If you're in the NYC area and are interested in joining, drop your email; if you have an idea for a venue let me know. Hoping to run the first event in June.

And if this is a thing people are into, and you want to start your own somewhere, by all means do it, and I can update the site with info on different events/places.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48253740

Points: 4

# Comments: 1

J. was a traveling Ibogaine ... healer? He went from city to city, summoned by the loved ones of advanced heroin addicts, to attempt one last Hail Mary shot at recovery.

These were situations of absolute desperation, and I can’t overstate the seriousness with which he took his adopted occupation. He described to us in detail his process.

First, he interviewed the person requesting help, seeing what else they had tried and trying to suss out if Ibogaine would be worth the risk. He turned away most callers.

Those who he accepted would be dropped off at his van, inside which was a mobile, DIY ICU of sorts: a bed, food, water and emergency medical supplies. He would administer the ibogaine (I don’t know what form this took), and then, in his words, the patient would undergo a 2 to 3-day continuous hallucination.

During this time, in J.’s observations, the patient was almost always ‘visited’ by dead relatives, who typically admonished the patient for what had become of them, laying into them with real talk about the state of their life.

J. said half of the patients came out of this experience fundamentally changed, and effectively cured of their addiction to heroin. I don’t know if he had any data (anecdotal or otherwise) on recidivism, but the implication was that this was likely to be permanent.

But, he said, the other half went insane, which is why he spent a great deal of effort screening families and informing them of the risks.

I don’t know how much, if any, of this is true. I don’t know what ‘insane’ means, or meant. But I remember vividly how seriously this guy took it, without ever coming off as some kind of self-satisfied guru or medicine man, believing himself to be a god, or anything like that. He never accepted money. He lived somewhat roughly. I wonder whatever happened to that guy.

I strongly doubt this. I suspect it's the exact opposite situation. But I'd like to hear from someone who knows.

If only we had the ancient greco-roman newspapers archived so we could check and see if any of the hexes worked

what, the university using default passwords on freaking cameras? agreed!

I mean... yes?

Maintaining software means looking at issues opened on github, keeping your own list of feature requests and bug fixes, deciding if and what to fix, deciding when to fix, and if you're lucky/cursed, reviewing PRs from randos. ANY of this means diverting attention from your day job/client work/kids/???.

Can some of this be theoretically automated by an LLM? Uh, maybe? But I'm not sure how much that would help.

I'm very curious what kind of hardware advancements you're imagining. Because we're already kind of near a physical wall regarding heat dissipation on phones.

I mean hey, maybe foundational physics will surprise the world with a radical breakthrough that disappears heat into a black hole or something, but I sure wouldn't hold my breath

But for one-on-one, it is a really outstanding experience. Especially since they tamped down the way over-the-top humanisms.

This is only true if you assume C-like syntax is the "default."

But regardless of that, I'd argue that there's much less syntax to learn in LISPy languages. The core of it is really just one single syntactic concept.

Bad old days indeed!