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Maybe the default settings are too high

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Re: Maybe the default settings are too high

#291

Post by selbyk »

michaelt wrote: post #192
jibal wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if that were true (and it obviously isn't), what then would be the point of expending tremendous time and energy to "dam it off and keep it dry"? These are alternative ways to keep the tents dry ... which entails that they were never soaked in the first place. > A tent that’s been in a lake The tents were never in the lake. A few inches of the campsite was in the lake at high water. > sounds like a throwaway to…

> The tents were never in the lake. A few inches of the campsite was in the lake at high water. [...] Those words don't appear anywhere. Try looking at the actual words and not just your mental images. I think some people are interpreting “campsite” as the literal space occupied by the tent’s ground sheet while you are interpreting it as the broader area - which in an organised institutional arrangement might be call…

I've always understood "campground" to be a whole area open to camping with dozens or hundreds of campers. A campsite is where your group's claim is staked and the area you occupy including picnic tables, fires, etc--not just the tent.

Re: Maybe the default settings are too high

#292

Post by eszed »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #52
eszed wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't wait to read LOTR to my (now four-year-old) son. Been looking forward to it since we started trying for a kid. Seriously, peak fatherhood moment. I'll savor it. That (and a few others are) on the embargo list: he's not allowed to see the film before we read the books. I wish I'd got Winnie the Pooh on there in time.

You're at a good time for The Hobbit. Strangely I find that Winnie the Pooh does not age well and is an awkward read. The Wind in the Willows is good beginning around that age too.

Yeah, I'd have thought so. The lad's a little behind on appreciating narrative, though. Loves books, but can't yet focus on anything that isn't ~= pictures::words. It's fine; he'll get there.

Love both Pooh, and Wind in the Willows, and will enjoy seeing how they take him.

Re: Maybe the default settings are too high

#293

Post by Ericson2314 »

mtoner23 wrote: post #123
Ericson2314 wrote: post #61

I'm sympathetic to the general point, but with food, you can always just eat more! Best of both worlds!

????

If you read the lord of the rings faster, you run out of lord or the rings sooner — there's no away around this. But if you eat faster, you can just eat more food. You can eat just as long, and end up feeling just as full. There is no need to eat slower to prolong the enjoyment of flavor.

Re: Maybe the default settings are too high

#294

Post by kbutler »

m463 wrote: post #102
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Noooo. Audio books feed you the content at someone else’s pace, not at your (slow) pace, which is exactly what TFA advocates. Or, what are you going to do? Hit Pause after each sentence so you can fully digest and savor it?

I think a long drive in the car is complemented exceptionally well by audiobooks. and audiobooks with really good narrators? the miles will melt away. (I like Wil Wheaton) (don't know about lotr oudiobooks) (currently part way through we are legion read by ray porter)

We had tried video in the car for our teens, but found that audio books worked a lot better - shared experience, nobody has a bad angle/line of sight, can still see the scenery and engage in the travel, less looking down prompting motion sickness, etc.

Though now that everybody has a device, we have to intentionally opt for a shared experience, rather than 1:1 devices.

Re: Maybe the default settings are too high

#295

Post by stigok »

I think of this when I brush my teeth and realize I'm trying to be fast. I am tense and rapid, just rushing ahead to nowhere. I'm not really in a hurry.

It is also possible to walk at incredible low speeds. Some times, I try to force myself to walk as slowly as I dear. It is hard to walk slow in a city full of people. It feels silly. However, it feels great once you've actually slowed down.

Re: Maybe the default settings are too high

#296

Post by pardon_me »

ErigmolCt wrote: post #244
delichon wrote: post #6

My dad was a busy construction contractor. One summer he tore himself away from work and took the family to a week long boat camp out next to a big beautiful lake. It turned out that our campsite was actually in the lake by a few inches at high water, but dad saw a way to dam it off and keep it dry, so he grabs the shovel and starts digging trenches and building walls and ordering us around. About an hour into that,…

Slowing down isn't passive, it's a conscious choice

It often takes energy to relax.

Re: Maybe the default settings are too high

#297

Post by fluoridation »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #289
fluoridation wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really "information" in the information-theoretic sense that the other person was using, when it can be rewritten in all manner of different ways while conveying the same overall mood. The densest way to communicate "Sam and Frodo walk across the plain towards Mt. Doom. They're both really tired" is exactly that. All the other words one would write around that core idea would not provide any more specifici…

> The densest way to communicate "Sam and Frodo walk across the plain towards Mt. Doom. They're both really tired" is exactly that Uh, yes. This is press-release speak, optimised for a fourth grader’s reading comprehension. If, on the other hand, you want to develop the motif of the Unseen—central to Tolkien’s work—the type of tired the characters are and how they’re detecting and addressing it is incredibly germane,…

The type of tired is "really". What happens is not that there's some additional information that I'm not communicating in that one sentence, but rather that the time it takes you to read "they're both really tired" is not enough for your mind to dwell on the idea and empathize with the characters. Now, if I instead were to write "They're both really tired. They're super tired. Oh man, they're so tired. They're so tired, you've never been this tired in your life", that would be extremely shitty writing, but it would give you time to ruminate on the information.

Re: Maybe the default settings are too high

#298

Post by godelski »

elxr wrote: post #264
godelski wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long have you been programming? I actually felt like I learned the most when I stopped going to Google and StackOverflow for solutions and instead moved to docs. It's far less direct but the information is much more rich. All that auxiliary information compounds. I want to skip it, feeling rushed to get an answer, but I've always been the better for taking the "scenic route". I'd then play around and learn how to…

Close to 5 years. I read docs too and love the immersion and the fully grasping of concepts when going with your route, but most days there's just not enough hours for this. > The boring work is where you usually learn the most. It's also the time you don't recognize that's happening That was always how I did it before mid-2025. And I do still do boring work when I truly want to master something, but doing that too m…

5 years isn't that long. I've been doing 3X that and I'm constantly learning new things. Not even about new language features but even languages I've been using that whole time. New ways to problem solve. New algorithms. New tools.

Not finishing things can be okay but also not. An important skill to learn is what's good enough. And to write good enough to be easily upgradable. It's important to write code to be flexible for this reason. It's also important to realize it's okay to completely throw away code. But also this is the reason comments are so important. Don't just write what functions do but also write how you envision the design. Even if you can't get to it now. Then when you or anyone else comes back (after lunch, next week, next year, whenever) there's good hints about all that. Knowing how to get up to speed and be effective fast. If anything this helps agents even more. Commenting is a vastly under appreciated skill and only becoming more valuable

Re: Maybe the default settings are too high

#299

Post by nerdsniper »

bee_rider wrote: post #273
nerdsniper wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A “campsite” is a relatively flat and relatively root/stump-free patch of dirt. That’s it. Also tents are generally not made out of the canvas material you linked that yurts and teepees might be made from. Tents are generally made of a very wuick-drying, thin synthetic. And like the other person said, this does make it seem like you’ve potentially never been camping but i don’t want to gatekeep the definition of “cam…

Have you tried hammock camping? I only tried it at a campground, so, maybe there are some downsides I missed for the real backpackers. But it was pretty cool to not care about roots, the flatness of my patch of ground, or anything like that.

I have! And i do love it. Hammocks generally benefit from very dense forest/tree cover just in case it’s raining!

Re: Maybe the default settings are too high

#300

Post by ghaff »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #287
ghaff wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you're presumably paying a premium for a nice resort, why wouldn't you spend a lot of your time taking advantage of it?

Yes, if you want to get out and do things, better to go for low or mid range. You don’t want your room to feel like a huge sunk cost.

I tend to default to a midrange place as I'm not much interested in spending a lot of time by the pool. And when traveling on business, if meals weren't being covered, I didn't actually much care for resorts when I felt like a bit of of a prisoner in terms of meals etc.
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