DirtyWaterHotDog
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User ID: 625
DirtyWaterHotDog
2yr ago
Note : Noma (supposedly the world's best restaurant) has been surprising people with how delicious ants are for a good decade now. Credit where it is due, tribals in many parts of the world have known this for centuries. But, now people with 'sophisticated palates' can also approve.
I've eaten un-seasoned plain thai-water-beetles(big cockroaches) and they surprisingly taste more like pickle juice than anything.
Hey, if it is nutritious, doesn't trigger my disgust response, is delicious and cheap......then why not ?
I spent a good year creeped out the 'blood' leaking from raw (medium rare) steak. A few years later, I love it.
The typical internet autist has limited understanding of how power brokering, innovation & the general spread of ideas actually happens at the highest levels. They view it from their salaried man's lens. This is where money, work and power are assets in a zero-sum transactional relationships. Your manager pays you money to gain power on you and extract work. An activist gives you free food to hold their posters. That sort of low-level thinking stops scaling pretty quickly.
First, power is never owned. Power merely flows through you like water. You wield it as a custodian by guiding it's path, but if you try to obstruct it or grab on it, you'll lose it just as quickly. Second, narrow scientific innovation can be done in a lab with sweaty dudes dark spaces. But, innovation at the grand scale often comes out organically from random physical interactions in a space. Actually, even sweaty science dudes know this. That's why the big-tier-1 conference is their favorite time of the year. Lastly, the transactional costs of work are not fixed. Will power allows you to change the cost of work. But, willpower can't be brought and it can't be hammered into you. It has to be felt in the air and built environment around you. WEF conferences organizers understand this better than most.
To normies, conference organizers can seem like low-IQ bunch to internet nerds. They don't do anything, just organize, get the logistics in order and let the smart & powerful people do smart & powerful people things, right ? Of course not. Any person on theMotte or HN can appreciate how invisible moderators who don't generate content, are still the most important people to facilitating an invisible sense of culture within a community. I'd like to think that I ended up on here organically. But, I am also certain that the mods have been careful in how their message goes out, which led to a series of mod-approved internet hops which ended with me reaching here.
The power of organic collisions cannot be replaced with something else. At the same time, it is incredibly difficult to create an environment that forces collisions, while making it seem completely organic. Your favorite bar worked really hard to make it seem like you just 'ran into it'. In the same vein, WEF has managed to sustain something really difficult : a place for the world's most important people to congregate, have organic collisions and not have every conversation leak out to the press. By slapping their face on everything, they also protect their participants. The news headline goes "WEF endorses XYZ crazy idea. Subtitle : by abc person" instead of "ABC person champions crazy XYZ idea in public. Subtitle : at wef."
What the average person fails to understand is how throwing a big party every year is any way useful towards getting work done. But, that's exactly how big decisions have been made for centuries and centuries. Even today, world leaders have video calls all the time, but physical G20 summits is where a lot of breakthroughs happen.
The WEF markets itself as a place for the important people of the world to have organic collisions. The most important people in the world find it to be valuable, so they keep coming every year. The self-fulfilling prophecy propagates itself. But, do not let the appearance of an organic meet mislead you into thinking that the WEF doesn't carefully utilize the little power that flows through them to divert it in a certain direction. It is a light touch, but on a huge base, it can have large impacts. I am personally of the opinion, that more communication among people who easily get siloed (top billionaires) is always a good thing. The WEF is far more a reflection of the content that the powerful want to consume than any agenda they might have. But somewhere in there, they are able to plant seeds that add up over the years. It is effectively run for what it is. But, a grand operation in prescriptive consensus building it is not.
edit: I guess I need to put a disclaimer here. I have a huge conflict of interest. Someone I have positive feelings towards presently works for the WEF (in a foot soldier role, but still). What limited things I hear sound fairly innocuous.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2yr ago
What's rubs me the wrong way is how entitled people feel to having any and all preferences/restrictions accommodated. Did you parents not teach you manners ? If you can't eat most things in a random buffet dinner, then bring your own meal. Actually, bring enough for a few people so the host can have some warm potluck vibes.
Now ofc, if a special guest is visiting after a long time, then I will cook to their preferences. But, if it is routine guest with a 100s of landmines or one person in a group of many, then I'd expect them to be reasonable about how much they can be accommodated.
I wonder if I'm shouting at a strawman though. Every vegan, nut-allergic, celiac person I know is polite, and brings their own food.
To be fair, if you are the type to follow fashions blindly, then you probably aren't attending the house party of a bunch of late blooming ex-nerds.
where I was vegetarian, but I would eat meat
I can chime in a little bit here. I don't think you realize how viscerally disgusting eating non-veg food is to some people (certain Indians).
I remember the day I started eating beef, and my parents were in tears. My mom grew up on a farm and cows were the equivalent of dogs to her. Can you imagine being invited to a thanksgiving diner, and an upside down whole-roasted-dog is served to you on a platter ?
So now my family follows a dont-ask-dont-tell policy on my food eating habits.
It is easy for Americans to swap in and out of veganism, because their disgust response was not tuned to hate meat as a young child. Veganism is an ethnical choice, a moral boundary. It is the difference between refusing to ogle hot women as a committed man vs the disgusted head-turn away from a smelly obese homeless lady. I have a disgust response to bananas, and I get close to violently vomiting every-time I see them mashed up. This stuff is hard to change in adulthood.
At the same time, such a person should not feel entitled to be accommodated towards a rigid center-piece of a culture. (Roast turkey). You don't have to eat it, why do you think we make Green-bean-casserole & Cabbage salad ? (IMO, the sides are tastier anyway.)
DirtyWaterHotDog
2yr ago
Everyone knows that one starry eyed junior in the video. Jaded senior engineers politely answering pigheaded juniors is what true zen looks like.
Every senior engineer should get a monthly allocation of "bitch, be humble" sound bytes to throw around. They have earned that honor.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2yr ago
If you like woks, too bad.
YOOO, Youtube reads my mind !
My top recommended video 2 minutes ago was literally an induction burner for woks : https://youtube.com/shorts/-49EuKOCTqs
I am ready to jump on this hype train. (Legit gonna buy this in a month or so)
DirtyWaterHotDog
2yr ago
I can't wait for good induction ranges to become the norm in cold places. 3/5 of the last 5 houses I've stayed in have had shitty electric burners. So from my POV, induction is a huge upgrade. I'll be in a rental house for at least the next 5 years, and I do not trust my landlord to care enough about ventilation for gas to cause zero damage. If gas has to die to make induction happen, so be it.
One complaint : My wok warps into a bowl when exposed to induction's fast heating, making it impossible to be used as a flat-bottom which induction needs. But I feel like this problem can be solved with thicker bottomed woks and more innovative ways of creating surface -> magnet contact instead of plates.
end of the decade induction replaces all gas stoves and most electrics. And twenty years later people will be bemused and embarrassed that we had such a silly argument over this.
Very likely.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2yr ago
I personally endrun the other issues by using the desktop windows version exclusively, and using it on a (more or less) dedicated windows tablet with stylus
Yoo, surface pro represent ! I have the exact same workflow.
everything else I've tried (especially the ones designed for mobile devices) just seems like a toy in comparison.
It is well matched to real commercial users, I must say. My new team moved from onenote to confluence. So now I am at a point where I can move.
I want to be able to start publishing my notes and sharing them with people in a granular way. Right now that's my biggest complaint.
So, I guess I'm, um -- kind of embedded, lol.
Yep, that's me too. Too much knowledge in there.
Also, now that my one note (and by association my though process) is tuned to hierarchical structure, I can't move to obsidian or un-directed graphs anymore.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2yr ago
It's worse, it's windows (or better? if you are a laptop person like me).
DirtyWaterHotDog
2yr ago
The cons of one-note are just too irritating to me
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Doesn't support common markdown
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Can't share notes with granular access (It's 2023, what's up with that? It is rhetorical question. I used to work with people in the office team, no one cares enough to solve it )
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Doesn't sync collaborative notes instantly
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Everything except the windows app is a terrible way of interacting with it
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Taking quick notes is pain in the ass
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Search is meh
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Tagging is non-existent
No one is as good as Microsoft at providing mediocrity across the board. The app will tick every feature box, but none of them will be quite excellent.
I'd rather just rip the bandaid off and learn some new opinionated platform.
But, none of them properly support inking nor do they properly sync with another collaborative inking service which I can embed in them.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2yr ago
Don't use OneNote that's for sure. I am deeply embedded in the OneNote ecosystem and am finding it impossible to move out. None of the note-taking apps other than OneNote support free-form drawing :(
Lmk if you find one with good inking support during your app searching exersize.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2yr ago
social to a level that I have difficulty imagining?
Not exactly, but the style of being social is different. I make sure that the relationships I do form are intimate (even platonically) and not just surface level. I am the kind of person who catches up with a friend once in 6 months, but when we do, we talk for 2-3 hours. A lot comes out.
I have always lived with a lot of roommates, and seeing anyone day-in-and-day-out is a great way of getting to know them well enough. I have also been very open about my experiences in therapy, unconventional career change struggles & my past of being brutally bullied. So, people will often open up to me because they see me as having opened myself up to them. Lastly, I mentor a lot of younger early-in-career types. There are at least 6 people I am directly mentoring, and half-a-dozen who I will offer an ear to every once in a while. These kids will usually come to me with very specific problems & circumstances that they or their peers are facing. The whole thing is a self-fulfilling prophecy, because my immediate network naturally ends up including people who themselves have huge intimate networks. So, I end up 2 degrees of separation from a lot of specific stories & theories of people's lives.
I guess my history with bullying forces me to try and get a read on a person within my first few minutes of meeting them. I am not very successful, but there is a reflexive observation of a person that I need to do before engaging which might play a role in me bucketizing people. I am not social in the traditional sense at all. I didn't start drinking until I was 27, and even then only have a beer. I don't dance, I still can't pick up on cues as well and I rarely do truly reckless things.
wonder how someone can possibly know enough people to come up with such specific categories of people.
Hubris. At some point, I am projecting my own read on them from limited interactions with that person. I am also notorious for confidently stating models of the world that I come up on the fly. Ask me again tomorrow and I might give you a different answer.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2yr ago
Yo, Thanks so much for this reco.
The food looks amazing. I love the inclusion of actual home-style Indian ingredients like okra & sabudana. The presentation is in touch with Indian nostalgia, esp with the dessert on a stick. And I can see some underappreciated regional favorites like Dhokla, Galoti kebab & roomali roti on there.
They make paneer out of buffalo milk ! It warms my heart to see that.
Totally visiting it next time I'm in London. (why did you lot have to #brexit. I really don't want get a new visa. I might still swing by to see my favorite club play football, but maybe next year when we're actually doing well XD )
DirtyWaterHotDog
2yr ago
The next tier of discourse is gated off, because it requires a very high level depth in a field to engage in that of discourse.
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After-work research-lab dinners with a little bit of alcohol and out of earshot of your PI
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long-form podcasts (think some of the stuff Razib/Huberman do...less so Rogan/Lex)
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(pre-covid) certain meetups in areas of very-very high academic + economic activity (Basically Berkeley, Boston & Palo Alto)
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(post-covid) very closed off private discord groups
If your question is, where do where the smart kids of smart millionaires hang out, then the unfortunate answer is in exclusive frats of ivy league universities. The quality of discourse is low, but damn does a shit ton of money flow through the naïve hands of these 20yr old brats.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2yr ago
Ph.D. in CS at a top university in Canada and had 8 relatively well-cited publications by the time he was done with his master's. He does not discuss any abstract topics, let alone highly contentious CW ones at a high level, his opinions are normie opinions at best. Likewise for all the other "smart" people I know.
This is spot on. All of my smartest friends go to their lab/startup-wework at 8am and come back home at 1am in the night. They barely have time wipe their own butts, let alone waste time on the internet. The most well rounded ones find time to work out, eat well & to pursue 1 hobby (or children) to the same unhealthy (but healthy?) levels as their careers. If I had to really stretch it, there are some who find time to socialize, party & maybe watch Joe Rogan / Huberman.
I am yet to meet anyone who holds opinions that are as well-defended and coherent as those you would find on the motte.
My observation is that thinking about the world & your own place in it throws people into deep crises of meaning. The top 0.01% of productive people simply do not have the time to throw themselves into such a crisis. So, they hold onto whatever ideas they inherit unquestioningly, and keep trudging along in the area of focus.
There are 2 exceptions to the rule.
Unmedicated ADHD types who can summon hyper-focus semi-reliably : Motte is the distraction they engage in, and somehow make up for it by hyper focusing into meeting impossible deadlines. I like to think I semi-fall into this category. This cycle is very prone to burn-out though. So, the entire group has periodic crash-and-burns every couple of years. (Yes, I am projecting)
The types who had an early-life crisis of meaning : This includes the Huberman types. How does a skater boy become a Stanford professor ? These people aren't necessarily as online. But, at some point they had a early-life crisis, and went through a lot of the same motte-esque emotions and meaning-finding exercises. The outcome was them finding something they could truly laser focus on, which them led to a meteoric rise into becoming part of the elite. I love this group of people. You can sometimes find them at a party suddenly zoning out with that thousand yard stare. Sometimes it is the hidden tattoos. But these people are a treasure trove of wisdom. Find a person like this to mentor you, man does it help you mature super fast.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2yr ago
I am not so sure about that.
Eastern Africa & SEA have strong Indian influenced cultural roots (esp. SEA). The food, the importance of the family unit, the pagan roots, all have very clear similarities.
Then you have secondary similarities, such as a history with colonization & general similarities that come with living in tropical climates.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2yr ago
what makes people living in Third World countries think that just because they are numerous, that means they count?
Because per-capital numbers matter less than net market size. A market that negotiates as a block, represents its buying power and influence as a block. The EU exists for a reason. Global consumerism means that powerful developed countries rely on access to big market blocks like India to keep their profits high. You're right that just being numerous doesn't mean much. But a 2x poorer per-capita country, can make up for the smaller per-capita market by having 2x as many people.
The real negotiation here is : India closing itself off and accepting a QOL hit, while lost sales hurt the exporting 1st world's industries.
Now, this is no different from an employee trying to negotiate a higher wage with its employer. Here, collective bargaining gives you more leverage. India is effectively asking the global-south to present as a more unified negotiating block, that allows for more favorable terms due to collective bargaining.
We should also have equivalent voice
Here, Modi does not just mean negotiations and importance. He means the humiliation, unilaterally pushed on (non-binding as they may be) initiatives, the talking down to and general apathy that these poor-big nations face. There is effectively this bit which goes : "If you're going to chide me every time I visit you club, then I don't want to be part of your club."
'Being spoken down to' feels especially rich coming from the 1st world because they are often to blame for or have taken advantage of similar setups already. Low-emissions nations being asked to be sustainable so western-gas-guzzlers can live a happy life. Or complaints about de-forestration, when the 1st world chopped its own trees with reckless abandon during its industrialization. Or the judgement passed towards the pollution of the rivers that is partially tied to 1st world clothing companies having terrible waste disposal practices in their 3rd world plants. It is irritating to see the imposition of western social ideas (Wokeism) or being given ranks based on scales that prioritize western sensibilities.
None of these are about influence. It is about not optics, and optics are far easier to control with numbers if you so wish to leverage them.
escape the cycle of dependency
Modi correctly points out that post-WW2 institutions are primarily concerned with maintaining peace and status quo. IE. maintaining western hegemony. Modi's suggestion is to demand inclusion or push for the formation of parallel institutions that prioritize the interests of these nations in the global south.
Now 1st world countries have a lot to lose here. A lot of their economies are based on maintaining a perception of superiority. If European cuisine, culture, architecture & luxury goods stop being seen as high class, then they suddenly cannot demand the kind of absurd margins and prices that they demand.
If countries of the global south can provide each other with economic guarantees, then that allows them to strike out more favorable deals with the 1st world.
Given disparate birth rates over the world, a growing imbalance between countries who hold the actual power versus where most of humanity will increasingly be located could lead to increased international tension.
That is part of the negotiation too. The soft threat that so many refugees will flood your beautiful 1st world countries that you won't know what to do.
Influence is earned, not given
I would rephrase it a little bit : "Influence is seized, and then held on to tightly". The global south isn't asking for influence, they are trying to test the waters on what will allow them to seize it. Germany and Japan should have more power by their economic sizes too, but the post-ww2 suppression and papa-USA means that they are reluctant to do so.
You might complain about economic per-capita differences, but the UK sits as a permanent member of the UNSC not because it has earned power. But, it is because it seized it post-ww2 and is now holding onto it tightly until another country chooses to seize it.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2yr ago
Would you be willing to share it ? If not, I am just glad you came to love it.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2yr ago
I used to be of this opinion, until my community got spread across multiple continents. Instagram to me, is the least toxic social media platform that all my friends also use. A lot of us busy people who get forced into an 'out of sight, out of mind' sort of situation with friends. Instagram keeps you 'in sight' and 'on their minds'. A small exchange every few months keeps ties for times when you want to crash at their places when you visit, need help with something specific or just plain want to share in their happiness. Community is the most important thing for me and Instagram with least-bad solution to the logistical difficulties of keeping that community intact.
As for why food, it is a few fold.
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I don't like playing into the insecurity enhancing parts of social media. I worry that putting my face, body, career or experiences on there will pull out insecurities that force me to engage in activities that I don't enjoy, but still do for the optics. Even if brag-worthy, me projecting how well I am doing with my body / dating / career would just make others insecure. The 3 things I put on Instagram : food, music, hikes are places where I find peer pressure to be healthy, and I don't think it injects any insecurity into my community.
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Food is also the easiest way to make conversation. My mom and I bond on food. My friends message me for recipes all the time. Some just comment with heart emojis. It is an insanely effective social lubricant
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In big social groups, it is important to have an 'elevator pitch / have a thing'. It just makes your dynamic with the rest of the group easier. On trips, I get restaurant finding duty. In house parties, I am the chef. Your "thing" also conveys stereotypes that come with it. "The food guy" conveys warmth, giving, altruism which are values that I both espouse and want to convey.
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I love it and my monkey brain wants everyone to know I love it.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2yr ago
It is not just that. The food is creatively bankrupt too.
It is not surprising, because India has only ever had "professionally meticulous" culinary cultures in 2 places : Royal Mughal chefs and mothers who care a lot.
The former has leveraged this to the point where Mughal food is defacto fancy Indian food. It spurred the invention of dishes like Butter Chicken, Tandoori & Dal Makhni in the 20th century, but the entire cuisine has had a lazy 21st century. Nothing about the invention of the aforementioned dishes needed validation from French techniques. It as entirely grounded in innovating within the Indian landscape.
The latter is the underexplored bit. There are incredible painstaking home dishes cooked by women of the family that were never sold for money, but took the same amount of effort as any crowning jewel in a fine restaurant. Many of these are already 'farm to table' sort of recipes and need specific regional mixes to work. (eg: our village red chilli powder has 28 ingredients. Just the base chilli powder)
All Indian fine dining I've seen boils down to:
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Mughlai / Punjabi / well-executed-classics : Atul Kocchar, Junoon,
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British colonizer food / Mumbai Irani Cafe food - Dishoom
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Expensive western seafood done in Indian coconutty curries. (The one bugs me the most. Get your head out of your asses and stop cooking mild Lobster & King crabs. You are bastardizing the entire cuisine by using the wrong fish. People struggle with Saba Miso too, but the Japanese don't swap out the Mackarel !)
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Straight up just French restaurants with Indian ingredients.
None of these are bad per-se. At their best (top 5 in the world), the well-executed classics are worth the money spent. But, it's what I would feel like if all European fine-dining was Pasta & Pizza. After some point, it wears on you.
Now for the positives.
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I am liking what I am hearing from Roni Mazumdar and his restaurants. His NYC restaurants are all excellent executions of classics. If what he is saying is to be believed, then I am hoping he funds a restaurant that caters for less common Indian cuisines.
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On the french restaurant with Indian ingredients side, Gaggan comes close to practically turning that whole thing on its head by asserting his own strong personality as a chef. It has a "It is French, it is Indian, it is my food, fuck you" attitude, that I adore. He has been AWOL for a few years, I am really looking forward to what he comes out with.
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Regional cuisines are sneaking into $$ sign restaurants. Kathakali in Seattle does a marvellous job of executing malabar cuisine and sticking to it's guns with what's a tiny menu by Indian standards. I haven't been to Annapurna Marathi cusine in the bay area, but it is just nice to see a spot focusing on a narrow regional cuisine.
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There is a model to follow : East Asians. Japanese chefs have managed to carve out space for very narrow and deep explorations of Japanese ideas, implement them uncompromisingly in a manner that is aesthetically Japanese & win fine-dining accolades for it. From Shinto Omakase, to Soba shops to Niku Udon spots. The key is to give up the obsession with a French aesthetic. Modern reviewers only care about obsession & care in general, and not so much whose standards they live up to.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2yr ago
I'll probably start doing it properly once I move to my new place. My new roomates are also more camera savvy, so I might get their help to setup a mini studio.
My 2023 food targets are:
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Complete experimentation on tres leches shahi tukda. I am almost there with this one. When complete it will be hand crafted to be my favorite dessert. (Some places already do a similar dish....but all the variants i have seen so far are kinda lazy)
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Start experimentation on the grand veg biryani project. The goal is to throw every trick in book at creating something worthy lf the veg biryani moniker. I am presently playing with ideas around trumoet mushrooms, persian tadik, hainanese chicken rice & paella. But my main goal here is to finish identifying a worthy protein replacement.
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Find a bombil / snakefish equivalent in western markets. Bombil is a very unique fish & the pride of my family, but impossible to source in the US. I want to find the closest fish replacement.
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Make khawa poli & kaladi cheese. Both are some of my favorite hidden gems from back home. Impossible to find outside a few villages. Will be very hard to find the right recipe. Thankfully I'll know when its right, because the flavors are deeply embedded in me.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2yr ago
I relate my man. So many fully written blogs that I refuse to publish because they read like shit to me.
The motte is a great place place for me to dump out my trains of thought. At least it lives somewhere real then.
My life bucketlist has 'composing an album' on it, and I am a 100% sure that it will end up being the most challenging thing I've ever done.
couldn't listen to it for a few months
Hope you've come around to liking it. Sounds like a lot of love went into it.
conforms to real-world physics, science and biochemistry
Ahh man, I can't imagine how nightmarish this must be.
"Perfect is the enemy of good enough" is a fairly common quote.
I'd suggest a corollary: "Bad is better than nothing".
tho to be fair, this already exists: "Anything worth doing is worth doing badly." — G. K. Chesterton
It is my primary hobby and I genuinely love it.
The restaurant business is horrible and I have a flourishing career I love. So, not swapping careers anytime soon.
I have been the type of person who loves anything and everything, so half commits to 10 different things at once at all times.
Cooking & food in general have been remarkably stable within this chaos and my Instagram is a sort of proof for myself. It is immensely gratifying to have portfolio of food you've cooked, while scrolling through the posts narrates your entire journey.
I kind of know what I am waiting for. I move to a new city (one where all my friends live) in 2 months, and am planning a huge house warming potluck. So I am sort of waiting for it happen.
If my present career bet pays off, I should reach FIRE comfortably.
At that point, I'd like to try a few food business ideas:
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Granny cafe. Street food pop-up where a granny serves as head-chef 1 season at a time. Granny only need to work the first couple of month or so, the line cooks take over for the rest of the year. Once you reach sustenance, flip it over to some catering service. The goal is make hyper-authentic food and sell it to elite white people in hipster towns. Hard part is establishing supply chains for sourcing hyper authentic ingredients.
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Write a food science book about regional Indian cuisines. Honestly, the entire area of non-punjabi Indian cuisines is not well understood. Think an Indian Fuchsia Dunlop. If the book sells, launch an associated Indian fine-dining restaurant. I recently visited a bunch of Indian fine dining restaurants when I was back home. The quality is terrible and the demand is there. It should not be that hard to displace them. (assuming the quality doesn't change for a decade or so). Think Indian Nathan Myhrvold
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I have an idea around mixing education and the trades, with the restaurant business being one such trade. It involves finding loopholes for getting around labor laws and exploiting those to underpay teenagers to be economically sustainable. Teens learn the entire process, not just being line cooks, but their reduced productivity is made up for with the exploitative wages. I am strongly of the opinion that an altruistic setup for such a thing can be found, but the optics sound so bad, that I'll probably want to keep it under wraps until the first few teens come out visibly benefiting from it.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2yr ago
Just a fun anecdote about petty perfectionism.
I have a completely insignificant personal instagram where I only post photos of food I cook. I post my high-effort food as posts, and low-effort food as stories.
I am on my 98th post now, and have decided to have a post with my face in it for the 100th. I am not anonymous or faceless or anything. Just that I'd gotten used to not having my face in my posts and 100 seemed like a nice landmark.
But that makes my 99th post kinda significant. The last of an old era. So for a good 2 months, I have been cooking like a madman, and everything goes into a story, because it isn't good enough.
So here I am, agonizing about something completely stupid.
Have a good laugh at my expense.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2yr ago
evil coded Muslims
Just to be clear, I am pointing out the evil coded old-bearded-men in conservative Muslim society.
While their voting (if democracy, which it rarely is) constituents & global adherents of the religion bear some secondary blame for deferring to them as religious authorities, my choice of the bearded Muslim antagonist was deliberately meant to evoke a visceral negative reaction towards similarly antagonistic NIMBYs. Yes.
any criticism of your allies
I meant that those criticisms were fair. But, while I was talkin about hypothetical NIMBYs who very much exist and dominate American society. The criticisms towards YIMBYs are pointed towards strawmen who either don't exist or are collectively mocked within the YIMBY community themselves.
For reference, look at the biggest public voices in YIMBY urbanism:
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Strong Towns - The OG. A self-proclaimed conservative organization that advocates for multi-family middle-housing. They come at it from the POV of community building, economic sustainability and in some sense : family values. Their seminars are more math than activism given by a boring old professor.
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City Beautiful - A professor in Coastal California, who takes a practical and holistic approach to finding win-no-lose outcomes in the NIMBY vs YIMBY war. His academic approach is the polar opposite of activism. His videos clearly show him caring for the preservation of urban architecture, local values and nature, while pushing for greater density. ('Oh the Urbanity' is similarly tame and reconciliatory in any of the issues they champion.)
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RM Transit - The guy loves trains more than anyone in the world. But even he is critical of haphazardly adopted YIMBY policies and white-elephant transit projects that will come back to haunt the city in years to come. (ex: China's stubborn expansion of high speed rail in low-usage corridors)
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Alan Fischer, Adam Something, (info-humor channels) - Even deep into meme territory, urbanism channels remain grounded and I have yet to see anything too objectionable being passed under the guise of 'haha, is a joke'.
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Not just bikes , Climate town - These 2 the closest to activism channels, and are fairly tame as far as activism channels go. Like all activism channels, there is some snark here, but it makes sense given that both come from more jaded allied fields of Climate Change and Bike Infrastructure. The former worried about a future that will kill us all, and the latter worried about a present where roads definitely kill all cyclists.
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Steve Hicks - On the urbanist architects side of things, Steve very much focuses on preserving aesthetics and quality-of-life while talking public spaces & urban design that leans YIMBY.
Popular YIMBYs being academics (and Canadian) more often than not, leads to them being fairly measured & polite in what they ask for. On the point of allies, YIMBYs often don't get along too well with their allies.
YIMBYs don't particularly care about social progressivism, especially vocally community oriented conservative ones like Strong Towns. YIMBYs advocate for strong ties with the executors of the law (police) which rubs the rest of the 'allies' the wrong way. Protection of share public spaces (transit, parks, side walks) is vital to YIMBYs, and they aren't onboard with the whole 'let the homeless spit fentanyl in my face' project that the some social progressive allies seem to be tolerating.
If you could point me to popular voices who represent the Strawman YIMBY, then I am all ears. But until then, I will continue to be asymmetrical in how I treat my enemies extremists vs the ones in my own fold.
Indian farms are very different that western farms.
This was an incredibly poor & pre-mechanization Indian farm. The cows were the transportation, they provided milk to the family on a daily basis, protected the children when the parent wasn't there (my mom has actual stories where their cows intimidated strangers who try to come near kids of the boss) and most importantly, they pulled the ploughs. In that sense, the cows were more similar to shepherd dogs.
She does not have that kind of fondness associated with chickens. No matter how close of relationship she built with a chicken, it never seemed to understand things quite like cows did.
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