dominicq

Notes on the “Heart of Dark­ness”

• dominicq 10 Feb 2026 8:31 UTC

  3 points

  0

  in reply to: Viliam’s comment on: I fi­nally fixed my footwear

  Funny thing is, even if you buy them larger, they are still insufficiently wide. Toes spread out pretty wide, at least mine do.

  I don’t know what it is, it’s absurd to me that something like a shoe, something that almost everyone in the world uses, is mostly done wrong.

• dominicq 4 Feb 2026 19:24 UTC

  2 points

  0

  in reply to: Hugo L’s comment on: I fi­nally fixed my footwear

  Yeah, I was looking into barefoot shoes even before and the current shoes (the ones I linked) are sold as “barefoot” shoes. Zero drop ftw. But in my experience, the drop itself was secondary to the wide toebox factor.

  Of course, actually walking without any shoes is superior, and I try to practice it whenever possible.

  I still haven’t solved the problem of boots. Like if it’s winter, rainy, muddy—I don’t want to walk barefoot or in a classic breathable “barefoot” shoe. This is something I need to look into.

• dominicq 2 Feb 2026 10:37 UTC

  2 points

  0

  in reply to: Richard_Kennaway’s comment on: I fi­nally fixed my footwear

  I have never seen wide toebox shoes in a physical shoe shop.

  And I also had a policy of never buying shoes online because it’s usually garbage and doesn’t fit me well.

  But I gave these a shot: https://​​www.amazon.de/​​-/​​en/​​dp/​​B0F4XJN7HC

  And it has been worth it. Very wide at the top, sufficiently narrow at the heel. I see that there are some other models on Amazon, and also on AliExpress.

  Given that it’s relatively cheap, I think it’s a good bet, it has been for me. For higher quality, there are also other online shops like BeLenka and some others, but this cheap Chinese shoe has been a ⁹⁄₁₀ purchase these last couple of months. Therefore, I’ve canceled my policy of never buying shoes online.

I fi­nally fixed my footwear

• dominicq 17 Jan 2026 11:34 UTC

  3 points

  0

  in reply to: silentbob’s comment on: Com­par­ing your­self to other people

  I think that “fake local comparison” is a real problem. Relatable influencers living lives much different than yours feel like your neighbors, even though they are not. It’s one of the many reasons why I think that we should regulate social media into oblivion. I’ll write something about that in another post.

Com­par­ing your­self to other people

• dominicq 9 Jan 2026 8:25 UTC

  4 points

  0

  in reply to: AnthonyC’s comment on: On ra­tio­nal­ity skills

  My optimal amount is likely 80 real, 20 meta. This is mostly because I’ve found that intellectual masturbation is easy, and trying to figure out the truth on an object-level issue is difficult (you actually need to do research), and so I default to the first one.

  Incidentally, I think this is why “insight porn” authors are often prolific. It’s easy to generate “insight”—or at least, comparatively easier.

• dominicq 8 Jan 2026 19:58 UTC

  4 points

  2

  on: In My Misan­thropy Era

  lmao, certified banger of a post. You have a funny style, I didn’t expect to see Twitter-level humor (I apologize) and LW-level reasoning (I don’t apologize) in a combo together.

  Anyway, by Sturgeon’s law: 90% of everything is crap. That, unfortunately, includes the philosophy meetups of the world, at least in terms of truth-seeking.

  I think misanthropy is pretty mid. Like it makes you feel good for a while, and it’s good to “dip in” misanthropy every once in a while, just to keep things fun, but it’s ultimately useless. People are actually dumb, and even educated people are actually dumb and useless in many ways. But it’s like… do you want to wallow in it? I don’t, most of the time.

  So I just speak the language of the particular Rome that I find myself in, and sorta try to learn something useful. There’s this contractor that worked on my house a lot. Total common man, and not a philosophy-meetup-attending kind. I learned a lot from that guy, even though we could probably never be friends as we are different species, as you say. But I learned so much, that I wouldn’t have, if I had kept to my own kind.

  There’s a reason why this garden has walls!

On ra­tio­nal­ity skills

• dominicq 23 Dec 2025 15:44 UTC

  4 points

  −2

  on: Opinionated Takes on Mee­tups Organizing

  This is probably just me but if I had to do some reading or I’d otherwise be somehow penalized, I would probably just skip the entire meetup. Also saying to people outright “speak 25% less” feels insulting or at least, without social grace.

Za­greb meetup: win­ter 2025

Za­greb ra­tio­nal­ist meetup, Oct 2025

• dominicq 19 Aug 2025 6:43 UTC

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: Big Tony’s comment on: My notes from “En­ergy: A Begin­ner’s Guide”

  You’re right, corrected, thank you

• dominicq 18 Aug 2025 20:55 UTC

  1 point

  0

  on: De­bug­ging for Mid Coders

  How does one “read the docs?”. Sometimes I ask how a senior dev figured something out, and they say “I read the documentation and it explained it.” And I’m like “okay, duh. but… there’s so much fucking documentation. I can’t possibly be expected to read it all?”

  You should read the docs like you would read a book; this provides outsized benefits precisely because most people won’t do that. Source reasoning here:

  https://​​aaronfrancis.com/​​2023/​​read-the-docs-like-a-book-2381721a

My notes from “En­ergy: A Begin­ner’s Guide”

• dominicq 21 May 2025 16:57 UTC

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: sarahconstantin’s comment on: sarah­con­stantin’s Shortform

  Huh, never heard of database consumption. It’s a cool term because if you read it Victorian, you could also be suffering from (database) consumption!

  Yeah I constantly read various wikis for stories or games I like. I’m loremaxxing.

• dominicq 21 May 2025 14:53 UTC

  3 points

  0

  on: do­minicq’s Shortform

  Has anyone done a Brier scoring of Gartner reports, that is, their predictions? Seems like a bunch of companies are relying on their predictions but I can’t find anyone evaluating them. Looks like a lot of money on the table.

• dominicq 6 Apr 2025 16:59 UTC

  2 points

  −1

  in reply to: p.b.’s comment on: AI 2027: What Su­per­in­tel­li­gence Looks Like

  I agree, and am also confused with the idea that LLMs will be able to bootstrap something more intelligent.

  My day job is a technical writer. I also do a bit of DevOps stuff. This combo ought to be the most LLM-able of all, yet I frequently find myself giving up on trying to tease out an answer from an LLM. And I’m far from the edge of my field!

  So how exactly do people on the edge of their field make better use of LLMs, and expect to make qualitative improvements?

  Feels like it’ll have to be humans to make algorithmic improvements, at least up until a point.

• dominicq 13 Aug 2024 5:46 UTC

  6 points

  0

  on: Par­a­sites (not a metaphor)

  This is why I love LessWrong.

  Thanks, I’m saving this if I ever get any symptoms, and I’m also considering taking some mebendazole as a purely preventative measure (I don’t remember that I’ve ever taken it, and I’ve been exposed to dirty work for years and years now).