blanketNTea's recent activity
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Comment on What do you look forward to in your week? in ~talk
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Voting: Best Practices
I've seen some discussion of what voting should be used for here on tildes. Here are the things I try to follow when voting on comment: Does it have a reputable looking source ( I open the source...
I've seen some discussion of what voting should be used for here on tildes.
Here are the things I try to follow when voting on comment:
- Does it have a reputable looking source ( I open the source and check it out)?
- Does it have new information?
- Is this a comment whose votes are acting as a form of population polling?
- Does it contain a well thought out point/ multiple paragraphs?
Here are the things I try to follow when voting on a post:
- Is it important for other people to see?
- Is it reputable?
- Does it contribute to the greater tildes dialogue?
I try to make sure it takes more than one of these for me to vote on a comment or page but that certainly isn't always the case. The one thing I try to stay away from is from voting just because I liked the title or because I agreed with an easy 1-3 sentence opinion unless I think that opinion is really important.
14 votes -
Comment on <deleted topic> in ~tech
blanketNTea LinkThis article is largely speculative. It'd be interested in reading an article more informed on the topic. I got my B.S. in cognitive science from UCSD. While there I took a class on machine...This article is largely speculative. It'd be interested in reading an article more informed on the topic.
I got my B.S. in cognitive science from UCSD. While there I took a class on machine learning methods for brain computer interfaces. I was disappointed that this article never describes how brain computer interfaces actually work. Neither does it describe the different kinds of brain computer interfaces or how they are actually used. Instead the article seems to contain some generalized lack of trust in the government and fear mongering. I have no critique for the reliability or trustworthiness for anyone weary of the government in general especially the current administration in the United States. However, to apply that remarkably broad argument to BCI's is a stretch.
The largest area of practical use of BCIs right now if for patients with 'locked in syndrome'. This is were due to neurodegenerative disease or some other cause of paralysis reduces the patient's ability to communicate with the world. In some cases the patients can't move their bodies at all. In others they can move their eyes or blink. With neurodegenerative diseases their ability to move is reduced over time. For these people BCI's are their main or only way to communicate.
BCI's in practice work one main way. This is through an electroencephalogram(EEG). This is some variant of putting electrodes on the head. This is usually done with some kind of cloth cap with embedded electrodes. Some modern EEG game systems just use plastic headbands with electrodes inside.
What do EEG's actually do? First we must look at how neurons work. One can think of a neuron as a pipe. You can imagine this pipe to have a large electrical potential one moment and then none the next. If we wanted to measure what state this pipe was in without touching it, we could put an electrode near it and see the electrical potential change between the pipe being charged and not charged. In this scenario we have one neuron, one electron, and no interference. We know exactly what is going on in that neuron. But what happens when we start adding neurons? Let's say we have 30 neurons and we've arranged them in such a way that they do something. Maybe they are arranged very neatly where some message starts at one end and outputs transformed on the other end of this network. Each cell activation produces some small electrical potential and we measure this using that one electrode. What we can read from that electrode is very generalized. We can tell basic patterns of activation. Like is this area active right now? Or is it active in a certain pattern. Listening to neurons like this is like giving a classroom of 30 students each a drum and then listening in. You're going to be able to tell if they are all playing at the same time or if they are all trying to play the same pattern. You're not going to be able to tell what that neural circuit is exactly doing.
For perspective, right now in neuroscience common model animals are rats and round worms. Even in these animals there is a huge amount we don't know. For instance, neuroscience divides the brain up loosely into groups called nuclei. These contain hundreds of thousands of neurons to millions of neurons. We know generally what different nuclei do but we are still trying to figure out how these work. It should be noted that this research often uses implanted electrodes which get much better readings than an EEG. The reason we don't use implanted electrodes on humans is because of the boatload of issues that come with doing something that invasive. Implanted electrodes also damage neural tissue. There is a kind of electrode people will use on human brains but most often it is just laid on top of the brain rather than put into it. Please note that even implanted electrodes have the same issue of having hundreds or thousands of neurons being 'listened to' by each electrode. It should also be noted that sometimes monkeys are used as animal models but that they are much less common due to cost.
Difficulties in using EEG's include any kind of muscle movement including blinking. Muscle produces a much larger electrical change than neurons so these interfere with any signal we get from the brain and must be filtered out as best as possible. The electrical wiring in the walls of buildings also interferes with the signal and must be filtered out. I once had some data that came from Pakistan and I had to filter at a different frequency because their current is different than in the US (it was very cool to me at the time). So most EEG readings have to be done sitting down very still.
What can we actually read with an EEG? Right now we can detect very general changes in brain state. For instance we can tell when someone is resting v.s. alert and active. Another we can tell is if someone is trying to move the right side of their body v.s. the left because these things are divided into the left and right sides of the brain respectively. There is a brain wave that is modulated by attention. One of the people in the class made a little game similar to flappy bird out of the attention modulation signal. It didn't work very well because attention modulation is really hard to do. For patients with locked in syndrome imaging moving the left or right side of their bodies can be used as a binary decision ie. yes/no, up/down, left/right. When this is tied to a monitor they can very very slowly navigate some specially designed software for writing, replying in conversation, or other very specific use cases.
There are some government agencies trying to made EEGs for people who are standing and moving. I'm not really sure what they wish to get out of that signal but I wish them the best of luck with it.
Right now, we have limited knowledge of how the brain works. We the means of measuring some very general aspects of cognition. For commercial purposes all of these measurements are made non-invasively. Research is constantly improving our knowledge of cognition and our means of measuring neural activity. This progresses very slowly. Will most people be able to elect to have some kind of invasive surgery for BCI's for everyday commercial use? Maybe. Will it happen anytime soon? Probably not.
Is it interesting to think of new and creative ways for the government to abuse our privacy and freedoms? Yes. Is it productive for this topic any time soon? Almost certainly not.
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Comment on <deleted topic> in ~talk
blanketNTea Link ParentOr if you live in the US, Code for America. There are also branches for other countries/ regions e.g. Code for Germany, Code for Africa.Or if you live in the US, Code for America. There are also branches for other countries/ regions e.g. Code for Germany, Code for Africa.
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Comment on How would you feel about "levels" a user could gain with accompanying priviledges? in ~tildes
blanketNTea LinkStack Overflow seems to have been able to maintain good content through it's reputation system. This forum is very different but looking to a working system might help in designing one here.Stack Overflow seems to have been able to maintain good content through it's reputation system. This forum is very different but looking to a working system might help in designing one here.
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Comment on Defining triggers in ~talk
blanketNTea Link ParentOops, nope, I'm really sorry it came off that way even a little bit. I highlighted it because I wanted people to see that even though it was buried in text. In no way is it meant to be a quote of...Oops, nope, I'm really sorry it came off that way even a little bit.
I highlighted it because I wanted people to see that even though it was buried in text. In no way is it meant to be a quote of you or a quote of anyone here. Instead it's supposed to be a summary of a lot of comments and discussions I have read elsewhere. -
Comment on Trigger warning tag / special flair? in ~tildes
blanketNTea LinkI have chronic PTSD from sexual assault. I'm in therapy. I've been doing EMDR. It's been helping. For a little while I couldn't function as normal people do. I stayed inside. I had flashbacks of...I have chronic PTSD from sexual assault. I'm in therapy. I've been doing EMDR. It's been helping.
For a little while I couldn't function as normal people do. I stayed inside. I had flashbacks of the events. I could barely take care of myself in terms of getting out of bed, eating three meals, taking a shower, not killing myself, and maybe going outside for generally less than an hour. All of my responsibilities fell apart around me. During this time I tried going online to do the things I used to find normal: reading reddit, watching netflix/movies, going on youtube, reading the news, reading books, reading/looking at porny material. I the majority of the time I went to do any of these things there would something in them that would cause me to mentally and emotionally fall apart again. It was an obstacle to getting better. After a particularly bad week I realized that if something didn't change the few things positive things/people in my life were all going to leave. I stopped consuming media, I stopped consuming content online, in books, or in movies unless a friend of mine that had intimate knowledge of my triggers consumed them first.
I started getting better.
It was so hard during that time because I wanted to be able to be able to connect with the modern world in any way. I looked to see if there were trigger warnings on so many different kinds of content. They don't exist as far as I can tell. The most frustrating part was that people didn't even try. The argument so often was:
"because we can't accommodate all triggers we won't even bother trying with the most general of them".
Beyond that most content doesn't even have content warnings. Film is the best at this because at least they will tell what to most generally what to expect. They also have easy to find synopses.
I started going back online a while after I started getting my feet back on the ground again. At first it was only discord and only in small friend chatrooms/dms. Slowly I started to craft a world around me that I could be happy and healthy in. I started adding a few more sites here and there. It's incredibly slow going but I'm gradually being able to live happily while also doing the things I want to. Now every once in a while I can be in forums with people who discuss topics that are difficult for me to handle.
One thing that would have made this process so much easier would have been if there were short agreed upon list of content warnings to give people the barest notion of what something is. The ones I'd suggest are based off of the most common causes of PTSD: Veterans Affairs Statistics Overview
War:
- Violent injury or death
- Explosions
- Gunfire
Terrorism:
- Mass Shooting
- Suicide bomber
- Building explosion
- Car bomb
Violence and Abuse:
- Physical abuse
- Verbal abuse
- Emotional abuse
- Financial abuse
- Explicit sexual abuse
- Non-consensual sexual acts
Disasters:
- Earthquake
- Tornado
- Fire
- Flood
It would be great if people provided these content warnings with the format of "General type" "specific content" in the tags. It may seem like this is a small issue but it affects a huge number of people:
"
About 7 or 8 out of every 100 people (or 7-8% of the population) will have PTSD at some point in their lives.
About 8 million adults have PTSD during a given year. This is only a small portion of those who have gone through a trauma.
About 10 of every 100 women (or 10%) develop PTSD sometime in their lives compared with about 4 of every 100 men (or 4%).
"
For perspective this means approximately 1 in 13 or slightly over 2 in 30 (comparable to classroom size).
Veterans Affairs Statistics OverviewEdit: I know this might not fit this thread exactly but I'm putting it here anyway because I feel it's relevant. I'll be posting the same comment to the other thread.
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Comment on Defining triggers in ~talk
blanketNTea (edited )LinkI have chronic PTSD from sexual assault. I'm in therapy. I've been doing EMDR. It's been helping. For a little while I couldn't function as normal people do. I stayed inside. I had flashbacks of...I have chronic PTSD from sexual assault. I'm in therapy. I've been doing EMDR. It's been helping.
For a little while I couldn't function as normal people do. I stayed inside. I had flashbacks of the events. I could barely take care of myself in terms of getting out of bed, eating three meals, taking a shower, not killing myself, and maybe going outside for generally less than an hour. All of my responsibilities fell apart around me. During this time I tried going online to do the things I used to find normal: reading reddit, watching netflix/movies, going on youtube, reading the news, reading books, reading/looking at porny material. I the majority of the time I went to do any of these things there would something in them that would cause me to mentally and emotionally fall apart again. It was an obstacle to getting better. After a particularly bad week I realized that if something didn't change the few things positive things/people in my life were all going to leave. I stopped consuming media, I stopped consuming content online, in books, or in movies unless a friend of mine that had intimate knowledge of my triggers consumed them first.
I started getting better.
It was so hard during that time because I wanted to be able to be able to connect with the modern world in any way. I looked to see if there were trigger warnings on so many different kinds of content. They don't exist as far as I can tell. The most frustrating part was that people didn't even try. The argument so often was:
"because we can't accommodate all triggers we won't even bother trying with the most general of them".
Beyond that most content doesn't even have content warnings. Film is the best at this because at least they will tell what to most generally what to expect. They also have easy to find synopses.
I started going back online a while after I started getting my feet back on the ground again. At first it was only discord and only in small friend chatrooms/dms. Slowly I started to craft a world around me that I could be happy and healthy in. I started adding a few more sites here and there. It's incredibly slow going but I'm gradually being able to live happily while also doing the things I want to. Now every once in a while I can be in forums with people who discuss topics that are difficult for me to handle.
One thing that would have made this process so much easier would have been if there were short agreed upon list of content warnings to give people the barest notion of what something is. The ones I'd suggest are based off of the most common causes of PTSD: Veterans Affairs Statistics Overview
War:
- Violent injury or death
- Explosions
- Gunfire
Terrorism:
- Mass Shooting
- Suicide bomber
- Building explosion
- Car bomb
Violence and Abuse:
- Physical abuse
- Verbal abuse
- Emotional abuse
- Financial abuse
- Explicit sexual abuse
- Non-consensual sexual acts
Disasters:
- Earthquake
- Tornado
- Fire
- Flood
It would be great if people provided these content warnings with the format of "General type" "specific content" in the tags. It may seem like this is a small issue but it affects a huge number of people:
"
About 7 or 8 out of every 100 people (or 7-8% of the population) will have PTSD at some point in their lives.
About 8 million adults have PTSD during a given year. This is only a small portion of those who have gone through a trauma.
About 10 of every 100 women (or 10%) develop PTSD sometime in their lives compared with about 4 of every 100 men (or 4%).
"
For perspective this means approximately 1 in 13 or slightly over 2 in 30 (comparable to classroom size).
Veterans Affairs Statistics OverviewEdit: I know this might not fit this thread exactly but I'm putting it here anyway because I feel it's relevant. I'll be posting the same comment to the other thread.
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Comment on Introductions | August 2018 in ~talk
blanketNTea (edited )LinkHi People! I'm a Northern Californian born and raised. My favorite things are gardening, farmers markets, cooking, music, and running. I'm learning how to sing and play piano. I just got a degree...Hi People!
I'm a Northern Californian born and raised. My favorite things are gardening, farmers markets, cooking, music, and running. I'm learning how to sing and play piano. I just got a degree focused on machine learning and I'm looking for work and master's programs at the same time. Really I'm just trying to get into machine learning or data science. I'm building a portfolio and trying to find places to volunteer in data science or machine learning (It's harder than you might think).
Here's some demographic info for you.
I'm mostly white. I'm bisexual and agender (a non-binary gender). My body is female so I've experienced life through a woman's eyes. My life in many ways is a woman's narrative. I've chronic PTSD. #metoo.
I'm pretty far socially and economically left. I lean toward a strong central government but I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about it so who know's what I'll think about that in ten years.But most importantly some of my most favorite things are blankets and tea.
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Comment on 'Hayao Miyazaki and the Art of Ma' in ~anime
blanketNTea LinkThis isn't my video. I hope I didn't just violate a rule by posting something that wasn't mine. D: I posted it because I read the piece posted on to ~anime about the background artwork of Ghost in...This isn't my video. I hope I didn't just violate a rule by posting something that wasn't mine. D:
I posted it because I read the piece posted on to ~anime about the background artwork of Ghost in the Shell. I really enjoyed the read because it went into depth on a subject I haven't heard a lot about but that I really love. It also mentioned one of my favorite studios: Studio Ghibli. I remembered seeing this and figured I'd see if there were people here interested in the production and philosophy that went into making some of my favorite animated works.
The idea of silence/nothingness/emptiness in film the way Miyazaki has done it has changed what I like in all film and storytelling. I like how it provides a moment of peace and serenity often missing from western content as a whole. When it is done well I feel there is equal opportunity for those moments to tell a story as a very busy scene in other stories/films.
As for the linked video, I hardly even noticed that it was a video essay. But, now that I think about it, it is an interesting format.
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'Hayao Miyazaki and the Art of Ma'
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Comment on Your own user page now has paginated Topics and Comments views - let's talk about user history visibility in ~tildes.official
blanketNTea Link ParentIn addition to the 'nuke my account' button, it would be great to have one to delete one's account but keep all the comments in the threads just with 'account deleted' in place of the username.Also, the user should absolutely have a 'nuke my account' button that really, truly deletes their account >and disassociates all of their past comments in one smash.
In addition to the 'nuke my account' button, it would be great to have one to delete one's account but keep all the comments in the threads just with 'account deleted' in place of the username.
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Comment on How and why people 'microdose' tiny hits of psychedelic drugs (_includes results of Reddit group survey_) in ~health.mental
blanketNTea LinkThe pie charts in the article are a little misleading about the ratio of the negative and positive effects of psychedelic 'microdoses'. For instance, the reader might assume the positive effects...The pie charts in the article are a little misleading about the ratio of the negative and positive effects of psychedelic 'microdoses'. For instance, the reader might assume the positive effects pie chart represents all people who replied to the survey. Instead the graph shows the break down of what kind of positive comments the people replied with. The same issue goes for the negative effects pie chart.
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Donald Trump administration eyes US capital gains tax cut
9 votes -
Comment on What are y'all having for dinner tonight? in ~food
blanketNTea LinkBurritos! We make them like fajitas: sautéd: 1 onion 1 bell pepper shredded cheddar cheese refried beans pico de gallo: 5 tomatoes 1 onion 1-2 seranos 3 Tbsp finely chopped cilantro (leaves only)...Burritos!
We make them like fajitas:
sautéd:
1 onion
1 bell peppershredded cheddar cheese
refried beanspico de gallo:
5 tomatoes
1 onion
1-2 seranos
3 Tbsp finely chopped cilantro (leaves only) (Three fist sized heaps of leaves unchopped)
4 garlic cloves
2-3 limesguacamole:
2 avocados
half a cup/to taste pico de galloPros: It's vegetarian and can very easily be made vegan. Also it's mostly vegetables so it's pretty good for you.
Cons: It can make you hella gassy. Also, it's super easy to eat way to much of it, especially if there are tortilla chips lying around. -
What are your most trusted news sources and why?
My personal favorites are Vox and The Guardian because they have detailed articles often showing different perspectives on the same issue and site sources I find reputable. Some other sites I...
My personal favorites are Vox and The Guardian because they have detailed articles often showing different perspectives on the same issue and site sources I find reputable. Some other sites I really like are ProPublica and Five Thirty Eight (especially their politics podcast).
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Comment on I work in ML and more specifically algorithmic search in ~tech
blanketNTea LinkI'm a recent college grad with a degree that focused on machine learning though it definitely doesn't sound like it (cognitive science) and I'm simultaneously applying to jobs and looking at...I'm a recent college grad with a degree that focused on machine learning though it definitely doesn't sound like it (cognitive science) and I'm simultaneously applying to jobs and looking at masters programs in Data Science.
What's the best way to show what I know/ cater myself to hiring managers?
Does Data Science pigeon-hole me more or less into data warehousing?
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Comment on How did you guys find out about Tildes and how actively did you follow its development up until receiving an invite? in ~talk
blanketNTea LinkMy fiancee found out about it on reddit and kept giving me updates about it.My fiancee found out about it on reddit and kept giving me updates about it.
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Comment on Tildes made me realise how ubiquitous Reddit's bigotry is [a short rant] in ~tildes
blanketNTea LinkThis is why I came here.This is why I came here.
I've to water my garden three times a week. It's always nice to go out and see how things are doing even when the garden is dying down in the fall. It's nice to take a moment to slow down and feel connected to something that lives at a different pace. I really enjoy the lively green colors and the food peaking out from beneath the leaves. I always feel more at peace then.