May 25 - June 15
I was discussing intimacy and compatibility with a friend. As for myself, I expect no intellectual stimulation whatsoever from my partners. Intellectual things are what I do regardless of partnership. Intimacy is for R&R.
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Did laundry. Jogged briefly. Had a breakfast plate, and will head to bed in a bit. Probably overhydrated for the amount of food I'm ingesting. Gonna amp salt and cut fluid intakes. Maybe get our website out during this yellow alert fortnight.
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When everyone wants to be small and fast, small and fast is an antipattern. #economics
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People often speak of policies needing reform. This is sightly misguided. There are many suitable policies. But all stem from policymakers whose leadership (a quantifiable political metric) is respected (a submetric of the former metric). So we need reform in leadership (quantified definition), not policy. :p
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There was no point to this monolograph, except to introduce semantic delineation.
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2359 hours: Dude sends waffly notice of resignation. I press him to confirm.
0245 hours: Dude sends confirmed notice of resignation. I congratulate him.
0345: I am briefing his likely successor.
0531: I send dude a C&B table comparing his present and future jobs, and a third column on how he should negotiate for a job after that.
0636: I confirm an interview time with a new candidate for 2100 hours.
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This is a good pace. I hope it holds.
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It took a lot of work to train to this level of performance. Geez, these sentimental fucktards make it sound like it's easy or something. Eradicate!
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/commented/ i have no moral qualms about killing anything, except the moralities defined by law and embraced in my role as a member of civil society ;)
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Anyone found GrabFood outlets open before 8am? Or is it an absence of riders?
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/commented/ You're missing the forest for the trees. The individual lessons learnt by technicians are less valuable... as a result of your absence to lobby for a comprehensive regulation for trades.
First-world countries, highly-regulated, perhaps over-regulated if you value a free market, provide blue collar workers with high wages, reducing inequality, as a result of comprehensive certifications for each trade, and strong enforcement of regulations for work done by tradesmen and the inspectorate.
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/Things I said to a woman:/
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Why so talky today? Miss me?
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Ok. Flirting is now mode-off.
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I have to let you know, that even though I'm not allowed to express it, it stimulates me. You may choose to disengage.
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In general i would aim to offend as many people as possible and pick my society from among those who do not mind me. I think people in general should do this.
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I'm well aware of the above. But that does include knowledge of my having offended people. So you should not assume that zero people find me creepy. i probably would be comfortable with about fifty percent of the population interpretating my actions as creepy, and fifty percent opposed.
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I think I do have a filter for people who can talk about talking. Those who cannot, tend to take offense and not want to explain themselves.
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Everyone cringes.
I don't like people who can't cringe and laugh about it at the same time. But there are many types.
With regards to my message above, it's quite intentional. I make a point to hide nearly nothing about myself. It's a good security model. :)
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/discussion with regards to the above/
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"She says she finds my mind fascinating."
"Well you've curated it to be attractive."
"I curate my mind to be useful."
"Attractiveness is useful."
"I curate my mind to be useful to MEEE... it's not my fault that other people find it attractive."
"Well at least, some people are attracted to it."
"Yeah, aren't many other attractions, really."
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/commented/ Yeah, I keep all my investments in my head where I have them under control.
Everything outside my head is considered a speculative trade because I am not keen on relying on politics and social convention.
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When you forget, you die, here is a new person. Move on!
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Back log of about six major items. Here's item 7. While doing a routine digging of the sewer pipe from the manhole, I lost a tool, adding to the blockage of the pipe. This was probably due to lack of attentiveness from division of computation across some other backlogged items, including training a new guy at the same time. Attempts to deescalate the problem from Orange to Yellow have incurred tens of Ringgit, and failed. Attempts will continue at the current rate of expenditure. I am really hoping to avoid getting to thousands of Ringgit in costs, which would be the final solution. Wish me luck. This is the beginning of my week, which shal end with a 26 hour shift... up next, I am going to remove the toilet bowl to approach the problem from the other side.
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Update: But, small issue in the grand scheme of things. I hope I am awake with the sun to do creative hosing tmr... scope or no scope... it tends to depend no how confident/bored/energetic I feel.
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Oh cool, OKCupid improved filters. Now possible to search for non-monogamy without paying.
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It is nearly six a.m. and I have yet to fall asleep. I wished to fall asleep earlier, as I would like to be awake during daylight tomorrow in order to more easily operate upon our sewers. However, tangential work, such as the preparation of diagrams for a quotation request, has not been conducive. I check the price of car rentals and compare them to the price of a personal favour offered to me by a friend. My friend and I also exchange notes on what we do in our respective spaces. Eventually I am groomed and burritoed in bed.
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Social chores: swiping through profiles on dating apps - to ensure that I have non-zero exposure to people I can date. I think about how my sensitivity to women has decreased - it seems that part of it... over the past few years... involves a decrease in quantity of business interaction with such objects. In office jobs, one speaks to counterparties, in hospitality most conversations are scripted. Furthermore since I have been surrounded by a inordinate quantity of beautiful women whose features I must ignore, as I work now in hospitality, I believe my mind is now more conditioned to muting new stimulations. In general, work has been intellectually challenging to a greater degree than in the decade preceding this job, since in this job I set my own targets, and they are hard. My memory is quite fatigued of late and functions like a boxer in the later rounds, so instead of being stimulated spontaneously, I have to make an effort to remember what it is I like about women, from time to time.
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I think about the things which piss off women. A lot of it has to do with unmet expectations, but it is the same across genders, and I am only plumbing it from my point of view. Very many people are shy and easily offended by conversations deemed inappropriate by their training. Others less so. A number of... people... whom I know, will speak in one setting of desiring for cocks to be thrust into their mouths, and in another setting will take offense at being reminded that their cunts are delicious. This usually traces back to some political strategy of appearing as Ludacris illucidated. I have little empathy for such incoherent people. And they easily grow distant from me.
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I once built an executive team consisting solely of women. It performed no better than the men who preceded them. Eventually, this operation produced data that supports the notion that class motivators are economically more distinct than those of gender. I do think, those who identify solely as genteel, are less likely to embrace the quality of work which I will thrust upon them in a place of work at the bottom of the pyramid of privileges.
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As I am still bored after dumping these memories, I may share them with some friends. I am a bit less cluttered in thought, having done this. I look forward to a fixed sewer, a fixed air conditioner, two fixed freezers, four fixed visas, an updated menu, time to grandstand the future business to new investors, and less indirect ways of marketing the consumer-facing component of our business. There are many things undone, but my mind is not yet one of them. Though it will be someday, and that will be the end of me, I suppose.
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Still bored. Dredging through conceptual spaces for important thoughts from the past day which I may have missed. Few. A pause for breathe. Ah, yes, a lack of studied physical conditioning over the past year has left me forgetting to breathe constantly, and therefore short of breath during intermediately stressful manual labours. I must improve, so that my huffing and puffing are more consistent.
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On we go.
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Enough of people sharing this ancient post about a stupid HR policy. We demand equal rights. Where can I get paid to pamper female programmers?
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In the evaluation of power, we see that many wield powers obtained from others by conferment and not acquired by force. These conferred powers are not what we can call true power. Likewise in the evaluation of marketability, we see that many wield marketability obtained by conferment and not by force. These conferred marketabilities are not what we can call true marketability. If you take a business by the hand, and hold it in a fire, what will its voice tell you? Does it wield its own power, or only power borrowed from its source? This question concerns me at all hours.
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I just turned on CMB again because I actually have a phone with space now. All my matches are 50-60yo. Very interesting.
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A thoroughly uneventful day. Worky work. Shower, then back to work.
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Anyone know the origin of the usage of the term "shell" to refer to "brazen action or person"?
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/commented - I wrote this under a blanket and before dinner, so will have to proof (not prove) it later/
Yes, if you mean that "the price elasticity of supply (PES) for my time is relatively inelastic".
For most people, the PES of their time will be relatively elastic in the lower price range (RM/hr goes up 1%, they may give you 1% more time)... If you pay more and more per hour, people will keep finding ways to outsource their cheapest hours, by trading work out of their schedule, and trading time into their schedule, which they can offer to a buyer.
But as the price of time goes up, the PES will drop as the frictional cost of trading time, and the logistical costs of it also, starts to catch up, and people run out of time to give eventually, no matter how high the price of time is. RM/hr can be ∞, but marginal supply of time will be 0 (or it approaches 0 asymptotically).
Now the reason *different people have *different points on the RM/hr axis, where the marginal supply of time drops off at a harsh rate... is because each person values their time differently.
If we define an objective level of happiness, H, by how carefree and euphoric a person is, you'll find that some people can achieve H on four hr/d of sleep, whereas others require ten hr/d. Of course the PES of their time will differ!
Beyond sleep, various people have different demands for types of activities such as food, travelling, sex, friends, family, etc. For people who are willing to sell these for cash, the PES of their time is relatively elastic... you can pay them to sleep, eat, travel, fuck, and socialise less. For others who are not willing to sell these for cash, the PES of their time is relatively inelastic - you pay for their time, they still don't want to sell the other things.
In my particular case, I find information more valuable than socialising, sex, travel, definitely motorsports, and eating. So if I optimise to maximise information, I will sell time otherwise spent with my mother, my father, my friends, etc. in order to get more information.
I have distinctly inferior memory capabilities at 6/8/10 hr/day of sleep... this was tested in college, and I prefer 10 hr/day for optimal memory CRUD.
I have trained to spend the minimum on food, clothing, etc., in order to meet my optimisation target of maximising time for study. Nominally for many years I have said that I aim to live on minimum wage in Malaysia, and beyond that my income is reinvested in learning things, not in growing financial assets. In general, I can't pay people to learn things for me - I have to study it myself. Maybe this will change when all our brains are hooked up to electronic networks - I tend to aspire to borg-type civilisations, and disagree with people who feel opposed. (What that entails, and whether it is good or bad, is a separate topic.)
Whether intellectual assets are financially liquid or not is a separate topic.
I think below, I should lay out the implications of this text on the PED of money (currency)...
Edit: The demand for money (currency) should be denominated in terms of time, though it could be denominated in terms of some other resource as well.
But what I wanted to write about the PES of money is pretty much summed up contrapositively in the longer discussion above, I think.
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See chart descriptions. Been pumping ad-spend all Ramadan to make up for slow daytime business, but it's not clear that we are making a marginal profit on marginal ad-spend. Up in the air till I have more headspace.
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/commented/ This is for our younger friends who have the flexibility to reinvent their professional careers. :) I attended a college where I got to meet many people on the Wall Street / global financial jobs track, and though I have different goals from these people, I did learn a bit about their lives. I think it's important for young people to be aware of the universe (outer limits) of what exists, so that they can plan their career targets in the broadest context. Since college ended (2005) the only charity work I really do is try to advise people on planning their strategic long-term career goals, so this is part of it in my view.
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Have you heard that people in finance make more money? Exactly how much more, and what is the sacrifice (opportunity cost)? Send this sort of article to those who have not considered it.
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/posted/ I just spent the last month "counselling out" a staff member (1) who couldn't carry a straightforward wage negotiation. As we all know, most people are driven by primarily unquantified parts of their lives - because they don't quantify their feelings and intuitions, they then don't manage themselves in an atomically logical fashion. Had a brief comments exchange with [friend] (2) on this, and figured it would be more useful in a bigger group.
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I was telling the successor (3) of the staff above, about how we advise [noob] (4) to do this or that... for example, to act in a certain way, if money is an optimisation target. Nothing differentiates one meathead from another, except what each person is willing and able to do, and yet we are paid so differently... an investment banker can make USD 100,000-200,000 while my staff makes MYR 40,000 - MYR 50,000, what is the difference?
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"It doesn't matter whether I like you or hate you, I come to work to do business, and I have nothing to offer besides time and money. So you must think about how much your joy is worth, if you are going to do business with me. / If you don't learn to ask for money, you will always be poor. You may say, you will never do X, but there is always an option to name a price for it."
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So let me ask you something a professor once pitched in class. How much would I have to pay you to have sex with a gorilla?
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Addendum: someone said this was in bad taste, but I actually wanted to post a survey on how much people would need to be paid for multiple items, but figured it was too complicated, so I picked something textbook:
How much would you need to be paid to:
- Never eat meat again?
- Eat meat?
- Say nothing to your friends for a week / month / year?
- Spend exactly zero time with family for a week / month / year?
- Have sex with a gorilla?
- Watch a live execution?
- Jaywalk?
- Smell the neighbour's socks?
- Legally, take investment, to run an obviously risky business?
+
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SO many questions... I kenot
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Maybe I should post pictures of families and birthday parties with captions such as "disgusting," and "this is the problem with our generation."
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I'm speaking to my best friend. She is nearer to my beloved than I have been in four years. I tell her to visit. She tells me to do it myself. I say, I chose a business. She says, she chose a profession. I profess ignorance. I always think of how Lalaland reminded me of my girl. She's not my girl - merely beloved. There are so many. My favourite customer came by this morning. I didn't see her face. I saw everything else. I miss my people.
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Didn't manage to get the fridge down to -18C, but -15C glasses stay frosty long enough, so I'm calling it a day
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1999: "web portals"
2019: "super apps"
Same 💩 different 🌞.
#changemymind
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/commmented/ Defined benefits retirement: that's generally how I view minimum wage. If i provide minimum participation, I will take minimum wage. When I cannot, I will die.
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/in discussion with new friends, learning about their work, because you know, people often feel intimidated when their work is discussed, so it is good to have boilerplate/
I'll apply my usual approach to discussing business models.
1. I won't pretend to know what you do in detail.
2. I won't assume that I know what you want to achieve.
3. Superficially, I'll think about how some of your business model's concepts are relevant to my business.
4. From a personal point of view, I'll list how I'd develop some of those concepts, without any presumption that you share those interests.
Lol.
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Currently building a caste system within the company, to separate those can give a minimum of three months notice, from those who can't. Wondering what the attrition rate is going to be as a direct result of this. Could be up to 66%.
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Dark Phoenix gets a B for conceptual study of social-pyschology, and a C for character development and plot. Lol
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Introductions to people who like to do vertical integration solutions that are applicable to multiple different silos, are interesting. Folks from individual silos, not so much.
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Ultimately I'm not as interested in replacing specific business functions, as I am in replacing humans in general, so that's where I come from.
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So far, a good day, some indication that more indecisive people are leaving. Which is good, because if they stay, they will have quantified incentives for adding certainty to the system.
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Looks like most of our staff are leaving by 14 June, which is a great relief, so I guess I'll be busy for the rest of 2019, and half of 2020 rebuilding operations. On the bright side, our compliance risk falls by 75% on the staffing end of things. I hope they change their minds, but it is better to have reliable operations, than happy operators.
Update: this didn't actually happen
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How many of you have got requests for a raise/bonus from staff who don't want to think about the company finances? E.g. I just got one today... two guys asked for an 11% raise, and a personal bonus EACH, equal to 721% of YTD (month 8) company net profit. It was an easy decision :)
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I don't* understand how the uniforms got so dumpy from First Class, to Dark Phoenix. Was it like, "oh we're grown up now, so we're going to dress like shit."
(I mean, "completely.")
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/commented/ (the) notion of a continuous experience is mistaken. Human experience is not continuous. When you blink, take a nap, or let your imagination cloud your focus on live data from the sensory nervous system, your sense of time is already distorted. If you were to be squished by a truck falling at terminal velocity, beside the noisy air currents, you would not notice a thing. Give it up :p
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Exhaustamundo. It is going to be a long year. However it is good when problems that you can't solve are traded for problems that we can solve.
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I just saw the video of tankman. He moves like a woman. But what do I know.
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/commmented, on a cousin asking what would happen if everyone waged a trade war against the USA simultaneously/
1. The USA would drastically reduce imports of luxury goods, and gradually turn into Russia.
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2. Former US trade partners would have a oversupply of stuff, which would make it cheaper for everyone ex-USA.
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3. However since the US plays an apex/major role as a sort of prime mover in terms of consumption... unless another economy stepped in to suck up the goods, you might just see stagnating inventories, and reduced investment around the globe as forecasters move to risk-off mode. (Everything might become more expensive for everyone.)
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4. There are a few candidates for replacement of the US as a nexus of demand. First in line is none other than China. Which is partly why the US is actually in a cold/trade war China right now.
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5. If China and/or India were to step into the role of replacing the US as a nexus of demand in an environment of global animosity against the US expressed via trade sanctions as in this fictional scenario, I think that's an interesting idea...
Don't mind my arm waving. I clean toilets for a living and don't actually follow this stuff.
... as to why the US is the golden boy and Russia is the whipping boy, well, just check on who won the world wars, and the cold wars, and why, and what happened next.
Edit
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I'm outside a place that sells cheap detergent, at 6:22 a.m., waiting for it to open. I've just had breakfast with a chap ending his shift at the cafe, and we've discussed his colleagues who sadly, shot themselves in their professional feet this past week. Strange, is it not, that this mind spends its time with these other minds, and on the pursuit of discounted hydrocarbons in suburban parking lots. It is always queer what people decide to do with their time.
This article comes up in my news feed. I smile a little. I've always been a fan of beautiful, clever, women. Another whose path crossed mine, was a celebrated squash player who wrote op-eds in the newspaper when she was much younger - I wrote to her in response (didactically) and received no response (deservingly); years later at my first job at a bar, she was a customer, the cousin of a regular. I was surprised that she was so small.
The article. A glimpse at a mind I have observed fleetingly for many years, without specific intention. I first met her by accident, as we were both meeting someone else at a foodcourt in SS24, around 2005, or was it 2007, I may bother to check later. This is how we shall anchor the date. I remember being introduced, and saying something along the lines of, "congratulations at landing a job in the world's number one management consulting firm; I'm the number one philosopher in Malaysia," and she said, something polite, perhaps an erm hello, pleased to meet you. And that was that. Eyes averted, I wasn't sure if she was shy, or annoyed at my hyperbole.
After the Harvard competition we met again while I was preoccupied at a public relations firm, her team was looking for software developers. She had forgotten that we had met before. I was not surprised. From here on, I would notice the occasional Facebook status update, at times deeply expressive of anxiety, and a struggle to retain control. That was from 2011 through 2012 or was it 2014.
I hope she's found a stable place. The article resonates strongly with my fleeting view. That is all I know, as a casual observer. I remain a fan.
As I drive past an Al Rajhi bank outlet, I think of a 2006 encounter there, where I declined to explore an opportunity to work in the RMD, in favour of studying software development at a local bank instead. I left that job after a meeting with the managing director, where I got to comment to him personally that the IT department was crap, alas it was too late to help, as I had already resigned, despite being offered a role in patching it up.
I wish I cared that much about taxis, if it would have made me richer. It is strange, what people choose to do, with their time.
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If only the human mind wasn't such a simple machine, I would spend less time trying to find it amusing.
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Next interview at 2pm. I have three hours to figure out this C&B model.
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First interview question of the day. Can you work for a boss who doesn't love you? Ok! Second interview question. What can you do for us? Third question, how mich money do you want? Are you ready?!
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I believe that any offended person can learn indifference. That is my campaign.
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/comment/ See, it you take it to this level of abstraction... it's equivalent whether you
(a) are the only person in the room who believes there is nothing inherently wrong with lolitas (whatever that sentence means)
(b) are the only person in the room who believes that gay sex is enriching to the human experience (whatever that sentence means)
The question simply comes down to, if you want people to think about it, and if you know they are going to be pissed, AND if you know no one is going to argue (because you aren't going to argue), do you still speak?
:)
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wework: Every time I check in on this company, I'm gleefully amused that I've spent most of the last four years building a brand that's positioned perpendicularly to it. It probably stems from a prior understanding of their business model, and my completely hyperbolic disdain for unquantified sentimentality regarding the human experience. Lol
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FinBro1: "Is it right to invest money in a co, X just so X can lend money to Y? Isn't that ARTIFICIALLY distorting the supply of credit?"
FinBro2: "Is it right to invest money in a co Z, just so Z can ARTIFICIALLY distort consumer demand to gain traction?"
FinBro3: "Are you sure you are in finance?"
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So this happened.
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"I do not find you capable of demonstrating an appreciation of the debate I have raised. However, I have no lesser appreciation for you as a member of some society I happen to live in, and so I would be happy to reify my appreciation by offering to buy you a coffee, a stiff drink, or a meal."
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... furtheronto...
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"Well spoken. I do think people are like sand, here today, gone tomorrow. I also don't find a deeply spiritual difference between people who are meat, or machine, or implemented in other media.
Apologies if this particular view also is of no interest. But hopefully it affirms, what you believe of your counterparty :)"
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Most of my work week:
"Hi, I was expecting your arrival some time after 7:30pm. It is now 9:00pm.
Please let me know if you are coming over, I will try to meet you but if it is too late I may be at work, and unable to meet with you."
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Back to work. Hard times. So many first world problems.
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Running a cafe is like farming. Except that the livestock pays you a fee.
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WTB minimal Android phone that can handle Slack. All my cooks are on Slack save one...
