verylittlemeat (u/verylittlemeat)

verylittlemeat commented on BookWyrm is a federated Goodreads replacement wedistribute.org/2021/08/... · Posted by u/dredmorbius

the_biot · 4 years ago

In other words, stop trying, let's just stick with the current terrible status quo. That's a supremely unhelpful comment to make, intended to discourage anyone from improving things ever. Shall we all just go back to a cave and knock some rocks together?

verylittlemeat · 4 years ago

It's a reality check for anyone who makes a better goodreads and doesn't understand why it never gains traction.

It's on par with complaining about facebook and creating your own better version of facebook while completely ignoring the reason why everyone is on facebook to begin with.

verylittlemeat commented on BookWyrm is a federated Goodreads replacement wedistribute.org/2021/08/... · Posted by u/dredmorbius

input_sh · 4 years ago

- It sucks at recommending books. You may stumble upon some book in the home feed, but its recommendation is as good as if it didn't exist.

- Lists suck. For example, it never anticipates even something as simple as abandoning a book (though you can create that).

- There's like a whole industry of faking ratings and nobody cares about it enough to do anything about it.

- It's owned by Amazon, but Amazon basically didn't touch it since the acquisition almost a decade ago.

Well, they did so recently to kill the API access, which was its #1 selling point to me. I liked using it by not visiting their ugly design ever, but that's not a possibility anymore.

verylittlemeat · 4 years ago

Goodreads will always win simply because it's where all the users are.

Like reddit or any huge site its usefulness isn't in the presented top layer (recommendations/front page/popular list of x) it's the depth of millions of users.

If you read a relatively obscure book and look it up on goodreads then you read through the reviews to find users who gave a high quality write up and then look at that user's profile. This will lead you to other users and books that are actual quality.

You could create a smaller website with a higher quality surface level but it's going to be infected with the bias of a small "elite" userbase making it a basically useless echo chamber.

verylittlemeat commented on Ask HN: Words of encouragement for someone lost in life? · Posted by u/LoserInLife

meheleventyone · 5 years ago

The advice does play into classic masculine stereotypes though. Almost like a movie trope where the hopeless nerd finds out he really was a cool jock the entire time.

Throw away your nerdy shit, get ripped in the gym, learn martial arts and dress well.

All that’s fine if that’s what you want but I don’t think it’s particularly aspirational for everyone. Even if elements like regular exercise and broadened activities are pretty universal good advice.

It’s also of it’s time and reading this feels like a lot of the advice givers are quite a bit older. The generation in their early twenties have different social mores and aspirations.

And hard as it may be to learn even ripped dudes that are snappy dressers can be depressed and can feel stuck in life.

verylittlemeat · 5 years ago

OP is suggesting a starting place for people who feel unmoored. It's an anecdote giving him a formula to try on for size.

The kind of person who has strong feelings about their sense of style (for example dressing more feminine) already has achieved a kind of center or "normal" for their personality that the person who posted this lacks.

verylittlemeat commented on New Records Show the NYPD’s Favored Punishment: Less Vacation Time projects.propublica.org/n... · Posted by u/danso

throwaway625 · 5 years ago

I'd like to explain one of the 45 day "rips" (loss of vacation time is called a rip in the NYPD) because most of the commenters lack the context to fully understand what's going on.

First, being ripped doesn't mean you lose money, it means you lose your vacation days. Vacation is assigned to you typically in blocks for 5 days, and members with 5.5 years or more of service get 26 days of vacation (5 weeks).

Being ripped means you work the days you would have had off. In the end there is no real loss to pay. That being said, getting a 45 day rip essentially means you don't take vacation for 24 months, and the only days you have off are your RDOs(regular days off, they rotate throughout the year due to the nature of shift work.)

Not being able to decompress for more than 2 days at a time is horrible in general and especially true in law enforcement, and I bet some members would rather lose thousands of dollars in pay in the form of a fine than not be able to take vacation for 2 years straight. This is not an option, you must lose the vacation days.

Did knowingly associate with a person or organization reasonably believed to be engaged in, likely to engage in, or to have engaged in criminal activities.

While on sick report, was wrongfully and without just cause absent from said residence without the permission of said officer's district surgeon and/or health services division sick desk supervisor.

While on sick report, left the confines of the city and residence counties without approval of the deputy commissioner of personnel.

Having changed her residence, did fail and neglect to notify her commanding officer by submitting form change of name, residence or social condition.

Did fail and neglect to notify the department of criminal activity committed by a person known to the department.

While on-duty, did wrongfully conduct personal business while on duty.

While on-duty, did fail and neglect to maintain activity log.

Essentially what this is, is a cop that was associating with a known criminal, but didn't necessarily do anything illegal. The department was looking for something to "get" them on, and how they "got" them was by following them home.

When you call in sick in the NYPD, you report to a department doctor (district surgeon) and then you must be in your primary residence (that the NYPD was informed of) during the time of your normal shift. From time to time, they send people around to check to see if you're home. They most likely sent someone to check on this cop hoping/knowing they wouldn't be there.

It turns out that this cop was in another location, which was reported to the NYPD as their primary residence.

Many of the citations in their record deal with being punished for lying about where they live.

"Personal business" could be anything not related to your job. For instance: they got you on a recording calling a friend on duty.

"fail and neglect to maintain activity log" most likely means that the NYPD confiscated all of their memo books (you're required to keep every single one you've used from the moment you report to the police academy to the moment you retire. Cops accrue dozens and dozens over a typical career. Almost no one has perfect memo books, and this rule is selectively enforced to punish people when they can't find anything else.

To summarize: This police officer was associating with someone the NYPD didn't want them associating with, and after investigation, held them accountable in the form of not being able to take vacation for 2 years because they were living at a different address than they reported, conducted personal business on duty, and did not have perfect memo books filled out to exacting standards over the course of their career.

It's very likely that the person they were associating with was a real problem, and that is why they got such a relatively heavy punishment. There's no way to know for sure, those secrets remain secret forever.

You may ask, Why are there so many convoluted rules regarding the minute to minute lives of the NYPD? and the answer is over 175 years of tradition and the collective bargaining agreement.

Source: Member of the NYPD

verylittlemeat · 5 years ago

thread is pretty dead at this point but interesting comment thanks for typing it all out

verylittlemeat commented on HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know rachelbythebay.com/w/2021... · Posted by u/atg_abhishek

crispyambulance · 5 years ago

None of these "cash out your lifesavings of 100K" when you're a 20-something and go live in the woods/foreign-country plans are realistic.

Sure, it's theoretically possible, but it's much better to redirect that effort into finding a job you can live with in your own county. Nothing wrong with a bit of wanderlust, and you can certainly get that out of your system with the safety-net of a sustainable career. Do I sound like a parent yet?

The expat thing is done by every generation, it doesn't stick. Gen-X-ers (my people) went to Prague, had great times, made lifelong friends, saved nothing, often developed mild drinking problems, in the end they lost a few years of their earning potential. Did it develop character? Yes. Could it have been done in other ways? Yes. Was it worth it? ehh.

There are other ways to escape from the searing banality of a career inside of Mega-corps filled with assholes, HR drones, soul-sucking labor.

verylittlemeat · 5 years ago

It's psychologically comforting and you don't need to be an expat for it to be realistic. I agree that most people underestimate the value of creating a sustainable low stress life in their home country. Many people I know in the US seem to think working here means building up constant stress that eventually needs to be blown off in an orgy of travel and degeneracy.

I have about 80k in liquidity and in the back of my mind it's reassuring to know that if something went wrong at my job or I burnt out or got fired I would be ok. With just my savings I could rent a room in my city for something close to 10 years, including all basic necessities. Even just taking a part time minimum wage job I could easily double that time frame.

As it is I live happily in a small space with a very frugal lifestyle. Paradoxically I think going to work knowing that I could walk away at any time actually makes me a healthier and more productive person/employee.

verylittlemeat commented on FFmpeg is 20 years old today twitter.com/ffmpeg/status... · Posted by u/Daemon404

riidom · 5 years ago

There are also tools with a GUI that make use of ffmpeg (calling them a GUI-wrapper is probably not fair). And ofc, they likely can't do everything ffmpeg CLI can.

One I know is https://handbrake.fr

Are there more?

verylittlemeat · 5 years ago

I use Axiom to do basic ffmpeg stuff on a regular basis and it's never let me down.

https://axiomui.github.io/

verylittlemeat commented on The web is 30 years old today home.cern/science/computi... · Posted by u/Anon84

dannyw · 5 years ago

I still find the web to be so beautiful.

I can talk and meet people all around the world.

I can stream hundreds of videos around every conceivable topic, in 4K60 resolution, on-demand.

I can make a livelihood without ever stepping feet out of my home; and conversely, work from almost anywhere that'll give me a visa.

The digitized information of our civilization is just one search away.

verylittlemeat · 5 years ago

I think people underestimate how much of the spirit of the old internet still exists.

For example, many twitch channels have an active offline chat that isn't advertised or even sanctioned by the actual streamer. I lurk/idle in the offline chat for a streamer who gets maybe 200-300 viewers per stream and there are now about a dozen of us from all over the world who have become friends over a decade. At this point many of us have met in real life or sent each other packages.

When I was younger I was very active on a small independent irc server and it was almost an identical experience.

verylittlemeat commented on Early humans may have survived the harsh winters by hibernating theguardian.com/science/2... · Posted by u/ystad

vfc1 · 5 years ago

I remember reading something like russian poor farmers that didn't have enough food for the winter to do this, it was called Lotska, which reported in scientific papers over 100 years ago - http://inhumanexperiment.blogspot.com/2010/03/curious-case-o...

"At the first fall of snow the whole family gathers round the stove, lies down, ceases to wrestle with the problems of human existence, and quietly goes to sleep. Once a day every one wakes up to eat a piece of hard bread, of which an amount sufficient to last six months has providently been baked in the previous autumn. When the bread has been washed down with a draught of water, everyone goes to sleep again. The members of the family take it in turn to watch and keep the fire alight."

But I don't find many reliable source about it. Does anyone if this is really true? It sounds hard to believe.

verylittlemeat · 5 years ago

Some people might find this video interesting. Family that fled into the siberian taiga for 70 years to avoid religious persecution. One thing that stands out in my memory is how they said their main form of entertainment was sharing and analyzing their dreams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt2AYafET68

verylittlemeat commented on Why I Wrote “The Crucible” (1996) newyorker.com/magazine/19... · Posted by u/thazework

jacobwilliamroy · 5 years ago

No not literal nazis. They're just fascist white supremacists. I don't understand why so many people dislike using "nazi" as a shorthand for "fascist white supremacists".

verylittlemeat · 5 years ago

I'm reading the wiki on them (admittedly not the best or most unbiased source) and I don't really buy that they're white supremacists since among other things their leader is afro-cuban. But fascistic sure, I could see that.

Without playing the enlightened centrist card too strongly I don't see anything particularly more disturbing about the proud boys than I have from antifa. Of course antifa can't be accused of being fascistic since their name is literally "anti-fascism" and if you call yourself anti facist then obviously it is impossible to be a fascist.

verylittlemeat commented on Why I Wrote “The Crucible” (1996) newyorker.com/magazine/19... · Posted by u/thazework

lehi · 5 years ago

This was DC yesterday: https://twitter.com/ShelbyTalcott/status/1337939112649748480

Don'tcha know.

verylittlemeat · 5 years ago

Proud boys are literal nazis?