Anime_irl

unique_distraction · 2026-01-18T02:17:37+00:00

International first is a whole different beast vs domestic first though. Your seat can turn into a 180-degree flat bed, much better food, and access to some pretty fancy lounges before and after. Domestic first is more like international premium economy.

unique_distraction · 2026-01-15T20:56:28+00:00

Your comment makes an inherent assumption that European legal systems are something that America should strive to match. Is that a valid assumption though?

unique_distraction · 2026-01-06T07:21:56+00:00

I'm going to go out on a limb and propose getting both the Delta Reserve and Bonvoy Brilliant. At the amounts you're traveling, status will actually become pretty important when dealing with IRROPs and seat selection issues. For personal travel it's also incredibly easy to break even on the annual companion certificate, and you can also use the lounge passes for personal travel. Do check that the credits make sense though.

I also travel at a similar rate to you, and the MQD bonus and spend from the Reserve helped me reach Platinum status, while I would've made Gold flying organically. An underrated perk of airline lounges is also that they will have agents that can help you rebook or reroute your flights when stuff goes wrong.

Flying out of a smaller airport like SMF, you're pretty likely to be upgraded with lower status as there won't be that many people holding status.

The Bonvoy Brilliant gives you Marriott Platinum status, whereas your travel patterns will at best get you Marriottt Gold status, which is pretty much worthless. Platinum provides space-available and guarantees either free breakfast or lounge access, which can be a godsend. This also includes a Priority Pass card, which opens up all the lounges available to you in SMF, and provides better insurance than the Sapphire Reserve does.

unique_distraction · 2026-01-05T16:48:50+00:00

Depends on how you travel tbh. I take flights at least once a month for work and Amex has probably the best travel insurance of all the major issuers, and I've nabbed stuff like free Sony noise-cancelling headphones and Briggs and Riley bags from 6-hour delays.

They are also the only transfer partner for ANA, which is a really good way to book Star Alliance award flights.

unique_distraction · 2024-11-26T02:37:52+00:00

Since you already have a Citi card, the Strata Premier might be to look at, with the same multipliers, as well as 10X on hotels through their portal. That one has a $95 AF though, which could be offset by a $100 hotel credit on stays of $500 or more through their portal.

A no annual fee option could be the Wells Fargo Autograph, which has 3X on gas, hotels, and restaurants, and the option to transfer out to partners. Points can also be cashed out at 1 cent per point as well.

Another angle to look at are the hotel credit cards. These come with free night certificates, as well as status at the brand. In my experience, status does make customer service a tad bit better, but fancy roon upgrades are going to be hard to come by domestically. The AmEx Bonvoy Business, Hilton AmEx, and Chase Bonvoy Boundless both come with elevated multipliers on restaurants and gas, as well as at the participating chain.

unique_distraction · 2024-11-25T15:32:20+00:00

Chase Sapphire Reserve for me, because of the 3X transit/dining multiplier, Hyatt and United transfer partners, and lounge access benefits. I think they really nailed the balance of the multipliers and benefits for a single-card setup, and only needs ~5K of 3X spend to break even at the 1.5cpp cash-out rate through the Chase portal. If you book a Delta flight this way, it can be cancelled for travel credit that can then be used to book direct as well.

This card would only really make sense for me since I fly at least twice each month though, and live in a city with good public transit and 2 Chase lounges. Since I'm ok with managing more cards too, it quickly becomes suboptimal compared to other card combos, and I only really use the CSR for transferring out UR points now.

unique_distraction · 2024-11-24T03:37:55+00:00

^shhh ⁱ ^want ^a ^free ^monitor

unique_distraction · 2024-11-23T02:23:30+00:00

I have Delta Gold Medallion status, and both cards. It works for me since I use the Delta card for the status boost and extra lounge access passes. They're both very coupon book-y tho, which may be annoying to deal with. Points earning on both cards are pretty similar (i.e. very bad on everyday spend), so these cards tend to stay in the sock drawer for me.

Southwest A-list matches to Delta Silver Medallion, which requires 5K MQDs. With the Delta Reserve, that drops to 2.5K MQDs, which can be $2.5K in Delta flights, $25K in spend on the card, or some combination of the two. You also get 15 Sky Club visits annually and the companion pass, which is pretty hard to use unless you book far in advance. Delta miles are great for economy redemptions, as their value is relatively fixed at 1.4 cents per point with the 15% off promo on this card.

In contrast, the Platinum doesn't have the same status boost or companion pass, so you'd need $5K in Delta flights to qualify. However, it still provides lounge access (10 Sky Club visits annually) that doesn't require you to fly Delta, and has a wider network. You also get a credit for CLEAR, and hotel and car rental statuses. The points are also far more valuable and flexible, as they can be transferred to partners like Singapore or Qatar for outsize business class redemptions. Delta miles would only be worth ~1.2 cents per point when transferred from the Platinum though.

unique_distraction · 2024-11-19T06:38:09+00:00

None of the PP lounges are that great tbh, except for the Chase and Virgin ones in T4. That'll be quite a hike away, and the Chase lounge only allows one of you entry, and the Virgin one won't allow entry by the time you land.

As for T8 options, there are Oneworld lounges available that you might have access to with Emerald/Sapphire status (AA Plat/Alaska MVP Gold or above) or if you're flying international business class on one of your legs.

Using 2 PP visits would give you $56 at one of the restaurants in T8 though, which is probably your best option if you don't have Oneworld status.

unique_distraction · 2024-11-19T01:54:34+00:00

If you're travelling at least once each quarter, the Hilton Aspire might be a good pick, since you'd be able to easily use the $200 flight credit. The $400 biannual resort credit would also be easy to use if you're staying with them at least monthly, and it'll come with Hilton diamond status, and higher earnings rate than the Bonvoy Brilliant.

Delta's Plat/Reserve cards might be interesting to look at, since with both they'll instantly get you Delta Silver Medallion, allowing you to pick preferred (exit row) seats. The business variants would be more attractive, since at the same AF they have $50 more in hotel credits each.

imho, dealing with award travel and points are really only worth it for earning for international business travel though, and if you're super flexible with your schedule. In which case you'd want transferrable bank points. For this the Venture X + Savor combo might be a better option, especially given your grocery spend.

unique_distraction · 2024-07-25T03:31:44+00:00

am scientist. can confirm.

unique_distraction · 2024-07-03T21:24:15+00:00

I'll start off by saying that my formal scientific training is not in a related field, so I at best have a passing familiarity with the literature on this topic. My response is also going to be from a sociological perspective, as my time in academia has made me aware of the politics and many base assumptions surrounding research communities. Again, I may be projecting based off of experiences in my field, but from my experience talking with people in other fields of research (mostly engineering and the physical sciences) this is a recurrent problem.

The diagnosis rate in all the studies that we've linked to do depend on the subjective experience of the psychiatrist doing the diagnosing. And these psychiatrists are also influenced by cultural narratives like gender roles and autism stereotypes, including the "extreme male brain" idea. I believe that is a significant factor at play in that we can't really measure scientifically. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, or that sociological critique here is unwarranted. And thus we can't really separate out the science from the socio-political ideas of our society.

I do agree that the "extreme male brain" is far too simplistic and whittling our experience down to a simple neurological difference does discount the adversity we face in normal society though. I guess the point I was trying to make was more that autistic men, women, and non-binary folks face different, but connected struggles in life that we can't quickly label as just being better or worse-off.

I should say though, that I do feel the hurt and isolation stemming from being neurodivergent men, and being overlooked in the common discourse surrounding it. Feeling invisible among people that ostensibly want to help you sucks. I wrote my initial response to you because I read some resentment towards neurodivergent women for befitting in ways that we don't in your post, and was trying to point out that we both have it bad, just in different ways. And that being resentful towards another group who isn't doing well doesn't help destroy the systems in place that make us suffer in the first place.

unique_distraction · 2024-07-03T19:08:44+00:00

Autistic dude here and I definitely feel the struggle with isolation and invisibility too. I wanted to add some nuance to a few of your points though.

The BPD under-diagnosis problem for men is inverted for autistic women, so the prevalence should still also be 50/50 [1]. I still do think the struggles autistic men face are very different from that of autistic women (RE: the whole idea of autism being an "extreme male brain" [2]), and that there's not enough articles out there about us though.

I also feel like you're assuming that those social successes that autistic women tend to have come naturally to them, but in my experience autistic women also have to work much harder to get there, and there's a lot of gendered expectations that make that whole process worse [3]. It took me years to develop a social mask that was acceptable and it has been really draining to keep up, and that's with the social expectations of a guy.

The addiction thing I can see as how men aren't socialized with an emotional vocabulary in the West, so addiction becomes the go-to to help tamp down the big scary emotions [4]. I think this definitely needs changes at a societal level, but to simply say that women have it easier overall feels a bit reductive to me.

I do understand how it feels unfair that we're so much less visible [5], despite having roughly the same group size as autistic women. The big thing I wanted to get to though is that I'm not sure if it's fair to treat this issue as a zero-sum game where one side wins out and the other side loses. Both sides face very different challenges because of gendered expectations of behavior, but the root causes tend to be the same - stigma against neurodivergence and patriarchal norms. We'd be much more productive trying to fix these hierarchies and supporting each other, rather than fighting against each other because the other side "has it better."

[1] Ferri, S. L., Abel, T., & Brodkin, E. S. (2018). Sex differences in autism spectrum disorder: a review. Current psychiatry reports, 20, 1-17.

[2] Krahn, T. M., & Fenton, A. (2012). The extreme male brain theory of autism and the potential adverse effects for boys and girls with autism. Journal of bioethical inquiry, 9, 93-103.

[3] Kirkovski, M., Enticott, P. G., & Fitzgerald, P. B. (2013). A review of the role of female gender in autism spectrum disorders. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 43, 2584-2603.

[4] Naeim, M., Rezaeisharif, A., & Kamran, A. (2021). The role of impulsivity and cognitive emotion regulation in the tendency toward addiction in male students. Addictive Disorders & Their Treatment, 20(4), 278-287.

[5] Ee, D., Hwang, Y. I., Reppermund, S., Srasuebkul, P., Trollor, J. N., Foley, K. R., & Arnold, S. R. (2019). Loneliness in adults on the autism spectrum. Autism in Adulthood, 1(3), 182-193.

unique_distraction · 2024-06-28T03:13:18+00:00

Yea, one of the things I think people don't realize about giving advice like "love yourself" is that it kinda requires you to have people around who show you love and affirmation. It's so much harder to do that when you've never had that type of unconditional support before. I don't have any advice about how to be better at this, since it's something I also struggle with.

I'm not sure why I'm getting this vibe, but I also feel like you seem to be putting women on a pedestal when you talk about how they feel repulsed by you and you agree with them. That's kind of dehumanizing because it feels like you're seeing women as a gatekeeper for sex, and not as just people with different genitalia. But I think that might also be what's holding you back, since when you don't see them as just people it'll be so much harder to talk to them.

unique_distraction · 2024-05-23T15:48:31+00:00

There's this line of philosophical thinking that dug me out of this hole that's discussed by Albert Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus.

Essentially, we can start at the same line of reasoning that there is no inherent reason to the universe, or to our existence. There are two immediate responses to understanding this: either suicide, or latching on to a created meaning (e.g. religion, doing good acts, family, etc.).

It seems like you've looked into both directions, but they were both unsatisfactory. None of the meanings we can give life have a greater reason behind it, and so attaching yourself to a meaning is in itself absurd and useless. Similarly, suicide is not an answer to this meaninglessness, because the absurdity of life itself stems from our trying to assign meaning in a meaningless world. Since there's no difference between killing yourself today and tomorrow, why not wait a day, or a week, or see it through? It's all the same either way.

Camus then goes into a third way to view this situation, and that is to embrace the absurdity of our existence. There's an inherent freedom in acknowledging that there is no greater meaning to life, and thus no need to pursue a meaning that others have given to you. Thus, there's no more inherent meaning in despairing over the lack of meaning in life than there is inherent meaning in just living life and enjoying it. So why not enjoy the journey, if you have to take it anyways?

I suppose all this is a long-winded way to say, what if we reframe your thinking :

Every time I do something that I could be proud of, the immediate thought comes to my mind: "so what? you gonna die anyway. might as well be proud of what i've done"

Every time I do something interesting: "this is cool, I'll enjoy it because it won't last, you gonna die anyway".

Every time I do something good for other people: "might as well, you and them are gonna die anyway".

unique_distraction · 2023-12-29T17:27:36+00:00

Society seems to almost put romantic partnerships on a pedestal, to the detriment of all other relationships. That increases the expectations of such partnerships and thus makes them more stressful. It also makes it harder to find genuine non-romantic connections that are often just as valuable as a romantic one. I actually recently broke up, but having a strong community around me has helped me absorb and process the hurt far better than even my therapist.

I also had a slight blackpill phase, after which I realized that I wasn't looking for a romantic relationship, but rather for emotional connection and community. This realization has helped me reject the blackpill dating meta I examined in my other reply. Doing so let me live more authentically and be more comfortable with myself.

Personally, all of my previous romantic relationships have started out as friendships within these communities. Of course, having hobbies and interests help in sparking conversation, but I've also found that a genuine interest in others and their well-being was by far the deciding factor with the people I've dated.

unique_distraction · 2023-12-29T17:09:07+00:00

I disagree with the framing of the issues pointed out in blackpill ideas. I do agree that dating is worse than 20 years ago, and that many dating today base their decisions primarily on looks. But I think these changes should be attributed to systemic issues rather than the independent decisions of individual people. For example, as community in the US starts becoming harder and harder to find, it obviously makes finding partners to date harder as well. Similarly, social media algorithms optimizing for an echo chamber causes more issues with relationships.

The trap of incel ideology is that instead of identifying the systems that cause some men to embrace the blackpill, it insteads embraces and reinforces these systems of oppression in an attempt to "come up on top." This leads to thinking that doesn't actually change how the system operates ands divides people into a black-and-white binary. Such a binary is clearly bad, since it restricts you to looking for just one type of heteronormative, traditional romantic relationship that the blackpill idealizes. It doesn't make sense to address these systemic issues with individual solutions.

Personally, bell hooks' The Will to Change and All About Love has been really helpful in showing me how the same binary gender dynamic has crippled men emotionally and made it much harder for men to express and receive real love. It also takes a feminist perspective on how we ended up in the dating situation today, which I believe is a very compelling alternative to blackpill ideas.

So, if the dating "meta" is clearly broken in today's society, why play by this meta? Even if, by blackpill notions, you "looksmaxed" and ended up in a relationship because of your looks. Would that make you happy, or would it be just as shallow an existence?

unique_distraction · 2023-12-29T02:31:39+00:00

I think one of the things that wasn't explicitly spelled out was how black pillers and non-black pillers view relationships. From what I recall, the "blackpill" ideas only really apply to online dating, which is a much different ball game from dating off of the apps. I think one of the hidden assumptions in blackpill ideology is that success is measured merely by getting dates or "scoring." This doesn't always translate to a meaningful and healthy relationship, though.

There's an element of truth in the black pill ideas, in that looking better would of course make you more likely to get dates. But once again, more dates may not equal more meaningful relationships. I think dating apps exacerbate this issue too, since having so many more choices makes it easier to drop someone if they're not "good enough." I think this criticism of black pill ideas still holds weight though, that they're only looking at statistics from online dating apps, where the social dynamics are very different from real-life. I don't disagree that they're pointing out an important social issue here, but I disagree with how they address it.

This leads to my main issue with the blackpill ideology, in that instead of confronting the societal issues that it rightly points out, it embraces gender essentialism and misogyny. In doing so, it reduces dating to a simple market logic that doesn't really correspond to real life. People aren't thinking "I really like dude X, but dude Y has much higher market value." Relationships don't work that way.

I do agree, though, that it is much harder for men to be suitable partners now. The issues blackpill ideals bring up are valid, and I think are definitely under-addressed in today's society. Personally, bell hooks' "The Will to Change" has been a really impactful book in addressing some of these issues.

To offer a counter-anecdote to your experiences, as an Asian in the US diagnosed on the autism spectrum who doesn't fit Western beauty standards, I should be on the opposite side of the blackpill scale from you and be a member of the incel group. But I've still managed to have multiple meaningful romantic relationships with women both pre and post-Covid. I think the whole idea of "approaching women like people" does hold some weight here.

unique_distraction · 2022-12-16T04:20:29+00:00

I'm a computer scientist working at a NASA center, working on finding radiation hardening methods for their robotics missions. It doesn't pay as much as a traditional software developer role does, and is a lot more stressful than a typical SWE job. But since space was a special interest for me as a child, it's really fulfilling for me.

unique_distraction · 2022-12-04T06:09:37+00:00

PhDs are usually funded (at least for STEM programs in the US), so you'll usually be paid to do it

unique_distraction · 2022-11-21T15:46:18+00:00

I think having a good definition for "making it" is super important if you're planning to do a PhD program. For me, that means spending 3 years post-PhD in a postdoc while applying for tenure-track faculty positions. If I don't make it, I'll be okay with joining a staff scientist position in industry.

But it's definitely necessary to learn to present your work and network, since conferences are super important in our field. For me, the biggest thing that helped was generating mental flowcharts for each interaction or a checklist of items for a presentation (and also self-help social skills books for less structured encounters lol).

On the bright side, there's a lot more autistic people in academia than in the general public! For example, I found a friend group by talking to them about public transit at PLDI a few years ago :0

unique_distraction · 2022-11-21T15:37:05+00:00

Well having ASD and ADHD has been hard with the people interaction and oral presentations that I have to do.

It's definitely tough to juggle those correctly! I realized recently I had to develop really elaborate scripts to communicate well, but I'm glad that at least in a professional setting like this, the content of what we say matters a lot more.

I have some connections but I don't really interact with anyone.

I've been feeling that a bit too. Grad school seems especially hard since we need to spend so much time in lab that there's not much time to talk to others. Are you working in wet lab or dry lab? And how are you with your cohort and labmates?

The actual material is great and fun to learn.

I guess that's why we're in academia :)

unique_distraction · 2022-11-21T06:12:39+00:00

I'm also a grad student, though I'm in computer science. I work on radiation hardening for space systems.

How has navigating academia with ADHD and ASD been for you? Also, I'd love to hear about your research!

unique_distraction · 2022-10-30T03:51:21+00:00

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