If you think you can compensate with the strength of your own inner contemplation, you are wrong
Is that a thing about neurotypicals, or just people without any selfcontrol?
I know I can compensate all the rhetorics, because I can spot most of the techniques by name, never get “pulled in” by the news, extract only the facts (if there are any), then contrast them with other sources, before “making my mind” about anything. I’m not afraid of saying “beats me, I don’t know enough”, until I do learn enough to build a consistent picture without holes or contradictions (doesn’t mean I’m always right, just coherent). Most times when I look at news, I end up taking away maybe a single sentence, which almost never is the one being highlighted.
There is also picking which news sources to care about. Right now I only know about two sources that are somewhat impartial: one of them is the weather channel, and the other a news meta-debate where they like inviting people with opposite points of view, without letting it turn into a cage match.
As for the rest of the article… it’s just describing the techniques used to produce what I like to call “news for toddlers”: fake human interest, full of rhetorical resources, cut down into tidbits easy to chew and swallow, aimed at eliciting an emotional response rather than a rational one (BTW, they’re the same techniques used by trolls).
You shouldn’t care about “that kind” of news. There are other kinds, like scientific breakthroughs, investigative reports, or news meta-analyses, that you might want to care about. Or whether to take an umbrella tomorrow.
Hopeful, I did well at piano lessons, I am meeting my new neurologist tomorrow (scared, but I will make it), I think I am sleeping better. Things might be looking up after tomorrow I might get some answers or some relief soon! So my week is hopeful!
Quick update, went to the neurologist, she recommended 2 new medications, my cardiologist said no to one and my insurance is trying to not cover the other, I am still full of hope, but need some pep talk. LOL
Ah, the age-old tale of insurance trying to skimp on covering medications. My doctor once tried to give me Modafinil (a very gentle stimulant) for mild narcolepsy. Insurance said no, and that they wanted her to try two lesser acting medications first (there aren’t any). So, she prescribed Adderall, and they insta-accepted it. Flawless logic!
As for a pep-talk: I have no wisdom, but I believe in you.
My brain is not functioning well right now and that is the pep-talk I need, being reminded this isn’t personal and just the really crap way insurance works here in the USA.
I am disappointed but the hope was for relief not for lifesaving actions, so I will deal, I have had this problem for a while it is not like I can’t survive it.
For the last several months I reduced my news intake and unfollowed a lot of stress-inducing accounts on social media. I have been happier and more relaxed. Can recommend.
Keep at it! It took me being ghosted a trillion times and having my heart broken after a second interview to finally find my current position. I believe in you. :)
i don’t drive often, maybe once or twice a week, and the car always has NPR on. other than that, i’ll skim headlines, but don’t tend to read them unless it’s something positive or local.
i do read up on the candidates nearing election day.
Detaching yourself from the reality of what’s happening in the world is certainly one way of coping, but IMO unless you’re doing it to protect your mental health (in which case I highly recommend reducing your news consumption), it is just a form of isolationism at best, and an abdication of our shared human responsibility to protect and help each other at worst.
Let me reiterate: if you are seeing your mental health decline as a result of news consumption, you should reduce that consumption, or at least make changes to which news sources you consume.
Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.
I strongly disagree with the person in this article’s recommendation of detachment for the average person. This is akin to advocating for political non-participation, because how can you intelligently assess who is best to represent you in the world if you don’t know the state of the world?
We on the Left (rightfully) criticize people who cannot seem to care about an issue unless or until it personally affects them… well guess how they got there; not being informed about anything external to their own immediate lives.
It’s quite the privilege to be able to cut off externalities and be happy; many people do not have the luxury of being able to do that, because those externalities will intrude into their lives whether they like it or not, like Roe being overturned.
/rant
Since you asked for recommendations, I only really have one that worked for me, which was to cut off social media news (i.e. ditching Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit).
All 3 of those were news… combined with some of the worst takes on that news by the horrible people on those sites. I don’t need to hear a bunch of conservatives and white nationalists and misogynists and racists (apologies for the redundancy) give their takes on the news, especially because we know that they gain an outsize representation on social media due to ‘interaction’ being rewarded, good or bad.
It’s been a busy week so far. Trying to tidy my flat before an inspection next week as well as get some reporting done before a deadline tomorrow (it won’t be done in time but their expectations aren’t particularly reasonable so doing what I can). Got to do a Hackathon today based around a potential new system which was exciting! It’s so much better than what we have at the moment.
Going to Amsterdam on Friday for the weekend, really looking forward to it
Finally feel like am on the mend from a respiratory infection + injury to torso.
Which is great but now very behind on a lot of basic stuff in my life & feel it’ll be a while before my stamina is back up, so the trick will be tackling things without getting either worn out or despondent.
Some heavy mental stuff to process too, which reemerged prior to getting sick, but feeling somewhat hopeful, in that I suspect the period of dormancy was a total block for a couple of decades.
No joke, I actually felt I became more productive this week. I was able to do my language studies daily now (used to STRUGGLE so much in the past few years) and I’m starting to implement a savings plan I’ve been planning for a while.
The only shitty thing was that my body clock didn’t fully reset. I work graveyard and I barely get 4hrs of sleep per day this week. I’ll be drowning in coffee later to survive. Wish me luck.
Japanese for work. I was trying Chinese, and tho my reading skill’s getting good, my accent was simply atrocious and requires immersion. Japanese pronunciation is easier for me so I switched to it this month.
I had actually considered doing Chinese as my required world language for college. My trade school mentor, who was very well traveled, talked me out of it after telling me how insanely difficult Chinese can be to learn. I’m glad that you’re feeling productive with Japanese.
I use Obsidian for journaling and knowledge management. Each page is saved as an individual .txt file rather than in some database which ensures continuity of my data even if I switch applications one day.
I sync the files between my devices using Syncthing. Some of my notes are collaborative with others: by sorting my notes into specific folders and syncing select folders to select devices I have a notes library with a mix of personal and shared notes.
Syncthing is good at managing file conflicts. It surfaces the conflict and lets you select which file should remain. It also has options for very good versioning control.
Answer:
So, to your question, I would love to contribute to Syncthing to provide an optional capability to merge content from two conflicting .txt files rather than selecting one or the other. This would greatly improve the collaborative experience when using Syncthing to manage notes in Obsidian or similar applications.
I think there are a not-insignificant number of people who could get value from this. Syncthing is written in GO, and I’ve never contributed to an open source project before. I’m looking forward to giving it a shot but if someone else starts first that’s just fine with me. :)
Got another date with a nice and super cute girl who live about 30 mins away, gonna meet up on Saturday. Still talking to the asexual girl but we had to reschedule our date this weekend as she was busy volunteering for scouts so I I might end up with two dates on one weekend which is a stressful though.
chat
Oldest
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.