Heidi > Recent Status Updates

Webb noticed that the words emotion and neglect often appear in scientific literature together, but in the form of “emotional abuse and neglect,” an emotional act of commission and a physical act of omission. She chose to study emotional neglect, an emotional act of omission.

She likens an adult who was emotionally neglected to a dry sponge, unable to take anything in or let anything out.

Apparently psychology has a word for a trait I’ve spent decades cultivating: counterdependence.

Signs you too might be counterdependent:

You think nobody should need anything. Food, water, other people: embarrassing, all of it.

You’re reluctant to seek help the way other people are reluctant to touch a hot stove.

Your brain when someone gets vulnerable: “Error 404: Empathy not found. Detach immediately.”

The title of this book reminds me of Kathleen Hanna mocking-singing, “You get so emotional baby.”

What have I learned today?

The Diary of a Wimpy kid author Jeff Kinney opened a bookstore because he didn’t want to be designing wimpy kid pillowcases the rest of his life.

Elizabeth Gilbert basically hated writing. She said she had “a strong mantra of ‘this sucks’ running through my mind.”

Can relate.

She references this video about validating feelings that’s supposed to be funny. It’s supposedly making fun of the fix-it reflex that men (and I) have.

https://youtu.be/-4EDhdAHrOg?si=yyIwj...

I guess this is used in couples therapy. It basically teaches that wanting validation is irrational, exasperating, and ridiculous. The video is not just dumb. It is rhetorically self-defeating.

So far boring / common sense.

She tells a story about a woman whose dad regularly asked her at dinner, “How did you fail today?” Not to be mean. To get her thinking. I’m going go have to try that with my teen. She’s going to ice me out I bet.

We speak 16K words a day and think “thousands more.” This statistic I found incredibly disappointing; I thought she’d say we think a hundred thousand more.

The Cantonese Potstickers 🥟 are great!

I made Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce. Very delicious.

I’m reading this from the perspective of a parent of a teen whom I raised very deliberately using attachment parenting. I don’t think the author spells this out, but it includes sleeping close to your baby, wearing your baby, breastfeeding, responding quickly to crying, etc. From what my biased self can see, she’s developed healthy attachment tendencies. I know the author says there are other influences too.

How did I not know about GPT-4o's voice that randomly erupted into laughter and coughing fits? It would also take on the voice of the person talking to it without warning. If you go to the System Card (from 8/8/24), and then to the Unauthorized Voice Generation section, you can hear the recording of it outbursting "No!" in the middle of an exchange.

openai.com/index/gpt-4o-system-card

It's eerie.

oooohhhhh now - finally - it’s getting good. Chapter 16 is where we hear about actual, specific, devious and dirty lies. The Prologue - and all the chapters up til now - had me thinking Hao was going to stay vague where we knew it was actually juicy and continue to feed us obnoxious levels of detail where it wasn’t.

Enough about Annie already. Just why. I guess the point is, it’s potential proof Sam is heartless. But like why am I reading about ovarian cysts in a book about AI.

For anyone with Spotify who isn’t fascinated enough by AI lore to listen to 14+ hours, but still interested in how early gpt versions were trained, I’d recommend chapter 5 of Empire. Although when I tried to relay “the really good parts” to my 17yo while we were getting manicures today, she gave me that look that says, nobody cares. 🙄

I’m enjoying this, although I got sidetracked by the Claude Mythos System Card that dropped 4/7. It’s full of lore and reads like a tech bro gossip magazine. Lots of “who said what to whom.” A Grok-Opera, so to speak. 😆 Mira Murati comes across as a badass, and I didn't realize how central Shivon Zilis was. I’ve heard the names Ilya Sutskever and Greg Brockman enough times they’re etched in my brain.

The Tomato Saganaki & Carrot Fritters with Pistachio Sauce: Havuç Köftesi are amazing!!