gh0stcat (u/gh0stcat)

gh0stcat commented on My AI Adoption Journey mitchellh.com/writing/my-... · Posted by u/anurag

paracyst · 3 days ago

The guy who wrote the post is a billionaire

gh0stcat · 3 days ago

I thought this was a joke ie you need to be a billionaire to be able to use agents like this, but you are correct.

I think we need to stop listening to billionaires. The article is well thought out and well written, but his perspective is entirely biased by never having to think about money at all... all of this stuff is incredibly expensive.

gh0stcat commented on TikTok's 'addictive design' found to be illegal in Europe nytimes.com/2026/02/06/bu... · Posted by u/thm

nolroz · 3 days ago

How'd you kick it?

gh0stcat · 3 days ago

It's bad I can't say that I did it with willpower alone but Brick helped immensely. Their product is great, not a subscription, and even though there are competitors or you could build something like this for your phone, they're good with customer service and I would recommend their product.

Also, Unhook for removing suggestions/comments/etc from Youtube, you can basically turn everything off until it becomes a search bar and your subscriptions.

Get a good website blocking browser extension. Remove anything that resembles a "recommendation" or avoid it like the plague.

https://getbrick.app/

gh0stcat commented on TikTok's 'addictive design' found to be illegal in Europe nytimes.com/2026/02/06/bu... · Posted by u/thm

criddell · 3 days ago

Is it worse than walking around 8 hours a day listening to music? Having headphones on while washing dishes and walking the dog?

I think it is, but it's hard for me to articulate without getting into teleological judgments.

gh0stcat · 3 days ago

I would say it's slightly worse but they're both not great, as someone who was addicted to being fed something at all times, I was really avoiding every having to spend time with myself if that makes sense. That being said, it's mostly about intention. Are you excited to finally listen to that amazing album or audiobook on your walk after work? That's usually more healthy than when I would scroll on tiktok during my day to avoid feeling anything other than dopamine and avoid bad feelings. It's really about self awareness for me.

gh0stcat commented on Advent of Code 2025 adventofcode.com/2025/abo... · Posted by u/vismit2000

josephg · 2 months ago

This is also true of a lot of other disciplines. I’ve been learning filmmaking lately (and editing, colour science, etc). There’s functionally infinite beginner friendly videos online on anything you can imagine. But very little content that slowly teaches the fundamentals, or presents intermediate skills. It’s all “Here’s 5 pieces of gear you need!” “One trick that will make your lighting better”. But that’s mostly it. There’s almost no intermediate stuff. No 3 hour videos explaining in detail how to set up an interview properly. Stuff like that.

gh0stcat · 2 months ago

I've found the best route at that point is just... copying people who are really good. For my interest (3d modeling) if you want voice-over and directions, those are all pretty basic, but if you want to see how someone approaches a large, complex object, I will literally watch a timelapse of someone doing it and scrub the video in increments to see each modifier/action they took. It's slow but that's also how I built some intuition and muscle memory. That's just the way...

gh0stcat commented on Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts theguardian.com/society/2... · Posted by u/pseudolus

robertakarobin · 3 months ago

I hope you can understand that this and other comments about needing to find meaning and needing to sit with inner feelings... It feels patronizing. I have spent tremendous amounts of time and energy analyzing my feelings and looking for meaningful experiences. I've sought relief in meditation, religion, therapy, yoga, travel, art, etc. Most people probably have in one way or another. It's not rocket science to know those activities may be beneficial. They undoubtedly do help some people overcome feeling depressed. But feeling depressed is different from having depression.

gh0stcat · 3 months ago

I'm sorry it came off that way, I really didn't intend it to be, it was actually a self call out because I actually never learned as a child to sit with my inner feelings. I attribute that to being more sensitive and probably more intelligent than my siblings and acting as a buffer for my parents and basically only ever wanting to make other people happy, I never developed an inner world like other kids do.

Also I noticed... yoga, travel, art, those are still external. Even meditation can be if you approach it from a standpoint of like... one that is about forming your ego around it rather than being present... not sure if this makes sense. Like you can approach anything from a negative or place of wanting to 'fix' yourself, which ruins the experience imo. For me I would ruin things that were supposed to be fun because I would tell myself I should do this because it's good for me.

That being said, there are really low days still when I will feel absolutely nothing, I will think to myself... if this psychological pain is so intense, why should I keep going? I don't have answers for that. I genuinely just have to make it through the day. I understand that with the pressures of a family and kids, it's not one of those things where you can easily tap out, medication makes sense for that. I was just trying to share how I feel because honestly for me there isn't anyone in my life who I can relate with on this deep of a level... of these feelings, and it's really alienating in itself.

gh0stcat commented on Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts theguardian.com/society/2... · Posted by u/pseudolus

robertakarobin · 3 months ago

> I cured it by finding meaning and beauty in the world.

That's incredibly fortunate and I'm very jealous of you. How would you recommend one goes about finding meaning and beauty? I'm fortunate to have had lots of unique experiences and traveled to lots of unique places and still haven't found the fulfillment that you seem to. That's basically what depression is: a debilitating feeling of lack of fulfillment, without any idea of what's missing.

I'm happiest when busy building and fixing things. It could be that if I was born 200 years ago into an agrarian society where day-to-day life was focused on building and fixing things to survive, then I would have felt very fulfilled and done quite well. What were gainful full-time jobs back then have been reduced to hobbies now, though: blacksmithing, cobbling, weaving, hunting, making furniture, etc. Hobbies don't fill the hole for me. Sure, a few artisans are still able to turn those into a living, but a large part of the job is marketing and the clients are largely the wealthy elite. I've enjoyed working in food service and construction but it's hard to support a family of 4 doing those. So my career has been in software engineering since that involves building and fixing and pays well, but it still doesn't fill the hole.

If this sounds whiny I'm painfully aware. What right do I have to complain about feeling unfulfilled when there are real problems in the world? And that's the very essence of major depression.

gh0stcat · 3 months ago

For what it's worth, I have dealt with pretty severe depression for most of my adult life. I am only starting to have periods of coming out when I realized that most of depressed feelings come from a place of ego. I have an identity of who I am and what I like, and I seek things in the external world which might provide meaning for me. For me, it's because I always sought value from the things around me, rather than believing that I am already enough. Every single day, I have to beat down my instincts that tell me that I am worthless and remind myself that there is more beauty in the world and it's actually absurd that I am letting society tear away from me my natural instincts to want to live and enjoy life. You have to really sit with these feelings though... like really really get to know your voice vs the internalized societal voice. I have developed "tests" that help me discern which voice is which, but it has helped a bit. Also working out and taking care of your body is a bonus, and just taking pride in like... doing things to lead a peaceful life is underrated. Hope you feel better.

gh0stcat commented on Boom, bubble, bust, boom. Why should AI be different? crazystupidtech.com/2025/... · Posted by u/speckx

chermi · 3 months ago

Customer service.

gh0stcat · 3 months ago

Only for the most basic of requests. I have interacted with a fair share of AI front loaded customer service chat portals and they are often misleading, sending outright incorrect info (telling us that the dev team would work on it even when they weren't going to) and I almost always just want to talk to an agent. Yes, it's a good first layer to prevent people who haven't even bothered to read any FAQ or informational pages, but it's not doing real customer service work.

gh0stcat commented on 210 IQ Is Not Enough taylor.town/iq-not-enough... · Posted by u/surprisetalk

jebarker · 3 months ago

I wholeheartedly agree with the point of the article, but the phrase “You are enough” really grinds my gears for some reason. Enough for what?

gh0stcat · 3 months ago

I tend to agree, most platitudes are less impactful simply because your mind inserts what it already knows/autocompletes the phrase meaning because it's something so commonly heard. I read it as something like... you have enough resources to lead a life that has prosperity relative to the limited faculties of a human organism. That seems less catchy, and if you're too literal in your phrasing in writing, then you get the opposite problem where the reader limits their thinking to just what is written. Do you come to a different conclusion?

gh0stcat commented on 210 IQ Is Not Enough taylor.town/iq-not-enough... · Posted by u/surprisetalk

tetris11 · 3 months ago

Dunno - I think it's hard for a lot of us who rolled the dice on our interests early on, picked the winning combo of CS + Finance, and then just raced ahead in the career ladder over our peers as software work consumed the world.

Now it's ten years later, those ladders have disappeared, many of us seeing the writing on the wall, and wondering whether we were anything special at all.

(The answer of course is no, but it's a tough pill to swallow)

gh0stcat · 3 months ago

I sort of relate. I suspect the misplaced confidence one can develop from early successes in one's career eventually manifests as a lot of beliefs needing to be unlearned later in life (especially when facing challenges requiring resilience). I think I am a better person for it (and that is the point).

gh0stcat commented on Agentic pelican on a bicycle robert-glaser.de/agentic-... · Posted by u/todsacerdoti

williamstein · 3 months ago

> Some models (looking at you, GPT-5-Codex) seemed to mistake “more complex” for “better.”

That's what working with GPT-5-Codex on actual code also feels like.

gh0stcat · 3 months ago

YES, and the sad truth is that the only person who can write good, simple code is likely the one who doesn't need an AI helper. ;(