Off-Topic Discussion Thread: April 2009

MBlume

Dale McGowan writes:

And it needs to go well beyond one greeter. EVERY MEMBER of EVERY GROUP should make it a point to chat up new folks—and each other, for that matter. And not just about the latest debunky book. Ask where he’s from, what she does for a living, whether he follows the Mets or the Yankees. You know, mammal talk.

In this spirit, I propose the creation of a fully off-topic discussion thread.

Here is our monthly place to discuss topics entirely unrelated to Less Wrong that (of course) have not appeared in recent posts.

ETA: There are two behaviors I would love to see associated with this thread. First of all, discussions often drift off-topic in the middle of a thread. In these cases "let's take this to the off-topic thread" would be an excellent response. Secondly, given who's doing the discussing, I could easily see, say, a discussion about recent developments in some webcomic blossoming into a LW-worthy insight, in which case someone could spawn a new thread.

Dale McGowan writes:

And it needs to go well beyond one greeter. EVERY MEMBER of EVERY GROUP should make it a point to chat up new folks—and each other, for that matter. And not just about the latest debunky book. Ask where he’s from, what she does for a living, whether he follows the Mets or the Yankees. You know, mammal talk.

In this spirit, I propose the creation of a fully off-topic discussion thread.

Here is our monthly place to discuss topics entirely unrelated to Less Wrong that (of course) have not appeared in recent posts.

I find my mind tends to wander when I read dead-tree books. This makes me a rather slow reader. Oddly enough, it doesn't happen when I'm reading stuff on the internet. Suggestions?

I have the opposite problem, I tend to really zip through stuff on screen, which I have discovered makes it harder to remember details later. So I basically just read fiction and do general "fishing" type reading on screen.

1Kaj_Sotala17y

Interesting. I have the reverse effect - it's much easier to concentrate on the physical books, which don't need to constantly compete for attention with all the distractions of the web, like the impulse to check your e-mail every five minutes. That's mostly just for long books, though - reading comment threads such as on LW isn't a problem. The hypothesis below, that it's because of their discretized nature, sounds quite plausible.

3matt17y

I humbly propose that being a slow reader makes your mind wander (which is mitigated when reading bite size chunks on the Internet). Using your finger as a pacer will probably give you a 10-20% speed improvement. If that helps, consider a speed reading course (I did Evelyn Wood Dynamic Reading and found it excellent).

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Off-Topic Discussion Thread: April 2009

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Off-Topic Discussion Thread: April 2009

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