Venting thread

[Ares Land]

I don't think supermarkets are the only ones to lose out. The first to lose out to Amazon were small bookshops. And I think that, while worse than individual shops, even having the difference between Carrefour and Score or between Lidl and Waitrose is still preferable to the non-difference between Amazon and Amazon.

I believe small bookshops had been hit very hard long before Amazon. Judging from the numbers of bookshops in places around where I grew up, the situation is about the same, or even somehow better.
Not to say that small shops shouldn't be protected! In France there are price regulations for books, and a few other measures, which cause issues of their own but still help somehow. And of course Amazon should pay their damn taxes for a change.

Supermarkets don't really handle competition any better than Amazon does. For a long time, every supermarket in Paris was owned by the Casino group. It's still very much the case, though competitors have been making tentative inroads for the past few years.

[zompist]

In the US, independent bookstores were hit hard by Amazon— and by the huge chains like Barnes & Noble. But they've staged a significant recovery: since 2009 the number of locations has gone from 1651 to 2506 today.

The secret seems to be specialization. The chains that tried for general appeal have disappeared or are struggling. An independent bookstore can have broader coverage of a niche category, and serve it better than Amazon can.

Supermarkets don't seem to be struggling here either. Amazon has a dizzying 2.4% of the market.

[zompist]

Part of what frustrates me is that while I think I'm reasonably smart in some ways, I'm not smart in any way that you can actually use for something. I'm no good at higher math. I'm no good at large-scale rote-learning. I'm no good at doing the kind of work you need to do in order to thrive in academic environments. I'm no good at reliably coming up with creative ideas on command. [...]

Most of my career-building skills are tailored for a world that no longer exists. And I'm fortunate that I'm not in a corporate job any more, and can keep ungodly hours, and can retire soon anyway. But it strikes me that you're probably well suited to remote work, and you do have skills that you're not concentrating on. Translation, for instance— you're very good with English. You've probably got some impostor syndrome going on: many jobs don't require previous training at all. QA engineer, for instance: the best QA people I know started out doing something else.

I don't know how it is in Germany, but here there are lots of volunteer opportunities, including desk jobs. It may not sound very attractive to do work and not get paid for it, but most places that use volunteers won't be very picky, you'll pick up skills you can use, and you can get contacts that lead to a real job. (My first job arose out of a volunteer gig.)

From your list it strikes me that the skill you are really lacking, from not ever having a real job, is tolerance for minor tedium. Are you actually "no good" at all these things, or you just don't want to? It's not a moral thing, it's just that jobs and higher education both require that ability to get up on time and do mental tasks even when you don't feel like it. I doubt you have some kind of genetic inability to do those things, you just haven't been in a situation that made you do it long enough that it became a habit.

I wouldn't say any of this if you were happy with your non-working or your hobbies, but you seem dissatisfied. Maybe you could just set your sights on becoming another Justin Rye, which would not be terrible. (Justin used to plaintively put his CV on his site, but he gave up on that and apparently on employment of any kind.)

[Travis B.]

I am anxious about the possibility of nuclear war between Russia and the US for some reason... (I can't say that I've ever been anxious about it before at all.)

[Linguoboy]

The secret seems to be specialization. The chains that tried for general appeal have disappeared or are struggling. An independent bookstore can have broader coverage of a niche category, and serve it better than Amazon can.

Two of my library colleagues launched a successful bricks-and-mortar bookstore five years ago. They did their research and looked at what titles people were still buying in print and saw that the numbers were most robust for cookbooks and children's books. As luck would have it, Nina was an expert on cookbooks and Jeff was an expert on children's books. The other savvy thing they've done is to keep up a full schedule of in-store events. Obviously they their business took a real hit during lockdown, but they've recently expanded so I think they've fully recovered.

My vent is very simple: I'm sick. Not seriously, but it's really annoying, especially since there were work events I was looking forward to today.

[doctor shark]

Minor-ish vent: I just learned that my undergraduate physics adviser passed away yesterday. (I was a physics major, so she was the main adviser, though I also had two extra advisers for my minor subjects.) I think she's one of the reasons I ended up where I am now, so it's quite a sad thing to hear...

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Two of my library colleagues launched a successful bricks-and-mortar bookstore five years ago. They did their research and looked at what titles people were still buying in print and saw that the numbers were most robust for cookbooks and children's books. As luck would have it, Nina was an expert on cookbooks and Jeff was an expert on children's books. The other savvy thing they've done is to keep up a full schedule of in-store events. Obviously they their business took a real hit during lockdown, but they've recently expanded so I think they've fully recovered.

This is cool.

My vent is very simple: I'm sick. Not seriously, but it's really annoying, especially since there were work events I was looking forward to today.

Hope you get to feeling better.

Minor-ish vent: I just learned that my undergraduate physics adviser passed away yesterday. (I was a physics major, so she was the main adviser, though I also had two extra advisers for my minor subjects.) I think she's one of the reasons I ended up where I am now, so it's quite a sad thing to hear...

Sorry to hear this. Hope you get to feeling better, too.

[Raphael]

Get better, Linguoboy!

Condolences, doctor shark.

Most of my career-building skills are tailored for a world that no longer exists. And I'm fortunate that I'm not in a corporate job any more, and can keep ungodly hours, and can retire soon anyway. But it strikes me that you're probably well suited to remote work, and you do have skills that you're not concentrating on. Translation, for instance— you're very good with English.

Thank you! Problem is, over here, translation work pretty much requires a degree in the language in question. (Unless you want to translate highly technical documents, in which case it requires a degree in the technical speciality in question.)

many jobs don't require previous training at all. QA engineer, for instance: the best QA people I know started out doing something else.

There are probably a lot of jobs that require little or no training to actually do them, but still require formal training to get hired for them.

I don't know how it is in Germany, but here there are lots of volunteer opportunities, including desk jobs. It may not sound very attractive to do work and not get paid for it, but most places that use volunteers won't be very picky, you'll pick up skills you can use, and you can get contacts that lead to a real job. (My first job arose out of a volunteer gig.)

Thank you! That's actually great advice. I was thinking about volunteering anyway; perhaps this is the nudge that I needed.

I wouldn't say any of this if you were happy with your non-working or your hobbies, but you seem dissatisfied. Maybe you could just set your sights on becoming another Justin Rye, which would not be terrible. (Justin used to plaintively put his CV on his site, but he gave up on that and apparently on employment of any kind.)

That's the outlook I had from about seven years ago to about two years ago. Then I became increasingly frustrated with it.

[Linguoboy]

Oof. What to do you when a good friend shares a deeply problematic meme. I didn't want to just put him on blast so I PMed him, but he hasn't seen it yet and in the meantime others are commenting approvingly. It just baffles me how they can't see the issues with instrumentalising disability to make other folks feel better.

[doctor shark]

No, I do not want "updates" to a program I use to deploy without warning and end up making the program worse!

[Raphael]

No, I do not want "updates" to a program I use to deploy without warning and end up making the program worse!

If this was Twitter, I'd respond with "#EverGreenTweet".

[foxcatdog]

The secret seems to be specialization. The chains that tried for general appeal have disappeared or are struggling. An independent bookstore can have broader coverage of a niche category, and serve it better than Amazon can.

Two of my library colleagues launched a successful bricks-and-mortar bookstore five years ago. They did their research and looked at what titles people were still buying in print and saw that the numbers were most robust for cookbooks and children's books. As luck would have it, Nina was an expert on cookbooks and Jeff was an expert on children's books. The other savvy thing they've done is to keep up a full schedule of in-store events. Obviously they their business took a real hit during lockdown, but they've recently expanded so I think they've fully recovered.

My vent is very simple: I'm sick. Not seriously, but it's really annoying, especially since there were work events I was looking forward to today.

Seems like you would want childrens books to keep children away from electronic devices and cookbooks because maybe you don't wanna cook with your phone (but i dunno the only reason i don't cook with my phone is i don't have one).

[Raphael]

Two things that have been annoying me for a while, and that I'm thinking of now for no particular reason:

1) Politics: Could many of the conservatives and right-wingers of the world please stop believing, or pretending to believe, that freedom of speech means that they get to say what they think (or want us to believe they think) and no one else gets to react negatively to them, so that it's supposedly a violation of their freedom of speech when other people say bad things about them? That attitude is annoying, it is stupid, it is pathetic, and it is ridiculous.

2) Technology: when it comes to cellphones, I really don't like the "There's an app for it!" mindset. As far as I'm concerned, if a functionality is so useful that a large part of the likely user base might be interested in using it, it should be included out of the box. People shouldn't have to explicitly install an additional app and choose between paying extra money or putting up with ads for that kind of thing. A cellphone that requires you to install a special app so that you can use it as a kitchen timer? Ridiculous. (My views on this might be influenced by my long experience using Linux, where major distributions usually come with all kinds of software pre-installed.)

[Ares Land]

Coincidentally I got a notification from the damn compass app.

[Travis B.]

Two things that have been annoying me for a while, and that I'm thinking of now for no particular reason:

1) Politics: Could many of the conservatives and right-wingers of the world please stop believing, or pretending to believe, that freedom of speech means that they get to say what they think (or want us to believe they think) and no one else gets to react negatively to them, so that it's supposedly a violation of their freedom of speech when other people say bad things about them? That attitude is annoying, it is stupid, it is pathetic, and it is ridiculous.

Rightists and their precious "freedom of speech" can go straight to hell.

2) Technology: when it comes to cellphones, I really don't like the "There's an app for it!" mindset. As far as I'm concerned, if a functionality is so useful that a large part of the likely user base might be interested in using it, it should be included out of the box. People shouldn't have to explicitly install an additional app and choose between paying extra money or putting up with ads for that kind of thing. A cellphone that requires you to install a special app so that you can use it as a kitchen timer? Ridiculous. (My views on this might be influenced by my long experience using Linux, where major distributions usually come with all kinds of software pre-installed.)

What I in particular don't like is when companies try to make you use their mobile app when a simple webpage would be easier and more straightforward to use. I find this really annoying myself.

[Linguoboy]

Seems like you would want childrens books to keep children away from electronic devices and cookbooks because maybe you don't wanna cook with your phone (but i dunno the only reason i don't cook with my phone is i don't have one).

Actually it's because both are popular as gifts and many people still prefer giving physical presents to just funding someone's download.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Also a book can serve the double-purpose of functional text container and decorative object.

[Raphael]

Rounin Ryuuji: Oh, for that purpose, prestigious literature probably still works better than children's books or cookbooks. That said, the books that I still buy on paper are usually books with lots of extensive graphics that are central to the book. Oh, and books that aren't available as ebooks - but that group often overlaps with the former group.

Rightists and their precious "freedom of speech" can go straight to hell.

I don't really agree with you there. Actual freedom of speech, as opposed to the "saying mean things about us is censorship" variety promoted by right-wingers, is (within reasonable limits) pretty important and shouldn't be put in scare quotes.

[Travis B.]

Rightists and their precious "freedom of speech" can go straight to hell.

I don't really agree with you there. Actual freedom of speech, as opposed to the "saying mean things about us is censorship" variety promoted by right-wingers, is (within reasonable limits) pretty important and shouldn't be put in scare quotes.

Rightists complain about how any restrictions by private entities upon their propaganda is violating their so-called "freedom of speech" while simultaneously trying to use the power of the state to restrict what their opponents can say (e.g. anti-"critical race theory" laws and like). And just for the record, actual freedom of speech here in the US specifically pertains to the power the state - private entities can restrict others speech as they see fit, even though some rightists like in Texas are now attempting to use the power of the state to prevent private entities from restricting rightists' speech.

[Raphael]

Rightists complain about how any restrictions by private entities upon their propaganda is violating their so-called "freedom of speech" while simultaneously trying to use the power of the state to restrict what their opponents can say (e.g. anti-"critical race theory" laws and like).

You're right about right-wingers being censor-happy hypocrites, but I wasn't defending right-wingers. I was defending freedom of speech, which isn't a right-wing concept, for precisely the reasons you laid out.

And just for the record, actual freedom of speech here in the US specifically pertains to the power the state - private entities can restrict others speech as they see fit, even though some rightists like in Texas are now attempting to use the power of the state to prevent private entities from restricting rightists' speech.

I have very mixed feelings about restrictions on speech by private entities.