It’s also called Burma, the political situation there isn’t exactly stable, and I’ve known one (but only one) Burmese guy in the US before. That’s… probably it

Ideologically, I thought the “least bad” for me would be academic research. One year at an institution with a really toxic research culture later, and I’m thinking of either a local small-business or employee co-op or running a small business based on my special interest so… yeah.

Oh screw me they are definitely paid way more than the postdocs. I’m fairly certain that for biomedical scientists with PhDs, postdocs are the lowest paid profession with this level of qualification…

Like seriously. I think the number that was thrown around for post-PhD scientists in pharma was like $100-150k/yr to begin with. Granted those jobs have their own shortcomings, but still…

Biomedical postdoc in the US. Pay is exactly $61,008/yr. Postdoc means a PhD is required, and I work in Chicago, mind you

There’s actually a bit of a fun fact in this… Postdocs have historically been chronically underpaid. The NIH actually worked with a consultant a year or so back, who suggested NIH to gradually increase postdoc pay to $70k/yr (80k in urban areas). NIH didn’t agree to that, but chose to gradually increase salary over several years

NIH has a recommended minimum salary (https://www.niaid.nih.gov/grants-contracts/salary-cap-stipends) based on years of experience. In theory institutions can pay more… In practice, a lot of them just stick to the bare minimum, some places even low-ball. This is why my salary is exactly $61,008. Last year it would have been $56.5k so… At least it is an improvement

A carpet cleaner. I had to prepare a previous apartment for showing (it’s a long story) & there was quite a bit of dust on the carpet

Could just be I’m stupid, but I was not prepared for how involved such a machine is… to be fair it is meant for professional use, so I was probably just not properly trained for it

Thanks! You put this better than I could. I was thinking that this has to be something philosophers have figured out or at least seriously investigated… I will look into these concepts

IMO this is the asklemmy community and I came here asking for opinions so… I think your opinion is quite valid

Carbon monoxide poisoning when I was like 8 or 9… Just chilling out at a relative’s house, then I just blacked out, next thing I knew there was cold air blowing at my face and I was outdoors. I’ve experienced other terrible things but this is probably the closest “near death” experience I have so…

I don’t think this is good advice by any means, but I dropped my previous car at a car dealership for $500. They only were able to give me $500 because 1) it was an ex-police car and they apparently couldn’t sell it under normal circumstances, and 2) the car was pretty beaten up and probably have to be scrapped for parts.

This information is 2-3 years old so maybe things have changed… but back then I believe car dealerships would be willing to take a car for at least $500, since they can probably make a profit by auctioning the car or scrapping it for parts that way. So if I really just want to get rid of something, it’s not a bad option. However, most second-hand cars are worth way more than that, especially if I’m willing to put in a bit of effort, so… take this information as you will. I agree with the other comments that a used car can go for much higher if I’m willing to try.

Conventional AI/ML: I… don’t think so, unless they are models specially designed for playing games (with extreme examples being the likes of AlphaZero for chess/shogi/go). Actually I guess you could say that whatever DeepMind was doing was technically training/improving their models using video games? Case in point, their innovation on AlphaZero led to AlphaFold (which literally got a Nobel Prize) and the recent weather prediction tool

Generative AI: The field seems to have a major existential crisis due to running out of high-quality training data. So maybe there would be a way to use games to augment training data? I’m not an expert in Generative AI/LLM training so I’m not sure of the details

AGI: I’m certain an AGI model can be improved using video games but I don’t think researchers even remotely have a concept of how to build an AGI model yet

Sadly nothing yet, maybe just a couple of T-shirts… Mainly because I had to move/relocate every 1-2 years for my entire adult life until now & had to sell/give/throw away anything I couldn’t bring with me every time I move

Technically my primary computer activities are gaming, but these days I game exclusively on the Steam Deck or the tablet (for mobile games)…

My most speced-out computer was actually purchased for work related reasons. I wanted a decent GPU because I thought I’d be working in deep learning. Well current job doesn’t require training models and I was required to use a dedicated work laptop so… This high-spec one I mainly use for just about everything else other than gaming