Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 06/10/2026I got my first one a few years ago and the prep didn’t work all the way the first day, so they rescheduled and this got to be my life for 48 hours. Good times. 010
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 06/10/2026E.g. there were a lot of people complaining when Amazon showed Rocky in the PHM trailers, but PHM was not a cheap movie to make and they needed butts in seats. The thing with Digger is, lack of spoilers is great and all, but as it stands I have no idea why I should go see it and therefore I won't. 010
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 06/10/2026As a colleague observed to me after the workshop, "I didn't write those papers for people not to read them." 0110
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 06/10/2026At my first faculty job the library did a little seminar on copyright violations and tried to make it personal by saying, "How would you feel if other people posted PDFs of your papers in their online course shells for their students to read for free, and we were like, "That would be awesome!" 2132
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 06/10/2026Right, generally scientists don't get paid for writing and publishing papers (above and beyond their university salary). All money goes to the publisher, none to the pockets of the people who did the research and wrote the paper. 170
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Yeah, the LLM can‘t access the insurance company's in-network list, but TBH I suspect that being able to comb providers’ websites is more likely to be accurate. 170
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Also, so far a lot of the info on the insurance company‘s website is just plain wrong. It lists providers who have moved to different states! I ask it to filter for providers who work with issue X in adults and when I look up the provider’s website, it says they work with issue Y in kids! 170
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 30/09/2026From my perspective it seems like the price of groceries and other food has gone up a lot over the past 5 years, and that I'll notice. If the prices of consumer goods I rarely buy have gone down, I'm not going to notice that. 000
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 30/09/2026I have wondered if the prices of things that people buy frequently and have a general idea about the cost of are going up faster than inflation, and if that might have something to do with the "vibesession." But I have not actually looked to see if that was the case. 101
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 29/09/2026I feel like that depends on the quality of the campus police and the location of the university. I went to college in a large city in a fairly high-crime area and I suspect that the city police would simply have ignored most crime on campus because they had bigger fish to fry. 000
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 29/09/2026I strongly suspect my cats have mapped out the different times and places sunbeams appear in my apartment throughout the seasons. 000
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Your insurance company’s website is much better than mine. Mine doesn’t even seem to know which providers have left the state. 100
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 24/09/2026I bought them used in 2014 so it is the old-fashioned kind where the door opens down. Also means less stuff falls on the floor if I drop it (especially important since the litter box is in front of the dryer). 010
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 24/09/2026My washer is to the right of my dryer but thinking about it more what my brain wants is for the washer to be closer to the door than the dryer (which mine is) so that I arrive at the washer first. 100
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 24/09/2026I’ve only flown out of the Reykjavik airport once (on a trip to Iceland) but my experience was that it is a confusing and chaotic airport to fly out of even when nothing unusual is happening with the flight… 000
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 24/09/2026The four basic necessities of life are food, water, air, and shelter, and three of those four things cost money. So yeah, money is important. 180
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 23/09/2026For example, I was a math major as an undergrad (although not good enough to go past that) and we used to joke, "I'm a math major, I can't do arithmetic!" Being able to do arithmetic doesn't necessarily have anything to do with being good at thinking about, applying, or understanding math. 001
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 23/09/2026Rocky replies that memory is only storage and arithmetic is only algorithms and neither of them are about intelligence, and while as a cognitive psychologist I'd point out that human memory is much cooler than only storage, I think the basic point stands. 100
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 23/09/2026This is reminding me of a bit of the PHM book that didn't make it into the movie where Rocky is musing on the fact that humans and Eridians have the same level of intelligence. Grace points out that Eridians have much better memory than humans and can do very complicated arithmetic in their heads. 100
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 23/09/2026TBH it has resulted in a situation where I still remember some phone numbers of people I haven’t seen for 20 years but don’t remember my BF’s phone number although we have been together for 11 years, which is probably not ideal. 2320
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 22/09/2026That sounds a lot like expounding on a personal theory of evolution, while also saying that you've mostly avoided reading about biology because you have distaste for it and you haven't found it helpful. You're literally avoiding the field dedicated to discussing the questions you're asking. 020
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 21/09/2026Before the start of every semester I spend hours and hours of tedium updating dates in all sort of places, deleting old files from my Canvas shells, etc. My students would be understandably annoyed if all the due dates, exam dates, etc. were incorrect, though. Tedious, but does have to be done. 000
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 18/09/2026Ironically what has helped my spelling the most was when computers started checking spelling as you type and underlining errors so I could see my mistakes and the correct spelling as I made them. 000
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 18/09/2026I hated spelling so much in elementary school — I was bad at it despite working hard — and what I hated most was my teachers telling me that everyone was going to think I was stupid as an adult because of my spelling. When spell check came along I was very smug. 100
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 16/09/2026IME people who pat themselves on the back about how rational they are are (a) annoying as fuck and (b) generally not actually especially rational. An important part of being rational is realizing that you, too, are subject to all the biases to which humans are prone. 080
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 16/09/2026The first few chapters of HP and the Methods of Rationality is the only HP fanfic I’ve ever read. I started it because I had heard it was good and stopped because it was silly and annoying. 250
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 16/09/2026Ironically today as I was walking between classes, a car stopped at a stop sign and then proceeded through the intersection even though I was already in the crosswalk, immediately followed by a bicycle that ran the stop sign even though I was still in the crosswalk. 000
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 11/09/2026I have discovered that chanterelles are one of the very few mushrooms I do in fact kind of like. However, I still say “I don’t like mushrooms” because let’s face it, when people offer me mushrooms, it’s never chanterelles. 011
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 11/09/2026In my family consuming summer sausage is a Christmastime thing. 000
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 08/09/2026I haven’t taken a philosophy of mind class since grad school but my recollection is that a tremendous amount of ink has been spilled over point 2, so I‘m not sure who just “assumed” this, but it was not philosophers of mind. 011
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 04/09/2026Sort of like they all seem to think their job after the revolution is going to be giving back rubs and leading yoga classes, as opposed to working in a factory. 110
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 04/09/2026The problem with “acceleration towards revolution” is that only (maybe) works if one doesn’t care how many people suffer and die in the process, which granted I suspect is true of a lot of people whose goal that is. (Probably still doesn’t work even then, of course.) 150
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 03/09/2026I was curious, my university estimates that in-state tuition, housing, food, and fees is about $35k a year, which is quite a bit for someone working at the sorts of jobs undergrads tend to have. 210
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 03/09/2026Indeed, and if the choice is between the kids’ college and having reasonable funds for your retirement, choose your retirement — there are no loans for that. But still, not having student loans is a huge advantage. 120
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 03/09/2026Yes, but if you’re interested in how Americans evaluate how well they’re doing economically, they’re not comparing themselves to e.g. people in the DRC, so the fact they’re much better off than the average DRC resident is not all that relevant. 020
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 03/09/2026Indeed, but there are lots of people who didn’t go to college themselves who would like to be able to send their children to college. This seems to be more a “basic American Dream” analysis. 140
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 02/09/2026That first sentence should have been: "I actually went back and forth between "basic middle class lifestyle" and "middle class lifestyle" for exactly that reason." 080
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 02/09/2026I actually went back and forth between "basic middle class lifestyle" and "middle class lifestyle." The vacations/outings they're describing are pretty basic, but the college thing is huge. 180
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 02/09/2026Yeah, I would call that a "basic middle class lifestyle" rather than "minimal quality of life." That said, I think the basic middle class lifestyle is what a lot of people aspire to, so "60% of Americans are living below the 'American Dream' is not meaningless. 1280
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 01/09/2026We say “damn” all the time, too. It is a swear word, but a very mild one. 030
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 01/09/2026It’s not though? Yeah, we say “bathroom“ or “restroom“ where a Brit might say “toilet” but it’s just a difference in usage, “toilet” is certainly not a bad word, nor is “WC.” It’s just not a term we use. 130
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 26/08/2026Also creates a serious issue with collecting any sort of survey data online. 010
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 25/08/2026I will say the fact that my iPhone can make two different albums for two different tabby cats and correctly put the cats into the albums is pretty impressive. 010
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 24/08/2026As a friend once observed to me, if hummingbirds had nuclear weapons, they would use them. 260
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 20/08/2026As someone who's mother died from melanoma and who takes a medication that increases one's risk of melanoma, I also think this is fantastic. (Keytruda did nothing for her, though.) 000
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 17/08/2026www.goodreads.com/book/show/34...goodreads.comThe Gate to Women's CountryThe Gate to Women's Country tells of a society that exi… 030
Wingsrising @wingsrising.bsky.social · 15/08/2026Of course, that is easy for me to say, because I’m not a determinist. But hey, you can still put a person in jail for shooting someone even if determinism is correct and they’re not morally responsible for their actions — I mean it’s not like you have any more of a choice than they did… 020
