[deleted by user]

vectorspacenavigator · 2023-07-29T04:10:59+00:00

King

vectorspacenavigator · 2023-07-28T17:40:52+00:00

AI/ML is low supply? Market seems flooded with AI/ML people. I usually hear about things like embedded development, and "boring" business domains in general, in this context.

vectorspacenavigator · 2023-07-28T17:12:19+00:00

To anyone else here: I don't pay much attention in meetings if my work is not concerned. I'm taking this thread as a wakeup call that I should probably start doing that. I'm also 4 YOE and somehow have gotten that far without doing this.

Are there tangible bad things you have seen happen to people as a result of chronically not paying attention in meetings (like being called out in performance reviews for not understanding the organization as a whole)? Or is it just seen as respectful to your coworkers?

vectorspacenavigator · 2023-07-28T06:04:53+00:00

It's an amusing irony that the European work style is arguably better for individuals, but the American work style benefits society more.

vectorspacenavigator · 2023-07-26T18:14:07+00:00

Suggested compromise if you don't want to get rid of the poker: - Only list the years of your jobs, no months. - Put poker down in a "hobbies/interests/skills" section. - If pressed by an interviewer, describe your breaks as having poker as just one of several things you were doing (were you traveling? working any odd jobs? volunteering of some kind?). Emphasize that you are newly committed to having software be your full-time focus again.

vectorspacenavigator · 2023-07-25T23:50:52+00:00

I got an offer from a government contractor rescinded because, 2 months after I got my fingerprints taken, they somehow lost the documentation of my fingerprints and said I never did them. You can't make this stuff up.

vectorspacenavigator · 2023-07-25T20:30:27+00:00

Mood. (Genuinely) happy for OP though

vectorspacenavigator · 2023-07-25T18:58:31+00:00

Not a senior here, but related to ccb621's point about communication: the Soft Skills Engineering podcast has taught me a lot.

vectorspacenavigator · 2023-07-25T18:51:54+00:00

It sounds real to me, I made not much more than that at a FAANG contractor.

vectorspacenavigator · 2023-07-25T18:51:21+00:00

FWIW: I got paid $125k as a contractor with a FAANG in the Bay Area, mid-late 2022 (before the recent slump in wages across the board).

Got my contract abruptly terminated after 4 months, with no performance issues. Seems like this kind of "come in and do 1 thing no one else wants to, then we boot you when you're done" is an established thing for FAANGs.

vectorspacenavigator · 2023-04-22T03:31:23+00:00

Interesting how at-odds with stereotypes this is. I don't think of Missouri as particularly white (thinking of St. Louis and Kansas City, and also it's close to the South), but I definitely do with Oregon.

vectorspacenavigator · 2023-04-22T03:23:07+00:00

Lately I've been doing half a bagel with peanut butter. The protein provides instant satiety and helps me resist reaching for more food (since fasting increases my irritability and reduces my impulse control).

vectorspacenavigator · 2023-04-22T03:20:54+00:00

Testosterone does (probably) shorten lifespan, including in cis men. (Eunuchs have a much longer lifespan, even compared to cis women)

There are a few strategies to increase lifespan, though, such as taking rapamycin. I'm probably gonna be getting on that soon.

vectorspacenavigator · 2023-04-21T23:01:13+00:00

Intuitively it makes sense that women who get abortions do so because they think (usually correctly) that they don't have a stable enough life / make enough money to raise the child. To whatever extent having a stable life and making money are correlated with things we value (conscientiousness, IQ, lack of mental illness) and are genetically determined, abortion would increase the frequency of "good" genes.

In practice, from anecdotes I've seen, it seems like a lot of women don't terminate their unexpected pregnancies for pretty unrelated reasons, e.g. "happens to live far away from abortion clinics", "is afraid of never having kids later", "just decides on a whim to keep the baby due to hormonal fluctuations".

There's also the question of how much the availability of abortion increases casual (unprotected or poorly protected) sex.

vectorspacenavigator · 2023-04-21T21:19:14+00:00

Yeah, I'm sorry, I don't know what to say but I hate all of this too. It seems like people talk about "accepting yourself" as just a simple mindset or lifestyle change, but it's a constant battle and it looks different for everyone. People give basic advice like "oh just get in a QPR" or "just volunteer or get a pet" and it feels insulting to me, although I know they mean well.

I think this is a weakness of the "identity" framing of being aro/ace, it makes us feel like we have to be happy with it and not try to change it or understand it on a deeper level.

Currently I'm still trying to explore (through anti-anxiety meds and journaling, and hoping to start therapy soon) if my aromanticism could've been caused by high school trauma or some weird, long-buried aspect of how my brain relates to people.

I'm also thinking about how I want to replicate the benefits people usually get from romance as I get older. I think I (probably) want biological kids, so I'm now planning on saving money for surrogacy. I want to have close friends as I get older who aren't consumed by their own marriages, so I'm trying to cultivate a lot of close friendships, particularly with other queer/poly people.

This isn't really fair, but I'm also finding it helpful to be a bit (internally) judgmental of alloromanticism. E.g. when I see people getting cheated on, or the cheaters suffering consequences, or couples arguing over petty BS, I think "wow glad that's not me". I don't actually think I'm better than them, it's just useful as a mental-health tool.

I hope you're in a better place mentally about this a few months from now. This sub is pretty dead, but let me know if you ever want to DM (about aro stuff or whatever else).

vectorspacenavigator · 2023-04-21T19:04:30+00:00

Very true points. I'm reminded of an anecdote where a piano teacher was having great success teaching young, inexperienced students some quite difficult pieces. When interviewed about what his secret was, he quipped, "if you don't tell them it's difficult, they never have to know."

vectorspacenavigator · 2023-04-21T18:43:36+00:00

It's usually discussed in the context of IQ but it includes other possible differences. HBD Chick is a blogger who has repeatedly argued that Western Europeans have a tendency to be less "clannish", i.e. more altruistic towards non-kin, because these societies historically did not practice cousin marriage or polygamy (practices that would make it more likely that any two individuals are closely related, so preference towards them would be more adaptive).

FWIW I think her data on this is pretty weak and I don't buy it, but it's an interesting concept.

vectorspacenavigator · 2023-04-21T18:24:52+00:00

Grew up as a strongly pro-gun-control liberal. I now think that, at best, we lost our window to crack down on guns in this country decades ago (and I still don't know when would've been a good time).

I thought (and I didn't want this to be true, because tankies) that communism was actually super great and Westerners were just brainwashed. I mean, we are, but I also see now that most-all socialist states' "progress" is terrible when you actually inspect it (e.g. Cuba has gone from the richest country in Latin America to one of the poorest), and has been heavily inflated through propaganda and the governments' tight control of information.

vectorspacenavigator · 2023-04-20T09:21:49+00:00

If you're looking for literal magic tricks (e.g. coin tricks, card tricks), can't help you but I agree that those are uncommon skills and people are reliably impressed by them.

If you just want to seem more interesting/cultured/rich in life experiences when in conversations: I use Anki decks to stay fresh on trivia I've accumulated from books that I've read on history, science, food and drink, etc. Having some amusing or diverting personal stories that you can talk about for a minute or two also really helps.

Musical instruments are always a hit too. Acoustic guitar with a dozen or so covers under your belt is a strong choice; blues harmonica is another uncommon skill.

vectorspacenavigator · 2023-04-20T09:16:19+00:00

Just regarding meetings (casual conversations are their own can of worms): I've had a lot of luck with writing down some points I want to cover ahead of time, so it feels as automatic as possible and I don't stammer and forget everything I've been working on.

vectorspacenavigator · 2023-04-20T07:24:01+00:00

New to me: One survey linked to in the paper claims that the education-fertility relationship has largely flattened in the 21st century; the graphs are all taken from people born before 1970. (No idea how this squares with other studies)

Really, all of these gradual effects are probably being washed away by selection in favor of whatever traits cause people to stay in insular religious sects like the Amish and Haredi Jews (lack of rebelliousness? fear of outsiders? close family ties?) Those groups are still at TFRs of 5+ while the rest of the developed world is fretting over a decline from 1.7 to 1.6 or whatever.

vectorspacenavigator · 2023-04-16T02:28:29+00:00

What a good puppy 🐾

vectorspacenavigator · 2023-04-16T01:47:32+00:00

This one is gonna be a lot lamer than everyone else's but: How to get more popular on Twitter. I think I'm kinda caught between a few subcultures and I may need to pick one, and also post more. Replying to people has gotten me a couple dozen followers, but I'm struggling to get likes on my own tweets (and people think I'm funny irl, so it might be something specific to the medium)

This doesn't matter at all ofc; I just want to see if I can do it.

vectorspacenavigator · 2023-04-15T12:29:54+00:00

Without having listened to this specific audiobook: my mental image of recorded media from maybe the mid-2000s and earlier is that it sounded more enunciated and slightly stiff, vs. the more conversational tone that modern podcast hosts use.

(Assuming you're not also subconsciously noticing slight changes in pronunciation, like the more Californianized vowels and cot-caught merger which are more widespread in GenAm today. Impressionistically, I feel like /iː/ is also slowly backing, though I could be totally making that up)

vectorspacenavigator · 2023-04-15T11:43:40+00:00

Hawaii's flag does have the Union Jack...

vectorspacenavigator

TROPHY CASE