Thank you for sharing this. Are you feeling more fulfilled in life now? I have been struggling with hating tech for a while and am considering getting out.
For what it’s worth I’m on the other side of this. I’ve been a licensed counselor for 13 years and working in behavioral health for 17-18 years and I’m itching to change careers. Basically the opposite of the post above.
The work can be rewarding but it can also be emotionally demanding and the pay and benefits can be quite shit, frankly. The mental health system (assuming USA) is designed to be exploitive to someone; either it’s going to exploit you, your clients, or both.
You can get an administrative job that pays a bit better and has better benefits but your work life balance will be poor and you’ll still generally struggle to make what tech workers make in equivalent roles. You can work outpatient but you’ll make less unless you charge a lot but then you’re excluding a large segment of the population who have a high need for services. Depending on where you live this may not be feasible even if you’re open to it. It’s dependent on your ability to keep a stream of somewhat affluent individuals coming in, obviously
Or you work with insurance but then you open yourself up to a great deal of red tape and financial liability that you either eat or pass on to clients, thus creating financial burden and worsening their mental health. It’s not your fault but it can feel really awkward and shitty to charge a client $800 when their insurance claws back 6 sessions worth of appointments. Alternatively you eat the loss, which can be something that inherently happens because (rarely) they’ll claw back appointments from 12+ months ago. This can also be challenging from an obtaining clients perspective. I run a private practice and contract with a group and right now I have 0 people coming in with no wait list. This isn’t common but it does happen and it means my income dries up a bit. It’s not the end of the world because the holiday season was a heavy period and it will likely pick up again soon but even people with insurance struggle to afford therapy now. More and more people have high deductible health plans with sizable deductibles so they end up paying $70-150 a visit, pretty considerable weekly/biweekly expense. Around summer I start getting a strong uptick because the high deductible people start meeting their deductibles (although young healthy ones often never do)
Sometimes it’s hard to leave work at work with this job. That’s any job of course but with this job you can hear some real heavy shit sometimes. That’s generally not the norm though; most people are just not doing so hot or having relationship troubles or whatever. But every once in a while you’ll get a person that has had some truly awful experience that sticks with you for a bit. Or a person that is manipulative, constantly tests your boundaries, and sticks with you in a bad way.
There’s a lot of positives to it too of course. I set my own hours, I don’t have dumb staff meetings, I set my boundaries with people so if a client goes too far or is outside my scope I can cut things off, etc. I earn 100% of my money minus minimal overheads (telehealth practice is really light on overheads). There are tedious clients of course but many clients are interesting and challenging in an intriguing way. But I feel like people don’t advertise the ugly side really
I always wonder who do counselors go to for counseling. And then, recursively, who do the meta counselors go to for counseling... where does it end? Or are we just adding emotional stress to an overtaxed system with no relief?
we go to other counselors, generally. although some do specifically specialize in counseling counselors, often who have quite a bit more experience and act as supervisors
supervision in counseling is odd. it's ethically obligated but not enforced. continuing education in many areas is loosely enforced too. this leads to other critiques about the field becoming, for lack of a better term, crappier. there are and (hopefully) always will be inspired, ethical, and passionate clinicians but there are also a lot of lazy ones who just burn through the checkpoints so they can bill insurance or clients $130/hr. Once they get licensed no one will check to make sure they do CEUs (depending on state), no one will check to make sure they consult with supervision for outside feedback, etc
it's one of those "we will self regulate" things but I don't know how well the field self regulates
I use FF and my coworker uses Chrome. He says the thing that pisses him off the most when watching me use FF is that there is no fuzzy search when manually applying styles. I.e. you have to search "justif..." to see "justify-self". You can't just search "self". That's the only example I've really noticed between the two but I'm sure there are more. It doesn't bother me enough to change though.
It only needs to be paired to an iOS device for initial setup and configuration. A watch with cellular can operate independently of the iOS device after setup and configuration.
It's been a year or so, but some carriers refused to sell me a watch only plan, it had to be a new cell plan for a phone too. (And pairing with an existing phone meant it had that cell's number, not a watch only one.)
Yea, and Hilbert was just operating mathematically once he new the setup, as far as I understand. Einstein's special sauce with general relativity was the whole curved space-time thing. I mean, very few even really valued the theory once he released it until decades later. A century later, it's effectively unchanged, with a lot of extensions of course. It is probably the achievement in physics.
I would argue that the biggest achievement in physics ever was sir Isaac newton: not only the 3 laws formulating classical mechanics, but also inventing calculus itself - which nowadays is basically all what these scientists use all day now (massively complex differential equations) + statistics
> which nowadays is basically all what these scientists use all day now
Newton was a genius, but calculus isn't solely his. A lot of modern calculus is closer to Leibnitz's formulation rather than Newton's, e.g. notation [0].
My understanding has grown to be that Newton's genius was probably the incredible intersection of Calculus and Physics. (One or the other might have occurred to others, but Newton synthesized them better and faster and at the same time.) Newton's Calculus was rougher and aesthetically uglier, but he did the most the quickest with "Applied" Calculus. Leibniz had the raw math of the Calculus better and aesthetically his notation was much better. It was less "Applied" and didn't quite capture as much of the relationship to Physics (but it captured relationships to other parts of math that Newton missed, being so focused on Physics first).
We use Newton's insights into the applications of the Calculus to other sciences and we use Leibniz's artful way of capturing the Calculus to symbols on paper (and chalkboards).
There's a power of "dualism" in mathematics that sometimes you don't know that you have the right math until you've got two (or more views of it), enough to say "these lenses really do show the same thing".
I find it interesting to spot such dualisms, and especially how many of them were contemporary mathematicians working at some remove or another (countries or an ocean apart). From a computing perspective that's always been fascinating to me about the Church-Turing Theorem (which is always a relevant tangent on HN). Most people ignore Alonso Church's contributions and just call it the Turing Theorem, but the Theorem itself is about dualism (that all formulations we found of computation themselves are dual and can be translated or emulated between each other) and doesn't exist if it weren't for Church and Turing coexisting and conversing. (Plus, it has been said that it was Church that originally proposed the math to prove the dualism between their work and it was a sequence of correspondence that Church originated.)
That is no disrespect to Alan Turing, of course, to include Church in that theorem name and respect the dualism of their contemporaneous work. I think that balance looks a lot like Newton versus Leibniz: Turing knew the practical applications of computing and was starting from a place of having built them (though classified at the time) and Church was working from pure principles and theory in mathematics (the Lambda Calculus). We greatly benefit from both having worked on the same ideas as duals of each other, and we greatly benefit that their correspondence involved an ocean in between them so that they also weren't entirely in the same mindspace. We use a lot of Turing's applied practical synthesis of computing and we rely on a lot of things from Church's notations or things derived from it (including the Y Combinator for which this site's domain name refers).
Modern computing owes a lot to the dualism of Turing and Church. Modern Calculus owes a lot to the dualism of Newton and Leibniz. I find that incredibly interesting and I appreciate that about the mathematics of both things.
I think it's fair to say that Newton was a genius but also that a lot of the stuff during that time was ripe for the picking. There were several contributors to the developments of calculus.
And Newton's calculus was pretty quickly "re-factored" from geometric to analytic terms.
That's kind of like claiming that SpaceX isn't that special because it was all just "ripe for picking" (or any new tech or theory really was all ripe for picking at the time that it was picked).
It seems to me that people forget that the "picking" part is what it's all about: actually doing the work.
SpaceX isn't that special. It's 70+ years of NASA work and the inevitable improvements found in 2023 tech compared to the last time NASA was actually given budgets for this.
Making reusable boosters work was pretty special. No incumbent was going to attempt it because they were unwilling to reduce their per launch profit margin on an unproven risk. SpaceX changed the entire economics of launch services and obsoleted every other player with their plan that detractors were sure would never work.
I didn't say Newton's work wasn't special. The implication is that general relativity is special-er.
> because it was all just "ripe for picking" (or any new tech or theory really was all ripe for picking at the time that it was picked).
Yea, that kind of is the point. General relativity came out of nowhere and was executed on at the same time. SpaceX is irrelevant to discussing achievements in physics.
Is heat the reason you want to repeal these laws or do you have others?
I’m on the opposite side of the issue. I think that tinted windows don’t allow for enough visibility for pedestrians and cyclists. This is anecdotal but they also seem to be used in higher portions of the population breaking driving laws. And lastly, I really don’t enjoy the militant “badassness” associated with these. I want the roads to be more chill, not people going around thinking they’re God’s gift to mankind and any who dares cross them will be punished.
These are mostly opinions based on anecdotes. I’ve lived in a few cities now and this remains true. Which is why I’d like to hear your experience.
It's currently 112 F where I am and there isn't a cloud in the sky. Humidity is very low so water isn't absorbing radiation.
Nobody is riding a bicycle or walking long distances six months of the year here, except for the unhoused, and they can only move at night. Cars are mandatory to participate in the economy.
A car with un-tinted windows is impractical for two reasons: solar heat and UV.
The A/C can be running full blast and my legs will still get hot. Normal side window glass doesn't block UV well so I can get a sunburn with my windows closed.
I have to equip my windows with dark tints. It's like a Canadian putting on snow tires except I can't change it out with the seasons.
So my state doesn't have laws against tints because it can't. Ok, so I drive to another state in my car... now I'm breaking the law.
You can say "human beings shouldn't live in such a place" but first, about 114 million Americans live in similar conditions, and second, these conditions are moving north.
Protecting the occupants of a car against solar radiation is a reasonable thing to do.
That is interesting. The high desert is my current location so it's "only" 105 but with the same low humidity. I find that a sunshade massively reduced any issues that I had with the idleness of the vehicle. But I'll give you that the heat is horrible.
I suppose my rebuttal is: how many months do you feel like tint is necessary? I grew up with routinely high temps (100+, in an area with high humidity). In college our first few weeks were normally 100+, and we did walk to class. I normally would come back with swamp ass and a back covered in sweat. People absolutely can live in these conditions. I just don't think we can remove the human element of it. It's hot, we are going to sweat. It feels like we are trying to control an element of human nature that cannot be controlled.
Edit: I appreciate the reply. Apologies if I sound snarky (as another commenter apparently thinks). It's truly just that the only people I know with tinted windows have been controlling and manipulative. The experiences I get on the road do not help my anecdotal stereotypes.
I don't think you sound snarky. I think it's easy to look at an issue like this through a cultural lens. Heavy tint is indeed popular among jerks.
As for necessity, studies suggest that skin cancer rates vary according to the side of the road a country drives on. [1] So even if you're tolerating the radiation it's still hurting you.
It's also important to remember that paneled vans are legal. They are taller than any car and the visibility through them is 0% because there are no side windows. Frequently the back window is covered or blocked by equipment.
You pretty much have to assume you can't accurately see through any vehicle. Seeing the driver's eyes can be useful, but it can be misleading... I've been hit on roller blades by a driver who'd stopped and was looking right at me but didn't process I was there.
I think every car on the road has to be treated like a panel van. Big opaque block that can kill you and will act unpredictably.
Wow that is a lot of F. It's 95 (105 real feel with humidity) here in tropics but people and bicyclists are out. I don't drive but not having issues you describe sitting in a nontinted air conditioned bus
> You can say "human beings shouldn't live in such a place" but first, about 114 million Americans live in similar conditions, and second, these conditions are moving north.
> It's currently 112 F where I am and there isn't a cloud in the sky. Humidity is very low so water isn't absorbing radiation.
114 million Americans live in conditions where it is regularly 112 in the summer?
No. It doesn't always hit 112 F. Temperature is a function of sensible and latent heat.
So Dallas, for example, is only 84 F with a humidity of 83% right now at 9:23 AM central. That's a heat index of 95 F. The high temperature will be 100 F but the high of the heat index will be 110 F.
Corpus Christi recently hit a heat index of 125 F.
It all works out the same. It's brutally hot for months somewhere in every Southern state (including California). These states should all allow tint and account for 114 million people.
Modern automobile window tints do a very job of keeping heat out without impacting visibility. Where I live, temperatures cross 45C every summer. Heavily tinted car windows are banned and we manage just fine.
I just find the arrogance humorous, I don't see how it's unkind. There are politer ways of saying it but you don't deserve it. You didn't care to be polite when associating window tint with: not being 'chill', militant, and associated with reckless criminal drivers. Just say what you really think:
"I don't like window tint and others agree with me, so let's take the rights from others to lower the heat in their idle cars and also keep the sun out of their eyes away. Now let me find a list of disconnected anecdotes to justify this"
I think you meant to reply to me, the person you replied to was just restating the rules.
That being said, I still disagree with your assessment. I don't really have a better way to describe completely dark tinted windows, blacked out windows, blacked out rims, other than militant. How would you describe this? In movies they use this look to describe the bad guy. We now sell those vehicles to match that "vibe".
Once again, I did say it was anecdotal. These individuals tend to drive at a much higher reckless rate in the areas I have lived. If I see someone coming up behind me at 15+ MPH faster than speed of traffic, they'll have windows tinted darker than the majority of others, a majority of the time. They also tend to swerve and run individuals off the road.
Please note, I asked if heat was the issue because I genuinely wanted a shared experience. I haven't seen a good example of the need for these windows. But most of the areas I live only get to 105. Looks like sibling comments of yours have warmer experiences - which is what I needed to know.
Your characterization of tinted windows seems to be draped in generalizations and anecdotal evidence(as you stated) rather than an exploration of their practical applications. You draw a line connecting the aesthetics of darkened windows with reckless driving and assert a sense of assumed arrogance on the part of the driver. Yet, you overlook the practical and safety benefits that window tints provide.
Let's disentangle the aesthetics from the usage. To claim that a tinted window is a symbol of militancy or a display of superiority is to judge a book by its cover. A film on glass does not a character assessment make.
Now, onto the practical side of things. It's not merely about beating the heat - though in regions where temperatures soar well above your mentioned 105 degrees, the difference can be crucial. Window tints can block up to 99% of harmful UV rays, offering significant protection against skin damage and eye ailments. Furthermore, they reduce glare, enhancing driver comfort and safety.
Your anecdotal observations of tinted-window drivers might be biased by a confirmation bias. You remember the reckless ones because they fit your preconceived notion, and you discount the countless tinted-window drivers who operate their vehicles responsibly because they don't fit the narrative.
There's also a point to be made about privacy - not in service of "militant badassness", but for the sake of personal comfort and security. And while visibility for pedestrians and cyclists is a valid concern, it's worth noting that there are laws stipulating the extent of tinting precisely to address this issue. Complete blackout windows are generally illegal for this very reason.
Finally, to characterize this discussion as a matter of 'rights' may seem overblown, but it highlights a broader point about individual choice and autonomy. It's about finding a balance between personal preferences, public safety, and common good.
Sure but in the US it is 4 (undergrad) + 4 (med school) so in total it is 8 years rather than 5 or 6.
Agreed regarding the US high school standards but students that take AP courses in high school can take the MCAT. They may not do the “best” but they will know some of the material. Schools in the US like UMKC have 6 year programs were high school students take the MCAT.
In a lot of ways, the first two years of US undergrad are "remedial high school". This also explains how, e.g. American undergrads typically declare their majors until mid to late into their second years.
