• 2 Posts
  • 42 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: February 6th, 2025

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  • You’re getting good advice here, especially @Doomsider@lemmy.world

    2 months isn’t that long and you should keep your head up and keep trying. Discouragement and lack of effort are the enemy.

    I would add, consider your target industries. Different industries have different cycles and levels of available positions. If you’re mostly looking in retail, this might not be the right economy or time of year, etc. One industry that usually has high demand and might overlap with psychology is health care. Assisted living, home health care, and many related non-medical care environments have consistent staffing challenges and don’t require specific degrees in nursing or medical, etc. I paid my way through college that way and learned a lot of life lessons, including the reasons that work isn’t for everyone. YMMV

    There are probably some other under employed unglamorous jobs in your area if you look with fresh eyes. And as others said, volunteering some free time could be a win win, doing stuff keeps the spirit up and being involved creates opportunities.



  • I have been to the science fair, and the county science fair, and the state science fair.

    No, I didn’t touch my daughters project.

    At county, there was an obvious element of parent projects, but judges interviewed kids and weeded out those who didn’t know much about the project. Some winners there still had obvious assists, but at least they could interview.

    State was wild (CA). No parents in the hall during the day. Kids reported massive judging variations, little standardization and obvious tech bias. Her cognitive science category gave out all 3 awards for AI related projects.

    Check in was insane. Allowed material were the board and a few feet of space on the table. People were pulling in with trailers. Massive arguments, tears.

    Day of, kids were wearing fitted suits. Coordinated family outfits with ostentatious wealth on show. What a bizarre view of America.



  • Not quite. Dark forest says it’s dangerous out there, so everyone else is quiet. Not that we’re dangerous, but that we’re at risk by being noisy.

    We pose no real threat to any other civilization, we can’t get to them.

    It’s possible we’re being avoided because we’re loathsome in some way or various ways, but that’s not dark forest.

    It’s also possible we pose a risk we don’t understand (disease, culture, loudness) so we’re avoided / quarantined, but that is also not dark forest.

    More like Ostracized Planet.






  • Fair point. It lasted 4-5 years solid. 6-8 clearly rapid failure.

    Quickly is relative to the 10 year warranty.

    I paid (usd 5k plus - king size) with a warranty in mind. Was told ‘our material is different, worth it’ - Full sales job. I’m technical, but details matter and they’re proprietary. I trusted the warranty + brand, which was a bad, expensive move.

    Realistic expectations - memory foam lasts 4-5 years, more or less depending on pressure and humidity, and should be priced accordingly. YSK!






  • Also, burying doesn’t work in all geography, despite assumptions from some know it all folks.

    I grew up in a filled in wetland with buried lines. Between occasionally having outages due to water affecting the grid, and lines that like to resurface as soils sink and flow, it wasn’t ideal and probably explains some Florida grid choices.

    Then I lived in the mountains and in dense forest. Good luck luck burying lines in rugged mountains full of granite and ravine.

    And heavy forest is also an issue. You gonna go around all the trees? Cut them down?

    Grid reliability and line safety is a serious issue. We lose people and towns (see - Paradise fire) when it isn’t right. But the obvious solution in your corner of the world doesn’t work everywhere. Redundant connections, infrastructure maintenance, local supply all matter to many.

    And yes, good reliable backup options, including the massive investment in the driveway, can and do certainly help. As an EV driver who has lived through many days of blackout, I can say that at first, the EV is super helpful. Warm up, charge the phone battery, even run an extension cord in for smaller loads. But this won’t last long. After a day or two, charging the EV is its own problem.

    I also have a (small affordable) backup generator! And I know how to use it for critical loads (fridge, wifi / comms, light, chargers). When I was in more vulnerable places, I had a backup backup generator which allowed small engine work on the primary during blackouts, and with both firing meant I could trickle charge the car during day and use the battery for silent backup overnight.



  • I work on this stuff. Pretty interesting situation with Chinese competition.

    Western culture has both normalized a safety first culture and sensationalized all flying accidents. FAA was built to uphold these things. The barriers to entry are so high, that effectively zero new companies or innovative products were successful for 50 years. Today tech companies are leaning in to lead the new markets, but it takes billions to get through the barriers, and most find it better to launch in less regulated markets. Zipline from CA, for example, has been flying medical drone delivery in Africa for many years.

    Chinese leadership decide what priorities are, and are willing to tolerate some failure and loss. They bring products to market quicker internally, the products are less mature. This gives them the opportunity to iterate in the field, which is a competitive advantage. But with lower barriers to entry may come inferior products, and time will tell whether those orgs iterate to succeed faster than Western companies aiming for high initial capabilities, or if the Western companies have enough war chests to carry them to market with superior products or if they burn up trying.

    At the moment, my career hinges on the Western approach, but I very much appreciate every step to minimize barriers.

    And don’t worry so much, honestly. These things will be comparatively safe before they drop off your order or pick up your kids, no riskier than the ride in today. Unless you are an early adopter is a less regulated market, then keep your head up.