zlatiah

zlatiah @lemmy.world 2w ago

As a kid I dead-pan told my mom that I'd like to be a "white-collar office worker. Because I wanted somewhat of a predictable routine without too much unexpected things happening

Considering that this is already my second postdoc (somewhat of a scientist training... intern... thing) "job" (no employment contract btw) within 2 years of my graduation, during which I have moved twice including once across a continent, and once getting work-related anxiety so bad I got sick for a month... I think young me's plan is preferable at this point

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zlatiah @lemmy.world 3w ago

As a researcher doing data-stuff: there actually is a somewhat objective way to answer this! I don't know the answer to the question itself though... and the method is quite boring

Usually how data scientists do this is to first collect a bunch of data... let's say we have a 200~300 question comprehensive survey about ppl's political beliefs. This survey would have a dimension of 200-300. We can include all of them but they would offer diminishing information (& is very confusing), so usually people trim it down to the most important dimensions only. We then apply dimensionality reduction/manifold method to reduce highly similar dimensions. I think in social sciences people call this factor analysis. Usually in my field people do PCA followed by UMAP, social scientists I think may do something differently but PCA is quite universal

Then researchers will be able to tell a few mathematically identified dimensions that contribute the most to the results. Say if the first dimension contributes 70% of the variation of people's differences, and the second dimension another 25%... then we would have a 2-dimension model that can explain 95% of the differences and would be good enough. If the first dimension only 10%, second 8%... then a good model will need a lot more dimensions. This doesn't tell what the dimensions are though, that's up to the researchers to identify. If all of these work well, we'd have a simple, N-dimension model suggesting how people's political beliefs are... and some of these might not map to what people would intuitively think of

Unless I'm mistaken, Big Five personality traits is developed this way for example... About politics, I found a 2013 research article that suggested two political dimensions: economic and social ideology

I guess this doesn't quite answer the question... it just states how political dimensions (or any dimensions in data fields, really) came from, and the fact that there's an old paper suggesting a two factor model of economic + social ideology. I don't know how many dimensions are sufficient for politics, not to count for the fact that different countries/cultures treat this differently

zlatiah @lemmy.world 3w ago

In terms of absolute length in years? Minecraft. First played it in middle school when it was still in beta, a few months (or maybe a year?) before Nether even was a thing. Last played... maybe 1-2 years ago? If Luanti/Mineclone also counts then last month. Ironically I never liked Minecraft that much... only "gotten back" into it for like a week or two at a time

Second longest is probably Skyrim (honorary mention of The Binding of Issac, but rebirth is technically a new game so...), both of which I liked a lot. Played both quite a bit in high school, and still played a bit within the past year

My actual comfort game hasn't even been developed until 7 years ago

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zlatiah @lemmy.world 3w ago

It's a small brand started by a few Chinese marathon runners, modelled exactly after HOKA. So it's equally as comfortable at like 1/2-1/3 the price. Only available in China unfortunately...

The main annoyance is that this pair doesn't have much sideways support, so it's easier to slip sideways. Probably not a worthwhile concern for most people of course

Also... Durability isn't a strong suit for HOKA shoes, so I'm not sure if I can really recommend them for daily drive regardless

zlatiah @lemmy.world 3w ago

I think it is. The first linked paper is the one designing the scale... so they went into more details on this:

The definition of toxic masculinity fluctuates depending on context. For example, hegemonic masculinity, sometimes used as proxy for toxic masculinity, is a manifestation of masculinities that is characterized by the enforcement of restrictions in behavior based on gender roles that serve to reinforce existing power structures that favor the dominance of men (e.g., [7,8,9]). Hegemonic masculinity speaks to the systems and processes that elevated men to positions of power and maintain their dominance (e.g., [10,11]). Additionally, traditional masculinity is marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance, and aggression, characterizing it by an adherence to gendered attitudes [3].

Their final scale uses five factors: “masculine superiority”, “domination and desire”, “gender rigidity”, “emotional restriction”, “repressed suffering” (and a six one that they dropped). So some of these are indeed related to enforcing narrow definitions

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zlatiah @lemmy.world 3w ago

I just realized that nearly all of my daily shoes were replaced by my dad... who is a semi-professional marathon runner and would go through shoes in months... So probably every 1-3 years, depending on when my parents visit I guess; I think their definition of wearing out is when there are a good amount of rips/holes

My last pair was a pair of HOKA that lasted a year and a half; they are designed for long-distance running and have massive toe boxes (which I need) but are not known for their durability.. Dad basically urged me to get a pair of Chinese HOKA knockoff to replace it, got it half a year ago. It's showing signs of wear but I think it can still go for at least another year

zlatiah @lemmy.world 4w ago

I've actually been looking into how music genres/subgenres are defined for the past few months due to the fact that my favorite genre "doesn't exist" (I'm not joking someone wrote a research paper on this)

I think there are research articles on this if one wants to go into details... Like how certain genres separate. Sometimes there are strict definitions (most techno I think are quite well-defined). But practically I think most ppl tend to enjoy ranges of genres that are close to each other... There are also plenty of genre-blend songs too so there's that

Also I second for Every Noise At Once, they have some really obscure genres too for detailed comparisons

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zlatiah @lemmy.world 4w ago

It's always more expensive than I thought
It's always more physically demanding than I thought
There's never a local hobby/support group for it

... Sums up pretty much every hobby I have tried/am trying

zlatiah @lemmy.world 4w ago

1st to 2nd grade so this was what my parents relayed to me after I grew up a bit more

Apparently I was so aggressively autistic (and relatively smart) that I not only did close to perfect on all my exams, I once did the calligraphy/writing homework so well that my teacher had to talk to my parents to know if I cheated by having them do my homework for me... FYI: my handwriting now is as bad as a doctor's

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zlatiah @lemmy.world 1mo ago

I'm not a subject matter expert on this so I had to look this up but... it seems that the experimental method was actually introduced over 10 years ago? They cited this paper (https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.3088) from Nature Neuroscience that I don't have access to unfortunately

I also didn't know this before, but it seems that maladaptive "approach-avoidance conflict" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approach-avoidance_conflict) has been known to be a symptom and a predictor of depression for a while (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165032706000139)

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zlatiah @lemmy.world 1mo ago

I am doing it... My local convenience store also sells tooth cleaners shaped like tiny brushes which I use. It does help a bit but not entirely

zlatiah @lemmy.world 1mo ago

... This may sound a bit pessimistic, but I think the main thing to look for is whether there are viable ways for one to enter said new country in the first place

Using the Low Countries as an example... For non-EU (or a select few countries) citizens, these three only grant residency permits to people who have a really good reason to be there... I believe they allow things such as having a job, having family, going to university, and some other situations. NL has the DAFT visa, but that's only for American citizens (I believe?) and is quite difficult to follow-through

Depending on how young... maybe uni would be a good bet? NL has some extremely strong universities. I'm not familiar with the system there though, from what I just looked up looks like they're quite expensive for non-EU citizens

There are a ton of other things to consider too but at least for me the most difficult part is to get a job in the first place so... everything else (climate, culture, language, ...) was an afterthought by that point

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zlatiah @lemmy.world 1mo ago

Wing it

I did worse than wing it actually... half of the groceries I got over the past few weeks were from Too Good To Go, so near-expired food that the grocery store winged-it for me💀

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zlatiah @lemmy.world 1mo ago

I'm usually a bit excessively modest, but if I'm reflecting on it... I left my precious job in the US & pulled off a successful cross-continental move with little to no outside help (even though there was a lot of stuff involved). Had a ton of fun traveling during the past year too as a result of that. I guess that would be the thing I'm most proud of

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zlatiah @lemmy.world 2mo ago

I remember every single place I've lived in (over a dozen) and remember the address of most of them; the ones I don't I can look up quite easily

I do feel quite sentimental about two specific places (ironically the two "worst" places I've lived in), not much with most others; one I almost hate with a passion

zlatiah @lemmy.world 2mo ago

Physically, I don't think so; the main enzyme in saliva mainly digests starch, which humans are not made of

More likely, you'd drown eventually due to not being let out, which would be one of the crazier ways to die I guess, up their with that time when some nobles drowned in fecal matter