Received two emails yesterday. Okay more than that but these two were important. The first was an invitation to a very small conference in Chicago in September. It's being hosted by the biotech firm that's partnering with my research unit next year for a trial of a new, heart-muscle selective drug. This conference is for patients to give their input on their past experiences with clinical research, and what they would like to see moving forward. I was invited because of my dual nature as both a patient and a researcher, and I'm really stoked to be able to engage with industry like this. If I had to go private sector, I wouldn't feel too bad about working with this company. The second email was from the director of the choir I performed in Carnegie with a few weeks ago. He has been invited back to conduct a concert in next year's Choral Masterworks series, and he wanted to know if I would be able to join his ensemble. Naturally I'd have to check my schedule and.. OF COURSE I'D LOVE TO GO AGAIN! Carnegie Hall Round 3! June 4th, 2017!
Naturally you will be clearing your schedule on that day, correct? That's an amazing offer!Naturally I'd have to check my schedule and..
Hell yeah! Congratulations, Ben! I remember you being excited about NYC and the whole trip the last time you talked about it on IRC. Glad to hear about the Chicago conference, as well. Sounds like an interesting experience, being both the doctor and the patient. Doesn't sound like fun, but interesting it does.Carnegie Hall Round 3! June 4th, 2017!
So yeah, I got married. It was fantastic. Over in a flash. I ate almost nothing of the amazing food we paid for, despite my best efforts to eat! Then the wife and I went away for a few days, no cell phone signal, no internet, just us, our dog, a river, some orchards, and some lovely scenery. It was wonderful. The weird part is what we are calling the "postpartum depression"... we have spent two years engaged, more than a year planning the wedding, and also completed a major home renovation project, as well as managing the death of a friend, and me finding a new job, and... ... and now we don't have a huge and daunting To Do List. There are a couple of little things here and there, but we don't have the constant crush of things we must do right now!!, so we have time to just sit, be quiet, watch TV, etc. And we are finding it hard to do ANYTHING AT ALL. We are just kinda mentally exhausted. My wife was beating herself up for staying in bed late yesterday (she works for herself, so sets her own schedule) and I told her that she shouldn't try to do really anything for at least two weeks. Go out to the dog park. Sit in a coffee shop and read a book all day. Sit on the beach. Do some laundry, or clean the fridge, or some other mindless task that makes you feel like you did something, but doesn't actually take any thought or brain power. I figured we would be kinda out of it after the wedding. But this is just comical. We sat on the bed the other morning trying to figure out what to do, what order to do things in, whether we should do X, Y, or Z, and basically got nowhere and did none of the things. Just couldn't link the thoughts together in our brains! We laughed, then went and helped my parents pack up books and prepare for their move. My brainz is fried.
I've been wallowing for a while now and have only just brought my motivation levels back, I've resumed taking my antidepressant, have seen friends in person and even managed to have the first date night in over 6 months! Pokemon go has made me walk 35km and I feel I have lost weight, the scales say 10lbs but I'm not sure on that. I've ended my sugar binge and an working on eating healthy again.
Congratulations on working on the depression. Depression sucks. I'm just coming out of a big hole, too. The things that have really helped me this time have been 7-minute scientific workout videos, habitica (app that gamifies daily chores) and thick black Milanese espresso...
I lost my Ghostbusters review I wrote, I have instead decided to write several 6 word 6 line reviews in #minireview.Cedar instead.
Yeah! You've been doing great, it seems. I'm glad for you, man! Wonderful. This one game is a gift to many, in unexpected ways. :) How did you go about that? I've been fairly addicted to sweet things for as along as I remember myself and have only recently started to go off it, seeing how it makes me fat.have <...> brought my motivation levels back, I've resumed taking my antidepressant, have seen friends in person and even managed to have the first date night in over 6 months!
Pokemon go has made me walk 35km and I feel I have lost weight
I've ended my sugar binge and an working on eating healthy again.
In terms of sugar, I've had some success replacing it with healthier options like Stevia but really just lowering the amount of consumption helps. I find that if I stop having "sweet" did for a while I am much happier having more savoury snacks and it becomes harder (or less desirable) to return to sweet things. I have some healthy eating resources I can probably scan and share if you would be interested.
Snacking on protein instead of sugar really worked for me cutting down on sweet stuff. Now not only do I not crave sugar, but I find sweet stuff pretty nauseating, generally.
Even something as simple as some carrot sticks can be great to fill that hunger craving, my default action now when I am hungry for a snack is to check the cupboards (learned behaviour, must stop, naughty naughty) and make myself a large glass of water. That not only helps fight the craving, makes me feel refreshed, but also removes me from the kitchen so I'm not tempted to go back for a sugary snack.
summer is the worst season. nothing like being laid up with some sort of stomach bug for 3 days while it's also 80 billion degrees. also when you roll over and check your phone and you can't tell if what you're reading is a fever dream or the RNC news. #edgy
Meeting with Creativity for breakfast was the highlight of a busy weekend spent attached to screens monitoring events in Turkey. On my way to Firehook I passed a storefront with a live display of positions with prices on various political events. It was a prediction market, a powerful forecasting tool that I had little hope of seeing after Intrade was shut down. We talked a lot about science and the difficulties of obtaining knowledge. I saw Feynman and Kahneman in Creativity's book collection. I kept him over two hours yet we never got around to talking about running. At one point my phone chirped and we watched a Periscope feed of people climbing on an abandoned tank on a street in Turkey. I got a coupon from the prediction market and later opened an account, geting a $15 match as promised. Now I have $50 to bet and grow. It is an educational site, with limits on volume, but wins and losses are real. They collect 10% of all profit. I can today buy shares at 66¢ that will pay a dollar (less fee) once we are delivered from a Trump White House. I take some comfort whenever I hear reassurance that the lesser of two evils will prevail in November, and believe this is what will happen ... but when I have to put my money down my confidence drops. Maybe I should just wait a bit longer and see what happens at the convention. But then, if things become more clear, the price will change to reflect the new understanding. I see why prediction markets are so effective at weeding out baseless opinionators and encouraging the well-informed to speak up.
Well, I lied. CLINTON.USPREZ16 is sold out, so I can't buy shares in the national election. So I bought 20 shares of "No" in Will North Korea test a hydrogen bomb before the end of 2016? at 88¢. This seems like a safe win, but I stand to lose $17.60 if wrong and gain only $2.40 if right. It's also about a third of my funds out of play until the end of the year.
I don't know anything about the betting markets right now, but I can't imagine betting on Clinton pays too much at this point. NYT has her odds of winning at 76%, and I think that is staggeringly low. If I were selling bets, I'd put it at around 90%. 76% is a bet I would take, but still won't pay out much.
Would a meta-poll analysis sway your opinion on that? I'd like T to be 1:10 chance of winning, but his support is what it is (within some margin of polling error), assuming he doesn't crash the plane between now and November.
No, because my problem is with the polls. Polls early in races always show a tighter race than what will inevitably happen. At this point in 2012 I think Romney "held" a slight lead, but Obama's reelection was never in doubt for a moment. Why? Because Romney was out of touch and had a difficult time speaking to anyone who made less than $1,000,000 per year. Trump is so far beyond what constitutes a reasonable man that once Clinton's media machine starts in on him, he will crash and burn so hard that he might actually bow out of the race before election day. You think 47% was bad? Binders full of women was bad? Trump can't be that kind and decent on his best day. I think he's in danger of losing states like GA, LA, AL, MO, and anywhere else there are large but apathetic African American populations. I wouldn't at all be surprised if he lost TX, to be honest (assuming that Dems can register and convince to cast ballots large numbers of Latinos). So, no, 538 isn't impressing me. And they've been wrong about Trump (in the opposite direction) for 12 months now. Trump is already dead in the water.
I have seen evidence that you are a better Bayesian than I, but if I understand correctly this means that if you had to bet, you would be indifferent given the choice of betting for Clinton, paying 10-to-1 against, and betting for Trump, paying 1-to-10. I think I would go for Trump at those odds.I'd put it at around 90%
Looks like the prediction markets are catching up...
Fifteen days ago I bought 70 shares of NO in Will national polling give Gary Johnson at least 8% in a 4-way race on August 31? I paid an average of 25¢ for the shares and could sell them now for about 90¢ each, as the authority puts his numbers at 7.8%. I was encouraged by superforecaster Bryan Caplan who predicts that Johnson will win no more than 5% of the popular vote. Caplan says his technique is to 'Step back, calm down, look at the numbers, and target thinkers who say, "This time it's different."'
Yes, to make it an attractive bet for me (on Trump), it would have to be 10:1. I would bet on Clinton at 1:3 and think it was a safe bet, if not a little boring for the low payout. Obviously betting at 1:10 is way more boring, but in the second part I was speaking as if I was a handicapper. Sorry for the confusion.
I just realized that superforecaster Bryan Caplan bet against Clinton nine months ago.
Wooooooooooooooooooooork. I'm transitioning into a new job at my company as my rotational program has ended and oh my how has it been a year already. Excited for the new job, actually, as the department it's in is an entertaining group of people who are good at what they do. And I don't have terrible hours. Radio is radio is radio is ongoing forever. One of these days maybe everything will be done and I'll just be able to DJ for an hour or two. That would be nice. Went on a couple of dates recently and a couple more coming up with the same people. Do you ever find yourself going on dates with two people at the same time because you were talking to both and then suddenly things pick up with both? One will have to end soon. Have a lot of doctor's appointments coming up for various things, hopefully not too much bad news out of those. Just have to keep telling myself that There's a Big Day Coming...
Oof. The "two interesting people at once" problem. What I did, back in the olden days, was talk about the other person. So you are dating Person A and Person B. When on a date with Person A, in the course of conversation you can say something like, "Oh hey, I was on a date the other day, and we were talking about the same thing! I was thinking X, but they thought Y. And you know what, you bring up a really good point! If I see Person B again, I'll have to mention your idea to her." Bam. You are dating other people. You are open about it. Your life is surrounded by interesting people who you enjoy talking to. And here's the test: how does your date react to this? If they are defensive and upset you are talking about someone else, run away! Nothing good down that road. If they are curious and ask questions, or even if they just let the comment roll away unremarked-upon, then you have a KEEPER. This is someone who isn't going to be petty, jealous, or constricting. This is someone who is interested in you, your brain, your thoughts, and your life. That's the person you keep dating, because that's the person you can create a collaborative and engaged life with.
The alternate, easier solution is for one of them to say they just want to be friends. Which is what just happened.
Had a fuckin' premonition five hours ahead of the fact, ref. I'm thinkin' if I even want to pursue the other one. I just...really want to start a band right now and would kind of rather do that. Or, ya know, just not give a shit. Deleted all forms of online dating last night. No more of that, feels like a healthy decision.One will have to end soon.
Well, either you are "dating people" or you are "lying to people serially". If you do not address, up front, that you are actively going out on dates with other people, you are lying by omission. And that's not a great place to start any relationship. So be honest and true with everyone you meet. Look them in the eye, tell them the truth, and ask them if that is OK with them. This is Consent 101. If the two of you are entering into the date with different understandings and intentions, that ain't gonna go well for anybody. So. You look her in the eye, tell her that you are dating other people too, and ask if that is acceptable to her. If not, then she can move on to someone who will lie to her face, and you can move on to someone with reasonable expectations and some sense of pride and self-confidence. If she looks you in the eye and says, "Yes. I accept that. I'm also dating other guys, too," now you get to see what kind of man you really are. Can you take that? Are you confident enough in yourself and your value as a relationship partner to invest your time in someone who is honest with you and appreciates your honesty? (Protip: There is only one correct answer to this question, because if you answer "No" then you are not ready to be out there dating, and you are doing a disservice to your dates.) Caveats: Yes, of course there are ways to bring up conversations with other women in polite and conversationally-relevant ways. There are also ways to be a dick about it. So don't be a dick about it. Whether or not you are female or polyamorous or whatever, there is a LOT of gold in the unfortunately titled book "The Ethical Slut". This is a great primer for how to treat other people as actual people and human beings, rather than tools for your pleasure. Consent, open conversations about "hard" subjects like contraception, etc, etc, etc. Check it out.
OftenBen I do not believe that if you do not disclose you are dating other people in the first several casual dates that you are lying serially or by omission. There are lots of things you may choose not to disclose in the first few dates and, as a date-e and dater, this should be understandable. There is a lot of past trauma, as well as past happiness, that may end up being relevant to someone you date that you probably should disclose at some point - that doesn't mean you have to, or even should, right away. If you unpack all your baggage, "full disclosure" style, on a first date, you're not going to get a second one. For instance, (fictional example), if I had attempted suicide in my past, that is something I feel a romantic partner should know. That is not something I think anyone should feel they have to disclose in the first, say, 3-5 dates however. You should try to figure out if you like a person and trust them, before diving into disclosures. I think honestly that includes "I'm dating other people." On the other hand, you should also always assume if you haven't had a conversation about monogamy, that your date could be and probably is dating other people. Especially, again, in the first 3-5 dates where you're honestly just trying each other on for size. However, I'm not saying this is a bad approach - I'm just saying i don't believe not disclosing it woud constitute a lie unless/until the dating began to take a more serious flavor to it.
Yes, but... Assuming things go well, some time down the road you are going to (most likely) want to go to the next step and establish a monogamous relationship. If you have already had the conversation that you are "dating other people," and now you want to stop dating other people and be monogamous, this is a happy, heady moment, full of excitement and potential. You are making a commitment. You are asking the other person to join you in creating something special and unique between the two of you, and move to the next step, hand in hand, together. Alternately, if you haven't already made it clear that you are dating other people, this conversation is now a nerve-racking exposure of the potentially relationship-destroying admission that you have been shagging other people all while dating this person. It has the potential to be a bombshell admission of duplicity. And I thought you liked this person? So why not head it off at the pass, be up front and honest and true to your word at the beginning, and set yourself up for a smoother ride in the future? Seems like the healthiest course of action, to me. (And yeah, mentioning your suicide attempt on the first date is kinda psycho. That falls under my "don't be a dick" comment in the previous post. :-)
The trick to successful dating to to no over-communicate. Try not to verbalize anything that can be communicated by other means. Especially relationship expectation. When my wife and I started dating she verbalized a lot of expectations that I misunderstood. I mostly ignored them and told her she should date other people because I could not provide what she had verbally asked for. Well it turned out that she didnt actually want what she had verbalized and was trying to communicate something else entirely to what I understood at the time. I only found that out about 5 years later after we got married and were talking about it casually.
Camping again this weekend! We are bringing fishing poles. Last night my dad told me the easy way to prep a fish and eat it. So I'm going to catch, kill, and cook my own meal, fuck yeah! This will be a first for me. I expect it's going to be a little icky, but it's also the most ethical way to eat meat if I'm going to. Besides, it's also going to be the realest way to eat meat, too - not to mention the freshest. I'm excited. The campsite's near the beach so I'll be at the beach all day one day, then we are going kayaking, and probably some hiking as well. I'll be back Sunday, but then on Wednesday next week I am leaving my fair state to head to first Pittsburgh and then TN to visit first a friend, and second my cousins, for about a week. Things are very busy. Any skiers in Pitts or around Clarksville, TN, let me know! Neither my friend or cousin has gotten back to me about what our plans are. (Maybe they're both flaking. Honestly, if they are...that's ok. I'll either use the vacation for something else, or have adventures on my own instead of driving 16 hours to TN without AC. While I'm looking forward to the trip, I could certainly use that vacation elsewhere in the year if this last-minute doesn't plan out - and since it's a road trip, I'm not out any cash if it falls apart. Besides, then I don't have to find out what it's like to spend 16 hours in a car with my 21yo sister!) Could go either way, folx. But the short story is it's been hella busy around here for me. But it's good. __ Here, Hubski, I drew you a tree. It's possible my road trip friends are bailing on me. I hit both up on Monday to coalesce plans and neither have gotten back to me, yet both have clearly been online and on mobile thanks to their copious Facebook posts. To be honest, I don't think I'd mind that much. 
I am headed up to the family cottage for two weeks on Thursday night. I will be pretty much off the grid, and I am looking forward to it. Ethereum hard fork in 3 minutes! http://fork.ethstats.net EDIT: Successful hard fork!
Blockchains establish consensus by nodes considering the longest valid chain to be the consensus chain. A hard fork is when a client upgrade results in a conflict arising in more than one possible valid chains. Whichever after a fork chain has more than 50% of the hashing power (or whatever alternate security mechanism is used), it will generally grow faster, have more transactions, and be considered to be the consensus chain. Ethereum's hardfork essentially rewrote history to undo the The DAO hack. Someone found an exploit in a contract holding about 10% of total ETH, and move it to another contract. This hard fork reverses that hack, and enables The DAO token holders to revert their tokens back to ETH.
So, my summer job title is "Residential Coordinator" for a local theater company, which basically means that anything housing related falls under my responsibilities. I get a call last night at around 2 AM, saying there are millions of ants coming out of the walls at one of the houses. I bike down, almost get hit by a car because I forgot my flashlight. I get to the house. They are definitely termites, not ants. I have to figure out how to proceed today. If we fumigate and try to deal with them ASAP, then we have to relocate the actors for a few days, which we do NOT have the budget for. Hubski, how dire are termites? Is this an ASAP thing? PS all other life aspects are good. I am also composing/playing music for one of the shows this troupe is doing, which has been hella fun.
Termites are dire. Quite dire. We had them, and they ate though new oak floor boards in a matter of weeks. They can do very serious structural damage. Don't fumigate. Termidor will do the trick. Is there soil around the building? If you order Termidor, dilute it properly, and then treat an area the termites walk through, they will be all done. It completely collapses the colony. Fast. Termidor is nasty stuff and it sticks around, so I would use sparingly, and in places that people and pets won't touch, but I would treat where you see them, then monitor it. It takes very little Termidor to totally fuck over termites. After you treat, they should be gone in a week. You'll read and be told that only licensed professionals can buy it, but I ordered it online without a problem.
The story of the internet.You'll read and be told that only licensed professionals can buy it, but I ordered it online without a problem.
If there was a call at 2:00 a.m., they were probably swarming. There will be dead termites all over the floor in the morning for the actors to sweep up. They don't bite. The queen was looking for a new nest and took a bunch of termite lackeys with her. Don't move the actors. My termite (and other pests) company in Key West comes whenever I see termite dust on the floor. They inject stuff in the walls. The termites die or move for a while. I pay about $350 a year to Truly Nolan. I assume that you are renting the house from local owners. They should sign on to one of these companies. On the other hand, southern termites might be slower and lazier than other termites so do a little more research - but swarming yes -- otherwise they don't usually leave the walls. (at least that's been my experience).
Good for you for being super responsive and wanting to get this squared away. But lil is right on - this is the property owner's responsibility - and they should care very much about this problem.I assume that you are renting the house from local owners.
I got made an example of when I presented to my collaborator's lab last week: as a case of how biochemists think differently (and in this case, suboptimally) compared to neuroscientists. Not too bothered, but did find the experience somewhat humorous. This weeK: rest of lab is out of town, underling is sick, already spent 30 hours working, but handed off my samples to a robot to do my work. In the mean time, I've been perfecting my pokeball trick shot, playing with an arduino + LEDs, and listening to Les Claypool.
I do have to say I'm getting real sick of this election season, on both sides of the aisle. The conversations on Hubski aren't so bad, because they're more level headed and I can pretty much walk away whenever I want to. When I'm in the break room or out to dinner with people though and someone brings up Trump or Hillary or guns or what have you, I literally just want to scream at people to change the fucking subject. You know things are bad when you don't have the energy to put up with bullshit when you're in the company of people you like. Minor rant about medical billing was here. I think things are fixed now. I kind of wish I could just hit the reset button for this whole year . . .
Filter sillyseaon. I did, it's improved my quality of life. There isn't a good outcome for this one. Just rage and pain and mitigation and frustration and bitterness. With regard to the medical bill stuff, you kinda have to take control of it yourself. There are mechanisms in place both on the hospital's end and the insurers end to process stuff, but if pieces don't click perfectly it's the patient who gets screwed. Find out what exactly the hospital is waiting on, and then sit on the phone with insurance until you find someone who can actually fix the problem. I work in medicine now, I worked in insurance before. You have a bit more control over the situation than it feels like. One more thing to do, I know, but it can be dealt with.
Been looking for an apartment to rent when I move back to Tomsk for uni. It's been stressful because I have a really hard time calling up strangers. I've only been this stressed during the exams this year, and they were tough. Still, I managed to find a solid place that I'm going to see this weekend. Doing so grants a certain feeling of confidence - one that can't yet overcome the anxiety but is good for a start. Found my voice recently. Been practicing speaking for the chest and clearly. So inspired by the success of how that sounds - which is confident and mature - that I may be starting a podcast in place of the Tony Speaks English YouTube series I may have told a few of you about. Been thinking about optimism and people thinking that the world is bad. I think the reason people think that is that they think very narrowly, only of things that matter to them at the moment. They worry about what they have in mind - like, in my case, looking for an apartment - with missing so much of the rest of their world - like the fact that I'm healthy, young and full of energy, or that I have access to clean water, both hot and cold, every day of every week, or that, wish I to, I can fly to the other side of the damn planet in less than a day. To say nothing of the fact that I have access to like-minded people from all over the world - and even to not-so-like-minded, to keep strives in check. Now may be bad, but we, as a species, have only been moving forward. The crazes? The future anxiety? They've always been there: we're prone to those - but things are getting better, whether we like to acknowledge that or not. This idea inspires me to go on, like our whole species so far.
Life, Work & Health For all the pondering about motivation and making good choices with food and exercise and good habits I do, I sure as hell have been struggling to stay motivated and productive lately. Not eating the greatest. Not exercising as much as I should. Not sure what exactly is going on, but I've just been, off, the last couple of weeks. Not like depressed or sad. Just, off, a bit. Work has been fine, but kind of slow so I've been getting distracted easily. But because it's been kind of slow and I'm ahead of where I need to be right now, it's not really a big deal. Just kind of leaves you with a lingering sense of being a bit unproductive. But then, in this country, we're so overly obsessed with work and productivity - it's just ridiculous. So I try to just relax and enjoy more. Entertainment I've heard some hoopla recently about the second season of Mr. Robot starting up and it peaked my interest. So a few nights ago I began watching the first season. I'm enjoying it, it's a pretty cool and fun show so far. I do need to find a new book to read though. Get myself back away from playing on my phone before bed. Self? After getting struck with a little inspiration to write a letter/poem to my son for his birthday, I'm seeing that I must also practice what I preach a little more. If writing is something that I enjoy - for whatever the reason - I must be more disciplined to do it instead of waiting for inspiration to strike every few months... or years. The more I just do it on a regular basis, the more comfortable I will get with it and then the more likely I may actually produce more things that I may like to share with others at some point. I have some old poems that I had written years ago that surround a particularly emotional time that I've read back through. I always felt they captured the emotions that I was feeling then particularly well. I've shared one so far on here and may share some others. Here is to hoping that I can continue to write more that I feel worthy of sharing and that others may find some enjoyment in them as well. Cheers If by chance you may be passing through the upstate area of South Carolina, feel free to let me know and I will gladly buy you a brew at a real life pubski. :) Be well.
Just came back from a 10 day trip to Israel with the birthright organization (it pays to have a jewish father!). It was a great trip, had lots of fun. Had a lot to think about since I've learned many new things about Israeli history and I feel even more significantly uninformed right now. I was kind of struggling the whole time because the main narrative of the trip was "Israel is a great country that the jewish people need". Which makes sense as 1/3 of the trip is paid by the israeli government but I was happy they really didn't push any opinions on us beyond that. My (instinctual and immature) knee jerk reaction to that was to frantically google anti-zionist opinions and question why Israel should be a country at all. But then, I realized I don't have to make up my mind and have an opinion on the matter since what's done is done and whether or not I think the creation of Israel was a great or a terrible idea frankly does not matter. I do feel like understanding the past is important tho, much reading about geopolitics ahead. The middle east is a mess. As a side note, Israeli people my age are the bomb. Especially compared to selfish, whiny, overly-jewish Canadians. I guess growing up in a war zone, serving in the army and not having to prove your jewishness to everyone around you makes for some level headed, mature, generous and positive people :)
Work has been unproductive. There has been no progress on your "EU certification modifications kit" this week because you told me to drop everything and find another supplier for a discontinued custom bearing for a legacy project. And I didn't get anything done last week because you have me the most ambiguous specifications and then left for vacation. So that is just getting more behind schedule and more complicated. But I'm going to Ireland on Friday for a week! It's sort-of a family reunion. My grandmother and her brother were born there, and all but 2 of the surviving members of the family are collecting themselves from across the US, UK, and Ireland for a week. There will be almost 40 of us I think. But in