nefitty

I'll dare to be presumptuous and share what has helped me the most, above Buddhist studies, psychoactives, meditation, yoga, journaling: just removing the idea of mortality from my brain.

"Thanks I'm cured", right? I didn't believe it would help when I first learned the technique. I heard it from a researcher who studied death anxiety in Tibetan Buddhists. He found that their culture makes it an overwhelming priority to be constantly conscious of one's mortality. He found that this imperative was inculcated from the very earliest age, and he found an unusually high correspondence in those beliefs to symptoms of anxiety. It was startling to him, as to me, because he thought the whole idea of Buddhism was "go with the flow dude, everything is gonna be alright", but in the teachings emphasized in the culture, it morphs into some sort of spiritual specter always haunting the waking lives of these people. It resonated with me, because Western existential philosophy also makes death-awareness an ideal to strive for, with the concomitant devil's deal of constant anxiety.

He concluded that extinguishing or minimizing the idea of one's mortality ends up freeing one from the existential terror it can cause. I remember being in my living room cleaning as I listened to the report, and I stopped in my tracks and put the vacuum down. "There's no fucking way that works."

It WORKS. It started working almost right away. If the thought of dying came up I just would grab the thread and shake it and say to myself, "Ok, so what? You have to wash the dishes man." I don't think I've lost any of my cynicism or me-ness or critical faculties in the ensuing years. That constant death anxiety is almost completely gone now, except for the most inopportune lulls before sleep or in idleness. I keep coming back to it. "Oh my God. I'm going to die one day. No. No. No. Please no... Hey! Who fucking cares?! Think about your puppy, look how cute she is laying there so innocent. Think about renewing your car registration. Literally everything is more important than that insignificantly tiny moment in the future. You're ok right now."

I hope that helps.

Same here. It's helpful insofar as any story can be helpful in the face of what we have to go through.

Interestingly enough, although my wife shares the same beliefs as me in terms of religion and God, the stories that resonate most with her from that show were the evocative ones about God and heaven. She told me that the science-based ones barely register to her at all, and almost not at all on an emotional level. As I heard the other character describe her idea of heaven, I too feel the pull of those descriptions. There's a part of me that agrees with the character when he says, after listening to her speech, wiping away tears, "I really hope you're right."

This is a big factor in my insomnia. Not necessarily the fear that I'll die in my sleep (God willing, that's my preference in old age) but the realization that every night, I'm getting a little more and more acquainted with oblivion. Knowing that you and everyone else here is in the same boat helps a lot. Maybe it's trite, and silly, but the phrase "We're all in this together" brings me a little bit of comfort, a tiny slice of what I imagine the spiritual feel in greater quantities.

As I get older I suspect more and more that humans are not adapted for atheism. Even us hard atheists tell each other stories of chemicals and stuff and cosmos and infinity. I have an ongoing conversation with my wife on whether we'll raise our future children Catholic or not. I think we might. The lure of those stories, the grandiosity of those narratives, the imagery and ritual... Those are just buttons that I don't know if an atheistic upbringing could press. I'm not saying it's not possible... Would a reverential trip to the Grand Canyon, a late night summer trip to Amboyd Crater, fulfill the need for awe that a child has as she's growing up? If I could will it I would have her completely skip the existential terror that I've contended with throughout my life, but of course, she would be her own person and her own mind, regardless of my plans.

I'm rewatching Midnight Mass on Netflix with my wife. They have some very powerful monologues on death. This is one that occurred to me just now, when two characters are discussing what they believe happens after death:

"When I die, my body stops functioning. Five minutes later, my brain cells start dying. But in the meantime, in between, maybe my brain releases a flood of DMT – the psychedelic drug released when we dream – so I dream. I dream bigger than I have ever dreamed before because it’s all of it. Just the last dump of DMT all at once, and my neurons are firing and I’m seeing this firework display of memories and imagination.

My mind’s rifling through the memories, long and short term, and the dreams mix with the memories. And it’s a curtain call. One last great dream as my mind empties the fuckin’ missile silos, and then I stop.

My brain activity ceases and there is nothing left of me.

No pain, no memory, no awareness that I ever was.

That I ever hurt someone.

That I ever killed someone.

Everything is as it was before me.

All of the other little things that make me up – the microbes and bacterium and the billion other little things that live on my eyelashes and in my hair and in my mouth and on my skin and in my gut and everywhere else, they just keep on living and eating. And I’m serving a purpose. I’m feeding life and I’m broken apart and all the littlest pieces of me are just recycled and I’m billions of other places. And my atoms are in plants and bugs and animals, and I am like the stars that are in the sky. There one moment and then just scattered across the goddamn cosmos.”

https://adrianvstheworld.com/2021/10/05/midnight-mass-and-th...

And, another moving monologue, this one's a spoiler so heads up: https://www.reddit.com/r/HauntingOfHillHouse/comments/pxw74y...

Either way, this show hit me unexpectedly. One of my favorite "deep watches" in a long time.

That's good to know! The challenges you find must be myriad. It does sound fun.

Perfect framing, thank you.

It seems like some people fall into this trap if they manage to get into FAANG. I would be scared of that happening to me. It's like, your entire view of the industry was built around hitting the winner's podium, and once you've achieved that, where do you go? There's only so many gold medals to go around on the podium itself, anyways.

I got this Serfas FP-55. I found the trivia on this site: https://www.rei.com/product/799193/serfas-fp-55-floor-pump

I promise not to throw anyone's food out the window from here on out.

You sound awesome! I have my 2012 Specialized Allez flipped over in the living room. My wife will mention it any day now lol I had to replace a gear shifting cable, which was a nightmare. When I went to fill my tires, I realized the "auto" Serfas bike pump has some sort of weird logic where the Presta pump won't work if there's no pressure in the tire at all. Thankfully the little valve-stem-cap-cut-in-half trick actually worked!

Speaking of nightmares, my current pet dystopia is solar flare collapse. I'm generally highly, highly optimistic about what science and technology can accomplish, but this is the one thing that makes me doubt the future. It's led me to seriously consider taking on an organized survivalist/prepatory hobby, not only for the slight chance of societal collapse, but it sounds fun to systematize that sort of primitive-style safety net.

Awesome tip! Thank you.

Here's one, to remember the order of "square brackets then parentheses": "Parents are always right".

I love the idea of explaining a company's process as "deep work"! To me it resonates re Apple and I'm now intrigued on who else falls into that category.

For some reason Google does not seem to fit, possibly because of Xoogler anecdotes I've read here. GitHub seems close but maybe too scattered in many directions (for example, they seem to have some new huge feature in beta every other week). Airbnb does deep work from what I've seen (I attended an internal hackathon once). I wonder if that's not one of the strengths of YC and YC-picks, inherently...

Not to nerd snipe anyone (I'm having to stop myself as I write this) but couldn't you gather the star ratings of all of these sorts of repair centers/stores and get the overall average? It could be used as a sort of proximate net promoter score and we would be able to more objectively talk about the differences in quality...

In addition, blockchain tech reduces the friction of obscuring money and data flows. This is good for unaccountable power. Government is not perfect, but it at least pretends to be accountable power.

Our relationships at work make or break the whole endeavor. As a manager, it is imperative to protect your directs from toxicity. Horizontally, that means discussing and working out issues regarding satisfaction with colleagues. If skip-levels aren't conducted with happiness in mind, then they're barely more than useless. Managers who cannot steer away or excise toxicity need to be excised themselves.

Pizza and bonuses doesn't equal happiness. Making your office look like Google doesn't bring happiness. The two main things are positive, constructive relationships and autonomy.

I replaced the Open in Chrome step with Open in Safari. That should use the default browser either way, which I was unsure of when I created it.

Does that help?

Perfect. Thank you!

Here's my tiny attempt at helping: https://observablehq.com/@iz/sci-hub

It checks for working mirrors. I included an iphone shortcut I made that also checks mirrors. Run the shortcut through the share sheet while on a page of an article you need. Feel free to ask for help if that's unclear.

One of the strongest predictorsof work satisfaction is satisfaction with one's coworkers. It beats money and autonomy.

Thank you for the clarification. You've thought about this a lot. If a friend asked you for advice on how to help their struggling teenage son improve his self-control, what do you think you would say?

I am 100% with you there. The things that could be done to advance the creation, understanding and appreciation of music from that work is staggering. It's sad that it's stuck in amber.

They probably want to reduce scraping and definitely unauthorized account access. In addition, Airbnb has thousands of A/B tests running at all times. Scrapers may try to decode pricing algorithms, price fluctuations, etc. The traffic and interest to an offering also has an impact on its search ranking.

There are also anon account crews that will make many fake accounts using sourced credentials from their social group or bought on darknets. Generally, those only result in things like pop-up events from which entry fees are collected. I assume some could use the same method to commit robbery. Another method is to use a botnet of fake accounts and use the bots to build up fake reputation, eg offer a fake listing, book the fake listing, leave good reviews, etc.

There are also some weird currency arbitrage opportunities that might be found if someone was really inclined. From what I saw of that aspect, you'd have to be really looking for pennies in the couch seams.

Source: Did major customer support work for Airbnb pre-ipo

It's still using the same type of algorithm

Thank you for the positive feedback. You made my day.

Your breakdown is a good window into the complexity of the systems involved here, and what's at stake. One looming fear I have, is that tools like VR headsets will make the coming tide rip through more people, more brutally. Our necks are so fragile and have such a huge impact on our breathing, eyesight, cognitive function, etc etc, that it's hard to overstate the importance of taking care of them.

One slight advantage programmers and knowledge workers have is that looking at the involved parts can become a fun game. What exercises have the highest benefit? What makes me feel better? What should I avoid on the basis of anecdotes, personal experience and physiological science?

I've found that making little discoveries around how these muscles work had an oversized positive effect on my wellbeing, with little cost. For example, just yesterday I discovered the muscle that runs from the edge of our lips up to the outside corners of our eyes. Kneading them a bit, getting them released, has made me feel like I just installed a brand new jaw on my head. It's a weird type of fun haha

Suboccipital release, SCM release, roller ball massage, posture correcting straps, staying hydrated (my rule: if I'm not drinking a whole gallon of water a day I'm probably not drinking enough), chin tuck exercises...

It's a constant struggle. The worst impact is probably phone use. Ultimately, I think the best path is to continually work on strengthening and stretching the neck muscles themselves, which reduces unconscious degenerative damage. The abs, chest and back muscles all have a part in the system too. If your chest muscles don't have enough elasticity, they contribute to pulling your head down further, and so on.

If all of that is too much to parse at once: do daily chin tucks.

Accel.ai is a non-profit

What Theranos claimed to be capable of is physically impossible. Cursory technical knowledge of the industry would have made it obvious.

I would supplant your comment with, "Be skeptical of the viability of products that relevant experts are skeptical of."

Coincidentally, I was once passed up for a job after writing code like this. Verbose code is apparently cartoony to some people, but I believe code should be written to be read.

It would be awesome if a bunch of people threw themselves into the translations of this all at once. If anyone has a preferred localization workflow to share that would be cool too!

You're right. My comment was uncharitable and US-centric. Sorry. I found it hard to not react because of the personal stake I feel I have in this sort of conversation. I'll try to do better.

I'm not sure you understand how governments work. That's ok. On a census, there's no box to check off every strain that makes up my ethnicity. There's a box that says "Hispanic". I'm being descriptive, not prescriptive.