deeplylearning - Tumblr blog

[deeplylearning]

Anyway in other news, things have been going well. I've been mentoring a bunch of people, specifically for my niche field, and it's been awesome. People genuinely have felt that I've helped them and impacted them in a positive way. I achieved some milestones and recognition from the platform. I'm giving a pretty sizeable group session this weekend. (All free btw.)

It's good.

I do get a little anxious about it sometimes. I'm trying to deliver some content that no one else is really doing. It can give me a little bit of imposter syndrome here and there. But I try to remind myself that I don't have to be perfect. If I'm helping and not giving out false or misinformation of any kind, doing it imperfectly is ok.

I've realized through this process that I both know more than I give myself credit and also don't feel like I know anything. Lol. It's humbling to say the least. But not necessarily in a bad way. Sometimes it's just hard to know what to focus on next when there's so much I could be doing. There's a lot to learn.

Just sometimes it feels a little ironic that I struggle to know what I should do next, and yet I'm helping other people with that.

I think I've just hit that stage where I'm not a beginner but I'm not advanced either. So I'm stuck in that awkward intermediate phase where you aren't skilled enough to just focus on the gaps.

Eh

[deeplylearning]

If you haven’t watched the Goblin Slayer anime, honestly… just don’t.

And I don’t mean specifically because of the first episode. Although don’t get me wrong; the first episode is absolutely horrific to the point where that boilerplate “viewer discretion is advised” warning feels wholly insufficient.

SA and d**th trigger warning.

Also, some Goblin Slayer spoilers.

—

I mean, watching the first episode I was shocked. Shocked to the point where I had to turn off the TV for awhile and just process what I saw. … It was horrifying. However… this is not really about that.

R*pe is a serious topic that warrants discussion. It is a topic that deserves respect and for people to listen. It requires awareness, indeed.

I naively thought hoped that Goblin Slayer might be trying to accomplish some of that. Because even the violence in the show is pretty graphic. None of that slicing a monster in half then ~magically sparkling and disintegrating away~ bullshit that normalizes violence as no big deal in other shows. It was at least realistic and gave you a clear sense of how horrible m*rder and SA should be perceived.

But what really got me was the fan service, tbh.

Overall, fan service is pretty lame imo. A cheap trick for more views. Usually completely distracts from the story. And generally isn’t doing women any favors. It’s annoying at best.

But the fan service in Goblin Slayer is straight up inappropriate.

Not only do they portray the r*pes in a very male-gaze kind of way (e.g., gradually tearing off women’s clothes until they finally tear off the private areas, hentai moaning despite being terrified and brutally abused) but they actually try to show main characters in the show gratuitously reacting to these themes.

For me, the most egregious of this was in S1E8 (where I stopped watching) right after Goblin Slayer woke up next to Sword Maiden and the priestess (surprisingly, actually just sleeping for some resurrection spell that requires a virgin to work). Sword Maiden engages in some conversation with Goblin Slayer that turns to her recounting the horrific r*pes she endured that almost killed her.

And yet… They chose that moment to have her hand slide down her body, jiggling her breasts with typical unrealistic hentai physics, rubbing her thighs together, and blushing as she cuddles up to Goblin Slayer. While she’s recounting her r*pes.

Maybe it’s just me, but given that this series was written by a man and probably mostly watched by men, I think people are somehow missing how absolutely fucked up that is.

Why would a woman EVER use that conversation to flirt with a man? Why?

I really don’t think anyone would.

(Sans the utterly insane.)

I can understand wanting to be held and comforted by someone you trust when revealing that past. But absolutely NOT sexualizing it.

That was just so disgusting.

And some people on the internet truly don’t seem to give a shit about it.

I’ve never been r*ped, but I did narrowly escape a situation where I could have been once. So I can’t fully understand how that feels. But even that dire threat was enough for me to empathize with how awful of a crime r*pe is.

So really, how the fuck is Goblin Slayer allowed to just be on the list of TOP ANIME on Crunchyroll for anyone to click on? (With a really insufficient viewer discretion warning, mind you.)

Why is this fan service content proliferating to this degree?

I’m not an imbecile. I know that sex sells.

But we have studies on this shit showing just how damaging and destructive consistent porn consumption is for men. And yet the freely available suggestive content flooding social media and, obviously, porn itself, is just so easy to access.

Not just easy to access, though. “Normal” to access regularly.

There’s a debate as to whether porn is an acceptable outlet for people to engage in fantasies instead of acting them out in real life vs. if the opportunity to consume that content actually makes things worse. Particularly for the more… illegal fetishes out there. It’s hard to say for certain, and no one wants to make the wrong call on that given the potential consequences, certainly.

But I mean… Idk if it’s because I’m demisexual, or a woman, or that I’m married and no longer “looking” (I don’t like to be perceived sexually), or that Tumblr banned porn and I stopped using Tumblr regularly not too long after that (mostly because of a lot of other people going inactive and I had some major life changes at the time).

But, I just personally don’t feel a need to view sexual content on any consistent basis. I feel as though having all that extra exposure to porn on Tumblr was actually more triggering for me. Now that I just don’t really see it much, I don’t really find myself feeling a sense of FOMO for it. I don’t really seek it out. And I pretty much never want to even hear the audio of it if I do.

Obviously, I do get horny. I do engage in sex and/or self-pleasure. But unless I’m specifically triggered by something I saw that turned me on, I never actually need any sort of supplement to get off.

Appaaaarently, men need visuals to get off. “Need.” Allegedly.

Idk. I just don’t. It’s more of a vibe for me (pun not intended).

But my point here is to say that I’m just getting sick and tired of any kind of fan service, let alone the disgusting misuse of it in a series like Goblin Slayer (and other series I know probably exist but don’t want to come across).

Some will call me a snowflake. Vanilla. Prude. What-fucking-ever.

I honestly don’t give a shit at this point. I have nothing to prove. My life doesn’t revolve around sex.

To me, I’m just perceiving this as a slippery slope that contributes to more hateful, selfish, and destructive behavior toward women in this world. The normalcy of men casually viewing this content (including just the slightly suggestive stuff) helps no one and nothing.

There are studies that show consistent porn use, and especially porn addiction, can be the same if not worse than some hard drugs as far as how it changes the brain.

We really don’t need this shit. We don’t need it. We don’t.

Not at this level of casual daily consumption.

In fact, I’d question if this overstimulation of sexualized content is actually causing less young people to want to engage with real people. Because it’s “easier”. (Some studies point in that direction, actually.)

Personally, I’m thinking that an unintended New Year's resolution for myself is to just stop engaging with unnecessarily sexualized content. Avoid it where I can. Maybe it seems crazy, Idk. It just doesn’t seem worth it to me if the cost is normalizing content that leads to harm to women, in any form.

I don't want to contribute to its success in any form. I don't want to have to think about these things and feel the way I do when I see any of this type of content, at any level.

Like there are so many great anime that don’t have any drip of these themes at all. Ones that are wholesome. Ones that are thought provoking. Or generally positive and encourage self-improvement. Just good stuff. Why not? (Same goes for social media.)

Having sexual desire is normal. It’s evolutionary.

But no one needs this amount of it, period.

[deeplylearning]

Watching the scene in Season 2 of Quintessential Quintuplets where their classmates can't tell them apart because they have the same face (even though they have different hair) reminded me of being in school.

I'm a fraternal twin (i.e., definitely don't have the same face, body type, or even hair type as my sister) and yet people would confuse us all the time. Despite looking like regular siblings (and not even the type of siblings that look scarily alike despite being years apart).

It was always so frustrating because people clearly did it because they didn't give a single shit. Not because it was actually hard to tell us apart. Makes a bit more sense for identical but we're not identical.

[deeplylearning]

The other day @rudescience and I went to a Yelp Elite event that was essentially a free cocktail happy hour. Met some cool people and learned a few things about what makes a good cocktail (including ice temperature and preparation). Neither of us really drink but it was interesting!

After that, we walked to a restaurant downtown for Spanish-style tapas. And it was incredible. Good food and even better dessert (it was just sweet enough, very flavorful... something that's usually hard to come by in the US).

A proper date night. We had a really good time!

[deeplylearning]

I was listening to this lo-fi radio on YouTube thinking my cat was calling for me... Turns out, I didn't notice part of the lo-fi is the cat sounds lmao

Sigh

[deeplylearning]

I haven't used ThredUp in years, in part because I generally don't like the platform for shopping, let alone selling. But I figured I'd give it a shot for selling once again, particularly for things that have been stagnant on places like Poshmark, Mercari, and Depop. Stuff that is technically "too old" for places like Plato's Closet despite being perfectly good quality for thrifting. Basically, things I would have donated anyway at this point.

I sent in the box some time in early February. And apparently, the estimated processing time is in... end of May. 11 weeks processing time.

Would have been nice to know when their policies require items for a particular season. The season they asked for clothing for will be pretty much over by the time they even open the box I sent them.

If I can at least recover the processing fee, that'd be the bare minimum. But if I can't even do that I'll consider clothes recycling options instead in the future.

I don't actually buy that much clothing nowadays. But people like to gift me clothing (either my family during Christmas or my husband's family whenever we come to visit once a year) and so I unintentionally start to collect more of it against my will.

Overall, though, I'd really like to get to a point where laundry is not a battle. I'm experimenting with wearing only lilac clothing for professional events (may seem extreme, but it has worked to make people remember me) and I like that my professional event wardrobe is so simple.

I don't think I'll want to go full lilac for everything, as I still want to be somewhat anonymous in normal life. But it's been a cool experiment.

[deeplylearning]

I'm not in the best place right now. Generally negative thoughts because of career stress.

I'm in a catch-22 where I want to leave but in order to do that, I need to have completed enough of the right type of work to do something like a portfolio presentation. I'm working on one right now and I'll be doing a mock presentation with a FAANG UXR tomorrow. So how that goes will determine short-term next steps.

I realized today that for all of my research life, I've been an island. Always in small places trying to do big things, usually by myself (partially because of my personality, but also because my research topics were usually a bit outside of peoples' expertise). Even in this endeavor, I'm still an island. My department "functions" on mostly individual projects with collaboration as needed, but it's minimal.

My boss confirmed that the type of work I do, while important and useful, is technically on a negative topic that doesn't exactly look good for the company. So obviously, I can't share it. He didn't exactly shoot down the idea of trying to discuss general topics with non-competitors in the industry but didn't exactly encourage it, either.

Even when I try to collaborate, I'm left as an island. Again.

I'm just sick of it. I'd like to finally be able to join a competent team that can actually work together, especially on topics that I'm usually the sole expert on.

Sometimes it feels good to be a big fish in a small pond, but honestly, I'm well over it. If I land my next job in a big company, that brand recognition would be more than enough. I'd still have to prove myself to them, but perhaps less to the outside world.

My research subject today also had a bad time. She was really good about it, but it never feels good to make someone feel bad. Just another damper on the day.

[deeplylearning]

I'm taking a course by Noam Segal, a UXR manager at Meta, these next couple weekends. And he just used this term (not written out, but verbally).

Confirmed.

thicc data

the combination of big data and qualitative insights; a collaboration between qualitative UX researchers and data scientists

[deeplylearning]

That awkward moment when you get an electric/gas meter reading because your energy bill was more than 2x higher than usual. And the lady on the phone says the estimate was too low...

:s

Apparently the Clean Energy™ we purchase has been getting more expensive each month. Sigh

[deeplylearning]

"thanks for nothing :)"

how my esl mentee signed off on his latest message

[deeplylearning]

Apparently a former olympian tried to connect with me on LinkedIn?

Their heading was like "Knowledge - Research Engineer 5x Former Olympian" or something.

"Knowledge." Great start. People trying to be vaguely philosophical on their LinkedIn heading is a red flag to me.

I once, regrettably, ended up connecting with a dude I used to work with and at some point he changed his headline to, "Engineer, Scholar, Gentleman." Cringe

People who have to tell you they're scholarly or gentlemanly are probably not. I've met so many brilliant people who don't need to talk about themselves like that. Because it shows in their actions and achievements.

Ok next. Research Engineer in what? This is LinkedIn, why would I care that you were an olympian? Trying to rope people in who want to be connected with someone "famous"? I get enough spam on LinkedIn, no thanks.

Reminds me of some resumes I've seen from students who put a bunch of detail about their sport on their resume. Which is 100% irrelevant to the job they're applying to. They can just list a leadership position without all the detail (especially if that detail is, again, completely irrelevant).

Imo, resumes and LinkedIn should start with the (relevant) facts. It's a professional setting.

Anyway I declined without looking at their profile. Cold connections who have mostly irrelevant backgrounds and don't have a connection message are instant "no"s from me. I never understood why people try to collect connections in the first place.

I've never once had a connection I don't know turn into something useful, for either of our careers.

For example, someone in my local tech scene connected with me and then asked me to write a recommendation. Um... I've never worked with this person, nor have I seen their work. How would I possibly do that?

I like making new connections, but LinkedIn is more often than not, not the place to do it. Just the place to collect the actual connections you've made and keep up with what they're up to.

[deeplylearning]

I tried using this random Python library I found in a literature paper but omg the documentation is awful. I have no idea what is happening.

I might... try to do the analysis by myself. It might be harder, but at least I would know wtf is happening. Idk. Maybe I'll try again another day when I'm less tired.

Ehh. 👉🏻👈🏻

Sucks to do this in a vacuum with no colleagues

[deeplylearning]

thicc data

the combination of big data and qualitative insights; a collaboration between qualitative UX researchers and data scientists

[deeplylearning]

I'm co-authoring a patent application in my department and holy fuck it is really boring for such a simple concept

[deeplylearning]

Analyzing my current research data, all by myself, is currently both frightening and exciting.

Frightening because it's a type of data and analysis technique I'm not well-versed in. And because I don't really have colleagues in the subject matter area it applies to lean on for advice.

Exciting because there's a lot to learn about it, so it's really a great opportunity to grow. But even more than that... it's reblossoming my data science techniques, which makes me feel amazing.

UX/HF research has a different focus than data science, but there's enough overlap that I'm quite satisfied. It gives me a sense of accomplishment that I, in fact, did not waste my time meandering career options!

I'm really excited to see where this takes me.

[deeplylearning]

[deeplylearning]

Anyway, I'm literally putting a calendar reminder for October next year with a link to this post so I can be reminded and make plans to finally avoid it all next year. At whatever cost.

I'm just done dealing with it.

Time for my annual rant on why I'm so done with Christmas. With my mom, specifically.

I can't speak for anyone else, but when I buy people gifts I put in a lot of thought to it. Firstly, I'll try to get something they actively said they wanted for Christmas. If I can't do that or need more ideas, I'll think about things they mentioned wanting or needing throughout the year. Or at bare minimum, something useful. I've even considered keeping a closer list for this since it can be hard to remember. I never buy something for someone because I like it. And I always go for quality over quantity.

If anything, my biggest worry is that they won't like it and are just being nice about it.

My mom... has this pathological need to give my sister and I an absurd amount of gifts for Christmas. It started with just filling the tree, but now it just overflows across the entire living room. I got everyone else up to 4 things each plus a couple small stocking stuffers. I'm pretty sure my mom got me at least 12 gifts myself alone. Not including stocking stuffers that can also be considered gifts if they're small and more valuable.

And I know what some of you might be thinking... "Why aren't you appreciative? That's so privileged to turn down gifts! She's doing something really nice, wtf!"

To that I'd say, you really don't get it.

Even as a kid it annoyed me. Because my mom is a major narcissist. A gift from her is an obligation. An excuse for her to try to guilt people. To trick people who don't understand who she is into thinking she's a kind person. She's not.

All throughout my life she cried poverty. Realistically, she was just over the poverty line for most of it from her job but also had the child support from my dad. Nowadays, she makes a good amount more, relatively speaking to inflation, and yet she's still "poor". She complains about it all the time, all year, and tries to guilt us into giving her more money.

Meanwhile, she has no sense of budgeting and is constantly "treating herself" including out of her damn 401k. Insisting she keep a huge family house she doesn't need when she can't pay the taxes. When she has questionable health; nearly died from sepsis last winter. She has no sense of priorities, and then tries to blame us for her pathological spending.

But anyway, back to the Christmas part.

My entire life, being the "scapegoat" to this narcissistic parent, she never actually paid attention to me or what I wanted/needed. Always just got me what she wanted. The same thing doesn't apply to my "golden child" sister. I'd ask for a couple reasonable things that were definitely in budget and easy to get, and yet she'd choose instead to get me a ton of useless junk. I'd even beg her to just return it so she'd have the money and not be "poor".

What's really interesting to me, now that I'm an adult, is that all of the sudden she's now trying to get me gifts I would have loved as a kid, and actively asked for. Like science leggings or a plasma lamp, which is what she got last year. This year it was random Pokemon or other childish stuff. If I could have just not been given this pile of junk I have no place to store and gotten something as simple as an instant read thermometer for my kitchen, I would have been happy about it.

She doesn't even do the bare minimum to pretend she cares.

My mom texted me about this Pikachu ramen bowl she ordered that's coming in a few days from Amazon. I said great, please return it. And she got so offended. Not even because I was being "unappreciative" but because she "spent so much effort trying to get it" or "because it took so much time to come in". "Why wouldn't you want it?" is what she said to me.

...As if there is no logical reason I could ever not be interested in a particular gift because it's useless, ugly, childish, whatever?

I tried to explain to her some of what I said here. The funny part is that my sister's fiancee played Pokemon Sword more than me, beating it multiple times, and somehow she never gets him all of this childish stuff. My sister is starting to learn from my mom's lazy behavior and doing the same damn thing, which makes it even worse.

I'm just...

Not only do I literally have a dining room table covered in fucking junk right now, trying to figure out what to do with it, but in the next few months my mom is going to complain to me about how she spent hundreds—probably over a thousand—dollars on all of these "nice gifts" just for me to not appreciate them. And how she's short on money. Etc.

I straight up told her. Next year my husband and I are not participating in gift giving unless it's a secret Santa with a specific budget. No extras. It was actually his idea. It costs an absurd amount of money for everyone to purchase, what, roughly $100 of gifts EACH for six people (if I don't keep up, it's rude and offensive). And it seems like it creeps up each year, like it's a competition.

It's just... it's asinine. And for what? To feel kind of good about opening a bunch of gifts for about an hour? For my mom to force us to take pictures of gifts so she can post it on Facebook?

The most fun part of Christmas this year was playing card games and Mario Cart with the fam. Not the gifts.

It's just stupid. That's not the meaning of Christmas anyway. I'd love to get people just one nice gift that doesn't have to be absurdly expensive, to not stress over trying to be "fair". That's really not the point of it all.

Ffs. I'm done with this bullshit.