we're on month 18 of trying to start a family. Medical intervention started at month 12 and if things don't happen this month then we're going to start much more intense medical stuff. It's a really weird situation to be in - the mix of taboo and rarity, combined with being the gender that it "shouldn't effect" and the fact that I'm not great with my feelings make it hard to deal with.

I'm also building a greenhouse - so that's cool.

I still need to figure out some aspects of the footer, mostly how to minimize contact and potential rot, how to make a drain under it, and how to deal with the roof, but those are all fun challenges.

I'm signing for a new house with my new wife today (second house, first wife) and we're super excited.

I'm still trying to get the hang of corporate training . So far I'm focusing on:

1. Showing people that the lecture format they've seen their entire life is a super inefficient way of learning,

2. No one here is going to give you permission, so just implement the smallest version of the plan as quick as possible.

3. Good communicators treat people like humans regardless of the setting.

And I finally beat the main story of witcher 3. Damn that's a good game.

We have a table top game going - it's the first game I've played that hasn't fallen apart so I'm really excited. Once we get to level 5, I'm taking over DM and guiding the group through level 10. This will be my first DM experience so while I'm dreaming big, I'm trying to keep it under control. One of the players will be becoming lord of a small outpost. I want to have the PCs build up the city to protect against attack. I'm also trying to figure out how to give them free reign to do as they want without stumbling on areas that are way too powerful for them.

I also caved and bought Skyrim on the switch. I was kicking myself while going through the tutorial, I've played the game so many times it seemed like a waste of money. About an hour later I found a brand new secret cave in a hut I had visited many times before and remembered how amazingly vast that game is. I'm pretty stoked about it.

http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comic/rat-park/

Every time I see a solution like this, I just think about how little we learned from rat park.

I WENT CHASING WATERFALLS!

I think the problem, and problem might be too strong a word so we can go with sticking point, comes down to explicit vs implicit moderation.

Hubski is small and there aren't really a large number or a diverse selection of cliques, which seems especially true when a user is new. If that user lurks they meet the common cast and you fall near the top of the bill as the lovable asshole, a good but prickly role that doesn't have the most line but certainly has the most memorable dialogue. In this way you become a figurehead to the community.

This means your personal moderation is often seen for the implicit effects. Explicitly, you (or anyone using mod tools) are only controlling what you see. Implicitly, I think it feels as though you're shunning a person from the "in" crowd.

This, of course, is a hunch based on my thoughts, but the logic is pretty simple - the moderation system is just different enough to not be understood. When a person sees that they are muted, they might assume that blocks them from a much larger portion of the site, similar to being banned on a message board. They might also assume that their mute is a scarlet letter of sorts, something other users can see (which, to be honest, I'm not really sure that they can) and make judgement against.

Even outside of those theories, there's how the implicit moderation effects the person internally. If they do associate you to the in crowd as a public face and you shun them, no matter how privately, the likelihood of implying a feeling of alienation and spreading that to the larger perceived "in" group seems very high.

I would be very interested to see the analytics of a user's first 90 to 120 days, to see who those people gravitate too and to find out if there is any perceived controlling group. I know it's a complaint I've heard about hubski before, and I think understanding it could go a long way in changing how the system is explained.

Or I'm just rambling, work is boring this time of year.

The manager who gave me my job left. Now I'm worried I'm running out of advocates. I've been running the training program without a budget for two years now and the new managers want me to "improve my numbers," but don't seem to be willing to invest.

This is lame.

I read this thing recently that really stuck with me - social media and the perception of perfection has resulted in lower confidence among millennials. Where ever it was, it was a throw away argument, a stepping stone on the path to a point about millennials in the workplace.

But it did resonate with me. This idea that the world we were brought up seeing was a hyper reality, realer than real, and because our actuality is lame by comparison, we don't have the right to assault the rest of the world with our flawed ideas.

That thought bounces around in my head every time I see a boomer (or now, Xer) explain who we are, what we believe, how we think, and why we act the way we do. When I see these, I feel deep down that the assumptions are mistaken, and someone needs to set them right. But Who Am I to be the one to do the correcting? My articles aren't bouncing around the globe, my voice isn't playing from every car, my video isn't impressed on a million screens. It's better to stay quiet and let the people who know be the ones who speak.

But as I get older and the curtain inches its way back, I see more and more that those unassailable people don't necessarily know more than me, they're just more confident in their knowledge.

I think movements like these yimbys are a counter culture to that feeling of insecurity. These are people who are willing to start a fight and make a fuss for what they think is right. I hope to see more such confidence from my generation, regardless of what the analysts say.

I always just hope for more jokes in comment sections. Don't get me wrong I like well crafted, thoughtful responses - but I'm also a fan of a well crafted joke.

We're all moved into the house and I finally managed to fire up the oven and make my first loaf of bread. The internal thermometer was spot on and had no trouble getting up the 475 - though the kitchen is stuffy without a fan. But I got to use up my North Carolina grown and ground flour and it's delicious.

I have two courses up and running for the company I work at - a workshop on public speaking and a book club on having difficult conversations - both of which seem to get a lukewarm response. I want to develop a third course on decision making but for some reason I've been attacked by a bout of lethargy and nihilism - neither of which are great motivators. So I'm diving into the real question - do I change my occupation to seek more satisfaction, or dive in head first for higher compensation?

Spoilers

The new mario is great.

It's getting cold enough for me to play The Long Dark again.

My wife left for a weekend and I played a lot more Witcher 3.

It's been a pretty boring week.

Going to Devner at the end of the week for 11 days, then coming back and starting IVF. It'll be a nice break before the real shit starts.

Also, at some point on hubski I doubted kleinbl00 on how expensive children were. Looking at the IVF charges and how that's just for a pre-kid, I'll eat my humble pie.

Also, the greenhouse is on hold - looking at the planned area in the summer, it's completely shaded in by the now leafy trees. I'm considering fixing up our shed as a new project instead.

I'm much less angsty and more directed this week, it seems to come in waves. I do think I need to take some time to figure out what I want long term, this wishy washy thing is pretty crappy.

Also, a bunch of dudes I work with play Overwatch, so I made a new group of friends. It makes me feel bad for my wife. She works from home and has to battle solitude, while I'm making friends by accident. I need to find a way to help her with that.

Well, my boss and one of my teammates were fired. My two other teammates were lopped off and sent to another department and now I report directly to our VP. She told me things were going to change, but in standard fashion, nothing has.

My old boss is trying to recruit me away and I feel like I'm in a position where there's no right answer.

I also found out a woman I worked with a year or two ago spent most of the time we worked together telling people I stole her job and that's the reason an entire department stonewalls me. It's some high school bullshit and I'm not a fan.

But my best friend from school is getting help and looking to reconnect so we're going to start playing games once a week, which makes me happy.

I've started my Hubski lurking again, on and off, seems like the music thread is a pretty good entry point.

Everybody wants to be famous - superorganism -

Oh, Heart - Tank and the Bangas -

Breakdown - Handsome Boy Modeling School -

Believe - Benjamin Booker -

HOLY SHIT THIS IS ACTUALLY MY USERNAME!

this is amouseinmyhouse. Apparently I signed up 555 days ago, used the site for two days, then forgot about it. I couldn't log in because of the capitalization.

Thanks hubski. I'm way more excited about this than I should be.

Shelving! We have a small walk-in closet that has one tall shelf on three walls with hanging rods below them - very space inefficient.

I want to make the back wall look something like this:

The shelves on the left and right walls would just be extensions of the shelves on the left and right.

I'm also looking at making a moving island for our kitchen. I'm collecting tools from family members and designs for the thing, but it's a complicated build so I want to make sure I'm comfortable with it.

I also have to find a good sized butcher block counter top.

On Monday I lay awake in bed for hours trying to think about what I want, what I really want, from work and I came to the conclusion that I want money - to be able to pay off my house and take care of my family.

Tuesday I got a call from a guy I used to do web design for. He offered to pay me to do it again and I turned him down because it's hard. So that theory is out the window.

Meanwhile I keep getting more and more involved in church. I'm not a religion person in any form, but this is a farm church and we spend our time growing crops or baking bread to give to people in need. It's good work and it feels rewarding. I think there's some lesson here in the futility of close inspection and the value of action, but whatever.

Speaking of bread, I'm making my biggest batch - an octuple batch. I'm kind of worried I don't have containers large enough for the proofing process.

Lastly, in games - Cities Skylines came out with a new expansion for green cities. I don't know why I love management games so much, but it's really fun to make a city. I beat the main story of Odyssey, but there's still a ton more to do. I'm really amazed at how dense the game is - it feels so small but contains so much, which is a brilliant design. Also the new overwatch hero scares and excites me.

I wasn't trying to slag Xers, I very much remember all the shit that used to be talked about them when I was growing up and, even as a child thinking "that's a bit rough".

I was specifically thinking about my work place. It's run by boomers and xers and they're always reading out articles and surveys responses that say who millennials are and how to get them to come to our workplace.

Once a quarter we'll get a millennial report - where a boomer stands in front of a crowd of millennials and tells us what we want in the workplace. The speech comes with a fair amount of "this is what the data says you want and it's more than we got - so be grateful." None of it really resonates with me or with the other people my age, but there's data and old people are wielding it, so Who Am I to say it's not what I actually want?

I get why they do it - they don't want the workforce to age out and we're a confusing group. I'm not admonishing the efforts (half the reason I go along with it is because of the effort - at least they care, right?)

I'm more reflecting on my (and many of my cohort's) tendency to accept the outsider's assessment instead of being confident in my own. It feels like a common crisis for people my age. And I've seen the most passionate among us flare up in harsh rebellion to the assessments. The result is usually some form of radicalism, those who go first seem to go big, but it's still a reaction to the same assessments.

That's not what has me curious. My mom and dad we're Joe and Sue. They always made a point to tell me, against millennial tradition but in accordance with Lutheran, that I am most likely in most ways average. That's simply how it has to be for the math to work. So when I start to feel these discomforts and trepidation, they don't make me feel alienated - they make me wonder how the cohort is going to deal with them.

I wonder how the millennial masses will come to terms with who they are. What personalities will shake out when they realize what shitty yields come from investing in looking cool. What they'll really value when then number and expense of appliances means you really can't have them all. How they'll act when they work for 8 hours, play with their kids for 5, and have 1 glorious 60 minute period left for them to truly be themselves.

It's already happening to the masses in some ways. The industries we're killing, the complaints we're making, the culture we're refusing - they're all the result of a critical mass of completely average people simultaneously thinking to themselves, "no, I don't think that's the way I'll do it."

It's our right, just like it was your right, just like it was our parents' right. I think how we exercise that right as we become functioning adults is going to be fascinating.

Holy shit, that was well done.

A N G S T

Other than that I'm good though.

He needs a better "how it works" section, preferably a page. My gut reaction is that this is some kind of scam and the site's explanation of three bullet points doesn't quell my fears.

A nice in depth (or psudo in depth) explanation of what this is and how it works would help a bunch.

Also, any words from indie developers about why this is good for them would make me feel better. Right now I'm just taking the word of a site I've never heard of.

It's a great concept, but "Pandora for games" is very new and very scary to a lot of gamers. GOG got popular on the exact opposite sentiment.

To thrive, a site like this will need to make a very appealing case to the sentimentally of modern gamers, which it currently doesn't.

When they finished the play, the professor asked the class, "What was Faustus's real sin? Where did he really fall?" And there had been the standard answers: He was greedy. He desired power, knowledge. He was lustful and blasphemous. Dr. Hemple agreed Faustus had been all those things, but that Marlowe had very carefully planted a clue in the first scene in the play; he had revealed the trap from the beginning.

In the text, Faustus is reading the Vulgate of Saint Jerome, and comes to Romans 6:23: "The wages of sin is death," he quotes, and stops right there, despairing, without turning the page. Dr. Hemple looked out at the class. "You're all good Christians, right? What's the rest of the verse? What would Faustus have seen if he'd turned the page?" There had been no answer. " 'For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.' Don't you understand? Faustus was eternally damned because he was a bad reader."

It's a bit more extreme, but this made me remember a scene from The Solace of Leaving Early.

Automation

I got two rooms on switches - one single, one double - and I didn't get electrocuted! I also got a Harmony Hub on sale and synced it with my switches and google home. Now when I say "turn on the projector", the projector and receiver turn on and the living room lights turn off. I'm trying to get "time for bed" to turn off the living room and turn on the bed room, but it's running into trouble (I think it's already a keyphrase).

Home Improvement

We got an unpowered push mower and it's fantastic. I thought it would be miserable, but it's actually easier than a motor mower in a lot of way, and it's super quiet and relaxing. My wife and I take turns mowing because it's a great way to get some exercise and listen to a podcast.

The shelving project got shelved (:D) because it's way more complicated than I thought it would be so I'm making real plans this time.

I got a new case for my computer. My old one was over heating. I thought it was because it was such a small case, but on taking it apart I actually put waaaaaay too little thermal paste on the CPU. I'm trying to hide this fact from my wife who thought a third case in a single year was foolish already.

Work

I made a proposal to change jobs. I stated what I was good at and how my current job was moving me away from those strengths and my manager was super supportive!

It's crazy that I have this narrative of slave driving management in my head, and how that keeps me from speaking up, but in reality they're just nice people who want other nice people to succeed and be happy. It's a really nice thing to see.

I can't remember where I got it, I think freakanomics, but I like the idea of giving people some control over the direction of their donations (the freakanomics example was talking about taxes).

So TNG would post three upcoming projects from the to-do list and when you donated you could donate those dollars to one of the three specific projects. Once one is "funded" it gets made.

It's a sort of very pragmatic value add that gives donors the feeling of control on a site.

There's an odd truth here that I'm going to try to get at, but I think I'll have to ramble before I arrive.

My father was a salesman and he taught me a lot of interesting things about people. One of those things was to never listen to what a man tells you he is. He may be right, he may be wrong, but you'll never know on his words alone. It's his actions that define him.

My mother was a feminist. Her first real job was a home economics professor. She taught college freshmen in the back country she grew up in how to cook, clean, and maintain a budget. She was chastised by compatriots of the good fight for being so complicit, but those people never took the time to understand what she did. Every day she would take a group of people who didn't seem to have a chance and give them the skills to spend within their means and take control of their lives. She taught both men and women skills traditionally reserved for one gender so that all could have an opportunity.

All of this is to say, I've never given much stock to what people say they are and don't plan to anytime soon. You are defined by your actions, and trying to define those actions for others just takes time from actually being helpful.

Both places were more expensive then what I typically spend going out.

This is an interesting idea. I've been thinking a lot about the ongoing battle between classical economists and behavioral economists. I think, and this is one of my broken record topics, the transition will come as economists start to look at more than financial capital as the constant prime motivator. As they start to apply their mathematical models to emotional currency social currency, currencies I haven't even thought of, the capital of capitalism will shift and move away from a money motivated system.

As for the loss of jobs and the rise of free time, I like the work of Shoshana Zuboff. Where most are saying that the rise of machines will result in the loss of service work and that nothing will take its place, she theorizes that the loss in service work will give rise to a support economy.

I hear bits and pieces of it in this article, and articles like it, where people are finding value not in simply providing a service but in providing actual support to another human being. The difference being in a service economy a service worker could show you where the clothes are. In a support economy a support worker could listen to you and your life story to learn about your style and preferences and support you as a person.

It might be a pipe dream, but a lot of the predictions of her first book, rise of the smart machine, came true and I like to think the support economy is equally as likely.

Distracted parents may even be putting their children at risk of physical harm, Dr. Steiner-Adair says. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control found a 12-per-cent spike in injuries to children under 5 between 2007 and 2010, after a long decline. The years coincide with the crash of the American economy, but also with the infancy of the iPhone

FEAR