Optogenetics is an incredible tool for probing and dissecting the activity of neurons within neural circuits. It’s gives enormous power to scientists to perform more causal manipulations and test ideas more concretely than observation or genetic manipulations alone. I’m not sure why it would be considered a toy, though the utility depends on what you do with it. So far this has been primarily limited to understanding the brain but there’s work to develop clinical therapies using optogenetics as well. I collaborated with Karl extensively in my PhD work with some others in the comments here. It’s exciting to see his work get this recognition.

I personally find that I’m often extroverted and sometimes introverted. I think it’s less helpful to think of this as a static character attribute and more of a mood. I think the parent is pointing to the idea that by labeling something this may reinforce it such that introverts become more introverted by finding validation in books like Quiet, for better or worse. It’s a part of an interesting discussion that doesn’t seem to get talked about much at the very least.

I like the definition of extrovert and introvert that says that extroverts are regain their energy by being in group whereas introverts regains there by being alone. According to that, I'm an introvert, I need my alone time so that I can recenter myself and recover my energy. I do feel drained when being in events with a lot of people.

But, that doesn't stop the fact that I do like people, I like organizing parties (or rather I don't particularly like the organizing but I like the result of having organized parties and having close friends) at my place and regularly invite friends. It's just that after that I'm exhausted and I need some alone time to recover. So being an introvert doesn't imply that you shouldn't make effort to reach out to people or that you won't enjoy being with others. It just means that having some alone time is necessary to recover.

> I like the definition of extrovert and introvert that says that extroverts are regain their energy by being in group whereas introverts regains there by being alone.

That's the Big 5 meaning, which has some scientific backing. The other one that basically just means social/shy comes from Myers-Briggs, which while popular isn't based on anything and is pretty much just pseudoscience.

I'm an introvert. I occasionally love going to a big conference/event, including regularly speaking at them. I find it incredibly fun, and incredibly exhausting. It's fun and rewarding enough to do anyway despite being exhausting. I know other people who find it energizing.

There are people whose feelings about it vary, but there are also people whose feelings about it are consistent but they do it anyway, and that sometimes gets mistaken for variability.

I feel the same. What I found is that, you need to find what energises you, for me, a dinner party with 2 people would exhaust me. Doing a workshop with 20 people gives me energy (ideas, fun, issues to fix, satisfaction of contributing). As I write this, maybe its that feeling of contribution?

Here's how I feel about it, FWIW:

I taught at a community college for a few years and have spoken at conferences. Those engagements are immensely enjoyable and energizing to me because they're performances. The roles of the audience and presenter are clear. I do my thing and the audience does theirs. I get that energy and enjoyment (a ton more of it, actually) performing live music. I walk off a stage jazzed. It's a wonderful high.

The dinner party scenario is absorbs energy. It's not necessarily less enjoyable than performing, but because it's peer-to-peer there's so much more protocol, nuance, and thought than performing. Even if I'm talking with people I know well I don't walk away energized. With people who are new to me it's a lot of work. Like anything it has come easier w/ practice.

Yeah, so this is the thing, i dont really like public talks with these well defined roles (audience / speaker), i really like cooperative workshops. I learn every time! Ofc i am still in a ‘power position’, but I genuinely learn a lot and compliment the participants when they find a clever hack to some issue, its amazing! Its also not about ‘walking off stage’, its about meeting people and building something, or nothing, over time for me.

I don't know that I've ever done a workshop like you describe. It sounds like it'd be a fun thing to try. I'll have to figure out a way to get into something like that.

It is super fun, its not a ‘masterclass’ or something, its not diy, it is more like diwo: do it with others.

… or community?

You're making the mistake of supposing that since you are often extroverted you assume that many or even most people must be similar, just on a gradient. This is quite an extroverted think to think, so I believe you :)

I'm here to tell you that you are most certainly wrong on this point. People exist that view this kind of thinking as so bafflingly alien that they can't understand how someone would think it.

Social interactions require enormous expenditure of energy for me. They are not pleasant or energizing, they are rituals that must be accomplished to help me blend into a world that is not designed for me. I am most assuredly not being convinced of this by books I have read.

I think people assume a lot of things based on their own experience.

Some people who are actually somewhat more on the introvert side but force themselves to socialize, think that it's in fact supposed to be a struggle, for everyone, and everyone who seems to enjoy it is to some degree pretending, and is more diligent in putting up with the discomfort, so it's a character quality trait how much you get your act together and endure socialization.

It's like hating blue cheese or certain vegetables or the taste of niche foods. But in fact some people do enjoy the food, and don't eat veggies because they must or have great discipline. In fact this is also true of exercise. It is something that people do enjoy, the pump, the endorphins etc. (Usually it does take getting to a baseline fitness level to make it enjoyable, so it's not a static personality trait.) Similarly with public speaking or working with people all day etc. Some people truly love it and look forward to it. It's not only that they are tough and endure the suffering better. They do like it.

Sure, but it all depends on whether it's causing you problems or not. There are different ways to life to one's satisfaction. If you're having problems, you should change things up and push through discomfort and friction or just try things. But if you found a balance that works, then it's fine if that involves being alone a lot and just occasionally meeting people. Depends also on phase of life. In college freshman year you probably want to force yourself to go out regardless of how you feel, to establish some contacts and friends. Once you have a circle, it's fine to just live the way you enjoy it actually.

How is that relevant at all?

How is it not relevant? The construction directly contradicts what Sahai imagines happening, and the worked example is the nuclear power plant.

Nit, but Terrence Tao did not write this article, it’s a guest post.

I’m not sure it’s really a nit. The article says that explicitly at the very beginning, and implies that again at the very end.

I’m not sure what to think about an analysis written by someone who didn’t catch THAT.

What? Come on. I’m on that demographic and have zero issues talking to people out in the world. If you believe this then certainly it’s true. Otherwise, just go meet and interact with people normally.

I don’t remember my dreams most nights and that’s always been the case. When I do it’s fairly disconnected and random vignettes without discernible meaning. So I’m missing one of the most important aspects of my life? I guess it’s possible but it’s hard to feel that way without having experienced profound dreams.

Sometimes the meaning doesn't come from you to the dream. It can be how you decide to act in the dream that will shape your subconscious and in turn have influence in your state when awake.

For example, if you have a nightmare and decide to attack the threat instead of trying to flee, then almost all fear evaporates from your subconscious.

A path bar anywhere in the interface?

I also want this to be able to copy a file’s path. Right now I’m not even sure how to do that aside from cmd-i to get info and then clunkily drag select the parent dir to copy. Repeat for the file name. Am I insane or is there a better way? Just use terminal? For a time I used pathfinder which had a feature to copy the full path but I ended up hating the subscription and constant feature churn.

Why not just enable the path / breadcrumb bar that shows at the bottom of the window and lets you copy a path or open a terminal via the context menu? I currently don't have a Mac in reach but I'm pretty sure the option for that is in the "view" menu.

Not a fan of Apples approach of making many functions invisible but I never understood all the complaints about Finder. I use Arch, MacOS and Windows (if I have to) and apart from having to reconfigure it slightly, I never had any particular issues with Finder. You also have to give Apple credit for their long-form manuals - which exist for most things they offer. It's pretty easy to see in threads like this one that many people apparently do not read them, though.

Context menu → hold Option; “Copy” will change to “Copy as Path”. (Sometimes you can just drag and drop the file to where you want to paste, but that depends on the destination app and so isn’t consistent.)

Another option, if you already have terminal open, is to drag the file/folder from Finder into your terminal window. The path will be pasted there.

Yep. Many different options available. Seems to me most complaining about finder haven’t actually bothered to give it the benefit of the learning-curve they’ve given to other file managers. Explorer is so far behind Finder it’s ridiculous, yet people somehow think it is better? C’mon.

What are you talking about? Like I've said I've been using finder for 15 years and most of these things people are talking have absolutely no discoverability.

Like is the mac UI really supposed to be "Get frustrated, google it, and read how to do these things and special keyboard shortcuts/drag-and-drop/etc"?

To be clear I think macs are by far the superior product on the hardware front, but nobody should be discovering new UI tricks after 3 years, let alone a decade.

Surprisingly nobody suggested yet to just select file in Finder and press Option-Cmd-C to copy file path.

Whoa! Twenty-year+ Mac user, and I never knew that trick. Thank you for that.

It's not unusual for Mac users to create custom shortcuts for things like this using built-in and 3rd-party tools like Shortcuts, Automator/AppleScript, Keyboard Maestro, Hammerspoon, etc.

For copying the path of a file specifically, in Finder you can hold Option and then pick Edit → Copy as Pathname.

For what in this case?

WEF etc type messaging. They love that term along with resilience.

What does that mean? WEF is... world economic forum? What type of messaging is that?

A better analogy for an individual might be a cnc lathe. You can make anything you want perfectly but if you enjoyed wood turning then you may not get the same satisfaction from the process of running a cnc.