I am just about finished writing my one-woman show to perform at my upcoming big birthday. I really have to give credit to hubski because much of it was originally written for hubski (various state of the lil reports). The name of the show is "Every Marriage is a Good Marriage (even the bad ones)." It starts like this: I never intended to get married ever. I was interested in partnering and cohabiting, but not too interested in marriage. Marriage seemed somehow authoritarian and restrictive. My most serious partners over my first 20 years of partnering, also seemed authoritarian and restricting, as well as jealous and controlling. I didn’t trust marriage. I’d had proposals. One went like this: Offstage voice: I want to marry you. Not now, but maybe sometime in the future when you like me better.” My first husband said, Offstage Voice: Either marry me or move out." Everyone hates moving. One man also said to me, Offstage voice: I have to see you, even if it has to be through bullet-proof glass.” That wasn’t a proposal, but I liked his impulse towards self-protection. ------------------ I will be arguing that every marriage is a good marriage: even the bad ones, but until very recently, my experience with romantic partners and husbands has been less than stellar. Each of my early relationships was worse than the preceding one, with my first marriage ultimately being the most dangerous. Who knew that a Jewish marriage not only begins with glass breaking, but also ends with glass breaking? Clearly my choices were based more on convenience than compatibility. Maybe I mistook intensity for intimacy. Maybe I just had no skill in living wisely in the world. Every marriage is a good marriage even the bad ones because they teach you to live in the world. I went to a school of education in 1974 and graduated with a teaching certificate. I wasn’t long in my first job before I realized that teacher’s college mostly just exposes you to classrooms and children. If you don’t run away screaming, they give you a teaching certificate. Nothing I learned in teacher’s college was relevant in my first classroom. I could say the same thing about life and relationships.
I just laughed so much while reading this that I had to read it aloud to the others in the room with me. My favorite part: Everyone hates moving.Offstage Voice: Either marry me or move out."
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Good luck with the show. How many people are you going to perform it for? Even though I'm 29, marriage still seems like a bit of a far away concept for me. I have a girlfriend right now and I have been with her for over half a year but marriage is still ways away for the moment. I guess it's just the new age thinking of how it's now better to get married later than sooner.
Getting legally married did make the divorce settlement easier. There are laws in Canada that give cohabitation some legal standing, but legal marriage made the workplace pension split much easier. ha ha = there's an argument for marriage: it makes divorce settlement easier.
Is that a Tibetan singing bowl? Wow, this is beautiful. What a pretty and sad build. You can hear the heartache in there but there is also some sunlight underneath. Thanks for sharing flac.
I've been continuing to learn my front-end web development stuff. My first website, the idea for which was indirectly courtesy of flac, is now well underway. Here is a screenshot: It's also fully responsive, though the specifics aren't quite nailed down yet: https://streamable.com/e3y3z Still, i'm pretty proud of how it's looking. Though I must say that the design of the site was done by my brother who is a professional UX Designer, so the layout looks infinitely than my initial version! I don't know if it's just because I'm wrapped up in learning something knew, but I've played hardly any games for the last 2/3 weeks. I've just been learning and playing around with making websites. I just need to find a way to redirect some of this energy back into my music as that's been neglected as of late. Though I do have one new track finished if you mighty fine hubski folk fancy a listen.
Nice! I've also been fiddling around with web development this week - I'm teaching myself how to visualize with d3: I'm using Skeleton for a responsive UI and SQLite for my database. Making that all work with d3 scripts other people wrote is quite the headache though. What frameworks / thingabajings do you use?
That looks awesome. I'm looking forward to learning more JavaScript. I've only covered the basics so far, but it seems to be where a lot of exciting stuff happens in development world. What sort of data are you visualizing? For this site I'm using the alpha of Bootstrap v4. The module of the course I'm doing is currently on Bootstrap, so it seemed a good excuse to cement some of that knowledge. Funnily enough, until about 5 days ago I didn't really know what a framework was. I coded the first version of the site entirely from scratch, so learning about the power of frameworks was a very welcome revelation. So much so that I didn't mind archiving all of the previous HTML/CSS and starting again. Skeleton looks neat, I'll keep that one on my radar.
I never liked Bootstrap for one particular reason: Everybody wants the next thing to be just like the first via Sure, it lets you build a website in a jiffy if you know how to use it - but it takes away the personal touch and the expression of the designer in a way that tends to hurt the overall impression from the page. It's the IKEA of furniture. We have a better saying for it over here: "дёшево и сердито". Means it's cheap but does the job well enough not to complain. I write the CSS by hand every time. Not the least factor in this is that it's my pleasure, but it also allows me to give each web creation its own flavour and spirit. No two pages are similar unless they have to be. Most of the time, for both JS and CSS, I end up learning something new or refreshing the old material; must I say how good that is?'Cause once you have the theory of how the thing works
I would posit that frameworks in general allow you to more quickly focus on those more personal and expressive design elements by cutting out a lot of foundation CSS that goes into a every project. For example, every project is going to need to be responsive and will more than likely be grid-based. Bootstrap has that all ready to go for you. It's the same reason people use normalize.css rather than doing that all themselves: it's necessary, but unnecessary for you to do yourself if there's a template their for you to use. If I start a new musical composition, I load my template. It has all of the thing that I use in every project I make: audio busses set up, favourite instruments loaded, effects plugins ready to go, session markers in place... Bypassing all of that each time I start a new track is not taking away the personal touch and expression of my composition. On the contrary, it gets me focused on it faster by having mundane but necessary processes already done. Or take this exact web based tool I'm building. It will give the user quick access to information that would otherwise take considerably longer to work out by hand. But that working out isn't a creative or design based process, it's just necessary ground work. It's once you have that ground work done that you can use the results to do something personal. Is that not analogous to a framework? Granted, Bootstrap goes a bit further than that and offers more design based components as well. But you can, and I have, customised those things with your own custom CSS. Furthermore, you can choose which parts of Bootstrap you want to use so it's not like it's all or nothing. You can even go and find a different, more light framework such as the one veen mentioned if it's found that Bootstrap seems to impose itself too much upon one's creative decisions. Now I can't argue against your enjoyment of doing the HTML/CSS by hand each time. That's a personal thing and that's cool. But I'm looking to build websites in the way that professionals do. And I'm certain that every agency and web design house in the world will be using a framework for every project they do, whether it's Bootstrap, their own custom made one, or something else. I just don't see a reason not to use one unless you're specifically wishing to show off your front-end chops or practice concepts. Also, one last point is that websites, especially one like mine that's meant as a tool, are required to have a standardised user experience. Users expect websites to functionally basically the same and that should be catered too as it allows the user experience to flow smoothly. An industry standard framework allows me to achieve that faster. Though at the end of the day, I've only been doing this for ~3 weeks, so I'm still finding my footing. Perhaps the above sentiments are misguided. But If I want something where I value my own personal expression above all else, I will compose music.Sure, it lets you build a website in a jiffy if you know how to use it - but it takes away the personal touch and the expression of the designer in a way that tends to hurt the overall impression from the page.
My objection is not against frameworks or utility files like normalize.css. The most "foundation" I have whenever I design a website is having a full-width header seldom. I can do that in a couple of minutes. Everything I design, web-wise, is unique in purpose and, subsequently, feel. It's one of the things that guide my outlook on these things. I never design for the public specifically; I only design what I see fit for the situation. You want to design websites professionally, or for public use? You're probably better off using a popular framework as your foundation. HR will expect you to have experience with "common frameworks" like Bootstrap when they check your CV. I'm not saying getting proficient with one of those is bad or dispassionate. My objection with Bootstrap et al. is that they're opinionated to a degree I find uncomfortable working with or, indeed, seeing around. Bootstrap, in particular, pushes a sterile, bland design doctrine with its default values, and most people using it won't bother or aren't capable of tweaking it to their preferences beyond changing color values, perhaps. It's one of those things that allow extensive public access to a field that used to be dominated by professionals. Fifty years ago, photography used to be a hobby of someone passionate enough to spend a lot of time mastering it. Nowadays, even a three-year-old could take daddy's smartphone and start their artistic career on Instagram (even if by accident). Opinionated CSS frameworks allow people to engage their user with an at-least-somewhat-meaningful design, as opposed to having no design at all. I think it's good that more people are getting involved in the process of web design. Most of them will never become professionals or even amateurs, but now they can at least try their hand at it with a guidance that would ensure they will most likely not suck. However, as an amateur designer, I find this kind of frameworks to be less of a help to another amateur designer and more of a hinderance. It could be that I find it particularly difficult making sense of someone else's systems and code and would rather make my own. I'm scared into a corner by the massive amount of stuff I have to learn for any single decent framework, JS or CSS. I'd rather start from scratch and know why I'm getting the shit that I'm getting. This is a minor but important factor, as well.It's the same reason people use normalize.css rather than doing that all themselves: it's necessary, but unnecessary for you to do yourself if there's a template their for you to use.
That's still the case. The skill floor lowering doesn't affect the skill ceiling. It just gives more people the chance to become potential masters. Sure, it comes with the downside of the medium being flooded with a lot more crap. But if even a couple of every 100 people who take up x hobby due to increased accessibility become fantastic practitioners of their craft, then that's a good thing, Also, I think that it's important to make a distinction between web design and web development here. Though interdependent they're not the same thing. I think all your points are agreeable from web design standpoint. I get that a designer might not want to be thinking about how to layout a website with the restrictions of a specific framework already in their mind. But once they have finished their design and pass it on to a developer, how said developer reaches the final product is irrelevant to how one should regard the the quality of it. Whether specific frameworks and tools where used or it was all done from scratch. I'm aware that in the modern aged it is normal to be multi-disciplined. But at the moment I am only learning development specifically. And from a development standpoint frameworks are awesome. Maybe that's where our initial different perspectives arose from. I don't think that needs to be the case. The Bootstrap module on my course only contains 2 hours of video content. What's more, I haven't even finished it yet and I managed to build what you see in the OP.It's one of those things that allow extensive public access to a field that used to be dominated by professionals. Fifty years ago, photography used to be a hobby of someone passionate enough to spend a lot of time mastering it. Nowadays, even a three-year-old could take daddy's smartphone and start their artistic career on Instagram (even if by accident).
It could be that I find it particularly difficult making sense of someone else's systems and code and would rather make my own. I'm scared into a corner by the massive amount of stuff I have to learn for any single decent framework, JS or CSS.
Not. The. Point. Opinionated CSS frameworks. They promote bad taste. They promote bad design. Bland and tasteless. That's my point. You can build furniture from IKEA with just a manual and arms growing from upper rather than lower body. It's still bland. Even LEGO furniture has more character. See what I'm getting at?Also, I think that it's important to make a distinction between web design and web development here.
I've spent the last 4 years of my life working in Webflow, as some sort of weird web design / artist / marketer. It's sort of a drag and drop thing. People like the websites I make, but I know that I'm not really a web designer, or a UX designer, or a professional in any sense, and it's really stressful on an existential level. I don't really know what I'm doing with my career. And it's really lonely. I feel like I'm reading a book that half the people who know anything about it will laugh at me for, and the other half will know nothing about, and politely be amazed with the magic. I'm kind of frozen with the amount of choices I have to go from here, can I PM you and ask for career advice?
Webflow seems damn good for rapid prototyping - something rezzeJ and I started talking about at the beginning of this thread. I've been looking for something like this for a while. As for career advice: I'll remind you that I'm just an amateur designer. I don't do comissions of any sort, though I might enjoy the opportunity when I get there. I design things in part because I believe I have [good taste](zenpencils.com/comic/90-ira-glass-advice-for-beginners/) for it, and it part because I've gotten what I consider pretty good with it for an amateur (no portfolio to link to yet, but that's about to change). If you think I still can help you, feel free to PM me.
I'm sorry to take a long time about getting back to you. I've had it in my head to redo my portfolio before messaging you (it needs to be updated for clients soon), but I've been overloaded in the last week. I'm mostly just curious about the front-end development track. I am frozen by the amount of learning choices, and then you read shit like "the state of javascript in 20XX" and I get more confused about if I even want to learn how to code things. On one hand, you're right in that the tool I use is good for prototyping, I hear that a lot- but wtf, everything I make is just prototype! That's terrifying as hell to me. I guess this is difficult, because I don't really have any questions, other than, how did you pick up the frond end knowledge that you know?
In terms of actual learning tools to use, I can recommend TeamTreehouse's Front-end web development track. It starts with the assumption that you're a complete novice on everything HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. So keep that in mind and maybe just do the individual modules you want if you have some prior knowledge in certain areas. My only real criticism of is that sometimes they hammer home the point a little too hard. Like, they make something obvious, and then explain it even more. But there's controls to speed the video up if it starts dragging a bit. Generally I've found the teaching to be of excellent quality and the live coding environment that you run along side the videos works great. You also get quizzes and code tests throughout and at the end of the modules. If it's any sort of metric to you, I built the website in my OP after only ~2-3 weeks of doing the track. And I had no prior knowledge.
I started with no knowledge of JS whatsoever - the code barely made sense to me - so I took some of the more formal lessons in it, like CodeAcademy's course on JS, to start me off. And then... basically, I wanted to make games, so I had an idea in mind and went from there: "how do I do that?". I looked through the MDN on details of what certain types can do (did you know that at certain point, you could observe changes in an object natively? they scrapped that, for some reason, but there was what you now do with auxiliary libraries) and tried my hand in crappy first designs. Most of the projects never saw daylight because I was frankly ashamed of the results: it wasn't pretty or effective and sometimes, it didn't even do what I wanted it to. I look at some of them now and think: "Dear Heaven, did I actually write that?". However, it was those projects that made me observe and learn, and because of them I'm now a better programmer. There were also these cool things that I wanted to do, and they mandated usage of something different from the usual JS experience. Enter the frameworks. The first one I used was AngularJS. ngJS was complicated to design as backbone for a small project and took a lot of figuring out for the JS part; HTML templating, however, was fairly simple. I have also used others briefly, perhaps just to try them out. The most used library for me remains jQuery, simply because it makes DOM manipulation so much simpler and easier to read - and even that, I tend to exclude where it isn't mandated. I cut away everything I don't need in a project because size (and, therefore, load time) is a major concern of mine: I want to design things that are comfortable to use, and the 20+ kB of minified jQuery I'd rather replace with JS' native methods if I only need two lines of DOM change/observation. At some point it turned that I've been following some of the stardard guides (there are several, oddly enough) inherently, because it seemed like good taste to me. I'd recommend you code the way that seems natural to you for a while, then read a few of them; take the good stuff in and leave the rest. That way, you make sure what you write makes sense to you but also follows certain common ground if you're ever to give command of your code away to another coder. CSS came about for similar reasons: I wanted to try something - but mostly, because I can't stand a bland design. I even design my MS Word documents before any significant amount of work, whether they're to be released to public or used for personal goals. As you can see from our discussion with rezzeJ, I design every project by hand these days. I've tried Bootstrap and some others and just got confused; personally, I'd rather know what's been put into the palette because I was the one to build it. This may or may not apply to you; I'm telling you that to say that it's alright to write your own stylesheet. Basically... do your own stuff and see what sticks. Don't be ashamed by not being able to do something: what I've done with my web dev skills in a couple of years is amazing to me, even if it's not up to the corporate standard. As with everything, strive to learn: search, ask or, if need be, develop your own. I made a timer library for a few games of mine just because I didn't see anything good on the market - and it was also a good exercise. You'll get there, just like I got where I am now. I'm actually learning PHP now, which feels exactly the same as JS did back in the day: mysterious and vague. I'm sure I'll make sense of it with rigorous enough study. Feel free to ask any questions you might have. Also, feel free to message me if you want some designing done for your projects: I enjoy doing it, and for you, I'll do it free of charge. By the time you message me with something like that, I'll probably have a portfolio lying around.
I think I am finally there, yes. You are saying that front-end frameworks intrinsically inhibit creativity and the judgement of what is good design. Much like one might argue that music genres intrinsically inhibit creativity and judgement of what is good composition. Before I continue, is this correct? I made the last analogy above because this is an area that I have though a lot about and actually wrote an essay on during my time at university. So I don't want to write a load, only to then find out I'm still not getting you.See what I'm getting at?
After some consideration - and keep in mind my complete lack of knowledge in music theory - I'd say that, for comparison's sake: frameworks, overall, are genres because they define some of the conventions for you (grid, [un]responsiveness, button shape etc.), and opinionated frameworks are like using - more or less - the recipe for the typical song in the given genre (like the infamous four-chord songs).Much like one might argue that music genres intrinsically inhibit creativity and judgement of what is good composition.
Okay, to help gather my thoughts I consulted with my brother who has a degree in design and who has been a UX Designer for the best part of decade. There's a couple of issues I have with your argument. The first is that when I made the distinction between web design and web development you said that's not the point. But I think that is the point. It's right there in big writing on the Bootstrap homepage (emphasis mine): Front-end frameworks are not built as design tools for web or UX designers. They are built as development tools to help developers. If people's designs are becoming hamstrung by frameworks, then that's an issue with the people themselves, not the tool. Now there's an argument that could be made that developers who otherwise have no idea about design take these tools and create functionally solid but generically designed products. There's certainly some truth in that. But it only serves to reiterate the point that it's about how the tool is used that matters. And as an aside, I'd much prefer to visit these stable but generic sites vs. stable sites that lack any semblance of design or consistency. Another point that cements this is that for every indetikit website created that has their foundations in Bootstrap, there's plenty of amazingly designed ones too. Ones with creativity and imagination. If your point about these opinionated frameworks being analogous with someone instructing you to compose a song using only a specific chord progression is to be upheld, surely this wouldn't have been possible? The second issue is that i'm unsure what you're constituting as an opinionated framework? Bootstrap is the primary name cropping up in this discussions. But like I stated before, you can heavily customise the implementation of Bootstrap to fit your specific purposes. Seriously, look at how many of the opinionated elements of it you can chose to completely remove. You could just have the grid if you wanted, with no CSS, pre-made components, or JavaScript at all. What's more, you can change the default values of that grid too. This seems to be the case with a lot of mainstream frameworks. Again, we return to the central point that these frameworks do no intrinsically promote bad design and taste. Rather, it is bad and/or lazy designers that promote bad design and taste. No designer worth their salt is looking at Bootstrap's default guidelines as a reference when they're designing a site. Sure, there's chance there's subconscious influence. But part of being a good practitioner in any field is being aware of the invisible forces and constraints that are pulling at you, and in turn working with and around them to create the best final product.Bootstrap is the most popular HTML, CSS, and JS framework for developing responsive, mobile first projects on the web.
First of all, let me say that I appreciate you holding up the discussion with the consistent respect to my arguments. I may have been too insistent on my being right in the past without doing much to prove it, which does not contribute to a discussion in any way. I've realized today that holding up a discussion with the point of advancing knowledge is all that really matters in communication. So, your argument is that because Bootstrap (as I keep emphasizing, though there are others) is a web development tool and not a web design tool, it doesn't deserve the criticism that I've expressed earlier. After giving it some thought, I'd say that a) Bootstrap, indeed, doesn't deserve that kind of criticism, b) no CSS framework does unless it explicitly states to retain the best qualities and design practices available while not holding up that standard. Moreover, it was unfair of me to pick on a single specimen of a wide array of CSS frameworks simply because it's the most well-known - something I've blamed other people for on Hubski recently. My blame of Bootstrap was motivated by the fact that I felt like it should somehow promote the idea that it's only a baseline for design while encouraging the user to move past it and into the territory of more elaborate, educated design - not simply learning more CSS, but also color theory, the holy grail design and other such things. It's not a fair premise, however: though it is not a bad practice to encourage others to learn and educate themselves for a better result, it's not a responsibility for those who promote design/development frameworks (and Bootstrap is a design framework, but only in part) available and aimed for the mass usage. Would have been cool if it were, but it isn't and it doesn't have to be. It doesn't kill you to have bad design, unlike, say, smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol. I don't think Bootstrap is "heavily" customizable. I think it's versatile by its nature and that one could use their creativity to produce amazing and unorthodox results (I was going to prove my assessment with screenshots from the web, but Google has malfunctioned on me right as I tried to find some). In this respect, it's similar to LEGO: both are massive toolkits that could be flexible enough to produce a wide array of good results. That being said... Have you actually tried to download only the Grid component? I have. It includes normalize.css by default, with no option to opt out. That's "opinionated". Just how opinionated? Of the ~1000 lines of the main development .CSS file, something like 250 are normalize.css alone. To add insult to injury, it contains default classes I didn't ask for (like .img-rounded and .hidden), which adds up to about 75 lines. A third of Grid-only development .CSS file is something I didn't ask for and had no choice to opt out of. At least the theme .CSS is a separate file. Long story short: I wasn't justified in beating Bootstrap's drum as far as design practices are concerned. You're right in saying that it's on the user, not the toolmaker. However, I don't appreciate its bundleware status. No framework should tell user "You must use this with our product". Recommend? Knock yourself out - but don't put it into the package anyway without asking whether I want or need it first.The first is that when I made the distinction between web design and web development you said that's not the point.
The second issue is that i'm unsure what you're constituting as an opinionated framework? <...> You could just have the grid if you wanted, with no CSS, pre-made components, or JavaScript at all.
Likewise, I appreciate the patience whilst I finally got around to talking about what you were actually trying to discuss. I agree that it should ideally always be a person's aim to learn how and why the tools they're using work. That's the only way to become a true master of your medium. And if they don't, there's certainly cases where that tool will become a crutch rather than something used for its advantages. I can see that frameworks definitely have that risk attached to them. I will admit that I didn't try downloading just the Bootstrap grid. I simply looked at the customise screen and made an assumption. So it's good that you checked it out yourself and called me out on it. It's a bit lame to receive a substantial amount of unexpected and unwanted CSS.
I think it's more due to the specific position. Another result of me having my current job is that I've become interested in a bunch of computing things I didn't know/care about before, e.g. automating processes, creating systems that are a bit more distributed, maintainability.
Ahh, sweet! The tools looking great, can't wait to use it! Also, the new track is sounding rad! Reminds me a lot of Mouse on the Keys but actually somewhat dance-able. Looking forward to hearing more.
KB's Trippin' I have a friend in Maryland that I haven't seen in several years whose wife I've been talking to about birthday presents lately. And, since y'all have such adorably tiny little states over there, I decided I might as well see the AAF Tank Museum in Danville, VA before it collapses under its own weight. Also back in there somewhere is Fallingwater, which I've been meaning to see for years now and which neither my wife nor daughter should be subjected to (an assessment doubly true for the tank museum). It also occurs to me that thenewgreen is in North Carolina and _refugee_ and blackbootz are in Baltimore (ish) so you get something like this: To me, that looks like a perfect excuse to rip up the Blue Ridge Parkway in a convertible, if, that is, I can figure out a way to talk Budget into renting me a convertible for a one way drive. For the record, I once drove further than that to see Jesus Jones and Stereo MC's. My show finishes a week earlier than I thought it would, but i've still got tickets to Front 242 and Severed Heads September 27. So I might just fly out for five or six days of slumming around seeing people. Would love any insights, suggestions or discouragement. Thing of it is, the flights are cheap and I've got a mileage quota to protect so i can continue sitting in the big seats drinking free doubles of Woodford Reserve.
So a road trip the fourth week of September? I'll be in school but would love a visit! To bolster your big metal man-made object list, Baltimore has the B&O Railroad Museum, "birthplace of American railroading" and home to most powerful steam engine ever built. I hear it's train nerd paradise. If you don't have a day to do that, we could get some oysters and crabs. _refugee_ any thoughts?
We could probably go anywhere tasty. I'm sure kb has no strong need for oh-you're-in-town-you-HAVE-to-try-this kitsch. Unless I'm wrong. kleinbl00?
Been there before. As far as I'm concerned, Yuengling and Old Bay are pretty much what you got. Oysters are better cooked. They're still not good. Besides which, I live on Puget Sound which means I automatically think my seafood is better than yours. When is softshell season, anyway?
I don't really eat crabs so I'd be googling it anyway. I'm working on my hosting skillz -- I'll noodle on it.When is softshell season, anyway?
I grew up in the Southwest. Santa Fe Railroad was everywhere. I care not a lot about trains; thanks though. NAS Patuxent River might make an appearance. I stayed with the base vice-commander for a week several years back and he never mentioned they had a museum. It was dumb.
You are always welcome, my friend. keep me posted as your plans solidify.
John Denver is singing about West Virginia, which is an amazing state in and of its own right. I'd argue that Virginia and West Virginia are two of the greatest states in our country (I'm actually willing to make that statement about every state except Illinois). True story, it separated from Virginia during the American Civil War when a bunch of its counties looked at the secessionists and were all like "Uh. No thank you. That doesn't look like fun." As for Virginia itself, I don't know too much about it other than it was one of the original American Colonies and was named after the Virgin Queen (Why they didn't name it after her actual name, I don't know). It's an Appalachian state with beautiful forested countryside and a few parks preserving it. Anybody I've ever talked to that has anything to say about it though have all said very nice things, so I'm thinking of visiting it someday.
Sorry I am late to the pubski, y'all! work It's my busiest time of the year, so... mental health I have been suffering mentally from it. rd95 has called me out for being a cranky bitch so I definitely need to add meditation back into my routine. Downloaded a noise loop app that I used to have on my old phone onto the new one and discovered that it has added a bunch of guided meditations. Some seem pretty new age bullcrappy to me but I did the 'negativity banisher' and felt a little better afterward so that's a start I guess. fitness So I decided that I need to make exercise a routine thing in my life. I determined that the easiest and cheapest thing would be running. Except that I am super out of shape and don't want to overdo anything, so I figure I would start with run/walk interval training in place on my back patio. That way I am covered from the elements while still being outside and have no excuse not to but still get acclimated to exercising outdoors. Eventually once I build my legs and stamina up a bit I will attempt the real thing. I did get a shin splint the other day and I think it is because my shoes are worn out. I got new ones now so as soon as I am healed up I will be ready to go. In the meantime, I have been doing stretches and working with my weights so I don't miss a day.
I couldn't get into (guided) meditation because of all the new agey "imagine you're on a beach" crap. I honestly gave up until I found Headspace last month, after someone described it to me 'as the polar opposite of Facebook: introspective, calming, and making your life better': The exercises are easy and only 10 minutes. I know I sound like a salesperson but I honestly quite like it. :)
Definitely second the Headspace recommendation. I haven't used it recently, but I did back in v1 and it helped me through a difficult period in my life emotionally. It cuts out all the potential new-age and pretentious attitude that a lot of other guided meditations can sometimes give off. I've been considering returning to it recently. veen what's your email address (pm if you prefer)? I'll add you as buddy on there :).
Wow I've got to try this out. Meditation and general contemplation/slowing down is something I have not made time for but it is definitely necessary. The only such activity I take part in is going on leisurely strolls around the city. I live in the bustling centre of London but it's not too far to the nearest park.
This one was guided but not so much the 'imagine you're on a beach' kind but just a gentle voice talking through how to choose not to let negative things impact you and so on, otherwise I would have shut that right off. My normal meditation consists of just sitting and focusing on my breathing. Thought I would give this thing a go because I have a lot of negativity that needs banished right about now. And sometimes you just need to be told to let it go.
Yay! Running! Not sure if you have a goal with this, or already aware of Couch to 5k but it's an awesome little running plan if you're looking to get into it and (hopefully) enjoy running while you do!
I may be putting too much of my own experience into this innocuous phrase and its quotation marks but here goes. When my partner and I were first getting into yoga together, she made some remark about how 'It doesn't matter which video we pick, we're always going to do like six of the same poses just in different order.' While that's true to some extent, part of my experience with yoga is trying to allow something that is supposed to help to actually help. Going into it with the mental framework of "This 'stress relief' workout is basically the same as the 'shoulders and back' workout so it won't actually relieve stress." is unproductive at very best. I work to appreciate and value the intent behind the thing, and hey presto, I feel the effects more. If it helps, it helps. I'm writing this as much for myself as you or anybody else reading.'negativity banisher'
I did the thing with the intent to allow it to help me, and I feel like it did, although I am at the point where I pretty much have no chill and might need more than one session with it. My skepticism was more toward some of the other things in there that offered to help me clean my chakras. Being stressed out can cause tension in your body so the fact that the stress relief workout is the same as the back and shoulders workout should come as no surprise to anyone unless they just have no idea how the body works. Neck stretches are also wonderful when you are feeling tense.
I don't have much to add other than liking your approach to fitness. Three years ago I was sort of out of shape and decided to go for a walk. That turned into longer walks which turned into short runs which turned into long runs. Taking it slow is good. It might feel frustrating, but you're doing it right. When you decide to run more, I suggest watching some YouTube videos. Just search for "how to run." I used to get joint pain from running. I don't anymore. Running might seem intuitive, but it isn't always. YouTube has some great instruction.
Hey all. Things are going well. The company is growing. We are now in San Francisco, LA, Michigan, NC, Austin, Houston. And, NYC and Chicago are coming on board very soon. We should be having some big announcements in the coming month. Can't wait to share them with you all. I am still traveling a ton. I can't express how much I miss my wife and kids. It's not expressible. Today I facetimed with them while they were at the pool. Looked like so much fun :( My daughter has lost two teeth in the last year and I was out of town both times. I missed her kindergarten graduation. These are moments that never come back. I take comfort in that what we are doing at Forever Labs is important. But still, it's rough on me. Hope all of you are well. I love pubski, it's so nice to hear about how you are all doing. Cheers!
Last week I spent more time than I wanted to finishing the dumb report I mentioned in an earlier pubski. Toggl tells me the whole report took me almost 14 hours, most of it wasted on meetings. Could've written it myself in an afternoon, but no, let's spend an average of 19,5 seconds debating each word in the damn report, which is only 40% of the grade of an insignificant course. But - it is my last normal course and my last university report ever. Facebook did one of those 'hey remember this?' posts the other day and it was about my graduation from high school five years ago. On the one hand it feels like forever ago, on the other hand it's only five years and I feel like they were more important than all the years that came before it. Naturally, the picture made me re-examine and reconsider my future. In a few months I'll finally be free to do...what, exactly? I have options but I also feel like I haven't found The Thing yet. You know, The Thing You'll Do For The Rest Of Your Life. I doubt I'll ever find it, but that doesn't keep me from searching for it.
As annoying as it is... that will prepare you for the nonsense that is the working world. I've been on temporary assignment at work, designing some metrics and KPIs for a new business unit. I gave my proposal, the VP shat all over it (as expected) spending 17 minutes (I was watching the clock) repeatedly saying "I don't understand this. This is all wrong. Help me understand. This makes no sense. I don't understand this".... She wouldn't even shut up long enough for me or my boss to explain... so we hung up and she sent us her ideas... which were just different vocabulary for the EXACT SAME DATA. So I just changed the names on all of mine - the background data gathering and calculations are the same - and resubmitted to her last night... Arguing semantics can be taxing... but unfortunately, I think it's part of.... life... Sorry for the rant... It was my (perhaps inappropriate) way of putting my hand on your shoulder and commiserating "I hear ya... we're all in this together, keep your chin up"but no, let's spend an average of 19,5 seconds debating each word in the damn report
Debating vocabulary and semantics in a report is an exhausting experience.
I can work around lazy people and inexperienced people. With resentment, I can get unmotivated people to work. This group had someone in it who couldn't be argued with, which is my kryptonite. If I present a slew of arguments why my proposed idea is better and you can't articulate a single good counter argument, yet you still need to be have it your way? This ain't Burger King, ffs.
Every young person ever. If you don't stop looking, chances are, you're gonna find it. But hey, what do I know... Except, that's what people who found it tell everyone. Bill Watterson, for example, has something to say on the matter. You know, the guy who did Calvin & Hobbs and refused to sell out his creation (read the actual mental_floss interview at your own peril: it's heavy on the eyes).I doubt I'll ever find it, but that doesn't keep me from searching for it.
Summer solstice today. I don't follow any religious traditions but if I could choose when to have a holiday, I would choose a day of ASTRONOMICAL SIGNIFICANCE! I always feel sad as the days get shorter and shorter... Time to spend as much time as possible in the sun before it goes away completely. The worst thing about autumn and winter is leaving work at night. I'm not looking forward to that.
Once I get done work my options are softball, sit on the grass if it's nice, day drink in Banff, hike, or there are even places to swim apparently if I don't have some sort of boat handy. I think I'll stick with this life even though the weather is interesting some days.
Subheadings Career Submitting apps, doing 30 minutes of biking/Overwatch, rinse and repeat. Health & Wellness Haven't been calorie restricting, weight is fairly stable even with diuretics. I still like drinking too much coffee. Making good progress with Yoga and learning a lot about my body in the process. Yoga with Adriene on youtube is fucking killer and having someone to do it with regularly feels amazing. I remarked to the RPS the other day that I feel like I carry myself differently compared to the past several years. She said that she notices the difference and advised we get additional mirrors so that I can start seeing and believing it. Something to consider. Books I have been thinking about diving back into kleinbl00's reading list again. It's been a while now since he compiled it for my benefit, and I've crossed a few titles off the list. However, there's only so much one can take of things like The Dead Hand and Legacy of Ashes. I have the Three Body Problem on Audible and it's reviews are good enough that I'm tempted to give that a go. Everything just sounds really blah to get into. The last book I really enjoyed was A Darkling Sea by Cambias and that only because of his truly unique aliens and descriptions of their cultures/thought patterns. Fun stuff feels to fluffy and not-fun stuff feels too darkly serious, I guess. Maybe I should go re-read the Dresden Files or Dune again as a palate cleanser.
Dig into this shit, mutherfucker. I've got two books to go. The 10th, Rousseau and Revolution, is the one that won the Pulitzer. It's also 965 pages, not including the index and appendices. I own Gore Vidal's copy of the books, but I do them as audiobooks. This allows me to digest them as I roll through homelessness and heat. And having burned through more than 8,000 pages of history, I can say two things: 1) they don't make you learn more than the broad strokes because the minutiae, in the end, doesn't fucking matter 2) history is nothing more than an endless expanse of humans being horrific to each other. Thanks to these books, I now hate the English, the French, the Spanish, the Germans, the Italians, the Swiss, the Swedes, the Romans, the Chinese, the Japanese and the Turks and have developed the suspicion that if there's a statue of you somewhere, it's been erected on a mountain of skulls.However, there's only so much one can take of things like The Dead Hand and Legacy of Ashes.
...as a background for terrific breakthroughs in human understanding of the world, themselves, and each other. I mean, you're saying history is terrible using a platform that has been developed by people from history. You will be history, just like every single human fucking being. Can't stand it when wise men like you tell everyone how terrible it all is. You wouldn't even be here were it not for you ancestors doing everything in their power to survive and prosper.history is nothing more than an endless expanse of humans being horrific to each other.
No. I will be forgotten. You will be forgotten, we will all be forgotten (mk, thenewgreen and b_b I'm not so sure). We are "a part of history" the way a drop of water is part of a rainstorm. It's the lightning bolts that crack the trees we learn about. The Durants make the point that nearly everyone who ever walked the earth was just getting by trying to lead a normal happy life and that the periods we don't learn a lot about are generally the happiest. But what we learn about? We learn about the tragedies and their architects. History is change and change is almost always cataclysmic for someone. Usually lots of someones. Who have already been forgotten by history.
I'll be forgotten, and I don't much care how long it takes. I recently read the Meditations, and about 50% of it is Aurelius reminding himself that he will be forgotten, and that postmortem remembrance is a pretty stupid thing to waste the present on. He pretty much says that too.History is change and change is almost always cataclysmic for someone.
Historians talk about this problem a lot, if you look into it. The history of families mostly-peacefully raising children who do the same-ish things as their parents isn't recorded in a lot of places. If you want 'positive' history, you need to study individual families. Personal example, I have a pretty detailed genealogy/family tree that goes back to Sweden in the late 1400's. What we know about the people who lived back then, and in all the years inbetween 1480 and now, is very little. We know they lived, had X number of children, of whom Y survived to adulthood. Sometimes we know what they did for a living for a large portion of their lives. When we're studying 'history' we are most often studying the short, painful periods of drastic change between one paradigm and another paradigm. The Dramatis Personae of history are almost all right and proper bastards because you have to be a right and proper bastard to start and/or end a war. Contented, peaceful, happy people do not dramatic change make.The world is a terrible, grim and painful place if all you choose to look at is suffering.
There are a few examples within the Durants' books where they say "King X was, by all accounts, a kind and generous man who presided over forty years of prosperity. We wish we could say more about him but the record of his accomplishments and failures is predictably spare, as with most great men who fought no wars. Fortunately for us, and unfortunate for the world, his throne was inherited by Y the Terrible, who will be the subject of the next several chapters."
I was thinking about this very sentiment this morning. My dad and I have had the fortune to take a few trips to see some amazing things together. Neither of us is getting any younger, so I've been getting the bug to plan the next adventure. This morning my dad sent me some youtube video about "the top 50 most beautiful places to see in the world" or some such nonsense... As I watched, I just got kinda sad... some of the locations were beautiful natural phenomena - like waterfalls in Iceland, and the arches in Southern Utah... but many of them were "Temple of XYZ" in Burma, and "Hall of the ABC" in China, etc. When you consider the Machu Picchus, the Great Walls, the Great Pyramids, Chichen Itza, and the others.... you realize the BILLIONS of slaves who lived and died only to work on the given project. There's a sense of guilt as I strut first-world ass across these "wonders". Maybe my dad and I will just go on a walk in the woods...if there's a statue of you somewhere, it's been erected on a mountain of skulls.
The massive architecture bothers me less. I think it's because of shots like this: Granted - those aren't slaves. But life passes so many by without a single testament to their time on earth and some small part of me is proud that there's a giant wastewater treatment plant that will no doubt outlive me and buried somewhere in its visitor center is a picture I'm standing in. The Great Wall killed millions in its building, so far as we know. But the Han dynasty killed millions anyway. Better to die building a wall, I figure.
I bully a lot with D.VA. It's just so much fun chasing down and isolating healers, or else pushing a Pharah out of the sky and then eating her ult with my shield. I find that Sombra is super situational. Can really mess up backlines but she dies so quickly :/
D.VA is super fun but Winston's my go to flank tank. I'm starting to get the rhythm of Sombra. If I can get in the habit of throwing down the TP, stealthing in, and hacking, she just leaves a huge opening for the push. And her hack works from way father than I thought.
How are you submitting apps? Primarily online or using your network? Too much coffee and yoga is a good thing, I think. Or at least not a bad thing. Unless you have a caffeine sensitivity. Which reading list are you digging into, there's at least 2 kb reading lists.
Both. I have a goal of at least 5 apps a day online, minimum, and my bosses have their ears open, but their schedules are so full I'm not putting many eggs in that basket. Mostly is good. I'm starting to realize however that caffeine intake of more than 3-4 cups a day sparks my anxiety something bad, which blows because I LOVE coffee. This oneHow are you submitting apps? Primarily online or using your network?
Too much coffee and yoga is a good thing, I think.
Which reading list are you digging into, there's at least 2 kb reading lists.
This has been a strange and unpleasantly eventful week. One of my neighbors got shot because he owed someone or other money for something or other that may or may not have had something to do with a drug deal, my father is in the hospital because of some heart problem the doctors have yet to figure out, and my boss is on vacation so I'm doing some of his job (the answering stupid questions from people high enough in the organization to keep their job despite being stupid part). My father wanted to talk about his funeral arrangements today; he wants to be cremated and doesn't want anyone outside of the immediate family notified until his ashes have been scattered, because he's always hated having to perform his part at rituals like funerals and weddings and doesn't want me to have to do it for him. I, too, hate playing my role at funerals and weddings and such, and now I wonder if anyone wants to go through with that bullshit or if everyone just plays along because they think everyone else wants them to.
Home for a week and a half. 7 days left till I'm out to get in the shits of some forest somewhere until the beginning of August. Got home last Friday, met some friends in NYC who managed to escape from campus. At some point we stumbled out of a korean bbq at around 5AM to see that the sun was up. We continued partying into the next night until there were no more men standing. Sucks to see my old high school friends now that I'm home though. Feels very uncomfortable a lot of the time. Not sure what it is.
Book 1 I'm like 40 pages away from the end of volume 2 of War and Peace. Folks, we've hit a bit where I'm not at all digging on the main plots. My main interest is a subplot that you only get glimpses of through the eyes of two selfish young adults. I'll be glad when I'm at the end of this volume so I can put it back down and read something else. Book 2 What will be the something else? Three options: I cracked open The Phenomenology of Spirit last night. That will take a while. But then, one of the other books I want to read is Godel, Escher, Bach. Given up on it before, but I've made it far enough into Das Kapital that I feel more confident in plowing through Hofstadter's, um, style this time. The final book I've set before me is The Wealth of Nations. G.E.B. gets bonus points for the fact that I have a physical copy to read from, and it'd be nice to have a book to discuss with my Dad. He's suggested I try I Am A Strange Loop first, but I haven't found a copy of it yet at the used book store. Hegel and Smith get points for being suggested by francopoli and bfv a while back. Edit: Decided I'm reading Kant before Hegel... Work I don't wanna!
My interest is definitely waning. I started out enjoying it a lot. I've plowed through the past 300 pages on the theory that it'll return to the stuff I found interesting, but, well... it has been 300 pages...I gave War and Peace 200 pages and noped the fuck out so hard.
I seem to keep coming back to the style issue with my reading list. On the one hand, it'd be nice to zip through books easily. On the other hand, when all the choices you've laid out have a reputation for being word soup, there's less incentive to jump ship to easier waters. I did go and buy a copy of I Am A Strange Loop..I enjoyed GEB, although Hofstadter's style is...something, for sure.
I didn't find it wordy (but maybe that's me). There are a lot of puns and wordplay and odd stories. I guess the best way I can explain it is it's how mathematicians and scientists write when they're writing for fun. Something like this or Cliff Stoll's writing. Maybe that's the thing I liked most about it: it is a bunch of "weird math", but Hofstadter is having so much fun telling you about it that I couldn't help but enjoy it. (Then again, I'm a grad student studing "weird math" partly because I read GEB years ago, so YMMV.)
If you type "Hubski" into DuckDuckGo, this bounces back . . . If you allow the result to appear, the site description reads as . . . weewooweewoo and kleinbl00 have potty mouths. Then again, so do I from time to time. We should have a day where every single headline in global has at least one F-Bomb. I woke up today feeling very ill. The only reason I got out of bed was to get some coffee. I think I'm gonna stay home today, in bed, cuddling the dog in the dark. Maybe I'll draw later if I feel better. Maybe I'll go to the art museum and wander around if I feel much better. Speaking of my dog, she rolled in something foul yesterday, like dogs do, so I had to give her a bath, like good dog owners do. She's been finding foul spots to roll in more and more frequently lately. I was joking about this with my mother the other day and she told me about one of my childhood dogs. This dog was a small, dainty, girly thing who wasn't always well behaved, but was generally a stereotypical dainty girl dog. Apparently I'm remembering things wrong though, because my mother told me she used to escape all the time and go to the neighbor's yard to roll in used motor oil. ALL THE TIME. I was shocked. I never knew and I never could imagine. But then again, I shouldn't be surprised, cause dogs are dogs. . . . thinking about writing a letter to the local township to have them consider installing sidewalks on some of the main roads. More and more I'm seeing pedestrians walking about in areas with high traffic, blind turns, etc., and I'm kind of thinking it's time we accommodate them. Then again, I don't want to be the guy responsible for taxes being raised. People around here love to gripe about taxes being raised.Safe search blocked some results for hubski.
It features 💔, 🍕, and Hubski's own 🌮🐱. yellowoftops 3. weewooweewoo. lit.cat · #morefuckinglitcat · #goodlongread · The opioid epidemic is way the fuck worse than you thought. b_b 1. kleinbl00. nytimes.com · #thehumancondition · #dataisbeautiful ·
I gotta admit it, F bombs are clickbait to me.
"The Cabal of Eight Pt.21: Blood Fucking Red" "Canada police investigate theft of fucking mummified human toe served in drinks " "Why The Fuck Is China Snatching Up Australian Farmland?" "TIH: JUne 21, 1732- Fucking Johann Christoph Freidrich Bach is born" There needs to be a Firefox extension for this.
why the fuck am i wasting time doing this i have philosophy exam tomorrow A.S. Don't copy anything from here. Formatting screws up the code. Go to the page where you'd like to see the replacement. Open console (or web inspector or whatever). Copy the following string. Paste the string into the console. Press Enter. Copy the following string. Paste the string into the console. Press Enter. You should now see the replacement at work. It's crude and the changes are temporary, but this should amuse you for a couple of minutes with various websites. The above function will return a different choice for replacement every time. To keep the same choice, copy/paste/Enter the following two strings separately instead: and EDIT: Fuck. mk, check this out. I thought the two-space prefix was supposed to make it a <code>/<pre>. var choices = ["the fuck", "in the fuck", "in the name of Jesus Fucking Christ"]; document.querySelector('body').innerText = document.querySelector('body').innerText.replace(/[wW]hy/g, function (match) { return match " " choices[Math.floor(Math.random() choices.length)] });
var choiceIndex = Math.floor(Math.random() choices.length); document.querySelector('body').innerText = document.querySelector('body').innerText.replace(/[wW]hy/g, function (match) { return match " " choices[choiceIndex] });
Fucked up my Grammar test. The teacher pushed the resitting onto Monday - meaning that on top of the Friday Philosophy exam (which, at this rate, I'm bound to fucking fail), I'm also going to have to be studying the same shit again and I'm not leaving Tomsk until three days or more after I was planning to. I am going to study, but I'm fucking burned out. Tell me how to make proper energy boosters, 'cause coffee and energy drink are not helping anymore. EDIT: Upon further inspection... Things are not so bad. I freaked out about the prospects I have regarding my exams. That was me going apocalyptic - fairly usual. Sure, I'd like to finish my exams this summer, but if I don't, all that's going to be left is me having to sit them in the autumn. I haven't planned for this, and it's going to take some work, and I wouldn't like to work on that additionally, but... this is what I get. Doesn't matter why: all that matters is how I deal with it. It's going to take a couple more long days with caffeine as my friend. I'm pretty sure the mix of strong coffee and energy drinks should do something good to my working condition. It's a tough season for me. I've missed a whole lot due to depression and my own misconceptions about stuff - including my own limits - and now I have to work to make up for it. I came here to get educated, and this is my education. I learn as much about subjects as I do from my mistakes. Wish me to stay strong.
Did this thing three days ago. Feels more like three weeks ago. The amount of support and congratulations that came out after this was overwhelming, and it really made me feel like part of a community, spanning across multiples states, time zones, and points of life. There's a feeling of belonging and knowing that you all want to beat each other, but would never hesitate to help each other. Followed that up with a yoga session Monday night, and had a thought that didn't feel like it was coming from me about forty minutes into the session. Everything will be okay, because it must. It was a similar feeling to a lot of the thoughts that were passing by when I was depressed, a detachment to the thought and a feeling that it wasn't actually coming from me. But there it is.
I went to an Amazon Bookstore yesterday in Paramus, NJ. This bookstore had recently opened up a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to see what it was like. There was a good number of people there but overall it seemed like an airport bookstore with slightly less books and a good bunch of amazon stuff. It was okay overall but there was not enough variety in titles to really catch my interest for too long. It seems like more of a casual place to go to sometimes if I'm in the Garden State Plaza with nothing better to do.
Workload: Insane. Personal: Busy. Leading the Finance team in the potential purchase of a decommissioned firehouse, for a non-profit arts group I volunteer with. Going camping this weekend at Pachena Bay on Vancouver Island. Shooting a fireworks show on the 4th of July, and the next day leaving for a week-long Burner camp-out. Going to my 30-year high school reunion at the beginning of August. And bought tickets for our European honeymoon (Oct 3-18), and have begun planning what we want to do with our two weeks outside of Trumpistan. Now to go finish my powerpoint delineating the costs of running a firehouse as a non-profit arts center... so I can present the data to the community tonight, and get them to buy-off on the idea and support us moving forward with it. Yikes!
Going to my 30-year high school reunion at the beginning of August.
How do you feel about that? Excited? Do you still have a lot of friends from HS? I missed my 20 year and wish I had gone. I'll go to the 25, for sure.
I'm mostly going for the opportunity to ride my motorcycle to California, and to go to my friend's magic theater show. I moved between my Sophomore and Junior years of High School from Washington to San Francisco. So the people I went to school with for most of my life had pretty much forgotten me by the time they graduated in WA, and the people in SF didn't know me really well, because I went to school on a compressed schedule and worked a full time job and played in bands when I was not actually at the school itself. The girl I went to prom with died many years ago, and the people I played music with have largely moved away from SF, which has become far-to-expensive-for-artist's. But... 30 years, man! If yer gonna go to one, might as well be a significant one, right? And my classmates include the bass player for Jane's Addiction, the pilot of Space X's Dragon spacecraft, and Tupac. (Not expecting Tupac to show up, tho.) So there will definitely be interesting conversations to be had.
(Not expecting Tupac to show up, tho.)
- I wouldn't be so sure:
On a particularly bad day last week, I looked into Talkspace (online therapy for people who listen to a lot of podcasts) and found out that their base pricing was $396 a month for 2 live video sessions and $196 for one live video session. I thought it was too expensive so I looked into competitors, and 7 Cups came up. It's $156 for a weekly free trial that said it included 2 video sessions and that seemed cheaper so I signed up, which required putting my debit card in. In the intro session the interviewer said that no, there are no live sessions (I guess I misread the most important part) so I cancelled it in the settings. I swear to god that I saw the $156.00 charge as a notification on my phone when I signed up for 7 Cups, but it's nowhere in my bank records nor in my Mint.com account. However, over the past week I got two $0.35 that I know is from them. Maybe it's crazy, but it's really stressful. Fuck, if I just wanted someone to talk to, I should just find a a cam girl. We need strippers for emotional labor. =============== The reality of my situation is finally becoming apparent to me. I never really adulted. Conversations with my parents are awkward. They don't know that I left my job yet. I've been waking up early to go to a cafe in town and working on freelance stuff that fuck I'm too anxious to ask for payment for. And that's on a good day- I have other rabbit holes I can fall into, including crafting the perfect hubski comment or playing chess or working on a personal web design project or fuck if I know. Every now and then I remember that Brittney Spears is under conservatorship and can't make major or financial decisions on her own. I'd kill to be Brittney Spears, I mutter to myself, at the cafe. I don't care if anyone heard me. =============== My ex is back in town. We're complimentary crazy and aloof, they're changing their name and gender and I can't help but wonder if they're doing so to make it harder to write about them. It's a red flag that my hanging out with them needs to be hidden from their current boyfriend, among other things. I am anticipating that any sane person is going to tell me cut things off with them, but we are liars to our families and to our friends and ourselves, so we tether the truth for each other. It's not really beneficial to cut off things with them right now.
I like this cafe though, I don't want to ruin that. Joking aside, I'm really discouraged about structure, but the agency job I had was difficult for me mostly because I had 13 different clients. I'll try it, the one barista job I had was one of the best times I had in my life. Before I do that, I currently have a $6000 invoice that I am terrified of writing. I don't feel like I deserve the money, and I am not in a good place today.
Here's what I did: I billed in advance. Seriously. It takes all the pain out of billing. It reinforced proper project scoping and developing meaningful and tangible deliverables. And, most importantly, the people who agree to work this way are COMMITTED to the work. They are responsive, engaged, and get you answers to your questions right away. Best of all? It increased my workload. I lost a few clients, sure. But they were quickly replaced by others who respected me, and valued my work. My finger hovered over the "Publish" button that night, let me tell you! I don't think I slept a wink after I pushed the changes out to my web server, and proclaimed to the world that they had to PAY ME FIRST before I'd work with them. No freebies. No free consultations. Just demonstrably good work in my online portfolio, and the price list. Bam. That's it. It was scary, but it was effective.
My mind is dancing around a new course, but I can't quite pin it down. A lot of folks in this office have really confused ideas about social dynamics that they picked up from movies and stories and TV shows and applied to real life. There are a lot of people here who won't speak up when something in wrong because they think they'll be fired. In fact, the opposite is true - the people who get ahead here are the people who speak up and present solutions. We also have this issue with understanding how social dynamics can effect the conversations we intend to have - moving us from constructive conversation to something more destructive and petty. Wrap all of this in flawed ideas about what it means to be "professional" and you get a very large organization with very dysfunctional communication and very little immediate incentive to fix it. So, I've started a few programs to help tackle this but there are still issues around how to actually make change as opposed to just presenting a problem. This course is going to build around the framework of Transactional Analysis and Crucial Conversations, proving people tools to understand and change the dynamics that stress them out. If anyone's interested, maybe I'll get some help from Hubskiers to listen to my early versions and give feedback. My wife can only hear it so many times before she starts to zone out.
Busy summer. Right now: 1. Teaching discrete math, which is fun but I wish I had more time to prepare fun stuff for it. 2. Writing a lab book and teaching the associated lab. 3. Trying to write a paper that's due on the 30th... My advisor went to Singapore recently to present my research groups' work. It went very well: I now have a standing invitation to spend a few months doing research in Singapore! I have never been off the North American continent before so I have no clue what to expect. Right now, though, I mostly just want to sleep. Maybe do some manual labor. Writing stuff on a computer all day every day is exhausting.