Compass I use is - what are my needs - have they been met? The answers decide how much work and what type of work.
Its very tricky though for multiple reasons. There is a wide spectrum of Needs so one has to develop a vocabulary or map of what exists before being able to answer the question well. Also Needs change with time and context. So the question has to be asked frequently. In relationships and groups that are important the needs of the other person or group also have to be monitored.
I don't think this is a threat. Jargon and bullshit starts overflowing whenever complexity surpasses what the chimp brain can handle.
There are lots of such situations chimps find themselves in these days, where they have no training or instinct on how to react.
Over analyzing these behaviors and the language used when people are out of their depth takes focus away from the fact there are many issues the chimp troupe has no capacity to solve. Just acknowledging and accepting that reality and refocusing the mind on simpler things is what will reduce the bullshit.
As an extreme example take what happens in the military. If you are in a situation surrounded by all kinds of threats and 5 minutes away from possible death what will an untrained mind say? No one sits around analyzing it. Instead there is training to keep the mind focused on the simplest of things.
These are outdated narratives. Network effects are much more the cause of success of such people ie where they were geographically and who they were surrounded by - https://www.nfx.com/post/your-life-network-effects/
You need to stick those reasons somewhere you see them everyday cause they will be a much more useful compass than whats in demand. Whats in demand is always changing.
The way it worked out for me was contacting someone senior at a startup incubator and telling them I wanted some kind of consulting role (few hours a week) to explore more flexible work. They are always hard up for experienced people. That put me in touch with a bunch of startups and I picked one where they had a small project but no one free to work on. That was the door opener and being in a setting with multiple companies all around, it was easy to make contacts, hear what issues different companies had etc. Whenever it aligned with something I knew or was interested in techwise I would try to get involved or help them out.
If you are not a big networker like me the key is to put yourself in environments where you are constantly bumping into people who are telling you their problems :)
Wasn't NSA involved in finding Osama or Suleimani? Find them, then send In Tom Cruise, drone strike what have you. Israel isnt targeted cuz thats what their response woule be to this type of stuff.
Are Russia or China going to react any different from Iran or Pakistan? They currently think they are untouchable. That needs to change.
I submitted a few patches but got turned of having to deal with Vala and C. Tooling and docs feel ancient compared to whats available in .Net/Java/js etc.
Thats said I really admire how ambitious they tried to be and all the stuff they have managed to produce with such few resources.
How many people stay on the same team for six to seven years these days to have long term effect on orgs or policy?
Just ask anyone to predict where they will be in six to seven years first or what their predictions were six to seven years back. Most have no clue because this is such a complex ever changing world for a 6 inch chimp brain to fully grok. But lets talk about where the entire chimp troupe will be in six to seven years.
My answer would be don't waste your time and energy.
We have 6 inch chimp brains. Some types of problems require 7 inch chimp brains or 2000 inch chimp brains or 7 million inch chimp brains.
The only thing you have to understand when you take 2 chimps and throw them into a room with such type of complex problems is blundering ensues.
The focus of all chimps is then drawn to the blundering, whose fault it is, who said what, who did what, who can be blamed, who needs to change etc etc etc but all that just takes focus away from the fact that the problem itself is too complex for a chimp.
This is the Theory of Bounded Rationality (which won a Nobel Prize for explaining why the world couldnt prevent world war 2 after experiencing the devastation of world war 1).
Not everything can be understood. Misunderstanding on the other hand is directly proportional to the complexity of the problem. And it doesn't get more complex that the Israel-Palestine issue.
The chimps will continue to blunder.
The Theory of Bounded Rationality recommends teaching kids that are facing complex problems to ditch them and instead work on simple ones.
If 2 ppl are running on a track, given different needs, abilities, personalities, life experience etc to get into sync usually one has to slow down and the other has to speed up.
But staying in that state for ever can be quite an unnatural thing,
because both aren't running at their natural pace.
So communication is key. People need to hear that you appreciate when they slow down for you. They need to hear what made you want to speed up for them. They need to hear you arent holding them responsible to stay in sync with you forever but that you enjoy their company and the reasons why. They need to hear where you are heading and why you think its going to be fun. It becomes easier to reconnect with people when you spend time thinking about and verbalizing some of these things.
Its all about just being honest and saying simple things. You can do it.
> Interested in all things in outer space and exploration? We are too. Take a look at open positions at Northrop Grumman and consider joining our team.
Looks like Northop Grumann is targeting the Jeremy Kenyon Lockyer Corbells of the world.
Which makes me wonder what happened with the whole 3D printing guns story...at one point few years back it was front page news for a while. Weird how no one talks about it anymore...
Its very tricky though for multiple reasons. There is a wide spectrum of Needs so one has to develop a vocabulary or map of what exists before being able to answer the question well. Also Needs change with time and context. So the question has to be asked frequently. In relationships and groups that are important the needs of the other person or group also have to be monitored.