There's nothing shallow about it. Companies don't make "levelling up" worthwhile unless you have your ego invested in your title in an unhealthy way. If you hang out at senior+/staff level you can just plug away until retirement.
You are awake for at least 16 hours of the day, you telling me you cant find 4 hours a week to read a paper? So 4/112 hours or around 3.5% of your week...
I guarantee thats more time than most people will spend teaching their kids any musical instrument.
Just spend a week mapping out what you do ans how long it takes you every week and I'm pretty sure you can find double digit hours spent somewhere, maybe even right here on HN
> you telling me you cant find 4 hours a week to read a paper?
For me, four hours a week is sufficient to stay up-to-date on an active research area but making forward progress requires at least twice that.
> You are awake for at least 16 hours of the day, you telling me you cant find 4 hours a week to read a paper? So 4/112 hours or around 3.5% of your week...
Using awake hours as the denominator is misleading because most people have other non-discretionary time commitments besides sleep. For me I'd estimate ~60h/wk sleep, ~50h/wk work/commute, ~30h/wk non-discretionary upkeep of children/relationships/home/body. Assuming 8+h/wk to make progress out of the remaining ~28h/wk of discretionary time means I can handle about three non-discretionary priorities. (Pre-kids I could handle about five.)
Therefore, when someone with a job says "I don't have time" to pick up a hobby, skill, language, outside research area, instrument, volunteer position, etc I don't interpret their statement as meaning it is physically impossible for them to rearrange their schedule to accommodate it. I (and I suspect most people) interpret the statement as them admitting that it's not one of their ~3-5 non-discretionary priorities.
I don't disagree with you. But I have also opened screentime on some of those people with "no time" and it has 15+ hours on ticktok this week...
There are legitimately busy people and then there are people who wish they could achieve X if only they had time but don't put any effort into making time for that.
HINT: if research is directly related to your job, allocate time to it during working hours, those aren't 40-45 hours of time a company gets to take from you and also get benefits from your out of work time. I'm reasonably sure your boss would happily let you allocate an hour every now and then to improving yourself as an employee and if they don't, well... The internet has their usual answer to that even though I don't always agree.
> some of those people with "no time" and it has 15+ hours on ticktok this week...
Sometimes this is the result of black-hat products hacking their dopamine cycle, in which case screentime or a friend can help. However, I've found that in some cases staying on top of the zeitgeist like this is actually in someone's 3-5 priorities. In that case saying they have "no time" for X is another way of saying that using TikTok is a higher priority than X for them. (Baffling to me, but a valid choice.) I similarly know people who spend a non-trivial amount of time on other "useless" activities like watching TV shows, playing video games, reading novels, learning esoteric languages, growing plants with no utility, commenting on online forums, etc. Who am I to judge if they find it valuable?
So as technically imprecise as "I don't have time" is, I understand why people use the expression. When someone suggests that I should volunteer for a cause, participate in an activity, go to an event, learn a skill, watch a TV show, read a particular book, learn a language, etc and I tell them that it isn't a high enough priority to displace any of my existing priorities, they sometimes get defensive and/or attempt to litigate my current priorities.
> I'm reasonably sure your boss would happily let you allocate an hour every now and then to improving yourself as an employee
Absolutely, this is a major perk that knowledge workers should take advantage of. I'm spending quite a bit more than "an hour every now and then" to learn about LLMs and accessibility because they are in the intersection of my interests and my job responsibilities. However quantum computing (or game design, solar vehicles, gardening, etc) are not in that intersection and would count against one of my discretionary priorities.
I will always try to convince people against mindless media like ticktok, well unless it's in their life goals to be an influencer but that may also be an issue...
Other cauaes though, sure I don't mind if you don't have time to volunteer etc.
It looks that way from some cosmetic choices, but structurally this kind of UI has been around a long time in many apps. Probably no one can claim to own it at this point.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time trying different katsu curries in Japan and abroad and there are absolutely great katsu curries outside Japan. A little different, usually lacking a sweetness, but that’s more to target local palettes. Though I agree that the shop roux is a major disappointment.
This doesn’t offload work to another thread though. And it’s actually more costly as it trigger style recalculations throughout the tree even when it no-ops.
Or maybe this is a high profile incident planned to keep the globe-head charade going! It is notable that the flight didn't actually go to Santiago in the end ...
I wonder if we have collectively worse memories than in the past partly for the fact our devices are constantly upgraded and replaced. Likewise fast fashion etc.
As someone who have barely been exposed to these technologies (it's already outdated by the time they got mainstream in the country, and the old is always competing with the new), I can agree with you. Right now, there is a firehose of options aimed at people and I believe we don't have the necessary framework to cope with these. I have some strong memories associated to particular tracks just because they were the only one I've been exposed to at those point of times. With streaming, everything kinda fade into the background, because everything new is instantly available (and there's something new every second). You can watch anything (so you watch nothing because you skip and switch when it's got a bit boring).
It's gotten to a point that I'm restricting myself to a few options filtered some strict criteria for any media. I refrain myself from switching with a combination of friction and self discipline. My music listening is almost always from local media and album centered. I read fiction books only from my ereader and when I switch (slow because of the interface), that means that I don't intend to finish this particular book. This means that I have to either focus on the current item to consume it, or not consume it at all. And for those I do consume, it had lead me to a greater appreciation of the item, just because of the attention I've devoted to it.
All my computing devices are linux PC's (except one Android phone) - despite the UI churn linux in 2024 is much the same as linux in 2004 underneath and I have a reasonable chance of properly troubleshooting any issues.
With Linux you are always the `user` and not the `consumer`, it's a different paradigm.
Despite been a life long nerd, Gadgets have never been a thing I liked so it was easy to just not buy them.
The devices and media might change more often, but the important stuff -- the content -- is much more persistent than it ever was.
Between 1924 and 1974 the primary format for listening to music only underwent minor changes (78rpm to 33 1/3 rpm; 8track showed up but my understanding is that it was still generally secondary) and new hardware was at least sometimes backward compatible with older media.. Between 1974 and 2024 there have been at least three major primary format changes (vinyl to cd to mp3, four if you count cassette).
But here in 2024 if someone actually wants to listen to music from 50 years earlier, it's incredibly easy. For example, per wiki fifty years ago this week "Boogie Down" by Eddie Kendricks and "Rock On" by David Essex both entered the Billboard top 10, and amazon's willing to sell me digital versions of their containing albums for, respectively, $8 and $9. In 1974 if someone actually wanted to listen to music from 50 years earlier, such as seen here: https://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/single/1924/ then good luck. Maybe they were re-issued, but you'd probably have to do some legwork to discover that, maybe your grandparents kept their copy and it's still listenable, maybe you've got a really good secondhand record shop nearby, but it'll take effort, gumption, and luck.
