lagrangian
2d ago
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Lasik is great, independently of the rest of it. I did PRK despite qualifying for Lasik, because it's better and how bad could the pain be for a week or two? Excruciating, as it turns out, but worth it to not have a flap in my eye
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How'd you get banned from Hinge?
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Could you literally hire someone to be your full time dating assistant/coach/fashion coordinator?
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My career is going well enough that I would definitely be willing to spend ~$50,000 in a single night if it would guarantee me sex
Well that one's definitely doable. In all seriousness, maybe a sugar baby? In addition to achieving the proximal goal, it could help you build confidence.
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If you don't have a trainer, get one. Ideally get one who doubles as good practice interacting with women, if a lack thereof is part of your problem.
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If your company is hiring remote employees, uh, DM me (faanger)
lagrangian
11d ago
lagrangian
18d ago
+1. 50% CFR is a rather extraordinary claim. Data varies, but I am seeing 60% CFR for ebola.
lagrangian
18d ago
Do you have older data as well? This is just trump + biden data, and it's almost consistent with "Trump deprioritized recalls" as a sole explanation. If it was <100 consistently pre-Trump, that's more interesting.
lagrangian
19d ago
"ABCDEFish", or if you prefer: things that are approximately ABCDEF, or the points near ABCDEF in concept-space?
lagrangian
26d ago
My dad's theory of gifts has long been that the best gifts are something you'd want, but would never buy for yourself because you wouldn't spend the money.
I take a similar approach: buy a nicer version of something than they would buy, or even have already bought. E.g. they may have a couple $10 knives - buy a $100 knife.
lagrangian
29d ago
Alright, I've tried to ignore you. I've blocked you, but still see the threads you generate, which was somehow even more annoying. At this point, I'm going to burn some social capital, or take the downvotes, or eat a ban, but by god I'm gonna say it - and I'll wager I'm not alone in the sentiment:
I dislike your weird, pathetic, whiney presence on this board, and I'd dearly love if you left.
lagrangian
30d ago
- I doubt I will outsource, I find that part easy and almost enjoyable. That said, the AI is better than you'd think at it. I think if I gave it enough information about me, it'd be fine. I figure the formula is roughly: respond to what she said, ask followup questions, tie in something about yourself. 1/2 are very AI friendly; 3, moderately.
\3. Interesting, I think saving it for the first date might be a good call. I think it's a good story at any time, but probably more useful there.
Goal is love for sure. If I just wanted to get laid, the algorithm would not need the "is very smart" filter, and even the "not very fat" filter could be relaxed...
Side note: I fucking love that you did this for many reasons. Congrats!
Thanks, I've wanted to do it for a while. I really thought it would be harder. I'm curious to try about o1-preview as well, although it's 3-4x the cost. GPT-4o-mini was not adequate for sure.
lagrangian
30d ago
It's plenty good. The prompt basically just says not to be too enthusiastic, and to keep it short. I've been writing down my manual messages to prompt it with as examples, but am not even using that yet.
E.g. the match was responding to a picture of a woman standing in front of a field of sunflowers, captioned "My happy place": "Sunflowers might just be the happiest flower there is. What's your favorite outdoor place to relax?" A little extra, but it shows "I" looked at the picture, makes it about her, is easy to answer/start a conversation with - not bad imo.
If messaging is your bottleneck, you can use basic chat interfaces for response ideas. I would not overestimate how much the specific message matters - I'm pretty sure it's more of a rule-out than a rule-in kind of thing. Just don't be a creep basically.
I'm automating Hinge. Android emulator, pyautogui, PIL, GPT-4o. It's almost too easy.
The flow is:
- pyautogui: take a screen shot. With a 1:8 aspect ratio on the emulator this gets the whole screen. Earlier versions scrolled and stitched together, which mostly worked, but boy do I feel stupid not thinking of it sooner.
- AI: prompt to extract information from the info section (height, job, age, education, etc), an assessment of personality (nerdy, travel loving, high fashion, etc), and a physical description (weight, race, hair color), and an overall assessment of if she's my personality/physical type. (Note: the goal is nerdy but hates travel and isn't high fashion!)
- python: ignore literally all of #2 except the job and education. If either matches a whitelist of terms that signal smarts, proceed.
- PIL: split the screenshot into sections, using the like buttons.
- AI: transcribe (for prompts) or describe (for images) each section (separately) and provide a response. (My favorite part: I have it refer to her as The Candidate, which is how we have to write interview feedback at work.)
- AI: given all the transcriptions/responses, pick the best one.
- pyautogui: click heart button, type response, send.
Costs me about $0.04 to reject, $0.10 to message. I think I can get that down some. I only ran it for one batch, and it got a match faster than I normally do. Small sample size, but I am optimistic.
As to why #3 is so simple - I initially had a hand written weighted average of all the things, but looking at the actual behavior realized that:
- Really all I care is that she's smart and not terribly fat
- GPT-4o is not good at telling me if she's fat, so far.
Favorite kerfuffle: it messaged a woman, shown in a photo by a giant 10ft novelty planted pot: "is that enormous, or are you tiny"? It...was certainly not the latter.
This raises some questions for me:
- Do I let it do more than the first message? Probably not - it's just the endless swiping/messaging into the void I dislike. Conversion rate match -> date is tolerable.
- Could I let it literally do everything up to and including putting a calendar event on my calendar? Probably so - I'd say it'd cut my conversion rate in half.
- Do I admit I'm doing this? n=1, but I did, immediately, and it went well for me.
lagrangian
1mo ago
Wouldn't "we killed the patient through inaction" also leave them vulnerable to prosecution/malpractice claims? If I show up to the ER with a gunshot wound and they say they think it's illegal to treat me, go away, I imagine I have an easy lawsuit to win.
lagrangian
1mo ago
Is it a crippling fear of 🤓 emoji?
I'm old. What does this mean?
lagrangian
1mo ago
96% to win, 92% to win popular vote. How is that strong a conclusion possible after all the last minute surprises last year? There are huge amounts of uncounted votes in swing states.
Context: I strongly do not think there was a material amount of fraud last time around, and I don't expect there will be this time either
finalized tomorrow
Oh man, I wish. Back in the good old days, I think (?) we used to get same day election results, but not anymore.
Even barring the real possibility that this gets tied up in the courts for weeks, or even months, I don't expect a same day result. Last election was held on Tuesday November 3, but results were not confidently projected until November 7, and not called until November 19. Per Wikipedia:
The general election was held on November 3, with voters directly selecting their state's members to the U.S. Electoral College. On November 7, most national media organizations projected that Biden had clinched enough electoral votes to be named the U.S. president-elect
More detailed timeline from 2020:
| State | Electoral votes |
AP race projection | First votes reported |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arizona | 11 | Nov. 4 at 2:51 am | Nov. 3 at 10:02 pm |
| Georgia | 16 | Nov. 19 at 7:58 pm | Nov. 3 at 7:20 pm |
| Michigan | 16 | Nov. 4 at 5:58 pm | Nov. 3 at 8:08 pm |
| North Carolina | 15 | Nov. 13 at 3:49 pm | Nov. 3 at 7:42 pm |
| Nevada | 6 | Nov. 7 at 12:13 pm | Nov. 3 at 11:41 pm |
| Pennsylvania | 20 | Nov. 7 at 11:25 am | Nov. 3 at 8:09 pm |
| Wisconsin | 10 | Nov. 4 at 2:16 pm | Nov. 3 at 9:07 pm |
lagrangian
1mo ago
A comparison I haven't seen posed: Kamala vs Hillary. I think the comparison points to a Donald victory. Since he beat Hillary, he'll beat Kamala. (Meta: why is it that Trump is rarely referred to by first name?)
Hillary has the stronger resume: U.S. senator (2001–09) and secretary of state (2009–13) for Obama. Compare to Kamala: attorney general of California (2011–17), U.S. Senate (2017–21), VP (21-). Or, maybe it's a tie, if you're somehow impressed by her time as VP.
Criticism of Hillary's demeanor is around being elitist and robotic, which beats Harris's positionless word salad.
Trump 2016 was much scarier: as a total unknown, it was at least a little more credible he'd do, uh, much more than be in office while three Supreme Court judges died.
lagrangian
1mo ago
I agree with the observation, but not the reason. I'd say it's more like: it's easy to be nice when life is nice and easy. That, and while the hypothetical job pays few dollars, it comes with a chance at Harvard per six months worked - an excellent hourly rate.
lagrangian
2mo ago
I find the "six figures" part interesting. If you take it to mean 100k, that's...not that impressive.
I'm seeing 80th percentile in the US at age 30. 127/170/300 get you to the 90/95/99th percentile. At age 27, it's 91st percentile; 121/190 get you to 95/99th percentile.
Presumably it's a lower percentile than these for men (but probably higher than that for black men). Downgrade the impressiveness again in blue areas (cities).
This raises the question: what percentile or dollar amount is impressive enough to offset what degree of attractiveness? Or more broadly, what is the marginal utility as you move through those levels?
lagrangian
2mo ago
Can Bob afford a tutor? The instructional and executive functioning value there is huge (with a good tutor).
In particular, I think they could really help you know what is worth studying. E.g. probably you can skip trig identities, and you can certainly skip Kramer's rule.
Even better, find someone in the polisci program and ask them what you actually need to know. There is probably a big difference in what you need to know to get the job, and what you need to know to do the job. I'd focus on the former.
lagrangian
2mo ago
This week, in review:
High: had a first date that I think I'm actually more excited about than Ms. Definitely, and there will certainly be a second. Not quite as much in common, but still a lot, still brilliant and attractive, and just...better vibes. More stable and peaceful.
Low: buried the dog.
+1 to spaced repetition.
The other technique I will add, which I think underlies memory palaces, is...let's call it "deep engagement." Rather than just trying to remember rotely, deeply engage with the knowledge by connecting it to other knowledge. You've now added multiple recall points to your brain for the single fact, and as long as any of them are intact, you can get the fact.
In the case of memory palaces (which I find overhyped and not personally useful), that knowledge is a location in the memory palace. E.g. if yours is Pokemon, and you are trying to remember a grocery list, maybe you pictured Pikachu eating a watermelon. The element of the memory palace itself (Pikachu) is by design easy to remember. The visual of Pikachu eating a watermelon connects to enough other things (my memories of eating watermelon, a chuckle at the visual there, etc) to provide redundant encoding of "watermelon."
In the case of learning physics, you can:
- (no deep engagement) cram equations in your brain, regurgitate them at the top of a test, then reference them, OR
- (deep engagement) derive them, graph them, do experiments to measure them, think about their asymptotics, etc
In the case of politics, you can:
- (no deep engagement) memorize the latest fact about the advancing troops in Ukraine
- (deep engagement) think about why that movement was made, what might happen next, the experience of the soldiers during it
But is this not just trivial recall that could be handled easily by a computer, or a scrap of paper?
So, no, it isn't - it's redundant encoding that gives you more threads by which to remember. In CS terms, I no longer have to linearly loop through my list-o-facts; instead, I map quickly to the needed fact via any of a number of hashes (connections).
lagrangian
2mo ago
Link to landing: https://youtube.com/watch?v=nVNIoQUcFI4&t=48
lagrangian
2mo ago
Landing legs are heavy and any mass you lift up lowers payload
Notably, the relationship is exponential, so lowers it more than you would expect.
The laziest possible search gives me 550,000kg for the rocket, 8,000 kg for payload, and 2,000kg for the landing legs, so 0.33% of total but an astonishing 25% of payload. Given the exponential relationship, even the 0.33% could have real impact, so 25% is somewhere between "holy shit" and "did lagrangian mess up the math and/or use poor data"?
lagrangian
2mo ago
I love my electric kettle with temperature/time settings for different kinds of tea. Keeps things warm, and can even have the tea ready for you at the time you ask for it. Less expensive models also exist.
lagrangian
2mo ago
Tutoring? Wyzant etc, or for that matter Craigslist (either posting or responding to posts)
[Numbers spelled out because Markdown is hard and my multi-paragraph numbers mean the next number restarts it. Send help.]
One. It's pretty great, but does have downsides. Dry eyes, worse best-corrected-possible acuity, earlier nearsightedness with age.
Two. Wow that sucks. I'd be genuinely very sad if Hinge banned me (not that it's stopped me from thinking I'll work on my AI more when the ADHD monkey in my brain decides it's time for that again). I think trying to circumvent, or just contacting them, is worth considering.
Check out Jswipe (Jewish Tinder) or Lox Club (Jewish the League). There are probably also other ethnic apps, but those are the one's I've tried. Not a lot of tall people in any of the above, so that helps, and it's a pool that probably likes smarts and money more than tinder.
Three. If they can't produce results in 3 months, 6 if you're feeling generous, fire them. Let's say you paid them for two half days per week, at $100/hr. That's 10k/3 months, which is not much if I understand your preference model at all. Even if it takes trying four people before someone does anything useful, you're out 40k, and I struggle to imagine you can't find someone useful given that much effort. I imagine you're somewhat blocked psychologically on doing whatever you should do maximize your dating game, but when you make it someone's job, they don't have that guilt/etc, and you've selected them for being at least maybe good at it, so results really are plausible.
Raising the question: how do you find this person? The internet. I've hired a dozen housekeepers over as many years by just posting on craigslist. Sure, you get mostly weirdos, but there are great people out there if you're willing to do some phone screening. Stuff your pride down, write a post about what you want help with, and refresh that inbox. You could almost just use your original motte post.
Four. Nope, not legal. Easily twice as not legal as torrent sites, maybe twice and a half. Seeking Arrangement is the famous one. I don't know much about this, but poke around reddit to see people's experiences.
Five. If you're dedicated enough to lifting that you're doing it reliably/hard enough (e.g. Stronglifts 5x5 worth of effort/three days x 1-1.5 hours/week, with progressive overload) and seeing your numbers go up, trainer can probably be skipped at least until you're past noob gains. If you get to benching your body weight, you're solidly into "you may hurt yourself and/or stop progressing" territory without a trainer, unless you have great proprioception and hit youtube/etc pretty hard.
How do you find this person? So many trainers on the internet. See #3, but easier and less awkward. Any gym has trainers. Unless you are very advanced or have a medical problem, a mediocre trainer is going to be drastically better than no trainer. Try a few until you like someone.
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