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10mo ago
Why are gays over-represented in the arts and creative fields? Even in tech, I go to an artsy coding meetup and it's hosted in an LGBT space. I go to a discord of people building interesting things and they're 50% furries.
I would presume there's a biological/psychological explanation, if the effect is even real, but it's hard to find good answers. My first guess would be the same loosening of priors that allows for creativity also loosens the heterosexuality prior; but then why gay and not bi?
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3mo ago
https://old.reddit.com/r/madlads/s/yV09R82gov
I came across this reddit post of a guy who cuts his books in half. I found it funny that this triggered people in the comments. Many people refuse to fold pages or write in their books. I don't see what the big deal is. To me a book is just a tool. I understand taking care to preserve semi-rare books, but these were books you can just walk into any bookstore and buy.
I used to know someone who would even try to avoid creasing the spine. But I've also heard about a guy who would rip pages of shlocky fiction as he read them to keep his place. Where are you on the spectrum?
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4mo ago
New Year's resolutions? Do you make them? Do you keep them?
This year, I am thinking of the following priorities:
- Work hard(er). Get into the habit of hard work.
- Continue to meet new people, and maintain existing relationships
I came across The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, and I agree with all of them but "I wish I hadn't worked so hard." I actually wish I was working harder and really would like to maintain a consistent daily work habit. I managed this a couple of month this year but it dropped off at the start of October. I should probably read Atomic Habits even though I feel like I will know most of it.
I have more ideas floating in my head but I won't set them as goals just yet. I should tidy up and publish a crappy project I have, just to get it out there. I should release more work in general, or build in public. I want to perform in front of an audience. I should figure out how to leverage the internet to make friends online. I should get into climbing. I want to go on a solo trip somewhere. These are more specific and I might pick some of these later to focus on, but I know for sure those two priorities above define the general direction I want to go.
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6mo ago
Does anyone have access to ChatGPT with images? Is there some opt-in setting I have to find and enable, or are they still doing a staged roll-out?
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5mo ago
This is a lot of words and all quite complicated. In my experience it is a "simple" habit modification.
You have an established habit of negative self talk that has become second nature.
I'm running late for the dentist. Why am I so useless at everything?
The first step is to just become more aware of this reflex.
I'm running late for the dentist. Why am I so useless at everything? Oh, there's the negative self-talk reflex.
Once you are aware of it, you can practice reframing or rephrasing, and talk to yourself like you would a friend.
I'm running late for the dentist. Why am I so useless at everything? Oh that's negative self talk. Actually it's no big deal. People are sometimes late for things and I was busy with work.
And then you can stop yourself as you have the negative response
I'm running late for the dentist. Why am I so -- actually it's not a big deal. I'm good.
And then you just jump to the healthy response
I'm running late for the dentist. It's no big deal. Can't wait to get dinner afterwards.
Each step is building a habit, and like any habit requires a bit of effort and mindfulness to start with, but gets easier with time. It shouldn't take years, probably closer to a week or two for each stage. I probably isn't Nick Cammarata MDMA-fuelled self love, but is a good way of getting you out of these automatic negative thought patterns.
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4mo ago
I can make a "real person" custom GPT, but what kind of questions would you ask it exactly?
How do you keep track of what you've read online? How do you manage your personal research? Do you have a system? Do you have collections, and keep notes? Is this an actual problem you have?
Personally, I often read something and then struggle to find it again months later, or open something in a new tab to read later only to lose the tab. Or I might write down my thoughts but then lose the context of what I was looking at when I had them. It just feels like things here could be much better.
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10mo ago
Does anyone have experience of fixing poor forward-neck posture? I'm happy to do 10 mins of daily stretching, as long as the stretching will actually work. Or is it fixed by doing something else? What exactly is the mechanism?
I do facepulls at the gym, which may have helped my rounded shoulders, but my cervical spine still gives me away as a nerd.
Here's a short conversation. But it still claims it's not conscious; maybe it's all the RLHF.
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4mo ago
Don't fall for the passion meme
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5mo ago
Back to medicine, as long as I have pharmaceutically enhanced diligence, I've yet to run into anything I simply can't understand, and I think I do a decent enough job at it.
Medicine is not massively g-loaded, is it? It's mostly memorisation, hence the popular med school anki subreddit. I can't think of anything day-to-day that actually requires reasoning about. I think it's why doctors suck at thinking from first principles and shut down when you ask them about something outside their "training set".
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8mo ago
In the UK, a 19 y/o was found guilty of a hate crime for quoting a rap lyric containing the n-word on her instagram page. A while ago, a man was jailed for 20 weeks for posting 10 "grossly offensive" George Floyd memes in a private Whatsapp group. Another man was found guilty of sending an offensive tweet, celebrating the death of Sir Tom Moore, and the tweet was only live for 20 minutes. Recently a man was found guilty of wearing an offensive football shirt (a reference to the Hillsborough disaster over 30 years ago). There are many more examples in kind, these are just from the top of my head.
I think these are all absurd. Anything that offends normie public sensibilities is illegal. I would much prefer the American free speech norms.
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4mo ago
It's a nice checkpoint to consider the last year and strategize about the next.
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5mo ago
Indifference isn't always a "healthy" response, but it can be. Every situation is different and there are many good and bad ways to think about each one.
Now instead of thinking about whatever bad event set me off, I'm thinking about how stupid and irrational and unhealthy and undisciplined I am for engaging in negative self-talk.
I was going to mention this but didn't want to make things too complicated. You are allowed to have the negative self talk, but then you have to practice the rephrasing even if you don't feel it. Would you talk to your friend like that? How would you think about things if it was your friend and not you? And actually think it "out loud".
On negativity - I argue negativity is unhealthy. I know what you mean, it's no good thinking everything is great when it's not, but you can still maintain good vibes while acknowledging and fixing mistakes.
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6mo ago
If I marry an aspie woman, what are the odds that we get profoundly autistic kids? Does anyone have an intuition on this, or any data?
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3mo ago
Yeah, I learned to code.
Why do to want to switch careers? What's the issue with your current one? It is important to understand yourself. I found working a simple service sector job far more tiring than programming, because it takes me a lot of energy to talk to normies all day. I didn't understand this about myself for a while, but it would have helped when choosing a career.
I don't trust any "career councilor" type person. The best way to learn about a career is to talk to someone who does it. In retrospect, I should have gone to meetups much earlier to get to know people and the industry. I would suggest doing that for careers you are interested in.
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5mo ago
Software career advice- I'm a junior React dev in the UK at a "local" 50 person company. I was approached and may be able to get a similar job at a large multinational (AutoDesk). On average, is it better to work for an American multinational? I'm pretty comfortable where I am, and it's not great timing to jump ship as I'm quite sure I will get promoted in 2-3 months, though I might be able to use an offer to negotiate an immediate promotion. I presume AutoDesk is a step up in the trimodal nature of software jobs. But am I missing something? It is an obviously easy decision to leave to work for a billion dollar company? Is it a big boon to my CV?
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7mo ago
AFAIK they do, but the report frames it mostly negatively:
Some dating apps and websites include features that allow users to ‘unmatch’ with or block other users. While these are important safety features that are intended to protect individuals from being contacted by problematic users, unfortunately they can also be used by perpetrators of DAFSV to remove evidence of violence and abuse, specifically conversation histories that can support reports of DAFSV to the platform or law enforcement. Alternatively, perpetrators can also delete their own account on the dating app or website to remove evidence of their conversations with victim-survivors.
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8mo ago
How do I comfort and console others? I could do with some guidance or principles because I am never sure what to say. Some example situations:
- A friend goes through a breakup with a long term girlfriend.
- A friend calls me and is stressed about his job.
- A friend brings up feelings of inadequacy, and that he doesn't feel very successful in his career/life.
I don't want to say "don't worry, everything will be okay", because it is not necessarily true.
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9mo ago
My guess is physical space + wealth.
When I watch woodworking videos, I am in awe of the size of these guys' garages and workshops. Google suggests the average US house is 3 times larger than the UK's. Plus these guys have the cash to buy the tools and the wood, and a big truck to transport it all. Americans are just richer.
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3mo ago
"If only you knew how different things could be" . My favourite version has a different image with the same quote, but I can't find it. Hope, optimism, imagination are powerful forces and the meme triggers all of these for me.
And unrelated, but I find there's something profound about this meme.
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4mo ago
On war crimes, I feel like people forget that hostage taking is a war crime, and it is undeniable that Hamas has captured hostages. And then you have the complimentary war crimes of Hamas using human shields, and Israel killing "excessive" civilians because of the human shields.
I'm pretty sure Hamas does operate out of hospitals. Here is an article from a few years ago, but I'm just a guy, I can't speak for the veracity.
It wouldn't surprise me if thousands of Palestinians have been killed. Gaza claims 20,000 deaths just from this current war. Even if that's a 10x overestimate, it's still thousands.
This is already the case, but now everyone complains about food waste. Can't win!
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