Ustice

Karma: 203

Ustice 17 Dec 2024 13:20 UTC
2 points
0
on: Where do you put your ideas?
I’m use Notability, but mostly because I prefer to use hand-written notes. What I like is that I can hand write my notes, and then be able to do a text search on them later.

It started with me taking notes while playing RPGs, but turned into a daily journal.

If you don’t care about handwriting, my only real suggestion is go with something that saves files in Markdown format. If the company goes poof some years down the road you want to be able to still access your notes.

Ustice 16 Dec 2024 3:05 UTC
1 point
0
on: are IQ tests a good measure of intelligence?
My understanding is that IQ tests measure some dimensions of intelligence, but not others. That matches my experience.

Back when I was a kid I was administered an IQ test. I scored in the upper percentile, I’ve always been pretty good at reasoning, pattern recognition, and creativity. Those were qualities that the test I took measured, but I struggled (at least relatively speaking) with social, situational, and spatial awareness.

I think determination would be another trait wasn’t being tested for, but that’s important for hitting targets in a large search space. It’s quite likely that things have changed. It’s been 40 years now.

Ustice 2 Dec 2024 19:15 UTC
3 points
0
in reply to: jefftk’s comment on: Exporting Facebook Comments, Again
I totally got carried away. 😅

[Here’s what I did](https://github.com/jeffkaufman/comments-selenium/pull/1). I don’t even know if it is a real suggestion anymore. Maybe you’ll find inspiration from some of it. Maybe not.

Ustice 30 Nov 2024 22:32 UTC
3 points
0
in reply to: jefftk’s comment on: Exporting Facebook Comments, Again
I don’t know about better, but there are some ways to DRY up your code a bit with some higher-order functions and, eliminate nested if statements that I tend to have more trouble following. Your approach is pretty straightforward, and mostly my suggestions will be minor refactors at best.

I’ll go through it tonight, and post it as a pull request, that way it will be easier to discuss any particular line.

One general suggestion I have is to write some test code that can notify you when something breaks. Since you are forced to rely on a brittle solution, knowing when it eventually breaks will helpful for the future.

Ustice 30 Nov 2024 18:13 UTC
3 points
0
on: Exporting Facebook Comments, Again
Are you looking for comments/review, or just showing your work?

Ustice 21 Nov 2024 5:58 UTC
2 points
1
in reply to: Viliam’s comment on: Ayn Rand’s model of “living money”; and an upside of burnout
I’m generally pretty good. I’m way better at communicating when I am having a problem. Plus, with my meds I made it through the end of a ten-year relationship without falling into a deep depression. I haven’t had a weird melt down in some time.
As you say, I can predict certain things, and prepare. Routines help me not forget essential things. For instance, I don’t brush my teeth until after I have taken my pills so I can immediately tell if I already have.

I use way-stations for cleaning up, like by the door to my room, I have a spot on a table for things that’s I want to take out of the room the next time I go, that way I don’t have to interrupt whatever I am doing at the time. I have stations like this in most rooms of my house.

I also compensate by motivating myself to take care of things immediately. “Later is a lie,” has become sort of mantra for me. When I hear myself saying our thinking “later,” I try to remind myself of that mantra. It works for my son too.

All of my bills are on autopay. I put appointments in my calendar so I don’t have to remember them, and set timers all the time for things. It’s generally better than the reminder apps. My phone is basically the third lobe of my brain. I’ve written routines for when to set my alarm, so I don’t forget to so.

I also work within my limits. For instance, if a project will take more than a weekend, I know I won’t be same to sustain interest in it. I can make exceptions—to varying levels of success—but they have to be things that are really important. I won’t get a pet, and I have just one plant that’s right by my sink.
I don’t generally have problems with willpower; I have problems with the word and concept.

Ustice 17 Nov 2024 5:30 UTC
5 points
0
in reply to: AnnaSalamon’s comment on: Ayn Rand’s model of “living money”; and an upside of burnout
Thanks for clarifying! Willpower is a tricky concept.

I’ve suffered from depression at times, where getting out of bed felt like a huge exertion of emotional energy. Due to my tenuous control over my focus with ADHD, I often have to repeat in my head what I’m doing so I don’t forget in the middle of it. I’ve also put in 60-hour weeks writing code, both because I’ve had serious deadlines, but also because time disappeared as I got so wrapped up in it. I’ve stayed on healthy diets for years without problem, and had times where slipped back to high sugar foods.

All of these are examples of what people refer to as willpower (or lack there-of). Most of them are from times in my life where I haven’t felt really in control. This is especially true regarding memory. It’s not uncommon for me to realize as I am putting my groceries away that I didn’t get the one item I really needed (and have to go back).

That said, I’m pretty good at grit: I’m willing to put in the work, despite hardships and obstacles. I’m also good at leading by example. I’ll fight the good fight, when needed,

All of these different features of me and my brain, are wrapped up in the concept of willpower. Each of them are a mixture of conscious and unconscious patterns of behavior (including cognitive).

It’s this distinction that makes me look askance at the concept of willpower. It’s too wrapped up in moral judgement.

I wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until after my son was. I lived with a lot guilt and shame because I interpreted the things I struggled with as a moral failings, because I just lacked the willpower.

Then I saw how many people struggled with the same sorts of things I did. It was really weird learning that so many things I previously would have described as negative personality traits of mine, turned out to be what happens when someone has this quirk in their brain that me and my son have.

Now, I don’t carry that guilt. Now, I know that despite my best efforts, tools, and practices, there are things I’m just going to always struggle with that neurotypical find easy, and that’s okay. Now, I don’t see myself as having low willpower because of them. Now, I better understand the quirks of my brain, and I am better equipped to mitigate my weaknesses, and play into my strengths.

Now, I’m a lot happier and confident. I wish it hadn’t taken 40 years for me to figure things out, but I’m glad my son is free of that shame and guilt.

I feel pretty lucky: when I was a kid, I had knack for patterns and abstraction, a fascination with computers, a family that could actually afford one, and people who could help me when I was stuck, I managed to make my hobby into my profession, and still enjoy it as a hobby.

I totally agree that joy and meaning are a balm to burnout. That and vacations; take more vacations.

I guess what I’m saying is be careful to not stretch your metaphors too far, as the details are messy; however, if it helps you to remember to take care of yourself, find joy, and seek meaning, I’m all for it.

Ustice 16 Nov 2024 12:55 UTC
1 point
0
on: Ayn Rand’s model of “living money”; and an upside of burnout
What’s the payout of this model? I’m highly skeptical of any metaphor from Ayn Rand, so drawing comparisons to her ideas doesn’t add any insight for me. If I’m just not that target audience, that’s cool.

Ustice 11 Nov 2024 19:21 UTC
4 points
0
in reply to: Waddington’s comment on: Bitter lessons about lucid dreaming
Ooooooooh…. Antidepressants……..I take Wellbutrin.

Yeah, that could be it.

Welp, I enjoyed dreaming when I was younger. I’d rather be happy now.

Ustice 9 Nov 2024 21:24 UTC
8 points
0
on: Poll: what’s your impression of altruism?
All of these and more? I think it’s a trap to make absolute statements about things like altruism. I think that there are good people that give for good reasons, and good people that give for questionable reasons. Helping others seems to generally be positive, but there are limits. Some people give to manipulate others. True selfless is an impossibility, and therefore toothless boogieman.

Altruism is complicated. In order to really judge the nature of altruism, we would have to be able to attribute an outcome based on an action, in light of all alternatives. That’s currently impossible, but we can look for trends, and develop models around them.

We’d also have to truly understand the complex nature of intention, and that’s practically impossible to do for one’s self, let alone orders. Rarely is there a singular reason for anyone to do anything. Even if you go with just the most likely reason, you’re losing data.

It’s totally fine to look at it from the lenses you describe (and more!), but it’s important to remember that these lenses only show you a part of a very complicated whole. Moreover, many of the distinctions between them are disagreements of definitions.

My personal take is that altruism is generally a virtue, but not an obligation. It’s hard to know the line between helping unhealthily enabling, but it does have to be taken into consideration. It is important to remember that not all altruists are virtuous. In the absence of proof, be kind.

Ustice 2 Nov 2024 13:26 UTC
2 points
0
in reply to: Waddington’s comment on: Bitter lessons about lucid dreaming
This assumes that I have any sort of vague impression. I really don’t. I’ve tried many times to focus on any recollection from when I’m asleep, and it’s just blank. I don’t keep a journal because a whole bunch of pages saying “nothing” isn’t useful.

When I am falling asleep, I may have a dreamlike state of imagination. Never upon waking though.

Ustice 18 Oct 2024 2:49 UTC
5 points
0
in reply to: hmys’s comment on: Bitter lessons about lucid dreaming
No. When I wake up I have no memory or sensation of dreaming. Just sort of a jump in time. If I were to wake up and realize I had been dreaming. I’d be pretty excited and put it in my journal.

Ustice 18 Oct 2024 2:43 UTC
6 points
0
on: You’re Playing a Rough Game
I practiced informed consent with my son since he was a toddler. When I’d tickle him or wrestle with him I’d immediately let go when he said “stop”, often followed by “tickle me again!”

When he’s with friends and cousins, I draw a similar line. I don’t mind them wrestling provided it is
- away from people who have not consented to rough play
- not likely to cause a trip to the ER or serious property damage
I will usually check in if things look iffy, but he’s really good at releasing when he’s asked/told.

Ustice 16 Oct 2024 22:00 UTC
8 points
1
on: Bitter lessons about lucid dreaming
Man, I just wish I could remember my dreams. I miss it. I assume I do still, but when I wake, I don’t even have a hazy recollection.

I used to have vivid dreams, and even lucid dreaming when I would have a nightmare. Flying was my favorite LD activity. It was always hard though.

Ustice 1 Aug 2024 21:00 UTC
4 points
2
in reply to: lorepieri’s comment on: [Thought Experiment] Given a button to terminate all humanity, would you press it?
I was more or less going to say the same thing. No, I wouldn’t press the button except in the most extremely bad scenarios I can imagine. As for how confident I am in that, I’m pretty tempted to say certain. Whether it is due to nihilistic glee, curiosity, clumsiness, or sheer stupidity, that button is going to be pressed. Now, there are scenarios that I can imagine that delay things for a human-significant amount of time.

Factors that I can think of right now that would expand the timeline:
- ease of access to a doom button
- cost to access a doom button
- time of access for a doom button
- intentionality verification requirements to press a doom button
- societal and cultural significance of the doom button
- scale of knowledge of
  - doom buttons
  - how to access doom buttons
  - how to operate doom buttons
I do live in Florida, so my estimates may be atypical.

I would estimate that for about 100 000 people the chance of someone pressing a doom button sitting right in front of them with full instructions on any given day would be around 1:100 for odds. A roll of a d100 sounds about right there. So that’s 1.00e-8 per person, per day. Using 8 billion as the world population comparing, the magnitudes of 1.00e-8 and 8.00e9, the population is going to swamp the odds of a doom button being pressed in a short time.

Ustice 21 Jul 2024 3:17 UTC
1 point
0
on: Freedom and Privacy of Thought Architectures
If you are worried about sharing private data, you really can’t beat running it on your computer. There are open source, and open weight models that you can run right from your command line. Ollama makes it easy on a Mac. I haven’t looked enough for options for other OSs. Once you have the software, you don’t even need an internet connection.

I don’t think what you describe exists. I’m a software engineer, but not in this field, so please take that as a weak signal at best.

Ustice 19 Jul 2024 0:30 UTC
1 point
−1
on: Me & My Clone
Just physically interact. Push each other around. You’ll be building up tiny differences, and those interactions will magnify those differences.

Also, smash the environment. I originally read you post as the room had mirrors for walls, and that’s what made me think of it.

I don’t think that your question is quite makes sense. The world is non-deterministic. There are macroscopic patterns that are generally symmetrical, but not at the deepest levels. For instance, there is the cosmic gravitational background, where space is sort of wobbling around because of the gravitational waves from other things in the universe moving about, similarly to ripples on a pond. Even if you controlled for everything in the room, you could not control for those differences. The only way for that room to be perfectly rotationally symmetrical, is if the universe is rotationally symmetrical relative to that room.
THEN you can talk about quantum field theory.

Ustice 16 Jun 2024 10:36 UTC
7 points
6
on: Drunk Thoughts
You sound depressed. That emotional numbness? That sounds like anhedonia. I get that when my brain is in a depression cycle. It’s not surprising when you fall from your expectation of godhood. I know that you don’t mean that literally, but it sounds to me like you may be holding yourself up to an impossible standard, and I think that you should be kinder to yourself.

The future is unknown. What if the Singularity does turn out to be real in our lifetime, but it makes money obsolete? The whole point of the Singularity is we have no frame of reference, so singularly focusing on one particular possibility sounds suboptimal. If your prediction is off, you may over-optimize for a future that never comes.

If you have the resources, I suggest that you talk to a therapist. They can really help you sort out feelings like this. They have tools that are otherwise hard to find. They are trained in helping people overcome their biases, and find a better balance.

In any case, you aren’t alone. I have the perspective of an additional 20 years, but I have felt similar to you. Now, I’m much happier and kinder: both to myself and others. I have a job that I love, two wonderful partners, a rich social life, and a son on the verge of becoming an adult. I spend time with people that I love, invest what I can for the future, but remember that today is just as important.

It’s okay to ask for help. It’s okay to reach out to friends that you haven’t spoken to in a long time. It’s okay to talk to a therapist. It’s okay not to, but just remember that you can. I’m not a therapist, but if it would help, I’ll listen.

Ustice 14 Jun 2024 21:18 UTC
2 points
0
on: Why keep a diary, and why wish for large language models
I’ve just started journaling again. I’ve done this in the past, and fell out. Recently I was looking in my notes app, and realized that because of my notes from playing D&D, my recall of events in the game were clearer than my recall of events two weeks ago.

I’m cautiously optimistic about Apple’s idea for AI, and how I could leverage that data. I don’t know if I need to simulate my past self (I think that I can do that okay), but being able to query my hand-written notes with natural language would be amazing. It can already search my notes for words, but that’s still really limited.

Ustice 6 Jun 2024 20:42 UTC
4 points
1
in reply to: Damilo’s comment on: How likely is it that AI will torture us until the end of time?
We aren’t there yet. Right now LLMs don’t want anything. It’s possible that will change in the future, but those would be completely different entities. Right now it’s more playing the role of someone suffering, which it gets from fiction and expectations.

Some time away from the subject of would likely be good for you. Nothing bad will happen if you take a few weeks to enjoy nature, and get your brain out of that constant stress response. You’ll think better, and feel better.