The ups and downs of life

 Just that there are no ups and almost no downs so the title is a bit misleading. I was talking to Aby and told her that my reactions and overreactions have almost disappeared and I'm not sure if I am a woman or a sack of flour.

Sure, there is conflict, but it is the low-grade, adultish- work related kind and extremely boring. As for that conflict, I'm not sure I know how to resolve it. Like what exactly is wrong? Absolutely no idea.

Somehow it seems that I'm always looking for the right perspective on things. Obviously it is always horribly missing, although recently I've lost the inclination to use strong words like horribly. What is missing is missing and what is there to be horrified?

Recently I came across a local folk song, and the singer refers to the girl as maa diyay moum battiyay, which is cute as hell.

Was my entire personality described by my overreactions, and now that I have settled down in the calm of middle age, there is nothing left to my personality? I wonder.

The utter banality of most things bores me to tears. However, too much boredom can't probably be a good sign in itself.

With some boyses, you can't do anything right. With others, you can't do anything wrong. I wonder if the same thing is true of workplaces, and one simply needs to find the right one.

My metaphysical issues are at an all-time low these days. I have realized that some questions are worth asking, and others not so much. Of the former, one can only afford to ask a few in a single life span. Fewer can be answered at all and even a smaller subset has the right answer which, if revealed to you, would make any difference at all. Rare is the question that has an answer that is not relative to the speaker. Often, changing one's perspective to the 'supposedly' right one has a far higher psychological cost than staying on the original, 'wrong' one. 

Ultimately we are just trying to build a mental model of the world and I can't claim my high-fidelity one has helped me much in life. For future reference, this is not from my old cynical self, but rather from a mature person who realizes the true value of various things in life. As a side note, I have also realized the importance of wasting time- in style and out of it both. Horror of all horrors, with people!

Surviving SAA guys

 Once upon a time, I used to live in an environment full of SAA people. SAA as in slightly above average, particularly when it pertains to intelligence, but also some other essential features like intelligence.  It was not fun.

SAA guys, in particular, are very hard to tolerate. Since I work, I am surrounded by them at most places. There was this cute little place that was an exception, but I outgrew the hardware industry. A friend of mine recently remarked that he can't work in my current area because he can't tolerate wannabes. Sigh.

In the spirit of constant learning and growing and real introspection and overcoming one's fears, I have been thinking of modifying my non-confrontational stance. Recently I worked hard and smart to create an opening for my team in a project, but it seems that I am being phased out. A moderate fight is due. I am too tired of this quiet demeanour-in fact, it isn't even my nature.

Maladaptive nurture. Sigh.

People with slightly above average intelligence are difficult to tolerate for a number of reasons. They lie on a dangerous portion of the Dunning-Kruger effect, and rate themselves much more highly than the reality. They work hard and try to be thorough, but this almost always pertains to the garnishing of BS and rarely the underlying reality. So they will be making a lot of effort, and if you aren't they will be openly shaming you. Judging you as lazy, stupid and incompetent. 

Damn, I just understood a phenomenon. People mention that this country has been ruined more by parhay likhay people than anyone else. Need to write it down somewhere, and can't continue here.

BS as essential garnishing

 I find it absolutely horrifying that most people who try to teach language to computers aren't very familiar with language themselves. Thus, when you read papers in NLP, you often find yourself trying to tear your hair out. The garnishing of mathematics that is probably necessary for a paper to be accepted is an example of the BS that people always need as garnishing on their stuff.

To be honest, it is my lack of skill at deciphering the meaning behind a differential equation that lead me to this rant, and I should work on improving my skills. But it is clearly a case of physics envy on part of the community. If you can say deletion or replacement, why say gradient? Well, the obvious answer is, contrary to what people claim, BS is an essential component of most human systems.

My BS detector has only gotten better over the years- nothing else has followed this trend- but I am really perplexed by the switching on and off protocols one needs to develop for it, in order to function in normal human society. Recently, I have been thrown in the spotlight in society due to life circumstances in a very personal capacity, where I am scrutinized and analyzed to death. Of course, the analysis follows some pre-conceived notions, so the results are always predictable and horribly wrong. But again, who cares about the error of their estimates? It is much more useful to be consistent and functioning as compared to factually correct.

Oh boy, I haven't triggered people like this since primary school, where I quickly learnt to hide all traces of myself from the public eye. A similar protocol needs to be developed for this age and time, because clearly the bullying never stops.

Back to BS. So yeah, this detector actively hinders my integration into society. It is ringing almost all the time but these signals are only for one's inner self and not for the people at large. And of course it isn't appropriate for every situation, and can be misleading at times. 

So this current cosmopoliton of mine happens to be particularly stingy about WiFi access. This is strange, when you consider that internet here is dirt cheap.

Tying back to the BS point, our constant plagiarizing of western ideas has left us utterly incapable of distinguishing between content and noise, meaning and BS. So this place calls itself NYC and its biggest achievement is restricting wifi access to two hours. This feels incredibly cheap, and unwelcoming. The unwelcoming feeling is a snowflakish one so we'll discard it. Clearly the coffee places of this city need a thorough reviewing. One previously required me to ask for a new voucher every two hours, but clearly that is a better method than just disconnecting the internet altogether.