#foxoftindalos

[lorxus-is-a-fox]

ok ok hear me out here:

the rule of leftovers (that you generally shouldn't remix or reheat already remixed or reheated leftovers if you care about food coming out good) is a lot like chain complexes (the image of successive morphisms when composed must be exactly 0/the identity object)

[lorxus-is-a-fox]

the sex I have not had, am not having, and will continue not to have is astoundingly and essentially gay and there's nothing any of you can do about it.

[lorxus-is-a-fox]

[lorxus-is-a-fox]

"Do I know how to cast the Deep Magic?" What, me? Dude idk I'm just a fuckin fox, I don't know why you're asking me that like I can teach you. I know, like. A few cantrips and a couple of first-circle spells? I'm halfway to cracking this second-circle one, I think? Whatever. No, no I do not.

[lorxus-is-a-fox]

my darling catboy has a tumblr predating mine

my darling catboy has absolutely no idea that I have a tumblr

I had totally forgotten what my darling catboy's tumblr *is* as of when I finally decided "fuck it" and made a tumblr, and also decided it'd be funniest not to ask him what his is and not to go looking and to instead see how long it takes for him to figure it out

and I am going to link this post to him when he finally finds it and cackle like a madfox.

[lorxus-is-a-fox]

Me-specific tags

#foxoftindalos is for pictures of foxes I find particularly representative, or for talking about topics that touch upon That Which Lies Outside Reality But Whose Shadows Loom Long Over It

#angelcat is for anything I want my partner to see but would be OK with anyone else also seeing (likewise #angelrat #angelcrow , though given what else is on angelrat I'm probably just going to group all of this under angelcat)

#due to my agonies is for mental health bads, especially if I refuse to give further context; #randomly selected mourner is where I take the whole WTNV thing totally seriously and do some light divination powered by demographic data to determine who it was.

[lorxus-is-a-fox]

busy busy fox

these past couple of days I've been working my way through (thus far) the first 3 problem sets for MIT OCW 6.0001 and the first part of the Lean game, getting my github squared away to have a repo+folder system for a coding portfolio

kind of a long shot, I know, but if any of you reading this (yes! you! even though you don't think it'll make a difference!) want to pass me on as a reference for SWE/datasci/quant finance jobs... please please do? I really need to get hired somewhere??? relocation is not an issue and if anything it's ideal! hopefully I end up in Chicago or SF or Seattle but I am not actually that picky.

or if you have some advice or words of kindness please DM! I really really do not want to have to give up and grind myself into a paste in the Precalc Adjunct Crusher!

frankly I'm kinda frustrated with how much of the wall out of academia I've been trying to climb for the last couple of years has been industry... not wanting people without prior work experience, unless they're interns, and they don't offer internships to postdocs regardless of the whole "2020-2022 was just plain fucked for internships" thing. which is a shame because that is when I graduated!

so please: help me get a tech job of some kind so that I can start functioning at my fullest again!

[lorxus-is-a-fox]

do it scared

do it terrified out of your mind and periodically crying

do it while certain you're fucking it up because how could you conceivably not be fucking this up

but: and this is the most imperative most important part - DO IT

pros: it would most likely vastly improve my life in a multitude of ways

cons: might get scared

[lorxus-is-a-fox]

yeah but what about foxboy friday huh

fuss your local depressed foxboy today!

[lorxus-is-a-fox]

Did You Know?

Tindalosian foxes (V. tindalosi) need caffeine in their diet, just like cats require taurine! A fully-grown Tindalosian fox needs upwards of 250mg per day, but the ones at our rescue get about 500mg. That's about a third of a pound of caffeine per year!

(Not real, but brought to you by the ice cream store employee who informed me that the "strong coffee" milkshake was caffeinated and I told her that I knew and that it was a selling point.)

[lorxus-is-a-fox]

it's one of those days where I feel like a barely-competent creator-god but someone has to go chase this math and very clearly no one else will

what do you do when there is a burden to be borne, that near no one else can even see, within a burden that already only a few even care to see, and you know(?) that you don't actually have the strength to carry it yourself? how about if no one else will come help bear the burden, out of a lack of interest and/or a lack of ability and/or a misplaced belief that you'll be fine?

[lorxus-is-a-fox]

Endorsed. I'm gonna try to do this. I have the exact same reason, too - straight-up lying to myself feels *worse*.

Yes, probably today will suck, but I am still a good bayescritter and my credence should very obviously not be 0! I am open to the possibility that today can still be ok on net.

one of the best ways i’ve found to combat that inherent depressive pessimism without veering into toxic positivity territory is simply the phrase “i’m open to the possibility”

this particularly works with anything negative i’ve forecasted. “i woke up feeling like shit today, so my day is gonna suck” isn’t a particularly helpful thought, but “it’s a great day to be alive!!!!!” feels hollow and insincere when i have a pounding headache & am running on three hours of sleep

instead i’ll tell myself, “i really don’t feel good right now, but i’m open to the possibility that coffee and breakfast might perk me up a bit.” or “i’m in a lot of pain today, but i’m open to the possibility that my workday might still have fun parts despite that”

sometimes, when your impulse is to slam the door on anything good, but you’re not exactly up to going out & hunting it down yourself, leaving the door open just a crack makes all the difference

[lorxus-is-a-fox]

aaaaawawawawawawa THE SHAPES

(I am giving a lightning talk on this tonight)

[lorxus-is-a-fox]

Deer Park

Empty mountains, no-one in sight

Yet people's speech sounds ring;

Sunlight dapples through deep forest

To shine upon 청 moss.

[lorxus-is-a-fox]

just thinking about how utterly contingent my life has been, even apart from the "could have abruptly died for basically no reason at any point, more likely than pop mean" part

slides notes from a TED talk which should never at any point exist:

[no discussion of contingent lifepaths stemming from more ancient possible-world changes can be found here, owing to massive simulational divergence, but some of the ones worth looking at are very very weird tbf.]

I get better grades and find success early on undergrad at [Fancy School]? Then I probably disappear into mol bio and am in 2025 probably working at a miserable biotech firm.

I get better grades and find success later on at [Fancy School], and don't almost drop out? Then I likely end up getting accepted at a way fancier doctoral program like my peers, and when academia inevitably gets to be too much, I disappear into quant finance on the strength of those undergrad grades.

I get slightly worse grades and don't prove myself to [summer math research advisor]? Then I don't even get to be last-pick at an also-ran doctoral program and can't move forward in math at all and uhhhh cut the tape cut the tape cut to next counterfactual-

I take up [thesis advisor]'s implicit offer to set me up at [Deep-South Math Place]? uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh man I don't even know. Probably I am still there doing irrelevant work in math.

I get slightly more/better research done at [Non-Fancy Doctoral Program]? Then I likely end up getting a remotely acceptable postdoc at all instead of [Crappy One-Year Bullshit] in Fox City, and I'm slowly going mad under the tenure-track grind nearing the end of a first postdoc and trying to get a second. Hoping I'll be permitted to tear up my life again.

I don't end up deciding, on what was basically a whim, to flirt with and briefly date one person, and then meet a second one through them, and end up dating that second person long-term? Oh my shitting radioactive Buddha who keeps putting the really awful counterfactuals in this slidedeck. This was not fit for broadcast. [muttering from offstage] I - because this is blatantly maybe the third worst delta you could have picked! No, just. Just cut to the next one.

[no further discussion of contingent lifepaths stemming from more recent possible-world changes can be found here. but wow, most of those are really not great.]

[lorxus-is-a-fox]

frankly, skill issue

(but pls still do not be mean to entities just for having positive codimension with respect to you; that's just rude)

i made this exactly one year ago and i still think the idea for it is good

it can happen to you every moment PSA please dont rotate 2d creatures