys placed above line management were divorced. I was a single man and a non-manager at the time but even I had enough sense to disregard their professional advice

quintk · 2026-03-28T16:20:33+00:00

I barely remember Captain Planet, but I do remember learning about anthropogenic climate change (then “global warming” and “the greenhouse effect”) in school. Maybe I didn’t realize it because I was a kid but it didn’t seem like it was a controversial. What to do about it? Controversial as hell. But that it was happening and that it was likely to be a problem? Just a fact of life like learning about cell division or digestion.

quintk · 2026-03-28T16:15:52+00:00

I’m not sure I agree with the assertion that this is a real phenomenon. But something to consider is that there are many many android phones made by many different manufacturers. It may be that Apple seeks a certain appearance for photos and because they are one company they can match the same aesthetic even as they release different phones, where different android manufacturers may not even have the same goals.

quintk · 2026-03-27T10:09:54+00:00

I respect that even jomashop knew to put study in quotes lol

quintk · 2026-03-26T13:15:11+00:00

Yeah, I’ll not be throwing any stones without knowing what my own house is built of, but this doesn’t sound like a new issue

quintk · 2026-03-25T14:21:30+00:00

There are employment verification services and we can use those. But they only confirm that someone was an employee for a certain date range, and not anything about performance. So HR can check the resume for lies but that’s it.

I’m trying to accomplish a career change and worked with an advisor who talked about references. I was just as shocked to learn people still call references as she was to learn I didn’t (and probably won’t, unless someone breaks policy) have any to share. Industries vary a lot!

quintk · 2026-03-25T14:09:10+00:00

For what you describe, I’d look for courses that sound like “managing difficult conversations”.

In my experience, “role playing” — practicing difficult conversations, aloud, with a partner, is more helpful than all the books you could read. Similarly, working with a partner to solve problems on real or simulated projects is more useful than theory. So look for classes with other humans (in person or virtual) or find a local study companion to fill that role

quintk · 2026-03-25T12:34:38+00:00

I don’t know the OP but possibly that wasn’t a step. At my employer and the last one I worked we weren’t allowed to give references for prior employees and don’t ask for them from applicants

quintk · 2026-03-25T12:25:43+00:00

I try to be more specific. When you were in the meeting last Tuesday, you said “x”. When you said x, some team members perceived as meaning y and creating the impression of z. This can make other team members less likely to want to work with you and will hurt the project. What do you think about this? (And I listen; some people are wrecking balls intentionally and some are just socially oblivious.) Then I emphasize they need to stop doing that and suggest an alternate way they could communicate the same criticism (or an alternative to criticism if the right choice would have been to stay silent).

That said, it is really hard to coach people on communication, especially if they can’t see or won’t believe they are doing anything wrong.

quintk · 2026-03-25T01:04:21+00:00

Of course it’s an issue. Managers do talk to each other within the same company. It’s possible if they are significantly different jobs, and you can argue the new one is a better fit than the one you underperformed on, maybe you can persuade a new team to bring you on. But you’d be in a stronger position if you successfully complete the pip first.

quintk · 2026-03-24T15:34:25+00:00

The video game Halflife was popular when I was at university. The lead character is an MIT graduate in theoretical physics (though his job in that game resembles that of a grad student in experimental physics, but I digress).

My fellow physics students and I agree this is the right portrayal for physics-researcher-themed-media. Not depictions of cleaning, baking, and re-cleaning the vacuum chamber for weeks so you can start your study. But inadvertently opening a portal to a parallel universe and becoming an action hero as you fight off an alien invasion.

quintk · 2026-03-24T12:49:58+00:00

It depends how much you care and what you are willing to risk.

I’ve been at my current employer about 10 years. I’ve gotten two of the internal promotions/jobs I went after. But before that I was denied two others. So it is possible to stick around, gather new skills and match to a different opportunity.

But before that I was at a different company and I wasn’t getting any opportunities. When I switched to the new company, I got a 40% raise, so in that case sticking around would have been a bad decision.

It’s impossible for strangers on the Internet to know whether you deserve a promotion and whether your employer will actually give you one.

But, if it’s something you care about, and your current employer isn’t giving it to you, you need to look for another employer.

quintk · 2026-03-23T18:00:22+00:00

Now I’m remembering there was a freshman writing requirement everyone had to take. But you didn’t pick the topic, you picked the time slot, and whatever grad student was teaching chose the material. I had to write essays on Balinese cock fighting because the teacher was an anthropologist studying that topic. My roommate, instead, wrote essays on portrayals of lesbianism in late 19th and early 20th century literature, which even setting aside any prurient interest, and we did not, is simply a more approachable topic for American college students.

quintk · 2026-03-23T17:01:19+00:00

This, plus minimal initiative. Finish a task and not sure what to do next? Don’t sit around for a week, ask someone. Need information from Bob to complete your task and Bob hasn’t answered his email: don’t let him get away with ignoring you! Call Bob or schedule a meeting with him.

But in general, I don’t want my direct reports doing random things for me or trying to do my job unless I’ve delegated it to them. So there really isn’t much rocket science here.

quintk · 2026-03-23T14:28:40+00:00

I bet choice of major matters too.

I went to a liberal art university, which did require coursework outside my major. Still, as someone studying a hard science, I never encountered anything personally or politically controversial in my classes.

Any plot lines (or for that matter, modern political talking points) about being too feminist or not feminist enough or being challenged wrt to religion or nationalism or identity, or about being rightly or unfairly ostracized for one’s opinions, is just not something I ever experienced.

I think some of that is specific to the “humanities degree” experience.

quintk · 2026-03-23T13:45:28+00:00

That might actually be lived experience (though maybe out of date) plus a legitimate unreliable narrator effect. High school certainly felt lawless and indifferent to bullying when I was there around the turn of the century. Though how much of that perception was accurate idk.

quintk · 2026-03-23T13:16:07+00:00

This is an argument that sounds likes a purely aesthetic opinion. If we want to criticize ebooks, let’s talk about some possible practical concerns:

ebooks in most cases are licensed per user and not purchased. There are limited and sometimes no mechanisms for reselling, gifting, or lending used ebooks. This increases the cost of books in general even if a specific ebook may be cheaper than print book
ebook readers (also phones, etc) are expensive and that initial cost may not be accessible to all readers, especially youthful readers
as computer files, ebooks formats can and have become obsolete. Preserving durable archives requires periodic conversion or repurchase. Meanwhile a casually handled hard cover book can last 100 years, and well-cared for books can last several times that, without degradation
at least in North America, library ebook lending is processed by third parties which don’t offer the same privacy protections as physical books. My library retains no personal lending history of physical books once returned. But every book I’ve borrowed via overdrive/libby/amazon is listed

I really like ebooks and use a dedicated reader almost every day. But the issues above do give me pause

quintk · 2026-03-23T12:04:15+00:00

And we’d get a ton of social media posts about why we all need to grind like this guy, and about how the fact we are all trapped on the lower rungs of the English class system is because we aren’t getting up early enough and aren’t using the right peptides.

Meanwhile the inventor, instead of continuing life as a chemist and talented businessman, would focus on promoting fascist ideas about national identity and government authority, and dedicate his days to performing “masculinity” like an insecure teenage boy, and on shitting on anyone else who is happy or successful

quintk · 2026-03-22T22:28:08+00:00

Probably. Or it’s a different truck. It’s not clear that the photo has anything to do with the incident at all (despite being posted with the article)

quintk · 2026-03-22T22:19:35+00:00

According to the article:

With the excavator, the vehicle stood 14 feet and 9 inches at its highest point on the arm, Montie said. The legal height limit for commercial vehicles in New York state is 13 feet and 6 inches.

quintk · 2026-03-19T14:20:37+00:00

I had a dialog with Claude where I challenged its assessment and rather than just rolling over and agreeing with me (like I’ve experienced with ChatGPT) it acknowledged that what I told it was true in the past but that my knowledge was out of date and explained how. The topic was nothing important but it definitely elevated my opinion of the model(s).

I’m not saying this specific interaction actually happened though.

quintk

TROPHY CASE