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cousin_it comments on Open Thread, March 16-31, 2012 - Less Wrong Discussion

2 Post author: OpenThreadGuy 16 March 2012 04:53AM

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Comment author: cousin_it 19 March 2012 10:32:26PM 4 points [-]

I want to post some new decision theory math in the next few days. The problem is that it's a bit much for one post, and I don't like writing sequences, and some people don't enjoy seeing even one mathy post, never mind several. What should I do? Compress it into one post, make it a sequence, keep it off LW, or something else?

Comment author: arundelo 19 March 2012 11:34:37PM *  2 points [-]

I for one often don't do more than skim mathy posts, but I think they're important and I'm glad people make them. (So my vote is for either one post or a sequence, and it sounds like you're leaning towards the former.)

Edit:

The reasons I often skim mathy posts (probably easy to guess, but included for completeness):

  1. The math is often above my level.
  2. They take more time and attention to read than non-mathy ones.

"What do you know about magma?" he asked.

She turned slightly, looked at him sidelong. "More than you, I would guess."

"You can do heat flow simulations. What about magma flow simulations?"

"The capability is out there," she said.

"Tensors?" Richard had no idea what a tensor was, but he had noticed that when math geeks started throwing the word around, it meant that they were headed in the general direction of actually getting something done.

"I suppose," she said nervously, and he knew that his question had been ridiculous.

-- Neal Stephenson, Reamde

Comment author: GLaDOS 24 March 2012 09:51:19AM 1 point [-]

and some people don't enjoy seeing even one mathy post, never mind several

Those people need to learn to live with seeing math if they want to be on a site trying its best to refine human rationality.

Post it please.

Comment author: cousin_it 24 March 2012 10:30:15AM 1 point [-]

I already have: 1, 2.

Comment author: GLaDOS 24 March 2012 10:32:09AM 0 points [-]

Yay ^_^

Comment author: WrongBot 19 March 2012 11:32:47PM 1 point [-]

My preference would be for one post per major idea, however short or long that ends up.

Please keep posting mathy stuff here, I find it extremely interesting despite not having much of a math background.