ovalanche

True privacy is such a rare commodity these days. It’s a breath of fresh forest air to enter an OS unwatched, allowing your mind to be free.

Not to get too deep, but contemporary philosophy posits that our phones have become extensions of our brains (not only theoretically, but literally! See e.g. Andy Clark and David Chalmers, “The Extended Mind,” 1998). Our devices have access to profound parts of our lives— our habits, friends, desires, notes, thoughts… With something this fundamental, it’s vital to have privacy.

Thank you, Graphene team, for all the hard work you do.

That’s fair!

My comment applies to a few pedantics I know personally, who stubbornly double space after periods when typing in regular situations.

Out of curiosity, what were the 4 behaviours and alternatives?

Using the post’s framework, I wonder whether his “assholery” had any positive flipsides— maybe something like speaking openly when others (politely) wouldn’t?

Yes, this always grinds my gears too. There is already a slightly larger space after periods in contemporary typefaces.

The old typewriter typefaces were monospaced, ie. every character was the same width, but this is no longer the case. Virtually all typefaces today are proportionally spaced, not monospaced. So it’s redundant to leave extra room after periods.

I’m really glad to see this side discussion on dust mite allergy happening here. I’ve had dust mite allergy since childhood, and I even had adenoid removal surgery at age ~7 to address it. Nothing seems to help.

I think dust mite allergy imitates some of the symptoms of sleep apnea, because your nasal passage gets blocked at night, waking you in a similar way to choking.

I’ve reached my mid-30s, largely ignoring the symptoms, but over the past few months I’ve been experiencing a truly terrible bout of insomnia.

I think it’s time to take the allergy seriously again. I’ll follow your guide and make some changes. If I could suggest an improvement to your guide: it may be useful to have a section (perhaps chapter 5?) on symptom relief. I’ve had friends say that a neti pot works wonders, for example.

Either way thanks for posting!

I agree with this approach: write with a healthy dose of humility, but don’t hold back!

This site, Gwern, is really fascinating but I found it initially rather difficult to navigate and understand.

I do wish the author had provided a clear, layperson conclusion/results portion for each nootropic. For example, having read the section on fish oil, I still haven’t grasped whether the author observed positive results or not. Perhaps he is being rightfully cautious in drawing conclusions?

Can you give some examples of decentralized/open and non-commercial networks? I would be very interested to use such platforms but I don’t know of them (nor do the people in my life, unfortunately)!

In agreement with all your points above.

Brainstorming: some subreddits are still going strong despite the overall (ipo/shareholder-driven) downturn. Some extremely niche hobby forums are still alive and well, eg. FountainPenNetwork. Specific software help/discussion forums are alive, eg. Autodesk. Those are a few places I can think of where it seems that where real humans congregate and have real conversations. Not sure how useful that is, but thinking out loud.

I suppose this post itself may have been ai-automated ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As far as I’m concerned, Search is the most egregious and worrisome case of enshittification of them all. Because Search is our starting point for everything on the internet. How do you find the article or blog you want to read, the plumber you want to hire, the thing you want to buy, the discussion group in which you want to comment— the answer to the question on your mind? It all comes from Search. If I could decentralize and protect one part of the internet, it would be Search. I want to encounter all the little hidden corners of the web that feel so out of reach and silent now.

Seems more and more preferable…

Any thoughts on this? I’d be interested to try, but I’m reticent to sign up if I’m likely to just get people from my own industry rather than potential clients.

Hey! This sounds interesting.

Does the tool work for service-based industries? For example, let’s say I’m a hairdresser looking for customers. How would the tool differentiate between potential customers (eg. people who mention hair/beauty in a social media post) vs potential competitors/colleagues (whose social media posts would likely have the most keywords about hair/beauty)?

Agreed. Beautiful typography on some of these!

Deltron 3030 (the song) is a work of art. I can recite it in full. Lol.

Re: 1, When I found this out I couldn’t decide whether I felt disappointment or admiration. Currently leaning towards the latter!

And these open-concept office spaces are terrible for work that requires deep focus.

I will always have a soft spot for that iconic bottle design. I only wish they had the little dip in their smaller 15ml bottles too.

Fountain pen enthusiasts know how easy it is to suddenly find yourself owning far too many ink bottles, like in the first picture.

I think the type of person who gravitates towards open source software is the type to not spend too much time on socials online. If you value net privacy, your time, your attention, you’re less likely to spend time commenting and starring. I see it as sort of the direct opposite of being ‘consumerist,’ tbh.

This is good advice, though a lot of work. I’m still looking for a straightforward (and time-efficient) way to make use of my good old iPad 2. It would be so nice to use it as a simple a tablet or calendar! (As mentioned by @smoldesu below).

So far the best I have been able to do is to use it to (very inefficiently) view recipes while cooking.

When I get a new phone, I plan to keep my old one for all the “garbage.” And have a clean phone for everyday use, with only the essentials.

Also, I have been training myself to do st least some things phone-free. Such as taking walks or running errands without my phone. It’s crazy how in just a few short years, it feels impossible to leave home without a phone!

True! That character was puzzling. As was the whole novel, though I appreciated it in its surrealism.

It is pretty funny to elevate American fast food mascots to the level of spiritual beings.

I have depressingly started to believe (accept?) that everything I use tracks the name of everything else that I use.

Agreeing with the author’s conclusion: >“This isn’t the dataset that’s going to complete the embrace of full, totalitarian surveillance capitalism. Nonetheless, it’s still deeply obnoxious. A device that is essentially a mouse has no legitimate reasons to make HTTP requests of any sort.”

Also, I always disable those “experience programs,” like Nvidia’s. They just give off data collection vibes:

“If you too have a Wacom tablet (presumably this tracking is enabled for all of their models), open up the “Wacom Desktop Center” and click around until you find a way to disable the “Wacom Experience Program”.”

Partner dancing is so great. It is fun, good for fitness, and genuinely useful as a social skill… it really builds confidence.

If done alone, it’s an easy way to meet people, or if part of a couple, it helps strengthen connection. I love swing and salsa!