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I was great at maths in school, was in all the advanced classes and I found it so fun it didn’t feel like work to me. I learned a lot of the notation, but because I didn’t study maths further, I became rusty. With programming, I never really learned it, I just kept coming into contact with it as part of my post university work (in science), and gradually, I picked up some basics. The coding basics I did get feel much more familiar to me than the maths concepts now, because I literally couldn’t avoid coming into contact with coding in my work.
The maths they teach in school also is generally very pure maths, and that can make the concepts remain quite abstract. Matrices, for example, made way more intuitive sense to me when I used them as a scientist than when they were taught to me as a maths student.
I’m a subscriber to her YouTube(one of my favourite videos of hers) and she has a bunch of videos aimed at helping game developers learn the maths concepts they need for making games, so her audience is mostly people with a coding background, I’m guessing.
So it’s less that code is simpler than math notation, more that the maths notation looks scary to people without a maths background, but here’s a link to a different complex symbolic abstraction that you might already know
Oh cool, I know who this person is, she did a couple of amazing videos on Bezier curves and splines
There was a scientific paper I read semi recently that showed that researchers who post on Mastodon get much higher quality interaction than on Twitter (and I think a few other social-media type places, but it was mainly Mastodon vs Twitter). There was overall less interaction on Mastodon (unsurprisingly), but also that this difference has been diminishing as Mastodon grows. My takeaway is that if you want engagement, go Mastodon.
Sometimes it’s reluctance tinged duty. Like "I really like this community, it’s well moderated and the current mod team are pretty balanced in their decisions. Except they’ve said they’re struggling with the load. Oh no, if it becomes too arduous, we’ll start losing mods and then we’re at risk of losing the culture we’ve built up here if newer mods have different priorities.
Sometimes chipping in as a mod is the lazy option when the alternative is a worse browsing experience (or finding a new place when a community goes to hell)
Like you say, it’s a misplaced between altruism and my own motives
Consider it from a different angle - if a techy Q-anon “fixed” the algorithm of someone whose device they had access to due to tech help. That person would rightfully be pissed off, even if the Q-anon tech nerd explained that it was for their own good and that they needed to be aware of this stuff etc.
Obviously that’s materially different to the situation at hand, but my point is that telling someone that what you’ve done is necessary and good will probably only work after it’s helped. Initially, they may still be resistant to the violation of trust.
If I think of how I would in that situation, I feel a strong flare of indignant anger that I could see possibly manifesting in a “I don’t care about your reasons, you still shouldn’t have messed with my stuff” way, and then fermenting into further ignorance. If I don’t let the anger rise and instead sit with the discomfort, I find a bunch of shame - still feeling violated by the intervention, but sadly realising it was not just necessary, but actively good that it happened, so I could see sense. There’s also some fear from not trusting my own perceptions and beliefs following the slide in reactionary thinking. That’s a shitty bunch of feelings and I only think that’s the path I’d be on because I’m unfortunately well experienced in being an awful person and doing the work to improve. I can definitely see how some people might instead double down on the anger route.
On a different scale of things, imagine if one of my friend who asked for tech help was hardcore addicted to a game like WoW, to the extent that it was affecting her life and wellbeing. Would it be acceptable for me to uninstall this and somehow block any attempts to reinstall? For me, the answer is no. This feels different to the Q-anon case, but I can’t articulate why exactly
It’s not just that it’s gotten old for many cis women, I think it’s because a lot of cis women have grappled with the kind of internalised misogyny that makes misogyny feel weirdly validating. It’s not just attention, it’s patriarchal oppression and the thing about oppression is that it’s common to crave the approval from the same society that shuns and subjugates, even when it’s clear that you’ll never be able to attain the ideal they expect of you. Hell, especially then.
Even though I know it’s toxic and harmful to even entertain some ideas, I can’t deny that I still feel the pressure. Misogyny is so insidious that sometimes I feel like maybe it’d be easier if I just went with the flow and stopped fighting it, but I’ve gone through that pattern before and there is life worth living at the end of that path.
Any trans women who relate to this meme, this comment is addressed to you. I’m not going to tell you not to snack on the self-harm salad, because I know it’s not that easy; I was first cat-called at age 13, and despite being terrified and deeply uncomfortable, I remember feeling happy because it felt like validation — because even at that young age, I had internalised the idea that being appealing to men was what it mean to succeed as a woman.
We live in a patriarchal society, and that means that every woman is faced with this bitter meal at some point, as well as the decision on how to work past the stage where we tell ourselves we like it because it gives us some modicum of agency. It can feel pointless to be a feminist sometimes when misogyny is so insidious.
But trust me when I tell you that happiness won’t be found in this soggy pile of limp leaves and lies. You’re so much more than the misogynists would have you believe. You’ve already fought so hard to live as a woman, and I think it’d be a damn shame at this point if we didn’t get to see what kind of woman you want to be. I had help to realise that being a woman doesn’t mean conforming to patriarchal standards, so when you’re feeling secure enough that you want to move beyond relying on misogyny validation, I, and many others me, are here to support you.
And not just because trans rights are human rights, but because you are wanted and needed here. My wish to see you at your best is a slightly selfish one, because my own gender experience and understanding of womanhood has been immeasurably improved by having trans women in my life and in my community. I can’t wait to see what we can build together, because you can offer something that I, or other cis women simply can’t do on our own. You add something unique and beautiful and truly special to this world, and to the conversation of what a woman can be.
In the meantime, don’t beat yourself up for clawing some small comfort from harmful sources. It’s a difficult time, so be kind to yourself in whatever way you can. Besides, I may speak like I’m enlightened, but I still struggle with this shit too; Recognizing and resisting harmfuk toxicity isn’t the kind of fight you can ever really win, you always have to keep an eye out for it. It’s easier with good friends though, and a community that supports you. If you don’t have much of those things yet, I wish you good luck in finding a place that you’re comfortable, and the strength to remember that you are wanted, you are loved, and you are valuable, as you are - the real you, even if you’re still discovering her, or the world hasn’t seen her yet.
Sometimes, I lie to myself and say that it’s okay if the ordered item isn’t right, because I can just return it if so. I’ve wasted a lot of money this way, because returning an item is stress.
I’m disabled, so sometimes I struggle to get out of the house, but whenever I can, I like to shop in person.
I was playing Sim’s 2 castaway recently on an emulator, because nostalgia, and when I was struggling to find an item in game, I googled for it and found some surprise bonus nostalgia: a guide to the game that was plain black text on white background, all on one page, with a chapter section and headings labelled, and ASCII art up top. It made me long for simpler days
I also remember getting a cheat book with a gaming magazine, or very rarely getting access to a printer to print off cheats, or finding some online and writing the important ones down manually.
I studied biochemistry in uni, and usually the practical labs had the protocols and stuff in a paper booklet we’d get at the start of term, but one year, they switched to using iPads for that. I hated it; it felt unhygienic, even though I was careful to avoid contamination, and it was awkward to flip back and forth between sections.
Fun fact about dog’s sense of smell!
It’s sensitive enough that when their human leaves for work at 8am, the human scent is strong and fresh, but it fades over the course of the day. A dog knows how strong the residual human smell is at 5pm, when the human usually returns from work, so can build a sense of routine from that. Especially cool though is that they can smell the difference between 4pm and 6pm, so this is why dogs are usually super excited when their humans return from routine jobs, it’s not just that they hear their friend approaching, they are functionally clock watching. They know when we’re running late.)
[Citation needed]
Edit: further reading added: non-academic article https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/12/22/1139781319/can-dogs-smell-time-just-ask-donut-the-dog#:~:text="So newer%2C more recent odors,is inextricably woven into space.
Ah! You’re the first person I’ve seen doing transcriptions on Lemmy, this has made my day. Do you know if there’s a community where people who transcribe can coordinate, like there was at resist? I was hoping to get into the transcription stuff to help build community here and I know the subreddit had loads of resources and templates and the like.
I think it’s about how we calibrate our expectations relative to the default. I do think there is something different about smell.
For example, if I wake up one morning, my implicit expectation is for it to be reasonably light because of the morning sun, and I’d expect to hear some low level noise because I live in the city. The other day, I woke up and I noticed it was darker than usual because of terrible weather. Recently, I also noticed it’s much quieter than usual near where I live, because it’s a student town and many have gone home for Summer. I didn’t immediately notice, but I had a sense of uneasiness until I consciously registered this, because I had a subconscious sense of what’s normal.
I can’t imagine what waking up and there being less smell than usual would be like. For example, if someone came in and tidied up while I was asleep, without waking me. I’d notice it if there was a particularly strong smell when I went to sleep, because as you highlight, people do comment when an expected smell is not to be found. However, because of how we acclimatise to scents, the normal level of smelliness of an environment is often undetectable, so I don’t think people would generally notice a subtraction of a background smell.
It makes sense in the context of human perception though, our olfactory system is underdeveloped compared to many other animals because we don’t use it much, relatively
That sounds really distressing, I’m glad that you got to experience things coming back.
I struggled during COVID because of how my sense of smell changed. I could still smell stuff, but some things were different. My body odour, for example, smelled different. At first I thought that illness was causing funky swear smell, and then I thought it was poor hygiene for an extended period making me smell extra funky (my best friend died, I was a grief blob for a while), but eventually I realised that it was a perception issue, not a sweat issue (onions also smelled bad).
I hated it because for months afterwards, it felt like I was being haunted by COVID. I can also relate to what you describe, a sort of “epistemological anxiety”, where being aware that your perceptions are not to be trusted throws you off balance in many ways.
What’s your favourite smell?
The Latin prefix cis- , meaning “on this side of”, which is the opposite of the prefix trans- . So a cisgender person is someone whose gender identity matches the sex assigned to them at birth - I.e. someone who is not transgender.
They’re value neutral words and are useful words to have. For example, if I wanted to make the point that not everyone who cares about trans rights or gender issues are transgender, I could point to myself, as a cisgender woman.
Honestly, trying not to beat myself up too much is a big part of it. This sounds like a wishy washy answer, but for real, I improved a heckton when I started giving reasonably accurate updates.
E.g Before: I have arranged to meet with a friend at 4pm. My travel time is 30 but can be variable due to traffic. It takes me 30 mins to get ready. 3:15 rolls round and I still haven’t started getting ready. If I hurried, I might make it in time. I do not do that. I cringe internally and end up indulging more deeply in whatever distraction caused me to overrun. 4pm rolls around and my friend messages to check in. Either I cancel, or I tell a lie and start getting ready, hating myself all the while. My friend is irked at me, and I don’t blame them.
After: The same as before, but at 3:15, I message my friend to tell them I’ll be half an hour late (I round up to account for being bad at time). I end up being 5 or 10 minutes late nonetheless, but my friend isn’t annoyed, partly because I kept them in the loop about my progress. I still cringe at being late, but I find that over time, I get better at genuinely holding myself accountable, and at estimating time.