sylver_dragon

Anyone can build a bridge which stands. It takes a engineer to build a bridge which just stands, while not costing an insane amount of money.

That said, engineers throughout history were incredibly smart and shouldn’t be discounted.

Spaceballs?!?!

I never get any responses, until like 3 days later when I check my spam folder and realize my scheduled interview appointment came from some random server that got deleted as spam mail.

It sucks, but this is kinda on you. Spam filters are pretty terrible at what they do. And with everyone and their dog adding “AI” to their security tools, it’s only getting worse. There is a fuckton of spam being sent to email addresses all the time. And the spammers are doing their level best to make that spam look more and more like legitimate emails. So, the terrible spam filters and crappy AI are hard pressed to filter out all the crap and not catch legitimate emails. And this problem with false positives is one of the reasons a lot of spam still sneaks through, most of the filters tend to err towards false negatives over false positives. Still, false positives will happen. If you are expecting an important email, you’re going to need to dive into the cesspit which is your spam folder regularly and make sure that email didn’t end up there.

As for the issues around job hunting, ya that whole process can suck. Depending on your skillset, experience and job criteria, the pool can get pretty small pretty fast. And online job hunting means that companies are getting hundreds of resumes for postings. On top of that, companies have stopped training and don’t do anything to build internal talent pipelines. So, if you are earlier in your career, you get stuck in a loop of not having experience, so no one will hire you to get experience. It just sucks and I don’t have an answer for you, only to keep plugging away and understand it’s a numbers game. Eventually the dice will come up for you, but that “eventually” can really, really suck.

Do note that I made a mistake in the original post, but the conclusion was still the same. I forgot to divide the Expected Value (EV) for all dice by 6 (the number of faces).

If you could design a die with average face value of 3, min face value of 0, max face value of 6, what would be the best die?

I’m not sure how to prove this empirically, but playing with it on my whiteboard I get a sense that the die 444222 is going to have the best EV, under the given constraints and my value assignments. The real kicker is “average face value of 3”. Given that constraint, you will never be able to create a die with a positive or even zero EV using my values. Consider die 333333 and each face’s value:

This die has an average face value of 3 ( (3 * 6) / 3) and we can consider changing any face up or down. But, in order to keep the average a 3, moving one face up one number requires we move a different face down one number and vice-versa. For example, if we push one face from a 3 to a 4, we must also pull one face from a 3 to a 2 to balance out the average. And because the value for positive value numbers (4, 5, 6) starts off one doubling behind the values for the negative value numbers (3, 2, 1, 0), going any further than 4 in the positive direction on a face means that another face will be pushed down far enough to cancel out the benefit of going to a 5 or beyond.

To look at it another way (the way I did on my whiteboard), let’s just consider a two sided die (a coin flip). Using the same values for each number, we can consider a 33 coin. This has an EV of -1 ( (-1 * 2) / 2) and an average of 3 ( (3 * 2) / 2 ). Now, move the numbers, but keep the same average of 3. Moving to a 42 coin changes the EV to -1/2 ( (+1 + (-2)) / 2 ) and the average is still 3 ( (4 + 2) / 2 ). The EV got better. So, let’s take another step in each direction. We get a 51 coin with an EV of -1 ( (+2 + (-4)) / 2) and the average is unchanged at 3 ( (5 + 1) / 2 ). And going to a 60 coin takes us to an EV of -2 ( (+4 + (-8)) /2 ) with a average of 3 ( (6 + 0) / 2 ). This means that the best coin for this scenario is a 42 coin. Taking that coin idea back to the die, you can think of the die as a bunch of linked coins. If you want one face to be a 5 the one face must be a 2, which would be worse than having the pair of faces be a 4 and a 2. So, to maximize the EV, you want to create a bunch of 42 pairs.

Of course, we could fiddle with multiple faces at once. What about a 622233 die. Well, it gets worse. EV is -2/3 ( +4 + (-2) + (-2) + (-2) + (-1) + (-1))/6).
Maybe a 522333, EV is -5/6 ( (+2 + (-2) + (-2) + (-1) + (-1) + (-1)) / 6). Again, since lower numbers get a more negative valuation faster than higher numbers get a positive valuation, you just really don’t want to let numbers get any lower than necessary. The 42 paring just happens to hit a sweet spot where that effect isn’t yet pronounced enough to cause the EV to drop off.

So ya, while I don’t know the maths to prove it. I’m gonna say that the 444222 probably maximizes the EV under the given model.

Option C “222444”.
I coded successes as positive values and failures as negative values. I arbitrarily used a doubling for each greater success/failure level and came up with the following value coding:

This results in the following expected values for the offered dice:

A: -2
B: -1
C: -1/2
D: -1

All dice are bad, option C is the least bad. And this kinda makes sense. For option A, you may have a fantastic success, but you are also just as likely to complete crash out. And a “crash out” should happen after very few rolls. Option B is a slightly less extreme version of this, but any gains from the 5 results should be more than wiped out by the 1 results. And those should be happening with similar frequency. Option C is again the same thing, but with a slower circling of the drain. 4 results let you recover some, but the 2 wipes out that 4’s benefits and more resulting in a slow decline. And option D is just straight out bad, every result is a failure.

It seems that the only good choice is not to play. ;-)

EDIT: I realized, I made a mistake in my original numbers, I forgot to divide by 6. And this is why coffee should come before math. The conclusions are still the same, but the numbers are different. I’ve corrected those.

I’m going to go with option C with the following reasoning:
I’m going to assigned (somewhat arbitrarily) the following values to each outcome:

0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

• | - | - | - | - | - | - -8 | -4 | -2 | -1 | +1 | +2 | +4

This codes failure outcomes as having a negative value and success outcomes as having a positive value, with the value doubling for each increase in success/failure. So, the expected value for the 4 options are:

A: -12 B: -6 C: -3 D: -6

Meaning all of the options are bad, but the least bad is option C. And this makes some intuitive sense. You have an equal chance of success or failure and while no success will be all that spectacular, you will also never suffer a spectacular failure. Die A seems like an interesting choice, but you would expect to suffer a catastrophic failure about half the time and that may end your ability to keep rolling. Die B is a slightly less bad version of die A, and may be an ok choice, if a 1 result doesn’t result in you no longer being allowed to roll. Though, if you are not able to stop rolling whenever you want, a 5 outcome is likely to be wiped out fairly soon. Die D is just straight out bad. It always results in a failure; so, there is no point playing.

For indoor rock climbing (probably outdoor as well): you need, at least, two pairs of climbing shoes. One pair will be out for a re-sole and you can use the other. Though, don’t buy your own shoes until you are sure you’re going to stick with it for a while. No point ending up with used shoes you’ll never use again, because you finally decided the sport isn’t for you.

It was kinda thought of in the '50s. Ford’s concept the Nucleon was to use a fission reaction to heat water, which was used in a steam turbine engine. One of the issues folks worried about was, what happens in a crash? No, no one with a clue worried about a nuclear explosion, but the release of radioactive material would have been a real concern.

Some of this might change with the use of fusion. But, it’s going to be a long time before a fusion reactor would be small/light enough to slap in a car. At the moment, we haven’t really demonstrated a reactor which can commercially produce a net output of power. There has been some small scale experiments which technically produce more power than is used to initiate the fusion; but, that also relied a bit on an accounting trick (they only counted the energy of the lasers themselves, not the total energy used).

Also, when you get down to it, this is the ultimate goal of electric vehicles. Maybe someday, most of our electricity will come from grid scale fusion reactors. Those will charge the batteries which drive EVs. Moving the reactor into the car itself could happen some day. On the other hand, considering how poorly some folks maintain their cars now, would your really trust them to maintain a reactor? Again, not worried about explosions or anything silly. But, the release of radioactive material might still be a concern. It’s probably safe to just use batteries and keep the reactors locked up in large facilities.

Always look on the bright side of life

Did it a couple weeks ago and already received my refunds.
Ideally, I would balance by tax withholding such that I owe a small amount some tax time. And that payment would then be delayed as late as possible to provide the largest marginal value for that money. But, I’m lazy and instead have gone mostly with the defaults and that results in me getting a refund regularly. So, why let the government hold onto my money any longer than necessary? As soon as I have my documents in hand, I file.

Yup, learned as a child and was absolutely bewildered as a teenager when I met people who couldn’t. Made sure my kids knew how as well. Child drowning injury and deaths are sadly high in the US.

This has become my theme song.

At this scale, the stick isn’t as solid as your intuition would lead you to believe. Instead, you have to start thinking about the force at the atomic scale. The atoms in your hand have an outer shell of electrons which you use to impart a force to the electrons in the outer atoms of the stick on your end. That force needs to be transferred atom to atom inside the stick, much like a Newton’s Cradle. Importantly, this transfer is not instantaneous, each “bump” takes time to propagate down the stick and will do so slower than the speed of light in a vacuum. It’s basically a shockwave traveling down the length of the stick. The end result is that the light will get to the person on the other end before the sequence of sub-atomic bumps has the chance to get there.

I work remote and my work has a pretty loose policy on webcams for meetings. If you don’t want it on, don’t turn it on. That said, when I am presenting or speaking, I like to have my webcam on. I personally find that the level of engagement is higher for speakers with their camera on, and so I try to extend that back to the people I am speaking to. I also find that the inclusion of visual cues helps with communications.

As for political spaces, my local congress person holds a regular townhall via telephone (not sure if she’ll keep this up if she wins the governorship this year) and I have never really felt the need to stare at her as she talks. I actually like the format as I can listen with my earbuds while doing something else. So, different situations can merit a different response.

Honestly, I think some folks make far more out of using or not using a webcam than it really merits. For those of us who are more introverted, having a camera on us can make us feel self-conscious. Though, I think using the word “trauma” to describe this is being overly bombastic. At the same time, I think there are some folks for whom the visual connection with a speaker or listener is also important and the lack visual of feedback from the other participants in the conversation makes the conversation more difficult. It’s just another of those areas where we are each going to need to make a decision based on the particular conversation and context. Interacting with other people is messy and is going to involve some level of discomfort from time to time.

Most of the folks I talk to hear agree with me that things are going wrong

That’s not surprising, though be careful on what the definition of “going wrong” is. For example, Emerson College recently put out the results of some polling part of which found that 67% of voters think the US is on the wrong track. It’s highly likely that 67% includes voters from all over the political map. But, while both a hardcore Trump/MAGA voter and a Bernie Bro voter might each say that the US is on the “wrong track”, we’d probably have trouble getting those two voters to reconcile on the color of the sky, let alone what the “right track” would be. Also, be wary of coworkers who actually just want to be left alone and will “go along to get along”. They will tacitly nod and agree with just about anything, so long as you go away and let them get back to work.

or that x,y, or z is a problem, but not enough to do anything about it.

Ok, but what is the ask? What are you expecting them to do? And why do you believe that they should be the ones doing it? Again, going back to my previous comment:
Maybe they do care about your thing, but they have their own “most important thing” and if your thing and their thing are in contention, they are going to pick their thing.

You may view things as so bad that everyone should be out in the streets protesting 24x7. They may not see it that way. They may put “protecting themselves” at a higher priority than protesting whatever it is you are upset about. This might be especially true if they have families to care for and that can drastically change how people prioritize things.

Once again, I’d go back to understanding their beliefs and priorities. Why won’t they do the thing you want them to do? It probably comes down to those beliefs and priorities being more important to them than whatever it is you are promoting. And again, I would note your complete dismissal of their point of view. They have given you some insight as to why they aren’t taking action:
" I want to do something, but I have to protect myself."

It’s clear they prioritize their personal well-being over the perceived value of whatever you are asking them to do. Why is that? What is it that you are asking them to do that they see it as risky? If your goal is to organize something, can you work to provide them the perceived safety that would get them over that hump? Do they have other issues and their answer is just a proxy to avoid an argument? I’m afraid I’m just repeating myself here; but, you need to really understand them if you want them to change their minds.

The first thing I would ask is, have you made any attempts to really understand what motivates them and why they believe as they do? Given your flippant dismissal of their belief systems, I suspect you have just mentally bucketed them and, instead of really trying to understand them, you fall back on your per-conceived notions of what you think they believe. Without that understanding, you will never be able to “make people care”, because you are not treating them as fully formed people with their own beliefs and priorities. You expect that, if you just yell at them loudly enough, they will come around. They won’t and, if anything, they will just dig their heels in further. To them, you’re this guy:

Not everyone has the same priorities you do. What you see as “the most important thing in the world” may fall much further down the list for someone else. They may not even see it in the same framing you do. Maybe they do care about your thing, but they have their own “most important thing” and if your thing and their thing are in contention, they are going to pick their thing. This is part of the reason we have politics in the first place, once you start dealing with other people and trying to decide what and how things should be prioritized and run, you are going to run into differing beliefs and priorities. It’s why most government polices generally suck and don’t get everything done. Because those policies are the result of compromise between people with different and often competing priorities. And yes, it may be that some of those other priorities come from bad information, though more often they will come from radically different base beliefs. And not understanding what those beliefs actually are means that you will not have any sort of basis for convincing them of anything.

Changing peoples’ minds is hard. But, it starts from a place of understanding people and not dismissing their beliefs. Step back from your outrage for a moment and try to really get in their heads. You may not agree with their position, but you need to understand how they got there before you have any chance of getting them out of it. And, maybe you can’t. It may just be that they have some foundational beliefs which are completely at odds with what you want to convince them of. But, if you know and understand that, it becomes much easier to walk away from the situation and not waste time and energy on a hopeless fight. And while it feels good to yell at people, that basically never works and only serves to push them further away.