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???
Having an interesting conversation with someone you just met. I see people do this shit all the time and they make it look like it comes naturally but every time I'm in that situation it is so difficult. Its like a series of quick time events that im severely underprepared for
I learned to combat this with 3 simple questions:
- What kind of job do you do? (Or study)
- Where do you live?
- Do you have any kids, dog,...
Be interrested in their answers and add some simple follow-up questions that show you are listening. Add some content of your own as a follow-up.
Posing that first question can be a bit weird, but the rest is as simple as it sounds.
It really depends on the person, you have to have some sort of jumping off point. Whether that is sharing something in common with someone or having cool hobbies.
I think this is the biggest myth of conversation. People always tell you to search for people whom you share something in common with, but the reality is that nearly everyone shares something in common and there’s no reason to go searching for it.
The key to a good conversation with a stranger is to initially do two things: 1. Ask details about the stranger and 2. Intertwine that with yourself in some way. You don’t even need to share this part.
Good conversations have these things I’ll call “footholds” where you intentionally give each other details shortly after meeting in order to create those ties in conversation. If you ask where someone is from, you should shortly offer up where you are from as well. Or if you ask about a hobby, offer a light comparison to your own.
Once you have enough of these footholds, the conversation should flow freely. If it ever doesn’t, ask the stranger more about themselves. And trust me, just be interested in what they say.
I'm not perfect at it, but what helps me is that I genuinely love to learn and I like to take the opportunity to learn from people when I meet them. I just need to find an entry point (job, hobby, something the person is knowledgeable about) and then I start asking questions, and applying the limited knowledge I might already have on the subject.
With short interactions with people that are working (supermarket, bank, restaurant, phone assistance) I usually go for empathy, and overall just being nice. When one comes to me I go for a joke to brighten their day a bit.
I sometimes use the alphabet method. When a conversation gets stuck I think of words starting with a and form a question from that.
Example : angler fish, amazon, aeroplane
-> do you like travelling? What's your dream destination? Do you like the deep sea/ocean/swimming?
I think for short ask questions, actually listen to their answers and follow up or share your own experiences. Now you're conversating.
Me in my head: Start a conversation, think of words that start with a.... Aaaaaaaaaaaaa....
Me out loud: We come from the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the hot springs flow
Everyone, including me: WTF!?
*stressed depressed lemon zest
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 :)
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.
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.
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.
Achieving significant political change, even as an individual with significant political power
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.
Culture sadly has to be taken into account or it's like rowing upstream.
Hayes Carll, in his American Dream song:
"Nothing changes, even when it wants to."
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.
According to lemmy lol
"just do a revolution"
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.
Applying caulking or silicone.
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.
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!
It's not that hard to learn. Just don't leave away the steps that you found too silly from the tutorial :)
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
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.
I hear crochet is easier, and more common than knitting. But I haven't tried either so I could be entirely wrong.
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
Just be yourself
Who's that? I'll copy everything they do!
Seizure ensues
Easier to say when things are equal opportunity.
Art
Just find someone who needs to launder a lot of money
Converting a class traitor to socialism
Try talking to a socialist about something you disagree with then u will understand why people don't want it be socialist. I'll give u a hint its not necessarily the ideas of socialism most of the time its the people promoting them u willing to to even entertain an opposing idea.
As a member of the democratic socialist party I often am out speaking to people and for the most part I receive a sincere and accepting response from the regular public, but sometimes I will speak with a working class right winger and they either dont want to know or regurgitate false information usually of the fear mongering verity so I dont think people are put off due to members, not saying it never happens where a member has put someone off but I can't imagine it to be all that regular.
Try converting to a socialist. Socialism is a system, not a human being. No wonder it is difficult to do that.
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.
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.
Removing the tamper seal on a bottle of ketchup
Use your teeth.
Or pierce it with a knife and carefully remove the halves. I hate accidentally bruising my gums.
Making an otherwise simple change in a game made by a big company.
There are tons of things that could be done relatively "easy peasy" when it comes to correcting an error in the code or making a change to a number or even adding a thing. What makes it difficult is red tape. You've got assigned tasks to do that probably don't include making that simple fix or adding that thing or changing that number. If it's just 1 dude in his garage working at a hobby project, it could get done in 10 minutes if he wanted to do it.
Of course this assumes things aren't done in a way that make doing something that might be easy even harder simply because you don't have many options to do the things you want within the system you've made without dismantling part of it and getting into a whole mess of other shit to make the "simple" change. Sometimes it be like that, too.
Perfect example is changing text in a game (maybe 10 mins) vs adding emoji to text in a game ( weeks?) does the text engine support emoji. Do we need to add support for all arbitrary images? How big can the emoji be? So many issues come out of "simple" requests.
red tape
I just make the change and put it in for review and then move on with my life... most the time its not turned away if its a good change. Even if there wasn't any task or discussion before hand, and if it's small enough I can just do it quick then I won't be disappointed if people want it done a different way. At least for me it feels like people like it when I just make a decision and solve the problem instead of bogging them down with discussing everything before hand
But yeah lots of times "simple" changes are not actually simple in the system as it already exists.. and that can be frustrating but thats software..
Based on my recent failings: apparently hitting a little white ball into a hole.
I don't know if I should be making a golf joke or a billiards joke
If you're hitting a white ball into the hole in billiards, then you're doing it wrong.
Golf is a beautiful walk in the park, ruined by a tiny white ball.
Playing baseball with any level of skill.
It's funny but even catching a well hit fly ball, if you haven't done it before it's going over your head.
Boooooooo.
"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
Manual on a bike
Ollie on a skateboard
Who's this Ollie I keep hearing about?
He's a little jumpy
Lemon meringue pie
One thing I learned about meringue is that the slightest bit of fat will turn it into frosting.
Even a mixing bowl/whip that has been sitting in an open kitchen may have accumulated enough aerosolized cooking oil to effect the outcome. I've never failed after washing the utensils and then being scrupulous about broken yolks.
Preach. I keep my kitchen as clean as possible, and it's still so easy to miss something that will mess up the meringue, or even the curd.
The crust is at least foolproof lol. I'd been making pies long before I decided I wanted to tackle meringue.
-
popular sayings like: "get well", "do not be sad", "do not be poor~"
- following up with this, communication will always present a bump or two. it's not easy to get [all] your points across.
-
karaage, IMO. "oh it's just fried chicken". fried-dry-chicken is the easy part.
-
it always looks easy when pros do it: you see it with that teacher solving that algebra problem, or that guy doing that guitar hero/osu/rhythm game song, models and their drips, mukbang/oogui, porn
The trick to fried juicy chicken is tapioca flour. Chicken itself doesn't need much time to be cooked through, but a regular batter of flour coating takes forever to get nice and crunchy. By the time you get it right, the meat is overcooked.
Tapioca (or cornstarch, if you must) gets a really nice color and crunch in no time, so you can just eyeball it and it's gonna be good.
Thanks for the tip, I'll try this next time!
“Get well” is completely different than the other two. It is rarely if ever used as an imperative. It is more like “(I hope you) get well”. Well wishes are good.
-
I was never able to center clay on a pottery wheel.
Squeezing lemons
That's easy. Keeping the seeds out of the juice takes some extra work.
That's probably why they don't say "easy peasy take seeds ouf of lemon juice squeezy"
Heh. Squeezing lemon quarters is easy. Squeezing limes quarters requires a vice grip.
Seeing In The Loop and not watching it
Cooking eggs
Cooking lemons
We're approaching lemon meringue, which is one of the most difficult difficult lemon difficult baked goods
I feel you, but the truth is that they're easy to cook. It's just that they're also easy to cook badly.
Get pan heating. Medium high. If there's a number scale from 1 to 10, go about 5 or 6.
Plenty of lubricant (oil, butter, whatever), ready to go. One pat of butter to the side
Crack eggs in a bowl.
Add pepper to taste.
Scramble eggs in bowl with fork.
When pan is hot, which is when you can hold your hand about six inches over the pan and feel it, add lubricant of choice. Just enough to cover the bottom of the pan.
Give eggs one last stir with fork, then pour in.
Count to six slowly. Then gently move the eggs around with. A spatula, spoon, or whatever is handy and won't burn.
Once you've got chunks of eggs, stop. Count to six them move them around again.
Add in extra pat of butter. Let it start to melt, then gently move the chunks around until most of the liquid is now a jiggly mass with a tiny amount of liquid making the surface shiny.
Cut off the heat. Sprinkle with a pinch of salt or two. Put it all on a plate if it's just for one person, in a bowl or individual plates for a bigger table.
That's it. Bare minimum scramble. You can get fancier, but that's a choice.
The reason most eggs people make suck is too much heat for too long. They get rubbery. Lower heat, gentle scrambling, then let the heat that's in the eggs finish the last bit of cooking on the plate or serving bowl. You'll get fucking excellent eggs. Might take a few tries to really nail things to perfection, but the methodology will work to make yummy eggs before that.
Seriously, eggs don't need to be in the pan long. A minute or so for a big batch as long as you're moving the curds that form is plenty most of the time. When it isn't, it'll be because it's a huge batch rather than just big.
Same principle applies to over easy, over hard, and sunny side up, but flipping those is a skill that takes practice. But use lower heat and you'll fuck up less. Trust me, if you leave things less done than you think is done, there is plenty of heat there to finish the job and they'll be safe to eat even if not pasteurized. I promise. Carry over cooking is a thing.
One of the most foolproof ways to cook eggs, in my opinion, is basted. Probably easier than scrambled even.
- Heat butter in a pan over medium heat until the bubbles are subsiding.
- Crack eggs into pan, spaced as far apart as possible.
- When the bottoms are looking mostly white, add about 1/3 cup of water around them.
- Reduce heat to medium low and cover (a glass lid is very helpful here). The steam is going to cook the tops while the pan cooks the bottoms. You don't have to do anything but watch them.
- When the top of the yolks look hazy white, they're done. You can touch the whites with a fork to make sure they aren't running.
- I like to take them out with a spatula and set the spatula on a paper towel for a second to soak up any water before putting them on the plate.
- Add salt and pepper if you want.
They come out kind of like over-medium or poached.
