Most things you see a real professional doing.
Just look at the ease a window washer cleans a window stripless and fast, or a bricklayer just gets stones on the same height with 2 small taps on the brick consistently. Many more examples like that…
Years of experience and muscle memory make it look easy… but it isnt.
And humans want to replace some of this shit with robots.
Window washer working on sky scrappers? Sure, I guess it is a job that can be done by robots.
Bricklayer? Why the fuck???
I don’t see why a robot can’t lay bricks just as effectively or more than a human.
For one thing it is a tough, dirty, physically taxing job. If you can reduce the strain on humans and not wear them out as fast I’d call it a win…
Sure, but I’d imagine that Joe the Bricklayer may have a slightly different reaction when you tell him the exciting news that he doesn’t have to lay bricks anymore because a robot can do it.
That’s because something’s wrong with our system. Joe the bricklayer has others things HE wants to do, but reaping the rewards for the businesses he helped build is in the cards for most.
I don’t disagree, but that bigger picture sentiment isn’t keeping the lights on at Joe’s house.
For the record: I am completely against the notion that we should stifle technical progress to preserve jobs and the status quo, but I just also feel it’s something that we owe it to ourselves as a society to manage that issue alongside the progress so nobody gets left behind.
That’s how we ended up with the solidly blue rust belt turning very purple over the past 50 years, and a state of coal miners like West Virginia becoming blood red.
No doubt. People live and die in the hear and now. Its just frustrating how normal the idea that automating or making things more accessible means that it might ruins peoples lives. Like what a nutty notion, only made possible by the disconnect.
But the thing is, we don’t have to replace Joe with a robot. The hard part about being a bricklayer is having to make cement, carry that cement in buckets, carry concrete blocks, amongst other things that I don’t even know (I watched my father in law working a few times). Why can’t we just replace the “heavy” part with robots?
Let’s use robots to our advantage, but keep people doing jobs they actually like.
Tell that to all the seamstresses, or do you think we should go back to manually made textiles?
Honestly, stuff like underwater welding should be done by robots. Stuff like that is so unbelievably dangerous. I could see a lot of dangerous jobs getting swapped over to robots (bomb defusal, hotwork, chemical processing or oil rig repairs when the plant is shut down, etc).
If bomb defusal isn’t already being done remotely by drone then someone needs to be fired immediately
Bricklayer? Why the fuck???
Why the fuck not? The goal should be to automate all the jobs, so we humans can enjoy our time on this planet instead of spending it working.
The goal is for us not to do jack shit, but to have nice lives, without having to spend most of the time working.
That is wrong thinking
*stressed depressed lemon zest
Making friends as an adult
I’m really struggling with this right now. I’ve joined to some new interest groups, but everyone including myself, seems so guarded, every time I leave feeling like I’ve failed a barrage of social aptitude tests. I feel like so many adults have baggage that by 40 they’re spring loaded to overreact and overthink, they come across as unapproachable. Or maybe I’m awful, which is what keeps kicking around in my head.
You’re not awful. It can be very hard, especially if you aren’t outgoing by nature. Doubly especially if you don’t have an identifiable “thing” for people to know you by.
The best I’ve done is let people know my interests, and my values, and just generally who I am . People who are on the same sine will gravitate to you, while everyone else will rightfully treat you like a weirdo.
Just the cost of doing business, that.
Thank you for your kind words. Logically I know I am not awful as I have friends and try to act with kindness every day. But when you seem to be the common denominator it can be hard not to think you are the reason. I’ve read you aren’t supposed to talk about yourself a lot, that it can be off putting. I try to use approachable body language, actively listen, remember when someone tells me things about themselves, but I am so in my head with social interactions I know I am coming off real weird, like I was raised in a cave. It’ll be ok ; I can always get more dogs to hang out with.
I relate to that. Actually you sound like you’re more on the ball then me. I would describe most of my social interactions as going 50% or lower than an imagined ideal, and even when things go perfectly I’m wracked by “cringe attacks” for weeks. But I would still consider myself to me thriving.
Maybe you don’t relate to the above, but I think social life is just harder for some of us. If you can keep a conversation going by contributing anecdotes and recalling details about the person, that’s incredible! People who can do that seem like superheroes to me.
I’ll wade into a social situation but then just be like uhhh what now? I feel proud if I can just remember someone’s name, let alone remember to talk about something other than myself.
Anyway I don’t feel bad for myself lol. My point is that maybe we do alright. Maybe we’re just overthinkers.
Those cringe attacks are so real! But very true, if we are so so mindful of our interactions we can’t come off as bad as imagined…
Picture frames.
Looks like an incredibly simple project for a beginner woodworker, doesn’t it? Get some nice wood, rout in a rabbet for the glass/art/backing, rout on a nice decorative profile, then set your miter saw to 45 degrees and make 8 miter cuts, apply some carpenter’s glue then wrap it in a band clamp. What’s so tough?
I’ll tell you what’s tough: the precision with which those miter cuts must be made is exceptionally fussy. Say each cut is a quarter degree off. Well, after eight cuts that’s two degrees of error. Three of the joints will look fine, the last one will look like an axe wound.
The issue isn’t making the cuts at 45°, it’s making them at 45.0000°. Or, more realistically, making them truly complementary.
This same issue applies to moldings around cabinetry, with the added bonus that the carcass of the cabinet won’t let any of the joints close tightly, so they all look like trash.
I’m not a woodworker, but this is the reason I always finish with sanding. You can sand sand sand, check… sand sand sand, check… Just repeat that 500 times and you’re done!
Everyone should have to sand a piece of wood to within spec at least once in their life.
Measure twice; consider a finer grain of sandpaper; sand once.
Repeat 500 times.
Knitting. Always see people do it on the subway or watching tv without paying attention or trying. Spent a few hours trying to learn once and couldn’t do it.
Crochet for me. It took me forever to figure out how to do it - to even get one simple stitch done. Somehow I figured it out but it’s still really hard
I hear crochet is easier, and more common than knitting. But I haven’t tried either so I could be entirely wrong.
Parenting. Before I had kids I was often judgmental of parents, but now I’ve realized all the things I didn’t take into account and all the things you just don’t have control over. In my case, I was not expecting to be a single parent, there was the pandemic, and I did not factor in how impactful the lack of sleep and autonomy would be.
My mom told me she used to judge the parents in the shops with screaming kids, we didn’t do that and she thought it was her excellent parenting. She said “Then God gave me Janet” to cure her judgemental hubris, lol.
Nobody is a good parent all the time, we aren’t robots and exhaustion is such a drain on intelligence and compassion. But most of us are good parents enough of the time, thankfully.
Fucking Janet
I’ve got one thing to say and that’s
Dammit Janet
I love youuuuu
I was one of those rare, quiet kids, so until my brother was born my parents were just reinforced in their belief that other parents were just shitty parents.
Even without suddenly becoming single, or a pandemic, or anything, being a parent isn’t something that can be explained to someone who hasn’t experienced it, IMO. You can use words to explain, that you think are accurate. But it just has to be experienced to fully understand. The fatigue, the change in stress levels, the amount of time you lose. Conceptually not hard to grasp. But the way it feels, different story. “Wow, this is worse/more than I thought.”
But given all that, it’s also hard to explain that it’s all worth it. One of the best things about being a parent right now for me personally, is watching my kids learn everything for the first time, and the wonders of learning, beaming from their eyes. It’s such a privilege being the one to have a chance to teach them a bunch of things. Being a role model, being someone with whom they build trust.
Also walking into their room after they’ve fallen asleep and watching two absolute gigawatt units expend their energy non-stop all day, now completely still (and silent, JFC), and just so peaceful. Their eyes just two lines, rather than two open balls all day. Adorable.
I have a friend with kids. I’m also an aunt. I think it’s absolutely fantastic when people can be parents, but I also don’t at all understand how anyone is capable of doing that shit. I’m more than capable of briefly watching and playing with kids for several hours at a time, but not caring for them 24/7 forever.
It’s especially wild to me when parents basically explain to me that they are constantly legitimately going through extreme suffering in what you describe in your first paragraph.
But then they tell me how literally suffering 24/7 is somehow all worth it to them and it makes even less sense. I’m guessing there’s some sort of hormonal thing going on to trick the brain into giving periodic happiness episodes in the middle of what sometimes seems to be flat out torture.
😆 Sounds very accurate to a normal parental experience indeed.
I don’t know if it’s necessarily hormonal. I mean… Everything brain related is, perhaps. I don’t know about such things. But it’s mostly for me about how beautiful it is to have such a purely innocent being put their full trust in you and love you unconditionally (whether by instinct or not). You get to have an extremely tight emotional bond with someone who is completely dependent on you, and that really sharpens your morals. It grows you the fk up. You start having a lot more empathy, even if you thought you had a lot of it before.
It just changes you, completely. Like, I’ve explained it now, in some pretty well-chosen few words, but there’s still this explanatory gap here that will never be bridged by words, only through experience. It’s… hard to explain. 😅
You even feel a little conned, sometimes. Always tired, annoyed, want to be alone, stuff like that. Then when the kids are away for a day or more, “I miss them”. Like what the actual F. 🤡 Am I infested with brain parasites or am I a parent?
I went through Army training where they intentionally deprive you of sleep for 9 weeks, and I had still never been as tired as I was the first 6 months of parenthood. I didn’t know that you can get that tired and still be alive.
I know, holy shit. And I’ve been a bad grown up and staying up sometimes until 3 am playing games, and the next day I’ll sleep at like 7:30 pm.
100% accurate.
Once they become teens, the joy is in seeing them realize how much they don’t yet know. It happens rarely, so make sure to document it.
Nothing is more entertaining than being a parent.
There is also nothing to explain the disassociative feeling of having them kidsplain to you things that you taught them, or were actually there for. It’s like, dude, you didn’t know how to wipe your own bum until I taught you. I think I have a handle on 9/11, liberal vs. conservative politics, the Cold War, collapse of the Soviet Union, or how to drive/ shop for groceries/ pay taxes/ vote/feed my dog/apply a bandaid, or whatever thing you think just came into existence because you learned it.
you didn’t know how to wipe your own bum until I taught you. I think I have a handle on 9/11, liberal vs. conservative politics
I agree completely with the one exception being the current aging generation that is so completely brainwashed by Murdock et al, that think the working class are the badies, among other misconceptions…
lmao that’s funny. Yeah this is already somewhat the case with my 3 and 4 year old. Even sometimes when they were 2. They’ll tell me things I told them, repeatedly. Things they learn in preschool. Things that they make up on the spot that are completely untrue bullshit. And you’ll just go “oh really, wow, how interesting”. It’s all about sharing with each other at this point lol. Everything doesn’t have to be exactly right or true. I’m trying to remember that because my oldest is a bit of a know-it-all. Trying to prevent further damage to him being a little annoying prick with that behavior. 😆 Especially towards the younger one.
I was out shopping for plants this morning when a little girl wanted to point out the spilled dirt and the hedges they had to me. It was adorable.
My girlfriend and her 5 year old will be moving in with me this summer, I’m so excited to see her learn and grow.
You’ll be a great addition to her life, I’m sure. 💛
And those people in comments that are always shitting on parents? Wait until you see what they look like and how they live. Often the most outrageous comments are made by the most outrageous people.
What do you mean, like finish work then go straight to playing games? I know parents who manage that (somehow!)
I can’t even conceive of the lack of sleep. Like I’ll miss out on a few hours and feel like death, but staying up an entire night? And then having to drive, with a sick kid in the car?
But I mean ultimately I don’t want kids of my own, so I don’t have that internal ember to stoke my motivation. But man, parents must really want it to go through all that I see them doing.
Anyway hope things are going alright for you. One of the nice things is that it can (generally) get easier over time, and then eventually you have a new adult family member that you helped make :)
Working in a kitchen. Iykyk
I don’t work in a kitchen but notice many people take it for granted. If someone is on crutches, people won’t see the irony in saying “pick up that heavy object and put it in the oven”. Hence all those old graphic kitchen accident commercials.
I don’t understand the crutches part of what you said. I’m not trying to be a dick or anything I just genuinely don’t understand what that means.
They’re like stilts people with leg handicaps use to move around. You may have seen someone use them in school if they injure themselves. If you’re using them, your hands aren’t exactly free enough to toy around in a kitchen setting.
I know what crutches are and how they work, I’ve had to use them before.
If someone is on crutches, people won’t see the irony in saying “pick up that heavy object and put it in the oven”.
This is what I’m confused about. Do you mean people would ask someone using crutches to put something heavy in an oven without taking into account they’re using crutches?
Yeah, you’d be surprised what tasks people don’t have second thoughts about asking about.
That’s wild. I’ve had the opposite problem where people with obvious disabilities get angry because I can’t not help them.
“Reading the room” some people are really good in certain circumstances but when things are just off it goes off the rails.
As a person with no natural aptitude for it its actually tiring for me and I have to be on my A game to do it right
Art
Just find someone who needs to launder a lot of money
Applying caulking or silicone.
Watched dudes install a countertop. Apply caulk, one wipe, beautiful. After countertop installed I put in trim (it’s a window to a patio) and need to caulk literally a straight fucking line six inches long. Caulk, wipe, looks like ass. Great work!
When they applied it, did you react by saying “Nice caulk! 😏😏😏”
I actually invited him inside as I had some chipped dinnerware. After he was finished I said “Your caulk looks great on my bowls.”
A tip one contractor passed on to me when caulking: use pieces of toilet paper to smooth it out after applying. You won’t get your fingers gunked up, and toilet paper’s cheap enough that you can use a bit to smooth off a few inches of caulk and throw the paper away.
Think I got through half a roll when sealing up a window frame a couple years back, looks great.
With silicone the proper way is to first wipe the surfaces clean with acetone. Then apply a thick bead of silicone making sure it sticks to both surfaces with no gaps (very important), doesn’t need to look pretty. After that you spray it with soapy water which prevents it from sticking where you don’t want it to and then use a wet/soapy popsicle stick (or a dedicated tool) to scrape off the excess. After that you can spray it again and super gently pull your finger over it to smooth it out. Should come out looking something like this.
I’ve gotten good results doing caulking like this aswell but some people say that acrylic caulk may react with the water/soap and you should instead use a dedicated tooling agent.
Cutting the caulking tube tip is very important. If all the gaps are big, cut it so the hole is big. If they are small, cut it small. Cut it at an angle because you don’t use it straight on. If it is water based, have a bucket filled with water and a couple drops of dish soap. Put one or more rags in the water depending on how much caulking you have to do. The water and soap are there so it won’t stick to your hand and fingers as badly. Keep as clean as you can. I used to have to use cases of white lightning to caulk millwork and French doors on new McMansions several times a week. If it’s not water based, use acetone or denatured alcohol depending. The tip cutting is still very important no mater what solvent or water is being used. Too small is better than too big.
Even worse: insulation sealing/foam
Put in my own dog door, I’ve used this stuff once before and thought I remembered how much comes out when you barely press. And then how much it expands.
That was a year ago and I swear sometimes it’s bigger than it was before, still
Achieving significant political change, even as an individual with significant political power
Culture sadly has to be taken into account or it’s like rowing upstream.
Significant political change…for the better.
As we’ve seen all over the world or only takes a relative few to make negative change.
It’s a lot easier to break things than it is to build them.
Is achieving significant political change really viewed as ezpz?
Not necessarily but a bunch of political commentators sure like to act like it is whenever they’re complaining about something the current admin isn’t doing or that it is doing but under legal obligation.
This SO much. I was involved some years ago with a non profit, run by a guy with significant personal wealth. He burnt through nearly a million bucks, and did manage to get some change to happen , but it was incredibly difficult and incredibly slow, even with the backing and support of a number of other wealthy and connected individuals plus mass public support as well.
Hayes Carll, in his American Dream song:
“Nothing changes, even when it wants to.”
Manual on a bike
Ollie on a skateboard
Who’s this Ollie I keep hearing about?
He’s a little jumpy
Socializing. Things to say in a conversation don’t come to me naturally like they seem to do with other people. Often people remark it’s like talking to a wall because I don’t know how to come up with an answer to their open questions on the fly. And without that, they see no foundation to build friendship on.
Damn, I really relate to this. When I get nervous because I don’t know what to say, I come back with one of my dreaded default responses.
I realized today that people on movies are weird in cute, quirky ways. Most of us are just weird in weird ways.
people on movies are weird in cute, quirky ways
Also scripted and practiced ways.
It helps if you realize that most people are delighted to talk about themselves, if you can find the right angle. They may be passionate about cars, or gardening, travel, their children.
Also realize that most people have spent a lot of time doing whatever they do, and there are things they know about it that few other people do.
For example, someone who works in a laundry might have insights into the laundry business, or the people who come in late at night or the values of different kinds of detergent.
Someone who works at a mall may well know things about them all that you don’t. There may be aspects to their job that they find challenging or painful.
I seem unable to care much about other people (not officially diagnosed on the spectrum, but it seems obvious to most people who know me), but I am interested in the insights they can give me, and I genuinely want them to be happy.
Having a conversation like that also beats sitting around awkwardly.
Hey, can you add a button on that webpage to do [something]?
Like, yeah, adding a button is usually easy, but making it do [the thing] can be quite difficult.
can you add a button that will save my marriage?
Done. Your marriage status is now saved and can conveniently be retrieved in JSON format.
Just be yourself
Easier to say when things are equal opportunity.
Who’s that? I’ll copy everything they do!
Seizure ensues
