One of Sir Issac Newton’s famous phrases is

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants”

This sounds very nobal and humbling. However, its meaning totally changes with a few facts. It was written in an open letter to Robert Hooke. Hooke was apparently quite short, and EXTREMELY sensitive about this. Newton was basically dissing Hooke. Nobody will be standing on your shoulders, shortie!

Interestingly, electron flow is only a few mm/minute, on average. The field propagation travels at around 2/3 the speed of light (200,000,000m/s).

Wasn’t he also on death row? He was offered a pardon, if he survived.

It’s fascinating the stages children through in drawing. It says a lot about how the young mind develops. The “head with arms and legs” stage seems universal, and amusing.

The fact they passed on legit information on d day, is still mind blowing. They relied on delays on the German side to make the information out of date by the time it would arrive. The German radio operator not being on station to receive it just made it funnier.

Life will almost certainly be fairly common, given the right conditions. On earth, it seems to have appeared not long after conditions made it possible. We either won the lottery on the first week, or the odds aren’t actually that bad.

The problem is, we can’t detect life right now. We can only see potential communicating civilisations. These are a lot rarer. We currently know of 1, humanity. That will change in the next few years. We have telescopes being designed/built capable of detecting the gasses in the atmosphere of an earth sized planet. While we won’t recognise all life types this way, a lot will show up in abnormal gasses, e.g. free oxygen. This should help bound the possibilities a lot.

Even more so, the moon is slowly moving away from the earth. A couple of million years ago, it would have completely covered the sun. In a couple of million years, it will not fully cover the disc.

A million years is a long time for humanity, but a blink on the timescale of moons and stars. We didn’t just luck out with the moon’s large size, but also with the timing of our evolution.

I don’t think there is a single filter. My personal gut feeling however is that the jump to “specialised generalists” would be a major hurdle.

Early human civilizations are very prone to collapsing. A few bad years of rain, or an unexpected change of temperature would effectively destroy them. Making the jump from nomadic tribal to a civilisation capable of supporting the specialists needed for technology is apparently extremely fragile.

Earth also has an interesting curiosity. Our moon is extremely large, compared to earth. It also acts as a gyroscopic stabiliser. This keeps the earth from wobbling on its axis. Such a wobble would be devastating for a civilisation making the jump to technological. Even on earth, we are in a period of abnormal stability.

I suspect a good number of civilizations bottleneck at this jump. They might be capable of making the shift, but get knocked back down each time it starts to happen.

All the fun, none of the long term responsibilities!

I’m a parent, and we made the conscious decision to become parents. That said, I can fully understand people who don’t want to have that responsibility. It can be exhausting and thankless, changing almost everything with your life, hobbies and habits.

On the other side of the coin, the depth of love you feel as a parent is impossible to describe. With that comes a set of incredible feelings, watching your children experience, learn and grow.

Basically, parenthood is almost completely thankless, but I wouldn’t give it up for the world.

The key point is that LLMs don’t process information, as we see it. The knowledge they have is predigested, and embedded into the text they were trained on.

Don’t get me wrong, they are a big step towards a true AI, but they cannot do some things that seem fundamental to intelligence. The best analogy is that they are a lobotomized speech centre. They can put on a veneer of being intelligent and self aware, but it’s a veneer.

I personally suspect they will be a critical component to a future AI, but are a dead end path on their own.

They generally stop being toddlers when they come out of nappies, and can walk properly.

A 5 year old is over 25% of the way to being an adult!

Nothing is destined, the past is fixed, the present is happening, but the future is still ours to define.

Don’t get me wrong, it fucking hard to even start clawing your way out. Even worse, you won’t see any benefits at first. Even just taking the first steps seem terrifying and hopeless.

I’ve been in that hole, I still have that voice in the back of my head. There are 2 ways out, only 1 offers the possibility of happy moments.

I personally decided (eventually) to say fuck it, and plough forward till I made it or it killed me. I had to go way past where I thought my limits were. But the voice was wrong, I was (and am) far more capable than it told me.

If you want some advice on mental control techniques, I’ve a few that might help. I’d be happy to share if you want.

That’s your choice. Just don’t expect others to change your life for you.

And if it helps. I went through that cycle more than a few times. Put effort in, get nothing back then give up, and slip further. Even now, it’s a constant battle. I know where I will end up if I falter however, so I keep my foundations strong, even when the depression tells me it’s not worth the effort. Those anchors make it possible to pull myself back out of that pit of despair.

Oh, and yes the initial climb out is exhausting, rewardless and terrifying. I fully understand why you don’t want to try again. I’m just saying that the climb isn’t infinite, and there’s firm footing further up.

It sounds like you have depression messing with your mind. I empathize a lot, since I’ve been in that place.

The thing I will say is that most of the problems looming over you are paper tigers. They have far less substance than your mind is telling you they have.

Unfortunately, the lesson I learnt was that no-one will actually help you. People will make a lot of nice noises, and will even accommodate you, but they won’t help. That needs to come from you. Don’t get me wrong, it’s terrifying, but it’s like neo taking the red pill. It’s not that he’s not scared, but that he knows the other option is not where he wants to be.

Up until now, I’ve just been making nice noises, so onwards to some practical advice.

Appearance.

You mentioned you are a bit of a lock in. Often you can get your appearance slip, don’t let it. It can be as simple as keeping personal hygiene sorted, and wearing “smart” clothes when you go out. They don’t need to be expensive, just look nice. For men, a button up shirt and some chinos can make a huge difference to how others react to you.

Socialising

As painful as it is, social skills are a necessary tool of life. They also go rusty VERY quickly. This leads to a feedback loop that leaves socialising as a terrifying idea. Your goal should be to have a short conversation with a “stranger” every day. This could be as simple as asking a cashier how their day is going, or asking for directions from someone out and about.

At this point you’re probably mentally whimpering “I can’t do THAT!”. You actually can, and most people will actually respond positively. The part of your mind saying you can’t is the problematic part. Recognise that it is trying to help, but that its advice is bullshit.

Anchoring

The above is the most basic stuff you should be aiming for. The most important thing however is to establish mental anchors. Think of them like the bolts climbers use for their ropes. Reaching them is hard, but once they are embedded, recovering from a fall gets a lot easier. You also preferably want several anchors. Sometimes they fail, it happens. If you only have one, that can cause problems, but if you have several, repairing the lost one becomes a minor annoyance.

A good anchor is a commitment you can lean on and say “that’s a positive thing for me” even when you really don’t feel it. Groups, or periodic events work best. Meet-up is a good resource for finding things and ideas. Some more ideas below.

Gym - a regular fitness regime does wonders for your mind. It also gives organic opportunities to talk to people.

Sports - often cheaper than the gym, find a regular sport meetup and go along. Don’t worry about being completely rubbish at the start. Most people respect effort, and you will see the payoffs quite quickly.

Martial arts - similar to the above, but a bit more formalised.

Dungeons and dragons - one of the classic “weirdos unite!” socialising methods. If you’re polite, and followed the hygiene advice earlier, you’ll find most groups extremely accepting.

Makerspaces - if you’re engineering/creative then these make excellent opportunities to socialise. I actually ended up establishing one. It turned out I wasn’t the only weirdo in the area who wanted somewhere to socialise on our terms.

The pub - a classic, but often doesn’t fit a lot of people’s mindset.

Cinema groups - cinema has gotten a bit expensive now, but once you have a job again they can be a good social event. You get to hang out with a group for a while, without needing to talk much. Once the film is over, you have an automatic topic of conversation.

I’ll leave things there. Just remember, that voice in your head means well, but is lying to you. The looming monsters are paper thin, but only you can punch through them.

That is definitely still a premium power bank feature. I’ve got a few newer ones that have full pd capability etc and they still don’t do both.

Lithium ion are fine in a UPS capability, they just need to be treated right. What most do is pass through to a boost buck converter. The external power passes through via a diode. When the external drops, the battery takes over instantly. Critically, when powered, the li ion is effectively disconnected.

Raspberry Pis often require this capability, so most usb UPS units mention raspberry pi, making it a useful search finder.

Most power banks can either provide power, or be charged, not both.

They actually make what you want however, you can get usb UPS modules. They are intended for raspberry pi power, but just present a usb socket. They hot switch between external usb and internal batteries, as required.

I have ADHD myself, so my EF is screwed. I actually use audio books to keep my brain from stressing while doing dull tasks.

It very much depends on the task. So long as the tasks don’t overlap, in cognitive requirements, you’re fine. E.g. you can listen to a podcast, while washing up. As soon as the requirements overlap, then your point holds. E.g. I personally can’t write anything down, while listening to an audiobook. The resource requirements overlap.

It’s also worth noting that different people can do the same task with different parts of the brain. E.g. accurate timekeeping. Some people do it visually, others audibly etc.

That’s the one. I’m involved in a UK based shed. Our makerspace is technically part of it.