One team member had a TBI. My manager gave him a custom track so he could succeed. That sounds kind, but it meant the rest of us had to constantly check in, fix problems, and slow down for him.
Another person had lots of field experience but couldn’t handle problems without getting emotional. He built walls around every challenge and pulled people into his frustrations. He had the title of senior consultant, but he couldn’t do the work without a junior staffer helping him every step.
Then there was a junior person who had already underperformed in another team. Instead of addressing it, leadership moved her to my team, where she had even less experience. If I gave her 10 basic tasks, she would typically only complete 7. Not challenging tasks, just needed follow-through. My boss told me to keep setting clear expectations and checking in more. But she just kept pulling time and attention away from the actual work.
She was also split 50/50 between her old team and my team. I kept telling my boss and the other SVP that this made no sense. If someone is underperforming, the worst thing you can do is give them two sets of responsibilities. There’s no way to hold them accountable. Any time she didn’t deliver, we’d say, “Well, maybe it’s because of her other team.”
And here’s what really got me. My boss admitted he wanted these people off the team while enabling them. I ultimately pushed the field guy to deliver actual work until he quit. I kept pushing for the junior staffer to be placed on one team that could pin down her underperformance until the other team took her back. Leadership talked about fixing things, but they wouldn’t act. And it put me in a role that I wasn’t supposed to fill, applying pressure on my teammates rather than support.
This is an organizational deficiency with promoting engineers to manager roles as a matter of course. My boss was a fine engineer, but he was a horrible manager and no one held him accountable for his bullshit. I saw people go around him to complain to his superiors, but it wasn’t well received or productive.
Shame on the organization.
Audio DAW or video production apps jam tiny buttons and indicators all over the place. A mixing console is the epitome of this. Shit, the cockpit of a plane. AutoCAD. Stock trading apps. These aren’t great in the web UI sense - the pattern that emerges is that dense UIs are for experts or people who dedicate a lot of time to learning the UI and appreciate the long-term efficiency that short term inefficient brings.
Should I off myself or not? That's the question. Is it better to put up with life's crap, Or say "screw this" and check out early? Death's just a nap, right? No more drama. But what if the afterlife sucks even worse? That's why we keep trudging through this BS. Fear makes us chicken out. So we sit around overthinking instead of doing anything.
RIP Richard Skibinski (July 17, 2022)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Psychedelics_Society/comments/uzed2...
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/legacyremembers/richard...
At the end of my psychedelic journeys I found a deep abyss of meaninglessness and hopelessness. I think it was DPDR, but it shook me to my core. Ram Dass and Alan Watts spoke to me profoundly through psychedelics, but from a place of suicidal hopelessness Jesus was the only idea that redeemed this existence by reframing it as an opportunity to learn to love (albeit imperfectly).
A disproportionate amount of resources and attention are given to humans who can live out tremendously meaningful existences without the material waste we see today. We'll see that human suffering is an essential part of our existence and not an aberration.
However, this worldview could only gain traction through political force, and the summoning of force would undermine the initial intention of the movement. Therefore what you see (partisan politics) is what you'll continue to get.
Awakening will continue to be available to all humans. I hope access to psychedelics will cement this, and that psychedelics will escape their association with a political "side". If we're fortunate, consciousness of a cosmic oneness and associated acts of "faith" will shift the battle lines in the political arena.
First time poster. I’ve been seeing a lot of “why I left my job” posts. They read like postmortem justifications/rationalizations.I too faced extreme pressure through the pandemic but I decided to stay with it for 3 reasons.1 - Beat Saber. I worked out every morning through the pandemic playing beat saber and became very good in the process. It was a much needed outlet during that time.2 - my...
I will back up your ketamine hunch, but more generically as psychedelics. Consider a guided approach like Psychedelic Passage, for example. They won’t source for you, but I’m sure you can figure it out. I’m not sure if they’d be the correct folks to guide a ketamine trip but maybe!
It took a lot to convince my wife that I hadn’t lost my mind or desire to support my family. But she eventually understood that it was something I had to do for the good of everyone around me, especially me. Psychedelics aren’t a cure-all, but it’s a great medicine to retool old habits and deeply held beliefs. Your preparation and intention setting is the cornerstone of its efficacy.
One book hit home with me after my first trip: Die Wise by Stephen Jenkinson. I highly recommend it even though I found the audiobook unlistenable before. It became a significant influence on my life afterward.
The heart of psychedelic power against depression is this: it lets emotion express itself. In therapy, if you haven’t cried with your therapist, then it’s a fucking waste of time. Antidepressants hollow out my emotions and limit their range - helping me to be a more effective automaton. Psychedelics release you from the consequences of crying or feeling idiotic joy. It’s a reacquaintance with a youthful mindset.
One last thought: I went into psychedelics hoping that I’d feel the train cars of my life click into place on the tracks. But what I’ve discovered is that there are no tracks, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be. It took a while to appreciate that. One saying goes: you get what you need, not what you want.
I sincerely hope that you find relief! Bring your whole self to the table, and I believe you’ll find that you’re enough.
Let me contrast this with my job experience immediately preceding this, circa 2007 to 2011. I worked as an IT Manager at a University Law School. I started as a student help desk and eventually managed the AV systems in the classrooms. I couldn’t get promoted because it was part of a sprawling organization with super rigid job roles. I’d get in trouble for going above and beyond my job role. I wanted better pay at one point, so I applied for the tiniest move-up at a different school on campus and made it through a bunch of interviews until I met with the CIO of that school. She figuratively spit on my resume and told me to get fucked. I swear that she had a chat with the CIO of the law school, and they plotted her performance with me.
My educational background is a BA in music, so I don’t have rock star credentials. Well…I have very modest rock music credentials, but hiring managers don’t give a shit.
So what happened with my current job? It’s a small company. 10-20 people for most of the time I was there. Everything that pissed off the university delights the small business. I was able to wear new hats and jump into little side projects and demonstrate the value of my intelligence and enthusiasm. Also, I can’t overstate this; I work for the best boss I can imagine. She assumes the best in everyone and has a mental growth trajectory for all that isn’t marred by fuck ups. She sees the mistakes as learning, as they should be.
I’m far enough along in my line of work where I can see that I’d need to change companies if I wanted a quick and easy promotion or a 20% raise. However, I can build/grow the position I’m in. My ambitions are more tied up in my family and personal wellness and growth lately.
Here’s a fun use-case that barely made the post: commercial/install Audio DSP. I say barely because Max/MSP did make the list, but that’s not typically for install work (think stadium, convention center, airport, etc.)
The AV world is full of VPL examples. The audio DSP ones that come to mind are QSC’s Q-Sys Designer, Biamp’s Canvas, Symetrix’s Composer. There are many others, but they’re all built on the premise of an expensive hardware processor with free configuration software. Many of these processor/software pairings are configurators rather than VPLs. However, VPL is universal for more complex Audio DSP because audio schematics are very common, and essential processing algorithms are well defined with universally accepted names like “Compressor,” “Parametric EQ,” and “Mixer,” among many more.
Where it’s been getting interesting in the last 5-10 years is the growth of Audio DSP into more flexible control products. Q-Sys Designer is leading the push with nodes that allow Lua scripting, which now supports Blockly. There’s an awkward transition between the primary audio VPL and the Lua/Blockly VPL though. Lua/Blockly supports the event handling features within a predominantly data flow driven application. They also allow the Audio DSP environment to interface with APIs that aren’t supported by plug-ins or other canned modules in the software. Recently QSC has been selling Dell servers configured to run as central processors, highlighting the Linux backend as opposed to other proprietary real-time DSP OSes.
On some level, these VPLs have catered to keeping it simple for guys in vans with USB cables that need to service equipment on site. However, with more remote service possible, this has decoupled the van travel from the programming, allowing it to scale in complexity. It seems like the software could be licensed for use on just about any server if there was a financial incentive.
It all points to an interesting dynamic between visual and text programming as programming talent crystallizes as an off-site role. E.g., GUI buttons are instantiated through the node-based VPL then copied to a GUI canvas where they can be visually customized. This could easily be replaced by a web programming paradigm but will likely remain because the AV industry has a long legacy of guys in vans with USB cables.
This voice of benevolent uncertainty is strangely silent in the conversation on climate change. Every talking head "knows" the answer and speaks prophetically to their followers who already agree. I believe it is this preaching to the choir (by both sides) the keeps progress on hold.
It's worth noting that Franklin was not typical among the delegates at the convention. He was a minority voice of humorous and pragmatic compromise that helped to cool tempers and foster agreement.
If we want to see action on climate change promptly, we need both sides to cede a bit of certainty and humor their opponents. A climate change skeptic can get on board with solar and EVs (see Ford prototype pulling a train). Likewise, a climate advocate can get on board with geoengineering as an essential tool that caters to who we are rather than who we should be.
Carbon awareness has backfired, becoming so widely conversational that both sides have advocates with strong opinions that don't know a thing. I'm too damn naive to figure out what the middle path is, but it's there, and I believe we'll find it. However, we may find it more suitable to kill off our ideological enemies in war, being fought openly or prosecuted through a justice system coopted by a radical majority.
Sadly, I see each side fantasizing about absolute power. Wouldn't it be great to cut down and bury the deniers in shallow graves? Wouldn't it be great to see those tree-huggers hang from their beloved trees?
I don't want this. It horrifies me.
No matter how you look at it, humanity will need to perform a daring escape. Why not solve our problems with the same ingenuity that got us here in the first place? It sure as hell won't be my ingenuity, but with the right public conversations, we may be able to cultivate it sooner than later.
The child tax credit is $2000/child in 2019, which is laughable. I spend more than $12,000/child/yr for childcare alone for two kids (ages 8mos and 3yrs). These early years are terrifying to potential parents - it's gauntlet to reach public school age where property taxes disproportionately taxes the childless.
I think that there should be a deduction for 100% of tuition for children under age 5 (not to exceed $20,000/yr/child). I.e., in the 24% tax bracket, $24,000 in tuition for two children would reduce my tax burden by $6,000. Those in higher brackets would receive a greater refund. In lower brackets, AGI would become negative and not function as a credit.
In effect, the more you make, the more you get back. I think this is an elegant incentive to encourage well-earning people to make babies and continue working. There's no risk of gaming the deduction either: money will by definition go toward childcare tuition. (If there's a risk, it's that childcare will go up. I assume it would, but not 24%.)
We want tax-paying parents to put more future taxpayers into the system so that we don't become Japan. The parents benefitting from a policy like this are making a significant contribution to the economy. Consider their earnings, their patronage of the childcare facility, and the promise of a preschool-educated person to become a future taxpayer.
If all that sounds too convoluted, it could be more straightforward. Let's extend public education down to 3-month-olds. Or we can give parents five years paid leave from work to raise their children to public school age.
Every idea I can imagine is polarizing.