I can’t abide by that last claim. AI has been able to fetch some dead Microsoft documentation for me that I was not able to otherwise find through the regular channels. The code would have had to have looked very differently if not for AI.
The idea of app timers seems like exactly the weird self-negotiation alcoholics do around booze where they think mimicking the habits of casual drinkers (on what is, to the casual, a bender) will make them not an alcoholic anymore.
Yes, normies might have three margaritas on a Tuesday. Like, once a quarter. Not every single day, and also not followed by a whole lot more once you’re loosened up.
Likewise, the reaction of a mentally stable person to TikTok is like the reaction of a normal person to a casino full of slot machines--discomfort and more than a little disgust. If you start wagging your tail to that shit, there is no safe level and you need to delete it all yesterday, app timers and clever little boxes are making you worse.
I invested in META stock because I have an addiction to instagram and the tracking is so good that the ads are actually tailored to me and my desires so my CTR is i think 7% on average. contrast with YouTube and Google and Twitter where I block all the ads because the CTR is 0.00% because they are all garbage. Instagram keeps showing me ads for expensive stuff I don't need but I do want, like meal kits and fancy clothes
I think I can obtain a triple benefit by using Cursor "ask" mode instead of "agent" mode.
1) I don't over-rely on the AI so I don't accidentally commit bugs
2) I can just put in a OpenAI API key pay-as-you-go instead of subscribing to Cursor Pro monthly and getting screwed by SaaS fee I don't use
3) I actually learn what the AI says and add it to my long-term memory instead of just having it write code for me in Agent mode
admittedly this only works for small tasks, for bigger edits I think trying to learn everything the AI says is not really scalable or at least it takes me much longer.
> Having your phone in the same room while doing cognitive work reliably drops your memory, attention, and overall cognitive performance.
That is my biggest problem with most Multifactor authentication. I try to leave my phone in another room to focus, but needing the phone authenticator for something always happens within two hours.
I still don't know why apps think a device I carry in the streets is safer than one I leave at home to do important transactions like moving money, for example. Where I live, there are a lot of cases of people being kidnapped and coerced to make payments (which are instant), yet no Banking app allows you to do anything without a phone.
Bitwarden has desktop apps.
And Vaultwarden hosts your own instance.
Also, Bitwarden has MFA.
But yes I agree, some have a specific kind of MFA, like Google. I hate Google's MFA. You have to get up and get your phone to press something.
I hate being forced to use the phone.
Funny how apple purposely breaks this for convenience. Some merchant or bank will try and implement 2 factor from a code they text you. Apple scans your messages in the background and prompts you to fill the code from one click all from this one “factor” thanks to the imessage/sms integration.
Even without Apple’s help, anytime I’m on my phone I get the 2FA code on the same device as I’m logging in on. It defeats the point. But also, I shouldn’t be required to have 2 devices just to login to a website.
I’ll be traveling later this year and I’m debating buying an iPad mini so I have a 2nd authenticated device that can do 2FA. I broke a phone on a trip once and happened to have an iPad with me. It was the only reason I was able to get my replacement phone setup. I’m not sure what I would have done without it. Print and carry around account recovery details that should likely be kept in a safe? That doesn’t sound great.
> Using ChatGPT on cognitive tasks can reduce your brain connectivity by up to 50% and reduce your ability to recall information about the task by 8x.
Argh people keep referencing this study as Gospel. It has not been peer-reviewed. Its methodology has a number of concerning confounders. It's a tiny sample with a narrow contrived task domain. And the very premise of the study is misframed. The implication that 'brain activity' is a positive outcome does not follow. Brain connectivity might be analagous to inefficiency as opposed to the reported 'engagement' or 'cognitive debt'.
The exact mechanisms will be individual to the person.
But the broad point is valid - distraction and subversion of attention is very high in today's society. Some people are overwhelmed and need to take steps.
Tik Tok is obvious brain rot, but what if one's time at the dopamine carnival is spent consuming "brain-growth" content? Phones essentially put all human knowledge at our fingertips, where is the line of diminishing or negative returns when trying to consume it?
Truthfully most online "content" is not growing your brain. It's not the right format for proper learning and retention. Most people using the internet aren't tapping the fountain of human knowledge, and even most of those that think they are, are not.
Quick fun facts on TikTok and Reddit, as well as quick searching and skimming of Google/ChatGPT/Wikipedia are only conducive to superficial learning, unless you are doing something more to wrap that knowledge around your brain (i.e. using it in work/a project, expanding the context in your mind by writing an essay, reading more of it).
This is very much the by-product of the times we live in. Less people are truly learning things, and instead we are learning how to find the information we need. We have things like the internet sitting there, so we take the path of least resistance and use them as and when we need them. It works fine until you don't have an internet connection.
> Developers actually take up to 19% longer when coding with AI than without it, but self-report that they were able to complete tasks 20% faster.
IF TRUE and taken at face value, surely it could have nothing to do with AI coding being so new everyone just figuring how to best use a new tool at all once.
No no, best to right out the gate compare the new tool to the decades old process.
The "surprising results" are a bit factoid-ey and if taken at face value are far more shocking than they turned out to be (I very much appreciate the references so I could check this):
"You can reverse up to 10 years of age-related cognitive decline simply by blocking mobile data on your phone for 2 weeks": the linked study says that it's attention span that is improved equivalent to being 10 years younger, as measured immediately after the study ends (only)
"Using ChatGPT on cognitive tasks can reduce your brain connectivity by up to 50%": this is measured using an EEG, so is measuring involvement of multiple brain regions while doing a task. Basically your brain doesn't have to work as hard at the task if you're using an LLM. It's not, you know, your connectome atrophying.
> Using ChatGPT on cognitive tasks can reduce your brain connectivity by up to 50% and reduce your ability to recall information about the task by 8x.
I hate this thing. I don't think it added anything to this article to conflate this "study" - did no one stop to think your brain isn't firing on all cylinders when the AI is doing the work because that's what the whole point of AI is?
It's supposed to free up your mind to attend to other matters.
We're not building muscles like we used to when we use tractors and heavy machinery instead of building houses brick by brick by hand either. So what?? Attend a gym and read something technical and dense.
It's really hard to take any of his claims seriously when the article title itself is leading with 1960s old wives tales about dopamine neurochemistry.
My wife and I have been talking about noticing the general cognitive decline in people we interact with. We both started to notice that people have been getting a little bit...goofy (spacing out, not really reciprocating communication, hyper-limited attention spans, etc).
We both land on a combination of social media and economic effects (people stressed to make ends meet leading to an anxious mind). AI is on the lower-end of our concerns.
> I don’t rely on “willpower” or “discipline” - I try to design each day with intention
This point is the most important callout to me. This is a macrocosm of how I focus on tasks as a person with already disastrous dopamine interactions (severe ADHD).
I was actually thinking about this last night, when I noticed that I approached the self-checkout at the grocery store with more items than the two people who'd been there before me, and left before either of them had finished checking out despite not being in any particular rush.
When I'm going about my day, I am thinking about the actions I'm going to take, deliberating on them and deciding my intent prior to when I will need to execute it. Not to a significant degree, but to go back to my grocery store anecdote: when I was waiting in line I was preparing myself to execute these tasks:
1. Set my re-usable bags in the bagging area.
2. Respond to the prompt asking me if I have placed bags there.
3. Enter my loyalty code.
4. Scan the rigid and heavier items first, placing them in the bottom of the bags.
5. Scan the lighter, crushable items last.
6. Select my payment method.
7. Tap my payment card, and respond to the PIN prompts.
8. Retrieve my bags and receipt.
This sounds like a lot, looking at it. Maybe it was early on, but now this is such a natural part of my cognitive load that I didn't even specifically notice that I do it until I wondered about the speed difference I observed.
To further reinforce the hypothesis, I thought about the most recent times that I did something completely unstructured with no idea what I would have to do (or at least no solid plan due to the event being controlled by other people) and concluded that I was generally slower to act and felt less able to respond to stimuli appropriately.
This is all to say, given these observations and the initial recognition of what I use as an ADHD-coping strategy, I wonder if the overuse of social media and similar stimuli effectively reproduces the negative aspects of ADHD on otherwise "normal"-brained individuals.
> I stumbled on this elegant [lockable] box you put phones into and it blocks all radio communications.
If you truly want to block yourself from using your phone (or similar) for some amount of time, the Kitchen Safe time-lock boxes are great. They don’t look particularly elegant, nor do they block radio communication, but their unique feature is that you’d have to irreversibly physically break them to access whatever you locked inside before the timer has elapsed. There are many similar products, which however usually have an “emergency” mechanism to preempt the timer, which defeats the purpose.
Man, instead of going to some discord channel, asking waiting for some human to respond, if they do, then potentially misunderstand the question, maybe even cause drama, or using a search engine to crawl, tediously through SO and Reddit posts, because Google favors those 2, or wading through pages of potentially badly written documentation,
I just turn on github and ask copilot.
And it responds in most cases, and I can even chat with it ask for alternatives or better approaches to my problems.
And then I needed a logo for my new service I'm building.
Search for AI image generator, input the prompt and a few seconds later I have my really cool image.
Time saved -> infinity.
But I also thought, all this problem solving done by the machines, leaves my brain unemployed, well not exactly, I can focus on solving issues that usually take hours to solve and get on with it.
However those hard nuts are no longer cracked by me, and I focus on the lighter cognitive load.
Probably not good, but idk, I don't have the luxury to be picky, being an unemployed freelancer on social security
Articles like this always start with such radical criticism, and end with such dismally modest proposals: "try not to look at your phone for 1 hour after you wake up", "before you pick up your phone, try counting to 100 first", "move 'instagram' away from your homescreen", etc. What about just getting rid of your smartphone? Who really needs anything beyond calls and text messages...? You can get a GPS map, and a camera. Complete freedom is right there for the taking.
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[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 66.3 ms ] threadYes, normies might have three margaritas on a Tuesday. Like, once a quarter. Not every single day, and also not followed by a whole lot more once you’re loosened up.
Likewise, the reaction of a mentally stable person to TikTok is like the reaction of a normal person to a casino full of slot machines--discomfort and more than a little disgust. If you start wagging your tail to that shit, there is no safe level and you need to delete it all yesterday, app timers and clever little boxes are making you worse.
this contradicts thought leaders in the field like Andrew Ng
1) I don't over-rely on the AI so I don't accidentally commit bugs
2) I can just put in a OpenAI API key pay-as-you-go instead of subscribing to Cursor Pro monthly and getting screwed by SaaS fee I don't use
3) I actually learn what the AI says and add it to my long-term memory instead of just having it write code for me in Agent mode
admittedly this only works for small tasks, for bigger edits I think trying to learn everything the AI says is not really scalable or at least it takes me much longer.
That is my biggest problem with most Multifactor authentication. I try to leave my phone in another room to focus, but needing the phone authenticator for something always happens within two hours.
I still don't know why apps think a device I carry in the streets is safer than one I leave at home to do important transactions like moving money, for example. Where I live, there are a lot of cases of people being kidnapped and coerced to make payments (which are instant), yet no Banking app allows you to do anything without a phone.
That turns the laptop + fingerprint into your extra factors.
I’ll be traveling later this year and I’m debating buying an iPad mini so I have a 2nd authenticated device that can do 2FA. I broke a phone on a trip once and happened to have an iPad with me. It was the only reason I was able to get my replacement phone setup. I’m not sure what I would have done without it. Print and carry around account recovery details that should likely be kept in a safe? That doesn’t sound great.
Argh people keep referencing this study as Gospel. It has not been peer-reviewed. Its methodology has a number of concerning confounders. It's a tiny sample with a narrow contrived task domain. And the very premise of the study is misframed. The implication that 'brain activity' is a positive outcome does not follow. Brain connectivity might be analagous to inefficiency as opposed to the reported 'engagement' or 'cognitive debt'.
But the broad point is valid - distraction and subversion of attention is very high in today's society. Some people are overwhelmed and need to take steps.
Quick fun facts on TikTok and Reddit, as well as quick searching and skimming of Google/ChatGPT/Wikipedia are only conducive to superficial learning, unless you are doing something more to wrap that knowledge around your brain (i.e. using it in work/a project, expanding the context in your mind by writing an essay, reading more of it).
This is very much the by-product of the times we live in. Less people are truly learning things, and instead we are learning how to find the information we need. We have things like the internet sitting there, so we take the path of least resistance and use them as and when we need them. It works fine until you don't have an internet connection.
IF TRUE and taken at face value, surely it could have nothing to do with AI coding being so new everyone just figuring how to best use a new tool at all once.
No no, best to right out the gate compare the new tool to the decades old process.
It's my laptop that eats my brain.
"You can reverse up to 10 years of age-related cognitive decline simply by blocking mobile data on your phone for 2 weeks": the linked study says that it's attention span that is improved equivalent to being 10 years younger, as measured immediately after the study ends (only)
"Using ChatGPT on cognitive tasks can reduce your brain connectivity by up to 50%": this is measured using an EEG, so is measuring involvement of multiple brain regions while doing a task. Basically your brain doesn't have to work as hard at the task if you're using an LLM. It's not, you know, your connectome atrophying.
I hate this thing. I don't think it added anything to this article to conflate this "study" - did no one stop to think your brain isn't firing on all cylinders when the AI is doing the work because that's what the whole point of AI is?
It's supposed to free up your mind to attend to other matters.
We're not building muscles like we used to when we use tractors and heavy machinery instead of building houses brick by brick by hand either. So what?? Attend a gym and read something technical and dense.
We both land on a combination of social media and economic effects (people stressed to make ends meet leading to an anxious mind). AI is on the lower-end of our concerns.
This point is the most important callout to me. This is a macrocosm of how I focus on tasks as a person with already disastrous dopamine interactions (severe ADHD).
I was actually thinking about this last night, when I noticed that I approached the self-checkout at the grocery store with more items than the two people who'd been there before me, and left before either of them had finished checking out despite not being in any particular rush.
When I'm going about my day, I am thinking about the actions I'm going to take, deliberating on them and deciding my intent prior to when I will need to execute it. Not to a significant degree, but to go back to my grocery store anecdote: when I was waiting in line I was preparing myself to execute these tasks:
1. Set my re-usable bags in the bagging area.
2. Respond to the prompt asking me if I have placed bags there.
3. Enter my loyalty code.
4. Scan the rigid and heavier items first, placing them in the bottom of the bags.
5. Scan the lighter, crushable items last.
6. Select my payment method.
7. Tap my payment card, and respond to the PIN prompts.
8. Retrieve my bags and receipt.
This sounds like a lot, looking at it. Maybe it was early on, but now this is such a natural part of my cognitive load that I didn't even specifically notice that I do it until I wondered about the speed difference I observed.
To further reinforce the hypothesis, I thought about the most recent times that I did something completely unstructured with no idea what I would have to do (or at least no solid plan due to the event being controlled by other people) and concluded that I was generally slower to act and felt less able to respond to stimuli appropriately.
This is all to say, given these observations and the initial recognition of what I use as an ADHD-coping strategy, I wonder if the overuse of social media and similar stimuli effectively reproduces the negative aspects of ADHD on otherwise "normal"-brained individuals.
Did you just define a term, act like it already existed, then compliment yourself for coming up with it?
If you truly want to block yourself from using your phone (or similar) for some amount of time, the Kitchen Safe time-lock boxes are great. They don’t look particularly elegant, nor do they block radio communication, but their unique feature is that you’d have to irreversibly physically break them to access whatever you locked inside before the timer has elapsed. There are many similar products, which however usually have an “emergency” mechanism to preempt the timer, which defeats the purpose.
And then I needed a logo for my new service I'm building. Search for AI image generator, input the prompt and a few seconds later I have my really cool image. Time saved -> infinity.
But I also thought, all this problem solving done by the machines, leaves my brain unemployed, well not exactly, I can focus on solving issues that usually take hours to solve and get on with it. However those hard nuts are no longer cracked by me, and I focus on the lighter cognitive load.
Probably not good, but idk, I don't have the luxury to be picky, being an unemployed freelancer on social security
$249 for a Faraday cage? You can find $10 Faraday bags on Amazon..
Gonna have to run some tricksy ads to sell that thing.