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Always has been

"Having lovers and friends is all good and fine, but I don't like yours, and you don't like mine" -- Eric Clapton

Was just about to write, there is no difference to how dating worked back in the day. Its just more online.

People have always been following influencers who will say anything in a partner is problematic for engagement metrics?

The closest thing I can think of to something like that were certain types of magazines but they'd come out monthly, you weren't steeped in it.


People actually date these kinda people? Why?

I mean horoscopes have been a thing for a while or very conservative religious people. Same thing. "Don't do that, dont do this" type of content has existed way before the internet.


The title seems a little click-baity and basically wrong. Gabor transforms, wavelet transforms, etc are all generalizations of the fourier transform, which give you a spectrum analysis at each point in time

The content is generally good but I'd argue that the ear is indeed doing very Fourier-y things.


Agree on the click-baity part, but as for being wrong... not if we're really pedantic. As you've said, Gabor and wavelet are basically generalizations of the Fourier Transform, not actually Fourier Transforms. Just like FS/DFT/DTFT aren't really Fourier Transforms either.

On one corner of the square, you have Fourier Transforms, which are essentially contiguous and infinite. On the opposite corner, you have the DFT, which is both finite (or periodic) and discrete. Hearing is more akin to a Fourier Series, which is finite/periodic but contiguous. That's probably not what the article aims at addressing, though.

But then wavelet transforms are different from Fourier Series again, because you have shifted and stretched shapes (some of them quite weird) instead of sinusoids.

But yeah, colloquially, I agree, the ear is indeed doing very Fourier-y things.


It's a graduate student writing a journal club article about the Lewicki 2002 paper, which is very good, and whose abstract states the idea more precisely: "The form of the code depends on sound class, resembling a Fourier transformation when optimized for animal vocalizations and a wavelet transformation when optimized for non-biological environmental sounds"


Probably true. Most mass-appeal science communication is bullshit.

But TBKTS helped to bring "somatics"--the idea that physical and psychological issues are often interwoven--to the mainstream. There is very clear evidence that this is true [1], and underappreciated by a medical field that has a heavy bias toward specialists over generalists. How many people are experts in both gastroenterology and trauma? And yet we all know intuitively that stress and stomach problems go together.

I'll always appreciate TBKTS for this, despite its flaws.

[1] https://superbowl.substack.com/p/energy-healing-minus-the-no...


All I want is a 4-5 inch phone :( bring back the mini!


The reason why we have such big smartphones is that the ratio of screensize (2d area) to battery size (3d volume) is better for smart phones with a bigger screen.


People get old. Old people cannot see small text. Big text requires bigger screen to fit.

One could argue that a lot of 50-ish people have pro max with iphone 5-ish screen estate.

Small screens ain’t gonna happen


I'm 40 and I'm clinging to my 13 mini until they offer something comparable, even though the battery is getting old enough I'd really like an upgrade.

I can't be the only one.


Same problem here with my mini - it can barely get through a day now. Do you know if you can walk to an Apple store and ask to just replace battery?


I have iphone 11 and you can have battery replaced just fine. I did it few months ago and the phone became like new. I am not sure about Apple in US but if they won't do it then some third party will.


I've had good luck with my local Apple store replacing batteries in older models. I made appointments rather than walk-in.


The bigger problem is that app and web designers have stopped accommodating smaller screen sizes. I can't use my bank's app on an iPhone mini, because the buttons end up off the bottom of the screen (and the app doesn't scroll). Ditto for a number of popular web apps.


Well, for the same reason I’ve mentioned, they should: even pro max on 1,25…1.5 zoom will easily become mini


My eyes aren't great - I need three different sets of glasses: reading, office, long distance - and I'm clinging on to my 13 mini, desperately hoping that they in fact end up making something smaller. Granted, I bet I'm not the median buyer, but I would instantly upgrade to an iPhone that's around the size of the 4.


What’s with the size?

I comfortably use pro max with one hand: phone rests on the pinky at the point where usb-c hole is.

Reachibility (gester of swiping down on home indicator) brings UI half screen down to reach upper regions.

Some use pop sockets.


Hey! That’s how I use my iPhone 15 Pro!

Mainly for reading web sites and my calendar, but it works one handed for that just fine.


Three sets of glasses means you had nearsightedness before you got presbyopia.

That means you still get to see fairly good at short distances.

People with ordinary presbyopia can’t see shit at arms length and closer.


I’m over 60 with bad eyes. Gimme a fucking iPhone 17 Mini to replace my aging 13 Mini, I’ll just hold it closer.


But the whole point of presbyopia is that you cannot see what’s in close proximity.

The way you know you need your glasses is when your arm’s length isn’t enough to move your phone farther (not closer) to see.


Fine, I’ll hold it farther away. My point stands. :-)


> Old people cannot see small text.

The old people you know need a better optometrist. (Hint: progressive lenses.)


Many hate the distortion to the point of being physically sick


Things that we called "feature" phones nowadays and iPhone 3 worked alright with all sorts of people. Maybe phone manufacturers shouldn't opt for putting so much bullshit into the screens. Reading news, video calling people, audio calling, recording voice, messaging. They all work alright with small screen estate and good UI design.

The only thing I see a possible issue is dealing with camera features. But, you know, tech companies should actually innovate stuff... I know radical.


Most people aren't old.


First iphone was released 17 years ago


Small screen sizes will not allow Apple to sell you as much as they do now.

Because above all, the iPhone is a vending machine owned by Apple and paid for by you.


minis didn't sell. Your wants are not mainstream enough :)


Honestly the fact that we don’t have a sovereign wealth fund invested in US equities is just silly. I get that you don’t want too much central interference in the economy but it feels like leaving money on the table


It's pretty funny to talk about central interference when the federal government already has a monopoly on monetary policy.


Its silly I don't have a multi billion dollar trust fund. Unfortunately you need wealth to have a wealth fund.


As with most cognitive biases, there's an inverse to this, where we ignore low-probability high-impact scenarios. E.g. people drive drunk or without a seatbelt, because it'll *probably* be fine. And they repeatedly have that assumption confirmed--until one day it isn't.

I had one friend who would leave his bike chained partially blocking a fire exit, because "what are the odds the fire inspector will come today?" But the fire inspector comes once a year, and if your bike is chained there 99% of the time, odds are you're going to get a fine. He couldn't see the logic. He got fined.


After reading the first half of your comment, I was afraid the second half was going to end with something like "Then there was a fire and 3 people died because the exit was blocked."

Getting fined doesn't sound so bad -- if it was like $100, your friend could just be treating it as a $0.30/day fee for convenient parking. But you both seemed to ignore the really high-impact potential outcome. So I guess that proves your point.


>Getting fined doesn't sound so bad -- if it was like $100, your friend could just be treating it as a $0.30/day fee for convenient parking.

I had a professor in college that said she basically treated speeding tickets like that. She had to commute on the weekends from central IL to the Chicago and just accepted that she'd probably get 1-2 speeding tickets per year.


Traffic in general is riddled with this. People don't understand the risks they're taking during their everyday driving and get offended when you comment on it.


Typical folks cutting in front of me while I am barely at safe breaking distance from the car in front of me, on speeds > 100kmh. This is of course always in at least semi-dense traffic, and them immediately obscuring view further means I have less than second to react to any stronger breaking or I slam into them.

I honk them, then they often get aggressive that I dared to react to their perfectly cool maneuver that gave them those precious extra 5 seconds. Bloody a-holes. Had few almost-collisions even this year due to too aggressive drivers riding too close, some were literally car in front of us or next one behind. Keep your distance, I can't emphasize this enough.


Have you considered buying a dashcam? Then in case you do actually hit them because you weren't able to break fast enough, it's very likely that insurance will end up siding with you, as opposed to the usual outcome where you're the rear-ender.


No but that seems like a good idea, thank you.


My hand gesture for "Hey did you hear about the inverse Pascal Scam? It suggests that low-probability high-impact risks are easy to ignore, and I think that's what you're doing right now and that's not going to be good for your health, or mine for that matter, so maybe think about that a bit more in the future" is to raise my middle finger. Unfortunately it inevitably makes the situation worse somehow.


I’ve switched to a thumbs down in traffic and can’t recommend it enough. Let’s then know how they should feel without escalating like a middle finger.


I have switched to smiling at things people do well in traffic and trying to give positive reinforcement when I see people who care about others. Some even do it in ways that might seem stupid, e.g a guy in the wrong side of the street was actually just being very considerate.


Nice! I tried thumbs up (ie sarcasm) but that's snarky too, and somehow never realized that you could actually do the same thing non-sarcastically. Srsly wow :-) Gonna try, thanks


In a similar spirit, I knew someone who claimed to not pay for parking permits at our university, and just parked wherever he liked. The parking permits were $100+ per month and the parking fines were ~$300 per citation, so if he gets caught less than once per quarter, he would come out ahead.

He tells me later that it didn't quite work out in terms of saving money, but because he sometimes parked in spots that he could not get permits for, it actually saved time.


Up until recently, fares for the LRT system in my city were enforced by a random check by transit police, typically by having an officer board trains and check riders' tickets at random times during random days and handing out fines to fare evaders who they caught.

Between around mid-2006 and the end of 2008 I rode the train to work downtown every day. The trains were so crowded during rush hour that it was impossible for Transit police to board trains to check fares, and even outside rush hour, fare checks were very occasional. A monthly pass at the time was around $75 and a fine for fare evasion was around $200 (the first violation was less than $200, and I think it increased until a cap of something like $250 for repeat offenders). I'd worked it out that if I was caught without paying a fare less than once every three months, it would be cheaper to just pay the fine if/when I got caught rather than buy a pass. So I didn't buy a pass and decided to see how long it would take to actually get caught.

The answer was about 18 months. Got a $170 fine. Which I then forgot about and never actually paid. The statute of limitations on that fine has long since expired.


You're lucky with that system of fine capping. I had the same mentality with the very expensive trains here, probably saved upwards of 2-3000£ until I got caught. Problem is they actually prosecute you in the courts for repeat offenders so I can no longer risk it.


"Odds vs. Stakes"

"The odds of X happening are so low that what's the point?", to which I respond "It only needs to happen once for me to be dead, so, the stakes are way too high for me to risk the odds".


> low-probability high-impact

People often equate “risk” with “likelihood”, when it would be more effective to view risk = impact * likelihood.


Even then, high impact very low likelihood is still often worth avoiding.

Maybe (impact * likelihood) - cost to mitigate



There's a middle ground between claiming you have a final answer, and ignoring the question entirely.

The best spiritual disciplines provide a _framework_ for exploring existential questions.


If I were King of America, the first thing I'd do is start enforcing standard protocols for things like auth, messaging, data export/migration, etc. Mostly relying on industry to decide _what_ the protocols should be, but making sure everyone adheres to them.

Data interoperability would make our digital lives so much better.


I'd start by standardizing the interface between plastic storage tubs and their lids.


And standard sizing so they are both stackable and nestable with other tubs.


Subtitle makes it clear that this is a correlation, but the title (falsely) implies causation. Obviously lonely people are going to flock toward a technology that provides pseudo social interaction


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