The Contradictory Feelings Thread

[Man in Space]

Any ideas on how to keep your inner malloc under control? Mine has been acting up a lot lately.

What's getting you down today? Or is this about something else besides doomerism?

I think Raphael is suffering from heap fragmentation.

Would guru meditation do anything here?

[Man in Space]

Any ideas on how to keep your inner malloc under control? Mine has been acting up a lot lately.

Is it a big-picture thing that’s vexing you or near-term stuff?

[Raphael]

What's getting you down today? Or is this about something else besides doomerism?

Not so much doomerism about the world - I'm arguably calmer about the state of the world in general than I should be. But it's kind of a form of doomerism about my own life.

I think Raphael is suffering from heap fragmentation.

Would guru meditation do anything here?

Oh, I'd love to be able to levitate while sitting cross-legged or use an energy crystal to take over the mind of an animal, but I don't think either skill would really help much with the underlying problems.

Is it a big-picture thing that’s vexing you or near-term stuff?

Big-picture, but only big-picture about myself, not really big-picture stuff in the sense of the really big picture.

[alice]

What's getting you down today? Or is this about something else besides doomerism?

I think Raphael is suffering from heap fragmentation.

Prefer calloc; you have to do less arithmetic, and it zeros everything.

I forgot: the cool kids today use _sbrk.

[Travis B.]

I think Raphael is suffering from heap fragmentation.

Prefer calloc; you have to do less arithmetic, and it zeros everything.

I forgot: the cool kids today use _sbrk.

In my own world I use with-allot, which is like allot but you don't have to remember to un-allot your space later. And no worries about the fragmentation that seems to bedevil Raphael because memory is treated like a stack rather than a heap.

[Raphael]

Anyone knows of any places online, other than the ZBB, where you can talk about your personal troubles? I tried various web searches, but all the results I got had either features that are dealbreakers for me, or outright red flags.

[zompist]

Anyone knows of any places online, other than the ZBB, where you can talk about your personal troubles? I tried various web searches, but all the results I got had either features that are dealbreakers for me, or outright red flags.

If you can phrase it as a question, you could try Ask Metafilter. There are some caveats though.

* It costs $5 to join,.
* The site does better the more specific the question is. "What career can I try given <stuff>" is OK; "I'm depressed" is not.
* It discourages back-and-forth... or to put it another way, if you have to keep refining the question or taking back to the people who answer, it probably wasn't suitable for Ask.
* Most members are from the US. You'd want to specify that you're from Germany, or Europe, to avoid US-centric answers.

That's the only site I know about personally.

This might be a US-centric response itself, but you might also consider therapy. I don't mean a years-long course of psychiatry. If something is keeping you from getting what you want out of life, a few sessions with a therapist could help figure out what it is.

[WeepingElf]

Anyone knows of any places online, other than the ZBB, where you can talk about your personal troubles? I tried various web searches, but all the results I got had either features that are dealbreakers for me, or outright red flags.

You probably need professional help - a psychotherapist or the like. Such help is NOT found on the Web.

[Raphael]

The thing with therapy is, first, there aren't that many therapists here who are taking on new patients right now, and second, I have no way of knowing which ones are reasonably competent, which ones are well-meaning but clueless, and which ones are outright grifters.

[WeepingElf]

The thing with therapy is, first, there aren't that many therapists here who are taking on new patients right now, and second, I have no way of knowing which ones are reasonably competent, which ones are well-meaning but clueless, and which ones are outright grifters.

Sure. But with online offers, the second problem is aggravated. You should ask your health insurance for a list of approved psychotherapists. That still doesn't mean that all of them are equally helpful - not every therapist is competent with every kind of problems - but it should at least cull out the outright grifters, and a well-meaning but unhelpful therapist perhaps will relay you to a better suited colleague.

[Raphael]

You should ask your health insurance for a list of approved psychotherapists. That still doesn't mean that all of them are equally helpful - not every therapist is competent with every kind of problems - but it should at least cull out the outright grifters, and a well-meaning but unhelpful therapist perhaps will relay you to a better suited colleague.

OK, thank you.

[Raphael]

Apparently, in some fields of medical care, near where I live, it's basically impossible to find practitioners who don't have the one or other kind of woo-woo "alternative medicine" bullshit at least as part of what they offer. Which means, in my understanding of the world, that it's basically impossible to find practitioners who are neither idiots nor grifters. grumble grumble grumble...

[Travis B.]

Apparently, in some fields of medical care, near where I live, it's basically impossible to find practitioners who don't have the one or other kind of woo-woo "alternative medicine" bullshit at least as part of what they offer. Which means, in my understanding of the world, that it's basically impossible to find practitioners who are neither idiots nor grifters. grumble grumble grumble...

I've heard this is a big problem in Germany in particular.

[Raphael]

Apparently, in some fields of medical care, near where I live, it's basically impossible to find practitioners who don't have the one or other kind of woo-woo "alternative medicine" bullshit at least as part of what they offer. Which means, in my understanding of the world, that it's basically impossible to find practitioners who are neither idiots nor grifters. grumble grumble grumble...

I've heard this is a big problem in Germany in particular.

Yes.

[MacAnDàil]

Any ideas on how to keep your inner malloc under control? Mine has been acting up a lot lately.

Mine too, with respect to my regretted weight gain and my upcoming thesis defence on Friday. Considering the prereports mentioned no reserves, the defence will likely go well but I have been stressing about spelling mistakes I made in it among other defects. I am also sometimes uneasy about the idea others would pay attention to me.
I shall see my psychologist on Thursday anyway.

[Raphael]

Any ideas on how to keep your inner malloc under control? Mine has been acting up a lot lately.

Mine too, with respect to my regretted weight gain and my upcoming thesis defence on Friday. Considering the prereports mentioned no reserves, the defence will likely go well but I have been stressing about spelling mistakes I made in it among other defects. I am also sometimes uneasy about the idea others would pay attention to me.
I shall see my psychologist on Thursday anyway.

Good luck, both with the defence and in general!

[Richard W]

Mine too, with respect to my regretted weight gain and my upcoming thesis defence on Friday. Considering the prereports mentioned no reserves, the defence will likely go well but I have been stressing about spelling mistakes I made in it among other defects.

I got really worried when the board took me to task over my spelling errors. I thought that was a softening up effort, but they turned up to be the equivalent of a QA audit's "sacrificial cat. 3 deficiencies", i.e. they had to find something wrong to prove they'd read it. Back in those days, they could be fixed with tippex - one might have to get the copies reprinted and bound nowadays.

[lëtzeshark]

Mine too, with respect to my regretted weight gain and my upcoming thesis defence on Friday. Considering the prereports mentioned no reserves, the defence will likely go well but I have been stressing about spelling mistakes I made in it among other defects.

I got really worried when the board took me to task over my spelling errors. I thought that was a softening up effort, but they turned up to be the equivalent of a QA audit's "sacrificial cat. 3 deficiencies", i.e. they had to find something wrong to prove they'd read it. Back in those days, they could be fixed with tippex - one might have to get the copies reprinted and bound nowadays.

Procedure varies from country to country and institute to institute: I fortunately had post-defense corrections before the thesis was published, but this was in Luxembourg. In the Netherlands, they do all the stages of review and proof-reading before printing/distributing the Ph.D. thesis before the defense, but the defense in the Netherlands rarely has any stakes attached to it. (And, apparently, given the train-wreck defense I saw in Luxembourg, neither does the defense here!) That said, I think MacAnDàil has nothing to worry about with the defense, but, still, [lights incense for a positive outcome]

I am also sometimes uneasy about the idea others would pay attention to me.

That hasn't been so much of a problem for me in general, though I guess my acting in theater as a kid and working in radio at university helped with presenting.

Contradictory: I went out for a nice visit to the Christmas market with my boss and a former coworker/collaborator/paper co-author, which was quite fun! The Glühwein, however, quickly felt like a mistake...

[Travis B.]

Speaking of Christkindlmärkte, I went to one over the weekend with my daughter and parents, which was fun (it was snowing at the time, but not hard, and it wasn't that cold out all things considered).

[Raphael]

Speaking of Christkindlmärkte, I went to one over the weekend with my daughter and parents, which was fun (it was snowing at the time, but not hard, and it wasn't that cold out all things considered).

Well, some snow makes it more winter-y and stereotypically Christmas-y than Christmas markets in Germany usually are.