Matt's Homepage

“It’s not obvious to us…that’s why in addiction research abstention plays such a big role because when you remove the stimulus it gives you a lot to learn about how much control it had over you.”

The studies cannot be more clear. The idea that technologies like social media were going to save us from loneliness and democratizing knowledge, while starting out very promising, are starting to become largely false. While social media and the internet have created wonderful things and connections, the tide is very rapidly changing. In just 2 years, the number of young people saying social media is mostly harmful/negative to their age group went from 32% to 48%. That’s basically 1 in 2 young people that now believe social media is mostly harmful.

Gabriela Nguyen is part of a growing trend of Gen Z and younger people that are not just reducing, but getting completely off social media. So much so, this Harvard master’s student has created an organization called Appstinence which helps people navigate life without social media.

I for one agree with what she found. I found that limiting exposure didn’t really work that well – it was far easier to just finally delete the app. My overall mental health went dramatically up, I started spending more time with people and volunteer activities. Feelings of FOMO largely went away. I started doing things *I* wanted to do, just for me. I realized I had been doing too many things based on how it would look on social media. I’m no longer on Facebook (besides the marketplace), Instagram, Reddit, or any other major social media site. I kept LinkedIn for professional purposes, but never post and don’t spend time scrolling other’s posts. To the online world, it probably looks like I died somewhere around 2021 (save for this blog). Overall, my life has improved 10 fold. I still use the internet for research and learning; but it’s on a computer so my time is bounded. It reminds me of this:

How far we’ve come in just 30 years. This is what high school was like before social media.

kaiyimi has one of the better videos on getting an SGI IRIX system. Looks like you have to use specific versions of MAME64 (223) and jump through lots of hoops – but it seems like a workable solution.

I would love to know how he set up the original hard drive image.

If you’re looking for me, I’m with all the grown men in the corn.

The internet is just now becoming aware that many new cars have cameras that watch you. Everyone is ascribing this to insurance companies, government control, and so forth.
The reality? This was mandated under the Biden administration and the EU for all new cars to have drowsiness detection systems in all cars. One of the solutions car manufacturers have found is to point a bunch of cameras at you and do gaze detection.

If people are freaking out about this, wait until they hear that all cars and trucks starting in 2026 must have passive drunk driving testing systems before you can start the car – a law which is ironically being defended by alcohol companies. Can you guess why?