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68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

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Re: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

#171

Post by TeMPOraL »

GuB-42 wrote: post #51
londons_explore wrote: post #26

I can confirm that one shouldn't trust all-purpose glue. Bought a tube of it a year ago, and out of about 10 times I've tried to use it, I don't remember a single one not needing re-gluing with something else later. All except your fingers of course - glue them, and they're sticky for weeks.

Cyanoacrylate (super glue) works best on fingers. So well in fact that it can be used as an alternative to stitches. Medical grade cyanoacrylate is a bit different (less irritant) but in an emergency, the regular household kind can be used.

Yeah, I added one to my first-aid kit just for really emergency emergencies.

I also love cyanoacrylate because it stops sticking when you apply water to it. I don't worry about my fingers, because whenever I work with this family of glues, I just keep a glass of water on my workbench, into which I dip the fingers if I notice I spilled some glue on them. The glue immediately polymerizes, and you can pull/scratch it off.

Re: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

#172

Post by wpietri »

projektfu wrote: post #72

"Hire for aptitude, train for skills" is a very software development oriented view. Training on its own is difficult and most available employees outside of engineering don't have a habit of self teaching. I've done a lot better with experienced people in my hires in my profession.

The author of that post isn't in software; he's a writer and editor. E.g., he founded Wired magazine, and runs Cool Tools: https://kk.org/cooltools/

Re: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

#173

Post by nimbius »

>Don’t be the best. Be the only.

Speaking from experience in an automotive repair shop, Thats a great way to make sure you're the only guy who does lube jobs and rotor turns, and the most hated guy on the team.

Branch out and learn new things. you dont need to be perfect, but if youre just one thing to one shop then you get missed (and replaced) about as quickly as a lug nut.

Re: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

#174

Post by brlewis »

jerf wrote: post #166
SloopJon wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The majority of my mortgage payment goes towards ownership of a product - my house For many (most?) people that's not true. Even ignoring that mortgage payments often include property taxes and/or private mortgage insurance, you can expect to pay more interest than principal for the first fifteen years or more of a thirty-year mortgage.

"Doctor, it hurts when I do this." "Don't do that." The standard recommendations for buying a house, in my opinion, are recommendations for buying a house you can barely afford. I recommend buying houses you can comfortably afford, and put some extra principal payments in towards the beginning if at all possible. (Especially if you're just starting now-ish... I suspect the whole "but you could have put it in the stoc…

>I recommend buying houses you can comfortably afford

This is great advice. In addition to paying less mortgage, the more affordable house is likely smaller, costing less to heat and maintain. I'd be really interested to see a TCO breakdown for various sizes and ages of house.

Re: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

#175

Post by jerf »

Etheryte wrote: post #141
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #107

Here's one I heard elsewhere, and isn't in the list. If you're searching for something important, search until you find one that satisfies all your requirements. Then, don't stop, keep searching until you find a better one. Then stop. This raises you maybe a whole standard deviation in quality, without taking exponential time. Works for all sorts of things. A new pair of shoes; a favorite dish in a restaurant; a spou…

This is one piece of advice that sound true and insightful, but in my opinion doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. An example of what I mean is the saying "perfect is the enemy of good", which directly conflicts with the above. Since I'm from the north, outdoor gear is a good example of this — there is no hardshell jacket in the world that ticks every box in my checklist. I've been through the lineup of both known and…

I don't think you're contradicting the advice. The advice was basically to find one good enough, then search a bit more. You found something good enough, then spent a unbounded search time on more alternatives. This is precisely what the advice told you not to do. You did it and are not entirely satisfied with the outcome. This doesn't seem to contradict the advice.

Re: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

#176

Post by TeMPOraL »

fnord123 wrote: post #36
dcminter wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a quotation from "The Princess Bride" so mostly a joke. The land war the movie is referring to is Vietnam, not generally considered an American success story. In the movie the humour comes from the incongruity of the fantasy setting with the knowing political aside.

>The land war the movie is referring to is Vietnam From Hansard: https://bit.ly/2V7BgbK > The next war on land will be very different from the last one, in that we shall have to fight it in a different way. In reaching a decision on that matter, we must first be clear about certain rules of war. Rule 1, on page I of the book of war, is: "Do not march on Moscow". Various people have tried it, Napoleon and Hitler, and…

And then the next paragraph goes:

> The more I study the problem of future war, which I do a good deal, the more I reach the conclusion that air power and sea power will provide the main offensive punch in an unlimited nuclear war of the future. Their offensive power must be mobile. Land power will be essential as a direct "stop" on the ground, in order to protect vital territories and peoples. But the strategy of those who fight on land will be defensive, since any considerable movement will not be possible owing to the terrific destruction caused to communications by nuclear bombardment, as well as by the movement of refugees. This latter is a terrific problem, and during the ten years in which I served in Supreme Headquarters in Europe, we never could get the refugee problem seriously tackled. The sea must be exploited increasingly to give surface strategical mobility, and to provide mobile launching sites for nuclear weapons.

At which point I'm starting to feel sick in my stomach and decide to abandon reading whatever it is that I was just reading. I'm already in a bad head space thanks to COVID-19, I don't want to contemplate the realities of a world in the middle of a war in which nuclear weapons are used as actual weapons.

Re: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

#177

Post by wpietri »

fergonco wrote: post #32
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #7

> Learn how to take a 20-minute power nap without embarrassment I've found the lockdown great for trying this - a run, lunch then 15 minutes on the sofa. It's like rebooting the day.

Another unsolicited advice, from a 40yo this time: do not use alarm clocks to wake up. The pressure shifts to the evening because you have to go to sleep early if you want to wake up early. And then it magically happens that you sleep as much as you need. Being a long time supporter of naps I find myself not doing them at all. Of course this applies only if you have flexible hours to work, don't have appointments, et…

100% agreed. My life got a lot better when I focused on controlling my sleeping time rather than my waking time.

Although personally, I don't think one needs flexible working hours to achieve it. Once I got my habits and home lighting right, my sleep cycle very naturally became: sleep at +/- 10:30, wake at +/- 6:30. That only works if I stay out of sleep debt, of course. But that's entirely worth it; I didn't realize how much sleep debt was harming my mental clarity until I experienced a long stretch of sleeping enough every night.

Re: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

#178

Post by projektfu »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #147
projektfu wrote: post #72

"Hire for aptitude, train for skills" is a very software development oriented view. Training on its own is difficult and most available employees outside of engineering don't have a habit of self teaching. I've done a lot better with experienced people in my hires in my profession.

I suspect you live in the US. "Train for skills" is much more common in other countries, although less common than it used to be. Those experienced hires didn't get to be experienced at zero cost to anyone - other employers enabled them to become experienced. Be a good employer and do your part of the process: train for skills (so that someone else can hire those people too)

Sure, I'll just go ask my HR department to generate a training plan and hire a training department for my 9 person practice.

Re: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

#179

Post by projektfu »

wpietri wrote: post #172
projektfu wrote: post #72

"Hire for aptitude, train for skills" is a very software development oriented view. Training on its own is difficult and most available employees outside of engineering don't have a habit of self teaching. I've done a lot better with experienced people in my hires in my profession.

The author of that post isn't in software; he's a writer and editor. E.g., he founded Wired magazine, and runs Cool Tools: https://kk.org/cooltools/

OK, so perhaps it extends to journalism. It's a sentiment I would have agreed with wholeheartedly when I was in software, and here in veterinary medicine I know that training is difficult, people with seemingly high aptitude often don't help you train them, and experience is a great measure of someone's ability.

Re: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

#180

Post by TeMPOraL »

zvrba wrote: post #21

> Before you are old, attend as many funerals as you can bear, and listen. Nobody talks about the departed’s achievements. The only thing people will remember is what kind of person you were while you were achieving. Or visit a graveyard and read the tombstones.

Where I live, most tombstones have one of the few popular sayings or Bible verses on them. I'm sure the choice of a particular one was deeply meaningful to the person making that choice, but it gives zero information (above "probably wasn't an atheist") to an outside observer.
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