Ask me about:
- Science (biology, computation, statistics)
- Gaming (rhythm, rogue-like/lite, other generic 1-player games)
- Autism & related (I have diagnosis)
- Bad takes on philosophy
- Bad takes on US political systems & more US stuff
I'm not knowledgeable about most other things
I think the best fit would be an immigration lawyer? Those ppl are incredibly expensive (probably in the $1000s to begin with) and are country-specific, so mostly only ppl who have difficult cases do that...
Can try to search the subreddits r/iwantout and r/immigration first, they have lots of good resources and past posts. Also can try expat.com
Also don't make my mistake... finding a job in a foreign country is incredibly hard, even with a doctorate. So it helps to cast a wide net and/or get a job offer first before making further plans
Oh boy I do have some hilarious career-related stories! But yeah, I very seriously considered taking a job in Germany at one point (didn't end up happening). Maybe I'll chat a bit more about it somewhere else
Four. English, Chinese, Japanese, German.
Among these German is the only one where I'm not confident in my language capacities... So I almost beat OP in the bet :P I just happened to have learned German up until ~A2 for career reasons but dropped it since my plans changed. Other three I'm all very fluent in. I am also learning French but ironically I only know 1/2/3 because I'm a complete newbie...
I spent the last 10 years in the US so my internal monolog is a bit messed up... I primarily count in English which is not my native language. If it is a long number I'll use Chinese since it is more efficient (one syllable each for 0-10)
So... disclaimer first! I have played chess but only a year or so; I got into chess during the pandemic and had a peak ELO of ~1600+ on chess.com and 1900+ on Lichess; probably translates to a classical ELO of ~1200 (competition is tough in classical...). Obviously I'm not remotely a good player, but I can hold my ground. I also had to do a neuropsych evaluation recently for mental health reasons, so I spent the last month of my free time looking into research of intelligence (g factor, IQ tests, the disturbing history, etc...) for my own curiosity. So I might have a bit of knowledge on this... but:
For the most part chess is its own unique skills and is unrelated to "smartness". Nevertheless, I think chess might be related to probably just one or two specific narrow fields of intelligence. Being good at chess requires one to be knowledgeable of various chess openings (memorization, working memory), extremely strong pattern recognition (Magnus Carlsen is really good at this; AlphaZero was literally all pattern recognition due to the way it works), and being able to see 5, 10, or even 15 steps ahead and consider all the rational options (again, working memory)
I just took the WAIS-V test two weeks ago for my psych eval, and they do indeed test for working memory and pattern recognition in specific sub-tasks. However the difference is... IQ tests are never meant to be practiced as they measure a type of "potential" if you may, but chess is all about what you actually play on the board. Sure maybe if ppl were literally just given the rules and had no prior exposure then a smarter person might spot a forced checkmate faster, but ppl do pratice for the game... In fact, the advice people used to give to get better at chess is... to do more puzzles
Sooo... methinks an intelligent person might have a slight edge training themselves to do the above, but there is probably otherwise very little association. After a certain point intelligence itself probably has no influence on chess performance whatsoever, and realistically it's more about "grit", or how much time/effort someone puts into the game
Aaand... case in point. Apparently Kasparov went through a 3-day intensive intelligence test, but had a really "spiky" profile that is more commonly seen in neurodivergent individuals; scored really high on some categories and abysmally low on others. I saw this random Reddit post which says that Carlsen scored 115(+1SD) on AGCT (a fairly quick and accurate online test), which is not low but not impressive by any means either. Nakamura allegedly got 102 on Mensa Norway's trial test, which is not as accurate as AGCT but should be fairly good too; 102 is like dead-average
The most-cited papers of the twenty-first century
The top 10 (more than half of these have estimated citation counts over 100,000):
- Deep residual learning for image recognition (2016, preprint 2015)
- Analysis of relative gene expression data using real-time quantitative PCR and the 2–ΔΔCT method (2001)
- Using thematic analysis in psychology (2006)
- Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM-5 (2013)
- A short history of SHELX (2007)
- Random forests (2001)
- Attention is all you need (2017)
- ImageNet classification with deep convolutional neural networks (2017)
- Global cancer statistics 2020: GLOBOCAN estimates of incidence and mortality worldwide for 36 cancers in 185 countries (2020)
- Global cancer statistics 2018: GLOBOCAN estimates of incidence and mortality worldwide for 36 cancers in 185 countries (2016)
The article went in-depth on some trends... but in brief:
- 1, 6, 7, 8 are all papers that are foundational to the current generation of deep learning/AI research, so naturally they got cited
Bear, but I think it's because gorillas are known to be peaceful and will probably run away from conflict
If it is a fight to the death... Idk I think with how physics works it might be quite even?
Yup... I had a suspicion that the Belgian system will somehow be different, so thankfully I didn't find this out the hard way. I could have almost bricked my laptop login password that way...
Also it's the first time I had to use my right hand to type the Alt key which is so trippy
Moving to Belgium for a new job so...
People who use non-QWERTY keyboards: what do you use?
I did not realize this was a thing until I just switched to AZERTY which... despite being marketed as being "similar" to QWERTY, is still tripping me up
Edit: since this came up twice: I'm switching since I'm relocating to the French-speaking part of the world & I just happened to want to learn the language/culture, so yeah
Permanently Deleted
Apparently my case is uncommon... I haven't voted in any serious elections yet. I'm still relatively young, the country where I have citizenship doesn't allow elections, and I have never been a permanent resident anywhere else that allows elections so...
I’m talking about PRC btw
Oh... OH
Their advice is good in this very specific context as the PRC is a bit... special, see other comments. They don't limit their reach to just Chinese citizens either, my interpretation of what has happened in Canada with the secret police stations is that they might consider all ethnically Chinese people fair game
For most instances though, methinks valid constructive criticisms toward the government is a good way to keep democracy going, and unfortunately this process sometimes involve protesting. I can't make decisions for others when a social cause is more important than their own safety, but to each their own at that point so...
This might not apply to people who are not Autistic or somewhat neurodivergent but... my therapist literally just pointed out to me a few weeks ago that I have Alexithymia (emotional blindness)
I have been much more in tune with my emotions afterwards and realized I was actually quite satisfied/content with life a lot of the times, it's just that way too often I would not have known I was happy. So I guess if anyone's also neurodivergent in some way it might be a good thing to look into
Giving. It's not that I particular like doing so, since I don't have too many ppl I could give stuff to... It's more that I really don't desire any gifts. Up until this point in life I basically had to move every 1-2 years. Receiving something I don't like/want means that I'll have to throw or donate it away so... And the things I actually want are all several hundred dollars and above, since I have gotten basically everything I want that is below that price point
Northwestern's president sent an official email at 9 pm last night on this topic while being as sarcastic as ever
On the other R site there have been researchers at Cornell stating that they received stop-work orders
Shit is hitting the fan
My interpretation is that visitors don't have specific rights to criticize a government per-se. However! In most non-authoritarian countries, everyone has the unequivocal rights to criticize a government as long as they are not intending on disobeying other harassment/discrimination laws, regardless of their status. Since visitors are also included in "everyone", they can criticize a government too
Of course this only applies to non-authoritarian countries. Authoritarian countries don't have that right even for their citizens, so visitors are not excluded either
(I hate where this train of thought is going but whatever...)
Had a serious car crash that would have gone fatal if I was just a bit unlucky... That was one month after I got my first car. I think after that I quickly became an insanely good & safe driver
Being high on catnip
If you look closely Tommy was covered in catnip powder (and smelled like it too)
For my immediate family I've made a small self-hosted Matrix server before, although it has its own bundle of issues... if I were to do it again maybe I would choose Signal. But yeah from a pure technical standpoint there are lots of viable insta-messaging alternatives
Sadly you hit the nail on the head regarding the social media "network effect"... I also came from a non-US country that has been dominated by an instachat app that doesn't respect privacy whatsoever, but good luck convincing a group of ppl to switch to a different software. Sooo... most likely even if you really do get permabanned from Whatsapp, ppl you know in real life might just keep using Whatsapp without you anyway
But anyways, if you don't mind giving a bit of a white lie... the excuse you gave ("permabanned from Whatsapp") actually doesn't sound to bad to me IMO
So to get the obvious out of the way... Becoming an American or a Canadien citizen are both difficult and highly demanding tasks during normal times. We are not in normal times... so I wouldn't exactly advise it. But:
I don't believe the communities have migrated out of Reddit yet, but you might have some luck going through Reddit's r/immigration and r/immigrationcanada first. They both have pretty well-documented wikis and are both reasonably active, can try to register a burner account to ask if you have any questions not answered by anyone else
Cost is probably not an issue since it's borderline impossible to immigrate to either US or Canada without some type of familial relationship or highly-demanded professional skills. If it is the latter, fairly certain it will be possible to save up to $10k for immigration processing so... And if I do not have familial ties or in-demand skills, it would be close to impossible to immigrate to these two countries in the first place
IMO if I have no affiliations with US/Canada whatsoever, I might try my luck with Europe first... a lot of European countries have a policy of 5 years legal residence -> permanent residence/green card. Canada does have a fast-track points system but it is quite competitive now; US immigration is quite nightmarish, and the country is not very welcoming due to recent developments
Edit: as mentioned below... Eurozone is not a single country. The 5 year thing is just what I observed several (not all) countries in EU adhere to, but yeah please do check the specific rules! Also Switzerland's immigration policy is somewhat uniquely restrictive by EU standards if it helps.
Association between Wealth and Mortality in the United States and Europe
Maybe you guys have heard of recent news mentioning how the wealthiest Americans live shorter than the poorest Western Europeans. This is the base study that supported that claim.
We performed a longitudinal, retrospective cohort study involving adults 50 to 85 years of age who were included in the Health and Retirement Study and the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe between 2010 and 2022. Wealth quartiles were defined according to age group and country, with quartile 1 comprising the poorest participants and quartile 4 the wealthiest. Mortality and Kaplan–Meier curves were estimated for each wealth quartile across the United States and 16 countries in northern and western, southern, and eastern Europe...
... Although all the countries showed an association between wealth and mortality, the United States had the widest gap in mortality between the bottom and top wealth quartiles. Mortality among the wealthiest Americans appeared to be higher than that among most
Welcome to the Google DeepMind Minecraft SMP server : ) (/s)
So the funny thing is... the lead researcher added "finding diamonds" since it's a niche and highly difficult task that involves multi-step processing (have to cut wood, make pickaxe, mine iron, ...) that the AI was not trained on. DeepMind has a good track record with real life usage of their AI... so I think their ultimate goal is to make the AI go from "Minecraft kiddies" to something that can think on the spot to help with treating rare disease or something like that
Y'know they could have used something like Slay the Spire or Balatro... but I digress
DeepMind's new AI ("DreamerV3") finds diamonds in Minecraft without being taught
An artificial intelligence (AI) system has for the first time figured out how to collect diamonds in the hugely popular video game Minecraft — a difficult task requiring multiple steps — without being shown how to play. Its creators say the system, called Dreamer, is a step towards machines that can generalize knowledge learned in one domain to new situations, a major goal of AI.
Collecting a diamond is “a very hard task”, says computer scientist Jeff Clune at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, who was part of a separate team that trained a program to find diamonds using videos of human play. “There is no question this represents a major step forward for the field.”
An even bigger target for AI, says Clune, is the ultimate challenge for Minecraft players: killing the Ender Dragon, the virtual world’s most fearsome creature.
~~Neuro-sam
Without being sarcastic...
I think Project 2025's goal is less about "cost cutting" and more about reducing bureaucracy & consolidating power... I genuinely don't think they have real plans for where to spend the money besides some vague goals like lowering income tax or something
And in practice, they are cutting a bunch of important governmental endeavors that have very good ROI (NIH has always bipartisan for a reason), so they are literally wasting everyone's money, not saving
‘One of the darkest days’: NIH purges agency leadership amid mass layoffs
On health economist Jay Bhattacharya’s first day as head of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the chiefs of four of the 27 institutes and centres that make up his agency — including the country’s top infectious-diseases official — were removed from their posts. The unprecedented move comes amid massive cuts to research at the NIH.
The directors of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) and the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) were informed late on 31 March that they were being placed on administrative leave. Together, these leaders were in charge of US$9 billion in funding at the NIH.
Try this archive.org link if there is soft paywall
State department shares new standard for denials based on social media posts, financial donations and memberships
The United States has ordered consular offices to significantly expand their screening processes for student visa applicants, including through comprehensive social media investigations, to exclude people they deem to support terrorism.
It specifically targets new and renewing F, M and J student visa applications, providing explicit instructions for consular officers to conduct mandatory social media reviews digging into applicants’ lives online. Officers are directed to examine the social media of all students applying to a visa for evidence of activities the administration defines as a threat to national security or terrorism.
So I guess this is a thing for people who want to study/do research in the US now
I'm leaving the US for good, anything I should do before I leave?
Since this wasn't apparent the last time I asked... no, I'm actually not a US citizen or green card holder (permanent resident). Just happened to be in this country for a long time due to career reasons.
75% of US scientists who answered Nature poll consider leaving
The massive changes in US research brought about by the new administration of President Donald Trump are causing many scientists in the country to rethink their lives and careers. More than 1,200 scientists who responded to a Nature poll — three-quarters of the total respondents — are considering leaving the United States following the disruptions prompted by Trump. Europe and Canada were among the top choices for relocation.
The trend was particularly pronounced among early-career researchers. Of the 690 postgraduate researchers who responded, 548 were considering leaving; 255 of 340 PhD students said the same.
I have answered this poll myself; this is meant for scientists of all career-stages, so a lot of PhD students and postdocs along with faculty members.
I don't think the article is paywalled, but let me know if it is.
Is there still a reliable way to read old Twitter threads in 2025?
As title suggested. For context & as an example... there was something I wanted to investigate today, but the only primary information was from a 2023 Twitter (yup, before it became X) thread. The annoying part is that the crucial tweets got labelled as "sensitive content" so it's not even available on Wayback Machine
The hiring pause at one of the nation’s wealthiest schools comes after other schools have also announced efforts to save money.
Harvard University, one of the nation’s wealthiest schools, on Monday joined the list of universities across the country imposing hiring freezes, citing the uncertainty created by President Trump’s threats to slash funding for higher education.
... [T]he step by Harvard, which has an endowment of more than $50 billion, illustrates the gravity of the situation facing higher education...
The email emphasized that the hiring pause was temporary, but also asked the leadership of Harvard units to “scrutinize discretionary and nonsalary spending.”
Paywall, tried to summarize the article the best I can. Try this link if you prefer to read the full article & don't have access to NYT
Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest comes as Trump vows to deport foreign students involved in protests against Israel’s war
A prominent Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University’s student encampment movement was arrested on Saturday night by federal immigration authorities who claimed they were acting on a state department order to revoke his green card, according to his attorney.
One of the agents told Greer by phone that they were executing a state department order to revoke Khalil’s student visa. Informed by the attorney that Khalil, who graduated last December, was in the United States as a permanent resident with a green card, the agent said they were revoking that too, according to the lawyer.
“Targeting a student activist is an affront to the rights of Mahmoud Khalil and his family. This blatantly unconstitutional act sends a deplorable message that freedom of speech is no longer protected in America. Furthermore, Khalil and all people living in the United States are afforded due process. A green card can only be revoked by an immigration judge, showing once again that the Trum
Thousands gather across U.S. in Stand Up for Science events
Thousands of researchers and their supporters, including recently fired federal workers, gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial here today to protest what they consider the antiscience actions of President Donald Trump in the nearly 7 weeks since he took office. The nation’s capital is just one of the many locations hosting the rally, called Stand Up for Science, with about 30 events nationwide and additional rallies outside the United States, bringing the expected total to more than 150 events.
At the Washington, D.C., event, protesters demanded an end to government censorship in scientific research, restoration of federal funding, reinstatement of federal employees, preservation of diversity and inclusion in science, and more. The crowd heard from more than a dozen speakers, including Senator Chris van Hollen (D–MD), former Representative Fred Upton (R–MI), and former National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins.
Soft-paywall, although the article is still u
Realistically, how feasible is it to 100% boycott a massive corporation (such as Amazon) for an extended period of time?
The key is 100% boycotting all services provided by a company. Wikipedia's list of Amazon product/services as reference (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Amazon_products_and_services).
Incidentally, I know entire neighborhoods that don't have other grocery stores besides Target/Whole Foods, not to mention that AWS is the cloud computing industry standard... As a personal example, my vet-prescribed cat foods are manufactured by Purina, a subsidary of Nestlé (needless to say, a separate but also extremely evil large corporation)
Exclusive: NIH to terminate hundreds of active research grants
In an unprecedented move, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has begun mass terminations of research grants that fund active scientific projects because they no longer meet “agency priorities”.
At least 16 termination letters have already been sent out... And hundreds more will be coming, say two NIH officials, who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the press.
The agency, based in Bethesda, Maryland, has now asked its employees to review new and ongoing projects for any DEI activities and to place them in one of four categories: projects that solely support DEI-related activities (category one), projects that partially support these activities (category two), projects that do not support these activities but include some DEI-related language (category three) and projects that do not support any DEI activities (category four).
Mind you: this is an administration where the president had trouble differentiating between "transgenic" and "trans
What are some of the things someone permanently relocating away from the US should be aware of?
Assume that this is not a wannabee, but someone who, for example, already has a solid job offer from an EU country, and some cash for the relocation.
Chicagoans rally in support of Ukraine after Zelenskyy’s contentious meeting with Trump
After the kickoff gathering downtown, the growing crowd marched down Michigan Avenue to cheers from passersby and tourists and honks from cars before turning west on Madison Street and heading to Daley Plaza.
Was at the rally, can confirm that the organizers & Chicago Police Department closed off most of Magnificent Mile for people to march.