Vlad Sitalo

Replying toDancing in a World of Horseradish

As someone who spends a lot of time social dancing (WCS, tiny bit of Fusion) - all of my experiences of doing it to the live music have been bad to mediocre (though I imagine it can be different for other dance styles)

Replying toMy Software Setup

Vlad Sitalo4mo

My Software Setup

I use Firefox for most of my daily browsing. The main reason I wouldn't want to switch to Chrome at this point is the browser extension Tridactyl, which allows me to use Vim shortcuts not only for my window manager and my editor, but ALSO in my browser :). There's Vimium, but it is far inferior in its configurability and features.

Check out Surfingkeys - it’s my preferred version of this type of extension for both FF & Chrome (I primarily use FF)

Replying toFresh Fruit Tourism

Vlad Sitalo6mo

Fresh Fruit Tourism

They are past season now, but highly recommend people trying mulberries if you can find them.
(They are hard to find in the US, and usually only available on farmer’s markets in season)

Replying toAgainst podcasts

Vlad Sitalo10mo

Against podcasts

I've been thinking about a similar thing for myself https://vlad.roam.garden/Am-I-being-over-stimulated-by-audio-content and trying to scale down various uses of casual intellectual simulation audio content (did you know you can listen to things in the shower by using the waterproof earbuds 😅)

Replying toWorking in Virtual Reality: A Review

Vlad Sitalo11mo

Working in Virtual Reality: A Review

Curious on the current state of things here! have you tried this with newer headsets/is there anything better then immersed out there now/any other updates?

Replying toMeal Replacements in 2025?

Vlad SitaloJan 07, 2025

Meal Replacements in 2025?

I find Huel hot & savory pretty good (unlike one other commenter), as someone who craves that modality of food and finds the standard shakes/bars unsatisfying for that reason.

I also recommend checking out various meal delivery services (CookUnity is my preferred one atm, but there is a whole bunch of them out there)

Streamlining my voice note process

Vlad Sitalo

Why voice notes?

On a functional level it's the fastest & the most convenient input method when you're not in front of the proper keyboard. Which even for me constitutes a big chunk of my life 🙃.

Taking a voice note allows me to quickly close an open loop of a stray though or a new idea and go on with my life - now mentally unburdened

Another important aspect is that taking voice notes evokes a certain experience of "fluency" for me.

That is because when you're taking a voice note, you can record a stream of consciousness without having to re-formulate or filter things.
Which allows you to avoid switching away from the context of

... (read 2026 more words →)

Replying toWhat Ketamine Therapy Is Like

Vlad Sitalo1y

What Ketamine Therapy Is Like

I suspect it’s also might be riffing on the “horse dewormer” (ivermectin) thing

Replying toFluent, Cruxy Predictions

Vlad Sitalo1y

Fluent, Cruxy Predictions

fyi the spreadsheet is private atm

Replying toBuilding an Epistemic Status Tracker

Vlad Sitalo1y

Building an Epistemic Status Tracker

Found https://fatebook.io/ that seems alive, trying it out now

Replying toBuilding an Epistemic Status Tracker

Vlad Sitalo1y

Building an Epistemic Status Tracker

Did you ever end up building this, and if not what is the current best tool for this you're aware of?

Predictionbook seems to be dead.
Foretold.io which I used before seems to be broken too (can't log-in into my account anymore)

Userscript to always show LW comments in context vs at the top

Vlad Sitalo

The out of context top-level display of comments when I navigate to them always bothered me, but up until recently I haven't realized there is a way to go to the actual comment via a simple URL change.

From https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/<postid>/?commentId=<commentid>
To https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/<postid>#<commentid>

Here is a quick gpt4 generated userscript that does this.

// ==UserScript==
// @name         Always show in-context comments
// @namespace    http://tampermonkey.net/
// @version      0.1
// @description  Redirect from '?commentId=' format to '#'
// @author       Vlad Sitalo
// @match        https://www.lesswrong.com/*
// @grant        none
// ==/UserScript==


(function() {
    'use strict';

    var checkAndRedirect = function() {
        var url = window.location.href;
        if(url.includes("?commentId=")){
            var newUrl = url.split("?commentId=").join("#");
            window.location.href = newUrl;
        }
    };

    // Run on page load
    checkAndRedirect();

    // Run on URL change
    var pushState = history.pushState;
    history.pushState = function() {
        pushState.apply(history, arguments);
        checkAndRedirect();
    };

    var replaceState = history.replaceState;
    history.replaceState = function() {
        replaceState.apply(history, arguments);
        checkAndRedirect();
    };

    window.addEventListener('popstate', checkAndRedirect);
})();

How do I read things on the internet

Vlad Sitalo

This is a linkpost - I recommend reading it at the original URL for a better reading UX

I have a somewhat elaborate process for reading things that I find on the web. I've been inspired to share it because after many a long iteration it finally feels adequate!

Reading things on the web seems like it should be easy, and yet - I've been failing at it for years! 🙀

In this article I explore my current workflow and challenges that made it into what it is today.

Workflow

When I see something new I want to read - save it to Readwise Reader (it also becomes an SRS item in Roam)
When in "podcast mode" (doing

... (read 2211 more words →)

Intentional friend making

Vlad Sitalo

Come and make friends with other people in the community this Tuesday! This is an activity focused on creating interpersonal closeness through answering deep questions alongside with your assigned partner.

How is it going to work

Pre-matching

At the start of the event we'll do some pre-matching by doing several rounds of Speed-friending (usually you'd talk with 3 people for 5 minutes). After that you'll rate people on how excited are you to have a deeper conversation with them.
You may also add your level of excitement for people who you did not do speed-friending with, but for match to be possible the other person would also need to add their level of excitement for doing activity

Vlad Sitalo

Hi everyone :). I like Anki, find it quite useful and use it daily. There is one thing that constantly annoyed me about it, though - the state of shared decks and of infrastructure around them.

There is a lot of topics that are of common interest for a large number of people, and there is usually some shared decks available for these topics. The problem with them is that as they are usually decks created by individuals for their own purposes and uploaded to ankiweb. So they are often incomplete/of mediocre quality/etc and they are rarely supported or updated.

And there is no way to collaborate on the creation or improvement of such... (read 170 more words →)

Proposal for increasing instrumental rationality value of the LessWrong community

Vlad Sitalo

10y

There were some concerns here (http://lesswrong.com/lw/2po/selfimprovement_or_shiny_distraction_why_less/) regarding value of LessWrong community from the perspective of instrumental rationality.

In the discussion on the relevant topic I've seen the story about how community can help http://lesswrong.com/lw/2p5/humans_are_not_automatically_strategic/2l73 from this perspective.

And I think It's a great thing that local community can help people in various ways to achieve their goals. Also it's not the first time I hear about how this kind of community is helpful as a way of achieving personal goals.

Local LessWrong meetups and communities are great, but they have kind of different focus. And a lot of people live in places where there are no local community or it's not active/regular.

So I propose to form... (read 418 more words →)

Whole genome sequencing vs SNP genotyping

Vlad Sitalo

11y

Hi, I was considering possibility of undergoing some kind of genetic testing for a while now. But I hesitated because I have a quite limited financial resources available right now. Eventually I've figured that in the future I'd do it anyway, so why don't just do it right away. Especially taking into account that knowing some data available via such tests in an earlier stage of life and acting on it could be quite beneficial in a long run.

So after that realization I've thought about going with 23andme and performing SNP genotyping. But in the process of browsing related information I've encountered article about rapid decreasing in price for Whole genome sequencing.... (read 199 more words →)

LESSWRONG
LW

LESSWRONG
LW

Userscript to always show LW comments in context vs at the top

Proposal for increasing instrumental rationality value of the LessWrong community

How do I read things on the internet

CrowdAnki comprehensive JSON representation of Anki Decks to facilitate collaboration

Vlad Sitalo

Vlad Sitalo

Streamlining my voice note process

Userscript to always show LW comments in context vs at the top

How do I read things on the internet

CrowdAnki comprehensive JSON representation of Anki Decks to facilitate collaboration

Proposal for increasing instrumental rationality value of the LessWrong community

Whole genome sequencing vs SNP genotyping

Vlad Sitalo

Userscript to always show LW comments in context vs at the top

Proposal for increasing instrumental rationality value of the LessWrong community

How do I read things on the internet

CrowdAnki comprehensive JSON representation of Anki Decks to facilitate collaboration

Vlad Sitalo

Vlad Sitalo

Streamlining my voice note process

Userscript to always show LW comments in context vs at the top

How do I read things on the internet

CrowdAnki comprehensive JSON representation of Anki Decks to facilitate collaboration

Proposal for increasing instrumental rationality value of the LessWrong community

Whole genome sequencing vs SNP genotyping

Why voice notes?

Workflow

How is it going to work

Pre-matching