717 karma · joined October 22, 2017
I've always wanted to live remotely but I'm not yet finished with school. One day! I live in the rockies. Most of that part of Alberta is a national park, but I think I could find some land and build a little house.
I'm surprised that one fella was building windmills. Definitely something to aspire to.
Perhaps bower birds don't give a fuck if the object is man-made or not?
Ignoring vs not ignoring man-made objects could indicate a lot of things. Maybe ignoring man-made objects is an indication of instinctual fear, which would imply less adaptability and therefore less intelligence?
In most circles, it's at least very interesting to be able to say you have a chip under your skin. It's also a very "cyberpunk" thing to do-- which is to say, not only are you one of the first to have this done (where it could be conceived that a majority may have a similar procedure in the future), but you can now say you're part machine. He does use the term "cyborg".
I can see this looking like a good idea in my own head, just because of its fantasy. At the same time, DAMN, he just put a chip under his skin for absolutely no reason, and on an impulse, without understanding how it works and subsequently locking himself out. Yikes!
I guess we all make mistakes.
I agree with you, but providing full-time housing is just not feasible and would be very sensitive and pre-disposed to abuse.
I may be wrong as well, but my thought has always been that homeless camps are a good idea. One could build wells and outhouses similar to what you'd see at any standard family campground and designate "lots" for homeless to set up tents or a lean-to or what-have-you. This would also be the ideal location to distribute services to the homeless, or where charities could operate, all in a few centralized locations. Most of the charities that work for the homeless in my city are in the downtown area, consequently most of the homeless population can be found downtown despite the fact that there are very few safe places to sleep in the big city.
There are many variations of the camp idea, and certain modifications. One could require that a person register to be in the camp, or that they have no record of addiction or are currently in recovery, or that they have a case worker. These restrictions would help prevent a kind of "festering city" situation where the camp just becomes a place you can go to safely shoot up.
I can see an option for dedicated bus routes to and from the camps and then to other organizations in the city that could help the homeless (counselling centers, charities, drop-in centers, job centers, etc.)
Ideally it would be run like a community. Charities and organizations plan events in the camp, with dedicated hosting buildings and whatnot, with people who live in the camp encouraged to become active in helping with maintenance and organization and maybe even some wage-paying jobs within the camp (they would be considered government workers in that case).
Because the facilities are limited and there isn't much infrastructure to maintain, the camps would be cheap for local governments to build while also being a relatively long-term option for people (mostly homeless people are looking for a dedicated and safe place to sleep, which the camps would provide).
Inherent to "loving" is the ability to balance your connection to a thing with the limits of your boundaries and trajectories. It's that old saying, "if you love something, then let it go". If you love something, you also have the understanding that it lives its own "life", that you cannot control it and that it cannot control you. So, in loving, you'll have to accept that the thing which is loved is not you but is itself. You cannot encapsulate it.
1. The key is to pay attention to your own thoughts. Simply notice what you're thinking about. You can't be in this mode all the time, but when you do catch yourself thinking, observe the thought you just interrupted.
2. Don't judge your own thoughts. Don't even judge your own cynicism. This non-judgmental attitude is the first step to changing anything about your behavior and your state of mind, even if that seems counter-intuitive. Almost everyone has a resistance to that which assumes authority to judge. Don't assume you are the authority of your mind. There are so many reasons why you aren't, but the biggest reason is that you have no control over your subconscious mind. "You" lives in the conscious mind, and "You" believes it has control. But your brain sends a signal to your arm to move it half a second before "You" can even think of claiming responsibility for the action. Your mind is like a fluid. Stuff rises from the depths and sinks back down again and you mostly don't control that. It's a natural process. So there's no reason to judge anyways.
3. Ask yourself lots of questions about your thoughts. "Why" is the most important question. Explore your thoughts without judgement. Try and find the answers to these questions. You're allowed to speculate and you're allowed to get it wrong. It doesn't really matter.
4. Choose the thoughts that present consciously. This is the aspect of your mind that "You" has control over. If you ask enough questions you'll eventually be able to weed out the thoughts that don't do you any good. Simply choose not to think about them anymore. Don't try to get rid of them (that only draws more focus to the thought you don't want to think, instead simply tune in to a different station. If you find a cynical thought come to mind, just think about it a bit more deeply. Even if the thought is "true", you could look at your subject from different angles and find a less cynical perspective, one that is equally true, and find something about it that gives you energy or reminds you of what makes you happy.
5. Some thoughts come from a damaged place. If you find a wound, you'll have to address it. Once again, don't judge the thought that comes from the wound. You'll need to accept it and give it proper attention if you want to heal.
6. Sometimes certain thoughts just need to be ignored. Sometimes thoughts are meaningless and toxic. Just ignore them. No need to think about it more deeply if your brain is muttering about how much of a bitch that lady at the grocery store was. It's obviously nonsense. Learn to recognize thoughts that deserve your analysis and those that don't.
Cynicism is a delicate thing and often results from fear. It can be healthy in environments that encourage thoughtlessness, but toxic in environments that require hope, faith, relaxation and creativity. The biggest thing you should keep in mind is that everything can be seen from multiple different angles. This is why it's possible for a thousand people to hold a thousand different opinions on the same issue-- stuff is multi-faceted. Sometimes, there's no objective truth. You can choose to look at anything from any angle you want and find other truths even in the same object, thus immediately changing your state of mind in that direction.
Mind you, I'm female and there have been proposed some significant differences between males and females on the spectrum, never mind the differences between any two people.
I don't expect an article like this to actually define meaning, of course, but some anecdotes of what "meaning" actually is to some sample of the working population would have been more helpful than throwing around a bunch of hesitantly low-risk workplace suggestions.
Disorders are defined by the society in which the trait (or "symptoms") arise. In South America, people who hear voices and have visions are recognized as having the potential to become a shaman. Shamans are seen as the protectors and healers of a village-- lauded and respected. In North America they are called schizophrenics. We distrust schizophrenics here and don't really know at all how to "help" them. They don't have a place here.
I have autism and I don't see myself as being disordered. I have trouble sometimes in North America, but any help I need is due to my non-alignment with the culture, not due to myself inherently.
Extroversion could be a disorder in a place like Japan, where personal space, privacy, subtlety, boundaries between strangers, and silence are highly valued. In America extroversion is often a huge advantage.
Nothing is a defect in the right context, just like anything could be in another.
On HN, unless you're arguing a point, comments and replies are usually about sharing insight. After the insight is shared, there's mostly nothing to say. You contemplate the insight, add your own, or move on. That's quite nice.
I don't know why less girls choose computer science than do boys, but I don't think it can be so heavily linked to gaming. The gaming community is actually sometimes far harsher on girls than the comp sci community, yet girls continue to choose gaming. In the gaming community, a girl is either a "thot" or she beats out every male who plays against her. If you're neither of these things the community still believes you're one of them and will react to you/attack you accordingly, usually defaulting to calling you a "thot".
In comp sci, the barrier is more about socializing. It may be a stereotype but I have noticed that many males in comp sci are the less socially-gifted ones. It is often not possible for a female to join such a group of males because they are scared of her. Other than that, the comp sci world in academia is far less disgusting than the gaming world and far less hostile. It's about avoidance instead of outright attack.
It could just be that girls enjoy programming less than boys do. I'm not saying that's definitely the case, I'm saying it seems more likely than not.
I hated them. They were obnoxious, lacked creativity, and smelled weird. I was a very willful child and loud about it, so I obviously refused to use these gifts in any capacity, but I think my refusal to play with toys I didn't like holds true for most children. If your cousin's girl didn't like the Barbie, she probably wouldn't play with it.
The whole point of childhood is having an idea of "I" without having a strong idea of identity so that we have a solid reference point for learning about the world without experiencing the blind spots that ego identities often impose. Consequently, we demand what we want and refuse what we don't want without thought. We rarely make compromises and our needs and wants cannot really be reasoned away by others (because our needs and wants in childhood are more instinctual/subconscious/impulsive than they are logical and experience-based).
I think we are most free to choose in childhood. By adulthood we have developed functioning identities and feel obligated to stay consistent with our idea of self. Many people take portions of their identification from a society's expectation of them, which is when freedom of choice becomes heavily blurred.
I really like the thought of the "sky burial"[1]. Basically, they bring your remains to the top of a mountain and wait for vultures to clean off the bones. Then the bones are crushed into a powder and mixed with something called tsampa for the crows and other birds to eat afterwards. It seems like a safe way to dispose of remains, is spiritually significant (to me), and is actually useful to the ecosystem. Unfortunately, it's very costly on time.
For some it is. For some it's not. I was providing a counter-example to the OP's lament.
I've heard all the horror stories, I've watched every video, and birth is completely terrifying-- but every mother describes it with an additional sense of gratitude. They're thankful their bodies can do it, that they have now a child they love, and also they feel so much stronger for it. There's a certain spiritual sense about going through so much pain and taking so much risk to give life to another human being. That feeling must be powerful.
I think the freezing and shaking method sounds pretty good in terms of environmental cost.
1.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_cremation...
Now I'm spooked.
I don't know why. It comes in handy sometimes.
An interesting idea overall (the article) but I stopped reading there.
I use the electric toothbrush if I've had a significant amount of sugar that day (not often), and otherwise use the manual one. The manual one is some sensodyne super-soft-bristle shit. If I use the electric toothbrush every day my gums hurt. I once went to the dentist as a kid and he told me I'd brushed off a lot of my enamel. Maybe I don't know how to brush my teeth or my enamel is just really soft. In any case, the manual one helps me get everywhere without fear of hurting myself.
Also, I'm sure a lot of employees weren't, and maybe still aren't, even aware that an accused man still works at their company. Most employees at any company don't have reason to be in contact with or have any information whatsoever about the executives of that company and, apart from that, businesses will work hard to keep that info under the radar.
Mass layoffs definitely get around in the workplace because it's directly related to everyone's job security. Some exec accused of sexual assault doesn't really affect job security, so most people don't really care to know, if they ever catch wind of it anyways. There isn't a huge cost here when the majority of your workforce doesn't know and doesn't care.
No, stop, that's hardly a cost worth paying attention to for a large company. An exec is worth much more than almost anyone of lower rank.
That's the problem, though. There is no way you can appeal to a large company in terms of the cost of lost employees who are victims of assault by higher-ups. The media storm is what gets them, it's the bad publicity they fear-- in my opinion that is the only way to get anything "done" in terms of assault cases like this.
At the same time, when we rely on bad publicity to force action, we risk ruining the lives of innocent people. Men and women in powerful positions are often targeted with these sorts of accusations for the sole purpose of getting them out of the way.
I have no proposed solution but appealing in the way you have is not it. It just does not make sense.
It's well-meaning, probably, but really gets on my nerves sometimes. I want to be a mathematician, not a "female mathematician". It feels like I have this bright red sign covering my face that says "FOSTER DIVERSITY HERE". It's okay guys! I'm already fostered!
The following is just my experience and I don't claim to generalize although I will use it as a generalization since it is what I have observed.
Groups of men tend to fall into a pattern. There is a leader, there are people vying to be the leader, and there are "subordinates" who execute directives. Male groups try and get something done. These groups are about organizing people.
Groups of women also fall into a pattern. They tend to plan and analyze and put less priority on execution. In female groups the leader/subordinate dynamic is much less apparent, and it's mostly a dance of trying to understand what everyone is saying and what everyone wants. These groups are about organizing ideas.
Mixed groups obviously have a mix of these approaches. Men and women help each other to reach a balanced state of execution and planning, looking at the details while also keeping the big picture in mind. In addition to that, mixed groups are way more dynamic and adaptable. Patterns emerge contextually within the group, rather than following a standard social protocol. To me, this indicates higher potential for productivity in all areas of a project.
Sexual tension can occur, but I think it's a bit silly to suggest it's a Big Deal in the workplace, that it's something significant enough to single out from every other messy thing that can happen in groups of people. To make myself clear, sexual tension is a separate thing from sexual harassment, which is definitely a problem but is the result of some bad players and not the mixed group dynamic itself.