joveian

The one that had the most distinctive effect for me is zhan zhuang. Song Gao has a really excellent instructional video on YouTube about the basic method:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCVUojtpS80

Remember that the people who teach this type of stuff (when they aren't fraudsters) put a huge amount of time into learning the technique well and need to find at least a few people that interested to pass on the technique but if you aren't working towards doing that you can get a lot of benefit in much less time. Song Gao recommends in a different video doing zhan zhuang for at least 30 mintues a day, but I would say (agreeing with the tai chi instructor whose blog pointed me to these videos) that just doing it once for 15-20 minutes (it may take some time to work up to that) provides a lot of benefit (in my case including both a distinctive feel of enhanced perception and eliminating, for at least a couple of months until it came back less intense than previously, the fairly minor pain I would get in my shoulders when I end up standing at a computer for a few hours nonstop, though of course I still try to move around more often). I started doing it a bit more often a few months after that first time so I can't say how long the pain reducing effect would retain some effect not doing it again but it is clear to me that you don't need to do it anywhere near daily to have major positive effects. While doing it I've noticed both muscle soreness in a number of places and had mild panic attacks but unless it gets too severe it seems like the brain can work through it just by holding the pose (I have a couple of times needed to stop due to increasing pain). I didn't the first time but since then often listen to music which I suspect like with qigong is not offically correct (though the videos I watched didn't say one way or another that I noticed) and likely reduces the meditative aspect in some ways but makes it easier and I enjoy it.

The article mentioned how we have a tendency to want to move on to the next thing even when doing something we enjoy, which I have definitely found to be the case (though I am disabled and have more time available than most people and already do almost everything more slowly than most people). One potentially impactful form of mindfulness would be to just focus on this part and try to be more present in the moment when doing whatever it is you enjoy. As I understand it this is a major focus of tantra (where the thing it is know for in the US is just one possible application, nothing intrinsic or even common). I haven't tried any formal methods around this but have found it valuable to intentionally be more mindful and at times consider and untangle the related ideas of satisfaction, fun, enjoyment, etc.

Comment · 3 months ago

Also worth mentioning the game Haven that Danger did the soundtrack for, one of the few game soundtracks that are great independent of the game as well:

https://haven-game.bandcamp.com/album/haven-original-soundtr...

Floating around listening to music is nice once you get the hang of it (took me a while). With a bigger budget could have been one of the best games ever; as it is there are some significant limitations but I recommend it:

https://www.gog.com/en/game/haven

I'll add Lueur Verte:

https://lueurverte.bandcamp.com/album/crystalica-ep

Comment · 3 months ago

15 minutes is just not very long at all when cold brewing even at room temperature. And this was refrigerated (4C) so I'm sure the flavor would be minimal. You would normally cold brew for at least 8 hours at that temperature. So much less of the tea is ending up in the tested water.

If you look at the pictures of the plates the one with cold brew and where the full tea bag is added to the plate seems to have a good bit more growth than the others (there is a larger image of this one). So it doesn't seem like the spores are necessarily unaffected by the boiling just that some survive (or maybe they all survive but only some decide to start growing?). The thing I find strange is that the tea bag that was directly added without any brewing doesn't seem to have much growth at all. Actually, also that in the one with the tea bag added after cold brewing that has extra robust growth much of that growth seems to happen away from the visible pieces of tea.

I agree that the author has great style and I find it interesting to think about where and how bacteria (and fungi) like to grow.

Comment · 3 months ago

It is not hard for anyone to find things they can't afford so it can easily feel that way. So it is helpful to consider the reality in more depth when reaching for that as an excuse.

Comment · 3 months ago

A quick look at your comments history suggests you are in the US. Of course individual circumstances can vary but overall looking at median disposable income adjusted for purchasing power parity (median equivalised household disposable income), the US is the wealthiest non-tiny country in the world (tecnically this data only covers the OECD and Luxembourg, a country smaller than many US cities, is the wealthiest).

https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2024/06/society-at-a-gl...

Comment · 3 months ago

I have severe sleep issues and have tried a bunch of sleep related supplements and medications. Although I do not have a dietary deficiency Magnesium might be the single most effective for me at keeping me asleep, although it does nothing to help me get to sleep and unfortunately the most effective dose taking magnesium alone is around 500mg which is enough to make me even more tired than usual the next day (so not really a good option on its own for me). I have found a combination of 250mg magnesium (carbonate or extended release oxide + citrate, which seem to work equivalently in my limited testing other than that the scoop I have for the carbonate powder is for 350mg so I might take somewhat more in that form) and 2.5mg baclofen to work better than either at higher doses alone (baclofen in higher amounts quickly stops working when taking it multiple days). Unfortunately sleep issues of any severity are often fairly random so it takes quite a while to have any confidence that something is actually helping even if it seems to at first; magnesium is one of the very few that seem to help me.

I have recently been taking those with .3mg DR melatonin and 8-9mg diphenhydramine and it still has some effect the next day but much less than the higer doses of magnesium. The diphenhydramine is for my Non-24 and does not help me sleep but can improve my functioning some the next day when part of my body wants to be sleeping during the day (unfortunately like many things it seems to quickly lose effectiveness so I am going to try taking it less often). My thinking is that for long term use for sleep it is imporant that the medication or supplement be cleared from the body quickly, though too early and it may be hard to stay asleep.

Sleep doctors have told me that waking up at the same time every day is most important. It doesn't look like the paper tried to differentiate between irregularity waking up and irregularity going to sleep but I suspect trying to wake up as close to the same time every day as you can reasonable manage is the best thing most people can do to improve their sleep quality (getting to sleep earlier some days if needed). My sense is that the most obvious part of what we consider to be sleep quality is actually waking up quality. Sleep deprivation affects memory in subtle and eventually not so subtle ways but not feeling awake seems in my experience to be based on how waking up happens and sleeping less when relatively well rested often has a positive effect on feeling awake (at least for a while, getting tired early is another effect of not sleeping enough). There is a particular thing that I notice maybe a couple of times a year that feels like rapidly cycling between being asleep and awake multiple times when I am waking up and I always feel much more awake the day it happens.

Comment · 3 months ago

What I've found to fix leg cramping is skin rolling my legs (ideally every 6 months but takes maybe a couple of years to fully undo the effect). Lightly pinch some skin between your thumb and two fingers and walk it forward with the two fingers. If you need it it will feel "crunchy" in some spots rather than smooth. Ideally cover the full area at least twice at 90 degree angles (not necessarily all on one day and doesn't need to be perfect coverage, more is helpful if it still feels "crunchy"). Warning: while only mildly painful for me when doing it, after sleeping I wake up with quite sore legs which lasts two full days. Doing it every 6 months or so avoids this and is also when I start to occasionally get cramping again.

Comment · 4 months ago

Eh, the real genius of Windows 11 that Linux lags behind is the seriously first rate emoji picker :).

Comment · 4 months ago

That isn't what I ment, I should have said that the person who runs pkgsrc-wip helps submitters get the package correct (which can be more challenging than PKGBUILD since it is a more strict system and unless it is a Linux only package is more likely to need patches). Thinking about it more it isn't really the same as AUR since as I understand it packages without issues are likely to get into pkgsrc proper in most cases so it is mostly WIP as the name suggests (although not entirely as I recall, at least last time I used it). So you might be correct that there isn't really anything similar in the BSD world.

Comment · 4 months ago

There is pkgsrc-wip which is similar but run by one person who does at least some checking up on new users. AUR is just gigantic in comparison; pkgsrc-wip has about as many total packages as AUR has updated in the past week.

https://www.pkgsrc.org/wip/

Comment · 4 months ago

I agree that some things have a use and can do so without getting in the way, but I think as your example illustrates it is mostly to help new or infrequent users who aren't familiar with how the system works and often comes at the expense of regular users. Like mrob mentions (with a wonderful example), I usually want software to function like hand tools where I can just do a thing as quickly as I can do it and without unnecessary distractions. I've turned off cursor blink in my terminal and even though it isn't as bad in the browser I just turned it off in Firefox since you mentioned it (add a new preference ui.caretBlinkTime set to 0). Some of us do get more distracted by this kind of thing than others :/. Same with audio cues.

I do still like progress indicators when you might be waiting on a longer task (and when it actually indicates liveness, which too often it doesn't :( ).

Games I can sometimes appreciate the new user benefits and affecting the pace can sometimes have an artistic intent or relaxation effect that tools should not normally have. I have stopped playing games for excessive animations and will usually quickly (but not always immediately) disable anything that can be disabled. It is so common that I distinctly recall the free game Strange Adventures in Infinite Space intentially doing the opposite to great effect (it has been a bit but I think it was not only instant transitions but on mouse click instead of release).

https://rich.itch.io/strangeadventures