"The main thing holding back wider adoption is a lack of system interfaces. File access, networking, etc. But it's just a matter of time before these features get integrated."
Funny. The most obvious place for WASM is a web browser and yet WASM STILL cannot access the browser DOM. Its only been, what? At least 8 years of promises about it coming soon and how people are working on it.
Who exactly has promised it's "coming soon"? People like to make arguments against imaginary arguments for some reason.
Besides, you can already send data from/to Browser<>WASM context which seems to at least solve most use cases people was imagining for WebAssembly back when it was just asm.js.
Just as a reminder for folks. This California based position falls under pay transparency laws -- "Effective January 1, 2023, California Senate Bill 1162 (SB 1162) requires employers to disclose pay scales on all position postings". The linked position posting doesn't include this.
For the most part I agree with this, over engineered feature creep is really just horrible stuff. I never need a fridge with wifi and I absolutely swear that that anything more than auto-off is a waste in a coffee machine.
But I think the "Other appliance anecdotes" part suggests that the author has very different requirements than I do. I grew up without a garbage disposal, but its a huge convenience to have one. Also I've had top loader washing machines that don't have easy access to the trap, gimme easy access to the trap ANY DAY and I don't care how its loaded.
On the garbage disposal, I've heard that water treatment facility managers hate them (or at least one does), because it encourages people to put through food waste.
I've also heard landlords say garbage disposals are a net-negative for maintenance visits: disposal-related problems are more costly than the occasional clog because someone put down something the disposal would've stopped.
Also, in multi-tenant buildings, disposals can be a nightmare. Too many people with varying folk wisdom of what's good to put down it. Some people create blockages for the entire stack or more, which ends up causing powered backflows of nasty wastewater into some units. And then what eventually gets snaked out of the drain, and dragged across their kitchens... mere bleach will never get that sufficiently clean. (Even after 3 of these kitchen-apocalypse episodes, you just can't get some people to understand that they can't keep grinding orange peels in their disposal to freshen the air, even when the rot of previous orange peels in the increasing blockage they created might be the reason they want to freshen the air now.)
I try to tell people that pretty much only water and dish soap should go down the drain, and that one of those few-dollar mesh drain strainers is a great tool to help follow this rule. (Also, a container for collecting most of the grease/oil that would otherwise go down the drain.)
> garbage disposal ... encourages people to put through food waste
That's like saying bicycles encourage people to ride bicycles. It's supposed to encourage it. That's the literal purpose of a garbage disposal unit: "a device that shreds food waste into pieces small enough—generally less than 2 mm (0.079 in) in diameter—to pass through plumbing."[1]
> Some people create blockages for the entire stack or more
I don't know how that could happen since if you put something into a garbage disposal unit that can't be shredded to tiny particles, then it's the garbage disposal unit itself that will get clogged, not the pipes or drains. Whatever gets through the garbage disposal unit is going to be less than 2mm in size, and generally much smaller and liquified. If you're referring to oil or grease buildup in pipes, that is irrelevant to the use of a garbage disposal unit since people can and do pour oil or grease down the drain whether they have a garbage disposal unit or not.
In my opinion, a garbage disposal unit is an under-appreciated and supremely useful kitchen appliance, and extremely environmentally friendly (see the brief Wikipedia explanation[2]).
I have repeated, traumatic, first-hand experience with this: food waste accumulates in building pipe bends and joints and such, causing blockages and follow-on effects worse than one would guess.
And the disposal, and myths about what's good to put down the pipes, means a lot of people put that food waste down there.
I don't know the original reason for the adoption of disposals, but smells like it could be corporate lobbying to create a market for a product:
> In many cities in the United States in the 1930s and the 1940s, the municipal sewage system had regulations prohibiting placing food waste (garbage) into the system.[5] InSinkErator spent considerable effort, and was highly successful in convincing many localities to rescind these prohibitions.[6]
I've been doing this kind of thing for years with two notable differences:
1. I don't believe people actually hand type-in these values, so I'm not really concerned about the 'l' vs '1' issue. I do base 32 without `eiou` (vowels) to reduce the likelihood of words (profanity) sneaking in.
2. I add two base-32 characters as a checksum (salted of course). This is prevents having to go look at the datastore when the value is bogus either by accident or malice. I'm unsure why other implementations don't do this.
Why not use base-31 and (optionally) more characters? (Or go upper and lower or add a symbol if you had to stay with a fixed-size and base-32 for some reason)
I realise you posted this as a joke, but the first time I saw this, I was so confused. I thought the comment was starting with "I anal" before I read the rest of the post only to compute it means "I Am Not A Lawyer"
I agree with the addition of the checksum, however I’m curious:
> either by accident or malice
1. if you don’t believe people hand type these then how else will they accidentally enter an invalid? I suppose copy/paste errors, or if a page renders it as uppercase, though you should just normalize the case if it’s base 32.
2. How does a 2 byte (non-cryptographically secure) checksum help in the case of malice?
The benefit is that you can reject bad requests to an API more easily.
For one application I used a base 58 encoded value. Part of it was a truncated hmac, which I used like check digits. This meant I could validate IDs before hitting the DB. As an attacker or script kiddie could otherwise try a resource exhaustion attack.
So in the age of public internet faceing APIs and app urls, I think built in optional check digit support is a good idea.
Storage can get corrupted, columns can be truncated. For the applications I tend to touch correctness and the ability to detect errors and tamper are more important that a couple of bytes per row.
But every application and domain is different.
I implemented number two as part of an encoding scheme a few months ago. I'm not sure how much it's saved in terms of database lookups but it's aesthetically pleasing to know it won't hit a more inscrutable error while trying to decode.
If you can be restored from simply doing a different task, then its not real burnout.
As someone who has undergone real burnout from burning the candle at both ends for to long, I wish it was this simple. Its sometimes called a mental or nervous breakdown, and the only real solution is to disconnect from everything you can (hard to disconnect from kids), and just try to get back to a stable place. For me that was living in a Costa Rica for 3 months with no TV and spotty slow internet. The only thing you can do is sit on the veranda and relax.
"Sorry, but that's not real burnout. If you're unable to recover at all then you've experienced real burnout."
I hope you see where this eventually leads, because it's a common pattern when discussing mental health topics. There is a single instance of the "true" thing and no one else feels justified in taking care of themselves because someone else has it worse. I'm sorry that you had burnout, but there are better ontologies of burnout than drawing the line around your experience as "real".
I mean, if one guy is talking about a broken leg, and a second comes by and says "ah yeah, I scraped my knee once too, I had to use a band-aid in order to solve it," I think it's entirely valid to say that those are not comparable experiences. I feel that you are arguing they are different degrees of the same thing. That may be true, but it's true in such a thin sense that it doesn't really contribute to a conversation.
That's a great example that I agree with. Also consider the "You haven't had a real fracture unless there's bone sticking out of your skin." to the person who has a hairline.
What I'm saying is that it's especially easy to get caught up in this mindset when discussing mental health topics. The existence of "real" burnout artificially introduces the concept of "fake" burnout.
Let's be clear, the concept of burnout and worn out is more compassionate, descriptive, and most importantly has the important consequence that I'm interested in avoiding: not turning into a who has it worse spiral that ultimately ends in people with burnout not being able to identify it because someone else has it worse.
It's this class of false negative that I believe is important to have a conversation about. These people often go unnoticed, because despite having burnout will not identify it as such because someone has it worse.
I get that you're interested in the false positive case, and that's fair. I understand that if too many people misidentify worn out as burnout that it can make burnt out people feel like people aren't able to understand their circumstances as severe, but I trust you'll consider both types of error as important and deserving the attention they do.
Another way of saying this is that burnout exists on a spectrum and that catching it early when you're on the worn-out side is way better then waiting till its gets to the full burn out side.
Well, in this case, the article author is talking about a sprained ankle, and top level poster is dismissing his experience because he broke his ankle once.
The article author is saying "I sprained my ankle and it was extremely painful to the point I could not do anything". You can ice an ankle (take a little time off) and have it fixed.
The parent is saying "I broke my ankle - fractured in several places I was crippled and needed surgery you did not experience a broken ankle". You cannot fix this problem by icing it. You need a systemic reduction in everything.
The author is conflating a sprained ankle with a broken one. The parent is saying that is not true. A lot of people who have sprained their ankles have come into this topic to tell everyone "WELL ACKTHUALLY" in the most obnoxiously stereotypical HN way possible thereby diluting the actual meaning of the parent's statement. There are far too many HNers who have a permanent craniorectal issue.
Most disagreements really just boil down to what is the most important thing to be talking about. And I tend to side with the person who started the conversation because they had something to say.
> If you can be restored from simply doing a different task, then its not real burnout.
You're not wrong, it's just that you seem not to realize this statement was a "well actually", probably because you happen to agree with it.
I fractured my wrist last year and the doctor was debating if it was possibly a fracture that needed a an x-ray or a sprain. I said it wasn't that painful and he replied that a sprain can be more painful than a break so that's not really a good metric. Hopefully that dilutes things a little more for you.
Nah, GP is right. There is feeling burned out on something specific and being well and truly burned out. The former can be shrugged off with tricks, the latter feels like being dead inside until you rest for long enough to reset.
honestly seems like it would work on a spectrum. I've been burned out. Not as bad as GP but where I've had to take a week off to find stability again. Everything except the timescales seem to line up.
I do get what GP is trying to say though. I just believe its all the same and "small burnout" can be fixed with small tricks.
Yeah it's what you have to do. You were abused (by yourself) and you're going to have to admit that it's a problem, make very real steps to recover from it, and make sure that it never, ever happens again as you're now 1000x more susceptible to the ill effects that come from that sort of abuse.
You are being needlessly sensitive to the parent post.
The parent is making a distinct difference between what the industry typically refers to as "burnout" and what actual, physical, burnout is. As someone who has gone through phases of burnout and currently working through yet another one in my career I can attest the parent's definition IS the correct one.
You are not burned out when you are bored at work. You are burned out when you are so tired of doing something that you cannot bring yourself to not only do it, but anything else. When you need drugs to get through the day. It's a combination of depression/anxiety/fear of failure that manifests as what I can only describe as a feeling of wanting to disconnect from everything forever and sleep. The only solution is to disconnect for a long time. I, for example, have not programmed as a hobby in almost half a decade. It's the only way I can stave off repeated bouts of severe life crippling burnout.
Be far less sensitive. Also, perhaps you should try to experience burnout before a needlessly pedantic out-of-nowhere virtue signal.
As with all mental health issues, there is no clear line between "fake" and "actual, physical". It's a spectrum. Even small amounts of stress and boredom create physical responses.
I have Bipolar disorder and I will happily admit that anyone can suffer depression & mania symptoms, and that the difference between what they suffer and I suffer is one of magnitude and not one of categorical difference.
The article author sounded a little bit burned out. You were/are severely burned out. Is there something wrong with saying it like that?
Unrelated, read both of these statements and tell me you don't see irony:
> Be far less sensitive.
> Also, perhaps you should try to experience burnout before a needlessly pedantic out-of-nowhere virtue signal
OP never made this claim. The title is "When feeling worn out, rotate", not "When feeling crippling, life-draining burnout, rotate". You shouldn't dismiss this just because it doesn't solve the worst possible case. The whole value of this suggestion is that it's something reasonably helpful that you can do in order to avoid ending up totally burned out.
And honestly if you're fully burned out, it's still helpful to have suggestions like this that might make things slightly better - most people aren't able to go to Costa Rica for three months and relax, so suggesting that's the only cure to burnout is just telling a lot of people that they're doomed forever because they can't take a tropical vacation.
I’m about 10 months into a burnout break, and I’m only just starting to feel like I have my feet back under me.
Burnout is very real and very different from the notion of “worn out” described in the piece. I started to realize this more deeply when I noticed that there was just about nothing that I could interest myself in, even the most tantalizing personal project ideas (some might note this sounds like depression, and I agree. I’ve dealt with varying levels of depression for most of my life, but burnout became a multiplying factor).
I think if more folks realized how different they are, they would take burnout more seriously and take more steps to avoid it.
My 2c: I realized (quite late in life) that when there's just about nothing that I can interest myself in, it's because I actually _need to do nothing_.
Doing nothing is healthy and is a great way to regain health.
(Feeling guilty about it or worrying about "what I should be doing" will prevent it from restoring us, though. It only works if we accept our health needs.)
> If you can be restored from simply doing a different task, then its not real burnout.
> the only real solution is to disconnect
So I was trying to deal with my dad's tragical slide into depression by convincing him that the monsters he's fighting aren't "real".
And he asked me a question bluntly one day (in my own native tongue, where it sounded heavier).
"What is real to you? Is what you experience real and what I experience not real?"
The problem with defining this sort of reality from a personal view point is that someone's biggest problem in their life so far might be the 100% on their scale.
It sure was in my case, my burn out was showing up in my weight (was 54kg at 6'2), while my dad ended up ending his life over work stress. And I still think my situation was worse than his, but just that I was still bouncy when I hit rock bottom.
So what someone shares as a real problem and a solution might work for them and a million others (because that's a 1 in an eight million shot), which makes it totally real for them.
Also If something works for you, sharing it doubles its effectiveness - socially and personally.
It's the opposite for me. If disconnecting and taking a break provides relief, the problem was overwork/exhaustion/fatigue and not "burnout". Burnout is something deeper that and more closely related to depression, and no amount of time off will fix it if you just end up coming back to the same environment.
Strangely enough, the fix to burnout can be finding different/more engaging work to help overcome the cynicism and sense of hopelessness.
The post doesn’t actually mention burnout at all, it is just tagged with the word for some reason.
I don’t think I have seen “real burnout” as you call it. If it is so debilitating, I guess it must be pretty rare, or this would be causing a massive social and economic disturbance. It seems lots of people are feeling worn out nowadays, so this article seems like it could be useful.
> and the only real solution is to disconnect from everything you can
Yes. Offline is the new peace of mind. Trouble is, the mind needs something to work at/solve and it's forever trying to solve some puzzle. People regard reading as switching off, but reading, for me, is an active pursuit, rather than passive. I read to become a better version of myself, so yeah: the only real solution to burnout is literally to meditate in a cave sans smartphone or book.
I think I’m falling into the trap of looking at my capacity only in terms of each day. Ie if I get a good night’s sleep I erroneously feel like I should be able to sustain my (probably unsustainable) momentum. When I try to relax, I feel like I’m wasting time if I do it for too long. Does anyone have any advice for this?
Start reframing the value proposition of relaxing.
In my mental model, I look at relaxation/disconnection like sleep.
You can behave as if it’s not important for awhile, but eventually it will catch up.
Personally, since I couldn’t see the burnout around the corner, I didn’t have the internal self talk to remind myself that relaxation is not just a waste of time.
I’m now working on baking this into my every day life by building habits around it. For me, that looks like:
- Mindfulness practice in the morning (using the “Waking Up” app, which has solidified the concepts for me in a way that no other app ever had)
- Regular walks in nature
- Cannabis + music listening sessions
But I can’t stress the value of mindfulness enough. For me it has become a tool to check in with myself more often and to really notice how things are going instead of just getting carried along by the currents of each day. And note this is not the same thing as some common forms of focus/concentration-based “clear your mind” meditation practices.
Shift your focus to reliability, not efficiency. It forces you to recognize when you've done enough, and it makes it OK to down-prioritize things to ensure you deliver on what's more important.
I'm a lot like you in that sense. Here's what's working for me (still learning):
> I get a good night’s sleep I erroneously feel like I should be able to sustain my (probably unsustainable) momentum
Try to have patience.
When we see an improvement we get attached to it. This happens when losing weight, sleeping more, etc. Changing habits, even slightly, always takes time.
If, it seems to be evolving in the direction you desire in the long-term, you're good. Extrapolating from one or a few data points won't give good predictions.
> When I try to relax, I feel like I’m wasting time if I do it for too long.
Trust yourself.
Do you feel you're wasting time after a few hours, days, or months? If you relax enough, the need to do stuff usually comes back to you on its own. No need to force it via guilt or worry.
If you objectively can't relax as much as you'd like to, then remind yourself _why_ you're doing the things you do. You'll probably have great reasons to do so —making the most of some opportunity, doing it for your loved ones, whatever.
It could also be you needed to avoid relaxing some time in the past and now you have more space to relax but haven't re-analyzed your current situation properly and are not aware not-relaxing is not adequate strategy now, according to your desires and objectives.
i agree. i got my worst bout of burnout while at a very cushy job where i was chronically underworked. it took me forever to realize there was a problem because I had internalized the notion that burnout was another word for fatigue/exhaustion, when they're actually distinct phenomena
Well, that's all very well for those who can afford to vacation in Costa Rica for 3 months, but most of us have to actually earn money to survive, and have to work most days of the year to do so.
Of course, the conclusion this should lead to is that we have yet another very good reason why a modern healthy country should be providing Universal Basic Income.
Its certainly not a solution looking for a problem. Its a great way to deal with a number of minor daily tasks. Checking the time, setting timers, checking the weather/AQI, playing music, checking news headlines, etc.
Theres a lot of things its really not good for and people have tried them all I'm sure. But where it fails the hardest is being able to increase sales volume for Amazon or increase ad revenue for Google - the only path to monetization seems to be to force it in - and THAT is what is dying.
I looked into them a few weeks ago because I am tired of the "Did you know.." and "Can I add that to your cart?" from Alexa. When I saw the device I was really disappointed. I can just never see getting one - it doesn't need a screen (cause it should be hidden) and why did they make it look like a 1960s sci-fi movie thing? IMHO it looks terrible.
The original design was great, but it just didn't work. They had too many issues trying to source hardware and decided to pivot to more off-the-shelf components.
That's the short version; here are some highlighted blog posts that document the trials and tribulations:
For what it's worth I'm intrigued by a screen. Theoretically it shouldn't be needed but if they want to have a reference device that can be used in multiple industries, it's better to have it than to not have it.
But that series of posts is why I'm still cheering for Mycroft despite everything: Clearly this stuff is hard, they've been out there trying hard, taking lumps, fighting off patent trolls, putting in the work. If they don't succeed, I'm not sure who else will pick up the reins and do any better.
The longer answer is that maintaining your current standard of living is not something you can do. You would need to make some sacrifices to get off the ground (roughly 18 months), even if you have a windfall of cash to take the time off you'd be sacrificing that windfall.
I have kids/wife/mortgages (plural), have started three companies, and worked in FAANG companies. I've never had a stellar exit but made some sustainable businesses. The cycle is basically feast and famine; 5 years at corporate job building up reserves and getting ideas, then 5 years of cutting back and getting a company off the ground. My wife doesn't really like the lean times, but she knows that is who I am (and dreams of big exits)
Funny. The most obvious place for WASM is a web browser and yet WASM STILL cannot access the browser DOM. Its only been, what? At least 8 years of promises about it coming soon and how people are working on it.