bolido_sentimental
No bio...
User ID: 205
bolido_sentimental
1yr ago
I created a The Motte webapp on my phone, and moved it into the position previously occupied by the 'reddit is fun" app button. So in that specific way, I've almost 1-to-1 replaced my browsing of Reddit with TheMotte.org. It's definitely been beneficial for me.
bolido_sentimental
1yr ago
I would hate to lose my place for discussing the local baseball team. But maybe I need to get out and do that more IRL anyway.
bolido_sentimental
1yr ago
If there are any English teachers in our ranks, one thing I'd like to know before making suggestions is: what are the ostensible goals of the books in a high school fiction reading curriculum? Are we trying to have our students gain proficiency with certain types of language, or learn to interpret various kinds of story, or learn about the history of literature? Or something else? There are a lot of different ways you could answer that question, which would influence the books you'd select.
bolido_sentimental
1yr ago
Tomorrow I'm leaving for a business trip of about two weeks' duration. What are the main things I should really avoid forgetting to pack?
This post raised a few interesting points for me.
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Despite being online for many years at this point, I don't think I've ever seen a cigarette recommendation thread.
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Nor do I ever hear people talking about the different brands and their properties. Not even smokers. People have serious preferences about Coors vs. Miller etc., and will discuss them, but I'm not sure that's the case with cigarettes.
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I realize I actually don't have much of a vocabulary to discuss the nature of different cigarettes with. I would be really curious to know if people had better ways of talking about them 60 or 80 years ago.
Anyway, here's what I can remember:
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Pall Mall: Seriously offensive and nasty. If somehow this is all they have, go to another store.
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L&M: Just barely acceptable.
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Chesterfield: Probably the best really cheap cigarette. They taste fine, but they burn very quickly, you don't get a lot out of one.
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Parliament: Pretty harsh. The recessed filter doesn't do anything and you will quickly cease to notice it. Too expensive for what they are but I guess they do look cool.
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Camel (Red): The best cigarette. Once I found these I stopped buying other ones. This is probably what most people do, they find the one they like and they stop shopping around. But what if there's a better one out there?
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Camel (Blue): Doesn't taste or feel like anything. I would extend that to pretty much all light cigarettes. I suppose that's what some people are going for.
Unfortunately I can't report on the self-medication aspect. I just like stimulants.
bolido_sentimental
1yr ago
I encourage you to stick with that book, it made a huge impression on me as a young man.
I am currently reading The Living Reed by Pearl S. Buck. I have a nearly complete set of Pearl Buck novels, which were previously my mother's, which were previously her mother's. There's something kind of neat about being the third generation of my family to read Pearl S. Buck; there's nothing specific about us or our history that would push us to do this. I just like it. I really appreciate Buck's virtuous characters, wide dramas, and honest, deep exploration of other cultures.
By the way: has anyone reading this ever read the works of Edward Rutherfurd? If so - would you recommend them?
bolido_sentimental
1yr ago
Do any of you keep diaries or journals?
If so - what do you write in there? What format do you use: notebook, digital, etc.? And how long have you kept it up?
bolido_sentimental
1yr ago
I really could not possibly say. It just popped into my mind in the moment where I created a Motte account. Bólido is Spanish for meteorite.
bolido_sentimental
1yr ago
How much time do you spend each week on social engagements? And does that differ from the amount you'd like to be spending?
I've had some weeks recently where I was asked to do something on every day of the week. I work full time, and I have various solitary hobbies that I'd like to spend more time pursuing; and so weeks like that feel far, far too busy for my optimal happiness. At times like that, I wish I could have an entire week all to myself with no disturbances. But I don't think that would make me happy either.
Recently I was talking with a friend of mine about the "optimal number of friends who you see often." I think I concluded that it would be no more than two or three.
bolido_sentimental
1yr ago
I actually loved To Your Scattered Bodies Go lol. It's so insane.
bolido_sentimental
1yr ago
I hope you enjoy the sequel as well, I thought it was great.
bolido_sentimental
1yr ago
I'm reading Fulfillment by Alec MacGillis, an analysis of "Amazon’s impact on the wealth and poverty of towns and cities across the United States." I love this kind of book about regional economics and the changing nature of work. Well-written and particularly significant to me as a Midwesterner
bolido_sentimental
1yr ago
A lot of the non-woke college grads I personally know went to colleges that are in this group, The Council for Christian Colleges and Universities:
Not that these are somehow inoculated from the wider culture war, but they seem to have higher survival rates for things like healthy Christian campus groups.
I just mention it because I wasn't really aware of the existence of schools like this until well into my 30s.
bolido_sentimental
1yr ago
This'll be one of the first Google results, but I did read Attached by Rachel Heller, and it really does have great information.
Unfortunately I read it after going through yet another painful breakup, and I've been single ever since. I am very, very avoidant. I do think that now that I have a better understanding, I'll hopefully be able to handle my next relationship better.
bolido_sentimental
1yr ago
What's the cheapest acceptably good 9mm carbine?
bolido_sentimental
1yr ago
Thanks for the insight!
bolido_sentimental
1yr ago
Marcos "El Chino" Maidana! (Just kidding.)
bolido_sentimental
1yr ago
The fact that Afroman lives in Adams County, Ohio is the craziest part of this to me. That's literally Amish country. Many miles from anything.
Miller's Bakery out there has one of the largest selections of jams and jellies that I've ever seen anywhere.
bolido_sentimental
1yr ago
I spent the weekend reading A.J. Cronin's Keys of the Kingdom.
"Spanning six decades, it tells the story of Father Francis Chisholm, an unconventional Scottish Catholic priest who struggles to establish a mission in China."
Cronin is an unabashed sentimentalist who uses the same characters in every book. His primary objective seems to be to make them all suffer as much as possible. As the Pixies established the quiet-loud-quiet-loud dynamic in rock music in the 1980s, Cronin hews unswervingly to the structure: happy-crushed-happy-crushed.
Nevertheless, I couldn't put it down. He's the writer who practiced one kick 10,000 times. Even though you know how he's doing it, he makes you feel for the people in his stories.
bolido_sentimental
1yr ago
Network engineer with Cisco certs here, AMA if you want to. Some bullet points I would offer:
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A lot of my friends are devs and, if anything, it's a little surprising how little we each know about each other's fields. I don't know how to code, except for some bash/PowerShell scripting that I use in my job. They don't know how data gets from their computer to anywhere else. Our working days look very different. There certainly are engineers out there who have strong expertise in both areas, but in real life I very rarely meet them. My best friend is a dev and he wouldn't have a clue how to do my work. Of course, being a dev, he's a smart guy and he'd figure it out eventually.
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Devs do make fun of us.
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I think software development is more recommended both A.) Because it's easier to access the higher-paying jobs in it and B.) Because it's more extensible to other areas. Network engineering will not help you do data science, for instance. (Not that I'm saying network engineering doesn't pay well, especially if you take it as far as you can. I'm four or five years in and have had six-figure offers, and will probably take one of them this year; and I live in the Midwest. The CCIEs that I know have fabulous amounts of money.)
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I have loads of time to shitpost. The only problem is I'm not very good at it.
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I really do like network engineering for its own sake, and I'd encourage you to investigate it more. My work has a good amount of "Aha!!!" moments where we take something from not-working to working, and it feels good.
As a serial dater/fling-haver, unmarried at 33, the real question is whether I myself am marriage material, lol.
Very rough count I would say 1 of 13, based on your standard. There are certainly a couple of others where I think I could have made a reasonably happy married life if I had to; but only the one that I feel quite certain about.
I would say most of them are probably Marriage Material for someone else; that is, they are marriageable people. Just not for me. Oddly I think only 2 of them are in fact married currently. (Including the one I really missed out on.)
I feel like my values and lifestyle have changed a great deal since I was a teenager and even since my mid-20s; so maybe it's for the best that I didn't marry those women of my past. But then, if I had, I'm sure I would have grown into a different person in some way anyway.
bolido_sentimental
1yr ago
I bought some Nvidia. Doesn't seem like demand for GPUs is going down.
bolido_sentimental
1yr ago
"It doesn't really matter. It will be interesting to see what happens. Here goes nothing."
- Tom Rath's mantra, from Sloan Wilson's The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit
bolido_sentimental
1yr ago
Yeah, just sharing for the audience. I read that novel in 2015 and ended up repeating that mantra to myself any time things got hairy. Great book.
On Free Association vs. Exclusion, or: can white people just do stuff together?
Yesterday I went to church. I would estimate that there are about 150 people at my church. There are exactly three people of color there:
One black teenaged girl, who I believe is the adoptive daughter of a white couple there.
One old guy called Antonio, who I think came from Argentina a long time ago.
A Hispanic woman who is the wife of an old white guy.
The demographics of this church are, basically, the demographics of the immediately surrounding neighborhoods and of this demonination nationally: the people who go there go there because A.) they live close by and B.) they think the EFCA has good teachings to offer about God, the world etc. Everyone comes there of their own free will; all are explicitly welcome. We have never turned anyone away - I am one of the greeters and I try to take seriously my responsibility to make anyone that arrives feel welcome.
Still, when thinking about this, something apparent to me is that this church has no racial diversity. Are we under a moral obligation to try and change that?
If we are: why is that? How did we incur it? Is it not enough to be welcoming, do we need to actively change our demographic composition? What if, as seems to be the case, there are hardly any non-white people that want to come to our church?
If we are not: why is that? Other voluntary organizations come under pressure to diversify, all the time - see "knitting too white," "hiking too white," etc. Would our church not qualify because it's too small? Because it isn't a business? Because we do not have any status to award? Because we have no social media presence?
There is a black church less than four miles away - I cannot imagine them ever coming under pressure to diversify, even though they have the same level of diversity as my church does. Why should that be? I can already think of the Conflict Theory explanation - but what would the Mistake Theory explanation for that be?
I guess what I'm wondering about or driving at is, as my title indicates - is there any limiting principle to the drive for making groupings reflect the population distribution of the country as a whole? Are there organizations for which it would be unreasonable to ask this - or are there simply only organizations whose undiversity hasn't been noticed? I'm not asking this out of any animosity towards any racial group; we would really just like for everyone to come to our church. I just find myself wondering why similar bodies, who didn't choose their racial composition at all, nevertheless come under criticism for that, and some don't.
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