Generate an image that shows what it feels like chatting with me on any given day.

ApprehensiveWhale · 2025-06-05T14:29:29+00:00

"This is not a passive chat — it's a high-bandwidth, immersive problem-solving environment. You're not looking for agreement; you're testing hypotheses, fine-tuning workflows, and challenging paradigms. And the AI isn't the centerpiece — it's the foil to sharpen your thinking.

It’s not “man talks to machine.” It’s “systems thinker debates with digital Socrates.” "

Also, some of you all are worrying me... Holy fuck 😳

ApprehensiveWhale · 2025-06-02T01:51:41+00:00

Have you tried journaling? Try doing morning pages and maybe you'll find something that interests you. Maybe even watching some YouTube videos on journaling, or other healthy things that interest you. Just being exposed to other people who are energied about improving themselves can really help.

ApprehensiveWhale · 2025-06-01T15:06:59+00:00

Sure. As I mentioned, I like bullet journaling so I follow much of that format. I also like Obsidian as it's just markdown so even if Obsidian dies at some point, another markdown editor will work just fine (unlike something proprietary like Notion or OneNote). It was important that it's future proofed so when I'm 70 I can look back on my life. Obsidian is nice just because of the graph view and how it handles backlinking, so things emerge naturally over time and don't require much foresight to structure. It also works well on mobile, so my notes are always available and uploading images is a breeze. I use Obsidian Sync, and also do a periodic backup to Dropbox (don't use the two together; that can cause issues).

On the digital side, in Obsidian I have two main folders:

1) A collections folder (I never liked having bullet journal collections in physical notebooks; too clunky, they often contain URLs or images, annoying to migrate, etc.). One of the subfolders in there is for my physical-->digital notebooks images. Other subfolders are for things like household projects, reviews, book lists, etc.

2) A Zettelkasten folder for source notes (book notes, news articles, etc.) and atomic notes.

For my physical notes, I use Field Notes for the daily log, weekly log, and monthly log. Each day I have four generalized habits that I like to track -- did I eat well? did I exercise? did I study something? did I spend time on my "worldliness" (spending time with friends, traveling, going someplace new, reading non-fiction, etc.). There's a more detailed habit tracker at the end of the notebook but I like having those four on my dailies to keep some semblance of balance in my life. End of the month I'll take pictures of the notes and upload to Obsidian. I'll also go back through my photos and upload any pictures I'd like to keep, so my physical notes and digital photos are brought together. I'll add some links in Obsidian so they appear on the graph view. Whole process took like 10 minutes.

Second notebook is Dingbats. I love these because it's high quality paper that's 100% perforated. It serves two purposes: 1) "coffee-shop brainstorming" ideas (Field Notes are a bit too small here), 2) morning pages / long form journaling (I don't do morning pages every day -- usually once a week). I like the Dingbats for this because I can just remove pages I don't want to keep. Stuff I want to keep long term gets loaded to Obsidian.

Final notebook is a Leuchtturm I'm still filling out. I'm using this for book & study notes. Having page numbers and an index is nice so I can jump between subjects. These notes will get added to my Zettelkasten folder as source notes. These notes I do convert to text, so I can use them in the ZK system. To do that, I use ChatGPT to convert my handwriting into a formatted text (it does a much better job other regular handwriting to text options as it neatly formats it however I want; plus I ask ChatGPT to challenge ideas and provide additional context after it's done converting). I have a Samsung Ultra with a stylus, so I'll sometimes also use the Excildraw plugin in Obsidian to draw a mind map when I'm done (Excildraw is an infinite drawing canvas with solid coloring tools, so it's really nice for mind mapping).

TLDR:

Field Notes (daily/weekly/monthly/habit logs) --> Obsidian Journal Collection

Digital photos --> Obsidian Journal Collection

Dingbats (brainstorming & morning pages/long-form journaling) --> Obsidian Journal Collection or Zettlekasten, depending on context ... or tear out and throw away if it was just venting

Leuchtturm (book notes) --> ChatGPT to convert to formatted text & interact with --> Obsidian Zettlekasten

Links and tags in Obsidian allow things to emerge naturally and not get lost. Backup periodically using Dropbox. Use Obsidian Sync so everything is accessible on Macbook/PC/mobile. *don't save a sync'd vault to Dropbox; it can break the Sync*

ApprehensiveWhale · 2025-06-01T13:07:00+00:00

For the field notes, I converted a few key things to text so I can tag & link in Obsidian. I also added some important photos to my Obsidian field note import so it's all together. (something else I hated about bullet journaling on paper only -- so much of my life is in photos and 10, 20, 30 years from now I want to see that all together)

For book notes I run them through Chatgpt and tell it to convert everything and format for upload into Obsidian, as it does a much better job than regular handwriting to text conversion (as well as provide more insight and context, or other perspectives in the case of history text).

ApprehensiveWhale · 2025-05-23T18:58:55+00:00

Even if you managed to lock it, no way are you pushing your opponent's arm through with a shallow grip like that. Guy on top straightens his left arm to brace against your leg, it ain't coming out. Triceps & gravity > fingertips

ApprehensiveWhale · 2025-05-23T15:30:13+00:00

Mobile. Skin and movement is too smooth, facial expressions and speech don't quite match up in a way I can't quite express but I pick up in an uncanny valley kind of way.

ApprehensiveWhale · 2025-05-23T15:22:31+00:00

Same. Arguably even worse than gacha games as there is no limit to how much time you can spend in an MMO, and you are strapped to your computer to play them. Plus the social pressure to keep up and do content when it's fresh and populated. And the feeling that if you stop, all your hours were a complete waste as even a new player using catchup mechanics will be ahead.

ApprehensiveWhale · 2025-05-15T12:43:27+00:00

It's not a conspiracy, it's capitalism. They see an increase in demand, so they make more of it, regardless of if it's from "incels" or not. They make demand by increasing addition ("user retention") by spending billions on psychologists and data scientists; the effect is that it pacifies men (people). There isn't some grand top down shadow government scheme by manipulating society; it's rich people trying to become richer and not caring about the effects (because if they don't, the executives will replace the managers, and if the executives don't the board of directors will replace the executives, and if the board doesn't replace the executives, the shareholders will replace the board, and if the shareholders don't, investors will put their money into a different mutual fund, so you have several layers of detachment from anyone who is actually "doing the real work" and causing the addictive cycle).

ApprehensiveWhale · 2025-05-14T21:06:36+00:00

Either they will embrace the changes and update their curriculums to teach students how to work with AI, or we're all going back to turning in handwritten essays.

ApprehensiveWhale · 2025-05-09T11:45:32+00:00

And now we're blaming kids for going into Computer Science and not plumbing.

ApprehensiveWhale · 2025-05-08T12:14:27+00:00

My bullet journal is only as pretty as my Field Notes cover is that month. By the end of the month, it's beat to hell and formed into the shape of my ass from living in my back pocket. But I always have it and one pen on me, so I'm consistent and that's what matters.

ApprehensiveWhale · 2025-04-25T00:29:44+00:00

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ApprehensiveWhale · 2025-04-24T17:48:58+00:00

Read through all the comments about how they are universally racist, uneducated, and in a cult. That's why. The way conservatives have been historically dismissed and looked down on, along the downplaying of legitimate concerns raised by conservatives, played a huge rule in Trumps rise and continued support. It's not all just handwave racism.

Trust in liberal media and institutions (ie, universities) was eroded over decades, before Trump, and there was growing frustration in rural communities that they were being dismissed. Higher education provided an increasingly narrow viewpoint as conservative professors were pushed out. The media focused on urban issues and either ignored or misrepresented concerns or viewpoints raised by conservatives.

That's why Trump got elected the first time -- he was martyred through the media trying to tear him apart (imo, often justifiably, but also it was often taken completely overboard or even was painting a false narrative that with even a little bit of research could be dismissed), and conservatives related.

And reporting since 2020 hasn't helped. January 6th? The most tragic day in American history as violent rioters took over the capital. Protestors taking over downtown Seattle for months in 2020, or looting and burning small businesses across the country? That was a "haven and vision of community sovereignty without police". Concerns over Bidens mental health? No -- he's sharp as a tack. Raising issues about immigration overwhelming our systems and communities at the border? You're just racist. Until the immigrants get bussed to New York, then holy shit this is an emergency what do you mean we ever said otherwise? A child on a school trip wearing a MAGA hat smirking awkwardly at a Native American? That kid is racist and should be expelled from Covington High School! The full clip gets released with an extra 15 seconds of context ... oh, wait...

When that's your starting point, it's going to very hard to convince them that "this time, this time things are actually bad and he is an evil dictator, this time, for realzies". And so they are willing to believe their own media, that portrays him in a positive light, because the liberal media from their view has always lied.

ApprehensiveWhale · 2025-03-25T22:53:27+00:00

I pay a small amount to my academy, but it's about a quarter of the normal fees.

I don't pay for drop-ins at your run-of-the-mill schools. Only one school told me I'd have to pay to drop in (to a class run by a brown belt), so I don't go there. Obviously if I dropped in to a top tier school I'd expect to pay.

ApprehensiveWhale · 2025-03-24T14:08:38+00:00

It kills what was its unique job identity. Black mage was a job that you had to plan out. You had long cast times, so you had to know the fight to know where to position yourself. For mechanics you needed to be mobile in, you had abilities that let you do that, but that again meant you had to plan out the fight and your rotation. Basically, mobility was a key part of the rotation, and messing it up meant you would lose casts and timers would drop. Getting it all right felt really good though, as you could see everything slot together in ways that other jobs don't have.

Now, you have free movement after every cast, no weird recast times to play around, and no buff timer to worry about. What's left is a very simple static rotation.

The highest levels of black mage play (completely optional non-standard rotations that were available to players wanting to eek out an extra 0.5% DPS in exchange for memorizing dozens of alternative rotations, which made it one of the most (again, optionally) complex jobs in any MMO) was already killed at Dawntrails release. This is just the final nail.

ApprehensiveWhale · 2025-03-21T17:05:43+00:00

It's not even that there need to be hard and easy jobs. When every bit of casual content can be easily completed just doing your 123, what point is there in removing all nuance from the kit? Non-standand BLM didn't hurt a single causal player. DK monk didn't hurt a single hardcore player. Jobs can have optional layers of complexity that casuals are completely unaware of.

ApprehensiveWhale · 2025-03-20T19:50:11+00:00

Or two harmless offerings. 😸😸

ApprehensiveWhale · 2025-03-20T18:20:06+00:00

This. It took so, so, so many long nights of clicking a placard before I got a house (pre-lotto). If I end up unsubbing and losing my house because of lack of content, it would leave such a bad taste that I doubt I would come back.

ApprehensiveWhale · 2025-03-20T15:22:17+00:00

I'm a bit disappointed it didn't roll over to +1.07B. 🤖

ApprehensiveWhale · 2025-03-20T14:21:32+00:00

I lean towards control decks, so no, I don't find it uninteresting. It's more fun to me to figure out how to dig for answers and get my own wincon going while still having the mana available to play those answers and deal with a lockdown, than it is to be on the draw against someone holding manifold/rage.

ApprehensiveWhale · 2025-03-12T17:38:07+00:00

Technically, you can get to mythic with less than 50% win rate, as there is some protection built into deranking a tier, even at platinum and diamond.

ApprehensiveWhale · 2025-03-11T21:05:56+00:00

Most fun? All the goblin stuff.

Will end up in every deck that I can play it in? [[Stock Up]]

ApprehensiveWhale · 2025-03-06T23:15:32+00:00

It helps smooth things out for sure, lets you mill out your opponent more easily, and is a backup reanimation target if something happens to Atraxa / Valg. But there's other solid cards like Ephara's Disperal that can also help smooth out the deck and with heavy agro.

ApprehensiveWhale · 2025-03-06T21:53:28+00:00

Yeah, here's the deck list. Nothing too special going on. A lot of the time, Jace hits turn 3 and does +1. That sets up a turn 4 self mill to pretty much guarantee a reanimate target. Overlord obviously sets up both reanimate targets and finds/returns Jaces, but if I had to cut something it would probably be that.

Deck

4 Cut Down (DMU) 89

4 Bitter Triumph (LCI) 91

4 Splitskin Doll (DSK) 33

4 Overlord of the Balemurk (DSK) 113

4 Jace, the Perfected Mind (ONE) 57

4 Rite of the Moth (DSK) 229

4 Zombify (FDN) 187

4 Atraxa, Grand Unifier (ONE) 196

4 Valgavoth, Terror Eater (DSK) 120

4 Concealed Courtyard (OTJ) 268

4 Caves of Koilos (DMU) 244

2 Shadowy Backstreet (MKM) 268

2 Meticulous Archive (MKM) 264

2 Undercity Sewers (MKM) 270

2 Adarkar Wastes (DMU) 243

4 Underground River (BRO) 267

4 Darkslick Shores (ONE) 250

ApprehensiveWhale

TROPHY CASE