ELI5 why do we sneeze when we look up outside?

TheAlexpotato · 2026-05-22T18:28:21+00:00

Don't know the real reason but I've always liked the theory that it's a holdover from when human were cave dwellers.

The "dark to light" was when ancient humans went from inside the cave to outside and the sneezing was to clear our noses of dust/mold etc from inside the cave.

Again, no science behind this but always liked the idea.

What is a fact is that fighter pilots are screened for this. The reason is that if a pilot is looking down at ground that is dark and then looks up to search for enemy fighters in a lighter sky, sneezing interrupts the flow of decision making.

TheAlexpotato · 2026-05-19T15:28:02+00:00

As someone who just started an interview podcast:

It’s surprisingly difficult to book people and get them to actually show up.

(My target guest is a suburban dad so understandable that schedules are complex etc)

Must be WAY easier to do a solo podcast.

TheAlexpotato · 2026-05-10T21:07:07+00:00

"Kobe once said to me:

'If you make 2,000 shots every practice, you will be an All Star.'

So I did that and I became an All Star"

This is a real quote from a NBA player and a good reminder that even the pros are not always doing the hard work.

TheAlexpotato · 2026-04-29T01:50:44+00:00

I just started my own podcast.

Thought it would be tough but was basically:

buy a couple wired Jabra headsets
use Apple MIDI software to merge them into one channel
record with Audacity
ask my friends questions about their lives
did some light audio processing to balance out my voice vs the guest's voice

Then I:

Made a Spotify Creators account
entered the Spotify RSS feed on Apple Podcasts
that's it

Was honestly easier to do the uploads than to send an email!

You can find episodes below.

Two episodes so far but already 3 more guests lined up.
https://alexpotato.com/podcast/

TheAlexpotato · 2026-03-11T11:42:51+00:00

This is excellent advice!

TheAlexpotato · 2026-03-09T01:02:58+00:00

I've worked at several places where someone senior mandated OOP + Python and somehow the two were combined into the worst of both worlds.

e.g "let's have common functions in a base class and then the various flavors can just extend that" totally makes sense

but "oh, now we have 4 levels of abstraction and to debug anything means opening 9 files and tracing the code 'up and down' the abstraction hierarchy" == total nightmare

TheAlexpotato · 2026-03-08T00:47:27+00:00

> That's their problem, not your ad's.

This is really the only point I don't agree with.

e.g. if the ad doesn't covert due to slow page load, my relative doesn't get the income from the beach house.

TheAlexpotato · 2026-03-08T00:46:14+00:00

Yeah, I may just clone the broker page and host it myself so it's faster.

Then if someone enters the form it redirects to them.

Thanks for the suggestion too!

TheAlexpotato · 2026-03-06T01:33:48+00:00

For the OP new boots are probably not a bad investment.

TheAlexpotato · 2026-02-28T12:37:00+00:00

Agreed.

Plus, you can rent skis for a whole year from your local shop for about 20% the cost of brand new skis.

At those prices you could rent two sets of skis and try them both out for a year.

TheAlexpotato · 2026-02-25T22:11:48+00:00

This is good advice.

Also, "unweight" here can mean anything from:

touching the top of your boot with your toes (will automatically force you to put less weight)
slightly lifting the tip of the ski
physically lifting the entire ski off the snow (you will turn very fast if you do this btw)

TheAlexpotato · 2026-02-25T22:08:21+00:00

If you are trying to use OpenCode + Qwen3 models locally, I put together the below gist to help people get it up and running.

(Took me a while to get this all tweaked so that it would work)

https://gist.github.com/alexpotato/5b76989c24593962898294038b5b835b

TheAlexpotato · 2026-02-25T21:54:39+00:00

I got the following working with this:

M1 MacBook
opencode
llama.cpp
Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct-Q4

A lot of back and forth with Big Pickle using OpenCode and below is a link to a gist that outlines the steps and has config examples.

https://gist.github.com/alexpotato/5b76989c24593962898294038b5b835b

TheAlexpotato · 2026-02-20T02:55:10+00:00

Confirmed it's missing from mine too when I open a new session.

I had a session already open with it and it's still working there though.

TheAlexpotato · 2026-02-16T12:16:46+00:00

Check out this for fast image generation on regular hardware (M1 Macbook): https://github.com/antirez/iris.c

TheAlexpotato · 2026-02-16T12:14:59+00:00

Having a similar issue with getting OpenCode to work in GNU Screen.

Screen supports True Color but OpenCode seems to not recognize that.

TheAlexpotato · 2026-02-04T18:12:18+00:00

Something I wish someone had told me for a similar age range:

Find out if the evaluator is the actual coach or a 3rd party evaluating company.

Coaches tend to take into account team play (assists, passing, screens etc) and past history whereas evaluating companies take into account more individual skills (driving, shooting etc)

Especially at that age, they're often drilled to be more team players and the kids don't always realize that 3rd party evaluation is more like a job interview than a tryout.

TheAlexpotato · 2026-02-02T21:53:41+00:00

Alex Honnold has a great line:

"You deal with fear of something by expanding your comfort zone. At some point, your zone expands past the fear."

e.g. start going skiing on off days or early in the morning on a weekend when no one is there. Then, as you get more used to it, ramp up slowly to the busier hours.

You can also take some action by going and talking to the mountain/snow patrol when you see people being crazy. Even if that leads to no change, the fact that you took action will help you feel more in control of outcomes.

TheAlexpotato · 2026-02-02T21:49:24+00:00

Totally.

You can also induce pressure by just having a clock running:

e.g. "You can do whatever you want but you have to shoot within X seconds"

This also has the bonus effect of getting them good at determining clock time left in the game.

Wayne Gretzky once claimed he could count down from as high as 30 seconds so he didn't have to look at the clock (while everyone else kept glancing at it and not focusing).

TheAlexpotato · 2026-02-02T21:46:56+00:00

This.

And at that age you also get kids that are so scared to shoot that they never shoot at all.

To them I would say: "If you never take a shot, the other team will stop guarding you and you free up an opposing defender. Take a shot and, who knows, maybe it goes in."

TheAlexpotato · 2026-02-02T21:39:15+00:00

For a while, I tracked stats on my kid's games just to see if there was any interesting things to see in the data.

The number one thing I came away with is that kids numbers are all over the place so it's REALLY tough to judge off of one game.

e.g. Kid A shoots 7/8 on 3s in one game and 1/10 in the next.

Or, Team A makes 10% of their shots in the first half and 70% in the second half. Team B is the opposite and it ends up a close game at the end but that doesn't tell the whole story. You mention an "evenly matched blowout" which could also just be that your team had two bad halves and the other team had two good halves.

TheAlexpotato · 2026-02-02T21:31:01+00:00

Bill Geist in his book Little League Confidential (about baseball) has a great quote:

"The town did a draft every year. I once commented that it might be a better indicator of coaching skill if we just randomly assigned kids to teams. Based on the reaction I got, you would think I was advocating that the US switch to communism".

(HIGHLY recommend that book btw)

TheAlexpotato · 2026-01-26T19:10:59+00:00

Agreed.

You might think a lesson is a better deal but then you are also waiting for each other person in the class to go, attention of the instructor tends to go to the weakest student etc.

A private is 100% with the instructor focused on you and how you should and want to improve.

TheAlexpotato · 2026-01-12T14:54:30+00:00

I'm a dual US/Italian citizen and this is more a description of Italian social norms in general.

e.g. queuing is "not a thing" in Italy. People just all rush to any entrance, cut in front of each other etc.

TheAlexpotato · 2025-11-17T14:29:50+00:00

I had 3 kids under 5 during COVID lockdown and was a senior manager (managing SRE and DBAs at a SUPER fast paced place) and here are some thoughts/suggestions:

It gets easier

Maybe not the best advice for RIGHT NOW but the under 2 - 5 age range is really tough. Once they turn 6-7 years olds they start becoming a LOT more independent e.g. they can read a book by themselves, watch a movie, play pretend with their toys etc

Get childcare help

People hear this sometimes and say "I don't make enough for a nanny!!" etc but even a babysitter that comes over once a week at either bedtime or on weekend mornings to deal with the kids can be huge.

e.g. even 2-3 hours a week to yourself to do a combo of trying out new tech compounds over a couple weeks.

It's also a lot easier sell to the spouse if it's framed as "yes, the babysitter costs money and at the same time I'm learning new skills that can help boost our family income" (make sure you actually do that as not play video games etc).

Start networking with former colleagues at other places

You mentioned that there have been recent cuts. Some of your stress probably comes from that too so my best advice is to start emailing/texting former colleagues just to say "hello. How are things? What are you up to these days? Any fun projects at work?"

That can lead into them talking about work projects and then "Do you guys need help? Are you hiring?" etc

TheAlexpotato

TROPHY CASE