For the past few years, while I am up at the family cottage, I spend down time whittling a boat. I've made a few now. I was recently up at the cottage doing some work, and brought this one home to finish up.
It kinda has a "Paddle to the Sea" vibe to it. Maybe I'll do some sort of galley next.
My wife an daughter return from China tomorrow. I've done a significant amount of household improvement in the past two weeks. I've also had a number of veggie/banana/milk smoothies for dinner.
Please enjoy this little hen sleeping under my hat
Mostly just trying to get something done every day and not worry too much about what's around the corner. A lot has been happening for the past long while, and too much stress just makes me useless, so as I see it going slow is better than not getting anything done at all.
For a bit of "fun" I did a little theorem proving in coq as I'm running a book club that's working through bits of The algorithm book.
Since I started learning about programming, I've always imagined what I'd do if someone asked me to make a product that I think is immoral.
Today, we go live on a product that is shady at best, and exploitative at worst. I've designed a UI with the specific intent of rushing people through a health insurance application - premiums only average ~$10/mo for this specific policy, but written in the small-print is the fact that your premium decreases by 50% after 3 years, and by another 50% when you retire. You'll still pay the same premium, but you could have a quarter of the coverage you thought you did without ever being aware of it. Because I didn't tell you that.
What if you get diagnosed with cancer, and you need the money that you thought was promised to you? What if you go to collect, and you learn that your $500,000 policy is only going to pay out $125,000? What if you have a heart-attack, and your $75,000 policy only gives you $18,250?
Could people's lives be destroyed by a well-designed UI that pushes them forward, urging them to click before they think at every corner?
I feel like shit about this. I'm not going to do anything to stop it. I don't have any savings, or any real fall-back plan because I've only been a working professional for less than a year. I just hate the fact that I'm putting this shitty financial trap into the wild. I hate our client. I hate this project. Ugh.
Yes, but it's complicated.
We didn't know what we were getting into because the guy who made the SOW quit unexpectedly before the project began. I didn't bring it up in my last comment, but he made a lot of impossible-for-our-timeline promises and quoted them a ridiculously low figure for the work to be done. He was known to work late hours and not actually bill them - a huge no no - so my team's theory is that he was planning to do a lot of these features pro bono.
SO basically we're developing this shitty product at a higher cost than originally estimated, and on a longer timescale than originally promised. It's a real shitshow, but we're contractually obligated to see it through.
- Yes, but it's complicated.
It isn't, really.
This is clearly over your moral line. Tell your management that.
Yes, you have a contract. Yes, there will be penalties for defaulting on those terms.
But there are also penalties you will suffer personally if you continue with the project. Think about it... why should you take on that personal burden on behalf of a company who would fire you tomorrow if you stepped over any of a dozen different lines?
And... what will it take you, personally, to erase the image of someone getting scammed by your product and design? I don't know what type of brain bleach you have where you live, but I am unaware of any product or service that will quiet my brain-weasels as I lay in bed at night, unable to sleep, and worrying about something I have done...
In the end, the customer still has a need, and you still have a contract. Contracts can be negotiated, and this one clearly needs to be re-evaluated, collaboratively, with the customer. "We cannot morally perform this work. Here is why. Here is what we propose, and here are the contract terms we need to modify to make this happen. Let's talk."
If all you get from this is to leave the company with your integrity intact, you still have made the right choice.
Fully settled into my summer routine. Gymnastics training (16 hours a week), gymnastics coaching (25-30), and studying coding (4-10). Free time split between seeing friends and reading. Not bad.
My birthday is Sunday (twenty-eight!). This weekend I'm having a birthday party at my gymnastics facility, where about 20 of my friends and family will come and I'll coach them gymnastics. It's also partly an elaborate ruse to show off my progress. Because, who knew, practicing four hours a day four times a week means you get marginally better at things.
I've also been not-drinking. Weekends come and go, spent merrily reading or staying up a little bit late talking to roommates, and I've--happily--not been feeling the temptation to join the teeming throngs at the bars.
While I'm optimistic about Lambda School and what I'll learn, I'm still concerned of the nuts-and-bolts logistics of the nine-month term. My runway is small. I've managed to reduce expenses pretty reliably, but it's the unpredictable expenses that get ya. I'm probably going to stay in my basement and rent out my bedroom because that's just too much money cushion to turn down. I really don't mind staying in my basement. Plus the girl I'll most likely be seeing doesn't mind either so ::shrug:: who am I trying to impress?
Not-drinking is pretty awesome. Slowly but surely I'm watching more and more people who swore they would never touch LaCroix picking up cans of fizzy water instead of beers.
It's 2019, we out here drinking water, getting to bed at a reasonable time most nights. Woo!
- It's 2019, we out here drinking water, getting to bed at a reasonable time most nights. Woo!
This is not the motto I imagined as a kid that would get me out of bed in the morning, but now that I'm here, I fucking love it.
My girlfriend and I both had a come-to-jesus moment recently about LaCroix. After years of making fun of it, she admitted that she actually kind of likes it and...I had to admit the same.
It's not as flavorful as I'd like, but it's hard to argue with how healthy it is as an alternative. Damn my adult, nutritionally-aware self!
- This post brought to you by Sparkling Water Gang (tm)
Dudes and dudettes: There is this stuff called Spindrift. It's seltzer water with a tiny bit of actual juice, so a can will have 13 calories per. It's not sweet at all, it's mostly an aftertaste, but it's not aspartame or artificial sweetener! I recommend it.
I'm interested to see how Lambda School plays out for you! I was approached by them a few months ago, and turned them down - I was flattered, but I was also just about to graduate with a CS degree and more schooling seemed...Bleh. Always wondered, though, so thanks for letting me live out that particular timeline vicariously!
You were approached by them? Interesting--how did that work?
I wonder how popular the program has gotten. I get their targeted ads everywhere now, so it's hard for me to judge.
I'm going the data science track. With the intensity of the schedule, I'm told it's as much or more coding as a four-year CS degree. Seems like a good way to get competent quickly, then get a foot in the door.
I had a recruiter email me! I think they target new grads. I just tried combing my inbox, but I couldn't find it - I promise I'm not delusional, but now I'm wondering if it was a different company making the same kind of sales-pitch? Who knows.
How're you holding up? I had a lot of sleepless nights in college, I can't imagine the stress of condensing that so much...
It doesn't start until September. But I'll be sure to update you. The pace is apparently steady but not overwhelming. And while there is some homework, there's a lot of help. We'll see how different the environment is from college.
Sitting in the Frankfurt airport, waiting to return home after six months away. I have three days at home before another work trip. I honestly can’t remember my last day off. I’ll be taking a week off in the mountains of Idaho in August, it really can’t come soon enough
Got my first real night of sleep in a week and a half. Beware of apartment leases (full stop) that require the tenant to pay for extermination services. Just because the cost isn't an issue for you doesn't mean that applies to everyone. And if it spreads... ick.
Several of my books didn't respond well to heat treatment. Paperbacks all seem fine. My Library of America volumes, though? Less glued together than before (yay for sewn bindings) and some tearing in a few of the hinges.
'Bout to buy a car. Probably a Yaris or Prius. We were holding on to the '99 Solaris for as long as it could. And now that we are slipping in the highest gear, the time is come. Want a hatchback. Need good millage, since we mainly drive highway miles to work.
Edit: $800 later and we still have bugs. Oof.
Yarises?
You are absolutely right on the Fit.
So, the issue with the Fit is that this is the first time we've been in a financial position that we can be choosy with the car we end up with. The Solaris was sold to us at a heavy discount by a family friend when we were barely making ends meet.
Now, I reckon that we can afford a Prius. But it still feels like a lot to spend. So we are inclined to cheap out. The Fit occupies an awkward price point where if we are gonna spend more, we might as well saddle up and get what we'd really like.
We've broken into lower middle class purchasing decisions but we haven't really internalized it yet.
I was right there when we bought the Fit (in 2009). For us, the issue is that Priuses were at a hell of a premium (there was only the one) and even the used market sucked. Meanwhile the Fit had been on the US market for six months in 2007 and had been available for sale new for about two months. As such, the discount for a 2008 Fit with 30,000 miles on it was about $1500. We drove literally every available hatchback under 50,000 miles and the Fit was the only car that didn't feel like masochism.
Looks to me like a Fit and a Prius C are about $5k apart. I haven't driven this year's Prius C but they've always felt like very small Priuses. Honda Fits feel like sedans that happen to be small. It's worth checking out.
So I've been at the university for 3 days now. It's cool so far. There's a lot to do. I'm inheriting a nice instrument and about 4 lab spaces filled with mostly obsolete useless junk, scattered hard drives (my predecessor practiced the unlabeled-pile-of-loose-hard-drives school of data infrastructure), and an office that needed some deep cleaning.
I had facilities come out and DEEP-CLEAN the carpet to help it air out a little. I was clearing out old bank statements, meds, personal legal documents, grungy keyboards... I found a whole shedded lizard skin and parts of some other animal. I brought in an air purifier to try and help it out a bit, but I think I may have to resort to a scent diffuser.
The "recover password" option on Hubski appears to be broken. I enter my email address when prompted, but the email from Hubski to reset never arrives. Is this a gmail issue?
mk Checking my spam folder was the first thing I did (I recalled that Google had been causing trouble). Nothing there, I'm afraid.
I am looking for a really nice, expensive restaurant in Los Angeles to celebrate a new business venture.
Ideas?
The problem with LA is you pay $70 for $30 sushi and $15 for $5 pho. Mozza is good but it's batshit insane for what you pay. There are more expensive restaurants in LA but it's such a land of superheated insanity that you hit an asymptote long before you hit bang for buck.
Cartoons
I just realized I could talk about cartoons for hours on end today if given the chance. Since abandoning comic collecting, they've become my staple medium for exploring art and storytelling. Instead of starting a whole crazy thread where I could ramble endlessly, I'll just briefly mention five shows.
Pocoyo - I started watching this to expand my spanish vocab, but have transitioned to watching it for fun. I'm enjoying this show probably more than I really should. It's wonderfully minimalist and is able to be perpetually cheerful and optimistic without feeling artificially and overly saccharine. I've seen more early kids' tv shows than I'd like to admit and I can honestly say this is one of the few that isn't so childish that it makes me angry.
Buddy Thunderstruck and Cupcake and Dino are two of the better Netflix Original Series and as far as slapstick cartoons are concerned, they're actually quite good. Of the two, C&D is much better, with more imaginative plots and better dialogue, but the characters of Buddy Thunderstruck have such a charm to them, I'm kind of sad the show only ever got one season.
I finally started watching Avatar after putting it off for a decade. I've only gotten through the first ten episodes, but I can see why people like it. The characters are charming, the individual episodes are okay for the most part, and I'm curious to see where the overall arching story goes. That said, it's definitely a product of its time, where each season needs to be X number of episodes, so there's definite filler there. In contrast, The Dragon Prince is equally good and being a Netflix series, is much more concise and to the point. I'm actually pretty fond of this series and love that it explores themes such as family, duty, justice, etc.
Hobbies
Went to a sewing circle with Dala. Actually, I was the only one sewing, everyone else was either knitting or crocheting. It was a lot of fun though, filled with pleasant, simple conversations. I was originally worried that being the only guy, I'd feel out of place, but I fell into the pace of things pretty quickly. I'm looking forward to going again.
That said, I've barely made any books this year and I'm feeling a bit guilty about that. I've made a ton of text blocks over the winter and I have a ton of supplies that need to get used up, but I haven't gone back to the craft room to work in quite a while. I really need to remedy that.
Speaking of books, the other day my mother asked me about how to best go about repairing a book. It's nice that she wants to ask me for advice, but I know enough about making and repairing books to know that no one should really ask me to repair anything for them. That said, fortunately for her, it's just a bit of mild cover damage that can easily be fixed by a local book restorer. There won't be any need for anything drastic or expensive.
Nature
While I was outside letting my dog do its thing, a hummingbird flew about two feet in front of me and hovered there, looking at me, for about five seconds. I think that's the closest I've ever been to one and that brief moment will probably be the highlight of my day.
Have you read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon? The storyline centers around two young comic book makers. It's about a lot else, but I've never had literature describe such a visual activity so goddamned well. It's seriously one of my top ten favorite books ever. You might enjoy it.
I haven't yet but it's on my list, which is very real, but not tied to any time frame. Case in point, I'm just now watching Avatar. I've heard pretty much universally good things about it though, so it definitely strikes me as a "need to read."
Absolutely. So in the first ten episodes, there's three distinct filler episodes that I can think of. Aang and company visit the village with the lady warriors, Aang and company visit the village that is being haunted by an angry forest spirit, and Aang and company break the Earth Benders out of prison. They're all fun stories, with lessons to be learned, and create character development. But all three only marginally move the plot forward. So they're not filler in the sense that they're necessarily extrenuous or redundant, but they are filler in that the writers have to fill out an episode quota.
The Dragon Prince, on the other hand, even with the filler episodes, almost seems to be rushing its plot forward. A good example in the other direction would be something like Samurai Jack, where there's an over arching plot in concept, but most episodes are just opportunities to tell individual stories that don't really hold any bearing on the story as a whole.
For the record, I have zero problem with any three approaches as long as the pacing feels natural and all three series I just listed are done quite well.
Psst, I recommend The Rise of Kyoshi for a joy read. It came out the day of this Pubski. Halfway through and it's coming into its own after laying down the setting, plus a few very subtle hints of fan service/acknowledging the rest of the universe.
kingmudsy and Gem shout out since y'all boop'd the hubwheel, might be interested.
I've bee reading a lot. Summer has been amazing - lot of hanging out, work is going well, weather is amazing.
I had an incident at my birthday party last weekend. We were hanging out at the park (kind of open invite) and then we had a little BBQ at my place after. At the park, there was this dude selling weed candies or whatever that hung around our group for a bit.
Come midnight at my house BBQ, he walks in with like 3 friends. Honestly, by that time I was pretty drunk and did not see them walk in because I was in a room for a birthday massage! So I go confront him, asking what he's doing here, who gave him my address but only get vague answers. I tell him that it's a private party and that's really not cool - but they seem to be getting along well with my guests. I'm also a little worried i'm drunk and over-reacting, and there is confusion/conflicting reports that he's someone's friend. So i tell him i'm uncomfortable and let it slide, and not kick them out. I proceed to have lots of fun at the party with the rest of my friends :)
Turns out that dude was a massive douche that aggressively hit on one on my friends and made her feel uncomfortable. He also kicked out my other friend mid-route in the Uber because she would not sleep with him.
I'm extremely pissed off at whoever gave those jerks my personal address and invited them to my private birthday party. And made my friends feel unsafe. I don't even know who did it. (I had my suspicion , but that person denied doing it) Made a little PSA about inviting random people to someone else's house on our Fb group about it but I still have a bad taste from this experience. I regret not kicking them out in the first place :(
Urhgh. I never really celebrated my birthday with friends before - this was super fun and probably my best birthday ever. I'm sad it's been tainted like this. But I won't let it happen ever again.
I’m in Scotland:
https://imgur.com/gallery/u0bYngB
Also, how the hell do I get this to post an image here? Old grumpy non technologically inclined fella asking for a friend.
Also, apparently, imgur has a community of people that don’t like selfies.
Use the direct link that ends in .jpg in imgur, it should embed automatically
Hey Hubski. Good planet, good feast.
It's difficult not to feel somewhat alienated in the year 2019. I mean shit, most of my life feels like I've just been accumulating cultural credit cards. The high school diploma, the university degree, all these things are supposed to make me sound smart, but to who? And meanwhile all the time I sink into these things my body just gets older. And entering adult life where everyone goes a million different directions all these things are fading away in the background... did it even matter in the grand scheme of things? My point is, LinkedIn is an evil, evil website. #leadership #strategicgrowth #ilovemyalmamater #headshotinsuitinfrontofblurrybackground.
Lacroix is good shit though.
Modern American culture arranges our childhood, our adolescence and our early adulthood around the idea of the Great Brass Ring. Around and around you go, bobbing meaninglessly up and down for year after year after year, until finally you notify all your family and they come up and celebrate you and you have that amazing brunch at Tony Roma's and there it is! Shiny! Round! Shiny and Round!
...brass...
It's entirely normal to look around and go is this all there is? as soon as you discover that yeah - you beat the boss in the final battle but you basically leveled up to Hard Mode in the exact same fucking game and that your chakras are still misaligned, your sense of purpose is still listless and the future you were led to expect is not the future you inhabit.
It sounds like you're ahead of schedule. Congratulations. That's called a "head start." What you will discover is that the world is full of people who have decided that the carousel is not the only carnival ride. Look around. See what you see. Because while you can still disappoint your parents, the disappointment they can feel is a tiny fraction of the fulfillment you can earn by doing what you actually want to do.
- some guy who works 4 months a year, drives a Porsche and has a wife that looks bangin' in yoga pants at 44
The "recover password" option on Hubski appears to be broken. I enter my email address when prompted, but the email from Hubski to reset never arrives. Is this a gmail issue?