gravitycat's recent activity

  1. Comment on The Abilene Paradox in ~life

    gravitycat
    Link
    I was happy I came across this; now I recognize it when it’s happening in groups I’m in. So, tildes, what are your best Abilene paradox stories?

    I was happy I came across this; now I recognize it when it’s happening in groups I’m in. So, tildes, what are your best Abilene paradox stories?

    5 votes

  3. Comment on Any friendly entrepreneurship communities that aren't rotten with the whole "grindset," hustle culture stuff? in ~life

    gravitycat
    Link
    I have learned a lot from posts on indiehackers.com although it has a solid bit of what you want to avoid. My best pro tip though is to look for local entrepreneur focused co-working spaces. My...

    I have learned a lot from posts on indiehackers.com although it has a solid bit of what you want to avoid. My best pro tip though is to look for local entrepreneur focused co-working spaces. My startup team of three works out of one in our city, and there are about 70 different founders in the space. We have game nights, poker nights, a monthly party, and all kinds of other great social events and presentations that are relevant for founders. In this local rl community (based on sharing a physical space) everyone really helps each other in a way I just haven’t ever experienced in online communities.

    All the best to you! And please do share here what you are working on! Go Tildes entrepreneurs!

    3 votes

  4. Comment on What creative projects have you been working on? in ~creative

    gravitycat
    Link
    I am building a vocabulary learning tool that creates a custom image for you, based on your life, for every word you learn. It’s super powerful and efficient for learning vocab 3x, 4x, even 5x...

    I am building a vocabulary learning tool that creates a custom image for you, based on your life, for every word you learn. It’s super powerful and efficient for learning vocab 3x, 4x, even 5x faster. There’s nothing like a totally personalized mnemonic to make a word stick.

    https://www.vocabulary.quest/

    We are doing user interviews right now, so if you (or your kids) are motivated to learn more vocab, I’d love to give you a 4 month free account if you’ll do a zoom call with me for a demo!

    2 votes

  5. A new way to learn vocabulary. A story about a word nerd and AI. And a call for help.

    ~humanities.languages Ask
    Hi logophiles! I am a total word nerd. Over the last six years--mostly accidently--I ended up creating a bunch of vocabulary learning materials and spent way too much time thinking deeply about...

    Hi logophiles! I am a total word nerd. Over the last six years--mostly accidently--I ended up creating a bunch of vocabulary learning materials and spent way too much time thinking deeply about how we learn new vocab and how to teach it. My story: basically, via word of mouth, people with kids taking the SSAT and the SAT kept asking me for my materials which I continually iterated on as I got feedback. It wasn't my day job, lol, it wasn't even a side hustle.... just an obsession :) As I shared my "system", I kept dreaming of even better ways to make vocab learning effective, easy, and fun.

    Some interesting things about learning vocab. The "keyword method" is extremely effective. (The keyword method is associating a target word with a similar-sounding word (the "keyword") and then creating a vivid mental image connecting the keyword with the target word.) [Ávila & Sadoski, 1996; Shapiro & Waters, 2005]. Further, connecting the new word and its meaning to your own personal experience is much effective than rote memorization. ("...engaging in deeper semantic processing and relating information to personal experiences can activate distinct neural circuits compared to those involved in rote memorization." [Andreasen, O'Leary, Cizadlo, Arndt, Rezai, Watkins, Ponto, & Hichwa, 1995]).

    There are a lot of other cool things I discovered on my (research-obsessive) path to make learning vocab radically easier. A core driver for me has always been thinking about the epistemology of word-learning. What does it mean to "know" a word? "Knowing" a definition is different from truly knowing a word, where you can deploy it effortlessly when the context is right. That led to endless rabbit holes of learning about polysemy, colocations, and a whole lot more.

    The first day I saw Dalle my jaw dropped. This was it! This was the missing piece for learning vocab 2x, 3x, 4x(?) more efficiently than has ever been possible. The image generation AI tools can make a custom image that packs in your own favorite keyword mnemonic and your own personal story into a cool image. Whoa! Because what has been my total obsession could finally be created in the real world, I teamed up with two good friends with the technical chops to build what had been percolating in my brain for six years. We've built a beta version over the last four months and it is ready to test!

    I love Tildes, and I don't want to self-promote, so I am not going to drop the app name / website, but I am here with an ask. We want feedback! We want to make this the dream app for anyone who is serious about growing their (English) vocab. We want you in our beta test group.

    The commitment I'm asking of our beta testers is a bit onerous. I want to hop on a zoom call with you while you use the app for an hour or so and have you tell me what you love and hate. I want to ask you a bunch of questions about what you want to see in your dream learning app. Then I want to give you the app for a month a two; hopefully you'll use it and learn a bunch of words; then I want to hop on a 20 minute call with you and get your hot take on the whole thing.

    It is such an intense passion project for me; I want to make the app just rock-your-world-awesome. That's why I want to do live user interviews. (Which is a little out of the ordinary for sure.) And I can't do that without talking to real people who care about growing their vocab who are willing to hang out with me for an hour or two. :)

    As a thanks for your help, when we go to the paid version, you'll get three months free, and a massive lifetime "friends and family" discount. But more than that, you'll really impact what we build next, and how we can make it better. While it's maybe a little idealistic, or might even sound silly to some, I feel like better vocab = better communication = better relationships. So I am all-in, fervently devoted, and hopeful that you'll come along for the ride and help me make it epic.

    Who is it for? Studying for standardized tests? Oh yeah. This will help a lot. Want to raise the ceiling on what you can read. Let's go! Want to improve your English skills? This is for you. Love words. Yep! I'd love to meet you! Basically, if you love words, and/or have something coming up that requires that you know more words, I really hope you'll be part of our test!

    More interesting stuff about vocabulary:
    --Average high school graduate has a vocab size of 16,000 words
    --Average college grad, 20,000 words
    --Average PhD. 28,000 words

    Tildes is a very smart and well read group, so I' bet the average vocab size around here is 25,000 to 35,000. Want to know your (approximate) vocab size. One of the best (easy and fast) tests is here:
    https://preply.com/en/learn/english/test-your-vocab
    (I have nothing to do with that site or company, and do not endorse them. It's just that their vocab size estimator is really well done.)

    Want to be a beta tester, or just talk more about vocab, shoot me a message!
    pandacat@onmail.com

    11 votes

  6. Comment on In search of approachable, readable philosophy (or philosophy-adjacent) books to help me navigate the world in ~books

    gravitycat
    Link
    Such serendipity! A friend just asked me for a list of interesting and extremely accessible books to explore big philosophical ideas. This is what I sent her: ——— Hmmm, I'm not sure I'd come at it...

    Such serendipity! A friend just asked me for a list of interesting and extremely accessible books to explore big philosophical ideas. This is what I sent her:
    ———
    Hmmm, I'm not sure I'd come at it by reading philosophy directly, I think I'd look at contemporary books deeply informed by philosophy or that make philosophy exciting by coming at it with a particular angle. Also, I'd definitely watch "The Good Place" from beginning to end, it is literally a philosophy primer and so so fun!

    1. "Trick Mirror" by Jia Tolentino
    2. "21 Lessons for the 21st Century" by Yuval Noah Harari
    3. "Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst" by Robert M. Sapolsky
    4. "The Stranger" by Albert Camus
    5. "Our Mathematical Universe" by Max Tegmark
    6. "Bullshit Jobs" by David Graeber
    7. "A People’s History of the United States" by Howard Zinn
    8. "Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence" by Max Tegmark
    9. "Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies" by Nick Bostrom
    10. "Men Explain Things to Me" by Rebecca Solnit
    11. "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" by Joan Didion
    12. "Pulphead: Essays" by John Jeremiah Sullivan
    13. "Feel Free" by Zadie Smith
    14. "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
    15. "The Disappearing Spoon" by Sam Kean
    16. "Astrophysics for People in a Hurry" by Neil deGrasse Tyson
    17. "What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions" by Randall Munroe
    18. "Sophie's World" by Jostein Gaarder
    19. "Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes" by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein
    20. "At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails" by Sarah Bakewell
    21. "The Year of Living Philosophically"
    22. "The Consolations of Philosophy" by Alain de Botton
    23. "The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten: 100 Experiments for the Armchair Philosopher" by Julian Baggini
    24. "50 Philosophy Ideas You Really Need to Know" by Ben Dupré
    6 votes

  7. Comment on What is the importance of not swearing in front of my kid? in ~life

    gravitycat
    Link
    My approach was to teach my kids this framework: words are the clothes you dress your ideas in. When you swear, you are dressing your ideas in a bit of a lazy, slobbish way. Nothing wrong with...

    My approach was to teach my kids this framework: words are the clothes you dress your ideas in. When you swear, you are dressing your ideas in a bit of a lazy, slobbish way. Nothing wrong with that if it’s done intentionally—sometimes you just want to wear your pajama pants to the grocery store. But usually in communication you want credibility and effectiveness. It’s much easier to have credibility and effectiveness when you dress your thoughts and ideas up in the best outfit you can. People will just take you more seriously, and in most communication, the better that outfit, the more correlation between being taken seriously and listened to; being truly listened to is a good thing, worth striving for in most situations.

    5 votes

  8. Comment on I'm looking for a project management tool similar to gantt but... different in ~tech

    gravitycat
    Link
    This comment may go a little against the spirit of tildes simply in that I don’t have time to unpack ‘why’, but the tool we have moved to at my shop is https://www.aputime.com/ We have lots of...

    This comment may go a little against the spirit of tildes simply in that I don’t have time to unpack ‘why’, but the tool we have moved to at my shop is https://www.aputime.com/
    We have lots of chaos and interruptions and for us APUTime is indistinguishable from magic.

  9. Comment on If a song falls in a cultural forest, will anyone hear it? in ~music

    gravitycat
    Link Parent
    What a cool idea. I had been thinking about getting her a few hours in a recording studio as a birthday present, but this seems like a much, much better idea that will support her growth much more...

    What a cool idea. I had been thinking about getting her a few hours in a recording studio as a birthday present, but this seems like a much, much better idea that will support her growth much more deeply. Appreciate you Akir.

    3 votes

  10. Comment on If a song falls in a cultural forest, will anyone hear it? in ~music

    gravitycat
    Link Parent
    Great idea. I'll definitely do this.

    Great idea. I'll definitely do this.

    3 votes

  11. Comment on If a song falls in a cultural forest, will anyone hear it? in ~music

    gravitycat
    Link Parent
    Yes, that's her! I didn't realize she had her music in so many places... really surprised to see it on Apple and YT music. Thank you for sharing that link. And I'll check out Regina Spektor. Thank...

    Yes, that's her! I didn't realize she had her music in so many places... really surprised to see it on Apple and YT music. Thank you for sharing that link. And I'll check out Regina Spektor. Thank you.

    2 votes

  12. Comment on If a song falls in a cultural forest, will anyone hear it? in ~music

    gravitycat
    Link
    I have a young relative who is a prolific songwriter. She is 100 percent self taught and all the songs are recorded with an iPhone on a piano that hasn’t been tuned in 40 years. I have no...

    I have a young relative who is a prolific songwriter. She is 100 percent self taught and all the songs are recorded with an iPhone on a piano that hasn’t been tuned in 40 years.

    I have no professional music experience, and I acknowledge I am biased because I know this person, yet I feel like the song writing (i.e. particularly the song writing aspect, esp. the lyrics) is just incredible. Really—the music is special imho. (My favorites: Appaloosa, ninth life, inbound. It’s on Spotify, artist is Lady Dynamite... I’d love to know what you all think of it.)

    I am perpetually encouraging this young artist to engage in the world in a promotional way, with the cynical perspective that there is no creative work that is exempt from the vulgar toils of marketing.

    She truly wants people to hear her music--but the trifecta of: how identity gets constructed online (and forever follows you and defines you), trolls, and the inauthenticity (my words, not hers, but trying to capture a feeling) of self-promotion--she does nothing more than add the songs to a Spotify account, anonymous and unlinked to her IRL identity in any way.

    While one reading might be that she is hemmed in by her own fears, I don’t think that’s really it. She is fearless about putting other work in the world under her own name. In these other non-music endeavors she does—possibly because they are projects that are inherently and already intertwined with the sullying forces of what it means to “self-promote”—she is willing to be the vocal spokesperson for them. I think it is partially because music is so important to her, that she doesn’t want to feel it weighed down by self-promotion. She isn't opposed to others sharing the music, so there is nothing about it being "private" going on here either.

    This rambling post is about all kinds of questions and thoughts…

    (a) how much exceptional generative work is effectively erased/lost because there is “no brother Theo,” ie no internal or external driver of the very capitalist project of marketing (thinking about how instrumental Vincent Van Gogh’s brother was.)

    (b) What do you think of the music? I really love it, and listen to it quite a bit. Is this a function of bias, or quality? (obviously there are other things at play, like does it sound like other music you like, etc., but asking generally.)

    (c) Is having an audience, no matter how small, possible without self-promotion? On the surface it seems like the answer is no, and obviously if zero people know about it, nothing happens… but do people share things they love? Is word of mouth a thing? And if so, what does it need to be seeded and started? 100 fans? 1,000? 10,000? (obviously there isn’t a concrete number, more curious about musings you all have on the broader questions…)

    (d) If you are an artist, musician, writer etc. what advice would you have for this young musician who would love an audience but who has zero space for the adjacent commercial work?

    11 votes

  14. Comment on Are there other good aggregator sites? in ~tech

    gravitycat
    Link Parent
    Here is the thread! https://ask.metafilter.com/4466/What-is-a-good-name-for-our-daughter/amp We chose a first name that never appeared in the thread, and a really unconventional suggestion from...

    Here is the thread!
    https://ask.metafilter.com/4466/What-is-a-good-name-for-our-daughter/amp

    We chose a first name that never appeared in the thread, and a really unconventional suggestion from the discussion for the middle name. It was fun to revisit the discussion. Great idea to look up the original thread!

    5 votes

  15. Comment on Are there other good aggregator sites? in ~tech

    gravitycat
    Link Parent
    How old is MeFi? When we were about to have our first child I posted a question on AskMeFi looking for ideas for interesting middle names. We loved one of the suggestions and ran with it. That...

    How old is MeFi? When we were about to have our first child I posted a question on AskMeFi looking for ideas for interesting middle names. We loved one of the suggestions and ran with it. That kiddo—named in part by the MeFi community—just turned 19. :)

    9 votes

  16. Comment on Lighthearted movie about someone finding a new direction? in ~movies

    gravitycat
    Link
    This might seem like a stretch, but the first thing I thought of is Happy Gilmore. I might be an outlier in how I experience the movie, but it always feels to me like this great story about how to...

    This might seem like a stretch, but the first thing I thought of is Happy Gilmore. I might be an outlier in how I experience the movie, but it always feels to me like this great story about how to love what you do when you can’t do what you love.

    And not a movie, but ‘The Good Place’ is fantastic, and explores how the constellation of our choices plays out in old and new directions. (Maybe not a perfect fit, but hits the notes at the margins.)

    (Ha! Just realized you put “less well known” in the question… neither of my suggestions actually qualify!)

    3 votes

  17. Comment on Reducing the friction of publishing online? in ~tech

    gravitycat
    Link
    I too have been frustrated with not being able to find the Goldilocks blogging tool. I don’t want a million features and complexity. But I also don’t want something that I duct tape together. I...

    I too have been frustrated with not being able to find the Goldilocks blogging tool. I don’t want a million features and complexity. But I also don’t want something that I duct tape together. I was really excited to come across this on hackernews a few days ago. I haven’t used it yet, but it really looks like exactly what I have wanted for a long time to reduce publishing friction. It appears to be be lovingly supported by a very active dev and I like the look of the example sites using it. Curious what you think of it!
    https://blot.im/examples
    https://blot.im

    5 votes