TLDR; become an autistic asshole :D
Tips for a Better Life
341–350 of 488 posts
Re: Tips for a Better Life
#342> If your work is done on a computer, get a second monitor. Less time navigating between windows means more time for thinking. I don't agree. Use a virtual desktop instead and switch workspaces with a keyboard shortcut. I'm currently using 9 workspaces, and monitors couldn't ever beat that UX.
Shifting your eyeballs to another monitor will always be more efficient than the key combinations to toggle back and forth between workspaces.
How do you figure that?
Shifting my head and eyeballs back and forth is way slower, for me, than an instantaneous Super+1, Super+2, etc. or Super+Tab (for switching to the last used workspace) to see a "second" monitor.
Re: Tips for a Better Life
#343I do not mean to either encourage or discourage the taking of any kind of nutritional supplements, but I strongly caution anyone from looking to lists like the one on LessWrong for specific advice on health issues. > 23. (~This is not medical advice~). Don’t waste money on multivitamins, they don’t work. Vitamin D supplementation does seem to work, which is important because deficiency is common. From The Physicians’…
I didn't take one until my physician casually asked if I were, when I said "No." he told me to start. I did. It aligned with my inclination since it was inexpensive, almost assuredly would do no harm, and might do some good. Now you've given me a concrete reason to continue taking a multivitamin. Thanks.
Re: Tips for a Better Life
#344The title should be "Opinionated Tips that work for My Life"
I'd say half of these are flat out wrong to me, with the other half sounding pretty good. I suspect other people would react differently to each individual point. But the larger point is that no single person's life is the same as another's - lists like this are anecdotes of what worked for one person, and should be read as such.
Re: Tips for a Better Life
#345"8. When buying things, time and money trade-off against each other. If you’re low on money, take more time to find deals. If you’re low on time, stop looking for great deals and just buy things quickly online." I'm finding, as I've gotten older, that almost every time I've chosen money over time I've made a bad decision. And I see this among my family and friends, too. There's a mentality that emerges when exchangin…
Some people value that they can get stuff done for themselves. I've grown up helping with various renovations around our home (floor tiling, wallpapers, building kitchen furniture etc), and they are fond memories and it makes a difference to how you feel living in a place. I know today mobility and renting is everything, but there is quite a distinct feel of living in actually your own place that you've worked on ove…
"If you eliminate all hassle, you could just as much pay people to live instead of you."
In general (90% of the time) I've found paying someone to do something merely alters the hassle. Now I have to deal through someone to get the desired result. And I'm paying for the privilege (increments hassle). There are very few times I've been able to pay money, state the desired result, and remain hands off.
Re: Tips for a Better Life
#346Beware that some of these are US-centric (or I simply don’t get them) like “don’t talk to cops”. Why not? Mine would be “talk to cops whenever you have a chance. They’re nice”.
"DO NOT TALK TO COPS" is very much US specific advice.
There are some countries like the UK where not talking to the cops can potentially land you in trouble too. (In England and Wales, juries are permitted to draw adverse inferences from a defendant not raising information with the police that they later rely on at trial.)
If you are arrested, exercise your right to counsel. This is guaranteed in both the US, the UK and most of Europe (under the European Convention of Human Rights), as well as lots of countries elsewhere.
Yes, it might mean you have to wait an hour or so for the lawyer to get there. Yes, the police will try to convince you that only guilty people need lawyers (not true) or that it'll make things worse for you (also not true).
The counterpoint to this is: if the cops are following procedures correctly and have legitimately collected evidence, they have nothing to fear from you exercising your right to free and independent legal advice.
Re: Tips for a Better Life
#347Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve heard a magician claim PhDs are much easier to fool than children. The former can apparently rationalize any (wrong) scenario
James Randi said that about scientists. He has demonstrated a matchbox trick that fooled some of them into believing a person had supernatural powers.
Maybe some scientists get frustrated if they don't understand the trick. There are so many things that children don't understand that tricks have less effects.
Re: Tips for a Better Life
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll disagree with you - the value of 2 or more monitors comes when you want to simply have more stuff on screen at the same time so you can compare / check / whatever. I.e. you can have a spreadsheet on one monitor, and the results of a bunch of terminal windows on another, and be typing out an email about those two things on another. You can continue to type the email while reading the spreadsheet and checking the…
A simple solution to that is simply copy the stuff you want to process into your clipboard, and pasting it into the document you want to edit, and then edit out all the stuff you don't need or want to change. I'm personally not in that kind of situation very often. And switching workspaces is faster for me than turning my head to another screen. An added benefit is that my window manager always knows what workspace I…
[deleted]
Re: Tips for a Better Life
#349Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I definitely agree with this. My pet peeve is just when people assume you're not doing something because of the label, not because you actually just don't enjoy the thing.
Yeees, but the problem Jtsummers mentions is that often the label gets “internalized as a quality of themselves”, so especially men sometimes thing that it’s their own preference, when they just never had the right space to discover the joy of dance. I think that dance is actually a very universal human thing and that there’s a strange alienation from dance and our bodies going on in western culture, especially for m…
Mean while I love to dance, but absolutely lack to necessary coordination and motor skills to engage in more structured dancing like ballroom, tango, salsa, ballet, etc.
This isn’t through lack of trying, but rather through the act of trying and suffering excessively before ultimately giving up and just moving to the music in my own way.
Re: Tips for a Better Life
#350When it comes to buying things I find my satisfaction is much higher when I spend money to remove an irritant rather than get something completely new.
Our home has a long run from the water heater to basically anywhere it is used (This is in the USA where storage heaters are typical). When it died I had its location moved and got a model with a circulating system that loops around to the downstairs locations (kitchen/bathroom). Now what took 20-30 seconds to get warm water is 2-3 seconds. I spent a lot (for me) and it was worth it.
I replaced the 2 DIN radio in my car with an android head unit. Driving became much better with my personal audio selection rather than over the air radio (What's that?). A few years later I upgraded the unit and reduced the start time from 20-ish seconds to 2 seconds. Both changes removed irritants and noticeably improved my quality of life.
Previously I would wonder if getting a new car, or bigger TV, or going to Hawaii would improve my life. Now I am more inclined to seek out irritants and try to find ways of applying money or effort to reduce them. I'll still make the occasional new/splurge purchase, most recently Ring video cameras - they're fun, but that comes second and I'm happier for it.