I'm not quite sure I follow.

After reading an earlier LW post on Pomodoro I downloaded the "Pomodroido" app for my phone a few days ago. I'll have to wait a few months using it to see whether it helps over my previous method (or lack thereof). So far I seem to be adjusting well to it - the standard 25/5 schedule suits me nicely.

Standing on the shoulders of giants, indeed.

Spaced-repetition software is much more convenient and scalable than coming up with rhymes all the time.

I then tried using it to destroy my sense of humour (partly because I thought this might boost productivity, by generally making actions' dopamine rewards match their actual usefulness). This seemed to actually work well; I now experience humour-type amusement 20%-50% as often as I did two months ago.

and I thought LW was against spock-rationality

You may be thinking of this.

On the other hand, fictional worlds are not constrained by such trivial things as "plausibility" - how smart or conscientious or strong a character is is purely up to the whim of the author. Comparing yourself to these "superstimulus role models" might not be a mentally healthy thing to do - look at how many young girls (and boys!) are starving themselves in the pursuit of magazine-model beauty.

Of course the aliens couldn't possibly really look like that. A holo, only an overoptimized holo. That was a lesson everyone (every human?) learned before puberty, not to let reality seem diminished by fiction. As the proverb went, It's bad enough comparing yourself to Isaac Newton without comparing yourself to Kimball Kinnison.

Tulpas and other such experiences seem plausible given how prone we are to hallucinating things anyway (see intense religious experiences for example), and I wouldn't be surprised if some people would be able to create them consciously. However I doubt that most people can do this. The regulars of /r/tulpas are probably not very representative of the population at large, whether through their unusual proficiency with mental imagery or some deeper eccentricity.

Creating a tulpa in order to develop skills faster or become more productive might work, but the question is whether the gains weighted by probability of success are higher than other, more conventional (and indeed, mentally healthy) methods. I think not.

Intelligence is correlated with height.

It was an answer to

Why would they work in a sweatshop if they could make more money as a prostitute?

Of course prostitution involves more sex.