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Watching a hypnotist live was….insane

May 10, 2024 by Neville

One of the craziest things I’ve seen in person was a crowd of people getting hypnotized. I knew 100+ people in the crowd so I was more convinced it wasn’t staged.

I was in New Zealand, and it was a ~300 person crowd inside of a college classroom.

If you wanted to participate, the hypnotist did a 5 minute “meditation” for the entire audience. It was like “you are very relaaaaxed, you are letting everything gooooooo…”
Nothing crazy, felt like a wind down in a yoga class.

Then he asked if people wanted to come on stage to see if they were under hypnosis. He took 20 people on stage at a time, they all sat in chairs. He did another meditation for them with their eyes closed, maybe 1 or 2 minutes.

Then he told all of them to go to sleep. Everyone “acted” asleep, but some people looked ACTUALLY asleep.

He’d quickly go down the row of seated “asleep” people and pull on their arm really hard.
Some of them stayed in their chairs because they weren’t really asleep and their body caught them, others COMPLETELY FELL OUT OF THEIR CHAIRS IN A HEAP!

It was so weird because these people were falling in all sorts of contorted ways…..these mf’ers were OUT! People were genuinely concerned like “ummm are they ok?!?”

The people that fell to the floor were his new subjects. Literally EVERYTHING he told them to do, they did without question.

I knew people in this crowd. I knew the people getting hypnotized, so this wasn’t some pre-staged thing.

I saw a timid shy girl act like a rockstar whenever he played the song “Teenage Dirtbag.” Later we asked her, she didn’t remember anything…like not ONE thing about this whole event.

Another guy the hypnotist made him forget the number 8. Later we asked him about it and he genuinely had no idea what we were talking about. We showed him videos of him on stage, and he actually got really upset and rejected the idea this ever happened.

I couldn’t believe how effective it was.

I understand that hypnosis is probably just the person being susceptible to suggestion in that state, but the degree to which is worked was unreal. I had seen this before on TV but always assumed it was partially staged.

The hypnotist made people do all sorts of insane things I doubt they would do in a normal setting.

He claimed they truly wouldn’t do anything they didn’t want to do….but I dunno, these people were doing some pretty crazy things.

People were crying. People were confused. People were acting like chickens. People were speaking in Tongue. People thought they were flying.

When the show ended he took all 8 subjects he was toying with and “woke them up.” None of them remembered anything.

He said it would take up to an hour for this to completely wear off, and he was right.

Some of the people I knew were acting supppeer strange after it was done, and getting pissed off that people were saying they acted like a chicken or a rockstar….because in their mind this truly didn’t happen. But on our phones we had video proof, and it would just confuse the hell out of them when we showed them videos.

We genuinely were concerned about 2 friends that were acting really strange, to where we found the hypnotist after the show and asked if everything was ok. Like he said, within 30 minutes or an hour they went back to normal.

 

I tell this story because it just seems so….un-believable. This is stuff I always thought was partially staged, but seeing it in person was amazing.

It almost felt like magic was real or something.

Tesla Model S Test

March 4, 2024 by Neville

I was thinking of buying a Tesla Model S, and wanted to try it out for a multi-city, mulit-destination trip, so I rented one with the specs I wanted off Turo (I would’ve preferred a black one but couldn’t find that with my specs).

Almost all my friends have variations of Teslas, and the only one I really love the look of is the Model S:

The only reasons I’d want to switch cars is: FULL AUTO DRIVING.

That’s it.

That’s the killer feature to me.

Pro’s:

  • Stupid fast. Like….so fast you don’t really need all that speed. It’s unreal.
  • Everything is controlled by phone, it’s kinda neat to cool the car or heat it up remotely, or just not have to have a key (just your phone) to operate everything.
  • You can see all the cameras from the phone app..it’s like having an 8-camera security system wherever you’re parked!
  • FSD (Full Self Driving) is amazing….I have some gripes with it, but it’s an awesome safety feature to have, and is really relaxing to drive on.
  • FSD is so good at directions, if I was ever in doubt of which freeway or exit to take, FSD nailed it every time.
  • I love + don’t love that everything needs to be controlled from the screen. Like changing directions of the air vents requires a few clicks to do.

Con’s:

  • For passengers the Full Self Driving is kinda jerky when slowing down….even with “Chill Mode” on the way it breaks sometimes is like a bad Uber driver.
  • You kind of have to babysit the FSD….it definitely does the job, but you’re not totally doing nothing, you still have to pay some attention.
  • It’s a total lane hog. On the highway the Tesla will very frequently try to move into the left lane then just stay there, which is a huge pet peeve of mine.
  • The yoke steering wheel looks cool, and is nice for visibility (you can see right over it which is neat), and for the most part feels good….but the buttons stink. The turn signals are not intuitive, and you have to reach your thumb to touch them each time. Same with the horn, definitely not in an intuitive spot.

 

Hope for the future:
I frequently go back and forth between Austin and Houston for family stuff, and I think of the countless hours of driving I’ve done that could’ve been used for something more productive or fun.

I wish I could do work, or read, or listen to podcasts AND take notes while driving….currently you can just passively consume information in a car and not much more.

My goal is that I can drowsily hop in the car, fall asleep, and safely wake up in a different city. This seems roughly 5 years away.

Things Working and Not Working

December 29, 2023 by Neville

Things that are working:

  • Newsletter to interact with audience. Stay top of mind.
  • Short Clips to stay top of mind, get new audience.
  • Long Form Podcasts to meet people, cut up into clips, have interesting conversations.
  • Community as a form of scaled training, work on tons of cool projects inside, deeper connection with audience.
  • Social Media to meet people IRL, distribute content, and interact with audience.
  • Great Posts & Stories that can be turned into social media content + videos + articles.
  • Using AI as an assistant to making content….sometimes.
  • Uniqueness in your content or brand. 

 

Things that are not working:

  • SEO focused articles that compete with generative AI.
  • Content for the sake of content.
  • Fully generated AI articles. If someone can get the same answer from ChatGPT you’ve added no value.

 

Writing/Blogging

December 20, 2023 by Neville

I started “writing online” in the early days of the internet when no one made money from it, and it was a fun experience not yet bastardized by the income aspect of it.

….but then I think: I can STILL just write online without any expectation! I just don’t do it as much.

The problem with writing stuff is it’s hard compared to other mediums:

  • It’s really easy to record a quick video.
  • It’s really easy to snap a pic and post to Instagram.
  • It’s (relatively) easy to write a quick Tweet/X.
  • It’s still REALLY HARD to write out a full length blog article.

Also, snapping pics and videos and posting them is a very effective form of storytelling!

In fact it’s often much better to just SHOW AN EVENT than talk about it in a blog post, so naturally “writing an article about an experience” is not the best way to display your experience.

HOWEVER, the thing about writing stuff down is you must:

  • Get your brain to dump out all the thoughts, then neatly place them in order.
  • You can organize your story, and weave it together really well.
  • This written article can become a GREAT video script that’s tight and concise.
  • There’s some element of pride in the finished product.
  • You can “make something out of nothing.”

Maybe I should do it more….but on a blog like this because people can’t interact with the writing.

On Twitter/X when I publish a thought, it’s implicit that I want discussion or exposure because it’s being blasted to people’s faces and begs for comments/likes.

On a medium like this, it’s just published on the blog, people DECIDE IF THEY WANT TO READ IT, and don’t even have the option to comment on it. This makes it a “safer space” to write without being judged or critiqued too hard about it.

On Twitter/X (while I love it), I am hesitant to post half-baked thoughts because you’ll instantly get fact-checked and skewered, but over here it’s like my own gaurded personal slice of the internet where my mind can wander free.

Going Full “Proper Typing” Today

March 16, 2020 by Neville

I’ve been re-learning how to type correctly since February 2020, and I’ve hit a plateau of around 40 WPM.

The reason is I’m still reverting to my original way of “chicken pecking” when I need to type (because I’m so much faster), but as of today I must rip the Band-Aid off all at once and start typing the correct way from now on.

Ughh..even writing this short post was very frustrating because of how slow it went. Anyways, a necessary sacrifice for future fast typing!!

A discussion about happiness on the Noah Kagan Podcast

January 19, 2019 by Neville

Website link  |  Apple link | YouTube Link

Bday @ Russian House

November 18, 2018 by Neville

Grillin’ 🥩

November 7, 2018 by Neville

SF Weekend for McGregor Fight House Party

October 7, 2018 by Neville

Skipped over to SF for a quick McGregor fight party at a friends new house in San Ramon

Making the SidCycle

August 31, 2018 by Neville

The basic scaffolding that will attach to the frame
It’s a high strength crate attached to a cutting board for stability
Sid supervising the construction process
Affixing the cutting board with bolts
Doing some fault testing before putting Sid in
He fit!
He’s chill with this
That’s an 80 lbs pitbull in a crate on a motorcycle!
He approves of his new ride
On his perch
Doing some corner load testing
Getting him used to the exhaust noise
Bahaha this is what someone would see in traffic
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