JayleneSlide

@JayleneSlide@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Don’t bother addressing anything else I said. And I don’t need to pretend. When everyone you meet seems to be an asshole, the problem isn’t other people; it’s you. Your whole profile is vitriol, bitterness, logical fallacies, and bad faith argumentation. Secret life pro-tip: examine that in yourself and remedy the underlying issues. I’m speaking here with the experience of my own journey through embittered anger.

  Address the core reasons for all your anger and everything will go a lot better for you. You might even be able to effect more of the changes you would like to see in the world.

  I get it. It’s easy to be angry; it takes real effort to remain positive and maintain forward progress.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t believe you.

  That’s fair. In contrast, I ***completely believe ***that you have managed to surround yourself with misery and rage. Gee, I wonder why nobody will adopt the values you’re espousing.

  You do know that all the things I discussed exist, right? A simple search will show you that these community initiatives are real and happen all over the place. Yes, I’m very lucky to live among people who are receptive to these efforts. When they don’t exist in your community, make them yourself.

  You sound like you live in a utopia

  That’s the goal. It takes constant work rather than spewing dogma of “just do things my way.”

  where everyone is right and no one supports evil billionares or politicians

  Now you’re just being a dick. You know (or should know) it’s not that simple. It’s impossible to have 100% moral consumption under capitalism. But don’t let perfect be the enemy of progress and Good Enough.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  You have your experience, and I have mine. I’ve seen noticeable progress within my communities. Freecycle, Buy Nothing, repair parties, food banks, timebanks, work parties, upcycling, bicycle commuting/micro-mobility, small-scale hydroponics and gardening, local cleanups… All of these move the needle and show people a better way of doing things, ways to improve their own communities.

  Clearly your way isn’t working, but you seem unwilling to hear anything that doesn’t align perfectly with your perspective.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Lead by example. Stop preaching, start showing a better way to be. Don’t talk about it; just live by your ethics and be contented. If your way is truly better, people will start to adopt how you are doing things.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Happy to help!

  I suppose that all laundry is finding the balance between preserving the clothes vs. getting them clean.

  Right?! Start adding in energy and water consumption concerns, and the variables quickly spiral out of control. I started using a manual washer (imagine a giant salad spinner) for some of my gear. Manually washed bibs and jerseys have now lasted about 12 years. It’s a pain and takes a bunch of time, but saves a bunch of electricity, a genuine concern on a sailboat with only solar to recharge. So that’s a heavily qualified bonus. :D

  I always wash my technical gear in cold water, delicate cycle. Line dry. Actually, I wash everything except my rags in cold water. I’ve had the same shirts and pants for 25 years. My clothes should be coming back in style any day now. :D

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Thanks for the tip! Some of my bibs are starting to show their age.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Never skimp on interfaces. Anything that goes between your skin and something else, anywhere energy is changing medium, this is where money is well-spent. Tires, handlebar tape, speakers/headphones, bicycle saddle, hand tools, work gloves, climbing shoes, you get the idea… finding what works well for you regardless of cost reaps serious benefits. More money does not necessarily mean better performance for you, but time invested in the trial and error process does mean better results.

  In the case of bicycling shorts: these are the sacrificial layer. Your skin is pretty valuable, but at least it can heal. Your comfort on a bike ride is invaluable.

  Regarding the stink factor, you mentioned elsewhere in this thread about getting the stink out of technical fabrics. And some people talked stupid shit in response. Anyone who claims “I just wash my stuff and it don’t stink no more.” Uh, yeah, their noses don’t work so well. Getting the tenacious stink out of polyester is a special set of skills. Polyester has a unique affinity for molecules that contribute to stink. Cotton-poly blend exhibits a similar tenacious stink. Very briefly: the polar nature of polyester makes it good for wicking sweat, but also makes it good for hanging onto stinky molecules; standard washing and laundry detergents won’t cut it. You need to overcome that molecular-level affinity; vinegar in your first rinse cycle is strong enough. Washing soda (sodium carbonate, not to be confused with sodium bicarbonate AKA baking soda) is a strong alkaline that can strip a bunch of shit out of all your fabrics; it’s also pretty harsh. The other alternative is to use sunlight, e.g. line drying, to denature the stinky molecules. But the UV light is hard on fabrics.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  On something like a long bike tour, this is not an option. As it is, good shorts are too expensive and too delicate to be washing every single time you wear them. Start with a clean crack and taint, let the shorts dry between wearing. No problems.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Bag Balm is petrolatum, lanolin, and hydroxyquinoline sulfate, an antiseptic. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bag_Balm It’s great for an anti-chafe and on skin wounds, especially abrasions. I mostly use pure lanolin (usually marketed as an ointment for nursing mothers) on wounds now, but also keep a small tin of Bag Balm in my bike kit for all kinds of things.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve met some hippy types that use soap sparingly for this reason

  TL;DR: This is exactly what I’m talking about.

  I am one of those dirtbag hippie types.

  Some background: My skin is so oily, I could singlehandedly solve the Suez Canal blockade. I struggled my whole life with blackheads and boils, especially crotch boils from cycling and blackheads just about everywhere else. No exaggeration, when I was commuting 52 miles every day, I always had at least two crotch boils going, despite showering before and after my ride at both ends of my commute. I also always had at least one boil on my head, face, or back.

  About 20 years ago, I met a dermatological researcher at a party, and he was talking about his latest clinical work. He mentioned a bunch of testing with disrupting vs maintaining skin flora and microbiota. Stuff like S. aureus and Prevotella being held in check by [other micro-organisms, can’t remember the names], but that the skin also produces antimicrobial substances (catechins? or is that the stuff in green tea?). The pH of skin also tends acidic, but soap is alkaline. His tentative hypothesis at the time was that most people shower too much and too vigorously, and that creates a whole host of downstream issues. He mentioned that based on his early findings, he stopped showering every day, instead opting to sponge-bathe with showers being a rarer occurrence. And then only to rinse off sweat from a serious workout.

  With nothing to lose, I gave it a try. Sponge-bathe the foldy bits every day, and before and after rides. No more chlorhexidine soap, no more Bag Balm on my crotch before rides, only Dr Bronner’s soap. I only take quick, cold showers to rinse off from heavy sweating. Every couple days, I’ll exfoliate the long bits with just a damp cloth. My skin cleared up almost in the same week, the blackheads all went away, and no more visible puddles of skin oil. I haven’t had a crotch boil since, despite plenty of crotch abrasion and more than a few skin tears from crashing my mountain bike. I also haven’t had skin infection since changing up my wash routine.

  Extra bonus points: lower water and electricity bills. Or when I lived on my sailboat, less power required for water generator and hot water heater.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I sponge-bathe or use a French showerhead, washing all of the bits that are going to be in the shorts. I’m not so worried about fecal matter, even though I don’t want to skid-mark an expensive pair of shorts. But I am concerned with the skin flora balance.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Looking for a US-Based Virtual Assistant⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Totally not a scam job, right? You need a US-based person to manage orders, yet don’t require international logistics experience? Yeah, scam.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The hill I will die on: Games are the opposite of fun, and I’d ban them for anyone over 12 | Emily Watkins⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  She’s entitled to her opinion, even if it is stupid and wrong.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Can I freeze already cooked burger patties?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Absolutely. I do this all the time for lighter camping trips. I still can make hot smashburgers without packing a flattop and propane tank. Separate them with parchment or wax paper for easy portioning.

  I also do this with bacon. Cook off five pounds at a time, freeze, and have bacon ready to go anytime. Added bonus: you get a bunch of bacon fat.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How are you using your laptop (with internet) that still runs Windows10?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Just… don’t do that?

  This is part of Common Sense

  Kinda. For people like you and me, sure this sense is common. How many normies do you know that have your level of technical paranoia?

  Here’s an outlier example: I recently bought a carded, new micro SD card from the local brick and mortar because urgent reasons that don’t matter for this story. I went to load up the card, and its capacity was only 8MB, rather than 256GB. More than that, it was also loaded with 3 different auto-run malware. I was prepared for something like this (well, not the inconvenience of a counterfeit card). How many here are genuinely prepared to deal with brand new card that came from a trusted retailer with malware? Do YOU genuinely expect malware in this context?

  I think a little empathy and education can go much further than “I’m smarter, just git gud.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How to really find friends by interests?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Fully agreed. We’ve all had those colleagues, and their lack of deep understanding of memory management propagates up the stack. </bad pun> Can a developer know only managed frameworks and still be good at their job? Absolutely, but in my experience they are the rarity. I think it is tricky to truly understand, say, garbage collection, reference/dereference, etc without understanding direct memory management.

  Extending the driver aid metaphor, features such as ABS, traction control, and lane assist allow good drivers to use their finite attention on quality, rapid decisions. But those good drivers know how to handle the edge cases where the machine fails or is unable to handle the current situation. Managed frameworks are a bucket of super sweet driver aids. There are good reasons why .NET added pointers, because sometimes we need to disable the traction control. Weird COM Interops leap to mind. Sometimes you just need to grab control of that array and be able to do so in memory-safe ways.

  And to throw myself under this bus, could I whiteboard a doubly-linked list in C++ with needed methods? Gawd, no, not in the time allotted to a tech interview. But I could spot the bugs in one in seconds.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How to really find friends by interests?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If you’re looking to network within software development communities, a user group is a good starting point. For example, I am a .NET software engineer, and the Portland Area .NET User Group was instrumental in building out my PacNW professional network. Plus their meetups are generally a fun time.

  Look for API meetups in your area, it doesn’t matter what kind of APIs. Even if you have no interest in API development, API meetups are usually run by Developer Relations (DevRel) engineers. It is the job of DevRels to help software engineers become better and to connect people to resources. Source: used to be a DevRel.

  And even if you live in a small or low-density region, there is probably some kind of computer users, web development, and IT group. Again, even if you’re not exactly interested in those aspects, these people tend to know senior or principal software engineers who can either connect you to resources or directly take you on for mentoring.

  All that said, I frequently say “we are not meant to engineer alone,” however self-motivation is a prerequisite to programming and software engineering. Go to the library and immerse yourself in some books on software development; off the top of my head: “Modern C++ Programming with Test-Driven Development,” Refactoring, Design Patterns, “The Pragmatic Programmer,” “Code Complete,” “The Missing Readme,” “Object Oriented Analysis and Design with Applications.” A lot of these are going to go over your head at first, but just take a look at them.

  Some people will take issue that I suggest learning C++ first, but I’ve been at this a while (34 years). I liken it to learning to drive a manual transmission car with no synchromesh. The difference between a software engineer who understands memory pointers and one who learned only managed languages is always immediately apparent.

  Good luck out there.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hot Take: most modern games are designed to purely kill time⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  At PAX 2017, I was disappointed by the overwhelming number of battle royale games. There were a handful of games that stood out for story or in-person party play, but the biggest booths were all for MMOs and battle royale games.

  I’ve long said that MMO games are so common because storytelling and world-building are hard. Also, Sturgeon’s Law: 90% of everything is shit.

  I’m guessing the downvotes are because people fail to see or deliberately ignore the generalization. Of course there are stellar story-driven, single player games still coming out, but 90% shit is to be expected.

  My only shred of disagreement here (more of a qualification) is time-wasting. Of course games are for sucking down time. It’s one of the circuses in “Bread and Circuses.” But the same applies to novels, hobbies, and lush green lawns. :D

  Another qualification I’ll add: I think we’re just getting more of everything with better coverage and more ubiquitous advertising, so it’s easier to see the shit games. It’s easier than ever to build a game, so of course the tide of garbage rises. But so do the standouts, unfortunately in roughly equal proportions. :D There have some great story-driven games recently as one other commenter noted. For me, “The Expanse,” “Cyberpunk,” and “Become Human” leap to mind (yes, I’m a very late adopter). Two of those are basically visual novels with choices, but the stories hit hard and get into complex moral and social issues.

  When you’re ready, I’ll be out on the retirement home patio with a cold one waitin’ for ya. We’ll gripe about it some more.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do I actually find a job that isn't retail?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Do you know any EMTs? I do, and it sounds like you might also. In the US at least, this seems the opposite direction of what OP is asking. Long hours, low pay when amortized over hours on call, high stress, **but *** potentially great personal satisfaction. Also potential career track to other first responder/medical roles, which can be another plus, e.g. wilderness SAR, marine emergency SAR, trauma nurse, etc.

  If I have any of that wrong, I sincerely would enjoy additional context and discourse.

  *A close friend from high school went the EMT->trauma nurse route. He has the temperament for it and absolutely rocks it. He is doing waaaaay better financially and spiritually than most of our social circle. His hours aren’t consistent per se, 3 days on, 3 days off plus any additional shifts he wants. He could have retired about 5 years ago, but loves the work too much.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do I actually find a job that isn't retail?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Know people.

  This aspect cannot be overstated. I landed my biggest* jobs because of my professional network. Moreover, I landed those roles during some serious labor market carnage: Dotcom Bust, Great Recession, and the current knowledge career uncertainty.

  *Highest salary, longest running, best environment, most career growth, or some combination thereof.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do I actually find a job that isn't retail?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The fundamentals are always going to be the same:

  • Develop marketable skills
  • Build out your professional network
  • Develop ace communication skills, written and verbal; this pays dividends everywhere in life
  • Strive to be either in the top ~15%* of what you do or bring a diverse set of skills to the table so that you can perform multiple roles; however, the latter tends to be an entirely different kind of job
  • Be punctual
  • Always continue with your professional development
  • Be the kind of person with whom you would like to work

  *This is not as hard as it sounds. Consider Sturgeon’s Law (“90% of everything is shit”) and how much people phone it in; it’s pretty easy to stand out in most fields.

  More specifically, I suggest “durable” career fields such as the trades (plumber, electrician, lineperson, crane operator, cement truck operator, etc). I mentor and tutor some high school and college students. There’s a lot of career uncertainty for the the foreseeable future, and the trades are not going anywhere. I generally suggest “do what pays the most and chaps your ass the least;” this is just a guideline and the kind of thing you need to figure out what your inflection point is. Whatever the fuck you do, avoid debt like it’s the plague.

  Unless you land a proper apprenticeship, expect some serious long days for a few years, e.g. working full time and schooling/studying full time. Maybe you’ll get away with a less arduous journey, but if you’re mentally prepared to go full-tilt then you’ll be pleasantly surprised if the journey is easier.

  Empathy by way of anecdote: I was a DJ and nightclub manager. I was surprised when I hit 25 and was somehow still alive. I decided to take this life stuff seriously and saw that there was most likely no path towards serious financial security. I went back to college for audio engineering, working full time and going to school full time. I did that for about five years. While audio engineering was cool, I thought it would be even cooler to write the software tools for audio. So I poured myself into independent study, using my nights and weekends to learn programming. And once I was comfortable with programming, I went back to college again for software engineering, again full time school + work. The journey was hard, but I was a senior software engineer within 8 years, manager and principal roles another 4 years after that. However, I never got a job writing audio software; it’s been all medical and financial software. “How do you make the gods laugh? Make plans.” So have a vision, but be flexible and open to opportunities.

  Honestly, if I could have another go at it, I would have chosen marine electrician. Travel, boats + ships, technical + creative field, and get to pick and choose jobs I want to do.

  Woo warning ahead: there are qualitative aspects to the journey. Know what you want, rather than what you are avoiding. If you don’t know where you want to go, you are going to end up somewhere else. But something cool happens when you know what you want, know it in your bones, and commit to taking the steps. The universe delivers. Maybe not the exact thing you wanted, but some form of it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Space weather fans be like⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Which happens to be where Matt Inman (the artist) lives.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Space Honey⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  My guess it’s even older than that. My bullshitspiration is that peristalsis enabled more complex digestion when our quadruped ancestors needed more nutrition options.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Sounds of Silence⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  “DEFCON-4” leaps to mind (www.imdb.com/title/tt0087130/).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Moon Mommy Milkers⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Source: I made it up

  Lies! Try to cover up the truth all you want, but these facts were documented in Battlezone. (retroonline.net/Windows/Battlezone) :D

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do you fight abandonment issues when people keep abandoning you⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The abandonment issues are a huge challenge. Empathy by way of anecdote: my abandonment issues as a child were so bad that I couldn’t tolerate the idea of limited edition breakfast cereals. “What if I really like this cereal and they stop making it?!”

  It took me a lot of time, professional help, and mindfulness. Understanding my attachment style helped a lot. The super short, abstract spiel: attachment style is mostly set in stone; we can only work on our reactions. A positive inner voice is a huge step.

  Everything as it is, I’ve started having issues with feelings of being disposable… I can’t expect people to stick around, like they’re waiting for a reason to abandon me.

  That shit is going to happen. Stick with me here, because this is going to take a dark turn, but I found what works for me. You are disposable to most of the world. And you absolutely cannot expect people to stick around. To wish otherwise invites disaster. Graveyards are full of irreplaceable people.

  You can, however, be such a positive addition to your physical circle (with enough self-awareness and boundaries to prevent getting exploited) such that your circle regard it as unthinkable to be without you. That positive inner voice you’re working on… great! But it’s not going to be one big thing that makes everything work better. It’s going to be lots of little (and a few big) changes that turn the ship around. Give the self-work a couple years. You may not even notice the changes, but they all add up.

  In understanding your attachment style, you can more easily find people who are compatible. Spoiler alert: avoidant attachment tends to trigger people with abandonment issues; anxious-avoidant attachment styles tend to burn everything down around them.

  Calm your reactivity, improve your communication and self-awareness, grow your mindfulness and acting with intention. Non-violent communication (NVC) is the kind of thing that pays dividends everywhere in life. As is mindfulness. Develop a consistent meditation routine.

  In my experience, very people are looking for the relationship exit. Those that are, you didn’t need them around.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This is also my understanding of “chav” from English and Scottish friends and relatives.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a word, perhaps as 40-letter compound word in German, that explains this annoying social phenomenon?⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This is me too. All the same t-shirts, pants, shoes (four pairs go to the cobbler for repair while one remains in use), socks, underwear. Getting dressed in the morning is zero-thought and always comfortable. My daily kit always fits on my person and I never have to fumble for anything. Pants repairs are consistent since they all wear out exactly the same way. The cobbler loves my repairs because it’s the same patterns for four left and four right shoes (just one pattern flipped).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If I hear "% is a mathematical operator" one more time...⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Let’s not forget that it’s also the symbol for modulo operation. So many opportunities for ambiguity!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"Between raising two young boys and putting in long hours at a marketing job, Kevin Caldwell can almost never find the time to make dinner. So he and his husband spend about $700 a week to order in"⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m in Europe where restaurants and food are generally better regulated.

  Ah, gotcha! That right there is an enormous game-changer, and I’m agree with everything you say here. The US food chain is straight-up toxic. You may know this already: the US allows food treatments that are outright banned in most other countries. My travels in Europe were a revelation; I can eat things over there that invariably sicken me here, most notably bread and raw eggs. I would probably dine out more too if I lived in Europe. :D