benny
2yr ago
I'm trying to implement more stoicism in my life. I'm now starting to do implement the Retrospective Evening Meditation from Seneca or Epictetus.
I'm a pretty reflective guy in general, but I have a hard time reviewing my full day in detail. I don't feel like I make a lot of missteps that I can hone in on but that's what even unreflective angry people would think, so I'm skeptical about my own judgement.
I'm thinking: if I got angry while in a car: I could lightly scold myself for it and then forgive myself, but I'm quite mellow. But I don't have such clear cut cases. Sometimes I get angry at myself for not being good enough at a skill (I'm renovating a house as a keyboard cowboy) but I'm also way better about that now than I was 3 months ago, because I wouldn't get angry at a child that learns how to walk.
Anyone else also doing it? I'm mostly interested in people that are relatively mellow and if you make some kind of note for the evening retrospective. (Maybe even a recorded phone memo?)
FWIW I thought I was doing more than necessary, based on the actual submission and the upvotes of this comment: https://www.themotte.org/post/206/back-from-the-front-a-british/37219?context=8#context
benny
2yr ago
Gratitude is the first thing I've adopted from the stoics. But that's not something I actively work on a lot lately.
That's a mistake and definitely something I can try to address in my evening retrospective.
Generally incorporating the actual practice (the meat) of stoicism instead of the intellectual masturbation (potatoes) is the hardest part.
benny
2yr ago
I completely botched that expression. Meat and potatoes are both fundamental.
I was trying to say: Actually doing it and applying the stoic tools every day is the hardest part. I much prefer, based on observation, to read about tools of thought than to apply them. Reading about how Seneca pleading his case at his own court every evening is easier to do then doing the same.
Simple ain't easy. :-)
benny
2yr ago
After being interested and also trying out the local only versions, I'm also caving now. I want to see state of the art LLM.
Right now the payment page seems to be erroring out, but I'll get to it soon.
benny
2yr ago
I just binge watched all 5 episodes of AI Dungeon's and Dragons with Joe Rogan, Donald Trump, Gordon Ramsey and Samuel L. Jackson
The quality of the episodes vary with the first one being quite strong and novel, but overall it's a romp.
benny
2yr ago
Germany thinks they are the zero leaders: https://youtube.com/watch?v=_zfnlkiPCVA
benny
2yr ago
I've started doing these neck mobility exercises from this video around two-three weeks ago: https://youtube.com/watch?v=K4dmZ5_n6uU (Mark Wildman)
It feels like I have neck issues now which I didn't have before. Does anyone have a comparable in time substitute exercise programme? Just 3 minutes and being able to do them anywhere is quite nice.
benny
2yr ago
What keeps you from not checking in with your AI-dom, so that you can receive further instructions?
benny
2yr ago
They appear to have hurt.
However: I find the general appeal of doing around 3-5 minutes of daily no equipment exercises interesting and would like a recommendation for neck work.
Neck work as opposed to shoulder work because a healthy neck seems to be more correlated with a reduction in headaches.
benny
2yr ago
Maybe this feeling of it hurting is just the DOMS equivalent of the neck, because I've never targeted the neck before and I'm pretty sedentary overall.
The "Janet Jackson" especially is a very difficult movement.
benny
1yr ago
The standard argument around here presented in enjoyable (to me) book form: A Random Walk Down Wall Street.
The standard argument around here presented in video form: Ben Felix on YouTube.
And if you can tolerate more risk you can always lever the index funds to get more swings.
benny
1yr ago
What dosage do you take off vitamin D? Did you also notice being less groggy upon waking up in the morning?
benny
1yr ago
Very much interested in a write up for Spanish, as there are several approaches and I'm not looking forward to subscribe to a glorified flash card service and be vendor-locked into language acquisition.
I take it you are not a fan of "Language Transfer" which is all about producing from the very start.
benny
1yr ago
I don't like the third because the scene makes no intuitive sense. Space suit guardian so far from the space shuttle. Is he the equivalent of a full kit wanker? So for me the two top ones remain and I have a slight preference for the first one.
benny
1yr ago
Baldur's Gate 3. It's amazing. Not finished yet because it's a beast of a game but I'm in obsessed with it.
To me it's one of the best games ever made.
benny
1yr ago
Germany.
New gender identity law has been passed. Full story: https://www.dw.com/en/gender-identity-law-passes-in-german-parliament/a-68800054
tl;dr: Minor change in last name handling: You can now have a joint name for the family, so children can be born into this world and be called Justin Müller-Westernhagen. Previously the child would've been called either Justin Müller or Justin Westernhagen.
More contentiously: Germany joins Spain when it comes to gender law. From November 2024 forward one can change their gender in their official documentation and first name, no questions asked, once a year.
benny
1yr ago
This post just made me realize I have aphantasia and I spoke to my partner what she can imagine and then did the apple test.
I was aware of the term but never bothered to investigate. And I'm seemingly affected. What a wild ride.
benny
1yr ago
It's mostly the concept or a random narrative involving the person. Probably not even a real memory.
When I tried to explain a room we both know then I can iterate around the room clockwise and say the big items in the room but at no point do I have any visuals generated. Being very much influenced by LLM: I can generate an itemization of furniture, but merely because I have a spreadsheet I can go through, but it's all generated on the fly but when my eyes are closed it's just blank.
My partner, based on the red apple test, also doesn't have strong visualization skills. What I noticed is that when my eyes are open I can at some level generate images based on the visual stimuli that is currently present.
Again influenced by AI: Like that Google thing from years back that saw dogs everywhere. But not that obvious and it's still not really visually present but somehow I can get closer to a "visual feel" that way.
What's funny is that I'm partial on the conspiracy train that other people may have the same stimuli but are just making up being able to see and they just claim to be able to see something in their mind's eye. I could fake a detailed red apple and invent blemishes and such. They wouldn't be stable over a period of time because there is no actual "visual" reference but I don't know if the non-aphantasiacs have a stable reference. My wife says her blurry red apple morphs.
benny
1yr ago
Would you recommend KoDP before Six Ages or would you recommend for someone that doesn't play that much to go straight to Six Ages?
benny
1yr ago
I'm not a person that considers video games his primary hobby but I like them. I mostly like shorter games, so I can actually finish them over huge open worlds with 100 hour playtime but only 15 good hours contained within. I wish there was a director's mode where you only get the best missions within a game and just get your "RPG powers" over the course of the missions, like in ye olde linear days.
I bought Cocoon and I can highly recommend it. I didn't have high expectations, despite the good scores it got based on a game with analog stick and only one button controls. Boy have I been proved wrong. This is really good and I don't even love puzzlers.
I also bought Assassin's Creed Mirage because I read it's "only 15 hours" long which is a positive to me. I'm not far and had to play around with all the obnoxious interface stuff. One has to strike a balance between visual clutter with some information content and immersion while losing out on necessary information. I like it OK so far (2 hours in) but as someone that only play 2 AAA games a year, the quality drop-off from the last few games I played (ex. God of War: Ragnarok) in production is very noticeable.
Anyone with similar preferences for length?
benny
1yr ago
I played Doom 2016 but I'm not a huge fan. I'm sure it's fine but I'm not into singleplayer first person shooters. Even in the days of Max Payne 2 I was more a third person kind of guy than a Half-Life 2 person. So it's nothing specific about Doom. I just like third person games more.
My AAA recommendations is God of War: Ragnarok. It's not short, but it felt great and the optional side quests didn't feel like dumb filler. I think that game did almost everything right, including having people talk constantly which I know is an issue for a lot of people. I was always engaged, I even did a lot of the raven collectibles, because they were fun with the axe throwing arc.
What's hard to communicate is that I don't absolutely philosophically hate long games, if they are very well made but the majority of long games aren't. So it's easier to say I like short games because they are presumably cutting for quality.
benny
1yr ago
Yeah that's basically true but I don't know a 100h game that I would think qualifies. I played Baldur's Gate 3 and The Witcher 3 and thought they were fantastic but they had lots of problems, IMO. The best longest game I have played is God of War: Ragnarok and I don't even understand how they pulled off a relatively long game without the typical soulless Point of Interest splattering that you get from Ubisoft, et. al.
On the unreasonable efficiency of the Potato Diet
I'm still absolutely amazed by how well the Potato Diet works.
I want to start with the amazing parts of this diet: I have terrible adherence compared to other diets and I'm still constantly lowering my weight. I got to a restaurant, eat whatever I want, no prep or "goody boy points" I'm accumulating that I'm cashing in like a cheat day. I just do it.
My variant on a perfect day is: Eat potatoes ad libitum and once a day I eat a regularly sized meal. Those are admittedly relatively healthy meals and good portion sizes, as I'm sourcing them from Hello Fresh recipes.
But I constantly don't have perfect days and I still lose weight over the long term.
If anyone has struggled with weight in the past and wants to try something that works different from any other diet (that I know of anyway) I can only recommend trying the potato variant. You can do it in the hardcore version that is bound to work (see link above) or a less hardcore version that allows one to have social meals once a day (per plan/system) or several times a day (in a vacation setting or something).
Not all is roses and something that is very new to my experience with the Potato diet but worth pointing out: I've had two days since May where I've had very little energy intake and those days felt REALLY weird. I'm usually happy-go-lucky but that energy slump turned my positive outlook quite negative. Pretty soon after eating I was back to my former self and had an evening full of productivity.
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