keenanpepper

I got a grant to do independent research on the AI alignment problem and was able to quit my job.

Yeah Thinkpads are obviously a popular suggestion here. I'd check out System76 too (their cheapest stuff may or may not fit your definition of "cheap").

Cooking in a cast iron pan will give you even more iron.

One thing that definitely feels like "magic" is Monstrous Moonshine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monstrous_moonshine) and stuff related to the j-invariant e.g. the fact that exp(pi*sqrt(163)) is so close to an integer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heegner_number#Almost_integers_and_Ramanujan.27s_constant). I hardly understand it at all but it seems mind-blowing to me, almost in a suspicious way.

Right. The farthest people have been is the Moon, which is still gravitationally bound to the Earth. Plenty of spacecraft have been out of Earth's gravity well, and also a car, but no humans.

Oh, the first time I read this I had a completely wrong idea what it was about. I thought it was talking about like the Dalai Lama having being reincarnated or something.

One time I ordered like a whole liter of silicone lube (to refill smaller containers from). I got this funny feeling from it being such a large amount of rare precious stuff, like it was a cask of fine whisky or something.

I disagree very strongly with the recommendation for only water-based for sex. Oil is much preferable for having sex for a long time, since it doesn't evaporate and dry out the way all water-based lubes do.

I personally use coconut oil and also silicone lube on occasion since it's even more powerful and long-lasting.

Latex condoms do have that warning not to use them with oils, but polyisoprene condoms + coconut oil is a combination I've used for a long time and trust very much.

This may be true but I hate the practice of referring to "plastic" as if it's a single substance. It's a bunch of different materials that don't really have that much in common with each other, especially from a health/toxicity standpoint.

For example, people treat it as common sense that "you shouldn't burn plastic" because the smoke is "toxic". For PVC this is totally true, it makes very nasty stuff like dioxin that will poison you. But on the other hand you can burn polyethylene (think milk jug) and it's no more toxic than burning a candle. Definitely way healthier to breath than wood campfire smoke, for example.

There's also such a silly pattern where people learn some chemical might have some effect on the body and suddenly everyone is up in arms about it. For example Bisphenol A in many applications was replaced by the very similar Bisphenol S just so things could be labeled "BPA Free". BPS probably has similar estrogenic effects to BPA.

I'd say the moral of the story is be wary of received wisdom about chemical toxicity from people who aren't chemists.

Pro tip: if you call zoning out "meditating" (because that's what it is) it makes you feel more put-together and successful. Congrats on your practice of hydrotherapy meditation.