The Unhappy Me thread

[pinhodecarlos]

Trump....another Brexit....oh well....

[kladner]

Originally Posted by pinhodecarlos

Trump....another Brexit....oh well....

That is an interesting comparison, which had not occurred to me. But put it that way, and this is a Mega-Brexit. The world will suffer much for the insanity of the US electorate.

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by kladner

That is an interesting comparison, which had not occurred to me. But put it that way, and this is a Mega-Brexit. The world will suffer much for the insanity of the US electorate.

Bill Black: Liberals Didn’t Listen – The Immense Cost of Ignoring Tom Frank’s Warnings | naked capitalism

I almost never read, much less buy, books about politics, but this July I gave my 18-y.o. niece a copy of Frank's Listen, Liberal for her birthday, and told her that if she wanted to better understand the rise of both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, as well as the UK-side repudiation of the looter elite that was Brexit, that was the book for her.

And you seem to have a, shall we say, 'optimistic' take on the role of the US as a force for good in the world. Does US foreign policy over the past 4 decades - heck, pretty much post-WW2 - strike you as 'sane'?

[kladner]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

And you seem to have a, shall we say, 'optimistic' take on the role of the US as a force for good in the world. Does US foreign policy over the past 4 decades - heck, pretty much post-WW2 - strike you as 'sane'?

Not really. But the dollar is a pillar of the world economy. And no, it has not been sane since before I was born.

I heard chatter tonight about Wall Street anxiety. I suspect such tremors are overblown in importance. It seems that Wall Street now pretty much owns the place. Of course, talk of screwing around with trade agreements might make them nervous. But they will get over that and join the feeding frenzy of deregulation.

EDIT: But really. Do you see good times ahead? Remember that there are many varieties of insanity. It might, in fact turn out that DJT upsets some apple carts which need upsetting. Question is, will any form of domestic stability survive? I am gravely concerned that the last pretense of keeping Constitutional protections will now evaporate. Remember how heavily cops favor Trump. I think, maybe, that we ain't seen nothing, yet, in terms of repressive tactics and wanton killing. Perhaps our support and creation of death squads around the world is now coming home to roost.

[fivemack]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Does US foreign policy over the past 4 decades - heck, pretty much post-WW2 - strike you as 'sane'?

Yes, entirely sane; they have spent massive time and treasure building secure alliances in Europe and in east Asia which have become so much part of the landscape that you don't think of them as US foreign policy.

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by fivemack

Yes, entirely sane; they have spent massive time and treasure building secure alliances in Europe and in east Asia which have become so much part of the landscape that you don't think of them as US foreign policy.

You conveniently seem to have forgotten a few admitted minutiae, like Korea, Vietnam (and neighboring Cambodia, where a highly sane illegal bombing campaign destabilized the government nd allowed the eminently sane Khmer Rouge to come to power), 10000 thermonukes, being one unsung person's judgment away from global holocaust on multiple occasions, support for repressive, murderous regimes too many in number to list, support for overthrow of similarly large numbers of democratically elected governments. And your 'secure alliances in Europe' contains 'eastward expansion of NATO to Russia's borders' - 'incurring a very real risk of igniting WW3' strikes me as an odd definition of 'secure'. And hey, how're those millions of displaced people from 'sane US policy' in Iraq, Libya and Syria working out for you folks in Europe? But hey, as former and legendarily sane U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright likes to remind us, killing a half-million Iraqi children was 'worth it'. Ya can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, right?

[kladner]

I heard chatter tonight about Wall Street anxiety. I suspect such tremors are overblown in importance. It seems that Wall Street now pretty much owns the place. Of course, talk of screwing around with trade agreements might make them nervous. But they will get over that and join the feeding frenzy of deregulation.

All the main markets closed well up, today.

[a1call]

Originally Posted by a1call

xilman's idea is ingenious.

Here is an all Flexible-Tube/Hose version of it which does not require adding a hole.
It is probably what Mark Rose had
in mind.

My 1st webgl:

http://19.lc/bjo160/webplayer.html?l...alpha&show_fps


Left-click and drag to rotate
right click and drag to pan
wheel up and down to zoom
reload to animate
----
on iPhone:
1 finger drag to to rotate
2 fingers drag to pan
pinch to zoom

[LaurV]

Nice!
I had some leftover blue/red glasses here around, so I tried it in 3D.
The 3D view is quite good (click on the gear and select the guy with the glasses)

Next step for you is to make the water fall when I turn the box upside-down

[a1call]

Originally Posted by LaurV

Next step for you is to make the water fall when I turn the box upside-down

Considering that it took me a whole evening to figure out how to make the water transparent, I will have to add that the water does not drop because the apparatus is deployed in Antarctica. After all penguins have as much rights to control their mosquito population as the people in the Caribbean.

[rogue]

I'm unhappy today because my employer puts the onus of promotions on the employee. In other words, I must prove to my director that I have the skills before they give me a promotion. I have not experienced anything like that before. My experience has been that performance, via reviews, etc., should already provide the details that show that an individual is ready for a promotion.

My issue with this process is that talk a good game will be promoted over people that execute a good game. I am a better executor than talker, so I have to step out of my comfort zone and "toot my own horn" in order to get a promotion. Considering that I set the bar very high for myself and don't always reach that bar, makes this very difficult for me.

Does anyone else here work for an employer like that? I am strongly leaning towards leaving this job (after 15 years) because each time I talk to my manager about it, the company seems to be setting a new bar that is higher than the previous bar. In other words, I'm feeling that some of the criteria have been very subjective which does not sit well with me.