Yet another refugee who washed up on the shore after the great Reddit disaster of 2023
We do a lot of real-time control software, and just yesterday we were taking about how the newer folks are really good at using available tools and libraries, but they have less understanding of what’s happening underneath and they have problems when those tools don’t/can’t do what we need.
Apparently he wants everything written in COBOL
I never said that being a driller is trivial. Do you think being an astronaut is trivial? That’s a pretty intensely technical job, which is why the bar for entry is so insanely high. I would put my money on those folks leaning how to drill better than drillers leaning how to be an astronaut.
Where I am in SoCal, it’s perfect right now. The lows are in the upper 50s, the highs in the mid 80s. The mornings are cool and a bit overcast, but it burns off to a sunny, warm day. It gets cool enough to open the windows just after sundown, them close them mid morning. Really nice. In a month, highs and lows will increase ten to fifteen degrees, so it will be a bit hot.
That’s super true. What’s worse is that it often turns out to be true of news as well. There have been a few times when I was familiar with events that made the news, and there were always inaccuracies in the articles. It’s made me look at articles on events that I’m not familiar with differently; they probably have the same amount of inaccuracies.
I’m software engineering in aerospace, so a lot of computer and space stuff is ruined, which covers a lot of content.
But everyone should smack their heads about Armageddon.
Ha! I hadn’t heard that - I’m glad someone involved called him out on it. I mean, I get that the real answer - to that and all my complaints - is that the movie doesn’t work otherwise, but it’s so annoying.
I worked on the space shuttle program, and I found Armageddon almost unwatchable. I mean, those things go up with the big solid rockets and an external tank full of hydrogen and oxygen, all of which get jettisoned during launch, then they come down as a glider. But in the movie they’re landing on asteroids and taking off again, smashing into things and still flying, etc. (remember how Columbia blew up because of a crack in the leading edge of one wing?). Plus the whole premise of it being easier to teach oil drillers how to be astronauts than to teach astronauts how to be oil drillers is a joke. Every astronaut I’ve met has been an amazing capable person - many are test pilots with multiple advanced degrees.
A decent sized package of medium quality chocolate.
I should have mentioned what you just did: your passion doesn’t have to be your job.
Tangentially, as I get closer to retirement, one of the things I hear from retirees is that they planned on doing a lot more of their hobby when they retired, but found that the hobby felt more like a job when they tried to do it all day. So sometimes it’s better that you keep something you enjoy as something that you can just do when you want.
I end up having similar conversations with college folks (interns mostly). I usually say something along the lines of:
Broadly, there’s a passion, there’s a career, and there’s a job. There’s nothing wrong with any of those, but people tend to be happiest in that order. I personally wasn’t super passionate about anything, but liked computers, got a CS degree, ended up as a software engineer at a rocket company, and now manage the software organization there. There were other things I enjoyed, but I figured programming was the most marketable, and that’s worked out for me.
What people tend to like or hate the most about where they work are the people and/or the boss, and that can be good or bad pretty much anywhere. Good to watch out for red and green flags when you’re looking.
Ugh, my poor wife; I’ve had a number of bad experiences because I’m so fundamentally stubborn. In the dream, I won’t be able to do something, and I’ll work and work at it, and sometimes succeed in real life. It’s been as simple and benign as not being able to see in a dream and struggling to open my eyes until I finally do, and I wake up. But I’ve managed to yell with a mouth that didn’t completely work, so my wife woke up to what sounds like a yelling, mournful ghost. I’ve managed to fight and punched my wife. I’ve managed to run, and kicked her. In all these cases, in the dream, I’ve had to really struggle to do the thing before I succeed and wake myself up.
Sleep paralysis turns out to be a good thing.
It must be cathartic to make cartoons about an argument you want to have where the other person is silenced by your point. Most of the time, the guy on the left in this cartoon would continue to argue and reject everything you say.
As evidence, watch a video of anyone arguing with MTG.
Years ago I was walking through a park area of UC Berkeley while on vacation and this squirrel walked right in front of me and stood there, so I stopped and watched it. I realized I had some food in my backpack and there might be something squirrel-appropriate, so I very slowly took it off and opened it up, hoping the squirrel wouldn’t get scared and run away. I found something - like a grape or something, don’t remember what - and got it out to toss to the squirrel, but when he saw it he ran up my pants leg and stopped at about my waist. Scared the crap out of me. I held out the food and he took it with one hand, stuck it in his mouth, and ran away.
That’s when I learned that there are apparently tame squirrels all around Berkeley.
Knowing me, probably something like “I wonder what this does…”
Wouldn’t hurt my feelings!
On that other place before I left, some guy posted a pic of him and his brand new fiance just to tell the world he proposed to her. I replied with something like “You look like a really great couple, I hope you’re happy together” and the first response was a downvote. Made me laugh.
I remember my mom telling me about phases of life as she experienced them:
At the time she concluded with “Some those were hard, but it was all okay. But now, all my friends are dying…”
I made an edit - weird that their alert has a link.
That sucks. I made an edit.
Yep, you get it. And it’s really hard to get people to understand the value in learning to do that stuff without the tools.