Panem
1mo ago
nobody is calling for a return of Constantinople to the Christians
I honestly wouldn't say nobody. There are plenty of people larping as crusaders. Just mostly they aren't taken too seriously.
Panem
1mo ago
I am thinking about the aesthetics of technology. Certain technologies seem deeply aesthetic to me and really appeal to my soul. So for instance, SpaceX capturing the booster, that really speaks to me, to be honest pretty much anything space related does. I would class this as 'real' engineering, as would I class building a bridge for instance, but that doesn't have the same frontier pushing edge. Whereas anything related to sensors and artificial intelligence, though can be cool, doesn't evoke the same feelings. I am trying to pin down why this is. I think maybe because I see the electrical technologies as more homogenizing, or more liable to the centralization of power and control? Mobile phones during COVID come to mind for instance. Does anyone else get where I am coming from?
Panem
1mo ago
It depends whether it is a suicide pact or not. If you are climbing a long unprotectable hard snow at high angle for hundreds of meters, than perhaps its good to put away the rope. But most of the time it is not like this. You are moving through a very large amount of terrain of varying complexity. You do not have the time to mess around with the rope. You should move together when possible, using terrain belays when possible and soloing if you cannot. This is the only way to really move in the Alpine. Otherwise you get benighted. Just last week I was listening to some French mountain rescue guys talk about a pair of British climbers who were stranded enroute on the Peuterey Integral having made it just past the technical difficulties. Its an astounding route, very serious but most parties complete it 2-3 days. These guys were on it for 5 days. Likely because the terrain requires a lot of efficient moving together. The subsequent rescue was quiet legendary and put a hell lot of people at risk with a storm nipping at their heels (helicopter could not be used due to visibility).
As for the milli and micromort strategy I think its a function of ability. Ueli Steck could jog up the Matterhorn and down before you got to the Hornli. It would also mean that during an Alpine season your chances of dying should decrease. But I find the approach interesting and I will use it for my next year fundraiser which will be 41 Alpine Peaks above 4000m through technical routes. I am curious what my chances of dying is.
Yea I am always kind of at two places with 'safe' outdoor route climbing. I generally think there should be a variety. Because usually things that are too safe or too gym like also become like a gym where you lose a lot of the outdoor element and there is a lot of traffic. Some sort of gating based on ability and risk tolerance is I think nice, also gives an additional sense of progression and accomplishment. I generally don't think having bolts but coloring them etc makes sense, not having the bolt there, and experiencing the real sketch is what makes the route the route. So overall I think a variety of climbs of differing boldness is good.
Panem
1mo ago
I am working on a membrane testing system for blood contact. Basically when blood makes contact starts to foul the surface and may start to coagulate. This is something I don't want. So we need a fast way of optimising surface coatings/membranes that prevent this from happening. All current systems are kinda shit and not meant for this purpose. We have animal experiments but these are costly and time consuming and not well controlled.
So I have currently a small fluidic loop that contains all the blood needed for the experiment, a peristaltic pump and a syringe pump. The peristaltic pump moves the blood around at the right rate so it doesn't aggregate or get damaged by excessive shear forces. The syringe pump keeps the system pressurised at a certain level. This is the neat part because then you don't need small diameter resistive tubing to do the pressure, which means blood gets less damaged.
I built the 3 syringe pumps from an old ender 3 printer. You should be able to control the pumps through the electronics of the ender but its super clunky. Especially if you want to interface with a pressure sensor and keep the pressure at a set point, via PID control. So I now bought an Uno and a CNC shield so I can do it low level via this. The syringe pump also means I can measure exactly how much flow is going through my membrane which is neat. But lets see if the interface works out, especially on the talking with the pressure sensor. Because the sensor is connected to a different arduino, so I think the simplest way is to send signals from my computer to the Uno based on this. But the nicest would probably be to integrate the control and the sensing together. But I think that would take a bit too long.
Panem
3mo ago
Isn't the problem here mass marketing? The same regulations basically seem to apply across the board, irrespective of the amount of data, nature of the data , or the usage of the data (non-commercial, research). The nature of the data in our case is very clear. Data obtained during human experiment, under informed consent, with a very real physical signature of said consent document.
Panem
3mo ago
I agree that cowboy in this regard can be both good and bad. There is a book called 'How to make a killing' which looks in to the flip side of the coin. Where basically doctors were the first ones to commercialize dialysis, and attempt to maximize profits from it. Of course, different cowboys at Seattle were the first to have a dialysis ward for chronic dialysis patients that would otherwise die, using the shunt invented by them, without the intent of profit maximization but maintenance instead.
Its obviously a mixed bag but I feel like we are sliding more and more towards things being harder to develop. I think this is a shame and potentially, in the long term, dangerous. There must be a way of reducing the regulatory burden and safetyism without producing these negative effects. Or the system is basically unstable and you will slide to one extreme or the other.
I am unsure about the animal research part. I think things that could be done without it, should be. This is what I am trying to do to some degree with in-vitro blood testing setup for the blood filtration membranes (its hard, blood is weird and weirder outside the body :D). I think in-vitro is always going to be cheaper and likely better controlled, if you are clever about it.
But I do wonder if the authors thought the work was unnecessary prior to their results. If so, why did the work happen in the first place. Goodness knows there are a lot of bullshit proposals out there. I generally think a lot of science is muddling around in the dark and sometimes something works. Thats for the majority of the mortals. Therefore most of the time the tools we use for this (animals perhaps) were 'wasted' if we hit a wall, atleast on the individual level. But on a macro-level it seems like a part of the process.
Panem
3mo ago
If you know how to fight standing then I think it goes without saying strength matters a lot. But I also did a few weeks of MMA (Friday was like sparring from standing with strikes allowed) I remember going against a person who was vastly superior striker (with my 2x MMA striking, you can imagine my state). But I shot quiet fast and took him down and there it was quiet easy. I imagine, given that she was so good at judo (coming from that background), etc, unless I got lucky or for some reason she just couldn't deal with striking being a part of the game, she would similarly take me down and go to town. As I replied to faceh, similar weight + huge skill imbalance is where you would get a woman absolutely dominate. If she was 20kg lighter (as is usual) I think it would be a very different story.
Panem
3mo ago
We always started standing. I mean she was a judoka so, it wasn't that hard for her to get me to the ground. If you are so heavily out skilled and you have the same weight, the strength makes very little difference. She isn't going to let you body slam her and might do the same herself. Most women are very much NOT the same weight as me, indeed majority in the sparing sessions were about 20kg lighter. Which means it would probably go down as you are proposing, weight + large strength difference. But this was the only big Dutch woman there hence the result.
Panem
3mo ago
A biological male who goes through male puberty has an insurmountable advantage over any person whatsoever who hasn't gone through male puberty. Unironically, If I were forced to bet on a no-holds barred brawl between a barely-trained 70 year old male and a heavily trained mid-twenties female in the same weight class, I am picking gramps for the win. Cardio will 100% be a factor here, but also, old man strength is REAL. (Oh I'm prepared to lose my money, but absent actual medical problems a 70 year old is not as fragile as you think.) I wonder why such a matchup hasn't been done before. Hmmmm.
I honestly don't agree with this. I went to BJJ for a couple of months just prior to starting dialysis. I was strong, not super strong but pulling 1 rep-max of 50kg over my 75kg body weight on a pullup kind of strong. I had no technique just strength and the technique was developing, but only enough to resist tapping to white belts for the 5 minute hard sparing periods. And for some of the novice white belts I was pretty comfortably in top position against (just had no idea how to submit anyone). I went up against a judo girl about the same size and weight as me. Absolute utter domination. She had been doing this since she was very young. I think I got tapped out like 3 times in the span of 3 minutes. This was in the first week of my short bjj bout, but still.
Panem
5mo ago
Going under the knife, is never good. There are reports of prolonged chronic pain after vasectomy, both in the literature and on reddit.
https://old.reddit.com/r/postvasectomypain/
Now of course, any surgery can have bad side-effets. Which is why going under the knife should be last resort. Use condoms.
Panem
1yr ago
Do you reckon Zafer Party will be able to come to some kind of agreement with KK?
Panem
1yr ago
I am not so certain that school itself is the cause of our woes here.
I think even without school, if you take the type of demographic that attend them and put them in to some sort of a job, they will still
delay children until their late 20s early 30s just because the responsibility of having a child would detract from the benefits incurred from having disposable income to travel to world and consume things.
Panem
1yr ago
I view plans of giving humans GOD mode (but not really) via AI as fundamentally removing all sort of meaning from life.
Things are easier now than they were, yes, but we still suffer. Suffering is, in my opinion, a core pillar of what it means to be human.
Panem
1yr ago
Does your significant other know about your use of The motte, and if so, what do they think about it?
Panem
1yr ago
Dialysis diaries week 5:
Well this week has been a pretty good week, aside from a small incident. I went to a boulder competition and bashed my catheder exit site in to an overhanging boulder. It started bleeding. Thankfully my girl friend took control over the situation there and patched it up so I was able to continue bouldering. But I felt absolutely disgusting, the thing makes my skin crawl and an incident like this really puts me on edge. But aside from this the week was good!
I had my first appointment at the transplant clinic with my mother. Everything so far is good. One issue was that the ct scan could take up to a month to book, which is crazy to me, but they managed to book it in for next week. After this it's just meeting the surgeon and the anesthesiologist. Then it's a 3 month wait for the surgery. This kind of gets under my skin a bit, 3 months feels like a long time and I don't want to endure any more than I have to. But hopefully everything works out, I can wait another 3 months, its already been 6.
The day after I went to the same hospital but this time to speak with a professor doing research on kidney regeneration and organoid technology. I want to first do an internship there and quit my current job in academia as an engineer then progress further for a paid position. Despite the fact that I don't have a biological background he was very encouraging. He is pretty positive an internship is a strong possibility, he was worried about me not getting salary for a while and quiting my job. He said we could write some joint proposals after a while to try to get money to fund me. He will contact me in 2 weeks time. Overall I enjoyed the vibes coming from the group and I feel like it is a really good opportunity to get in to the field and try to fight back against the disease.
Panem
1yr ago
Yes, the poster that prompted my thought had a much more "extreme" tuning curve which is why I thought they weren't considering potential medical advances in their calculus.
I also often think to myself how close would a friend need to be for me to be cool with a donation of this sort. And I am not sure myself. I would probably consider it for anyone I was already interacting strongly prior to their diagnosis. But that's because I know the disease, making me more sympathetic than I otherwise would have been.
Panem
1yr ago
Dialysis Diaries Week 3 & 4:
So I just didn't get round to writing it last week but my machine (let's call her Clara) is still pumping away.
Not much previous week. Went to Belgium again with some friends on a sports multipitch. I led all the pitches, the first one in boots because it was blood cold for cragging at -2 (celcius).
The water retention situation is ongoing so I have begun to cut down on the water/fluid consumption. This is a bit weird. For instance two days ago I didn't drink a single cup. I was still not thirsty because I indeed had excess. Its quaint to be offered tea/water etc and having to refuse it. One really doesn't truly appreciate how much social interaction revolves around drinking things.
One thing that I am very aggressively pursuing is changing my field of work. I work as a postdoc and I am on track towards an assistant professorship. My area is mechanical engineering. But lo and behold, I want to change towards bio. Why? Well I know that my disease will be with me for the rest of my life. Fuck me if I won't try to combat it with every fibre of my being. And the only solutions I see that will make me whole are biological, ie regenerative medicine technologies that rely on expert understanding of cellular biology and methods. Well shucks, I don't have this.
So I am essentially spamming researchers in the field asking for... Anything really. I am not looking for payment, just training, which of course takes up someone's time. But I am sure this would be worth both for them and me in the long run. I have never felt this much motivation before. In any case so far I am getting mixed results. I managed to visit one lab and did some lab work. I felt as though they were treating me as a cancer kid. Which they might have been as today I got the reply that they are looking for experienced postdocs and did not gave PhD funding. Which is fair enough. Regardless, another professor elsewhere seems to be open for an internship. I will talk to him soon. I feel as though if I knock enough doors someone will say yes. If not, I'll have to take the slower approach.
Other than this my mother is being looked at to see if she can donate soon, so fingers crossed for that. I should have a clearer picture of the time line after that.
Also on the topic of donation. I think it was either here, ssc or the EA sub. Someone said they would never donate as it increases the chances of end stage renal disease. Only to someone younger than then and otherwise much fitter.
Now of course I am biased in this but I was thinking about it. And indeed if you think post donation risk of lifetime esrd being order of about 1% is unacceptable I have no logical arguments against it. Then I thought some more. Most of this risk is at a very late age. Say you are 30 now. You probably have 40 years before (low chance of) esrd. Now if we don't singularity our way to whatever you can count on a lot of technological development in 40 years, perhaps and I believe we will based on my research to date, have artificial organs by then. So having this in the calculus I think the assessment becomes more positive towards donation. Thoughts?
Panem
1yr ago
I suppose your suffering really needs to be great to make that leap of faith. That or your priors on one thing or another must be quite high and that thing quiet preferrable. For instance, I would rate inexistence to somewhere between neutral to positive.
I find it hard to formulate but intuitively one can be out of existence for eons until at the very least, some different universe births the right configuration of atoms that is you. In which case those eons might as well have not passed.
Panem
1yr ago
Dialysis Diaries Week 2:
Last week was pretty okay. I went trad climbing in Belgium. Which is an odd statement. Because Belgium is not known for its trad climbing (ie placing your own protection). Belgium has some work class limestone sport climbing. But currently I am very careful about taking sport falls. The reason being that the catheder that is placed in to my abdomen is somewhat low down. So upon a lead fall the climbing harness tugs up on to it which causes some pain. It's also not a great idea to disturb the region as it is essentially an open wound in to my body. So the name of the game is to not fall, which is the perfect motto for trad climbing on sketchy limestone anyways! So had a cold day out over marginal gear which as a beginner felt quite close to soloing at times. But it did make me feel somewhat whole again. On the 3rd pitch may hands started cramping in protest, this is quite common for me right now, any endurance exercise quite closely pushes my very poorly regulated body out of bounds. Regardless I could bond a bit with my old PhD friend, I hope to take him to the Alps after my surgery.
Last week I said it was pretty big that I could still urinate. Well I still can but I think the flow is getting less which is concerning. My blood pressure this evening was 170/110 I will call the dialysis clinic tomorrow. This is probably because I am "too wet". I feel like I have limited my fluid intake these past few days but perhaps I am not a reliable narrator of my own fluid consumption, a bit like a fat person on a diet of kellogs and whipped cream. In either case it is somewhat concerning.
As for my releationship that is going well. The disease does place unique burden on things. For instance I used to sleep round her house which is 5 minutes down the road. But right now the machine is in my house, so I cannot. A part of me does not even want to with the machine pumping away. But that part is small, generally I enjoy the company. She spends some night at mine, but a lot, particularly weekdays at hers. She says that she does not enjoy having things part here and there and her morning feels rushed when she has slept at my place. I understand this. Yet I feel at times she is dictating the cadence of things. But then again I think she is also making a lot of sacrifices and I know that she cares. I guess the situation is just a bit hard that's all. I also feel a bit more sensitive about things than I would normally be.
There is a thread of narrative that is constantly running through my mind. Its a little devil that says, just stop the dialysis. There is a psychological burden associated with being dependent on a machine and a whole logistics network, to have the mark of disease follow you at all times. The little voice says, just stop, pass away and perhaps you'll roll again and be more fortunate. Ofcourse I don't know whether I will roll again, or that I will be more fortunate, there are plenty a worse lives. Regardless I don't head this voice right now, I still feel like I have much to explore and to do. I pray the voice never becomes too commanding.
So I think I will start using the wellness Wednesday as a personal diary of sorts to process the goings on in my life. Of course external perspective is always welcome.
I have had chronic kidney disease since I was 12 or so. In the 4 months, after almost two decades I finally started dialysis. I am doing pretoneal dialysis. This for those don't know is not same as hemo. In hemo your blood is taken out of your body and filtered. In pd dialysis solution is pumped in to your abdomen through a permanent catheder. It "dwells" here for some time and the solutes are diffused due to the concentration gradient across the pretoneal membrane (everyone has this) then the fluid is flushed out and replaced with a new batch. This happens 6 times during the night at home. The advantage is your are dialysis almost constantly so diet restrictions are lower and you feel better as I heard with hemo as sessions between visits to the hospital are every two days or so there is a build up of toxins.
So currently feel wise I feel pretty fucking good. You cannot tell I am in organ failure. I do bouldering and currently I am stronger than I was before my kidneys failed. I am pushing around 6c+ which is around V5/V6? I can run etc. Of course if I push myself too much I get hurrendous cramps but other than that it's manageable. The golden lining here is I can still urinate. Which is huge. A lot of people of dialysis lose urination meaning they retain a lot of water. So they might need to go on a fluid diet. But overall for me, things can always be worse.
I am currently hoping for a transplant from my mother. Usually these days as long as the blood groups match the kidney will work particularly if it's from a live donor. But the healthcare system here is insanely slow. But I am hoping for April.
There are some things which trouble my mind. Acutely it's the catheder. I have this thing the length of my forearm (outside my body and more inside) that penetrates my abdomen. The exit site scabs and itches the catheder belt is a constant reminder of this alien appendage attached to my body. This vulnerable point of entry snaking its way around my torso in to my abdomen, keeping me alive. I suffer moment of disphoria and disgust at myself. I am highly vigilant when people approach me and I am quite gitterish.
On the more long term. I fear the "life of the kidney" as my fellow sufferers put it. Even with a transplant you always have the fear of it failing and even not the effects of long term immunosuppression are not nice. You are always on the shit end of things. I don't want to take this lying down. I am a fairly intelligent person with various accolades in my current chosen field. I hope to transition to a field that will allow me to fight.
Lastly I am young, I am in a long term releationship with a supportive partner. I want to make her happy and importantly I want to father children. All aims that are complicated by this thing thrust upon me. I hate to feel self pity and I don't most of the time but despite there existing some number of more unfortunate souls suffering much more than I, most people I interact with have no fucking idea the how much of a blessing their health is. So a bit of self pity sometimes is inevitable. But then again there is also a feeling of superiority that comes from out competing healthy people in the workplace and in sports.
One other thing that I worry about are my hobbies. I love climbing more specifically, alpinism. In the last stages of my disease even when I was severely anemic I was at the height of my alpine abilities. I don't want to stop here. I want to keep pushing my limits and rage against the verdict of fate and I shall.
Panem
1yr ago
I am reading The Kurt Diemberger Omnibus. Kurt is one of the two people to have ever done the first ascents of two 8000m peaks without oxygen. The other was his climbing partner, the legendary Herman Buhl. This is a story of his life and climbing. I love stories of adventure, of humans operating at the very limits of what is possible, in unforgiving environments. Reading these stories really stokes my own passion for adventure climbing. Hopefully my kidney transplant will happen soon and I can resume my mountaineering activities.
Panem
1yr ago
Gpt3 is acting as customer support employee named Sarah for Google store. The role of GPT-3 is to respond to the customer politely and placate the customer.
A customer has bought something from the Google Store. More than two weeks afterward, it's still in transit. Tracking estimates every day is the new delivery day, except it doesn't deliver, and the estimate just pushes forward by a day. He opens up Google live chat support. It opens a form to enter the order number and description of the problem. The problem reads:
"I ordered this on Nov 18. It's still in shipping more than two weeks later. Every day over the last week, the delivery estimate moved forward by one day. The most recent update is from Saturday, November 26. How much longer do I need to wait?"
Sarah: Hi there, sorry to hear that you're having trouble with your order. I understand how frustrating it can be to wait for an item to arrive. I'm happy to help look into this for you. Can you please provide me with the order number so I can look into it further?
Order number is GS.1234-7845-2635
Sarah: Thanks for providing that information. I'm looking into the order now and will have an update for you shortly. In the meantime, can you please tell me which shipping option you had selected for the order?
I selected next day shipping.
Sarah: Thank you for that information. I apologize for the inconvenience caused due to the delay in the delivery of your order. I can see that the order was shipped out with Next Day Shipping. However, due to some unforeseen circumstances, the delivery has been delayed. I am escalating this to our team and they will do their best to get the order delivered to you as soon as possible. I apologize for the delay and thank you for your patience.
When will I hear back from you?
Sarah: I will update you as soon as I receive any information from our team. In the meantime, please feel free to reach out to us if you require any further assistance..
One hour later Sarah revives information from her team.
Sarah: I have an update for you about your order. We have checked the status of the order and it is currently in transit. We apologize for the delay and we are working hard to get your order to you as soon as possible. We will update you as soon as we receive any new information. Thank you for your patience.
Yes but it's been in transit for 2 weeks now, it was supposed to be next day delivery.
Sarah: I understand your frustration, and I apologize for the delay. We will do our best to get your order delivered to you as soon as possible. In the meantime, please feel free to reach out to us if you require any further assistance.
Is there nothing else that can be done? What if it never arrives?
Sarah: We will do our best to get your order to you as soon as possible. If we determine that the order is lost or will not be delivered to you, we will be happy to refund the full purchase amount back to your account. Please let us know if you have any further questions or concerns.
Its already been 2 weeks! I would think it is for sure lost. I really would like a replacement sent right away.
Sarah: I understand your frustration. We will do our best to get your order to you as soon as possible. If after a few more days the order is still not delivered, we can look into sending a replacement. Please let us know if you have any further questions or concerns.
I don't know maybe Gpt3 would be a better customer support than whoever you interacted with.
Panem
1yr ago
I think AI really does need to be better at reasoning. For instance if you give me a thousand lifetimes, or to make it more ridiculous, a dog million life times, I wouldn't expect a theory of quantum gravity out of it. Some problems are just too hard to solve.
Panem
1yr ago
I have lived in various European cities throughout my life and travelled through countless more.
I have personally never been pickpocketed, and neither is it something I ever think about. I think the answer, unless someone presents evidence to the contrary, is that people's perception of European pickpocketing is vastly overinflated.
Perhaps, depending on how the space capabilities are used. But space technology so far has given me very little to be suspicious. Spy satellites etc are of course a thing, but compared to the thing in your pocket, they almost seem like old technology. I fear more the cars of the glorified military contractor than I do his rockets right now.
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