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Thin desires are eating life

joanwestenberg.com

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Re: Thin desires are eating life

#131

Post by workfromspace »

This reminds me of the definiton by Lionel Robbins:

   > Economics is the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses.
Or the simpler version I remember:

   > Economics is about allocating limited natural resources to unlimited human desire.

Re: Thin desires are eating life

#133

Post by tayo42 »

PaulHoule wrote: post #102
throwaway_2494 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I feel there is a genuine insight at the core of it.

I think that LinkedIn writing style is so infectious that people who do have something to say wind up getting sucked into it and wind up dodging tomatoes in the comment section as a result.

>wind up dodging tomatoes in the comment section as a result.

Pretty sure the first rule of writing on the internet is ignore the comments section

Re: Thin desires are eating life

#134

Post by ghostie_plz »

neuralkoi wrote: post #112
ianstormtaylor wrote: post #47

I can't help but feel that this article was written in a format that is the textual equivalent of thin desires… Every sentence is separated into its own paragraph, like each one is supposed to be revelatory (or maybe tweet-worthy). It's pretty common design knowledge that if you try to emphasize everything, you end up emphasizing nothing. The result is that reading the article feels choppy, and weirdly unsatisfying,…

It's not just you. I've read this person's stuff before. Every sentence comes off as if they are presenting the results of a major epiphany. You can write things which sound pretty. It's the equivalent of wordy sugar. It's much harder to to write things you've learned from life experience or thought deeply about. Subject your beliefs to the Socratic method. If they've survived your own criticism to the fullest extent…

I agree with the general sentiment of your comment, but not this:

> then maybe they've got an inkling of truth and they're worth writing about.

Ideas don't have to be infallible to be worth writing about. It's a slippery slope to not writing at all.

Re: Thin desires are eating life

#135

Post by ablob »

tobyjsullivan wrote: post #106
ianstormtaylor wrote: post #47

I can't help but feel that this article was written in a format that is the textual equivalent of thin desires… Every sentence is separated into its own paragraph, like each one is supposed to be revelatory (or maybe tweet-worthy). It's pretty common design knowledge that if you try to emphasize everything, you end up emphasizing nothing. The result is that reading the article feels choppy, and weirdly unsatisfying,…

Reading, I knew someone would comment on it. I actually prefer the style - maybe because my attention span is shot. But I think it’s more because the author made sure each sentence was content heavy. No verbose paragraphs. And paragraphs made of dense sentences are themselves dense and become harder to read. Reflect on the structure of your own comment. I suspect you were not intentionally trying to be ironic. Edit:…

A paragraph is a feature designed to help the reader understand the writer's intentions. If it is used all the time, just like here, then it ceases to be helpful in marking breaks in trains of thought; or anything for that matter.

Consider the following excerpt of the post:

  The thick life doesn't scale.

  That's the whole point.

  So: bake bread.
There is absolutely no information there that would warrant three full stops. I also don't know the author nearly well enough to consider pondering its meaning: To my eyes there is only a need to stop and ponder at most once. It is essentially just noise.

There is something to be gained from the text, but it is overblown in size due to what appears to be a lack of time or skill of the author.

PS: If some context is missing in the excerpt: Well to bad that there is no natural marker signifying that a train of thought has concluded (or started).

Re: Thin desires are eating life

#136

Post by yial »

I’ve heard of “Idiot wisdom” and “wise wisdom”.

Idiot wisdom - is generic platitudes that sound nice, but aren’t actionable.

Wise wisdom- might not always sound nice, but is actionable.

My ego likes this article, if I believe that I pursue thick desires.

But some part of me thinks (and perhaps due to the written style ). That this is idiot wisdom.

Another commenter mentioned it ties to Tanha in Buddhism.

I don’t know. But- off to read some Shunryu Suzuki….

Re: Thin desires are eating life

#137

Post by esperent »

fn-mote wrote: post #130
DarmokJalad1701 wrote: post #44

> The yeast doesn't care about your schedule. > The dough will rise when it rises, indifferent to your optimization. Joke's on them! I run my oven until the temperature inside is ~100F - about a minute or so. Then I turn it off and set the dough in there along with some water (for humidity). It rises super fast compared to my kitchen which is ~65F in the winter and the bread is just as flavorful. Definitely not indif…

> the bread is just as flavorful “Thin bread.” No sourdough enthusiast or artisanal bread baker would agree. You even get a different metabolic pathway active at higher temps. Try the “low and slow” method, rise then let it sit a day in the fridge, see if it’s really the same taste.

I run a sourdough bakery with my partner, as it happens. Although I'm not a baker, coming from a mathematics background I'm the one most focused on process and quality control. We don't use any commercial yeast so I've picked a few things related to targeting different flavors using the same starter.

We use different temperature profiles during proofing for different products (we have fancy proofing fridges where we set temperature profiles over a 12 to 36 hour period depending on the product). Low and slow is good for certain types of bread, or pizza base. But not so much for a brioche or croissant dough.

I personally love slow fermented, heavy rye based sourdough, but lots of our customers don't and the bread we sell most is a classic white sourdough fermented comparatively quickly at higher temperature for a lighter and less sour taste. It's still very slow fermentation compared to commercial yeast, of course.

The proofing temperature profile for this bread isn't as simple as "start warm and gradually cool down" (i.e. the warm oven method), but that is a reasonable approximation for a home baker.

Re: Thin desires are eating life

#138

Post by aoeusnth1 »

tobyjsullivan wrote: post #106
ianstormtaylor wrote: post #47

I can't help but feel that this article was written in a format that is the textual equivalent of thin desires… Every sentence is separated into its own paragraph, like each one is supposed to be revelatory (or maybe tweet-worthy). It's pretty common design knowledge that if you try to emphasize everything, you end up emphasizing nothing. The result is that reading the article feels choppy, and weirdly unsatisfying,…

Reading, I knew someone would comment on it. I actually prefer the style - maybe because my attention span is shot. But I think it’s more because the author made sure each sentence was content heavy. No verbose paragraphs. And paragraphs made of dense sentences are themselves dense and become harder to read. Reflect on the structure of your own comment. I suspect you were not intentionally trying to be ironic. Edit:…

In what way were the sentences content heavy? It's quite repetitive, and often the meaning of a section of it will be split into individual fragments.

I get it.

One sentence pragraphs feel punchy.

It feels like you're writing copy for an Apple ad.

..but it only works when it's in another medium, in a shorter format. In this form, it's just exhausting.

Re: Thin desires are eating life

#139

Post by kjkjadksj »

godelski wrote: post #91
IceCoffe wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im just learning this is a thing, tell me more, how long do you leave it in there? Any ratio's you use?

Baking is weird. You first should start by following instructions to the letter. Then once you get it you'll be able to break all the rules. The bread rises because of the yeast bacteria eats sugar and expels carbon dioxide. So ask yourself, what does yeast like? Probably not hard to guess that it's a warm, moist environment with plenty of sugar. Too cold and they're slow moving. Too hot and they burn up. But the gol…

Yeast is fungus not bacteria. In lab setting it tends to be incubated at 30c, a little cooler compared to most bacteria at 37c.
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