gerbilly

If I'd come here in when React was the new hotness and criticised it, I'm pretty sure I would have been shouted down.

In the meantime this one site I worked on, which used Java for server side rendering¹ with a bit of JQuery and custom scripts is still going strong.

1: It's ridiculous to hear JS people say how awesome server side rending is when basically every other language used for the web was server side, sometimes decades before it.

Wasn't this a bit of a self deprecating summary of his own career?

Many of the comments seem to assume that it was written by his colleagues and that the description of his career is condescending or snarky.

Personally, I find it really funny, and that it probably describes many of us, despite the fact that we think we are way too cool to ever be like the character described in the piece.

Most of today's new tech will become tomorrow's 'legacy'. Imagine how your awsum multi lambda hairball deployment will look in 30 years. (If it's even around in three decades.)

That comment wasn't about cheating it was about the communication medium. I.e. communicating via text or app vs. face to face. I.e. talking to each other like we're computers instead of face to face like people.

Have you tried taking a taxi in a country where you didn’t know the language?

Yes, lots of times.

It helps to know the rudiments of the language, but mostly we communicated in a kind of pidgin.

Travel books used to have lists of phrases at the very back for this kind of thing. People figured it out.

the things that created the impetus for ride sharing platforms

Ride sharing platforms weren't created to make things better for the drivers or for the customers, they were created to 'take over' an industry.

At first they will subsidize your rides to more effectively squeeze the old guys out by unfair competition.

Just you wait, if they ever do squeeze them out, and see if they don't become worse than taxis ever were.

Yeah, exactly the same caste system. I didn't say only waiters were in a lower caste. This kind of bullshit is everywhere.

Some establishments pool the tips (cash ones) and use to distribute it to the bussers (don't know about the cooking staff). Obviously this was not a universal practice.

this incredible scope creep in the customer's responsibilities

It's the difference between being a consumer and being a citizen.

Yes I totally agree. When businesses push for going cashless, they are often doing it to claw back the tips customers are giving their workers.

Tips that have become customary because it's become accepted that a waiter mustn't be paid a living wage. Why has it become accepted, because we have a hidden caste system.

But the customers get to feel cool to frequent a place that 'gets it' because cash is or old people.

Yea - And those darn kids play music too loud too!

I sure hope so.

I visit NYC once a year. Plenty of people (esp immigrants from other cultures) don’t have “street smarts” that match what some urbanite 30 years ago would have.

Ironically, the immigrants probably have more street smarts.

The driver claimed he didn’t know where my hotel was, or even the neighborhood (“Chelsea”).

And you rode with him anyway? Why would you do that?

Reliance on Apps to intermediate everything is bullshit in my opinion. Plus I personally specifically don't want to share my location with some app written by people I've never met who are 100% likely to either misuse it themselves or to sell it to someone who will.

When they want to take your freedom away, they won't come jackbooting in with rifles, they will do it by offering you convenience.

Geez, this was just basic street smarts when I was growing up. Ask some questions upfront.

Have cash on hand when dealing with taxis. Don't assume card terminals will work, or even that they won't skim your card.

You may say, 'That's why I hate taxis cos they scam you,' yet this thread has contains many examples of Uber(Eats)* scamming people too.

Why is that better? Cos it's accessed via smartphone for some reason?

Conjecture/Rant: There is a growing cohort of people who want everything to become 'frictionless'. They are even afraid to just talk to people, talk to girls, everything has to be through text or through an app. If they get their way humans will start to interact with each other more like machines than like people, hey, maybe even through APIs! Meanwhile, what makes life interesting 'is' friction between people and cultures.

The sentence you quoted was directed at the other commenter's seeming implication that homosexuality's removal from the DSM is somehow an indictment of the psychiatric discipline

There must be some logical fallacy named for this. I've often seen this critique in terms of pandemic policy. ("Why should you believe what you're saying, when you've changed your mind before...")

I mean outside of scientific circles of course, you are reading that point too literally.

Ha thanks, I love a good argument.

Putting aside the fact that your example isn't actually an insight

So put it aside then, and think of your own better analogy. It changes nothing from the point I was making.

the "insights" produced in therapy are supposed to lead to change largely on their own.

No one has believed this in a long time.

I prefer to solve my problems instead of trying to trick myself into thinking they're not what they are.

So do I but sometimes things break, permanently.

I can't bring dead people back to life, if I'm injured or disabled by an accident I can't 'fix' that, but I can find a way to change how I relate to that unfix-able problem. This goes beyond re-framing, of course.

As to childhood experiences and trauma, they are real and often elicit means of coping which later become ingrained habits which can cause dysfunction later on.

Therapy can help you recognise these (insight!) and then start you on the long slow path of unlearning them so they don't cause you problems anymore.

I can speak from experience having gone through a healing journey where the online sites promoted a single supplement as the cure.

I later felt that this focus on this 'replace lost nutrients' approach, while it might have had some merit in the acute phase, also kept some people in denial of the factors which led them to their health crises.

Any nutrient you take to excess will be downregulated by one of these thousands of processes shown here: https://external-preview.redd.it/Yepk20IXyppuST6erisGCPg716V...

This reliance on an overwhelming amount of scholarship and citations is typical of conspiratorial writing, so it put's me off.

I definitely won't be engaging with this evidence, basically: I don't want to be sealioned.

It can produce plenty of insights, but insights almost never lead to change.

Insights by themselves can't won't lead to change, but they can be a starting point.

Look at it this way, say I am overweight and want to get in shape. The insight that I need to eat less and exercise by itself of course won't make me immediately fit.

But that insight combined with work and support might.

Also therapy, to me isn't about self improvement, it's about feeling better in one's skin. Often it not that the presenting problem even goes away, but that the way you relate to it changes.

scientific endeavors revise themselves when they learn that they are wrong

Exactly. And scripture is notably not revised when it is found to be wrong. I ask, which worldview should you trust more based on this observation?

I felt that the article is written is a style typical of conspiratorial literature, i.e.: presenting lots and lots of evidence for a false or straw-man claim.

The true message of the article seems to be buried in the subtext. they mention the cost of therapy (to the individual and to society) and they mention churches too.

To me it reads like this: I don't want to pay for your expensive psychotherapy through my insurance. Go to church instead (where, depending on the church, we might also get a chance to fill your mind with our regressive version of christian values.)

Interesting theory but I wouldn't be so sure. I've been through healing journeys where the websites suggested all sorts of deficiencies and supplements, but in the end I came to believe I just needed to slow down.

This was very different; prior to that I used to do 1-2h of strong cardio or lifting activity a day, was studying at multiple universities and worked multiple consulting gigs.

I'm going to suggest that with this intense pace this might have happened one way or another. Take it from someone who has been there.

When we push too hard for too long, and ignore our bodies and minds pleas for rest, at some point the body is going to put the brakes on us.

I don't think this is necessarily COVID specific, my speculation is that long COVID is the kernel around which the fatigue episode crystallised, and thatif it hadn't been COVID it would have been something else.

Cos we want to be able to blame the users when there is a data breach. :-)

And this is why I hate having to deal with AWS. Learning this stuff isn't technical knowledge, it's product knowledge.

I read the TCP/IP illustrated series cover to cover and learned that stuff cold, and this was useful knowledge to me for decades.

However I always find myself resisting learning this AWS stuff, which is just as complex in its own way too. This diagram makes me feel that if the goal was to simplify things, then I'm not sure how successful they were at that.

All these solutions are mean, fruit flies don't do any harm.

In the winter I kind of like them cos I don't have a chance to see insects.

Also let me wax a bit poetic and say how much of a miracle a little thing like a fruit fly is. How long will it be before a 'startup' can make a flying robot of the same size and intelligence? (my bet is on....never)

So so what?

What matters is how people evaluated the information at the time when there was uncertainty about the severity.

Just because he the poster may have gotten lucky doesn't mean his arguments were well founded during the time period where it mattered.

I have to laugh at this 'not in my body' argument when a lot of people making it are putting all sorts of stuff in their bodies which are very questionable: sucking down sugary drinks all day, eating junk and processed foods, even taking street drugs (who knows what in that).

Let's cut to the heart of it, this 'not in my body' argument is just a rationalisation for an oppositional personality trait.

Hey, I hate being told what to do, but I don't push it to the point where I refuse to do something which benefits me.

Unpopular opinion:

Ride a regular bike.

In terms of theft, just use a beater bike for commuting.

By getting rid of the 'E' part of the bike, you'll get more exercise and won't have to worry about theft.

For years I rode a beater that I found in the garbage and that I fixed up with some parts I had lying around. Later I upgraded to a singlespeed because derailleurs freeze up in the winter.

It's a trek earl. Seriously bikes are so ridiculously efficient why do we need to add batteries and motors and geegaws to them?

Lots, like the common flu for example.

Just google 'post viral fatigue syndrome.'

Acute onset ME/CFS is also frequently linked to a viral infection.

I think there is a lot of overlap with burnout too.

Basically when you are in a chronic state of stress from work or other factors, a viral infection can be the straw which breaks the camel's back, which can provoke a burnout.

Only arguing from efficiency is essentially internalizing the logic of the machine.

Exactly this, I wish I could upvote you a thousand times.

Now you're onto something!

And thankfully, you can still find washing machines and microwaves which don't spy on you.

Keep your old stuff people cos, soon I'm sure _everything_ will spy on you and track you!

I don't climb, or at least not hard enough for my opinion on climbing to be relevant, but I came to realise for myself that my mountain biking was a form of counterphobia.¹

There is a famous trail builder who built super risky trails in the North Shore of Vancouver. Those trails involved riding along six inch wide logs which were all slimy and slippery way above the forest floor.²

My bonafides: I've ridden everything on Fromme and most trails on Seymour too, back in the day before they cut down the most dangerous lines.

Basically, I just wanted to say that from those riding experiences, that I get it. I know that feeling of being one with the trail, of fully accepting and merging with the fear. It brought me peace during the ride (it altered my perception till all I could see was the front tire and the line I was riding, everything else became bokeh) and the comedown after riding trails like that was also really nice.

Driving home across the Lions Gate bridge with my bike in the back of my friends shitty pickup (the bike was likely worth more than the car) are probably some of the happiest memories I'll ever make.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterphobic_attitude

2. https://diggerknowfear.com/ His logo includes the words 'Know Fear'

I see nothing here but potentially, literally, wasting your life.

Funnily enough, I wondered the other day whether all the time I spent sitting in a chair having petty arguments with a computer (aka.programming) to have been a waste of my life as well.