All of masasin's Comments + Replies

I have a bunch that I like watching. I'll add more in separate comments as I remember, but some highlights for transportation are Reg Local for driving cars (former police driving instructor; he has a book, but the videos themselves are so helpful) and Missionary Bushpilot for flying small aircraft in Papua New Guinea (gorgeous shots, very careful pilot).

I love this post!

Just wanted to add that different cultures have different sets of constellations, but AFAICT the Pleiades was not one of them. For example, in the Greek-derived constellations that the astronomical community uses, it's part of Taurus.

The Pleiades are an open star cluster, and an asterism, but they aren't a constellation in the formal definition of the word.

There are more and more accommodations for physical disabilities where a medical intervention is readily available, such as glasses. There are still lots of barriers, but it is often seen as a moral right to make things easier for them, especially if it's in such a way that they can maintain their autonomy.

I have ASD and ADHD, and in many societies, there is still a big lack of understanding. People could try being accommodating, but they don't have enough practice with that that it ends up being very, very hard/exhausting to do it even partially.

I'm kinda on the ChatGPT side on this. It matches my intuition. That being said, we do lack context about how he said "Great!" And I'm autistic.

Relevant username? I just wondered if your name is actually Gene Smith, or you are a genesmith (a smith of genes), or just something else.

I have repeated some actions daily/often for years and still haven't been able to convert them into habits. I've made another post a few months ago about how habit forming and routines are almost impossible for me, even for things like e.g. brushing my teeth or turning on my car. (ADHD/ASD combo, yay!)

For me, a major thing that is missing is how easy it is to get around without a car. I own one, and e.g. where I lived in my previous city, infrastructure was bad enough that I did the majority of 1 km+ trips by car.

Here, on the other hand, we go everywhere by foot or by public transport, we're a five minute walk away from a major train station (so quiet too!), and if I'm alone my default is the bike. No need for a car for anything within 7 km for the most part. (IKEA is just beyond the range of public bikes, but I'm thinking of buying a personal one.) It's easy and comfortable to walk half an hour to downtown, and it's easy to get to restaurants and DIY stores and doctors etc within 5 minutes on foot.

Maybe grappling? (As opposed to e.g. pro wrestling.)

I love this comment. Thank you!

(And thank you for the test pilot example. I find it fits well with my life.)

Most of what I thought were habits growing up was just me interacting with structure and consequences other people had put in place. My preference was for their acceptance and approval so I did things the way they wanted but it was never routine for me.

I mention it in this post, but you have put it very succinctly. Thanks a lot!

Let's do our best!

In most of the places I've lived since going to uni, I've had a microwave but no oven. Some were both microwave and oven. One was no microwave and no oven. There was not a single one with an oven but no microwave.

Compare how it's done in Europe: Vaccinations happen in vaccination centres, and your status as well as the vaccine details (lot number etc) get registered with the government. Each country has an app that generates a QR code that is common throughout the EU, and restaurants etc can check it in places which require a vaccine passport. I'm more inclined to trust those than some random cards which are often handwritten!

I think it starts with (or contains) an F, so I don't think it's that. Maybe Foam?

I'm wearing a KN95 with a cloth mask on top.

Software: Tasker, to automate everything Android. Alternatives: Automate, IFTTT, Llama

More details on this post, including a comment of mine detailing things that my setup does. I'll have some posts coming up as well, regarding Tasker and checklisting to drive.

But the point is, it's extremely powerful and flexible. There are also a bunch of plugins (some free, some paid), that expand it even more. With Termux, for example, you can even write regular Python programs to do complicated stuff as well. Pretty much anything I needed to do, I was able to do, and ... (read more)

I don't use focus mode for anything, though some apps are fullscreen by default.

I'm using Obsidian as well. IIRC there is an open source alternative that aims to work with Obsidian markdown files (with features still being added the last time I looked). I forgot what it's called, though, and it doesn't have the same plugin ecosystem either.

I love Tasker, and it's probably the major thing keeping me from switching to iOS. I've never used the scenes, but here are my two major profile groups:

1. Tap an NFC tag in the car to toggle driving mode. Brightness and volume are set to an appropriate value, earphones are disconnected (with a reminder to remove them from my ears), forced connection to car Bluetooth (it doesn't always connect if I don't use Tasker), starts a 2-hour rest timer, automatically quiets alarms when they happen (once had 15 minutes on the highway before I could stop and turn it o

Thanks! That's actually where I found it in the first place. I thought it might have been Szilárd, but wasn't able to find the quote.

I started preparing in January. Bought my first ever car to avoid public transit, and bought emergency food and masks etc too. By the time China closed down Wuhan, I thought it was high double digits that a pandemic was inevitable. By the time the Diamond Princess happened and so many people on the ship got infected, it seemed likely that it was airborne (and the fact that SARS spread that way was an extra data point). I encouraged my SO to fly over because I didn't think we'd be able to meet that year otherwise. (She ended up coming, but we were about a w... (read more)

Why not both? Refer to the new paper in the errata.

Which is still a huge probability. That being said, the precautions to prevent murdering others are exactly the same precautions that would reduce my probability of getting sick in the first place.

Until I get symptoms, the highest probability was that I hadn't gotten COVID yet. On the other hand, even if there was a 1% chance that I was infectious (able to spread COVID to others) on any given day, it's not high enough to warrant a test, which is uncomfortable, and expensive unless it was positive or I had a confirmed exposure. At the same time, it was high enough that e.g. my neighbours (80+ years old) or the person at the supermarket might get sick from it, and be hospitalized, not to mention the secondary effects, so I made sure to breathe slowly ... (read more)

Assume you're both infectious and vulnerable to infection.

I disagree with their #3. I've had a prior that I had an asymptomatic infection at less than the background rate of asymptomatic infections in the population in general. So, no symptoms would definitely not cause me to think I have been infected, unless I had more information (e.g., a test result). I certainly wouldn't act as if I was immune. At the same time, the probability that I had been infected without symptoms was high enough that I always treated myself as infectious, just in case.

Even being... (read more)

Didn't really have much of a choice about #2. I was living alone, and didn't want to househunt in the middle of a pandemic. Ended up living rent-free.

Inbox was awesome and I used it from day 0 to day day -1. Adding a note to the reminder when you snooze was the most useful part.

Did you cultivate the fear of cars on purpose? Why? Did you use to be able to drive before?

I got my license in 2010, but didn't really drive until Feb last year. It took me a month to start the car up. It took me another 3 months to get on a highway, and 4 months after that until I was comfortable going on longer trips. Obviously COVID, so I had to teach myself for the most part. And I'm still relying on certain automations (e.g., sensors to make sure I don't destroy things while backing up, adaptive cruise control to control my speed and distance, etc.) I... (read more)

I was living on my own, but I locked down on 9 March. From when my SO had to leave the country on 21 March, to when I was kicked out of the country in Jan, the only person I had physical contact with was one hug on 20 September. The friend was on day 14 of her own quarantine. And when I finished the quarantine in the old/new country in Feb, that was the first time someone had seen my face in person since my SO.

I got my first ever car in Jan 2020 because I didn't want to risk public transport. I bought lots of food and masks etc. I convinced my workplace to... (read more)

Quick explanation of the weeks. It's not the first time you mention that.

The rest of the world uses this method of counting weeks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_week_date.

Week 1 is the first week (starting on Monday) with the majority of its days in January. This year started on a Friday, so we only had 3 days in Jan in the week containing New Year. As a result, we ended up with 2020 having 53 weeks.

So, on the graph, Week 53 is Dec 28 to Jan 3, while Week 1 is Jan 4 to Jan 10. We're currently in Week 10.

Looking at the list:

• Blaming others: Maybe 2? When I see how badly COVID was handled. I started preparing in January last year, the governments didn't do much for months, and then didn't learn and didn't learn and kept reopening. When I see people who still haven't learned how to wear a mask properly, who can't keep their distance or who do things because they're the exception for some reason? I have seen a total of three people in person since March, and none of them were unmasked or inside or at a close distance. I know I'm not contributing to the sprea

At least in my case, I don't think I have depression. I'm pretty much always happy (according to my counselor, who can read my facial expressions). The happy isn't that high, but it's not sad either. It's more like a stable emotion on the positive side, pretty much no matter what happened. Which isn't that nice when things that are supposed to give you an adrenaline rush (e.g., roller coasters and jumping off planes) or feel nice (e.g., exercise or delicious food etc) still have me at the exact same regular happy. (I'm bad at emotion words because alexithy... (read more)

I was trying to find something that helps me form something that doesn't need any deliberative attention, though. Can you give an example of where it might be useful?

1. I've tried introducing routines around that, but (at least with me) it works really badly.

   Most of the time, it's less going to bed and more like suddenly waking up a few minutes/hours after. If I was wearing regular clothes, that's what I'll wake up in. When I get up it's usually because of a message notification, so that tends to be the first thing I look at. I do have routines set up on my Google Home for going to sleep (turns off the lights and starts background noise) and waking up (turns on the light and reads the news), but they go unused more ofte

So what would the procedure be for e.g., brushing teeth? I've done it thousands of times already. It's still a conscious decision whenever I realize that I haven't brushed my teeth in a while. Repeat a few times because e.g., I see something on the way to the bathroom so I go do something else, so brushing my teeth is delayed by another few hours/days.

I'm using a complete blocker for those things, but then I get distracted by others. I don't think the gummy vitamins would work for me because I'd just end up eating them all with or without brushing my teeth. (I forget to eat until my hands start shaking, and I have emergency peanut butter set aside for that, but if there's something else that's easy to eat it might become the new target.)

I try to offload as much as I can to checklists, but I can't get started with the task (and there's no guarantee I'd finish it even when using the checklist; even going ... (read more)

How did you get the original routines (which enabled the habits) started in the first place?

1. The fact that you have a daily anything is the thing I'm having trouble with. Since moving away from home 13 years ago, the things I used to do daily because family forced me to no longer happened, including things like brushing teeth or showering.

2. I use checklists for so much. They're on my phone, and I go through them before e.g. leaving the house, turning the car on or off, taking a shower, doing laundry, cleaning things, throwing out the garbage, etc. For the car, for example, I do point and speak (or touch and speak) for every item in the checklis

I'm on long-term release Ritalin with instant-release, which is the most effective of the ones that are legal in Belgium (I moved 3 years ago). It makes almost zero difference other than my mouth is slightly drier.

The only meds that (slightly) worked (Aderall) are illegal where I live now. Adderall was also not anything amazing, just slightly less resistance to changing contexts.

Thanks! I modified the post. Could you take a look?

I'll keep that in mind for next time. Thanks!

You're completely right here. I meant odds of 3:1 in general, as opposed to when they're a complement. (Also, 90 + 30 is more than 100%.) I'll edit it.

It's only 75% and 25% when the sum of probabilities is 100%, but O(red car:green car) can be 3:1 when 60% of cars are red and 20% are green, or when 3% of cars are red and 1% are green. The remainder are different colours.

Understood. It might indeed be useful instrumentally. That being said, I'm not sure how I would be able to display a different confidence level than I felt without lying (I don't lie). Is it something you say, or is it just your posture etc? Or is there something else?

In the context of this post, your confidence in your absolute skill is the same.

When interviewing, you're comparing yourself to people who have applied (the fact that you got an interview indicates that you might be more suitable than most of the applicants), and maybe to the other interviewees too.

When you start the new job, on the other hand, your relative skill is probably about the same, but your instrumental skill is much lower than the other employees' because you don't know the systems/tools/jargon that the company uses. You'd need to learn new things, ask questions, and get feedback to get up to speed.