insightcheck

> "Plus it can really help with feeling unmotivated and stuck in life."

This is a great perspective. Having a strong side interest gave me a lot of happiness in times where I was set up for a lot of difficult, repetitive work over a significant stretch of time.

Quality of life is an interesting frame, though through that lens, some research tends to show that many (but not all) lottery winners actually are worse off in terms of life quality after winning.

From The Washington Post [1] (the links to the source studies are unfortunately broken): "When a team of economists tracked the fortunes of financially distressed people in Florida who had won the lottery, they found that within three to five years, the winners of big prizes (between $50,000 and $150,000) were equally likely to have filed for bankruptcy as the small winners, and the groups had similarly low savings and levels of debt. According to the National Endowment for Financial Education, about 70 percent of people who win a lottery or receive a large windfall go bankrupt within a few years."

However, I concede that if you win the lottery and spend it wisely (e.g. maybe invest virtually all of it and live off the interest spent reasonably), it's plausible it can greatly improve quality of life. So, assuming one acts carefully when receiving the large windfall, I agree with you now that buying lottery tickets is plausibly a good idea.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths/five-myths...

This is a good example, but I've found that this benefit is actually non-obvious to people in the beginner stages of learning.

A popular view before starting to learn is that everyone should "learn to code" because programming jobs are in-demand and pay well (at the pre-beginner stage). Then, when many learners actually start to learn, it can take months to write a genuinely useful program. All the way, you might learn how to do arithmetic in Python and write loops, without a seemingly practical purpose (just seemingly-contrived exercises). I admit that this actually put me off programming for a while, because I couldn't see the upside.

Eventually, a web scraper became helpful for a project, along with a better understanding of programming for tweaking a website. Then I went back to studying, and it helped me greatly to have very specific goals. So, while "learning programming" is correct, I think it will help people stick with it, if specific outcomes are emphasizes (e.g. "learn automation through programming" or "learn website application development through programming").

That's a a valid option, but my response was to GP's phrase that "Government subsidy here would be little more than subsidizing hobbies and other activity that do not provide economic returns," which effectively supports the removal of government funding to humanities programs.

Partial or full funding covers my view that at least some government support should exist for humanities programs. The UK, Canada, and many US state universities effectively already do this, where domestic students pay a relatively affordable sum each year (roughly $10,000 USD annually) with merit and need-based scholarships available.

Opportunity costs make the lottery a poor option. If you could only invest money in the lottery and nothing else, sure, it's better than no chance of multiplying your income.

But if you invest in an index fund, there's a very high chance of getting a 15-30% return on investment, versus a near-guaranteed amount of just losing the money spent on the lottery. It may not seem like a lot each ticket, but the costs add up over time.

This might be simplistic, but the concept of "asymmetric upside" might be captured in any situation where "the worst thing can happen is that the person says no."

This includes: applying to competitive positions when you don't seem completely qualified, cold calls in sales (sales seems to be heavily based on asymmetric upside, where sales people call many different people until they get a few Yes-s), and asking people to hang out just to make friends.

More related to money, I've thought that cheap (and often free) educational material to have a large potential upside. Good books are often time well-spent, as long as there is enough time spent applying the concepts too. A cheap online course on video editing (I think about $10 USD at the time) has also come in handy many times.

It's fair that the funding of programs just to let people satisfy intellectual curiosity may not be convincing to many taxpayers.

However, real benefits of government funding can still exist. If we agree that work by PhD students in the humanities can create real benefits for a country, then there can be real benefits to having researchers come from a variety of economic upbringings, not just from wealthy backgrounds.

Many academics do social science research on how to craft better policies to improve the health and economic outcomes of underdeveloped rural parts of a country. They can arguably do more effective research if some of the researchers are from a low-income rural background. To achieve this benefit, a social science undergraduate education would need to be subsidized, so the student is eligible to work at the PhD level.

> "On the other extreme are degrees that, like GP identified, were never meant to be economically sound. They focus on intellectual ideas and curiosities, rather than skills actively needed by the economy. Government subsidy here would be little more than subsidizing hobbies and other activity that do not provide economic returns."

The risk of defunding these programs is that you can't confidently say whether many of these subjects might become useful in the future.

Many research areas in linguistics, for example, may not have direct economic benefits right now, but could be useful far in the future if humans have alien contact (like the film "The Arrival"). Less speculatively and outside of science fiction, many pure math discoveries have ended up as useful in cryptography and computer science. Astronomy and astrophysics could yield commercial applications far into the future, along with other fundamental scientific research.

Outside of science and more into the arts, history has been influential in recent times to the decision-making of various political leaders. Social science research can be important for the welfare of a country, in the creation of effective evidence-based policy. The support of artists and writers can improve the political influence of a country, when influential works spread to other countries. Focusing on economic returns right now is too narrowly focused on the short term, and ignores the longer-term benefits for a country.

> "Colleges and universities were never meant to be a way to riches and fortunes. [...] What exactly were you expecting may I ask?"

I disagree with the assumption that the administrators and many professors at universities intend for undergraduate programs to be primarily for learning, and not for improving job prospects.

Many professors focus on material benefits during the first lecture of the course. There are also numerous career fairs and sometimes internship opportunities with industry, which focus greatly on getting material benefits.

Consider also the marketing for many universities: many advertisements (e.g. on public transit) show enrolment at even research-intensive universities as a way to get into prestigious jobs. Alumni networks are also promoted in marketing (though I'm unsure how effective these really are). In my view, times have changed, and the expectation of material benefit is entirely reasonable and even supported by university officials.

Why do you assume he "needs" her to support his career? Many founders are deliberately single and not in a relationship to focus on their startup, and do perfectly fine.

And how could you call someone a "servant-wife" just for choosing to be a stay-at-home mother? In what universe is that not completely disrespectful to people who choose to be stay-at-home mothers? You are calling a person a "servant" for being a mother and denying her agency by defining her only in relation to her spouse.

By this implication, the opposite of a "servant-wife" is a "working-wife," and it's shocking that you can't define a person independently of a spouse within this framework. The term "mother" doesn't do this, but better yet, it's best to skip negatively judging strangers entirely.

For anyone skimming the comments first, I found the author's outline to be the most interesting segment (though I recommend reading the essay in full):

"Here’s a general outline of what I write:

"Gratitude (for her, her hard work, her amazing looks, etc.)

"What I’m working on today.

"What I’m working towards (goals, deadlines, etc.)

"Anything I’m excited about.

"Anything that’s bothering me (stress, anxiety, pessimism, etc.)

"Ideas that I have (parenting, fixing the home, work related, etc.)

"Transactional stuff (finances, things I need to take care of, stuff I need to remember, etc.)

"Questions (are there any events coming up, are we doing a date night this week, etc.)

"Gratitude (for the life we have, the things we have, the time we have, the kids we have, etc.)

"I don’t write every section every day, but those are the general categories I usually fall into. The note usually takes me just shy of a half-hour if I’m not distracted."

The notes are quite thoughtful: many of these points sound sweet, and several of the prompts could still work for people who aren't in a relationship. The appreciation shown, and the self-reflection, likely both strengthen the relationship.

Would it be possible to change jobs/companies? Not all work is so draining that you can't have time for yourself, and many respect time boundaries. Hope you can one day make a living in a better environment.

The author is the founder, owner, and operator of a company, and from a quick view, is quite successful at his work. Plus, he is in a relationship where his partner is supportive of his dreams and long hours. And he has kids at the same time.

That sounds like a great life to me. Not a lot of people get the opportunity, and not very many people can pull it off. I'm sure life will be more relaxed when the kids leave the home after become adults, too.

My worry is that you can be technically excellent and fantastic at what you are assigned, only to find later on that the project you've been toiling over has been cancelled or valued far less than another team's work.

I appreciate your experienced perspective greatly and it encouraged reflection (I agree with working at a consistent pace), but I believe there can also be a middle ground to have awareness of business concerns to understand when to switch teams or even companies. It's painful to work very hard at assigned tasks, only to find it wasn't valued due to business priorities.

It remains comparable in absolute terms ($7 versus $7.99). Users can therefore be conditioned to think it's not that expensive. Despite its respected legacy and heavy marketing over the years, it's not exceptional enough at its current state (after its switch to Electron) to say that no other productivity app can charge around that price.

If the app had mobile apps and better privacy assurances that your calendar information and tasks won't be used in advertising, the pricing would not be outrageous at all.

Just to let you know, the privacy policy makes it sound like users can. Under "The rights of Users," it states (source: https://emery.to/privacy/): "Users have the right to receive their Data in a structured, commonly used and machine readable format and, if technically feasible, to have it transmitted to another controller without any hindrance. This provision is applicable provided that the Data is processed by automated means and that the processing is based on the User's consent, on a contract which the User is part of or on pre-contractual obligations thereof."

Maybe there is a manual option on the company's end that makes this assurance valid?

I like the "Cancel in one click" message, and the drag-and-drop UI from tasks to calendar (plus Google Calendar sync), but I couldn't easily find (and still haven't found):

-What platforms are supported (it looks like MacOS from the demo video, but I couldn't find whether there is an iPad or iOS app, or whether it supports Windows and Android; access and syncing to a mobile device is very important from my perspective as a user)

-Whether it's possible to "Get started" without using the Google sign-on; I typically avoid using Google to sign in, and prefer traditional registration with an email and password

-A clear and straightforward Privacy Policy, which would be a plus. You have one linked at https://emery.to/privacy/ , where you did write that users have the right to: "Restrict the processing of their Data. Users have the right, under certain circumstances, to restrict the processing of their Data. In this case, the Owner will not process their Data for any purpose other than storing it. [...] Have their Personal Data deleted or otherwise removed. Users have the right, under certain circumstances, to obtain the erasure of their Data from the Owner." The "under certain circumstances" seems vague, and I'm unsure what that means in practice.

However, you have to scroll down quite a bit, and I'm not comfortable with the use of Google Analytics. I'm not necessarily against using the app just due to privacy reasons (though other users might be), but I wish I could find out in advance of signing up, how much data collection I could opt out of before signing up.

For comparisons to other productivity software systems, it's actually comparable to Evernote at $7.99 USD/month, with similar functionality (except the drag-and-drop from tasks to a schedule).

In contrast, Todoist is around $4 USD/month, which matches Notion's Personal Pro plan.

Let's say you're writing a research paper. You start with an introductory review paper that links to dozens of other sources. You want to evaluate whether these sources are relevant to your paper's topic, so you open them all in new tabs. Then they have other references, so you open those too. Over the course of a couple hours, you might have over 20 tabs you've opened. You then stop opening new tabs, and read them one at a time until you're done. A similar process can happen when doing research for an in-depth blog post, opinion article, or essay (except instead of starting with a review paper, you might start with one or more pages of Google search results).

Outside of work, you might sign up for several emailed newsletters with various links to articles per email. If you get about 20 newsletter emails, and you choose to read 10 of them with 2-3 interesting articles each, you end up with 20+ tabs to read through.

However, if you don't need to do that much research for a particular task (or you can get the information you need from just a few resources like a quality book), you may not encounter a need to open this many tabs.

It's not a black-and-white issue. There is compromise if a person doesn't want children right now, but is genuinely open to it when there is more career stability. Some people may also be open to children, but not at the expense of giving up one's career (some couples have worked it out by having the man de-prioritize his career for a while).

I do agree that people can waste time if a person says they "don't want children right now," but really mean that they "don't want children ever." In either case, there is no harm to clarify this before going right to breaking up over hesitations.

Not necessarily. There is almost always room to have a discussion and to see if there can be compromise acceptable to both sides first.

In this case, it may be acceptable to have kids at a later age; in addition, there could be other related concerns not mentioned in the comment (a lot of information is lost when writing about something online), which could make having kids acceptable.

Then if it's truly a red line issue (one partner absolutely does not want to have kids, while the other does), both people will know that they at least tried very hard to work it out, and reached an understanding that there could be long-term unhappiness or resentment if the relationship persisted. Then there can be few to no regrets with moving on, which is difficult after being in a relationship for a long period of time.

The biggest concern is that there doesn't seem to be a concrete end goal for when you can have children. From what you've written, your partner is 25, has an IUD, and communicated that she doesn't want children for the next 10 years. The endpoint of "probably after I finish all my goals/traveling" is so vaguely defined, that it could never happen. One can spend a lifetime pursuing goals and traveling.

You likely already considered the fertility odds, but to add context, according to a resource approved by the department of health for Victoria, Australia [0], the odds of having a child increasingly drop from age 35 onwards. There are also likely risks for men trying to have children after the age of 40, according to a balanced article on WebMD [1].

Negotiation is an option besides an ultimatum, and I actually think most opinions on the internet about relationships go for breakups far too soon. You have valid concerns that you can address with negotiation; in specific:

1) There is no clarity for the timeline of having kids (10 years plus after a vague goal of reaching all other goals of your partner).

2) From the tone of your partner, it's possible she doesn't seem to be taking your valid concern with seriousness, though perhaps serious conversations may just didn't come to mind at the time you wrote your comment.

3) Your partner hasn't seriously discussed the fertility implications of having children that late, at least from the contents of your comment.

To compromise, consider the red lines. Would you be willing to stay in the relationship without kids? If the answer is "no," it's almost inevitable you will be resentful and the relationship is likely to have a very negative effect on your life.

Would your partner be willing to have kids? If the answer is "no," it's also almost inevitable she will be resentful if she reluctantly goes into it; if the answer legitimately is "yes, but after a certain point of time," then you have room to work it out. The compromise solution is to have a specific endpoint when you will try for kids (with a clear "yes" for trying for children at that point). If there is none, moving on may be a hard decision but the right one for personal happiness for both people in the long-term.

As with any online advice, please take this comment with a huge grain of salt because there is an enormous amount of information and nuance lost when communicating a situation over text (or even over a conversation in person). However, the main principles of compromise—knowing each others' red lines, and account for possible long-term resentment due to agreements favoring one side disproportionately—may hopefully still be helpful. Best of luck to you.

[0] https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtrea...

[1] https://www.webmd.com/men/news/20141202/older-dads-health

I think it's better to manually assess bias and think critically about how news articles report information. The sites you linked are interesting, but had some major flaws.

For example, AllSides includes Breitbart as a source. While it identifies it with the maximum value to the right, it doesn't give a barometer of credibility. For a reader deciding whether Breitbart is worth reading, one should closely examine credibility, not just political leaning. PolitiFact and Media Bias/Fact Check discussed the credibility of Breitbart at length [0] [1].

Then for ground.news, the way it portrays bias is also relatively simplistic. The most prominent indicator is left/center/right, but biases have a lot more nuance. It's more useful to account for how certain publications take certain policy stances. Leanings can be anti-establishment, pro-establishment, socialist, neoliberal, pro-consumption (e.g. Wired), or anti-consumption, and this information is lost when relying on left-center-right categorizations.

The best way to do this is to manually select a few publications that are high on factual credibility, write down their specific biases or leanings, and compare stories across the personally-curated selection of publications. You then personally have more control and understanding of the articles you are presented.

[0] https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/jul/28/stella-imm...

[1] https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/breitbart/

I'd like to question the premise that you have to "catch up" with peers, and that comparisons make sense. Especially in the private sector, career growth isn't solely dependent on technical skills.

Some peers can get big career boosts due to nepotism or networking and switching companies. Others leave a large company, giving up the chance of promotions to senior management, and create their own startup or join another at a senior level for advancement. Other people change industries and start at a junior position. Yet others decide to work a stable job for lesser pay, maybe at certain departments or agencies in the public sector.

I honestly don't see where competition with peers becomes a factor, so long as you're working enough to maintain valuable skills that hiring managers and organizations are looking for.

> "For me, I don't derive as much meaning from a career as I thought I would, probably because I put too much expectation that it would provide that."

"Designing Your Life" is a book based on a Stanford course on career planning that explored this idea very well. A summary is at [0], and a relevant idea is that focusing on one area of your life is likely not sufficient for a good life. For example, over the course of a week, it can be useful to make sure you are hitting goals in "work, play, love, and health." It can sound like common sense, but it's useful to consciously do this, especially for people inclined to optimize for just work, at the expense of physical health and relationships.

An anecdote that stuck out to me was a positive example about a person who rose to a high level at a large company, then kept refusing promotions because he finally struck a good balance between career and having time for family. I'm sure this may not always be the best idea, but I liked the idea behind inclusion of the anecdote, which is that continuously climbing the career ladder may not actually be helpful for one's personal goals.

[0] https://dansilvestre.com/designing-your-life-summary/

You can write a longform blog post and submit it to HN, I would read it. Ribbonfarm's "The Gervais Principle" (2009) [0] is a top example of a very long blog post split over multiple parts, yet insightful enough to be shared widely on HN and still provoke thought, long after a first read.

[0] https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

These are interesting ideas. It likely varies based on the listener, but possible explanations may be:

i) Transferable focus: Many famous people known for their accomplishments may have succeeded at their work thanks to a great degree of singular focus. This may translate to social interactions, focusing on other conversation participants. Due to selection bias, famous people who are less attentive/tend to multitask are not included in these anecdotes, as they do not get a reputation for listening closely.

ii) Charisma: Other famous people may have succeeded due to strong salesmanship as a primary or secondary skill, which may have led to fruitful connections or funding opportunities. Part of their charisma is from attentive listening.

iii) Placebo (similar to your idea): The amount of attentive listening was normal for any respectful person. However, because the famous person's time is seen as very valuable (as you mentioned), the behavior is seen as exceptional as they could have been doing other things.

iv) Learning (similar to your idea): As the person got famous, they ended up speaking to lots of high-ranking politicians or celebrity figures, and consciously or sub-consciously picked up the habit of attentive listening from them.

Separately: I think a singular attention is typically seen as positive even from a person who is low status. It typically feels good just "feel heard" even from a stranger, especially if few people are typically interested about your life (psychologist Carl Rogers wrote a bit about this). For testable examples, you would probably prefer an experience of singular attention from speaking with a family member, teacher, waiter, or barber/cosmetologist. Even if no service is rendered, it's probably nice to be listened to by a stranger in a one-off conversation.

Attentive focus might only be seen as creepy or weird if there's only intense eye contact with unnatural body language, without other signs using speech that the other person is attentive.

I was initially going to disagree that copywriters get paid in the same range as scientists, but the numbers in the US are roughly similar from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Indeed.

-Indeed average copywriter annual pay [0] is $54,998 USD, versus a staff scientist's [1] at $69,091 USD

-BLS median copywriter pay for 2021 [2] was $69,510 USD, versus a medical scientist's [3] at $95,310 USD

I'm surprised that the median annual salary difference is only roughly $15,000 to $25,000 USD in favor of working as a scientist, considering the additional years doing a Master's/PhD, whereas copywriter jobs often don't need even a Bachelor's. In addition, I would've guessed that the median copywriter salary would have been far lower, as my perception was that there is a far greater supply of candidates for copywriter jobs than scientist jobs in the US (maybe this is offset by fewer scientist positions?). Alternatively, maybe the numbers are missing important contextual information in some way.

[0] https://www.indeed.com/career/copywriter/salaries

[1] https://www.indeed.com/career/staff-scientist/salaries

[2] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/media-and-communication/writers-and-...

[3] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/life-physical-and-social-science/med...

The distribution cost of selling software is far lower than selling a physical product. For example, to manufacture and sell cars, you currently have to worry about supply chain considerations and chip shortages. You don't need to worry about this to sell software to an interested purchaser.

I'm concerned about how this technology will change journalism, especially because it has momentum—the article reports that the tool is in use by a UK government office and two news agencies, and has funding by Google.org. The article lists three tools: the first categorizes claims (okay), the second compares claims to conclusions of previous fact-checks, and the third compares statistical figures to official figures.

> "The second tool addresses the problem of how to increase the reach of existing fact checks. This tool cross-references claims identified from the claim detection tool with existing fact checks done by Full Fact. [...] “Anyone who is involved in fact-checking knows that a fact check can take [a lot of time ...] “But once all of that effort and work has been invested, the outcome is one fact check.""

It's plausible that this can train journalists (especially under deadline) to automatically trust previous fact checks without independently verifying them (which is a good thing, and not a waste of time like the interviewee may be implying). High-profile stories by well-funded newspapers that are fact-checked get correction notices all the time. Deferring to previous fact-checks without verifying them independently can cause these mistakes to perpetuate. Even correct fact-checks in one context may have nuance that should be considered when applied to a new context, and these nuances can be missed when relying on an automated tool.

> "The third tool, stats-checker, enables fact-checkers to rapidly cross reference live claims about statistics with official available statistics. For now, this tool is limited to statistics surrounding inflation and unemployment."

There can be value for economic statistics, but if applications expand to other contexts, it's important to note that official figures can be egregiously wrong. New York State underwent a scandal with nursing home figures involving an FBI investigation where the state's attorney general "released a report finding that Governor Andrew Cuomo had understated the toll of COVID-19-related deaths in state nursing homes by as much as 50 percent" [0] [1]. I get that ideally, fact-checkers will use it as an 'assistive tool' instead of blindly accepting the results. But in practice, many people do blindly trust the recommendations of software all the time (especially under time pressure). I've seen it with people trusting questionable recommendations for writing edits on Grammarly or bad directions on Google Maps.

Good training can mitigate blind trust in recommendations, but because it's not guaranteed that good training can be available across all news outlets. At the least, maybe very visible warning signs in the software that suggestions are meant to be assistive instead of definitive would be useful (but then again, users can eventually ignore these over time).

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/04/nyregion/cuomo-nursing-ho...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_COVID-19_nursing_home...