Sounds like the "Penfield Mood Organ"[0] from Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Characters "dial" emotions, from basic to extremely specific (e.g. "481. Awareness of the manifold possibilities open [...] in the future", or "888 [...] The desire to watch TV, no matter what's on it")
It could be considered similar to this. In a way the Penfield Mood Organ could be seen as something that gives people emotional autonomy and optimization, not too different than choosing the right music for the moment to shift your mood.
Of course with something like this there are also concerns about emotional conformity and losing authenticity. And questions about what is considered a real authentic emotional experience vs a manufactured one.
Some might consider what we're building "manufactured" emotional experiences. But are emotions elicited from music and movies manufactured? Just because something is happening on a screen or coming through speakers doesn't make it any less meaningful. Our brains don't know the difference and the feeling is real.
Media influences our emotions probably more than anything right now and for the most part is currently being fed to us by algorithms designed to prey on our most vulnerable feelings. What we're building gives you the ability to regain control over your emotions and inner world. It's more about using art, audiovisual, media, storytelling, and guided practices to move you through something real. It's about emotional awareness, exploration, and transformation more than artificially induced control. Of course like any tech it's up to people how they choose to use it. But we are trying to design it in a way that prioritizes the emotional benefit and personal growth of each user.
It's an interesting philosophical conversation that could go much deeper. I appreciate the feedback and reflection.
Blender is nothing like chromium. It's not made by a big company, it sprung up in an extremely for-profit niche (and it has like 4 serious competitors that are all actively in use)
There were so many excellent touches and insights in the documentary. And I got goosebumps in a couple of places.
Also the Half-Life documentary they released last year was one hour long. The Half-Life 2 documentary is two hours long. I sure doesn't feel like 2 hours.
Highly recommended. (There are manual English subtitles included that seem perfect too, if you need them.)
These documentaries are nice but I feel they're missing something by being commissioned. Obviously they don't contain any criticism about Valve, but is it still documentary or just marketing material?
In this era of marketing and polish, honesty I don't really take anything from big companies or 'big people' at face value. Everything is scripted and wordsmithed within an inch of its life.
Even if something was genuine...it's hard to tell.
>Fawns/calves/... can walk almost as soon as they are born. It takes humans far longer to learn that.
Humans are helpless at birth because we have big brains and walk upright. Which means narrower hips which means we need to be born before the brain is fully developed.
Second this recommendation. Blindsight hits much harder and faster than Egan - and in my opinion the writing is much tighter. Similar focus on science-based idea exploration, particularly in regards to theories of consciousness, brain structure, probability, and vampires. If you like Egan I'd be shocked if you didn't like watts. He is one of the hidden gems of science fiction and an absolute gift to humanity.
Fantastic book. I read it for the first time about a year ago but I still think about it once every week or two. Thought about it as soon as the "spaceship" started to accelerate towards light speed.
The SponsorBlock [0] addon has already solved that for sponsored/ad segments in videos. Rather than AI, crowdsourced timestamps lets it automatically skip past adverts.
As do most people who quote the 10,000 hours thing. Gladwell greatly simplified K. Anders Ericsson's work [0]. Most people just read Gladwell's catchy headline and miss the point. Doing something over and over != deliberate practice. In Ericsson's words:
>Expert performance can, however, be traced to active engagement in deliberate practice (DP), where training (often designed and arranged by their teachers and coaches) is focused on improving particular tasks. DP also involves the provision of immediate feedback, time for problem-solving and evaluation, and opportunities for repeated performance to refine behavior.
I always find it difficult to square away the critical comments on HN or even studies like this with my own experience.
Focused practice on a specific thing I want to get better at or learn has always resulted in rapid improvement in that specific thing versus just trying to wing it or just haphazardly and irregularly repeating the thing as a part of a larger activity.
What might take days or weeks to learn can take hours if I consciously think about what I'm lacking, what I want to learn and what methods to use to bridge that gap, then continuously reevaluating what I do and how effective it is.
I'm not sure that'll ever turn me into a superstar programmer, but I'm fairly convinced it's the most effective and efficient way to become the best programmer that I can be within my own limitations.
I can always strive to be the best version of myself. How that version fares in comparison with others is of little relevance to me.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penfield_mood_organ