Sometimes I Think About The Hobbies And Skills Ive Picked Up Over The Years And I Wonder... Why?? What

Sometimes I think about the hobbies and skills I’ve picked up over the years and I wonder... why?? What about these specific things makes me happy? Is there some underlying idea that I really love that connects all the dots? Or is that just the pattern-finding part of my brain seeking commonalities?

Well, let’s take a step back: How do we pick up new skills anyways? Clearly, at some point we were exposed to them, and clearly we decide that they are enjoyable and it’d be fun to continue doing them, but what feeds into that decision? Is there something inherent in us that connects to specific skills? Or is there something special about the way we are exposed to them?

And why does it feel harder and harder to pick up new things the more entrenched we become in the old ones?

I don’t pretend to have the answers. Instead, I’ve got a mental vibe-check that makes sense in my head (which maybe is a skill in and of itself). To me it’s all about mental models -- the way we fit things into our brains. When I learn a skill, I feel like I’m connecting dots, figuring out some set of ideas, shortcuts, connections, and memories that I’ll be able to draw upon to do the skill better and faster.

But generating these models from scratch sure isn’t easy -- think about how long it takes kids to understand grammar or basic arithmetic when they have nothing to build off of. And they don’t have anything else to clog up their minds while they’re learning!

So once we’ve got a few skills modeled, suddenly some things start coming more easily! Different skills have some of the same dots and connects, and rather than building new models from scratch, I can perhaps take bits off of ones that already exist.

The more pre-built models we have to pull from, the less appealing working from scratch becomes and the more difficult it seems. So, if that’s what guides me when I learn new skills, it actually makes quite a lot of sense that there are commonalities between all the things I’ve gotten into over the years! I’ve been taking shortcuts and cheating to learn the things faster!

So wait, what does this mean about my skills? It’s not that they’re actually getting any harder to learn, it’s just that we have less time and mental capacity to learn them, and that we like shortcuts (I mean who doesn’t). But now that I realize there’s a scenic route I’m missing, perhaps I should try to take it one of these days. It suddenly doesn’t seem quite as bad :)

I just hit 100 followers, and I am truly grateful for all of you.

I would like to do a challenge.

For every interaction this post gets (from ANYONE) I will pick up 1 item of trash.

The earth has done so much for us, and I can’t think of a better way to give back

so this happened to me today

day 4.

new day! i am slowly figuring out what sort of things make me happy to see on my dash, and im remembering some things i forgot that I even liked :P I forgot about she-ra, diary comics, ace stuff, lesbian stuff (not me but the ✨vibes✨ of warm cuddles are just pristine). still looking for the nerdier stuff if it even exists on this platform (stuff like people going on programming adventures down programming rabbit holes, preddy workspaces/computer setups/keebs (#studyblr vibes but workblr)), but it’s staring to really feel pretty cozy here :]

also hi to both of my followers idk why you did that but thanks???

Yes! This is also an excellent point! The issue here is not one inherent in smart devices, it’s created because of how they’re designed and built. It would be very possible (and in some ways easier) to build devices that did not suffer from these issues. If it’s not possible to connect to the device from outside your home network, there’s no way anyone else could get to it! I don’t do this kind of work personally, but my (semi-educated) guess is that the “phone-home” functionality is a substantive proportion of those devices software and it really doesn’t need to be (most of the time).

The issue is that it’s hard (on a technical level) to separate “bad” internet usage (i.e. to send usage data or to grant remote access) from “good” internet usage (i.e. sending a firmware update or re-ordering more soap). While there’s a certain degree that you can manage that on a personal level, at some point you simply have to trust the manufacturer to not be evil. Which... yeah they’re evil :(

So how do we fix this? Well, you can just not buy smart products (that’s what I do!), but what they’re huge quality of life improvements? Or maybe you just think they’re fun and want to play around without putting your privacy at risk.

The only really good solution to all these issues is that companies need to stop creating products that do these things. And the only way to force that to happen is through legislation. We need more legislation like the GDPR in the EU which explicitly describes your privacy rights on the internet (among many other excellent features).

So! Next time you see a call-to-action to “call your legislator” to “protect internet privacy” -- actually do it. It really does make a difference :)

hell world hell world hell world

WHY DOES YOUR SOAP NEED INTERNET

ok, so!

The typical reader may now be wondering, “pile-o-words, what in the world are you going to do with this blog thing?”. well. now i have an answer!

You [reader] may have some Things that you think are cool. And you [reader] may want to share those Things with other people so that they hopefully can see your excitement and also get excited about your Things even if they don’t normally care or know very much about them!

I am going to talk about my Things and maybe also reblog some stuff about my Things and hopefully you get a little peek into my brain and also I get to tell you about things you wouldn’t otherwise get to hear about!

Here’s a list of my current Things, so that you know what to expect!

Short (or maybe long but no promises) programming stories, anecdotes, horror stories, whatever, written so that even if you don’t get the technical details, they’ll still make sense to you

Aro(-spec) and/or ace(-spec) things that I vibe with! Generally more on the wholesome side, or things that I experience and resonate with me :)

Cute fandom stuff. Hopefully even if you don’t like the same fandoms as me, you will also find them cute. But I’ll try and keep that to a minimum because I know it’s niche

And finally what you’ve already seen me post, things about my experience with tumblr or general things that happen to me IRL or on the interwebs!

I’m going to aim for about a post a day, maybe a few more, but we’ll see how this goes!

Enjoy! :D