Why, thank you for casting light upon it!

> it could also be that you systematically underestimate the cost of optionality.

I sometimes am optimistic about all sorts of costs, yes, especially in cases when I lack the experience to back the estimation. I'm not sure if it's related specifically (or wait, is that "more generally"?) to optionality. My own (definitely biased) take into the matter is that I'm often setting to bite more than I can chew, which tends to bite me back in the ass in the medium to long run.

> If you run to "oh, you mean ffa" for no apparent reason

Sure, I agree with your remark about particularization. In this case I went to "you mean FFA" because that was the context of the quote.

To my eye, you made two statements [that are relevant in this context]. One of them is theoretical, "[I hold the belief] the minute effort to discard the garbage while studying the gems [that choice is free of cost]".

This is a belief like any other belief : it can't be weighed or tasted, it can't in any way be compared besides one ; and god knows that one's always open to "interpretation".

I could, if I were a humorless sort of tedious fuck, go into actual intricate detail, add tiny values up over a mile of page, and conceivably come up with actual accounting proof [which nobody will read, as it's not worth the time to read it, so in an amusing turn of fate the very act of reading it invalidates it intellectually] ; then "interpretation" can readily proceed in the usual manner.

I opt to not do that. Instead, I put next to your own statement of your own belief, your own statement of... listen to it again :

looking back to figure out why exactly this low output, I can't quite remember -- it could have been saecular work2 pouring over me, or it could have just been laziness

Yes, it could have been laziness.

Or it might have been -- oh look, do you know what catches my eye, as I scroll up and down to construct this comment ?

[...] that I have 2019 out of the way, time to (belatedly, yet again) get to this month's edition of "stuff that I'm going [...]

Isn't that an inteteresting coincidence ? Perhaps it's coincidental coincidence, or perhaps it's coincidence in the sense every other scoop of ocean water will also be salty. Maybe there's a reason underlying this coincidence having to do rather with saturation than actual coincidence. Maybe we can take one look at the title of this article and venture the guess that the author did indeed underprovision for the search, whose cost he misjudged from the onset (in the sense of underestimating it).

It could be laziness, or it could be gnomes, or it could be that this whole world is against you, or anything else. Then again, it could also be that you systematically underestimate the cost of optionality.

None of this is the end of the world, nor some sort of crime. One could say I suppose, for the love of rhetorical flourish and learned reference, something along the lines of "but it will lead to crime" bla bla. Whatever, the only point is that look at this thing here.

PS. Particularization also works psychological defense, you realise. If you run to "oh, you mean ffa" for no apparent reason, the more likely construction as borne by events is that you'd very much rather not look at something else.

So to put it more clearly, I can't explain where that time went because I didn't properly speaking manage it. Sure, "bringing engineering to new heights of multilaterally-developed progress" is one way I could delude myself, assuming there was any such process there. But then we could assume any other unexamined process there, for all that's worth.

> How, exactly, "will become unusable" ? No one bothers to snapshot tarballs any more? Will PHP also become unusable eventually?

I don't know, how does software usually become unusable? By virtue of other moving parts breaking it? And what tarballs, the current idea is, the entire system will be genesized, or there won't be any software around to drive the iron.

> So does my old pyturd. By same logic.

Except I didn't have to import any Flask in order to get e.g. MP-WP running. And as per above, the idea is, I won't have to import any OS at all to run it in the future.

> Exactly same thing as about python. GB+ pile of obfuscated-C liquishit.

I don't know how you read that, but it was about Python in the first place. Let me restate that: after I become able to systematically tell how Python, Perl, Bash et al. are so horrible systems languages, then and only then will I be able to contemplate any sort of "civilized scriptlang". But I haven't studied such a thing, nor am I going to put in the work required unless I have sufficient cause, because at the moment I don't see anything distinguishing this ideal civilized-scriptlang from the other shitlangs. In other words, I won't burden myself with the need for any new language or technology unless this need becomes apparent.

> "If not you then who"(tm).

I also don't believe in heroes saving the world from bad software. Items such as FFA are, in your own words, surplus phenomena, and until (if ever) I have the luxury of time to allow me to work on such items, I'm stuck dealing with the more urgent stuff.

@Robinson Dorion: Happy to hear you've enjoyed it, danke schön!

> we'd definitely be interested to talk with you about joining.

I'll study your approach (as published so far) in more detail and then pick your brain about it. To my eye, the knowledge required to e.g. use Bitcoin in a sane manner is pretty heavy, which makes me wonder if any such training course should come with in-depth learning modules. Either way, it's too early for me to tell, so I'll get back to you guys as soon as I have enough brain/attention resources to seriously think and write on the subject.

> Are you still aiming for the work from home , 10h/week availability ?

Yes, although on one hand working from home still happens at an irregular pace (depending on how much I need to be physically present in the saltmines), while the 10hrs/week has in practice varied anywhere between 0 and 30. The saltmine project I'm currently working on evolves in multiple (waterfall, although the managers claim otherwise) phases, each with its own pressures and time allocation needs, so I will indeed have to reevaluate my actual commitment and performance in a few (~3) months from now.

@Mircea Popescu: I wish I could blame my low output on aimlessly fucking around with FFA, but the truth is... it had nothing to do with it. Leaving aside the fact that studying FFA was the first time in years when I learned something genuinely new, the problem was all me getting stuck in various loops of my own making, getting burnt out, recovering and then understanding that I need some way to keep track of what's happening there. Since you at some point mentioned the so-called pantsuit lifestyle: it may be that (I have only a vague idea of what a "pantsuit lifestyle" means, to be honest), or it's just my needing some time to take care of myself, or just needing to grow the fuck up. Either way, it's worth plainly stating that I'm not there yet; if I were, I'd have a business plan on the table and I'd get my ass out in the game, but as things stand, I'm not so far from 2018, when all I had were a bunch of general ideas resonating with TMSR ideology. I mean sure, I did some work meanwhile and I hope it wasn't entirely useless, but the mere fact that I'm not able to completely evaluate the usefulness of that work should say something.

> Godspeed.

Thank you!