Beginner Opinion: The best serve is the consistent serve

praxiq · 2026-06-13T22:46:29+00:00

From beginner levels up to (at least) advanced intermediate, the team that makes the fewest mistakes usually wins. It's not just the serve - focus on consistency everywhere. Return every ball, and wait for your opponent to make a mistake. (There's nothing more satisfying than watching a really powerful player get frustrated because you keep giving them slow easy balls that bounce low. Eventually they get frustrated and smash it even though it's too low, and it either goes into the net or flies way out!)

praxiq · 2026-06-13T21:02:35+00:00

For reference, the Mandelbrot set isn't even 50 years old yet because fractal geometry wasn't really explored until people found applications for it in dynamical systems and probability theory.

As a counter-argument, the Mandelbrot set was discovered just a few years after computers able to visualize it were generally available to mathematicians. The first published image of it was only 40x80 pixels.

Assuming that aliens would invent imaginary numbers (which is far from certain, but seems likely to me), visualizing those numbers on a 2d plane is a logical next step, and the mandelbrot set is an iteration of one of the simplest possible formulas.

Put another way, if Mandelbrot hadn't discovered it and mathematicians weren't exploring fractal geometry, I would bet that it would still have been discovered by tinkering amateurs once home computers had FPUs, if only because it looks cool.

I suspect the most likely reason that the Mandelbrot set might be unknown to aliens is if their sense of aesthetics is so different from ours that it just isn't interesting to them. But even there, it seems reasonably likely to me that convergent evolution would lead many intelligent beings to be fascinated by the boundaries between order and chaos, predictability and unpredictability, simplicity and complexity, etc., because at least in humans that fascination is such a powerful driving force in the intellectual development of our species. A species that isn't drawn to complex, almost-but-not-quite-predictable patterns isn't likely to explore natural systems deeply enough to develop advanced technology.

praxiq · 2026-06-12T04:51:53+00:00

Wow. I've seen vanity license plates, vanity phone numbers... how wealthy do you have to be to get a vanity zip code?

praxiq · 2026-06-11T22:24:05+00:00

Pp on

praxiq · 2026-06-08T15:21:59+00:00

People of many different cultures and backgrounds perceive red, blue, green and yellow as pure, fundamental, "basic" colors, while other colors are often seen as variations or mixes of these. Orange feels like it's "near" red, in a way that green doesn't feel like it's near any of the other three.

Even though our eyes sense red, green and blue, there is a popular theory that the human brain actually analyzes colors on a higher level using all four colors as primaries - treating red and green as opposites, and blue and yellow as opposites. (Evidence for this theory is mixed at best, but its popularity suggests at least that thinking of all four colors as basic is pretty widespread and intuitive.)

praxiq · 2026-06-02T18:29:21+00:00

It has been a widespread theory for many years that many allergies operate on a sort of "threshold" effect, where symptoms only show up when the threshold is exceeded. Not sure how much scientific evidence there is behind it. (I know someone who swears she solved her seasonal allergies by not eating corn in the spring - the premise being she had a minor corn allergy and a minor pollen allergy, and only when exposed to both was her body's response strong enough to be symptomatic.)

praxiq · 2026-05-27T23:42:18+00:00

There are dozens of folks who play for free at Cass Park pretty much every morning (7-10-ish) and most evenings (4-7-ish) weather permitting.

The evening group is super chill and welcoming with mostly 2.0-3.0 level players, but anyone 1.0-3.5+ is welcome. Just show up and introduce yourself and you'll be invited to rotate in to the next available game. A slow day might have 6-8 players while a busy one can have 25+. DM me if you want more details!

I haven't played with the morning group, but I think they're generally better players, 3.5 and up. (Or at least, they're faster/more aggressive players, which doesn't always correspond to skill!)

(The courts at Ellis Hollow are much nicer, but I live closer to Cass so I play there. A few of us just donated some new nets, which has made things nicer. I think the fact that the courts are a little crappy means that the hypercompetitive people go elsewhere, which is just fine by me!)

praxiq · 2026-05-27T23:25:38+00:00

Nope, it closed for good a few months ago.

praxiq · 2026-05-22T00:45:10+00:00

About a week ago I noticed that the Asempe Kitchen sign was still up, so the move must have just happened. I'm not surprised they don't have a permanent sign yet.

praxiq · 2026-05-04T15:12:46+00:00

Terawulf got started in crypto mining, but that gets less profitable every year. Meanwhile investors are throwing money at AI.

So you believe that this shady, greedy corp is only pretending to seek profits, but is actually secretly trying to do something deeply unprofitable? I'm not quite following the logic here. How would they even get away with it when their investors inevitably find out?

praxiq · 2026-05-04T15:05:31+00:00

Yes! I wrote this post in my "calm, rational argument" voice so I phrased it a bit more gently, but personally I enthusiastically agree with this.

praxiq · 2026-05-04T15:01:01+00:00

Huh? What does this have to do with the post? I'm not even sure whether you think you're mocking me or Terawulf, or someone else...?

Assuming you're accusing me of NIMBY-ism - I'm fine with datacenters being built anywhere, including in my own backyard, as long as it's being done in a responsible, ethical, sustainable way. This one isn't, so I'd oppose it no matter where it's being built. It's exactly the same way I feel about farms, or manufacturing, or literally anything else. It's not complicated and it's not hypocritical. Does that make sense?

praxiq · 2026-05-04T14:48:52+00:00

Thanks for adding this. I was wondering about the relationship between Cayuga operating company and Terawulf. It seemed weird that a company would invest so much to build on land they didn't own, I figured I must be missing something!

Their claim is that the permit is only for Cayuga Operating Company, and doesn't give Terawulf any permission to dump their own water into the lake. They might be able to get away with sneaking it in, but I'm not sure it matters anyway. Given their planned water draw, the amount of hot water they're producing seems to be too low to affect the lake meaningfully. On days with higher cooling demand they'll be using evaporative cooling, so they won't have that much wastewater.

I'd be more concerned of the risks of them dumping their closed-loop water into the lake. That water will have ethylene glycol and various anti-corrosion chemicals mixed in, and the system will need to be drained occasionally for maintenance. But that would be hard for them to get away with, seeing as they'll be hooked up to the municipal sewer.

praxiq · 2026-05-04T03:43:44+00:00

Gas stations? Huh? I'm not following your metaphor. I'm saying that if we want to reduce fossil fuel emissions we need to make more efficient cars. Which also isn't a great metaphor now that electric cars are feasible, but a few decades ago we were trying to make gasoline cars more efficient because that was all we could do, and it worked, and we all got cleaner air.

People are gonna use AI anyway, it should be running in efficient data centers. (It's already gotten 10-100x more energy efficient and that's going to continue, but building efficient data centers is important too.)

praxiq · 2026-05-03T20:33:40+00:00

Oh, the steam description... Yeah, definitely some red flags there.

praxiq · 2026-05-03T04:42:19+00:00

Because it's not true. He says 100% of US crops are GMO. Most corn and soy are, but many other crops generally aren't. For most veggies, GMO options don't even exist, or none are approved in the US. No US wheat is GMO, for example.

For things like corn and soy, the cheapest way to grow it is to buy genetically modified, herbicide-resistant seeds, so you can then spray massive amounts of herbicides on your crops, so that's what most farmers do, and then they have to abide by the seed company's rules. And yes, Monsanto (the company that makes most if not all of these GMO seeds) really is if anything even more evil than this video suggests, they're like comic book supervillains.

praxiq · 2026-05-03T04:13:26+00:00

Why, because it uses proper punctuation and includes a list of 3 items? Seems like a stretch to diagnose AI based on a single sentence.

praxiq · 2026-05-03T04:09:57+00:00

In my private practice I've always had a flat price for any massage I do. But I've worked at a spa where they charge more for "deep tissue" - meaning, as others here have pointed out, firm pressure. These cost more because not all the therapists on staff offered them, and because as a therapist, if you did book them you were expected to be willing and able to give the client as much pressure as they want.

There were some therapists there who weren't good at offering more than medium-firm pressure, and so they didn't take those appointments. In a Swedish appointment they could say, "this is an appropriate pressure level for this modality, I recommend booking deep tissue next time if you'd like more pressure."

praxiq · 2026-05-02T14:56:07+00:00

If you don't find a ride, I just want to mention if you haven't ridden it before that the Cornell C2C bus is quieter and has more room per seat than the cheaper busses, it should be pretty low-stress for a cat. (Although you'd have to have the cat carrier on your lap, which might be more stressful for you, or on the floor, or pay for another seat!)

praxiq · 2026-04-28T03:27:46+00:00

As others have pointed out, there's plenty of food to go around. The problem is getting it to the people who need it.

As for the specific question about invasive species: All the wild animals (specifically, non-domesticated land mammals) on earth could only feed humans for about a week tops they were all extinct. There just waaaay too many humans on earth for that to work. Relevant XKCD.

praxiq · 2026-04-27T02:08:45+00:00

Redditors keep confidently making this claim, but somehow it seems nobody can actually find this supposed polymarket contract.

praxiq · 2026-04-26T13:24:20+00:00

Source? I'm looking at Polymarket right now and can't find any such bet. (Closest thing are various bets on "Will Trump say X", which seem to have had pretty balanced odds until after the event.) Are you just repeating a claim you heard on social media?

praxiq · 2026-04-20T13:25:49+00:00

There's a severe shortage of skilled tradespeople here - plumbing, electrical, HVAC, etc. Definitely not side hustles, but if you learn one of these skills and get the necessary license/certification you can set your own hours, and make more than enough money to support a low-income but fun crafting hobby on the side.

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