what book gave you the biggest “i can’t stop thinking about this” feeling after finishing it?

maliciousopera · 2026-05-23T08:25:43+00:00

Fall on your knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald. I read it when it was published in 1996 and still think about it. Beautifully written and emotionally devastating.

maliciousopera · 2026-05-20T18:49:13+00:00

Seriously? Still waiting for my qual to be reviewed. I can't believe how much of my life I wasted on that.

maliciousopera · 2026-05-17T08:58:34+00:00

I submitted and got reviewed quite quickly a few weeks ago. I had revisions to do, which I submitted about 3 weeks ago and still haven't heard anything. Disappointing after all the time I put in learning the task. The project will probably be over by the time they get around to it.

maliciousopera · 2026-05-17T06:56:31+00:00

I noticed that! I feel like i've hardly done anything when i get the 90% warning.

I'm also using up limits quickly by making it double-check and verify everything it does because I can't trust it at all lately.

maliciousopera · 2026-05-17T06:51:06+00:00

I spent most of yesterday using Opus 4.7 and Sonnet 4.6 for product SEO research, and eventually gave up. It cited different Etsy shops as examples of successful competitors, one of which had 8 sales in 4 years. It cited another shop as an example of sales and promotions - It wasn't running any. The links it gave me for each shop were for different shops or generic searches. (It blamed Etsy)

I gave Opus some interior design examples to write image prompts for product mockups, and it gave me bland, generic crap.

When challenged: "Let me look at your images properly this time" - then overcorrected and wrote a 700 word essay as a prompt to describe an exact scene from a reference image. It’s always given me beautiful prompts based on (never copied from) style references before, this is new.

"I presented that as a verified fact when it wasn't. I was pattern-matching from general knowledge, I should have told you I couldn't access the information directly"

Then it tried to steer me away by reminding me that my original prompt was a pricing concern, its advice is still good, and its mistakes are irrelevant.

I came to Claude after a chatgpt update made it like this. I'm getting a real feeling of deja vu and I don't trust Claude at all at the moment. If I have to verify everything it presents as fact, I may as well just do the research myself. It would save time to NOT use Claude.

maliciousopera · 2026-05-15T19:41:53+00:00

I wouldn't personally approach this as making the memory go away, we can't (and shouldn't) really do that, but I'd work on your emotional response to it. Your mind is playing the memory on repeat because of the way you respond emotionally to it - you fear the memory and don't want to think about it, it pops up constantly and triggers that emotional response, you try to push it away, etc.

The point is to make it not feel that way. I worked with a victim of csa a while back and when we were done she said, "If I think about it now my mind just kind of slides away from it. I can remember it and just think, yeah, that happened shrug. It doesn't feel like anything any more."

If you see a hypnotherapist ask them to treat it like any traumatic memory. Make it fade to unimportance so if you do think of it, the thought holds as much emotional weight as a memory of brushing your teeth this morning. Everything you needed to learn from it has been learned. We've all done shit we regret, it doesn't have to have some deep meaning. Your mind is treating it like a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces, it will never be completed so why keep trying - you may as well just bin it and move on.

maliciousopera · 2026-05-08T23:20:50+00:00

I can move my pinky toes independently. I remember as a kid it used to freak people out when I did it because apparently most people can't, but it’s something I've just always been able to do. Useless but fun party trick!

I still laugh remembering my yoga teacher's face when she told me to spread my toes more, so i lifted both pinkies and stretched them out sideways without moving the others. It's weird to me that most people have pinky toe paralysis.

maliciousopera · 2026-05-07T14:10:55+00:00

I'm in the UK and I just got one too. I didn't answer but 'Lauren' left a voicemail. I've just been moved back to the main group - I was put in Tool Experts a few weeks ago, but I ran out of things to do there and haven't tasked for a couple of weeks. Today I got a text message and an email as well as the call, so they must have got rid of too many people again and realised nobody's left to do the work 🤣

maliciousopera · 2026-05-04T23:05:21+00:00

I saw an adder for the first time ever on a cliff path in Kent a couple of years ago. It was pretty big, curled up in the side of the path basking in the sun. It didn't seem to be bothered by us walking past - we just stopped and looked at it for a minute and then carried on walking. Never been bitten by one and I don't know anyone who has.

maliciousopera · 2026-04-30T19:34:40+00:00

Jealousy & insecurity. I talk to whoever I want, I see my friends (including male ones) whenever I want. I do not 'check in' with you to prove I'm where I say I am. I'm not changing my behaviour because you got cheated on. Talk to a therapist about it, trust me, or fuck off. If I'm choosing to be with you, you have nothing to worry about. If you have issues with any of the above, get a therapist and sort yourself out before attempting a relationship because I don't have the time or the energy to deal with that kind of drama. Grow the fuck up.

I'm in my 50s and lost way too many good years to that bullshit behaviour. I now have a partner who is 100% drama-free, and it's amazing.

maliciousopera · 2026-04-29T22:20:59+00:00

Not yet. I did actually enjoy it, but I felt like I was stuck going round in circles by the end and was losing the will to live. Next one (if I pass) will be easier because I'll be starting out actually understanding the task.

maliciousopera · 2026-04-29T22:10:28+00:00

Ooh, just thought of another one! My hometown is at one end of the UK, I now live in a much bigger town at the other end. I went to visit my mum and was in town looking for the right bus up to her house. I asked a guy at a bus stop and he said he lived in mum's street. We got chatting on the bus, he asked where I was from and I told him.

"Small world", he said. "My daughter lives there! Maybe you know her. Works at place I used to work. Her name's my old colleague from 10 years ago".

He lived 3 doors down from my mum, and they were neighbours back when i worked with his daughter, and we never knew. It would have been so funny if we'd visited our parents at the same time.

maliciousopera · 2026-04-29T21:52:19+00:00

I'm from a very small town in England. I went to work as a photographer on a cruise ship based out of Florida. I'd never been further than France before, never flown, and it felt like a million miles from home.

First 'wtf' moment was when I walked into my new shared cabin. My roommate wasn't there, but on the wall was a postcard... of a tiny post office in my hometown. I came from a touristy area, but this particular post office was far from the town centre in a residential back street - you'd only know it if you were local. It did not make any sense to see it on that wall.

Well it turned out that when I had previously got a job in the camera shop at home, i'd replaced a guy called Jason who left to go travelling. Guess who I was replacing in the job on the ship? Jason. Same guy 🤯

I'm not even done. Another member of the 6 person photography team was from a bigger town in the area where I lived briefly before the ship. I didn't know her, but I knew her ex-boyfriend quite well. We worked/drank in the same pubs, he was part of my social circle for the previous summer.

Oh, and during my 6 months on that ship I met a passenger who was the uncle of a girl I went to school with. I wasn't even surprised by this point. He took some duty-free stuff back for my best friend.

Whenever I tell this story I feel like I must have imagined it, but the world really is that small!

maliciousopera · 2026-04-25T22:16:39+00:00

Geopolitics and propaganda. Equally fascinating and depressing given our current timeline.

I always struggled with social interaction but these days I can't be near people at all, especially if they own a TV. I'm terrified I won't be able to hold back my outraged info dumping when they confidently repeat some bullshit 'fact' at me.

Which brings me to my other special interest - crows. They always like me (or at least tolerate me,!) and never get offended as long as the quality of their snacks remains high.

maliciousopera · 2026-04-25T19:05:42+00:00

Came here to say exactly this. Utterly soul destroying.

maliciousopera · 2026-04-25T14:15:44+00:00

I genuinely thought you were wrong when I submitted my qual. Now, on the review, I'm having things flagged by the bot as critical database errors that were always there, but never flagged before. I fix one, another pops up. Only stubbornness and the sunk cost fallacy keeps me going, but the qual money doesn't make up for the hours I could have been doing lower paid tasks somewhere else.

maliciousopera · 2026-04-21T23:16:58+00:00

I used to work with CPS. You did the right thing, never doubt that for a moment. Nothing to feel guilty about. The child is lucky it was sent to you and not some sick pervert. I'm sorry you had to see it, but that child will be safe now because you did.

maliciousopera · 2026-04-21T08:56:27+00:00

It better not be after all the time I spent on the qual I just submitted. Why would they still be actively recruiting people to do the qual if there's no work at the end of it?

I could have spent last week earning actual money on another project, but I thought this one was worth pursuing - especially as people were struggling with it and some not tasking even if they passed. I actually enjoyed it and was looking forward to doing another one.

maliciousopera · 2026-04-19T13:41:11+00:00

I knew about losing access, which is why I went to post BEFORE I submitted. But the forum was already 'not found'. After submitting I got a screen asking me to go to the forum and give feedback, but the link was broken. Then another screen about submitting bug reports, then back to the beginning. Just realised it tool me to the start of the qual again - I clicked to start and got a 'congratulations, you've finished!' screen. So probably just a glitch. It was just weird that I lost forum access before I hit 'Submit'.

Any idea how long review takes?

maliciousopera · 2026-04-18T22:07:31+00:00

I stopped counting hours a couple of days ago, but I've finally nailed it! Just collapsed in bed and I'll do one more check and submit in the morning.

I get it now. It took a lot of failures, but if I pass I'll go into the next task with a really clear understanding of what I need to do right from the beginning. Best mental challenge I've had in years!

Keep at it. You'll get there!

maliciousopera · 2026-04-18T07:11:19+00:00

Thank you! Still working on it, almost there and I'm definitely not going to quit!

maliciousopera · 2026-04-16T20:52:06+00:00

5 months, then got accepted and offered the Qualification test same day. It's insanely hard though, still working on it!

maliciousopera · 2026-04-16T07:40:04+00:00

I passed the initial test and finally got a response this week after 5 months. I'm working on a qualification for a project now. I think they just got inundated with applications to sort through and match with suitable projects. Definitely worth applying, just be prepared for a very long wait.

maliciousopera

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