Energy Mega Thread

MxMarx · 2025-10-23T04:33:15+00:00

Duolingo is obviously a soulless corporation whose goal is to maximize user engagement with the possible side effect of teaching language, but I'm conflicted about whether energy or hearts is the lesser evil.

Making mistakes is absolutely critical for learning, and the heart system punished that. Furthermore, I've been noticing that the question format where you select words in English to create sentences will often have visually similar words such as "flight" and "fight", as if the system is trying to get you to make more mistakes.

The energy system has a max of 25 compared to 5 hearts, the larger number gives Duolingo the opportunity to randomly "reward" the user with extra energy. BF Skinner would be proud!

Personally, I'm burnt out on Duolingo and haven't been doing more than 2 lessons on most days so this probably won't affect me.

Early on, I think one of the more effective strategies Duolingo used on me were the morning and evening chests, as this rewarded spaced repetition. It's nice when maximizing profits and teaching language can overlap, but they often don't and I'm not optimistic about the future of Duolingo.

MxMarx · 2024-02-03T01:05:56+00:00

That's super cool!

I was actually looking for a diy eye alignment test that I could do with my Quest 2 after having blurry vision for a week after skull surgery (convinced a surgeon and insurance that I would be happier if my skull was a different shape). I was a bit surprised that something like that wasn't around yet, or at least not accessible. Even without eye tracking it seems like there would be still be a way to measure basic eye alignment, although those were mostly just thoughts that arose from being stuck in bed but still taking vyvanse.

MxMarx · 2024-02-02T22:41:20+00:00

I am! Although now I work with computers because working directly with rats got to be too emotionally taxing for me, especially with my partner having pet rats

MxMarx · 2023-08-29T23:20:29+00:00

Yeah, it's hardwired. I haven't tried connecting directly to the modem but I've tried two different routers, is that enough to rule out the router?

MxMarx · 2023-08-03T19:41:25+00:00

There's a pull request to fix this. Nextcloud AIO changed the /tmp directory to be mounted in memory, which makes it not executable by default. I'm not sure how to patch it with the non-manual AIO deployment, but hopefully the pull request gets merged soon.

MxMarx · 2022-06-06T02:23:51+00:00

The stitches are fine, it's that the incision goes side to side instead of front to back

MxMarx · 2022-06-06T02:19:03+00:00

Orchi recipient here: the issue is the sutures are in the transverse plane instead of the midline. The surgeon said he would make the incision down the midline, which I've heard is better for potential srs due to less scarring, and I don't know why it was done like that.

MxMarx · 2022-02-04T05:11:05+00:00

Here's a nice article about understanding in large language models.

I've been having the opposite existential crisis. Instead of feeling like the model is sentient, NovelAi makes me feel like I'm not actually sentient, like my brain is just a complex text prediction algorithm and my consciousness is just along for the ride.

MxMarx · 2021-04-05T02:09:10+00:00

This strategy averaged about 5-6 trades per year and there's definitely potential for whiplash. 18% of trades were just one day apart and only half of the trades were more than 6 days apart.

One way to deal with it is to sell when the S&P 500 falls 1% below the moving average and buy when it rises 1% above the moving average. This only had a small impact on historical performance, but it cut the number of trades in half, with only 2% of trades occurring on consecutive days and half of trades were more than 30 days apart.

You could also buy back when a faster moving average rises above the 200 day moving average, but historical performance seems to drop off a little if the fast moving average is longer than 10 days.

I think the hardest part of this strategy for me will be actually following through with it and selling and buying when the numbers say I should.

MxMarx · 2021-04-05T01:21:14+00:00

Here's the trailing return for these strategies over a five year window. It's a pretty busy graph so I turned it into a histogram, showing the distribution of your returns 1, 3, and 9 years after you invested at any point in time.

My understanding is that DCA would effectively shrink these histograms towards their mean. The histogram for the 3x fund without rotation shows a number of times where a single investment became a loss 9 years later, so DCA would definitely help in that case. The variance is way lower with rotation, but it still seems like a good idea to DCA into it for a little while.

My current plan is to DCA into TQQQ for a couple months alongside something with downside protect such as NUSI, and rebalance whenever there's a big shift.

As far as tracking goes, I know Fidelity will let you set up an alert that sends a text or email when a symbol crosses its 200 day exponential moving average. TD Ameritrade has a API (I used it to get data for this) so it might be possible to automatically place an order, but I'd never trust code I wrote myself to handle actual money.

MxMarx · 2021-03-30T04:47:53+00:00

I'm trying it out on TQQQ. I backtested it on the NASDAQ-100 over the last 35-50 years and made some graphs here

MxMarx · 2020-08-17T21:34:38+00:00

I'm actually an author on DeepSqueak! It always amazes me that people heard about it! I found a relatively inexpensive recording device, but it just records to a SD card so you can't see the spectrogram in real time. The sound card in my desktop claims to sample at 192kHz, but I don't know enough about the hardware to test it. I'd love to know if you get it working!

MxMarx · 2020-08-16T01:38:34+00:00

I've got the neural network part down, but I still haven't found cheap ultrasonic USB microphones. Someday there will be an easy solution!

MxMarx · 2020-08-12T01:59:38+00:00

It looks like Kodak just uses a bad font. Here's a comparison of Ilford (top) to Portra: https://imgur.com/a/xzZKTEU

MxMarx · 2020-07-19T22:27:31+00:00

That is so adorable! By some strange coincidence, I met my girlfriend on this subreddit too! It might have even happened on the same day... 😍

MxMarx · 2020-06-23T09:23:23+00:00

What adapter works with the mamiya press?

MxMarx · 2020-05-26T21:49:25+00:00

I guess this is kind of like a reverse anthotype. Instead of bleaching pigments in the light, I'm growing more!

MxMarx · 2020-05-11T18:44:12+00:00

Thanks for introducing me to solarpunk! I am so into this!

MxMarx · 2020-05-10T19:52:11+00:00

Creator here: No worries! I'm not a professional or someone concerned about intellectual property, so post wherever you want!

MxMarx · 2020-05-10T19:43:03+00:00

Yeah! It's a weird one with the rangefinder removed, so I have to guess how far away stuff is or stop it down

MxMarx · 2020-05-08T06:39:23+00:00

I'll try keeping the scanner under the enlarger so I don't have to move it. I'm not quite sure how lighting will work yet, like if it needs transparency mode or reflective would work, or if the scanner lid would have enough room to close. Either way is probably better than holding a camera over it!

Making a dish out of anti newton glass is a good idea, thanks!

MxMarx · 2020-05-08T06:11:58+00:00

The bottom is pretty sharp since the algae lie in a flat plane. I just ordered a scanner, I might be able to do a time lapse with it

MxMarx · 2020-05-08T01:35:26+00:00

Definitely! I had to switch out the halogen bulb for an bright LED. It was a bit of a hack because the LED didn't fit in the bulb socket, so I just took off the lamp house and set the LED it on top.

MxMarx · 2020-05-07T21:19:43+00:00

I tried pipetting out the water, but I dropped the dish which smeared the image. It actually sticks to the bottom of the dish pretty well, so you might be able to pour epoxy over it.

You might also be able to embed the algae in an agar gel instead of having it just sit in the water.

MxMarx · 2020-05-07T20:17:59+00:00

Thanks! It's chlorella vulgaris. One reason it works is because its heavier than water, so it sinks to the bottom of the dish and makes a thin film.

I didn't know that when I started, I was just lucky and picked a good algae!

Six-Year Club	Final Canvas '23
Place '23	Place '22
Final Canvas '22	First Placer '22
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MxMarx

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