Since LW is the place where I found out about App Academy... I started working through their sample problems today, and at what level of perceived difficulty / what number of stupid mistakes should I give up? Both in the sense of giving up on working toward getting into App Academy specifically [because I doubt I think fast enough / have a good enough memory to pass the challenges -- the first four problems in their second problem-set took me over an hour, and I had to look a few things up despite having gone through the entire Codecademy Ruby course] and in the sense of giving up on programming as an at-least-short-term job plan?

Not sure how much of this is lack of practice (maybe implementation / avoiding stupid errors would get better with practice, but designing the algorithms takes me a while, and I'm not new to programming at all), how much is overconfidence / unrealistically high expectations wrt skill (but they say the code challenges are supposed to take 45 minutes each) and how much is that I really don't have the talent to get into that particular program, or to not fail miserably at the job, or to develop the skills to be able to even get a programming job...

It could skew the median case if there are people who do econ majors specifically because they want to become i-bankers and also have expected earnings above the counterfactual median.

A career question, asked with EA aims in mind, that will hopefully be relevant to many other LW members.

I am considering CS research as a career path, probably in one of AI/ML/distributed systems. I'm currently working as a software developer and I have done extensive MOOC work to pick up a CS background in terms of coursework, but my undergraduate degree is in math and I have no published research.

If I decide that getting a PhD was worthwhile and wanted to apply to good programs, where would I start building my resume and skills? Independent research project? Sufficiently impressive projects within my current company? Should I just get a master's and see how that goes?

Alternately, is it possible to get involved with industry research without a PhD? What would such a career path look like?

Thoughts on any or all of the above questions, suggestions for people to talk to, etc. would be much appreciated.

When you take a book by Keynes down off the shelf, you're not taking Keynes himself down off the shelf. It's not like those heads in jars from Futurama. It's a book. Its core contents have been synthesised for a modern audience, with the benefit of decades of subsequent analysis, in every contemporary macroeconomics textbook worth its salt.

It might be worth your time, at some point, to read the original Keynes, just as it might be worth your time to read the original Origin of Species. But don't fool yourself into thinking you're tapping into the secret wisdom of an ancient master. It's a book. It's been widely available for several decades, and the discipline has not been standing still for all that time.

Also, if you're frequently in the sort of discussions where people are arguing about what dead economists did or did not say, I humbly suggest you re-evaluate those discussions.

John Maynard Keynes: The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money.

That will probably do more to increase your understanding of economics than any other single book you could pick, Keynes being ridiculously.. better.. than the typical economist, and is in any case a highly recommended prelude to any further readings. - among other things because lying about what Keynes says has become a very popular sport, so familiarity with the original is very useful for detecting later horseshit.

Cenotaph, a finished Worm fanfic. Taylor doesn't get too upset with Armsmaster, doesn't join the Undersiders.

It might be featured in today's author note since Eliezer has expressed approval of the fic in the comments.

Kawoomba suggests that colleges' statements on the first point below can't be taken at face value. What do you think?

I find it alarming that you assumed honesty on the part of the admissions officers. It reduces my confidence in everything you wrote that you assumed honesty from people whose job it is to be gatekeepers to the American elite class.

As far as I can tell, starting exercise programs (Starting Strength etc.) generally assume use of a gym. I'd work around that, but the parts where significant weight increases happen quickly would require several sets of weights in quick succession, and that cost is prohibitive.

Do you have an example of another industry that was high paying, well respected, and cheap to learn, that DIDN'T decline in pay and opportunities? If so, that would allow me to give more credence to your arguments.

In my career coaching work, one of the things I try to teach is how to spot these patterns of which way a market is going. This has some classic signs, and I can give plenty of examples of other industries in which this same pattern took place.

I stopped running at lunchtime since I kept on injuring my knees. I joined a gym a month ago and have been going three times a week, doing barbell weightlifting, bench, squat and overhead press. My progress has been almost non-existent in weight lifted so I probably need to alter my diet. At least I no longer get DOMS.

I started spending too much time mindlessly checking websites so I banned myself from spending any time on the internet at work . This works a lot better than having an exception for legitimate use.

I now have a very large collection of Chinese Anki sentence cards. I now spend more than two hours a week just on Chinese cards. I started a psychology deck but I think I'll delete it. Books with glossaries and summaries are excellent raw material but it's better to rewrite than trabscribe though the latter beats most ways of studying.

I could be better at learning Chinese if I had entertaining listening/viewing material but I don't do much of that in any language.