Notices by Don Romano (alt) (thor@noagendasocial.com), page 52

As the interview went on, it became apparent that he mostly just gave drawings to an actual electrical engineer and they did the actual board.

He was also unfamiliar with very common chips and industry standard buses.

The conclusion was that he was smart, but also came off as suspiciously slick. He also had a rather sketchy resume, and that must mean something, because my resume isn't a pretty thing either, and my boss still hired me.

On Friday, the boss brought me into a meeting as a bullshit detector in a job interview he was having with some guy that our project manager had met on the train, because the guy claimed to know electronics.

It was fairly hilarious.

The first thing he suggested was that he knew something about high speed PCBs.

The second thing he mentioned was that he liked to draw his designs on paper, but was wanting to learn Altium Designer.

I need to decide on some kind of software or hardware project that I can manage to complete between now and Easter Monday.

I'm gradually starting to mute accounts with anime avatars. They mostly belong to people who are much younger than me, physically or mentally.

How often do you see older people spend time with younger people in real life unless they are parents, teachers or coaches? Basically never, because most people prefer to have friends who are at the same maturity level as them.

It wouldn't hurt if there were communities in the Fediverse for people over 30.

Do you think the EU might have a thing for circles?

Do you think the EU might have a thing for circles?

Do you think the EU might have a thing for circles?

Do you think the EU might have a thing for circles?

I've noticed that I'm far more productive if someone is expecting results. When I ran ArtGrounds, I had hundreds of people asking about what I was doing and expecting me to deliver, and it was a powerful source of motivation.

My roommate was a moderate source of motivation for the 5.1 project, because, being my first customer, he expressed interest in it, and wanted to know when it would be done. He didn't exert much pressure and I was slow to finish it; but I did pull through eventually.

@coldacid It's a bit of a tragedy that I can't summon the strength for such things on my own. I need external pressure. There are so many things I could have accomplished if my intrinsic motivation was stronger. I guess lacking such a strong drive simply makes me ordinary. That's why most of us don't live extraordinary lives and need to work under management.

@coldacid There are certain tasks I have at work that I would never in my life endure if my boss and my customers weren't standing next to me tapping their feet. That's what you call a source of motivation, I suppose, and also a source of skill development, since you learn a lot by doing such hard things.

@coldacid And as with programming, you sometimes reach spots where you're stuck for a long time, often an entire week of just banging your head against something. With music, I reached a point where I couldn't progress anympre without enduring a level of frustration that I was only willing to endure if I could be confident that I could turn it into a career as a reward, and of course, you can't be confident about that, so I gave up developing my skills further.

@coldacid I once had a geek friend who became curious about music because I was doing it, and he had ideas for music, so I helped him pick some gear for it...

...and he pretty much gave up after the first session, because couldn't endure listening to himself play badly for long stretches of time.

Your ears must endure some extremely monotonous music as you practice a small part over and over until you can play it, and for most people, that's exhausting. Just ask the parents of a musical child.

@coldacid No one's saying programmers can endure frustrating people or working environments better than anyone else. But they can endure technical frustration a lot better than a non-programmer, and that's a big part of why they are a programmer in the first place.

And what I'm saying is that this is also true of, say, a musician or an athlete. They must endure repeated failure over long spans of time. I would know, because I also do music, and my endurance there is far weaker.

@coldacid Oh, but I didn't mean frustration toward anything but the task itself, so that's out of scope for what I'm talking about.

The typical way that I cheat when I record songs is that I'll play what a professional player might pull off in a single live performance by overlaying and splicing recordings instead.

I might record the left hand of a piano part separately from the right hand, for example, or combine multiple guitar tracks to get a fuller sound that a professional player could pull off in a live performance, and I might splice shorter phrases together when I can't pull it off live.

"Everyone who thrives at coding is able to deal with mind-bending levels of frustration."

Upon further thought, I think this is true of just about any skill that requires practice.

If I were able to endure mind-bending levels of frustration while practicing my keyboard or guitar playing, I would be a professional player.

What actually happens is that I give up and cheat using MIDI sequencing, since I mostly produce tracks, not live performances.

I cheat only as much as I have to, though.

Super Mario ragtime medley:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdqKEHqt94g

Uptown Funk ragtime cover:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdCz5eAS6MI

I maintain that this is the best version of Für Elise... 🎩 🎹

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCfGXwx1mJs