Ziel Translation is moving!

I finally got a proper domain name and set up a new blog! Check it out at an insight a day dot com.

If you’re wondering why I didn’t just upgrade to a paid WordPress.com plan, it’s because I want to get back into self-hosting again. I’ll still be keeping this blog alive and all those legacy posts will still stay here as is, just like all my other previous blogs. At this rate, it feels like I change blogs every 3 or so years!

Thanks to everyone who has been part of this journey, reading and following this blog up until now, and apologies to those who were hoping I’d finally get around translating that JDKN football manga. I just lost interest in translating halfway, maybe someday I might get back to it…and when I do, this is the place to be.

Anyway, if you’d like to continue reading my work, do check out my new blog at https://aninsightaday.com/ for more daily blog posts.

Do you like ads?

Companies love sending out ads because it helps them gain customers in the long run. Websites love putting out ads because it helps them pay the bills. And customers love seeing ads because…

1. it helps them find new places or products to spend their hard-earned cash on?
2. it helps them support their favorite website without having to pay money?
3. it helps them navigate away from the website they are reading and visit somewhere else, i.e. the ads landing page?
4. it helps them determine if they are being targeted by personalized ads and can proceed with blacklisting or blocking certain websites and/or privacy-violating services?
5. it helps them…

No matter how I think about it, ads just don’t mesh well with customers. Side note: I know this blog has ads, that’s because I’m using the free WordPress plan.

Fun ways to name meeting invites

If you work in an organization where everyone has their own company email address, chances are, you can see everyone’s schedule! Well, depending on that person’s privacy settings, you may only be able to see the times when they are free or busy. Or you might be able to see their meeting subject and location. Or occasionally, there will be a few people who openly let everyone read the entire content of the meeting invite.

So, here’s the mischievous part. The next time you set up a meeting with someone, especially if it’s someone who allows others to read the meeting subject but not the meeting content, give the subject a funny name and let the hilarity ensue.

To: person_with_friendly_relation@company.com
Subject: Discussion on hair loss prevention and wig recommendations
Location: Meeting Room C-5
Time: 10:00 AM to 10:30 AM

Message: As discussed in the XYZ meeting, booking your time to finalize the follow-up actions for ABC.

Or maybe:

To: person_with_not_so_friendly_relation@company.com
Subject: Office gossip on the recent furniture scandal
Location: Your office
Time: 10:00 AM to 10:10 AM

Message: Please find attached ABC report for review, I will bring the hardcopy for signature tomorrow.

Maybe send an invite titled “Proposal for bringing pets to work every Tuesday,” or “Tips for confronting your mid-life crisis,” or “Best shoe to throw as retaliation to snide remarks.” You get the idea.

Imagine looking at someone’s calendar trying to schedule a meeting only to find a few questionable meeting invite subjects. Ahh, must be a fun place to work.

Don’t kick me in the balls!

Suppose Power comes up to you and says hey, I’m gonna kick you in the balls. And when you protest, they say they don’t want to make anyone unsafe, so as long as you can prove that kicking you in the balls will cause long-term irrecoverable damage, they’ll hold off. And you say, well, it’ll hurt quite a lot. And they say that’s subjective, they’ll need a doctor’s note proving you have a chronic pain condition like hyperalgesia or fibromyalgia. And you say fine, I guess I don’t have those, but it might be dangerous. And they ask you if you’re some sort of expert who can prove there’s a high risk of organ rupture, and you have to admit the risk of organ rupture isn’t exactly high. But also, they add, didn’t you practice taekwondo in college? Isn’t that the kind of sport where you can get kicked in the balls pretty easily? Sounds like you’re not really that committed to this not-getting-kicked-in-the-balls thing.

No! There’s no dignified way to answer any of these questions except “fuck you”. Just don’t kick me in the balls! It isn’t rocket science! Don’t kick me in the fucking balls!

In the New York Times’ worldview, they start with the right to dox me, and I had to earn the right to remain anonymous by proving I’m the perfect sympathetic victim who satisfies all their criteria of victimhood. But in my worldview, I start with the right to anonymity, and they need to make an affirmative case for doxxing me. I admit I am not the perfect victim. The death threats against me are all by losers who probably don’t know which side of a gun you shoot someone with. If anything happened at work, it would probably inconvenience me and my patients, but probably wouldn’t literally kill either of us. Still! Don’t kick me in the fucking balls!

I don’t think anyone at the Times bore me ill will, at least not originally. But somehow that just made it even more infuriating. In Street Fighter, the hero confronts the Big Bad about the time he destroyed her village. The Big Bad has destroyed so much stuff he doesn’t even remember: “For you, the day [I burned] your village was the most important day of your life. For me, it was Tuesday.” That was the impression I got from the Times. They weren’t hostile. I wasn’t a target they were desperate to take out. The main emotion I was able to pick up from them was annoyance that I was making their lives harder by making a big deal out of this. For them, it was Tuesday.

It’s bad enough to get kicked in the balls because Power hates you. But it’s infuriating to have it happen because Power can’t bring itself to care.

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/still-alive

Background: The New York Times wanted to write an article about Scott Alexander, but they would have to reveal his real name as per their policy. Scott wanted to maintain his anonymity and didn’t like the New York Times’s strategy of doxxing random bloggers for clicks. So, after much deliberation, he decided to delete his entire blog.

Do read the full article if you have some time to spare, and click on all the links, it’s a cautionary tale of what can happen when you start to gain a bit of fame on the internet.

HT Tim Ferriss

How to stop snacking at night

If you find yourself snacking a lot at night and want to stop, here’s a simple trick to help you.

Just brush your teeth immediately after finishing dinner. The mere act of brushing your teeth means you won’t try to snack anymore. I mean, you might still be tempted to, but then you’ll have to brush your teeth again.

For this to work, you obviously need to be someone who cares about dental hygiene, and you also have to be somewhat lazy to not want to brush your teeth a second time. If you meet those two conditions, then congratulations! You can now utilize your own inherent laziness to stop snacking at night.

HT Mom

How to appreciate something

I feel like too often, we take things for granted. The only time we appreciate something is when we are deprived of whatever it is we took for granted. The more common or basic that thing is, the more we suffer from its absence.

Take running water, electricity, or the roof over your head for example. We don’t notice how important they are until they’re gone. Can you try a day without running water or electricity? How about a week? What if you had to live without a roof over your head?

That’s the best way to appreciate something, by missing its absence. The next best way? Stop whatever you’re doing and just sit with it.

Stand next to a water faucet and marvel at how the water flows out, or stare at a light bulb and appreciate that you have electricity. Lie in bed and look up at the roof over your head. Imagine how life would be without it, what would happen if it suddenly rains or snows?

What would you do if you didn’t have running water, or electricity, or a roof over your head? Stay with it for a few minutes and just appreciate it while it’s there.

How to appreciate anything

Do you watch sports? Do you understand the flow of the game or what all the athletes are doing? I don’t watch sports so most of the time, I don’t really know what’s going on. Which means I don’t appreciate it as much.

The only way for me to appreciate it is if I understand what’s going on. If only someone was there to explain everything. “See that player over there? Watch how his left leg moves, did you see that?” *Rewinds the tape* “There! See how he steals the ball just like that? That’s called a <insert technical jargon>. ” And so on.

The more you know, the more you appreciate. You might look at a bowl and say it’s just a bowl, but someone who knows fine pottery will tell you all sorts of fine detail about the bowl you didn’t notice, like how it’s crafted, the difficulty in creating the patterns, and all the different techniques used to achieve the outcome. If only you knew, then you would appreciate it so much more.

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Inspiration: I randomly stumbled upon this video about a voice trainer commenting/explaining a famous singer’s song (it’s in Japanese so turn on the subtitles and jump straight to 1:55) and gained a whole new level of appreciation for people who can sing.

Mental disability

Consider how difficult life would be if you were born with a mental or genetic disorder like Down syndrome or autism. How do you think society will treat you if they find you “incompetent” at so many things?

Think of all the angry people who yelled at you for your mistakes and not being able to cope or understand “basic” instructions. How terrible would it be for you to struggle to do your best while getting yelled at?

You should be glad if you don’t have a disability. While it might be easy to tell if someone has a physical disability, it’s difficult if it’s a mental disability. There are a lot of people who suffer from it and the person you yelled at yesterday might be one of them.

Life is already hard enough for a lot of people, don’t make it harder by punishing their weakness.

The mistake of defense

They say the best defense is a good offense, which is true. No matter how great your defense is, you won’t be able to win unless you go on the offense.

For a shield to be effective, it has to be big enough and sturdy enough to guard against the sword. But what does the sword need to be effective? It just needs to find a small opening, a tiny gap in the armor, and that’s it.

Going on the defense is inherently a weak move because you’re forced to react. If you go on the offense, you can decide where to strike, and the person on the defense has to follow or risk getting hit. The best defense is to go on the offense and force your opponent to be on the defense, because when your opponent is busy getting attacked, they don’t have the luxury to attack you.

Whenever you find yourself on the defensive side, you’ve already lost half the battle. The only way forward is to be patient and wait for an opportunity to turn the tables. Even the most ferocious attacks don’t last forever, so the moment it stops, take your turn to attack and switch to offense.

As with many endeavors in life, it is nothing more than an elegant dance between offense and defense. To be able to move forward or make progress in anything, you need to stop focusing so much on defense and work on your offense.

Letting others control you

Why do people so easily give up control over themselves? I don’t think many people realize this but the moment you get a little bit too excited about something, that’s when you cede control of yourself to someone else.

Someone said something or made a remark that upsets you? Well, now you can’t stop thinking about it and lost control of your mind.

Tasted something delicious or addictive and can’t stop craving for more? Well, now you can’t stop your desire from manifesting and lost control of your physical self.

Think about it, would you willingly engage in those activities if you weren’t tempted or provoked? No? Then why are you doing it? Isn’t that the very definition of losing control of yourself? Isn’t that what it means to let others control you?

It is surprisingly easy to lose control of yourself without realizing it, so every time you catch yourself doing something stupid, stop and ask yourself. Is this something you would willingly do? Do you really want to be doing this right now?