dekleinewolf (u/dekleinewolf)

dekleinewolf commented on All clothing is handmade (2022) ruthtillman.com/post/all-... · Posted by u/panic

achenet · 5 months ago

Being unable to find underwear that properly suited me, I tried making my own clothes a while back.

The experience was hugely humbling, and completely robbed me of any belief I had in the idea that "hard work pays off" - the person who made my pants probably works 12 hours a day, 6 days in a week in an awful sweatshop, producing garments of a quality I couldn't hope to approximate, and is paid a few dollars a day, while I have a cushy, well paid dev job where I work a fraction of those hours and get paid a few orders of magnitude more.

A friend did (correctly) remark that this was due to programming skills being rarer and more valuable than sewing skills, and this is true, but I remain highly suspicious of anyone suggesting that "work harder" is a route to riches.

dekleinewolf · 5 months ago

Agree. As a programmer that likes to sew in her free time; I do think it is significantly easier to pick 10 random people of the street and make them into excellent sewists within a year than to make them into good programmers.

Programming is harder and more specialized, but it's not harder work.

dekleinewolf commented on Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring · Posted by u/eltonlin

andai · a year ago

Re: incentives being weird in higher education: we once overheard the director of the CS department respond to complaints about the program not being a good fit for industry by saying, "our job is to create researchers."

I recall something like 7% of students going on into research, meaning that they weren't even trying to meet the needs of 93% of their students.

dekleinewolf · a year ago

It's way easier to make a good programmer out of a researcher than a researcher out of a programmer.

I have always had programming jobs (job title: software engineer) that required the 'researcher' mindset. We didn't mind teaching them our stack or even good coding practice, but if they didn't have the 'explorative/innovative mind' of a 'researcher', we could never train them up to the level they needed to be.

dekleinewolf commented on Chicken Sexing and Knowing adadithya.medium.com/chic... · Posted by u/trojanalert

Aromasin · a year ago

Related to this, I had been dreaming up an idea for a start-up for a while that uses computer imaging techniques to do non-invasive in-ovo sexing of bird eggs for the poultry industry. It seems criminal that we gas or drop into a macerator over half of the chickens hatched. It's just so cruel and seems like it could be done at an embryonic stage where they don't yet have the capacity for pain or sentience.

Turns out that since the last time I started doing some initial testing with my university MRI machine, someone has already run with the idea in Germany and it looks like they have a viable product that customers are already using: https://orbem.ai/solutions-poultry-egg-scanning-classificati...

This is awesome, exciting, and I hope it becomes the norm for the industry.

dekleinewolf · a year ago

And that's not the only one :).

The company I work at worked on this one: https://inovo.nl/

dekleinewolf commented on Plastics producers deceived public about recycling, report reveals theguardian.com/us-news/2... · Posted by u/cromulent

nickff · 2 years ago

If a small-medium sized company exports a product, it's very difficult to get involved in recycling/disposal, and there are a lot of small-medium sized companies exporting. Not everyone has a subsidiary in every province of every country, and shipping all used products back to HQ is probably more carbon-intensive than just throwing stuff in a landfill.

dekleinewolf · 2 years ago

But you can solve this systematically by just having that medium sized company pay for it. They don't have to do it; but they have to pay for it; meaning the cost will be transferred along to the end user.

dekleinewolf commented on EU chip goal 'unrealistic' says ASML CEO electronicsweekly.com/new... · Posted by u/jernejzen

EtienneK · 2 years ago

Those salaries seem quite low compared to the Randstad. If these are true, then the answer is "Yes"...

dekleinewolf · 2 years ago

Can you name me 3 tech companies in the Randstad that aren't consultancy that pay more than that?

I don't think these numbers are exceptionally high but they're not low either.

Source: Former SWE, current PM in the Randstad.

dekleinewolf commented on EU chip goal 'unrealistic' says ASML CEO electronicsweekly.com/new... · Posted by u/jernejzen

Moldoteck · 2 years ago

Isn't the pay smaller compared to other big companies in NL?

dekleinewolf · 2 years ago

ASML is well known for it's exceptionally high pay compared to other Dutch tech companies.

dekleinewolf commented on The failure of self-checkout technology bbc.com/worklife/article/... · Posted by u/LaksiMati

shellfishgene · 2 years ago

Why would stores invest so much into the self checkout tech if it does not save labor/cost?

dekleinewolf · 2 years ago

The point is that the labor is moved to the customer (and is now unpaid labor). So it's not 'less labor' but it is definitely 'less labor costs'.

Think 'serverless' technology - there is still a server, it's just no longer owned by you.

Seeing how the customer had to wait for the labor to be executed anyway in the past, I see this as a win.

dekleinewolf commented on Why I didn't play this harpsichord sooner taylor.town/harpsichord... · Posted by u/surprisetalk

surprisetalk · 2 years ago

Author here!

My wife (also raised SDA) saw this article and literally told me,

"Oh, my aunt built a harpsichord from scratch when I was a kid"

Looks like my metaphor wasn't so farfetched haha

dekleinewolf · 2 years ago

I... completely didn't get that it was a metaphor.

I also still very much agree with Joe. Everyone derives pleasure from other avenues.

For me it's playing an actual musical instrument with other people. Not writing blogs.

dekleinewolf commented on Lessons from a never-ending personal project siddhesh.substack.com/p/p... · Posted by u/weekendvampire

adrium · 2 years ago

Nice article with interesting thoughts and I appreciate the quotes - but I respectfully disagree that 'finishing a personal project you’re doing just for yourself is impossible'

I think it's really important to first reflect on the purpose when doing something: is it to solve a problem, is it to learn something, is it to achieve a target, is it to keep yourself busy to wind down and because you like doing it, or is it to promote yourself.

The next step is to define a goal and a scope - not a deadline.

When realizing it, it is important to take a pragmatic approach. All activities should lead towards achieving the goal - do not overengineer.

This way, projects can actually get finished.

From personal experience, I have been successful in software projects, sports competitions, building objects and furniture, and doing musical projects.

Success being defined as achieving the set goal and having completed the project.

Their purpose was never to selfpromote and the activity rarely involved creating art. So maybe art is a niche that is never finished...

Mid next year, I want to pick up writing a blog. The primary purpose is to 'keep myself busy' because I have never delved into this activity and I am curious about the process. The secondary purpose is to improve my literacy: I want to be able to read and write more efficiently, because my new job will require that. And the tertiary goal is to self-promote.

Elaborating on the topic of finishing projects would make a perfect first article. Thanks to the author for your inspiration!

dekleinewolf · 2 years ago

Completely agree.

I sew clothes. The vast majority of projects I start get finished. Sometimes I'm happy with the result, sometimes I'm not. I wear them regardless. My kids wear them. After a while they grow out of them.

Goal achieved, project finished.

dekleinewolf commented on Beginner's guide to arguing constructively (2020) liamrosen.com/arguments.h... · Posted by u/Brajeshwar

Daub · 2 years ago

> That's more performative arguing then constructive arguing, no?

That's a nice distinction. But from a practioners point if view, I see little difference. Who would argue without the implicit desire to convince/convert?

Agreed... It is a good list. The recommendation to argue in person and not via media is very pertinent.

One thing the list misses is the importance and power of facts. Indeed, the English philosopher Hume positioned facts as the atomic indivisible of philosophical discorse. Of course, facts can be twistered... But ultimately there is no such thing as 'your facts' and 'my facts'. Anyone with the facts at their disposal has the power of god in an argument. Like him or loath him, this acounts for the ability of Chriopher Hitchinns to completely destroy his opononets (Aka the famous Hitchslap).

dekleinewolf · 2 years ago

> Who would argue without the implicit desire to convince/convert?

Me? I'm an engineer, when I 'argue' with my co-workers, it is with the goal of finding the best solution. I don't care whose solution it is. I want to find consensus on what is the best solution.