silfilim's recent activity

  1. Comment on Apparently I'm autistic? in ~health.mental

    silfilim
    Link Parent
    It blew my mind when I read a description of what it's like to be neurotypical. To quote a few items: It had not occurred to me that one could exist and interface with the world with much less...

    From each our own perspective, that makes it seem like it is very prevalent since everyone around us is a lot like us.

    It blew my mind when I read a description of what it's like to be neurotypical. To quote a few items:

    • The school system is optimized to deal with you and is generally equipped to teach in a way that you need.
    • The way you’re compelled to act in a given situation is usually considered to be normal and expected. What you want to do is generally something that is considered acceptable, or at least understandable.

    It had not occurred to me that one could exist and interface with the world with much less thinking about how to exist and interface with the world.

    we find each other like magnets in a non-magnetic pile of fluff.

    I like this way of putting it. And the magnetic and non-magnetic piles may even repel each other - there's a theory, or maybe rather an area of research, about how non-autistic people struggle to understand autistic people just as autistic people struggle to understand non-autistic people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_empathy_problem

    8 votes

  2. Comment on Sam Altman to return as OpenAI CEO with new board members (gifted link) in ~tech

    silfilim
    Link Parent
    If they can continue to work together after such an incident, it may be a sign of maturity. Assuming they aren't suppressing negative emotions under a collaborative mask, that is, but that's hard...

    And moreover, one of the board members that voted to fire him will remain a board member past his return.

    If they can continue to work together after such an incident, it may be a sign of maturity. Assuming they aren't suppressing negative emotions under a collaborative mask, that is, but that's hard to know.

    5 votes

  3. Comment on Comingle, an app to provide a small weekly UBI for its users, by its users in ~finance

    silfilim
    Link Parent
    Okay, thanks! (I'm late only because of personal stuff, nothing on Conrad.)

    Okay, thanks!

    (I'm late only because of personal stuff, nothing on Conrad.)

    1 vote

  4. Comment on Comingle, an app to provide a small weekly UBI for its users, by its users in ~finance

    silfilim
    Link
    Meta: I've reached out to Conrad, co-founder of Comingle, to ask about a few points that were brought up in the comments here. He replied with what I thought were good, detailed answers, and also...

    Meta: I've reached out to Conrad, co-founder of Comingle, to ask about a few points that were brought up in the comments here. He replied with what I thought were good, detailed answers, and also said he could participate directly in this discussion in Tildes. What do you all think?

    1. I can send him an invite and ask him to add commments here.
    2. I can send him an invite and ask him to do a separate post, almost like an AMA. That may come dangerously close to self-promotion, but also it could be thought of as something different, since it'll be by invitation.
    3. I can post his replies to my questions either verbatim or my takeaways and refrain from inviting.

    Also summoning /u/deimos

    7 votes

  5. Comment on Comingle, an app to provide a small weekly UBI for its users, by its users in ~finance

    silfilim
    Link
    How it will work in a nutshell: From their FAQ, "How much money will I get if I use Comingle?" There is a crowdfunding campaign right now to...

    How it will work in a nutshell:

    Comingle runs on two simple rules:

    1. We all pledge 7% of our income.
    2. We all get back the amount of the average contribution.
      Once these two rules are applied, and your pledges are offset by your share of the community payout, you'll end up giving money on weeks when your income is higher than the average member’s, and getting money when it's lower, with amounts in proportion to income.

    From: https://www.comingle.us/

    From their FAQ, "How much money will I get if I use Comingle?"

    [..]

    1. Enrollment is paced to ensure that anyone earning less than 200% of the federal poverty line still gets more money out than they put in.
    2. The maximum payout per member never exceeds $16,000 per year (the annual “gift exclusion” in the US), so that deposits from Comingle can be treated as gifts between friends, and won't need to be declared on a tax form.

    [..]

    There is a crowdfunding campaign right now to...

    [..] cover the development costs required to boost Comingle to the next phase, which will allow us to verify user identities, detect fraud, address security concerns, and begin transferring real money on a weekly basis.

    This amount will also put the project on track to launch in 2024 as the central component of a national impact campaign we’ve been quietly developing for 7 years to build and test the first permanent and scalable universal basic income (UBI) community. That's what Comingle really is: a UBI we can build ourselves without waiting for the government (e.g. a DIY UBI!).

    10 votes

  7. Comment on How frequently do you shower? in ~life

    silfilim
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    I bathe strictly two days a week. I hate the sensation of water droplets splashing on my skin, so the way I bathe has evolved over the years to minimize that happening: I shave my head, so there's...

    I bathe strictly two days a week. I hate the sensation of water droplets splashing on my skin, so the way I bathe has evolved over the years to minimize that happening:

    • I shave my head, so there's no need to wash my hair.
    • I sit in the water and scrub myself with my hands. No soap, less water use.

    I used to go on more days without bathing, but my partner did not like how I'd start smelling, so we came up with a schedule that accommodates both my need to minimize unpleasant experience and his need to minimize unpleasant experience.

    2 votes

  8. Comment on When you show the engineer and it works in ~engineering

    silfilim
    Link
    Heisenbug came to mind at first, but the part about the observer being an engineer and the thing always working afterwards make it a specific subset of heisenbug.

    Heisenbug came to mind at first, but the part about the observer being an engineer and the thing always working afterwards make it a specific subset of heisenbug.

    3 votes

  9. Comment on Alternatives to Goodreads? in ~books

    silfilim
    Link
    My current system consists of a list in https://checkvist.com/, which is a checklist management service and not a reading library management service, and its bookmarklet for saving web pages. When...

    My current system consists of a list in https://checkvist.com/, which is a checklist management service and not a reading library management service, and its bookmarklet for saving web pages. When I come across a book that interests me on the web, I save whatever web page that has its info to the list. On mobile, I can 'share' a web page from within the browser to its app to save it to the list. When I'm in a physical book store or a library, I'd just add the book title to the list manually.

    I'm working on making it a habit to write down notes on what I read, but when I do manage to write down notes, they go to a self-hosted tiddlywiki instance.

    Every few years or so I go searching for an alternative, but I haven't found anything that matches Goodread's extensive library and support for books in non-English languages. And then its cluttered UI keeps turning me off, so I keep coming back to Checkvist.

    2 votes

  10. Comment on What scares you the most? What fears and apprehensions are central to your identity and how you view the world? in ~talk

    silfilim
    Link
    I feel like I'm basically either entirely open and sociable or withdrawn and avoidant. I've wondered if it's social anxiety or general fear of people that makes me withdrawn, but it might boil...

    I feel like I'm basically either entirely open and sociable or withdrawn and avoidant. I've wondered if it's social anxiety or general fear of people that makes me withdrawn, but it might boil down to a specific, singular fear: fear of getting overwhelmed while still being expected to act. I could get overwhelmed by loud and/or chaotic noises or trying to compute and understand what others are saying while trying to think what to say or do. Phone calls are the worst because both of these could come at me at once.

    I'm increasingly getting better at disregarding what I implicitly think is what others expect of me when it comes to how quickly to respond, etc., and being okay with acting potentially weirdly, or even enjoying having others deal with a weird interlocutor, but retreating into avoidant mode is probably going to stick with me as a basic defense mechanism.

    4 votes

  11. Comment on Liquid diet recommendations and tips? in ~health

    silfilim
    Link
    Echoing the recommendation of soylent-like nutritionally complete foods. Perhaps 80-90% of my calorie intake is from a mix of a few such brands. https://www.blendrunner.com/ used to be a great...

    Echoing the recommendation of soylent-like nutritionally complete foods. Perhaps 80-90% of my calorie intake is from a mix of a few such brands. https://www.blendrunner.com/ used to be a great resource that lets you compare costs and macro ratios of various products, but it hasn't gotten updated for the last two years. https://eatcomplete.co/ looks like a review-oriented alternative that has similar (or even more) detailed info on each product that's listed.

    2 votes

  12. Comment on Kurzgesagt: Billionaire propaganda, stories, and trusting science in ~humanities

    silfilim
    Link Parent
    I used to consume their content when I stumbled upon their video one way or another. They're great at presenting the gist of a complex yet verifiable or falsifiable topic in a digestible manner....

    I used to consume their content when I stumbled upon their video one way or another. They're great at presenting the gist of a complex yet verifiable or falsifiable topic in a digestible manner.

    Last year, they put out a video on climate change, which I found to be unsatisfactory and have been keeping distance since then. (I won't get into the specifics here.)

    I think, when they try to cover a topic that's multifaceted and multiperspectival, like our outlook of the future, sticking to a digestible format limits them to a small subset of the possible viewpoints, intended or not. And putting forth one's views on what will be as a consequence of our actions can easily be interpreted as what we ought to do, which is pretty much political, intended or not.

    I prefer longer and longer YouTube videos these days anyway (within reason), so that alone is reason enough for me to skip their videos, which are generally around 10-20 minutes.

    3 votes

  13. Comment on One more reason to hate cockroaches in ~science

    silfilim
    Link
    This article invoked more awe than hatred toward cockroaches in me. Actually, I don't really hate them, so only awe. Maybe that's why the title felt more clickbaity than what I feel like I expect...

    This article invoked more awe than hatred toward cockroaches in me. Actually, I don't really hate them, so only awe. Maybe that's why the title felt more clickbaity than what I feel like I expect from The Atlantic content-wise - for people who hate them, it might feel like an okay title. Anyway, I'm glad the article 'redeemed' itself with the very last sentence, which tipped the respect-hate scale back to a neutral position, which was tilted the other way by the title.

    1 vote

  14. Comment on What’s something you’ve noticed about getting older? in ~talk

    silfilim
    Link
    While I'm still holding out hope that I can live hundreds of years and keep observing this world, I can now imagine, at least, that someday, sometime, there will come a time when I realize that...

    While I'm still holding out hope that I can live hundreds of years and keep observing this world, I can now imagine, at least, that someday, sometime, there will come a time when I realize that this is it, accepting the end of my self and whatever I did with my life and letting go of everything.

    3 votes

  15. Comment on How can I push/inspire myself to learn JavaScript and Node? in ~comp

    silfilim
    Link
    I would try to get to the bottom of this and why it stops you from doing anything. Is the idea that there won't be any depth to the language and its ecosystem that's worth learning? Or is the idea...

    this strange idea that JavaScript is supposed to be just a toy running inside the web browser

    I would try to get to the bottom of this and why it stops you from doing anything. Is the idea that there won't be any depth to the language and its ecosystem that's worth learning? Or is the idea that you shouldn't spend time learning a toy language? Do other languages invoke the same idea?

    4 votes

  16. Comment on Help me understand how I feel about a particular style of watch in ~talk

    silfilim
    Link
    The same question can be applied to the horrible things the creator did. Different lines of thinking will land on different answers, but it feels internally self-consistent to adopt the same line...

    Can I separate the creator from the product?

    The same question can be applied to the horrible things the creator did. Different lines of thinking will land on different answers, but it feels internally self-consistent to adopt the same line of thinking for good and bad outcomes.

    If you say that the direct intention behind the action is what matters, the watch may be acceptable and the horrible things may not be.

    3 votes

  17. Comment on What is your earliest memory of the internet? in ~tech

    silfilim
    Link
    Like many others, staying up late to wait for the dialup fee to go down, and the sound of beep-bop-be-bop-be-bop Waiting for more than five minutes for a single mp3 file to finish downloading...
    • Like many others, staying up late to wait for the dialup fee to go down, and the sound of beep-bop-be-bop-be-bop
    • Waiting for more than five minutes for a single mp3 file to finish downloading
    • Becoming a regular in a cgi chat room of a website about a pet simulation game that I'd wanted to play forever. I was something like ten or twelve at the time, and I think a lot of the regulars were much older. We expanded to IRC some time later
    • Watching Netscape's throbber twinkle and flash
    • General sense of excitement, adventure, community, and discovery
    3 votes

  18. Comment on Open source recommendations for a photo/post voting site? in ~comp

    silfilim
    Link
    Have you looked at Discourse? It's a generic forum software, but it could be configured to function as a photo voting site. It's open source - installation guide Supports Facebook login Supports...

    Have you looked at Discourse? It's a generic forum software, but it could be configured to function as a photo voting site.

    One wrinkle might be that it assumes that topic categories are more or less fixed. If you set up a separate category for each new trade event, things might get unwieldy down the road, like the UI for category navigation. This topic discusses some options for how to handle such periodic events.

    3 votes

  19. Comment on Shinzo Abe, Japan's former prime minister, assassinated at a campaign stop in ~news

    silfilim
    Link
    Wow. I feel shaken more than anything in recent memory. Definitely did not expect something like this to hit my homeland, but then, fatal attack against a national leader isn't entirely out of...

    Wow. I feel shaken more than anything in recent memory. Definitely did not expect something like this to hit my homeland, but then, fatal attack against a national leader isn't entirely out of 'brand' for Japan, considering that it hasn't been more than a century since the May 15th incident.

    I hadn't particularly liked or disliked Mr. Abe. The grievance I feel is from knowing that someone was forced to go through a sudden and presumably painful death and that there was someone who directed their animosity toward a specific person to cause this death. My mind is reeling to try to understand it all.

    12 votes

  20. Comment on US abortion bans are going to hit us worse than we think in ~talk

    silfilim
    Link Parent
    This is a conundrum I remember being talked about before in Tildes. I think people can be talked about as numbers in useful ways, like waves of hospitalizations or population aging and what should...

    This is a conundrum I remember being talked about before in Tildes. I think people can be talked about as numbers in useful ways, like waves of hospitalizations or population aging and what should be done about them. At the same time, it can rub those with first-hand experience in the matter the wrong way, even when there's no intention to do so.

    To me, talking in numbers or in the abstract seems fine as long as no over-generalization is made about subjective feelings. Talking in the abstract doesn't necessarily mean they lack the capacity to listen and empathize.

    8 votes