self_made_human
C'est la vie
I'm a transhumanist doctor. In a better world, I wouldn't need to add that as a qualifier to plain old "doctor". It would be taken as granted for someone in the profession of saving lives.
At any rate, I intend to live forever or die trying. See you at Heat Death!
Friends:
I tried stuffing my friends into this textbox and it really didn't work out.
User ID: 454
self_made_human
C'est la vie
15d ago
It's all well and good to begin succumbing to the recessionary pressures up top once you're already married and settled down. To my (mild) astonishment, women are quite unlikely to abandon the partners they cherish and love, while being averse to going for their less lucky counterparts while single.
But hey, hair transplants work if you can afford them.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
15d ago
You're in luck, because I did in fact decide to begin that effort-post. I've got a 6 hour journey today on abominably slow British trains, so expect something in a few hours or change.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
15d ago
I'm also gauging interest in an effort-post on the topic, so let me know if this something that you'd like to know more about.
I've done a relatively exhaustive analysis on male pattern baldness (I have a vested interest). I'm extremely relieved to find out that despite the reflection of the OR lights off dad's head being dazzling, I likely have lower than average odds of going bald.
Relevant factors:
- 50% of men lose some hair by 50.
- Dad's saving a lot of money on haircuts.
- Maternal grandpa has a respectable head of hair past 95. If I'm slightly thinning when I'm crossing my 80s, I can live with that.
- Only 1/3rd of my paternal uncles are bald, all of them older than my dad.
- I'm teetering dangerously close to 30, without losing anything off the top. That pretty much rules out early onset AO.
I can breathe a little easier, without having to worry so much about turning 30 and finding out that I've lost my hair, alongside my well-founded belief that you immediately develop arthritis and an inability to drink liquor like you used to. The jungles of Norwood seem less daunting, and worst comes to worse, it's time for minoxidil or a trip to Turkey. Going bald might even be good for career progression, just look at Scott!
(I was immensely annoyed by the fact that while stats on the probability of your dad being bald if you're balding are well established at around 80%, the odds of becoming bald with a bald dad are much harder to find. And MBP is annoyingly polygenic to boot.)
Edit:
self_made_human
C'est la vie
16d ago
I only read about 50 chapters
As ludicrous as it sounds, this is nowhere enough to judge the quality of most Xianxia, including the good ones.
I didn't mind the start, but I can promise you the novel gets better. I'm calling it a contender for my favorite novel despite the flaws and teething pains.
Seeing romance as a weakness seems like the surface-assessment of a 14-year-old. You should rather let yourself fall in love with somebody far out of your league - this would help you improve faster. Motivation comes from emotions, so killing all your emotions doesn't make you a perfect rational agent, it merely drains your life of meaning and reasons to go on. I'm quite confident that crazy people generally outperform rational people unless the latter is highly conscientious - "you must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star". The "Dao" that these cultivators build is literally a worldview/a personal path. Manga like "The world after the fall" show this concept well. People who are too rational cannot do this, they barely have their own opinions and values, they believe that things are either universally true or universally false, they do not have faith in subjective and personal things.
Jesse what the fuck are you talking about
More seriously, Fang Yuan is a maximally motivated character. There is nothing that a romance could do to make him aspire to be better, any faster.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
17d ago
There is an obscure Indian poem that got engrained into my skull during second grade, and somehow never managed to fall out again. I can't really do much with it, because it's a poem for second graders.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
19d ago
Who knows?
But I still stick by my original claims. I think it's productive to frame it as akin to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. When you're starving, self-actualization is something you don't have the time or inclination to pursue.
In a way, I think Fang Yuan has the drive for immortality just above the basic fundamental needs like food, or even shelter. We know that he has some interest in poetry (he recites and composes it himself without anyone forcing him to), so maybe he becomes some kind of Philosopher-King? It's entirely possible that you're right that he eventually becomes bored, infinity is a very long time, but 500 years of life turned him into what he is, who can really say what longer periods will..
self_made_human
C'est la vie
19d ago
Well, now I must know yours!
self_made_human
C'est la vie
19d ago
Well, he didn't find that out till he was dead did he? Plus he does work on his "soul", or ways to preserve it like the Spring Autumn Cicada. Unfortunately, it came with severe risks, so it's not a reliable means of indefinite life extension.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
19d ago
Hey, I might not be a Real Fan™, but even I know about the whole Qatari stadium thing that Gooners moan about! Unfortunately that's an issue more than 2 decades old now, so I'm not sure how seriously people will take me if I complain about how things have been since I was less than 10.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
19d ago
I would assume so, but note that the author's real name is Gu Zhen Ren, which translates to "Gu Immortal". There's probably layers to the pun here.
There are also direct allusions to the concept of Gu in the story, in the sense of people talking about making real insects fight till the winner, an "insect king" , is the only one standing.
Most Xianxia novels aren't quite so zero-sum. But a ruthless focus on cultivation and self-improvement without regard to the cost is common enough.
The author flexes further by churning out an enormous number of memorable and likeable characters, the majority of them worthy of their own novels. Yet the world is cruel, and he's crueler, and few who go up against Fang Yuan come out of it the victor. I've wept at some of their fates, the sheer valiance, their raging against the dying of the light or their efforts to uphold their values till the end. They inhabit the world they're in, they think, reason and plot. Fang Yuan isn't the one character in the universe with the ability to plan ahead.
Indeed. I've always struggled to write solid characters, and I'd be loathe to throw them away unless absolutely necessary for the plot. Gu Zhen Ren doesn't give two fucks, he'll make you feel for people who have maybe 5 lines of dialogue.
Even Fang Yuan says that he's not the only main character, that's just the perspective of his story. There are plenty of other people fated and blessed with good fortune and talent, and they get plenty of limelight. I suppose that's a strong perk of writing in third person, the author can easily show off alternative perspectives, and much of the time, they're no dumber or less internally rich than the MC.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
20d ago
I enjoyed both of them, though I preferred WTC over MOL.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
20d ago
I asked it right now, and it got everything right. How long ago was this?
I even used the basic bitch 4o model. There are better ones that I have access to as a paid user.
https://github.com/vectara/hallucination-leaderboard
The current SOTA LLMs hallucinate as little as 0.8% of the time for well grounded tasks, text summarization in this particular case. Of course, the rate can vary for other tasks, and the results worsen when getting into obscure topics.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
20d ago
An easy trick is to get another model to review/critique it. If both models disagree, get them to debate each other till a consensus is reached.
These days, outright hallucinations are quite rare, but it's still worth doing due diligence for anything mission-critical.
As George suggested, you can also ask for verbatim quotes or citations, though you'll need to manually check them.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
20d ago
self_made_human
C'est la vie
20d ago
You were right. My bedroom has the thinnest veneer of installed carpet, so I was confident it wasn't an issue. But I took it to the bathroom with wooden flooring and it seems accurate.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
21d ago
In a mere 20 days from starting Ozempic, I've lost 35 kilos.
... Or the cheap Chinesium weighing scale I bought off Amazon is badly miscalibrated. I'm not sure how it's even possible to screw one of those up so badly.
Oh well, maybe I can donate it to the clinic and ask that it's reserved for the worst cases of anorexia. It'll cheer those girls right up, I tell you.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
21d ago
A serious answer? Far too much effort for a throw-away joke, but I appreciate it haha. Maybe I will watch a football match, then I can stop getting shit for wearing football shoes out and about.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
22d ago
I've been driving some kind of BMW I-series for half a year now. Great car. Shame it belongs to my driving instructor.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
22d ago
If Gooning is wrong, I don't want to be right. A man needs to put his balls in a net from time to time.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
23d ago
If you couldn't tell, this was a joke.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
23d ago
It boggles my mind too. It's one of the few sports where the spectators get more of a workout than the players.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
23d ago
Are you 100% sure that approach would work in the UK? They're almost as nerdy about cricket as Indians are!
I just wanted to say that I appreciate your curated collection of legal anecdotes, and look forward to them every week. I did, in fact, find this one bleakly funny, but my sense of humor is darker than my complexion.
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