eszed (u/eszed) - Readit News

eszed commented on Notes on Managing ADHD borretti.me/article/notes... · Posted by u/amrrs

nucleardog · 14 hours ago

> I took that backpack off and how I can run the same race as everyone else. And you know what? When you've been practicing your whole life with an extra weight on your back, and you take it off, sometimes it's surprising how fast you can go.

The way I've always described this to people is that before, in order to get started on anything I first had to bang my way head first through a solid brick wall. It was painful and unpleasant and an absolutely absurd amount of effort. It didn't matter if the thing I was trying to do was "a load of laundry" or "build a shed"... same brick wall. That's pretty crippling in day-to-day life.

And then once I get through it I wasn't in the clear. The first interruption, the first unexpected thing that came up... was another brick wall I had to bash my head through.

The medication doesn't take away the walls, but what it has done is turn them all into drywall. I still have to bang my head through a lot of walls, but after decades of going head first through brick walls everything just seems _comically easy_.

I really wish someone had identified this sooner so I could have gotten treatment earlier. I'm grateful my life has gone as well as it has. I don't have nearly as many things to look back on with regret as other people that were diagnosed late in life. It does suck to realize that everything really didn't need to be so difficult. And some habits and coping mechanisms that allowed me to function aren't exactly healthy for me or those around me, and those are hard to unlearn.

eszed · 11 hours ago

Wait... Do I have ADD? I've never thought so, because I have three close friends who do (diagnosed and medicated), and they've never described it like this. And, like, they're always starting things they don't finish. I have massive trouble starting things, just like you describe, and have built (effective, I'll point out) systems like sibling commenters describe. This whole thread has bent my brain a bit.

eszed commented on Google AI Overview made up an elaborate story about me bsky.app/profile/bennjord... · Posted by u/jsheard

freeopinion · 12 hours ago

prompt> use javascript to convert a unix timestamp to a date in 'YYYY-MM-DD' format using Temporal

answer> Temporal.Instant.fromEpochSeconds(timestamp).toPlainDate()

Trust but verify?

eszed · 12 hours ago

I mean... Yes? That looks correct to me°, but it's been a minute since I worked with Temporal, so I'd run it myself and examine the output before I cut and paste.

Or have I missed your point?

---

°Missing a TZ assertion, but I don't remember what happens by default. Zulu time? I'd hope so, but that reinforces my point.

eszed commented on Money mistakes you didn't know you're making jasuja.us/2025/06/money-m... · Posted by u/putlake

PopAlongKid · 15 hours ago

>you could have a large tax bill when you file your taxes the following year. And if it’s too large, the IRS will even impose a penalty

It is actually called an "addition to tax", not a penalty, and in fact it is merely an interest charge, just like if you don't pay the full balance on your credit card each billing period (for tax, the "billing periods" are the (roughly) quarterly dates when estimated payments are due). If you can make more money elsewhere than the interest charge by the IRS (currently 7%) you are better off not making the payments during the year.

>Health Savings Accounts are the rare unicorn of triple tax advantage: money isn’t taxed (1) going in, (2) while it’s growing in the account, or (3) when it’s taken out.

I see this a lot and it is completely ridiculous. (1) and (3) are the same thing when it comes to your contributions-- there is no scenario where you would ever pay tax on money when you contribute it and also when you take it out. It is only a double tax advantage, not triple. (And the money only comes out tax free if you use it for a limited set of expenses namely health care).

eszed · 13 hours ago

Don't #1 and #3 become true when you consider capital gains on an appreciated account? Genuine question, because how I'd thought of it, and your assertion shakes my confidence in my understanding.

eszed commented on Trade in War news.mit.edu/2025/why-cou... · Posted by u/LorenDB

kubb · 20 hours ago

They don’t materially profit, but they have a perception of gain (eg. killing hated enemies).

eszed · 13 hours ago

That's a prime example of the GGP's point about the interests of individuals being manufactured.

[Edit] Ha! Didn't see you were the GGP. I got your point, even if I am an unobservant idiot.

eszed commented on Mainframe upgrade done with wire cutters (2010) alt.folklore.computers.na... · Posted by u/WorldPeas

somat · 21 hours ago

Unrelated, but the title made me think of this video where AT&T failed over old switch frames to new ones by manually cutting all the cable bundles, very dramatic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saRir95iIWk (Speedy Cutover Service, SXS switching cutover to ESS filmed live at Glendale CA central office, 1984)

eszed · 14 hours ago

Wait... So that's why it's called "cutover"? Amazing.

eszed commented on “This telegram must be closely paraphrased before being communicated to anyone” history.stackexchange.com... · Posted by u/azeemba

VoidWhisperer · 2 days ago

Does this also apply if someone were to do the following: Receive encrypted transmission -> unencrypt it -> need to pass it on, so re-encrypt it and pass it on?

I would imagine that the paraphrasing wouldn't be necessary in this case because it isn't quite as useful to compare two encrypted versions of the text versus an encrypted version and an unencrypted version (also I feel like there is some risk of a game of 'telephone' in that the meaning would change bit by bit to the point of having a different meaning over time, even if not intentionally)

eszed · 2 days ago

No. As explained in the SO answer, the worry is that the enemy will have been able to decrypt one or the other of your messages, at which point the identical underlying plaintext will help them crack the second cypher.

eszed commented on Flunking my Anthropic interview again taylor.town/flunking-anth... · Posted by u/surprisetalk

incone123 · 3 days ago

I once got an emergency call to a theatre where a fight scene mishap left an actress punched out cold. There's less opportunity for harm in entertainment relative to medicine but it does happen sometimes.

eszed · 3 days ago

You're right, and oh my god: don't get me started on the abysmal safety record of theatres, particularly towards the non-union end of the scale. I never got a fight director credential, but I was competent, and served as fight captain on any number of shows. 1.) Unarmed fights are the most dangerous type of scene, but also the most likely to be treated cavalierly by people who don't know any better. 2.) There are safe ways to do (just about) everything. A company that can't afford to hire a qualified fight director shouldn't stage fight scenes. Period. End of story.

I've literally walked out of shows (as an audience member) where it's been clear that the actors are doing unsafe things, because I didn't want to see happen what you showed up to. Thanks for being there, and I hope that woman was OK.

eszed commented on Flunking my Anthropic interview again taylor.town/flunking-anth... · Posted by u/surprisetalk

latexr · 3 days ago

> I made it to 40 before I sold out.

Do you mean you sold out in the arts or in the sense that you changed careers? If the former, I’d be curious to hear (well, read) the story since that’s not an admission one typically encounters.

eszed · 3 days ago

I changed careers. Wrote a bit about it here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44699388

I never met a professional with a conceptual category of "selling out" within the industry. Scraping together any kind of living in the arts is a massive struggle, so everyone takes "money jobs" when they can get them. During my 10 or 12 years as a working actor I had two consecutive years during which my sole income was from performing, and maybe a couple of other other five or six month periods where I was able to drop restaurant (or whatever other) gigs for a tour. This was in the early-'oughts, and I'd have to look at my social security records to be sure, but my income during those years was somewhere around $30k. I was single, and really, really good at being poor.

By the way, that's like a 98th percentile result for an actor. Most people never come close to making a living, however meagre.

There's an old, old interview (maybe Michael Parkinson? Don't remember) with Joss Ackland - a wonderful mid-twentieth century British character actor, on stage and screen - where the interviewer asks him why the hell he did some crappy science fiction film, and Ackland says something like "that was 1962? Oh, yes. Well, my mother needed a new kitchen." No actor will ever fault him for that!

What does disappoint me is seeing actors with tremendous talent who take nothing but money jobs. I get why they do it - especially for the ones at the top of the commercial heap it'd be awfully hard to say 'no' to an easy gig that comes with a boatload of cash - but I can't help but feel sad that I'll never get to see them working at their best.

Even so, my response when I see a truly bad film is generally a shrug: "a lot of actors [and associated professionals / craft services] got paid." The artists among them will learn from even that experience, and many (many many) among them will invest that income back into doing work that they believe in.

eszed commented on Flunking my Anthropic interview again taylor.town/flunking-anth... · Posted by u/surprisetalk

dreamcompiler · 3 days ago

I'm a computer engineer, EMT, and firefighter. I have scooped up brain matter from hot asphalt and run into burning buildings (without even getting paid for it). People ask me how I can do this. I dunno. Training and experience I guess. Doesn't bother me.

But the idea of standing on a stage pretending to be someone else fills me with sheer terror. Even worse would be trying out for that job 100 times and getting rejected every time.

I don't know how actors do it. My hat's off to you.

eszed · 3 days ago

It's all a matter of perspective. My uncle once brought his kids to see a big show I was in, and afterwards said just what you did. I looked at him, genuinely surprised, and said something like "dude, you're a surgeon. If I screw up at work 2,000 people laugh at me, and forget about it five minutes later; if you screw up at work, someone dies. You really think I should be the one feeling nervous?"

You're right about training and experience, though. I screwed up on stage (in loads of tiny ways, not usually perceptible to anyone but me) every time I ever stepped onto one, and in big ways lots and lots of times as well. But, you know, I always knew that I (with my castmates' help) would get out of it. Failure is inevitable, and it doesn't matter. In fact, if you haven't failed somehow, in at least some small way, then you either don't know what you're doing, or you aren't trying hard enough to succeed.

Also, when I was training young actors I always told them that they will never experience such unconditional love as when they first step in front of an audience. Those people have given at least their time and maybe their money to see you - don't you think they want you to succeed? They're rooting for you, none more so.

To bring this back to the larger subject of the thread, I think all of that's also true of every job interview any of us will ever attend, or conference paper we'll ever deliver. It'll never be perfect, and that's just fine.

eszed commented on Flunking my Anthropic interview again taylor.town/flunking-anth... · Posted by u/surprisetalk

ip26 · 3 days ago

It's never personal

You never screened candidates who couldn’t act their way out of a wet paper bag?

eszed · 3 days ago

Of course I have. I'm thinking of a couple of them right now, and I admire the hell out of them: it took courage to get up there and do what they did. I wasn't going to cast them in that show, right then, but within the limits of the time available I did my best to help them improve. I hoped they did, and I wished them nothing but the best.

I'm glad you brought that up, because it might be the exception that proves the rule. Those auditions did feel more personal, but it was entirely benign: I was rooting for them to succeed, and really felt for them when it became obvious (especially to them) that they had not.

Maybe it's not like that with other fields, or other companies, or other people - but if not, then that's not somewhere anyone should have to work. There's no incompatibility between high standards and human decency.