neap24

I was in a group conversation last week where everyone was discussing what sophisticated new TV shows they were watching. When it got to me I said, “My family is really into Sabrina the Teenage Witch right now. It holds up really well and Salem the cat is absolutely hysterical.” The look I got was hilarious.

Just what exactly about having kids is not ethical? If ethics is a human construct-and you are contributing to having no more humans around…I don’t know, it just seems like a strange way of framing it.

As for the burden of having kids, I think it’s way too simplistic to say it was a burden NOT to have them in the past. There were different cultural dynamics, for sure, but kids have always been a mixed blessing—both difficult and extremely rewarding. Having kids has historically forced adults to face their own shortcomings. Not an easy thing to do in any era.

I’m a big advocate of reducing Zoom/screen fatigue by doing manual labor after the work day. Do a home maintenance project, throw a ball with the kids in the backyard, etc.

I'm 100% in favor of children working starting with chores at home and continuing through the rest of childhood, to some degree. But I'd rather see it be things like lawn mowing, babysitting, and what I would call "ordinary" childhood expectations and responsibilities. Keeping kids focused on these domains mostly removes the problem of defining what counts as child labor and what counts as excessive. One problem I have with allowing kids to work in typically adult workplaces, is that I hate working in those places myself and have worked hard my whole life to avoid them, as much as possible.

Yes. This is a better wording of the point I was making in a comment below—which somehow everyone is criticizing as “males need to share in the responsibility”. Putting that aside as a separate debate, I am worried about unintended consequences as well as the generally small effect size when the price of all birth control is so cheap these days.

Meh. Maybe this would have been a bigger deal when birth control was difficult to acquire, but the price has dropped so drastically it’s practically free these days. Also, I thought the narrative was that High Schoolers were having less sex than ever anyway.

Are you a manager whose new hire just sent a reply to your AI generated welcome email? Don’t have time to read it? Workspace auto-hides the text and just shows you a simple three-word summary.

Some were googling, for sure. But the best ones were not.

Spreadsheet for time tracking, simple Python script to generate an invoice.

So, we will be interacting with the computer just like in Star Trek sooner than I thought. I used to laugh off the scenes when some random bridge crew member would ask, “Computer, run a <fancy-term> analysis on <some-system> with the following parameters…” to solve some problem. Seems more likely than ever.

I don't believe this is a strawman...at least from an outsider's perspective. As someone who has only ever written software independently, the very idea of agile and sprints (at least reading about them here and talking to friends) has kept me from ever wanting to work for a company that uses them. It seems like it would suck all the fun out of writing software.

I really don't understand the obsession with homeowner solar. The financing schemes are crazy (companies owning part of your roof, renting the equipment, etc.). The only way to do it properly is to either pay someone else cash or to do it yourself. But then, even then, when I did my ROI calculation a few months ago (I live in a small house that is very efficient as-is), I was looking at 10-15 years before I'd see any savings. Then, I learned that the lifespan on some of the equipment and panels may only be 20 years. Granted, replacing them beats the cost of the original install and permitting process, but now I have something else in addition to shingles on my roof that needs replaced after a couple of decades.

It just doesn't make sense to me to mess with it now. As others have mentioned, pushing for grid solar/nuclear/other clean energy is really the only way to do this efficiently. Then I won't have a mass of ugly panels stuck on my roof.

That’s right, we all know the real cause for Rome’s downfall was PM2.5

As a teacher (CS and Math) for over a decade, I agree with much of this. I will only add that, as far as grading is concerned, I think the long-term incentive for the teacher is actually to put almost no effort in at all. There is no pay or status increase for teachers who are tough, consistent graders. In fact, some of the most revered teachers I’ve known essentially hand hold their students to a guaranteed A in the class. At first, principled teachers may stick to tough grading, but as the years go by and they watch their friends easily make 3x more in industry, the incentive to just put a check mark on every paper is about the best you can do to close that benefit gap.

I think that's true in some circles, this sense of shared empathy. But most people I'm around exude a sense of annoyance over the pandemic restrictions (regardless of how seriously they take covid). I suppose this might count as empathy, in a strange way.

There are a variety of bigger problems with the current TV show culture beyond getting cancelled early. Reliance on the cliffhanger, too much pandering to current events/politics, overuse of the "mystery box" plot technique, and so on.

There are a few other personal gripes I have that may not be shared in this community (like, I think shows are way oversexed and have far too many grotesque and gritty elements for my taste) which have basically turned me completely off of modern television shows. For the time being, I'm watching "classics" and movies.

I'm not convinced that cancelling TV shows too soon is creating a problem. The bigger problem, for me, are the above features + an over-abundance of volume of content (the ol' "Netflix will produce just about anything" criticism).

There are plenty of other viruses/infections that produce "long-hauler" effects. Just last year, I had a cough that lingered for nearly 4 months. It was annoying, but has happened to me before.

That's not to say we shouldn't worry about long-term effects of COVID. I'm just worried that the tone of this type of article is panic-inducing and does more harm than good.

At this point (and maybe rightfully so?) COVID is the bogeyman to which we attribute every bizarre symptom. One person in the article didn't even have a confirmed diagnosis. Since the doctors couldn't figure it out, they just said "Meh, probably COVID".

Firebase api calls don't seem to be working either.

Similar situation here. We have been unaffected since my wife stays home and has homeschooled our kids for the past couple of years. But, there are a lot of parents in our neighborhood scrambling for a solution (and not seeing Kindergarten Zoom as a workable one) and even asking my wife if their child can join in on our homeschool.

It's pretty silly to make an absolute claim that one is protecting workers when that is far from obvious.

Ah, well. I think I can make this circular. It is perhaps exploitative to demand these laws. It's unfair treatment of Uber/Lyft employees to imposing regulatory regimes against their wishes (claiming it actually benefits them) to satisfy the political benefits/desires of an outside group. Society should not allow that exploitation to exist whether or not the outside group realizes it is exploitation.

I think it’s pretty simple, actually. Start playing an instrument (or dig deeper into playing an instrument). Most “music buffs” I respect are decent musicians themselves. I great prefer a musician’s music recommendations to a music critic’s who doesn’t play.

In sixth grade, my entire class was obsessed with Far Side. Our teacher actually let us tape our favorite comics in two columns onto our school desks. I still remember the one about William Tell helped me answer a test question once.

We do High School CompSci without the internet (for our intro course). I do see the internet as a distraction at this level. Forcing young students to think through the logic of a problem and come up with their own solution (no matter how crazy or inefficient it is) has a lot of downstream critical thinking benefits.

Tarka

I've noticed the opposite phenomenon at a popular restaurant in Austin. The menu through DoorDash is priced higher than the normal price. Curiously, the restaurant's own, in-house delivery system is the same price as dining in. This is when I stopped using DoorDash...when I discovered that using the restaurant's own delivery system is just as easy and maybe cheaper.

I already view the “meme” phenomenon the same way: a creepy, possibly semi-automatically generated image based on random keywords.

This reminds me of a lesson I learned in an intro to Economics class : everyone's lot in life is a combination of luck, effort, and ability. Those whose view of the world from a left-of-center perspective (those who downplay self-reliance) really just think luck far outweighs the other two. Someone right-of-center thinks that effort is the most important. Most right-of-center people I know don't discredit the impact of other people on their lives. They just live as if effort and self-reliance can help them overcome bad luck.

It really is much more isolating today than it would have been years ago. Back when it was the norm for a parent (usually mother) to stay home with the kids, so did every other mother on the block. My wife stays home with our kids and, within the neighborhood, she is pretty much limited to hanging out with retirees. Fortunately, she's found that there is actually quite a large number of other stay-at-home mothers/fathers if you expand your search radius beyond the neighborhood. As such, she schedules meetups, play dates, and homeschool co-ops at least two days a week. It's possible to not be lonely and depressed, but as with anything takes some effort and creativity.

I disagree that the benefits of subsidized childcare would be overwhelmingly positive. They would be positive only for those who wish to work. For those who wish to stay home (and I believe the number is higher than most people estimate), it makes it an even more expensive opportunity cost and adds even more cultural pressure to conform. And, when it comes to raising kids, I think diversity of upbringing, rather than conformity is the real answer.

It’s possible that they are the odd ones out without “screen skills”. I’m actually betting that kids who spend most of their time away from screens will have some weird, competitive advantage in a future economy.