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skunkworks

329 karma · joined January 2, 2011

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skunkworks··on The magic of the Japanese convenience store sandwich
Tangzhong is when the flour and water are heated together to make a starchy paste which then gets added to the dough. Keeps the bread softer and more hydrated than it would otherwise
skunkworks··on Comic Mono
My old coworker Shannon Miwa created it! She's great.
skunkworks··on From its name to its drug interactions, there’s a lot going on with grapefruit
Think you'd be surprised. Coke pH is 2.5, and it seems that ideal human stomach pH is 1.5 to 2.5. Fun fact: you can use Coke to clean your toilets.
skunkworks··on The Market for Lemons
The first thought I had when reading this was that this can apply to some online dating apps.
skunkworks··on How Exercise Might “Clean” the Alzheimer's Brain
Gotta be more careful with your words. There's some component of aerobic metabolism in weightlifting, even if we colloquially think of lifting as anaerobic exercise. If you start breathing harder when you lift stuff, it's because your body needs more oxygen to provide energy to your body.
skunkworks··on People Don't Know Themselves Very Well
Agree wholeheartedly. I've posted my fair share of cringeworthy things over the years, but that has improved as my sense of self-identity has stabilized and my insecurities have faded. What makes me cringe is usually not the content of the message but the way that I say it -- a tone of superiority, condescension, anger, self-pity, or attention seeking. Without being too reductive, my feelings about myself have changed and that's made it easier to be nicer to myself and by extension to others.
skunkworks··on She Warned of ‘Peer-To-Peer Misinformation.’ Congress Listened
> How is peer-to-peer misinformation any worse than centralized misinformation?

“So by Facebook suggesting all these accounts, they were essentially creating this vortex in which conspiratorial ideas can just breed and multiply,” Ms. DiResta said.

> I've seen a lot of hand wringing from the Legacy media over every other source's misinformation but I've yet to see a story from the NY Times calling bullshit on their own bullshit.

Of all the media outlets you could target for blatantly misleading the public and breeding FUD, do you really want to call out the New York Times? "Everyone is doing it" is just not true, and it's a viewpoint that lacks nuance. There's a huge difference between the NYT and Fox News, a huge difference between Fox News and Infowars, and a huge difference between Infowars and RT. If you don't believe that, then, well, not much else to be said here.

skunkworks··on The Food Lab: The Science of No-Knead Dough (2011)
I'm a bit confused -- I think the point Kenji is making is that the lid as a radiant heat source is much closer than the top of the oven.
skunkworks··on Show HN: My first native iOS app – Cone, a real time color picker
Nice job! When I started iOS development, I made a similar app for my portfolio. I still use it occasionally, since I'm also colorblind.

It's been a while since I updated it, but it still works aside from the occasional Core Data crash because I didn't know any better back then: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/colormyworld-color-picker-an...

skunkworks··on GiveDirectly Planning to Give $30M in Basic Income to East Africa
How are poor people supposed to find innovative solutions to their problems and elect governments that create sustainable wealth while they're steeped in desperate poverty? I believe that education is the tip of the spear, but are there any examples where a poor majority has pulled itself up by its bootstraps?
skunkworks··on Automated Cat feeder powered by Node.js
Surprisingly, kibble is supposed to be worse for teeth because it gets stuck on teeth more easily. Same argument has been made for humans and cereal grains.
skunkworks··on Automated Cat feeder powered by Node.js
Wet food is almost certainly healthier for cats. Less carbs, more moisture, fewer urinary tract issues, etc.

Kibble is great for when you need to get away for the weekend, however.

skunkworks··on The History of SEAL Team 6
I'd heard of a sluice in the context of gold mining (during the Gold Rush). Fun word.
skunkworks··on Pinterest lets employees exercise options 7 years after leaving
Your speculative conspiracy theory is plausible, but I work with one of the people who made this decision.
skunkworks··on Pinterest lets employees exercise options 7 years after leaving
Correct. Their lesson was that you shouldn't claw back equity from underperforming executives, you should just let them go.
skunkworks··on One Twin Exercises, the Other Doesn’t
Because your body will signal that it needs more calories, and then you'll eat more calories.
skunkworks··on Teacher spends two days as a student and is shocked at what she learns
Grit and determination is important for long-term success when your brilliance and creativity is less than world-class, and it requires honing and practice to build. Skating through school and gaming the system ends up short-circuiting that process. Hence, lazy smart guys.
skunkworks··on The Toughest Adversity I've Ever Faced
> While he admits that it was a tactical mistake, he never addresses why it ever seemed like a good idea, and his next sentence basically says "I would have been an amazing employee but their hiring system is broken."

It's because he sees the corporate world as a game to be beaten, exploited, and hacked for profit, the same as he did with MMORPGs.

There's truth about the hiring system being inefficient, and there are clever folks who find ways around it to gain entrance to a world that might be otherwise inaccessible. However, it makes me uneasy when those things are done with a narcissistic edge, i.e. to fulfill a grandiose sense of your worth and value.

See: "Until I prove otherwise, consider me a 'nobody' trying to accomplish great things."

skunkworks··on Developer Anxiety, we’re not alone
Yes, but no one talks about the 99 other snake-oil, age-old wisdoms that the scientific method debunked :)
skunkworks··on A User Experience Designer Switches from iOS to Android
> Unreasonable expectations and little knowledge or inclination to try things out - sounds like perfect iOS user to me

Don't play dumb.

skunkworks··on The Invention of the AeroPress
Hario Slim is a match made in heaven with the Aeropress, as it fits neatly inside the Aeropress's opening to dispense coffee grounds without needing to use the funnel.
skunkworks··on How to Make Yourself Work When You Just Don’t Want To
This is really interesting and I'd like to hear more about your approach. What is your inner monologue like when you're integrating the two opposing forces?
skunkworks··on We're Shutting Down and I'm Scared
I'm not a huge fan of Rich Dad Poor Dad and the cult of Kiyosaki, but that was the first place I heard about the adage "pay yourself first".

I think a lot about that, not just in financial terms, but emotional as well. If you can't take care of yourself, you won't be able to sustain taking care of other things, no matter whether those other things are businesses, employees, personal bills, or loved ones.

skunkworks··on How Daft Punk Created One of Their Most Famous Samples
No one, and I mean absolutely no one, is confused about what it means to sample a song, or to create a sample, or to take a sample from a song. That would be a tedious semantic argument of no value.

So most people interpret would instead interpret it as snide commentary on the illegitimacy of sampling as an art.

Which most people also don't like.

Hence the downvoting.

skunkworks··on Can-Do vs. Can’t-Do Culture
The words we use have a hidden subtext that reflect our unconscious biases. Strangely, using different words to frame an idea is often enough to break through many distortions and biases. It's a mainstay of cognitive behavioral therapy.

And as it relates to the business of building software, which is a tricky and hard thing to do, having a positive outlook and focusing on the end possibilities rather than oncoming challenges is a better attitude for long term success. If you're the type to get caught up in the challenges of implementing stuff, you spend a lot more time saying no and less time finding clever ways to make it a yes.

skunkworks··on Why I'm not laughing at C Plus Equality
I agree with you that her entry unintentionally ends up skewering itself by running head-first into the joke. Really though, she skewered herself by ranting about a really bad joke.

The C+= joke sucks. It's poorly executed. It's far too self-conscious and has way too many "wink-wink" moments to be effective satire. You either need to be clever and subtle, or absurd and outrageous. Instead, most of the jokes fell flaccidly in the middle: too obvious about its subject matter, but not even remotely clever. Making it a programming language doesn't make it clever joke, it just means you tried really hard to tell a joke.

And she fell for it. Which ironically validates its existence, poor joke execution be damned.

skunkworks··on DissidentX – Censorship resistance tool by Bram Cohen
There's great irony in you saying

> Let's not get personal.

right after saying

> I'm surprised to see someone of Bram Cohen's caliber releasing something like this.

skunkworks··on Introversion is not the opposite of extroversion
I think this is generally true, but only up to a point. Someone who is weak can become stronger, but our maximal fitness levels are largely genetic.

This is, of course, not a useful thing to point out to someone who is weak (or an introvert). I am a firm believer in two things: Carol Dweck's idea of the "growth mindset", and that our energy is best spent on things we can control and not on things we cannot. Introverts can train themselves to have social interactions drain them less. They may never be loquacious, but good enough is good enough.

skunkworks··on Blame Rich, Overeducated Elites as Our Society Frays
It reads better than "underjobbed".
skunkworks··on How to Build Willpower for the Weak
I've thought a lot about willpower since Jason Shen posted his self-help ebook on here a few weeks ago -- oddly, I have become a believer in cold shower therapy -- and I've come to believe that willpower is indeed limited, but that it can be "exercised" in a way by doing uncomfortable things.

However, I think that it's not so much that the exercise is increasing your capacity of willpower, it's that you're training yourself for your activities to use less willpower. Essentially, you can turn what would normally be willpower draining conscious decisions into routine habits that don't require any. Bad analogy, but you're not increasing your MP, you're just making it cheaper to cast Cure.

Part of this process for me is learning and reinforcing new habits, but I think there's also value in building confidence in your ability to form new habits. When you see that you're capable of meaningful change, that little jolt of happy chemical rewards serves to reinforce the metahabit of self improvement.

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