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Mr.Money Mustache on finance and positive psychology. Specialties are doing the math of everyday life, and understanding the concept of the hedonic treadmill.
In response to
Who are your favorite "hidden rationalists"?
I am a big fan of his. If you want to retire in ten or fifteen years, and yes that's not only possible, but achievable without any major sacrifices, read him. He is someone who has taken what science knows about happiness and really applied it.
You should not: 1) expect that other people will become more rational, if you yell at them enough;
I think the rest of your summary is accurate, but Vassar actually said that you can't use to rational argument to convince people of much of anything. Now that I think about it, carefully judged yelling probably works better than rational argument.
"You can't convince anyone of anything using rational argument" is one of those cached thoughts that makes you sound cool and mature but isn't actually true. Rational argument works a hell of a lot worse than smart people think it does, but it works in certain contexts and with certain people enough of the time that it's worth trying sometimes. Even normal people are swayed by facts from time to time.
In response to
Memes and Rational Decisions
Isaac Asimov, history's most prolifi writer and Mensa's honorary president, attempted to formulate a more modest set of ethical precepts for robots and instead produced the blatantly suicidal three laws
The three laws were not intended to be bulletproof, just a starting point. And Asimov knew very well that they had holes in them; most of his robot stories were about holes in the three laws.
The Three Laws of Robotics are normally rendered as regular English words, but in-universe they are defined not by words but by mathematics. Asimov's robots don't have "thou shalt not hurt a human" chiseled into their positronic brain, but instead are built from the ground up to have certain moral precepts, summarized for laypeople as the three laws, so built into their cognition that robots with the three laws taken out or modified don't work right, or at all.
Asimov actually gets the whole idea of making AI ethics being hard more than any other sci-fi author I can think of. although this stuff is mostly in the background since the plain English descriptions of the three laws are good enough for a story, but IIRC The Caves of Steel talks about this, and makes it abundantly clear that the Three Laws are made part of robots on the level of very complicated, very thorough coding - something that loads of futurists and philosopher alike often ignore if they think they've come up with some brilliant schema to create an ethical system, for AI or for humans.
In the original article (PDF, free to download after you register) I find:
"The artificial connectome has been extended to a single application written in Python and run on a Raspberry Pi computer."
For those of you not familiar with the technology, Python is a programming language not know for speed and the Raspberry Pi is a cheap, low-powered computer smaller than your palm.
For those of you familiar with the technology, this is just another reason why Python is amazing.
In response to
Good things to have learned....
I wish I had actually applied myself in studying a foreign language instead of putting in the minimum effort to pass. I wish I had studied computer science, it would had accelerated my career by 5 years and CoSci is fun. I wish other people had taken more English classes, because writing clearly is hard and needs to be taught*.
*My alma mater my be unusual in actually teaching clear writing in English classes. I credit the professors involved.
In response to
[Need advice] Likely consequences of disclosing you have Asperger's Syndrome - given you have a 2.5 years gap in your resume?
If you think you will be let go from your current position in the near or mid future, start looking for a new job now. I'm not sure whether you will gain anything by disclosing your condition, vs. having the unexplained gap. Don't lie outright, of course. Can you say that you paused your studies to care for your child, without mentioning exactly what's going on? Your plans to return to grad school are a mark in your favor - that could also be a stated reason to switch jobs (i.e., "I want a job that will support me doing night school/ flexible hours for a year or two while I get even smarter").
Also, you have a Master's in EE. I'm guessing that's a field where there are far more jobs that qualified applicants, like basically all forms of engineering. That, plus the fact that even neurotypical engineers are really weird, and I wouldn't expect things to be too bad on a job hunt.
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on
A Cost- Benefit Analysis of Immunizing Healthy Adults Against Influenza
I got one and took my young son to get one as well. Convincing a child of the benefit of getting a shot or nasal spray makes for an excellent lesson in rationality since you must convince the kid to accept immediate and certain pain in return for a moderately reduced chance of experiencing a larger amount of future pain.
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on
A Cost- Benefit Analysis of Immunizing Healthy Adults Against Influenza
I got the shot (for free via my insurance), and it was completely painless. I looked away from my arm to prevent tensing up, and I literally did not feel the needle go in. There was a little soreness later that day, but not much. Worth keeping in mind - getting the shot is not unpleasant.
In response to
Open thread, Nov. 3 - Nov. 9, 2014
I enjoy taking long walks outside, but it's starting to get cold out. I'd like to continue my walks, but I need better protective gear.
People who live in cold climates: How do you dress up to stay warm for long periods outside when it's freezing / windy / snowing? What advice would you give for choosing appropriate clothing? Any specific brands you'd recommend? Any links to guides for choosing appropriate clothing?
My area (Baltimore, MD) doesn't usually get much colder than around 0 degrees Fahrenheit even with the wind chill, so I don't need the type of gear that really cold climates require.
American Northeast proof: layers, as other posters have said. My strategy is, from bottom to top: sneakers (I don't have boots at the moment), thick socks, long underwear or pajama bottoms, pants, T-shirt, sweater or sweatshirt, waterproof winter jacket, balaclava, beanie or other warm and flexible hat, hood over the hat. This is enough to get you through the coldest day of the year almost everywhere people live, but since I mostly walk between heated building, this lets me strip down to long pants and a T-shirt if I need to.
where do you live that long underwear would come up in such a situation as to be "socially abnormal"?
More to the point, what are you doing that people both know you're wearing long underwear and care about it to any substantial degree?
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Assuming that you invested in the United States stock market. Argentina would have looked like a good bet back in the 1920s, but it hit some really bad times...
Mr. Money Mustache is very US centric. YMMV with the investing advice if you are in a country with different tax codes or a smaller stock market with less international exposure. The advice on how to save money is good no matter where you are.