It is just an 11.8 MB poor alternative to the browser, it is offering keyboard shortcuts and the ability to read your screen, you still need internet connection and manually authorizing access.
I tried to teach 'magicE vocab', sorting them by difficulty level for an English language plan, and got them easily arranged. For example, sham/shame and slide/slid are for hard to learn level, while ate, pale, kite, are for the easy level.
I was working in a company when the boss/owner asked me to translate a lengthy Excel sheet from Arabic into English, it was a long list of antique furniture; a nightmare and I already had my plate full and was earlier denied my bonus. The minute I read a weird special Arabic word (Altaq) that not many people know, it indicates the armchair/sofa or anything, was a single piece, I suspected something scary. I ventured an emailed the CEO saying that the suitable translator that could handle the translation complexities was asking for $500. It was a gamble and it worked. I later found out that his son had opened an art & antique furniture showroom in a mall. My suspicion was and still is, it was looted from my country during this civil war. With all my support and love for whistleblower, I can not be one, or a good one as proving my doubts is beyond my means. And my family and I are also victims of antique furniture looting and here is one item from 1919 https://imgur.com/a/QDYysC1
My mother died last month,I have seen that same costly futile care before when it was performed on my father two decades before, but we had no choice. Both were injected with a dozen drugs syringes and perforated with tubes, hooked up to machines.
Although I am somewhat healthy, yet looking at rocking 60 made me contemplate and feel contentment just upon reading about psilocybin for patients dealing with life-threatening diagnoses, end-of-life anxiety (plus a dozen documentaries and 2 on Netflix). Learning about it has offered me relief and lasting drop in existential distress, especially as it helps melt the ego into everything.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9833165/
I hated our Vespa when I was a kid in the seventies but their calendars were cool. You know that instinct you get when you're slowing down or coming to a stop, where you just want to stick your feet out for balance? Well, every time I did that, I felt like those sharp metal edges on the Vespa were just waiting to scrape my leg or catch my ankle. It wasn't a bike to me; it was a hazard on two wheels.
So when the opportunity came to "borrow" it while my father was napping, I gladly handed the honor over to my brother. Off we went, buzzing through the dark to see the aftermath of an airstrike on an oil refinery at the edge of the city. It was pitch black out there, and before we knew it, we'd tipped right into a ditch on the side of the road.
Panic was not because we were hurt, but because we were convinced our father would somehow know we'd taken his Vespa. Luckily, a few strangers happened to pass by and helped us haul the thing back up. You'd think we'd have learned our lesson, but soon after, I pulled a similar stunt, this time with our white Volkswagen.
Homs, Syria https://www.ebay.com/itm/376362709347
What is interesting is that our Volkswagen car is still running til today by the guy who bought from us, in a village there, this car escaped the so called planned obsolescence.
I think it is that cycle where old projects will eventually seem less important with huge budgets for new projects by a new manager, that will have bigger allocations, and the bonuses will follow along with the brownie points to that genius.
Slow breathing is also recommended for novices before public speaking, as it helps speakers overcome irrational physiological fear of facing people, the risk-taking shift is useful as it helps you speak more confidently, not more cautiously. Slow breathing can calm nerves quickly; bottom-up regulation: body tells brain “you’re safe”.
Slow breathing (in yoga: pranayama) instantly down-regulates your nervous system by boosting vagal tone and lowering sympathetic "fight-or-flight" activity. When your breath lengthens, it signals your brain that you are completely safe, dropping your heart rate and lowering blood pressure.
I first learned about this in the army, called "tactical breathing". I still consistently use this before public speaking or if I feel myself in a manic/stressed state of mind.
Pranayama is translated more as "control of the breath"- there are some techniques that are much faster than normal respiration eg Bhastrika and Kapalbhati.
It doesn’t signal anything. Your heart rate drops because you’re inhaling less oxygen so your heart is like “we don’t need this high fi flow” and slows down blood flow to lower energy expenditure.
Lower energy state always wins unless chasing energy source.
Your confident ignorance motivated me to at least dig up some cursory research on this space, I hadn’t previously bothered because I live and breathe this stuff (pun not intended).
As a young impressionable, I set out to understand and overcome performance anxiety as someone who suffered from it. After some reading, one of my conclusions was that I should do the most stressful thing possible to understand stress better and develop physical tolerance to stress. This culminated in me signing up for a series of Muay Thai interclub fights because getting punched (or kicked) in the head while pushing your heart rate to ~200bpm is definitely up there for “stressful circumstances”.
Turns out breathing really helps in that situation too beyond just taking in more oxygen - relaxation is critical for both technical execution and strategic thinking.
Slow breathing also really helps with freediving - another hobby of mine that I dabble with that happens to involve going deep (no pun intended) on conscious relaxation.
But sure, it’s just you taking in oxygen to moderate your heart rate. Here are some papers I surfaced for you and others who are interested
Your brain is attached to your inner skull with candyfloss like tendrils. They do not repair. Software engineering, even prompting, with a concussion or CTE is impossible.
Yes I am very paranoid about CTE. For years I've dialled down the sparring intensity and mostly train technically, working on timing.
I appreciate that studies show that the brain basically never heals but sometimes you've got to live the way you want to live...
While the findings around CTE are pretty damning I would also point out that at this stage it is hard to ascertain what degree of sparring/fighting leads to problematic CTE down the line because frequency and intensity are so hard to control for from a scientific perspective. The brain is fragile but humans wouldn't have survived if we couldn't tolerate some degree of accumulated rough and tumble over our lifetimes.
Judo isn't that healthy either. Many Judo-ka have hurt their backs from the damage accumulated from falls and there are other ways to injure yourself in Judo. If you're looking for those sorts of high stress combat situations you can get that with Karate styles that practice a lot less contact. There's still high pressure but a lot less than full contact fighting where you're just hitting and getting hit all the time. Some chance of injury but it's a lot rarer.
I do agree that getting constantly hit in the head is probably not a good idea (e.g. boxing). If you want the stress of public speaking join Toastmasters or something ;)
Might VR boxing be a possible alternative to actually being hit? I don't think our brains distinguish well between actually being hurt and feeling the stress of the game. For instance I used to study for tests while my husband played violent video games with loud sounds because all the screaming was stressful for me and so was actually taking the test. So the combination of studying under stress and taking the test under stress helped me retain the knowledge better.
I have no experience with VR boxing but I can tell you there's no comparison between e.g. a tournament Karate match and first person shooters. I never heard about this idea that studying under stress can help you perform in a test...
As an avid gamer, I'd argue the actual physical threat of being hit is hardwired into us because it is tied to our survival instinct on a primal level.
I like to do all kinds of silly stressful challenge runs in games or sweaty PvP and to your point I've actually noticed that I actually perform better in games like Elden Ring with the music off because the music is designed to heighten your stress.
That all said, I can assure you that none of that comes remotely close to the visceral fear you experience when someone bigger, stronger, faster and better is walking you down in the ring. But overcoming that internal struggle - that is where the true growth lies.
That all said I actually train in a gym that is highly respectful, we train technically and we don't spar to hurt. The desired intensity is mutually communicated and the coaches are at hand to keep us in check. A "fun" way to dial up the intensity is to do heavy body sparring because it's generally pretty harmless but gives you a taste of throwing and receiving power shots (it is exhausting).
A gym with this culture is a fantastic environment for people to develop and I would encourage people to give it a try, no amount of audio-visual simulation will be a replacement for the tactile sensation of being hit and the associated anticipation that accompanies the experience. Our machinery is still animal and we originate from the physical world after all...
Note that fast breathing doesn’t necessarily mean high oxygen uptake. Deep breaths result in higher oxygen uptake (since you spend less time just moving the same stale air up and down your airways), and deep breaths are usually easier to perform when breathing slowly.
I've found a few cycles of <<repeated box breathing + a long breath hold>> works quite well.
Box breathing is 4 seconds inhale, 4 seconds hold, 4 seconds exhale, 4 seconds hold. IIRC you are supposed to take in as much air as you can on the inhale, and let it all out on the exhale.
After you do a few cycles of BB, take in as much air as you can, then hold your breath for as long as you can.
I prefer breathing like a resting dog: deep inhale, immediately relax and exhale (just let it out; it'll be forceful at first and taper off), and take the next inhale when the need arises. Ideally I do this with water and food, too (feast/fast). I find the 4-4-4-4 contrived, but I can see the potential mental-focus benefit.
Maybe some do, but I've never needed it. Often I actually find public speaking easier than small groups. In a small group my brain is trying to "model" what each person is thinking about my talk, as the groups get larger that becomes impossible and I tend to relax and let go. I also find the energy in a larger setting is a useful feedback mechanism. I might toss a small joke out and see if the audience is engaged, or I will ask a question and get a show of hands. The more I engage the calmer I feel and the more enjoyable the experience is for me and my audience.
That's interesting. My brain does the same in terms of attempting to simulate that model of the people, but when it becomes impossible to run the algorithm (too large of a group), instead of just giving up, my brain goes into panic mode. I have found propranolol helps me with many of the physical symptoms that would otherwise dominate.
Years of practice and “This won’t kill me” thinking have helped a lot. Also I watch every single talk I’ve given which is brutal but it lets me improve but also re-affirm I didn’t die…
I agree regarding audience size and add the factor or preparation - no way am I going to speak to a large audience without solid prep. That helps me a ton, feeling prepared and rehearsed.
Exercise increases heart rate. The more we exercise, the more the heart gets used to that adrenergic stimulation. This decreases the number of receptors to sense adrenaline in the heart, so whenever adrenaline rises again into the system, like in public speaking, we can handle it much better.
But what a godsend propranolol has been for a contentious work situation causing extreme anxiety.
Wonderful to take ahead of a scheduled meeting that could have otherwise been an hour of physical panic that no rational thought (this will feel unimportant in a week, it's just job, etc etc) could quell.
I don't think this is necessary at all, anecdotal but I used to have terrible social anxiety and fear of public speaking but after putting myself through it for several rounds it just kind of clicked.
Eventually, your body learns to adapt and understand that this thing you dreaded isn't so bad after all
also helped my chronic acid reflux/lpr but its more of diaphragmatic breathing. its backed by research.
using phones and laptops all day stuns your brain into shallow breathing all day.when i was kid i remember my dad taking naps in the afternoon and his belly moving up and down as he slept peacefully. i dont think anyone does that anymore.
i have a pet theory that this is what is driving high gastro cancers in young ppl.
A leak of purportedly of ultra-secret society called “Dialog” has revealed the inner workings of an elite group to which hundreds of global leaders, business executives and billionaires belong.
Nothing interesting to see there unless you like spending time watching over energetic delusional patients chating with each other in a psychiatric hospital.
They have speed dating offer too,and an earlier invitation was mentioned in the Epstein files:''An invitation to the 2014 Dialog retreat at Sundance Resort in Utah was published via the Epstein files after Harvard University physicist Lisa Randall forwarded her invitation to Jeffrey Epstein asking, "Is this worthwhile?" He responded “sundance is nice „ go.” British financier Ian Osborne also forwarded his 2014 invitation to Epstein with the note: "Same shit. Peter doesn't even attend. I will tell him that he should stop them using his name.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2026/06/18/what-we...
I think the acquisition of skills need human guidance,AI has created a quality problem making human self-help books more valuable.
From a new language to public speaking to media training.Some books need more than structure by AI, that is professional knowledge and real-life experience.
AI has a vast information ocean, yet a travel book helped me prepare my underwater kit because WiFi does not work underwater, saving me a lot of money I could have wasted on wireless kit.
Take AI apps for teaching languages,Langua is a good example, I think the most successful ones combine human instructors for insights and guidance with AI for drills prescribed and calibrated by the tutor. AI drills are not the same.
