giltleaf

How much water would this process need to make enough energy for this to have an impact? Presuming we wouldn't use up our fresh water resources for this and that it would come from the ocean, but would this process create potential threats to the marine habitat as the mineral/chemical concentrations of the ocean water shifted?

I'm not a developer, I'm a researcher. However, a big take away from the book for me that I'd imagine would apply to developers as well was not answering emails or going to meetings. He get's into how to do this politely and gradually, and it's definitely saved me time.

The gist of it is, generally, no matter how huffy the person at the other end is, what they're sending you is probably not an emergency. That being said, you can afford to batch your emails so you are only going through and responding to them once or twice a day as opposed to constantly losing your train of thought to reply to them or read them. This might not exactly apply to you, but reading 4hww got me to consciously think what sorts of things I might be able to cut. Actually taking the time to notice what those things are could help anybody I'd guess.

I got my remote time from that because I've been working at the same org for 2 years and have kept track of my wins/successes. I've gotten a lot of those because I've learned to be more efficient using ideas like the ones above. Over those two years, I've also noticed that our org has a problem retaining mid level employees and so I was able to leverage that when talking about remote time as well.

So I'm not automating my income, but I am saving time by cutting unnecessary tasks.

I essentially used the 4 hour workweek script and am somewhere in the middle of that timeline, setting up my business now. 1. Figured out how to get all of my work done super fast 2. Started taking days off and working remotely using my above efficiency skills to put more and more time into my side project while still meeting all of my deadlines and obligations 3. Negotiated a remote and part time contract that only has me in the office 3 days a week. 4. Grind.

I'm still in the setup phase of my business (a hydroponics farm/green wall installations) but being able to devote entire days to getting going has been immensely helpful.

I started working the new contract about a month and a half ago. It was hard staying focused at first and I was a little too happy - go - lucky with my newfound freedom (Overwatch). So, while I was getting everything done for my 9-5, I've been moving slowly on the farm. Things have been better these past two weeks and I'm excited to get cranking in a serious way.

I should note that before I had even considered building a business or taking this step, I'd been doing research for the past 4 or so years that started my last semester in undergrad. I'd also done many small scale, non commercial projects for different clients in the evenings/weekends before I made the jump. Like another poster, to me, this is the equivalent to grad school. I could spend a bunch of money on an MBA and learn some things, or I could start this business, learn hands on, and potentially walk away with profit instead of debt.

Woah, interesting article. The perils of a litigious society geez.

I'm about halfway through the process as described in an underpaid non-profit position (ie, going remote, setting up automated systems, wasting less time in meetings/emails). Although I'm not now because what I'm working on is analytical and research-dependent, I will be able to outsource parts of my job in the future. A successful business is not a prerequisite. If you give it another read looking for other paths, they are there, they just aren't the flashy "automate your business"

"You can prove anything if you pretend wildly improbable freak situations are somehow representative of reality."

That's true, but what is represented in the comic is far from "wildly improbable" and in fact comes across as pretty realistic. That's why many people like it.

It can't be that hard to believe that there are many situations where a person has several small things, often not worth studying, wrong in their lives that compound over time. That's the point.

At the end of the day, I think that we both agree more than not and that you're more taking issue with the fact that I said "impossible to argue" than the larger point, which is totally fine because it was a melodramatic thing to say.

Details the comic got right (btw, comic depicts Australia I believe, but it's equally applicable to US so we'll go with that, it's also hard to attribute the later panels to one given, testable factor, as what's depicted is the result of all the small things in life):

Houses with extended family: "57 million Americans now live in some sort of multigenerational configuration. That number has doubled since 1980," including 36% of young adults [1]

Frequent illness: "The Connecticut Commission on Children reports that children who live in poverty experience more illness than children in more affluent homes." [2]

Parents working 2 jobs: "more than 7 million people in this country were holding 2 or more jobs. That’s 5% of the total workforce" [3] The Bureau of Labor Statistics number doesn't count jobs for cash etc.

low income=shitty schools. not even going to bother to search that one.

working while in school (less time to network, study etc.): "over 78% of undergraduate students work" DOE [4]

Anyways, I'm glad you read the comic.

A lot of that stuff seems really self evident to me, but here are just some sources from random googling. [1]: http://www.newsweek.com/why-multiple-generations-families-ch... [2] http://www.livestrong.com/article/229181-effects-of-low-fami... [3] https://toughnickel.com/finding-job/Working-2-or-More-Jobs (from Bureau of Labor Statistics) [4] http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=77

You seem like just the type of person I wanted to read that comic when I decided to put that in. You're fully missing the point (forest through the trees type of thing) with those stats; the unarguable part is that life circumstances often allow some people to snowball minor successes/advantages and prevent the same from happening to others.

Basically, that comic represents a very realistic, though maybe not statistically significant if it were to be taken literally, situation. It illustrates that results are not dictated by hard work and there is not equal opportunity. It is an attempt to help people empathize.

It's not saying that the guy on the left is a shit (though maybe unaware of his blessings), but rather that the woman on the right (anecdotally representing marginalized society) may be trapped no matter how hard she works. Sure she can beat it, but look at everything else she has to overcome to do so.

You can always give them a heads up too.

Nonprofit researcher with web design/management responsibilities

Side project: vertical farming startup and website: https://urbanverticalproject.wordpress.com/

Hydroponics installs

Frustrated by the people who are claiming that this piece or the company is racist/unexceptional, or that this man's success is due to exclusively hard work. They are missing a greater point that hard work and circumstance are both needed and one is significantly less useful without the other, and that there are structural social challenges that should be addressed.

It's also very possible to praise this, and everyone else's, achievement without: comparing starting circumstance in an attempt to one-up each other on the tragedy train, discounting luck, or discounting other struggles.

Discussions like this remind me of this poignant comic on income inequality that is pretty much impossible to argue around: http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-on-a-plate

My science fair experiment was literally building a cannon. I lit hairspray on fire and shot potatoes at a wall and don't even remember signing a waiver.

Good idea, but unfortunately I have several thousand followers that I don't want to go through the trouble of amassing again.

Really enjoyed this. I'd often get in political and fiscal discussions with my friends and found that it just really wouldn't click with some people. They'd get mad and things would get personal (I can get pretty defensive myself). The realization that "When you attack someone’s opinion, you attack their identity" was huge for me.

People have different values of associations with different opinions, and while it's a shame I can't discuss things like international development issues with some friends because they hold their opinions about that too close to their personality, it has helped me to start looking out for bad conversation paths.

However, as the top comment on reddit says: "They're still my friends, but I just don't ever have any actual proper conversations with those ones - we instead just have boring conversations about cheese or something."

What does "unschooled" mean? Did they just test into a GED/college, or have they never been in an educational institution? What do they do now (feel free not to answer that kind of personal question, but I honestly never really thought of "unschooled as a concept and this is sending me down a rabbit hole)?

Yeah, I know about THC honey, so what's the difference between this and that; how is that made differently from above?

Thanks for the insight into the competitiveness of the terms. 99% sure there won't be an IPO for this company so I would need to ask him about his plans to sell or dividends I believe.

I just wrote all of those down to ask when we get back to the table. Thank you very much - sometimes the forward question is the best question.

Thank you very much, that makes a lot of sense. It seems like I would want to angle for dividends or the terms that would require the company to buy back the vested shares. It sounds like that might be something I need a lawyer for, but just in case, do you think there are common terms or templates for that?

I also really liked the framework of "your shares are worthless, but so is everyone else's." So aligning my interests with the founder seems like a good way to go.

I think the poster was asking more along the lines of "there is something I want to boycott, what tools are out there that can help me make it a movement" as opposed to just wanting to sign onto something another org was doing.

They recently had a petition that was partially responsible for getting Mars Chocolate to stop using artificial colorants. The organizers went this route instead of a boycott and is a good example of how the different tools can reach a similar goal.

Yeah I would definitely not do it. Even my nonprofit (not tech related at all) included language that says they own anything I make on a company computer.

I organize most of what I do outside of work, including starting my own business and running my website, in google folders so it's accessible straight from gmail. I setup filters to automatically sort emails into various folders (boost traffic, various swipe files, books to read) so, for example, if someone sends me a cool article on hydroponics (something applicable to my business) and it sparks an idea, I just forward the email to myself and add "uvf swipe" to the subject line.

Depending on the folders, I visit them once every month or so, or almost never. It just depends what I'm into at the time, but I can always get them later.

When it comes to afk, I usually use evernote, but just as a basic notetaker that I can type up later.

What about the rise of thrifting? Going into thrift stores/flea markets looking for high value, heritage menswear pieces for a fraction of their selling price isn't only budget friendly and guaranteed to have you looking good (if you're not an idiot and can find a fit that a tailor can polish off), but people do it because they don't want to buy into fast fashion and the planned obsolescence cycle of a lot of new clothes.

An easy parallel can be seen here with clothes and furniture. While younger people won't be dropping 6 mil on the desk from the article, they might consider buying an antique, well-made, durable night table instead of its flimsy ikea counterpart if they know it'll last and won't morph into wobbly garbage in a year. Doubly true for Chinese knock offs and walmart brand items.

There are glow in the dark plants (http://www.glowingplant.com/) but there are not plants genetically engineered to produce photosynthetically useful light that I know of. And they definitely don't exist in anything close to a commercially useful form.

I'm not really sure how the text of your question relates to the headline though. There are plants that can open a window as they grow over time, but there isn't a plant that can just do it in response to stimuli.

I'm not sure how useful this technology would be when it's already so easy, low cost, and sustainable to incorporate it mechanically without the added regulatory, r&d, and cost hurdles associated with genetic engineering. I would also mention GE issues with patents and environmental damage.