231–240 of 334 posts
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Should a human being have his life's work be forty years of checking if bags are caught in a door? Modern society is weird. Automation can free us from humans having to be automatons.
That sounds crazy. Someone should help them transition to a more modern and healthy lifestyle of spending forty years improving the conversion rate of small digital advertisements.
I noticed the problem on myself on several occasions and kind of invented the same solution. For example, sometimes I would take a medicament mechanically while doing something else and just a few minutes later, forget if I took it or not. Solution: say loud to myself "I'm taking a pill". Another: sometimes I'd lend some amount money to a colleague, and a few weeks later I'd have a hard time figuring whether they gav…
For example, sometimes I would take a medicament mechanically while doing something else and just a few minutes later, forget if I took it or not. Solution: say loud to myself "I'm taking a pill". My solution for this problem: I have a cron job which sends me an email every morning. If I see that email, I 1. Take a pill out of the bottle and put it on my laptop keyboard 2. Delete the email 3. Eat the pill. This seque…
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I picked up this nasty habit of leaving the house and feeling compelled to check to make sure the oven and stove top are off. After years of doing this and feeling silly each time I started checking the oven before I left the house and told myself outloud, "Yes, the oven and stovetop is off". I was surprised how effective this was. Interesting to read this article today and other's solutions to the same problem.
I used to be like that about packing before traveling. Nervous that I'd forgotten something I'd keep checking and checking. With time I learned that (or got more practice) it is unlikely I actually forgot something. Probably I just don't remember packing it. 95% of the time when I fear I didn't pack some silly thing, there it is, in my suitcase,when I arrive. Thank you past Swizec! A big part of it is also that I alw…
For some of us, depending on the destination, prescription sunglasses also fall into the category of essentials. Learned that lesson the hard way.
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This technique is also useful for software development, and is referred to as rubber duck debugging ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging ). Verbalizing your problem lends you another point of view to your thinking and often allows you to discover the problem yourself.
Writing detailed commit notes can be useful in the same way. I have backed out of a commit during the write up more times than I would like to admit because I realized that I hadn't covered some edge case or I completely forgot about something (like the effect of the change on a report or other sub-system). Writing things out in a way that someone else can understand forces you to re-think through the task in differe…
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Wow, my reaction is exactly the opposite. Good on the Japanese railways for employing intelligent and responsible adults to care for everyone's safety instead of cheaping out with cameras and computers. These are solid, respectable jobs, and it means there will always be competent people around to help when things go awry.
Should a human being have his life's work be forty years of checking if bags are caught in a door? Modern society is weird. Automation can free us from humans having to be automatons.
Yes.
Automation can free people from this basic work, and it very likely will too.
But, it's not about that. This ethic means people will just care about other things.
I have a strict rule that I must touch my keys before closing the front door, because I discovered the keys in my memory don't open the door as well as the keys in my pocket.
I do that with my keys and wallet whenever I travel because I'm paranoid about losing them.
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Could you elaborate on the idea that hermetic magic is purely functional? How does a practitioner make a state transformation in oneself?
It's a joke, the meat of which is that hermetic magic involves complex series of esoteric invocations that consume time and effort to no meaningful result. I didn't work it out very well, though, and it didn't land. So it goes. The next one will be better.
I noticed the problem on myself on several occasions and kind of invented the same solution. For example, sometimes I would take a medicament mechanically while doing something else and just a few minutes later, forget if I took it or not. Solution: say loud to myself "I'm taking a pill". Another: sometimes I'd lend some amount money to a colleague, and a few weeks later I'd have a hard time figuring whether they gav…
Ah, yes. The old upside-down-tomato-sauce-can-next-to-the-door-to-remember-my-umbrella trick. That's always been a classic. The first couple of times I tried it, it didn't work very well. I was trying to leave in the morning, and I tripped over the can, and I was all, "Who the fuck put a can of tomatoes in front of the door?" And I kicked it out of the way and left without my umbrella. Then I realized I wasn't going…
Been living in Japan for a while now and I've noticed this too. I always admired it. It suggested a high level of conscientiousness. Made me feel safer on public transit. Interesting to learn of the real world benefit of these type of mnemonic tricks. I do some things like this when doing operational work as a devops engineer. Helps me avoid fat finger mistakes. I also do the classic, "wallet, phone, keys" check when…