Many therapists and scientists have documented their personal experience guiding hundreds, sometimes thousands of trips with strong psychedelic doses (e.g. 20mg+ synthetic psilocybin, 200mcg+ lsd). They've written entire chapters on bad trips in the context of specifically psychedelics, what are their cause, how to avoid them, and how to handle them when they occur. Research papers, books, articles, etc. It's all in there. Sometimes, even reading just a single chapter from a single book is enough (James Fadiman's The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide is quite accessible. https://tripsafe.org/ also offers good advice)
Acquiring that knowledge requires to actually sit down and read the stuff. Sadly, what we have around us is people usually just spewing anecdotes and opinions.
If you're considering taking the journey, do yourself a favor and research the topic a bit before. You might be surprised at the amount of misinformation that's out there (and in these very threads).
> A Buddhist teacher once explained to me that one of the expected effects of certain kinds of meditation was a growing sense that the world is insubstantial, as if it were made of tissue-paper that you could stick your finger through.
This is called "emptiness", and the second level "but actually it's all real too" is supposed to add up to something called "non-duality". Buddhists historically spend a lot of time arguing with each other about how exactly it works.
The practical upshot is supposed to be that you can look at a statement about yourself like "I have depression" and realize that it is empty of independent existence ie that you're the one doing it to yourself, and this may possibly make it go away.
If you do this too hard you then realize you don't exist and also go away.
I'm so grateful for having abandoned social networks. My main motivator were the fights over political weaponization of COVID-19, but then I went on and abandoned youtube and news as well. Now, I'm halfway with my first book, found a new hobby and developed my previous ones, rediscovered programming for fun, am learning a new foreign language, found a new job with very good compensation, lost 10 kg and became a better husband. My life is so fundamentally better.
I discovered a while ago that all those errors and bugs that only appear when you demo something to an audience also magically appear when you record yourself demoing it to nobody. Maybe narrating a feature to a pretend audience takes the blinders off enough that you notice little mistakes you wouldn't have otherwise.
Rick Houlihan did a talk a few years ago about designing the data later for an application using dynamodb. The most common reaction I get from people I show it to- most of them Amazon SDEs who operate services that use Dynamodb- is "Holy shit what is this wizardry?!"
One of the biggest mistakes people make with dynamo is thinking that it's just a relational database with no relations. It's not.
It's an incredible system, but it requires a lot of deep knowledge to get the full benefits, and it requires you, often, to design your data layer very well up-front. I actually don't recommend using it for a system that hasn't mostly stabilized in design.
But when used right, it's an incredibly performant beast of a data store.
I didn't use this one, but my Computer Organization class which did gates -> circuits -> cpu -> microcode -> assembly was the lightbulb that allowed me to attempt to deconstruct everything to at least the gate level if I had to and made me much more comfortable with computer science and software in general.
The only thing that rivaled that lightbulb was aspects of Theory of Computation with undecidability, turing machine vs stack machine vs state machine powers that theoretically limit Von Neumann architecture.
I'll have to pick this up to see what is new, what would really be nice is if they can get a bit into SSDs and modern superspeed networking, I/O, and multicore that wasn't as prevalent back in the day.
Having deployed extensive optical networks both aerially and underground throughout Iowa, my recommendation would be to locate a community that would value your contribution as a starting point. I would then deploy physical plant for specific customers overbuilding the fiber optics (e.g. if the customer wants 12 fibers, deploy 48 selling 12 and keeping 36 for your own future use).
In my experience VERY few people in the optical networking space understand how to engineer a municipal fiber optic network - they invest thousands of dollars per customer when it can be done with best practices for well under $1k per customer (let me just say that 802.1w RSTP is your friend). You need to combine all the different ISO networking layers into a SINGLE business model (ie. physical plant and Ethernet/VLAN circuits all by the SAME engineer not by different departments, otherwise things get unnecessarily over-engineered).
Even more important than the technical engineering is the financial engineering.
Once you understand you will never produce more capital from selling customers than it will cost to provision those customers, you need to consider more advanced financial engineering models - the one that worked great for the cellular industry and several optical networks is commercial paper. Find a lawyer that REALLY understands commercial paper - then every contract signed by a customer actually IS cash and does not need to be converted to cash. It's one of the only ways I know of releasing capital invested into physical plant.
- Build middleware (REST API endpoint) in front of the mainframe that was 1:1 mainframe functions. It initially does nothing except auth and routing.
- Re-write/migrate all other software from using the mainframe directly to using the new middleware.
- Work to further restrict anything directly connecting to the mainframe aside from the middleware, including staff's terminal access by building management solutions (e.g. new UIs, new management middleware).
- Once the mainframe is completely isolated, start building drop-in replacements for business segments and then switch the middleware(s) to point at the new solution from the mainframe. This should be invisible to all external consumers. You can "hot test" it by having the API execute on the mainframe + new solution, and checking for 1:1 responses.
The hardest part about the above isn't the tech, it is the internal norms that you're fighting against (e.g. staff have had terminal access for tens of years, and know the commands to get their work done by memory). So you have to create very compelling alternatives using the new API middleware/web/apps, "export to Microsoft Excel," graphing, mobile support, and similar that a terminal cannot directly offer is clutch here.
Honestly, myopia is not complicated (Kepler pretty much had it right in 1604 already). There's countless studies showing that axial length (eyeball length) changes in both directions, where elongation increases myopia. How do you change it? You get defocus (blur) which makes the eye adjust in the direction to reduce the blur.
Practically: use weaker (around 1.5 diopters) or no glasses during close-up work (reading, computer work, smartphones) and your regular or .25D weaker glasses for distance vision. Always use your full strength glasses for driving and safety critical activities.
You can expect around a .75D decrease in myopia per year. Personally, I started with around -5.5D and am now (1.5 years later) at -2.5D.
Obviously I didn't come up with this myself, there's a huge group over at https://endmyopia.org
Don't get put off by the sarcastic tone of the website. Look into the studies regarding axial length, pseudomyopia and lens induced myopia if you'd like. You can find plenty of studies linked as well as the practical steps on endmyopia. Note: You don't have to buy the guy's courses, just read his blog and free email guide.
I wonder how things would look like if the 'semantic web' (the actual web3?) had taken off and we had regular and rich, machine-readable metadata for just about everything rather than having to rely on what is largely subpar scraping and 'AI' systems.
People have pointed out recently how Google search seems to struggle as sites on the internet turn more and more into apps rather than standardized documents and they just go and search on reddit. Having a standard to encode semantics seems honestly necessary at this point if you want to keep things interoperable.
My father was diagnosed with Ampulla of vater carcinoma. It's a pretty rare cancer, most similar to pancreatic cancer. After the curative options had been exhausted (read: cancer returned after surgery), the oncologist started a regimen of abraxane and one other chemo agent (I'm blanking on the name right now). These of course come with their share of side effects, as they are "classic" chemo. Not to mention their efficacy is pretty terrible. But really at this point we needed more data. They had never sequenced the tumor. Many, many emails and calls later, the doctor finally agreed to order the sequencing. Till this day I don't know why there was so much resistance to this (also keep in mind, this wasn't some rural hospital, this was at Johns Hopkins). Some time goes by and we finally get the results. The results showed a brca mutation. This was of course excellent news, as the brca mutations are very widely studied due to their connection with breast cancer. After some research, it turned out parp inhibitors were the latest most effective treatment at the time, specifically Lynparza. Again, many emails and calls, until the oncologist agreed to prescribe it. And unlike the conventional chemo agents, this was taken orally and had few if any side effects. Months go by and the ct results come in - the tumors are shrinking! All in all my father remained in remission under the parp inhibitors for a little over a year, side effect and pain free (I can't stress that last part enough). Lynparza eventually stopped being effective (this is believed to occur due to the cancer mutating). We subsequently tried a clinical trial but in the end the battle was lost, and my father passed.
While the parp inhibitor wasn't a cure, my father, my family, and I, would not give up that extra year for the world. So the tldr is: don't just listen to the oncologist, get a second opinion, don't be afraid to read hundreds of medical papers, and definitely badger the oncologist if you have salient information.
Often the treatment includes visual therapy, but it can also include special glasses, eye patches, therapy for balance, psychotherapy, exercise programs, inflammation management, sleep quality, and a lot more.
It really depend on the exact issues and symptoms involved. Maybe the visual system is damaged, or the vestibular (balance) or other areas. Thankfully, the brain is incredibly fault tolerant, so it can still find workarounds and co-op other systems to make up some of the difference.
But the workarounds are less efficient and this creates a tremendous load on attention and working memory. In hardware terms, imagine you're playing some graphics-heavy game and your GPU gets fried. The CPU can still run it, but it'll be really laggy and overheated. Luckily the brain can (sometimes) heal and rebuild broken systems. But it takes work.
Somewhere around 90% of concussion suffers have visual problems. Poor tracking, double vision, light sensitivity, difficulty focusing. Their brain compensates so well they might not even notice, but that sort of thing interferes with memory and wears out the brain really quickly. Therapy involving eye tracking, smooth pursuits, focusing practice and the like can get your brain to repair or rebuild those skills. That frees up all that processing power and gets you feeling more normal.
I've given a few textbook suggestions for almost all of the topics you requested, in a preferred order for learning them. But before you look at that list, consider the following:
I would strongly, strongly advise against trying to learn proof-based mathematics from a textbook (almost all of the math here will be proof-based). The absolute best way to learn mathematics is to have an experienced and competent instructor tailor their pedagogy to you. Failing that, an experienced instructor who is "just okay" but who can e.g. review and critique your work is better than a textbook.
Learning math is very unlike learning programming. It's a counterintuitive idea, but the information density of math textbooks (whether they're well or poorly written) is generally so high that you can't absorb the material unless you read only a few pages per day. Not only that, but it's usually not the case that a single textbook has the ideal level of exposition for your needs - for example, you don't have linear algebra on here despite it being a prerequisite for basically everything else. Some textbooks treat this subject in a highly theoretical manner, while others treat it at a very applied/computational level. Which suits your needs more? Have you studied it at all?
If you're actually serious about this, you need to proceed at a slow pace (2 - 5 pages per day) and complete as many exercises as possible. If the exercises are computationally focused you can do fewer, but you should aim to solve as many of the proof-based problems as possible.
If you go at a rate which will actually allow you to absorb the material, doing this "properly" will take you years. With dedication and not much talent I'd expect it to take as long as an undergraduate degree. With dedication and a lot of talent I could see this being accomplished in two, maybe three years. Once again, I strongly, strongly suggest finding a mentor or instructor.
In any case, here is a list of the textbooks most mathematicians will consider to be very good:
1. Calculus
Calculus, by Spivak
This gives you a rigorous treatment of calculus, which hopefully you have some familiarity with. After this you can move on to real analysis.
2. Real Analysis
Principles of Mathematical Analysis, by Rudin
You might be ready for this after Spivak's Calculus, but it can be rough. If you can't reproduce a proof of irrationality after reading through the first few pages, work through Tao's Analysis I first.
3. Topology
Topology, by Munkres is the absolute gold standard. You should be comfortable with calculus (and hopefully analysis) before tackling this.
4. Linear Algebra
Linear Algebra Done Right, by Axler
This is a thorough introduction to the subject at a theoretical level, with a focus on finite-dimensional vector spaces over fields R and C.
You should also work through either Linear Algebra by Friedberg, Insel, Spence or Linear Algebra by Hoffman & Kunze for the treatment of more advanced/specialized material and, in particular, determinants (which are notably de-emphasized by Axler).
Abstract Algebra by Dummit & Foote is the usual reference text for a first course. It's pretty good. If it's too advanced for you, try Pinter's A Book of Abstract Algebra. For a very challenging (but comprehensive) approach to the subject, try Lange's Algebra.
6. Category Theory
Once you have abstract algebra under your belt, a good introduction to category theory is given by Aluffi's Algebra: Chapter 0. I would suggest not trying to dive into this prior to at least encountering fields, groups and rings because it's good to have both the traditional and modern (read: categorical) contexts.
Also try Category Theory in Context, by Riehl.
7. Complex Analysis
Complex Analysis, by Ahlfors. This is an excellent and concise text. You can theoretically approach this before real analysis, but I wouldn't recommend that. Also try Complex Variables, by Churchill & Brown.
8. Differential Geometry
Calculus on Manifolds by Spivak. You will want to have a thorough understanding of analysis and linear algebra before approaching this material.
9. Measure Theory
This is very advanced material in an analysis sequence; don't jump to this unless you've thoroughly worked through analysis first.
I would recommend Stein & Shakarchi's Real Analysis: Measure Theory, Integration and Hilbert Spaces.
10. Probability Theory
A really rigorous treatment of probability is measure theoretic, but even if you haven't worked with measures before you'll need (real) analysis and linear algebra. Tackle those first.
Feller's Introduction to Probability Theory is usually a good first course. If you don't like that, try Ross. For truly advanced probability theory, work through Shiryaev or Kallenberg.
The other things you've asked for are a little under-specified or outside my wheelhouse (in particular, I don't think chaos theory is still emphasized as a field distinct from dynamical systems). You should probably add ordinary and partial differential equations to your list before some of these more specialized topics.
1. Numerical Analysis
Numerical Linear Algebra, by Trefethen & Bau. This is the best all-around introduction. Once you've worked through this, try moving on to Matrix Computations by Golub & van Loan. The latter is much more of a reference text.
2. Cryptography
You haven't specified what you're looking for here, but given the mathematical bent of your question I'd recommend Goldreich's Foundations of Cryptography (two volumes). Be forewarned: cryptography is a subfield of complexity theory. You should have a strong understanding of complexity theory before embarking on Goldreich's Foundations.
On the other hand, if you're looking for a more implementation-focused text on cryptography, try Menezes' Handbook of Applied Cryptography.
3. Optimization
This is extremely broad. There's linear programming, mixed integer programming, nonlinear optimization, stochastic optimization...I can't recommend textbooks targeted at everything here.
For a good start to the subject of optimization and constraints in general, work through Boyd & Vanderberghe's Convex Optimization. There are additional exercises available from the authors here: https://web.stanford.edu/%7Eboyd/cvxbook/bv_cvxbook_extra_ex...
This is what they did at my undergraduate university
Do all of these in order first:
Calculus 1 and 2
Linear algebra and multivariable calculus and an introduction to proofs / logic course (you are ready for some electives at this point)
Ordinary differential equations
Any of these can be done concurrently, choose one Analysis and one algebra :
Advanced calculus (eg “understanding analysis” by Abbott)
Linear algebra in the sense of finite dimensional vector spaces
Easier abstract algebra (senior level classes are eg Artin and rudin, these ones are more elementary textbooks)
Core Senior level courses that you take if you want to get good at math:
Analysis sequence (1 year on baby
Rudin)
Algebra sequence (1 year on artin)
Topology (munkres)
Electives:
Probability (can be done after multivariable calc)
Linear optimization (after linear algebra + multivariable calc)
Logic (compactness completeness godel etc whatever, can be done after intro to proofs course but will probably make less sense if you didn’t study some more stuff first)
Numerical analysis (after ODEs I guess or calculus + linear algebra if you want to skip tht stuff)
Statistics (after probability)
Combinatorics - after calc 2 and linear algebra
Geometry - after multivariable calc, linear algebra, proofs
Intro Differential geometry: after advanced calculus
Don’t really have much more knowledge for graduate courses etc. or even some common ones like complex analysis. if you know the senior level core stuff you’re probably “good enough” to make some progress on a lot of things. Each of these classes is 100-200 hours of total study so it seems odd to me that someone will just try to study it on their own by there you go I guess
> Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people":
> First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.
> Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.
> The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.
This (and other organizational failures and technological innovations) is why there will always be startups and small businesses eventually where there was once a big entrenched business or two (or sometimes three).
There is also, of course, whole new industries and niches to be created out of nothing, value and wealth is never a finite pile. It's mostly a matter of human effort to find and break out these new areas. Sometimes just reinventing things as the old talent grows old and dies off, providing value in learning history.
Well, I have the inattentive subtype, without hyperactivity or much of the associated impulsivity. So I guess I'm already in a starting point that is easier to compensate for.
I pay a lot of attention to my sleep - I'm a chronic insomniac. And keep in mind that it's not just about sleep time, it's also about sleep quality. So sleep hygiene is really crucial. No caffeine after lunch, and no alcohol in general (unless you know you can afford to be less well-rested the next day) because that might make you drowsy but it prevents entering the deep sleep cycle. Low-dosage melatonin seems to help me, not so much with falling asleep as it does with ensuring that once I do manage to sleep, I hit that "deep sleep" cycle that is absolutely necessary to recover.
I'm very sensitive to disturbances at night, noises can drive me nuts. So I spent a lot of time finding comfortable ear-plugs. They are essential for uninterrupted sleep for me, which again is crucial for hitting the deep sleep cycle.
Then there is the question of falling asleep. If I have trouble with that (which is almost every night), I get out of bed and go read in the living room, so that my brain keeps associating the bedroom with rest. Sometimes I start having ideas just before falling asleep, I then try to write those down on paper, and maybe work them out a bit - I realized that part of why late night thinking keeps me awake is that I'm afraid to forget all the ideas, so writing it down gives me peace, and doing so by hand also calms forces me to slow down. Meditation is also good for slowing down racing thoughts, but it really depends on what the thoughts in question are.
Then there's diet. I don't know if I can generalize what works for me specifically, but lots of leafy greens in general. There is evidence that berries and other sources of polyphenols help a lot with children with ADHD, and in general those are supposedly really healthy, so I figure they won't hurt me either. Avoid things that give sugar rushes/crashes. Finally I take supplements for common deficiencies that apparently disproportionately affect people with ADHD (B, zinc, magnesium).
Exercise helps because the cerebellum is involved with regulating attention. So I try to start the day with some mild exercise (like a short run) to really activate it. I've noticed that this helps with my attention regulation throughout the day. Sitting all day programming reduces activity again, so sometimes I take short "activation breaks" where I just do ten squats or burpees or whatever, not to exercise but to wake up the cerebellum.
Therapy is important. The overlap between ADHD symptoms and co-morbid/complex PTSD symptoms is large, leading me to believe that maybe people with ADHD are just more likely to end up in traumatizing situations (in my case: other kids loved to provoke temper tantrums in me) and part of their symptoms are really just a consequence of the resulting PTSD. As difficult as it was to process my past, therapy helped me a lot. It seems to have reduced some of my ADHD symptoms a bit, but even if it didn't: someone with ADHD is likely to have a lot of pain to process as a result of their condition. Doing so means having one burden less to carry, making it easier to cope with the remaining issues.
One very important thing I learned: ADHD means that inevitably I will slip up at some point and forget an important appointment or something. The screw-up itself is punishment enough, so if I hate myself for always screwing up too I'm just punishing myself twice. So learn to be kind to yourself and forgive yourself when that happens, that makes it easier to pick yourself up, fix the problem, and move on when this happens.
Therapy also helped me with being better at being brutally honest about my limitations. No, I cannot plan five things in a day when I know that I can't complete more than two. If I know I'll likely forget something at home when I go somewhere, even with checklists, leave early so I can go back to pick it up when I inevitably remember I forgot it five minutes after leaving the house. Try to develop good habits. More importantly, only try to develop one habit at a time, and give it enough time to really become a habit. And so on.
And finally: use that ADHD hyperfocus to your advantage, and do deep dives into learning as much as you can about how to ADHD works and what you can do about it.
Many therapists and scientists have documented their personal experience guiding hundreds, sometimes thousands of trips with strong psychedelic doses (e.g. 20mg+ synthetic psilocybin, 200mcg+ lsd). They've written entire chapters on bad trips in the context of specifically psychedelics, what are their cause, how to avoid them, and how to handle them when they occur. Research papers, books, articles, etc. It's all in there. Sometimes, even reading just a single chapter from a single book is enough (James Fadiman's The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide is quite accessible. https://tripsafe.org/ also offers good advice)
Acquiring that knowledge requires to actually sit down and read the stuff. Sadly, what we have around us is people usually just spewing anecdotes and opinions.
If you're considering taking the journey, do yourself a favor and research the topic a bit before. You might be surprised at the amount of misinformation that's out there (and in these very threads).