kite_and_code

I have a chance to talk to one and I look for inspirations on what to ask

I see SQL (query language) being used widely. I am wondering: is there something better? Did you choose or find a (better/different) alternative instead of SQL at some time or in a certain context?

What are different methods to protect your nose from smell? I would be curious to learn more about the range of solutions. E.g. how do people cope who work in very smelly environments?

Background: The San Jose State University library is called Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. library.

If you want to do a similar thing. Whose permission do you need for using the name? What if the person is still alive e.g. Barack Obama Library?

Some examples:

I think that grocery store analysts found that mum's are likely to change their purchasing behavior before/after the birth of their child. The new habits might stick for a long time.

Sometimes (not always) I change some behavior when I read a book.

I know people who stopped eating meat almost entirely after they watched a movie about the meat industry. The reason was that they felt disgust and were not able to eat it any more.

-10 is maximum negative

0 is neutral

10 is maximum positive

I am a 6 right now and last week I was moving between 2 and 8. In the last 3 months my most negative was probably around -6.

[Background] I find this question to be way more insightful than "How are you?". It sparks conversation about the current base level and events that were outliers into the positive or negative direction. It's also interesting to ask at work in order to see how much the current atmosphere is resonating with scarcity (distress, fear, overload, ...) or abundance (eustress, gratitude, positive challenge, ...).

Before Slack was born, some people used Teamspeak but wished it would be searchable.

For me, I would love to control the UI of the services that I use. Just 3 months ago my bank decided to roll out a new UI. I still need time finding the click path for doing things I used to be able to do quickly and predictably. I wish that I could have just kept my old UI. Similarly to backwards compatibility for code-based APIs.

Anything that nags you about the software you used last week?

Context: I ask myself the question on a weekly basis and it always gives me clarity on where to focus at least some attention in the next days.

The last time I asked it myself, I was avoiding doing my taxes. So, it kept nagging me in the background. Now, I committed to an exact date and time when I will take the next steps towards my taxes. My mind is finally free again.

Sometimes, I also don't derive an action to tackle what I avoid. For example, I found out that I was avoiding talking to a certain person. By that time, I chose to just change my deliberate opinion to not contact the other person any more at all. And my mind was free again. By now, I reverted that opinion though and reached out again. I am glad I found a way that worked for both of us. Now, the world is a better place for it - at least that's what I think. Maybe we should all borrow more sugar? https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/dirt/2019/03/18/community-relationships-borrowing-from-neighbors-strengthens-democracy

Anyway, I am rambling. I would love to hear what you are currently avoiding. And if you don't want to share but the nudge helped you discover something for you, you are invited to make the post more visible to others.

I wish you a great day!

Instead I might just change my deliberate opinions e.g. I don't want to talk to this person any more.

Which of the software that you used last week are you most keen on replacing with something better?

For me, it is mostly internal company software.

I often observe misunderstandings in communication and I think it really hampers mutual understanding, trust, connection but also efficiency (in a work context).

I am wondering, what are examples of environments where there is very little misunderstanding? What are patterns that might enable that? What can we learn for human interaction?

One example: I heard that the military sometimes has the requirement that a given command shall be repeated verbatim by the person who received the command in order to make sure that it was understood correctly.

Another example might be the HTTP protocol which ACK(nowledges) requests. The protocol is interesting because it aims to achieve robust, mutual understanding in a high-failure environment because messages can easily get lost.

I am fairly new to HN and I love the responses that I receive. However, the UI seems a little bit weird to me and I am wondering how others use the forum and UI.

E.g. I have observed that often people answer once but then do not follow up if there is a counter-question.

I prefer mutual conversations that clarify points and go deeper instead of one-shot answers. But. When I was trying to reply on posts, I had a hard time in order to find new answers to my posts. I solved it via skimming the whole conversation tree. That felt tedious.

Do I miss some UI features here? e.g. how to get notified or at least easily get transparency about answers to my comments? How to move things that I already read out of sight?

Maybe I am also using the wrong UI and the regulars use another one? e.g. algolia seems to provide a search interface which then links back to HN. Also, I have seen other apps create custom UIs. Maybe the regulars don't even use the web interface but something else?