the snail shell


The Biggie Filter

This is one of the most important lessons I would tell my younger self upon entering any sort of workforce, including school.

It’s called “The Biggie Filter”, after a professor of mine we called Biggie. We called him this because his name kind of sounded like Biggie1, and because he is perhaps the person in the world most unlike Biggie, which makes it all the funnier.

Prof. Biggie had this incredible ability to make you feel like an idiot when you talked to him. He’d often kind of turn his head sideways and squint, and maybe ask you something like “what do you mean by that?”, as if you had just said “the world is flat” and he’s trying to tell if you’re a conspiracy nut or just a garden variety fool. He had a very cooler-than-thou look, unintentionally but believably, because he was the kind of person who could reference Baudrillard or Latour in his writing and actually know what he’s talking about. One time he had us submit some homework through a google form, and upon submitting, instead of saying “thank you” or something, it said “Sereously?” [sic], and we all did a double take, because it’s the kind of thing he would actually say. And of course he was somewhere between “well-known” and “luminary” in his field, did great work, has a zillion papers and awards, etc. So interacting with him was usually a little bit ego-bruising.

But he didn’t mean it to be! I got to know him working on a project, never to the point where I’d call him “warm”, but to the point where I knew he never meant any condescension with his remarks. He was supportive of his students (those he advised and those in his classes) and earnest in his work. That’s just kinda the way he looked and talked.

So the Biggie Filter is this: Whenever Prof. Biggie says something, make it like 3 levels more positive. If he says “I think that’s a mistake”, hear it as “I don’t know; feel free to argue with me. And it’s an interesting point!” If he says “I don’t know about that”, hear “Good idea, and you’re doing great work!” It got so much easier to work with him after I installed the Biggie Filter in our conversations: more accurate communication, less anxiety.

The meta-point here, though, is: You will have to install Biggie-type Filters in so many of your professional relationships, especially with superiors. They will not always be the same as the original Biggie Filter; here are some Biggie-type filters you might have:

(Not limited to bosses; you’ll need these for many coworkers! I’m just focusing on bosses here because they’re often the most fraught work relationship.)

If you have a new boss and things don’t go swimmingly from the start, and you can find coworkers who will tell you their Biggie Filters for this boss, that will be so helpful! You can’t install them as-is; they depend on both you and the boss. But they don’t vary too widely; it’s rare that a boss will be very positive to someone and negative to someone else.2 It’s a good thing to try before you start jumping to conclusions and getting anxious about what the new boss means whenever you talk with them.

  1. actually it wasn’t Biggie, but another East Coast rapper. Anonymity, you know. The effect is the same. ↩︎

  2. if they are, or if their filter changes often, this is usually a Bad Sign ↩︎



AI Etc Links

Mostly just getting some links out of my head

Not about AI and work

MyTaxReceipt.org - ahh I love this, put numbers into terms people can understand. “we spent eleventy zillion on $foo” - is that good or bad, who knows? but “I personally spent $7000 to be in a country that has $foo” is a little clearer.

yimby/nimby/wellmaybeimby: A friend’s acquaintance had recently moved to $TRENDY_US_CITY and was mad that other people were moving to $TRENDY_US_CITY and building new greenfield houses (like the one he lived in). This guy did not see the irony inherent there. Now, it’s possible to have a coherent worldview there (“if a house exists, you can move into it; we just shouldn’t build new houses, since say 2000; we will accept the skyrocketing prices”) but … only barely. And if you’re advocating to make that a law, good luck; your niche position may be 1% of people, surrounded in every direction by 20% of people with worse opinions (like basic-NIMBYism). I wish there was a word for this: “opinion that, if perfectly implemented, maybe makes sense, but opinions near it are worse, so best to accept that you can’t get your exact thing and go in another direction.”

Wake up babe, new Histomap just dropped

The Rare People Who Are Solid by Sasha Chapin. There’s something here tying together two things I think about a lot:

I think Chapin’s claim is they sort of reinforce, but largely the macro drives the micro. Hard to be Spiritually Very Present … and then everyday go off to a job you hate for the paycheck.

Sort of about AI and work

“AI Fatigue is Real” by Siddhant Khare - some combination of “all I do is code review”, “everything changes too fast”, “I can’t as fully understand the system”, and “I am context switching a lot.” I feel this.

is testing as we know it going away? speaking of whiplash from everything changing so fast. do these people just … not test anymore? doesn’t this miss the sense of “I’ve run all the tests and now I know at least those guarantees hold”? eesh. at the same time, I do feel like something should change - especially because maintaining a test suite is such a productivity drag.

sort of related: ““Technical debt” is just anything you don’t like” - me, and also Chelsea Troy at stack overflow

Practical LLM tips from Jonathan Lange

Rules for Agents by Daniel Reeves



Debacterol/Oralmedic Post

I get canker sores. These are little sores in my mouth that last for a few days or couple weeks and hurt a lot. I have tried a lot of canker sore treatments (benzocaine, salt water, warm water, alum, triamcinolone, chamomile, oregano spirits, hydrogen peroxide, honey, B vitamins) and none of them work. Debacterol/Oralmedic does. And it’s dramatic; not “lowering from 7 days to 6 days maybe” but “massive relief immediately.”

But it’s unusual in a few ways:

What is it?

It’s made of “50% Sulfonated Phenolics and 30% Sulfuric Acid in an Aqueous Solution.” To use it, you apply a little to a Q-tip, then put it directly on your sore. It stings terribly for 5-10 seconds, then you wash it off; the pain subsides quickly and a whitish layer forms over the sore, cauterizing it and protecting it while it heals much faster.

It’s marketed as Debacterol in the US and available via prescription, or as Oralmedic outside the US and available without a prescription. It’s manufactured by Epien Medical.

How do you get it?

Outside the US, getting Oralmedic is easy: simply order it from one of their distributors. Inside the US, Oralmedic isn’t sold, but Debacterol is available with a prescription. But getting it is a little tricky. It seems that nobody, including doctors, dentists, and pharmacies, knows that it exists.

Pharmacies

According to Epien’s customer service (customerservice@epien.com), pharmacies can order Debacterol from McKesson Drug, item #2907459, NDC 6294010103. The Epien rep I talked to said they are working to add more pharmacy suppliers, but right now it’s just McKesson. I don’t know which pharmacies can order from McKesson. Supposedly, CVS Specialty orders from McKesson, but my local CVS did not. Claude says Albertson’s and Health Mart do, Walgreens and Kroger do not. But it’s probably best to contact your pharmacy and ask.

Note that, if you find a pharmacy that can get it, you’ll need to get a prescription from your doctor or dentist. Therefore, direct ordering through your doctor may be simpler if they’re willing.

Dentists and doctors

Also according to Epien, medical professionals can order from McKesson or from Henry Schein Medical, then you can pick it up from them. I contacted two dentists about Debacterol; neither knew about it, but both looked into it and were happy to prescribe it; one of them would order it for me.

Cost

A vial with enough for about 12 treatments cost about $120. It was not covered by my insurance.

eBay

Searching Oralmedic on eBay will bring up many sellers, often from Hong Kong or Malaysia. If you’re in the US and can’t get Debacterol, or are in another country where Oralmedic isn’t available, this may work for you.