Days

• 24 Jan 2022

  List of good things

  Partly in the spirit of posts like What are objects that have made your life better? and Things you’re allowed to do¹, partly - if something “just works” for years you have no reason to remember it, then it ‘floats away’ next time you move, isn’t immediately missed because you have other stuff going on, end you end up using a short USB charger for months…

  Tech hardware

  • Phone:
    • BRIGHT ORANGE or a combination of colors (e.g. blue phone and red cover) to find it on any background. Black, the color of most office chairs, is the worst.
      • and pink headphones for the same reason
    • Waterproof, battery, disk space. In this order.
    • Good phone with an undestroyable case instead of a mediocre ‘rugged’ phone
  • Chargers:
    • 2m phone charger wires with a texture (nylon, braided, any other names?..) and LED at the end: easy to find by touch only (in the dark, in the backpack, among 50 other black wires…)
      • strategically positioned around the house
    • Additional laptop chargers (one at work / in the backpack, one on the couch etc.)
    • Pick devices to have as many matching chargers as possible
  • Bluetooth remotes/buttons for my phone!² (Added on 2022-12-22)
    • Use-case: you’re in bed, listening to podcasts/audiobooks/… through headphones when falling asleep, and need to skip an ad/episode or change volume. Finding the phone and looking at the screen would negate the whole “fall asleep” bit
    • Key Mapper³ mappings make this even better:
      • central “play” button: once for play/pause, twice for “30 seconds forward”
      • “forward” button: once for “30 seconds forward”, twice for “go to next episode”
      • “backward” button: same as above but backward
    • The same mappings on the volume buttons of the phone
  • QR code with wifi info taped somewhere

  Day to day life

  • Glasses with self-tinting lenses
  • BIG Mil-Tec / M-Tac assault backpack⁴
    • The MOLLE system is nice and you can attach carabins with stuff to it, like grocery bags etc
    • The straps can make it visually smaller, nice for carry-on luggage!
    • Zips around all of it - so it can open fully, the whole 180 degrees
    • Water-proof
  • Keys on a chain attached to the pants with a carabin (or two, to make disconnecting easier).
    • The chain should be:
      • long enough, so that I can open any doors without detaching the chain
      • Double (= a circle), so that it can be hung anywhere
    • If it’s not a chain, it’ll break, you can reattach it with a Buntline Hitch
  • Electronic toothbrush!
  • KITCHEN PLIERS!!!
  • молочник вместо заварника - мыть легче и использовать тоже
  • Gloves with touchscreen-friendly fingers
  • BRIGHT LUGGAGE is nice to see in a sea of black and dark blue ones
    • And traveling wearing polos with a pocket: can be used for things needed often and close, such as documents (passport, boarding pass) but also headphones
  • Rug in the bathroom near bath/shower: feels nice and less likely to slip
  • Emergency money (and masks!) hidden in places that you can forget about and always count on :)
  • Thermoflasche, my Tramp 0.9l survived more abuse than I thought possible
  • Glow-in-the-dark-scotch on phone, bluetooth button, bike, water bottle, and everything else

  Outside

  • HAMMOCKS!
    • With Thermarest-ish inflatable Isomatten and places to put them
    • With fly nets!
    • Best book ever on this topic: The Ultimate Hang by Derek Hansen

  • Buff, always with me, infinite uses, bonus points if it keeps flies away
  • Bicycle gear
    • REARVIEW MIRROR! Convex and wide, bad ones are totally useless
    • Double kickstand / Zweibeinständer, I love my Ursus Jumbo⁵
    • phone holder without a screen, this style basically:
    • good gloves with touchscreen fingers that work when you bend the fingers
  • Waterproof organizers
  • S-Karabinen! Both small for keys and larger ones

  Software

  • noise cancelling (noisetorch) if the microphone picks up my typing
  • documents backed-up in git and accessible from the phone⁶
  • git repos with multiple remotes (github, gitlab, my VPS) for redundancy.
  • Password managers, Bitwarden/Vaultwarden is nice
  • Fastmail with calendar/contacts synchronised with DAVx
  • Obsidian for notes
  • Android:
    • Podcasts: PodcastAddict, with volume keys mapped to “skip 15 seconds” though Key Mapper and Precise Volume to make it quieter
    • NewPipe for YouTube!
    • Sentien Launcher for distraction-free screen
    • RedReader and other Reddit clients
    • Calendar on phone background
    • Buy apps
      • Tasker!
      • The NetKnots app is wonderful

  Stuff you can do

  • Checklists!
  • Listen to podcasts at 1.5-2x the speed (that you save on a per-podcast basis!)!
  • Donate to or buy apps and programs that make your life better
  • Write postcards and letters to people; plan video calls and phone calls instead of texting
  • Sabbath and meditation
  • Go outside to read books on the grass, on a hammock, …
  • Learn to tie knots and tie the knots, apply them to other places
  • Download books and if they’re good buy the paperback version! Multiple. Gift them to people.

  ---

  1. Especially see the “Related, probably better lists” part there ↩︎

  2. I’m really happy with this one: Steering Wheel Remote Control Bluetooth, Bluetooth Remote Control Button Bluetooth Remote Control Car Vehicle Bluetooth Equipment Car Bluetooth Receiver Bluetooth Media 5.0 Remote Control : Amazon.de: Electronics & Photo = Drahtlose Bluetooth Lenkrad Fernbedienung Auto Radio Audio Knöpfe Smartphone Steuerung für Media MP3 Player für Android IOS|Fernbedienungen| - AliExpress POFET Lenkrad-Fernbedienung Bluetooth-Fernbedienung Bluetooth 4.0 Auslöser-Fernbedienung Musikwiedergabe-Steuerung Unterstützung für Sprachassistenten Kompatibel mit iOS und Android: Amazon.de: Elektronik & Foto is really nice as well, the buttons not textured but battery setup is better. ↩︎

  3. Key Mapper | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository ↩︎

  4. This kind: Mil-Tec US Assault Pack Backpack : Amazon.de: Sport & Freizeit ↩︎

  5. 80-Jumbo - Double kickstand | Ursus ↩︎

  6. never “need to find my passport to start online check in” anymore ↩︎

• 21 Jan 2022

  From an Intermezzo-3 post that was never written

  Main realization from summer 2021, the one I spent home being on vacation, not doing home office, adding it here since I’m never starting that blog post:

  I stopped believing my usual “You are what you do” bit, replacing it with this one:

  “You are what you do when you are not tired”

  Corollary: to learn more about yourself, get yourself in a situation when you’re not tired¹, “don’t should on yourself”, leave alone any expectations and preconceptions about what you should do during your vacation, do whatever makes you happy and observe.

  ---

  1. for a couple of days at least to get rid of the novelty effect and have enough data in a statistical sense ↩︎

• 19 Jan 2022

  Common cold and flu basics

  Am ill have a cold, am suffering, the usual “Can’t easily solve it - learn everything you can about it”.

  Both

  • respiratory illnesses caused by viruses
  • cough
  • may cause
    • ear infection: requires attention if ear symptoms last longer than other symptoms
    • sinus infection

  Flu (грипп, ~influenza)

  • The worse of the two
  • Symptoms
    • “like being hit by a truck” - start suddenly and a lot of them
    • symptoms everywhere, muscle ache, fever
    • may have: cough, stuffy nose
  • Treatments
    • first-line: vaccination is the best and only ¹
    • sometimes antivirals for faster recovery
      • (only if started during the first 48h)
    • no complimentary ones ¹
  • fatigue may last weeks
  • more chances for dangerous complications
    • pneumonia
      • lung infection
      • cough, fever, chills, shortness of breath, chest pain when coughing

  Common cold (~простуда)

  • symptoms
    • stuffy nose
    • more likely to start with a sore throat ALONE for 1-2 days
      • flu would have also tiredness etc
    • fever unlikely except for children
    • peaks during the 2-4 day, lasts 7-10
  • treatment:
    • Usual OTC stuff for symptoms - NSAIDs help for sneezing and pain, but not for respiratory symptoms or total length²
    • complimentary stuff: ¹
      • promising:
        • oral zinc products (esp. lozenges ³)
        • honey
        • meditation is allegedly more effective than sport for prevention of the common cold! ⁴
      • Conflicting: vitamin C (for most people), echinacea, garlic.
  • food that helps:
    • chicken soup, citrus stuff, spicy stuff, ginger (https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/ss/slideshow-foods-cold)
  • Caused by 200+ different viruses, ergo no vaccination or easy antiviral treatment

  Random/interesting

  • Common cold is a term and studied, no similar term in Russian medical literature
  • paracetamol vs ibuprofen: no consensus from what I read

  Random about colds, all from ⁵

  Простудой принято обозначать ОРВИ лёгкого течения, затрагивающие преимущественно носовые ходы ⁵

  Из-за убеждения о том, что в летнее время невозможно простудиться, некоторые люди даже путают летнюю простуду с аллергией[69]. Ложными оказываются и наиболее распространённые убеждения касательно лечения простуды. А единственный известный на сегодняшний день способ избегания простудных заболеваний — жизнь в полной изоляции от остального человечества[51]. Так, исследователи, посещающие Арктику или Антарктику, на время своего пребывания не болеют простудой, несмотря на мороз и суровые условия

  Не существует доказательств возможности простудиться из-за переохлаждения, перегрева или из-за воздействия холодной или дождливой погоды, а некоторые исследования показывают, что воздействие холода не сказывается на заболеваемости. Тем не менее предполагается, что вдыхаемый холодный воздух снижает местный иммунитет носовых проходов, повышая шансы на заражение ⁵

  ---

  1. https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/flu-and-colds-in-depth ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  2. there’s moderate evidence that NSAIDS:

     • don’t help for respiratory symptoms / cough and length
     • help for sneezing and all kinds of pain (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26387658/#:~:text=Authors'%20conclusions%3A%20NSAIDs%20are%20somewhat,when%20using%20NSAIDs%20for%20colds. / https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006362.pub4/full)
      ↩︎
  3. • https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5DKqK3hEzzBoGF47C/consider-taking-zinc-every-time-you-travel
     • Not all formulations work though. Best is in lozenge form, unpleasant, at the start of any symptoms prevents multiplication of viruses inside the throat: https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/02/coronavirus-links-speculation-open-thread/#comment-859920
      ↩︎

  4. according not to meditation websites, but to the same US NIH ¹ ↩︎

  5. https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D1%83%D0%B4%D0%B0 ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

• 15 Jan 2022

  CATB dancing with the Gods

  http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/dancing.html

  As the Buddha said from his deathbed to his favorite disciple Ananda, “Have no fixed beliefs, and find your own light.”

  Beautiful, initially found on LW (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HnWN6v4wHQwmYQCLX/mythic-mode), fascinating in its entirety.

  On mysticism and direct experience, won’t attempt to summarise or to decide if I agree it not, like it or not.

  Lastly, interesting other side of the coin to the usually-negative connotations of “double-think”

  If my language is too “religious” for you, feel free to transpose it all into the key of psychology. Speak of archetypes and semi-independent complexes. Feel free to hypothesize that I’ve merely learned how to enter some non-ordinary mental states that change my body language, disable a few mental censors, and have me putting out signals that other people interpret in terms of certain material in their own unconscious minds.

  Fine. You’ve explained it. Correctly, even. But you can’t do it!

  And as long as you stick with the sterile denotative language of psychology, and the logical mode of the waking mind, you won’t be able to — because you can’t reach and program the unconscious mind that way. It takes music, symbolism, sex, hypnosis, wine and strange drugs, firelight and chanting, ritual and magic. Super-stimuli that reach past the conscious mind and neocortex, in and back to the primate and mammal and reptile brains curled up inside.

• 15 Jan 2022

  LW at the end of each year votes for the best post of the PREVIOUS year

  Each December since 2018, the LessWrong community comes together to look at the best posts from the previous year, and reflect on which of them have stood the test of time.

  (https://www.lesswrong.com/bestoflesswrong)

  So, not “what happened the last 12 month” but “what happened 24-to-12 months ago”.

  This is brilliant and probably generalizable

• 12 Dec 2021

  Рецепт котлет а ля АП

  0. 1 большую или 2 маленькие:
     1. луковицы - блендер
     2. морковки - потереть
  1. Подготовка
     1. жаришь 2 головки чеснока (подавленного) на сковородке с подс. маслом
     2. к нему добавляешь измельченные на блендере 1 большую или 2 маленькие луковицы
     3. когда лук пропассируется добавляешь туда 1 большую или 2 маленькие тертые морковки
     4. оставляешь остывать
  2. Сами котлеты
     1. Варишь немного риса любым способом найденным в интернете (1:2; 17min simmer covered (https://themom100.com/recipe/how-to-cook-perfect-rice-on-the-stove-2/)). Оставляешь его остывать
     2. Смешиваешь то что на сковородке с 1 стаканом риса с фаршем, солишь и 1 чайная ложка сахара
     3. “Отбиваешь котлеты” Берешь кусочек фарша, отводишь на где-то 20 см и кидаешь обратно в фарш
     4. Жаришь без масла на большой сковородке (1.5), пока вся котлета не будет одного цвета (~7-9min each side)
• 10 Dec 2021

  How to remove a key lock cylinder

  To take out a key cylinder, remove the screw perpendicular to the side of the door; then insert a key, rotate the cylinder to either either an 11 or 13 o’clock position. Then it really easily slides out.

• 08 Dec 2021

  211208-1733 Adding highlights to a list of sample configuration folders

  The qtile/qtile-examples: Example configurations and scripts for Qtile have multiple folders with example configurations and in the README a short description of the interesting stuffs there, like “python functions in config” or “themed widgets” or “custom window shortcuts”.

  This is really nice on many levels, and helps against the multiple anonymous folders with stuffs one has to click through to find something interesting.

• 01 Dec 2021

  211201-0057 Obsidian daily notes templates

  This python script is similar to my approach; the file then is used in obsidian.

  I like the idea of adding the weather there! And of getting TODOS by parsing md files. And getting the calendar

  Python really is the better thing to use for that, not bash. Sadly needs a computer to run.

  Link from https://jamierubin.net/2021/04/01/my-obsidian-daily-notes-automation-script-is-now-available-on-github/

  When looking for similar stuff stumbled upon https://forum.obsidian.md/t/slrvbs-journaling-setup/22346, an example of how deep can one go with obsidian templates only.

• 01 Dec 2021

  211201-2236 job interview questions

  “What’s the best part and what’s the worst part about working at $companyName for you?”

  (Asked by a candidate in a job interview I was present on, during the usual “do you have any questions about our company” bit)

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