whernside's recent activity

  1. Comment on Everything must be paid for twice in ~life

    whernside
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    I have absolutely not gone through the Konmari method either! I read the books, and have internalised a few bits that were useful to me. I do fold some types of clothes now, and I liked the topics...

    I have absolutely not gone through the Konmari method either! I read the books, and have internalised a few bits that were useful to me. I do fold some types of clothes now, and I liked the topics around dealing with sentimental items, and identifying/facing why we have kept, and have difficulty parting with things at times.

    Here are a couple of parts I highlighted when reading two of the books:

    The life-changing magic of tidying

    People have trouble discarding things that they could still use (functional value), that contain helpful information (informational value) and that have sentimental ties (emotional value). When these things are hard to obtain or replace (rarity), they become even harder to throw away.

    By paring down to the volume that you can properly handle, you revitalise your relationship with your belongings. Just because you throw something away, does not mean you give up past experiences or your identity.

    The process of facing and selecting our possessions can be quite painful. It forces us to confront our imperfections and inadequacies and the foolish choices we made in the past.

    There are three approaches we can take towards our possessions. Face them now, face them sometime, or avoid them until the day we die.

    Spark Joy

    The important thing in tidying is not deciding what to discard but rather what you want to keep in your life.

  2. Comment on Everything must be paid for twice in ~life

    whernside
    Link Parent
    The friction between these two things (whether known or not before paying the first price) can be a source of much anxiety. For example if you see, and are reminded of that first price, it may...

    I think it's also important to know when you want to pay that second price, and when you want to want to pay that second price.

    The friction between these two things (whether known or not before paying the first price) can be a source of much anxiety. For example if you see, and are reminded of that first price, it may just provoke feelings of guilt, rather than motivation.

    I am going through a process of conscious decluttering (in a Marie Kondo way, by focussing on what I want to keep) and learning to face the feelings I attach with things, including at times acknowledging that in retrospect the first price shouldn't have been paid, but that that is a sunk cost, and rehoming that item prevents me from paying further emotional costs!

    It's also tricky when the first cost wasn't paid by you.

    @rickartz mentioned in another comment the positive side of this:

    gifts from someone thoughtful would give you a second price debt, even when you didn't invest for it

    But it can also have a harder side to it, if you realise you don't want to pay the second price, but might have feelings about rehoming it, linked to the fact it was a gift or has other memories attached to it.

    5 votes

  3. Comment on Any vegans on Tildes? in ~food

    whernside
    Link Parent
    I was already vegan when I saw Lucent and Dominion, and I agree they are distressing. I don't seek out this kind of footage, but being Australian myself, I try to stay informed of what's going on...

    Watched Dominion and it destroyed me.

    I was already vegan when I saw Lucent and Dominion, and I agree they are distressing. I don't seek out this kind of footage, but being Australian myself, I try to stay informed of what's going on here, as it invariably comes up in conversation. A lot of footage/info has been compiled on the Farm Transparency Project site too.

    2 votes

  4. Comment on Any vegans on Tildes? in ~food

    whernside
    Link
    Hello! I became vegan over 10 years ago. I took a bioethics course at Uni and was exposed to Peter Singer's writings, and for the first time really considered our use of animals (the context in...

    Hello! I became vegan over 10 years ago. I took a bioethics course at Uni and was exposed to Peter Singer's writings, and for the first time really considered our use of animals (the context in the course was in terms of xenotransplantation, among other things). I soon became vegetarian, and soon after that, vegan.

    No-one in my family is vegan, or vegetarian, but already being an adult, I didn't experience the added difficulties that others who made the switch earlier sometimes do. I had my own money and cooked for myself. Overall, the experience has been positive. I feel like I live in line with my ethics, though socially it can still sometimes be awkward.

    2 votes

  5. Comment on What was your first programming language, what languages do you know now, and what tips do you have for those trying to learn any of those? in ~comp

    whernside
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    My first exposure to programming was when my family got our first computer - an Apple IIe. I was in late primary school, and my Dad showed me the basics of BASIC. I wrote a few simple programs...

    My first exposure to programming was when my family got our first computer - an Apple IIe. I was in late primary school, and my Dad showed me the basics of BASIC. I wrote a few simple programs that possibly still exist on a floppy disk somewhere.

    High School was an exciting time as I discovered the internet. The basics of HTML were learned, geocities sites were created. I kept building websites for the fun of it, and I slowly learned new things as their complexity increased. I learned about reusable code, databases, CSS. I landed on PHP/MySQL, self-taught using SitePoint books and forums.

    By University I was still coding for fun, still self-taught, landed a coding job and learned more about object-oriented coding. And Linux... I've never looked back!

    These days I still code, still mostly in object-oriented PHP and SQL, and mainly just to automate tasks and the like. Or check out how things work for various open-source systems. I also dabble in bash scripts, JavaScript where needed (e.g. when I want to use extended functionality of Postman). I can read/decipher other languages as needed (Perl, Python...).

    I've just always enjoyed programming. Still never taken any formal classes in it.

    No real advice to give, but what worked for me was identifying something I wanted to do, and then seeing programming as a tool to achieve that goal, learning as much as I need or want to along the way!

    1 vote