Is there such a thing as a Super Perceptor?
A while back, a good friend of mine told me they’re a super-taster. I’m not sure if he’s officially diagnosed but what he described to me is that everything he tastes is very vivid and he can’t stand any kind of spicy food because even the mildest one is very spicy. Recently, this got me thinking: Is Super-Perceptor a thing? One of the things about me that I find is quite out of the ordinary is my really high perception. I can come back home and, even unintentionally, see what changed in the kitchen and know exactly what my wife had for lunch and sometimes even roughly when. I think this might be something borne out of my martial arts experience. When you train, you’re taught to notice even the subtlest muscle movements so you can counter appropriately at the right time, not too early and not too late. You’re probably thinking to yourself that this sounds like Sherlock Holmes and, yes, what is portrayed in the miniseries with Benedict Cumberbatch comes very close and what defines Sherlock, especially in that series, is that he is the best there is at percieving and analysing evidence. Unfortunately, it’s not all good. I think the same core cause is what also makes me very susceptible to motion and simulation sickness, it’s why touching most organic matter feels very uncomfortable for me, why Mindfulness Meditation just doesn’t work for me, why any subtle movement of the screen I’m looking at feels like a Continue Reading →
Posted in Humanity, Me, No Category, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with comments disabled.
קנאה במקום העבודה
אני חושב שמשכורות זה משהו שצריך להיות פומבי במקום העבודה. בדרך כלל, התגובה שאני מקבל היא שזה יגרום לאנשים לקנא. לדעתי, זה דבר טוב. כי רוב האנשים לא חושבים על זה אבל יש שני סוגים של קנאה. השפה העברית פשוט לא מכילה את המילים בשביל זה. באנגלית, אפשר להבדיל בין Jealousy ל-Envy (למרות שגם דוברי אנגלית לרוב לא יתייחסו להבדל הזה). כשאומרים קנאה, רוב האנשים חושבים על Jealousy. זאת המחשבה שלמישהו לא צריך להיות משהו בגלל שלך אין אותו. זאת מחשבה מאוד שלילית ועוינת ואני מבין למה עדיף להימנע ממנה, במיוחד בין אנשים שאמורים לעבוד ביחד. אבל זאת הגישה הנמוכה והשלילית ואני מעדיף לנקוט בתער של האנלון. Envy היא הרצון גם להשיג משהו שלמישהו אחר יש. ואלא אם כן מדובר במשהו ייחודי (כמו בן זוג של מישהו), רוב הזמן לא מדובר בלקחת לאותו מישהו את מה שיש לו. איך שאני רואה את זה, אם אני רואה שלמישהו יש משהו מגניב שאני אוהב, אני אחפש איפה אני גם יכול להשיג כזה. אם למישהו באותו תפקיד כמו שלי יש זכויות מסוימות או משכורת טובה יותר ממני, אני אבדוק מה אני יכול לעשות כדי שגם יגיע לי, אני ארצה להשתפר. ומה רע בזה? בכלל, מה רע בלשאול את הבוסים ישירות, “מה אני יכול לעשות כדי שיעריכו אותי יותר? מה המדדים פה? תפוקת קוד גבוהה יותר, יותר יוזמה, הצעות ייעול, הדרכה של חדשים? אני רק רוצה לדעת מה חשוב פה כדי לדעת איפה לרכז מאמצים.” אז תזכרו להבדיל, קנאה (Jealousy) זה לא דבר טוב אבל קנאה (Envy) זה סבבה אם זה גורם לכם לרצות להשתפר Continue Reading →
Posted in Humanity, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with comments disabled.
How to Make a Unity Package (For the Unity Package Manager)
Let’s say you have a bunch of code you want to drag around with you to every new Unity project, or maybe just the next project you’re doing for the same company. Don’t just copy and paste the same directory over and over again forcing you to also copy changes and updates. Create a package instead! Unity has switched over to a package model for a lot of the engine’s capabilities. And it also allows you to import non-Asset Store packages straight from GitHub or even locally. So how do you take what you have and make it an easily distributable package? Follow these steps. In your Project window, below all your regular files is a Packages folder. Right click on it and select Show in Explorer. In that Packages folder, create a new directory and name it however you like. This will be the root of your package. Do remember that the folder name can not contain spaces. Create a new “package.json” file. This page right here explains everything about the structure of the file. And here is an example file. Back in Unity, your new package should be visible with the name you gave it. Clicking on package file will open it in the Editor UI, allowing you to edit it more conveniently so you don’t have to go back to the JSON. In that Inspector window, you can also easily add Dependencies if your package requires it which is a much easier workflow than typing them out. Continue Reading →
Posted in Practice, Programming, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with comments disabled.
Money or Calling?
I think there are two reasons you might want to do a job: money or calling. That is, you either want the job because you feel it’s what you should do with your life, like it’s going to make the world a slightly better place, and it’s less like you have to do it and more like you should be doing it. Then, you might want to do a job because you want the money. It could be that you need the money to survive or you want more money to improve your life or to be able to do more. And those two are not mutually exclusive. And they are both ok.
Posted in Philosophy, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with comments disabled.
Payment Structure
I’ve heard and read a lot recently about how companies structure their payments, which employees get what and how much should a CEO be paid. For one thing, I agree with California trying to enforce a maximum difference between a CEO’s salary and lowest paid employee. I don’t think it should be compared to the average salary but the median but it’s a good direction. I know that the community sharing type of structure isn’t for everyone but I like the idea of employees sharing in the benefits of a company like the way pirates divvy up treasure: everyone gets one part. Maybe team leaders get two or three parts. Higher management gets five or six parts. The chief officers might get eight or even ten parts. The point is, after you determine how many parts there are, you divide the revenue. This way, even the lowliest employee benefits when the company is doing better. The top brass earn the most because they do the hardest work, but every employee is invested — and rewarded — in the company being successful.
Posted in Humanity, Philosophy, Practice, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with comments disabled.
Podfasting? It sounds like abstaining from listening
Hi. My name is Eran and I like podcasts and audiobooks. Recently, I found out about the term Podfasting. No, it’s not about abstaining from listening to Podcasts. The average person types at 40 words a minute, speaks at 150 words a minute but thinks at about 400 words a minute. I know I type at 70 words a minute, I probably speak at closer to 200 words a minute, and I think my thinking speed is also higher by a similar percentage (Probably around 450-500). So, I think it makes sense that I like watching TV and listening to podcasts at very high speeds (My current rate is 1.8-2.1x). I even like to speed read, which is how I calculate my thinking speed. Roughly 30,000 hours of content are uploaded to YouTube every hour. More and better content creators are currently creating more and better content. I want to have as much of it as I can. And, as your brain processes information about twice as fast as a person speaks, this problem is a solvable one. Creators can record their content at their own speed and today’s tools can speed it up without losing the pitch so it still sounds human. It’s only logical for someone with a huge backlog. Another thing they say in the article above is that understanding drops as you go up in speed but I think that’s entirely variable and dependent on the individual. I only aim for the speed in which I Continue Reading →
Posted in Me, No Category, Practice, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with comments disabled.
Is Urbanisation Over?
With the pandemic on going, and large tech companies telling their employees to stay home for, possibly, the next year, and many realising that having an office to work out of is not a necessity, what I’m mostly thinking about is… What are the odds the pandemic will just be ever present? Or, what if it will stick around long enough so that the general urbanisation of the planet over the past few decades will just stop and people will start spreading around so that we end up with small rural communities that are more spread out? Reference: Lake Tahoe real-estate brokers are running out of homes to sell.
Posted in High-Tech, Humanity, Less Interesting News, Practice, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with comments disabled.
Some Thoughts on Difficulty in Games
Idan Zeierman said this on The Last of Us Part II: אני קצת לא יודע מה להגיד. ביחד עם המשחק הראשון, מדובר כנראה ביצירות שהן מהטובות שיצא לי לחוות. אבל הן מגיעות בצורת משחקי הישרדות/אימה קשוחים שנמשכים 30 שעות ומכילים הרבה זומבים. זה רף לא קל בשביל לחוות אותן כהלכה. — Idan Zeierman (@idan315) July 5, 2020 Translation: I don’t know what to say. Along with the first game, they are probably two of the best works of art I ever experienced. But they come in the form of tough survival horror games that take 30 hours to complete and contain a lot of zombies. It’s not an easy bar for experiencing them properly. I replied: מצד אחד, זאת הסיבה למה הרבה אנשים לעולם לא יחוו כמה מיצירות האומנות הטובות ביותר שנוצרו (כי הן משחקים). ומצד שני, היצירות האלו לא יהיו אותו הדבר אם לא תחווה אותן על בשרך. — Eran Arbel (@SabreRunner) July 6, 2020 Translation: On the one hand, that is the reason why a lot of people will never experience some of the greatest works of art ever made (because they’re games). On the other hand, these works won’t be the same if you don’t experience them for yourself. This got me thinking about difficulty in games. I think the subject of inclusion and exclusion through difficulty has been tread enough but I think it mostly referred to gamer culture. Some Dark Souls fans would like to think that the game won’t be the same unless it was Continue Reading →
Posted in Art, Gaming, Practice, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with comments disabled.