aaron_seattle

I had increasing tinnitus. Switching to bone conduction headphones really, really helped. Worth a try.

Only downside is they're not great for music (bass notes get muddled)

Here's a variant my 8 year-old niece invented, and it has some great playability:

normal rules, except each side makes two turns in a row.

Constraint: the second move cannot logically depend on the first move in any way.

We've played a few dozen games this way. Really opens up some interesting possibilities.

i.e. remember this when you find yourself deep into some "am I ever going to really need this" curriculum. Directly, probably not. Indirectly, you are rewiring your neurons for generalized problem solving to the nth degree.

Also, this "missing course": https://missing.csail.mit.edu/

"Real life has no curriculum".

~80% of what I've learned vocationally, came after school, under the informal mentorship of seasoned practitioners.

Arguably the #1 exportable skill you gain from college is metacognition - learning how to learn. So that the next time you find yourself staring into a "I have no idea" moment, instead of being stuck, you'll be able to iteratively expand your mental map of the territory; form and test hypotheses; sketch out needed or missing tooling, etc.

This is the most challenging edge case, for sure. But if I may proffer:

> the more you try to ignore it or brush it off or search the fault within yourself

It should never come to any of these things. "It's never personal" doesn't mean you put up with unacceptable behavior, nor blame yourself. If some sociopath decides to fling emotional abuse my way, he gets called out on it. Not because it's an attack and I will defend myself (both of which are true, at the limbic system level) but because in the end, my personal integrity requires it: I wouldn't treat others this way, I won't be treated this way, I wouldn't be an idle witness to somebody receiving similar abuse, there are healthy ways of resolving conflict, etc. In this way, it's fully de-personalized: it's not about him, or me, but the values which I'm always free to choose and reaffirm.

The fact that they may make it personal, make it about you -- that's a further reflection of how impersonal it is for them. The psych term is projection, but you don't need to concern yourself with their diagnosis.

There's a reason I paired the "it's never personal" quote with the "you train others how to treat you" quote. The latter is a reminder of your own agency.

Dealing with a sociopath or narcissist is, in some ways, easier. Their behavior is so uncooperative, they immediately forfeit the privilege of your empathy. They clearly have had a terrible emotional upbringing to even arrive at a point where they would so freely treat another person like this. And that's the point: it's not personal, they're just... a fairly broken human being.

People this broken, they can't hide broadcasting their brokenness from a mile away. It makes it easier for you to know who to keep at arm's length with minimal trust.

That sounds really rough man, I'm sorry to hear that. I too have struggled with being on the receiving end of other people's power trips. My curiosity on "what's really happening here, at the level of the brain" lead to some interesting reads.

Chimpanzee behavior: when a higher ranked member is smacking and harassing a lower ranked one -- the higher ranked one is literally experiencing a rise in serotonin. Their dominance becomes a self-soothing behavior that relaxes them, makes them want to repeat the behavior. It's not hard to extrapolate this "very mammalian script" into whatever workplace situation where your counterparts are just lesser skilled at valuing the well-being of those around them.

I think part of the paradox here is your counterpart can both "be a huge asshole" and also just be a mostly helpless automaton of their own harmful behavior, applying a lack of critical thought or self-reflection about their own impulses and tendencies. It's not that you're trying to reframe the situation into one where you are better than them, or that you pity them. Rather, it's just to recognize the sharp qualitative differences between the state of their mind, and yours.

The Aurelius quotes: "The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury."

and (more dramatic than appropriate here, but all the same): "Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness – all of them due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil." -- i.e. of course these default behaviors are a starting feature of the human animal.

I wrote a lengthier reply here, it may give you a possibly new way to reframe things:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23093457

https://psychcentral.com/blog/the-second-agreement-dont-take... , opening passage.

Be warned, there's a "woo-woo shit" risk factor here, which my skepticism keeps at arm's length. I'm more of a neuroscience / mindfulness meditation kind of guy. But I do cherry-pick from other areas, where my curiosity takes me. And the original quotes were good cherries.

Reframing the "nothing is ever personal" idea in more neuroscience terms: some astonishing high degree of our neurological processes (90+% ?) are subconscious or preconscious. A similar percentage of neurons are formed before the age of 18. In many ways, the quest to improve ourselves reduces down to the skill of paying slightly more attention to the activity of our minds.

So when someone interacts with you in a way that causes you stress or hostility, you can choose to recognize the above facts as playing out in the arena of their brain, in the same way as they are playing out in yours.

This is not to excuse behavior, nor disregard the need for boundaries, protection, standing up for yourself, etc. But it does take the sting off. What's better for your own equanimity? Succumbing to a feeling of being singled out? Or recognizing your counterpart as being stuck in their own behavior loop, unaware that they're (arguably) in a state of some kind of suffering?

Socializing is our most complex and wonderful skill; there are a ton of attendant instincts that evolved with it: status signaling, negotiation and exchange; hierarchies for coordinating group actions; grudges and revenge as deterrents meant to preserve social harmony (see chimpanzee behavior; then see bonobo behavior for something more inspiring). All of this monkey software can be dialed down, even outright idled at times. Because nothing is ever personal.

These are some truly advanced and empowering concepts, so apologies if I'm probably not representing them properly.

You'd be surprised how hard it is to internalize the first principle. The mind can become very attached to the feeling of being attacked / rejected / overlooked / snubbed / etc.

"Nothing is ever personal."

The way people treat you, has nothing to do with you. They are just living out their own stories.

Related idea: "You train others how to treat you." Think reinforcement learning as applied to training a dog. (And I love dogs, have the deepest respect for them). The concept isn't that different when applied to our social interactions.

Hats off to you for tackling such a hard problem. Coding chess is a beast.

I cut you this one issue, https://github.com/jaeheonshim/ChessBoard/issues/1

I think your castling logic is incomplete? Worth a double check.