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have you looked for apps that will do this? something that does the effect of "twilight" on screens but for volume. Have you checked the parental control tools? Have you considered getting the kid a hearing test?
Seconding getting the kid a hearing test. Alternatively, speech therapy, if the issue is that she cannot understand what's being said.
In response to
Exercise in rationality: popular quotes, revisited
reflexively inverting any advice you are given to see if it still sounds wise as a test for falsifiability is something I think Charlie Munger mentions doing.
Give an example?
In response to
Gratitude Thread :-)
I'm grateful to be born in a time where medicine has the ability to regrow freaking arteries! Seriously, how cool is that?!
Unless there's some novel point in the post, or reason to discuss it here rather than there, I'd rather not have a link post. Let people who want to read more outside blogs do so, rather than "aggregating".
I would be more inclined to read outside rationality-adjacent blogs if there were some form of familiar-feeling (as opposed to a new website) aggregation than I would be if there were none, and I had to actively search them out.
In response to
Open Thread, Dec. 28 - Jan. 3, 2016
Has anyone learned to play an instrument as an adult? Is it realistic to do that without hiring a tutor? To be more specific, I want to learn to play the piano. I have never played a musical instrument before.
22 years old here, so not entirely adult-brained yet. I am in the process (well, while recovering from a surgery I'm taking a break, but...) of learning to play piano myself. It's slow going but pretty fun. If you have prior musical experience (for instance, in choir) it will be much easier.
I've mostly been having difficulty finding appropriate (and interesting) sheet music myself. I mostly have been playing video game tunes, and many of those aren't particularly easy for beginners.
In response to
Bragging thread, December 2015
Most awesome things during the last two months (since there wasn't a bragging thread last month):
Hacked my motivation system to finally install a sustainable exercise habit. I had long been trying to get myself to exercise more. Every now and then I managed to create a morning routine of going out on a run, but this habit would always fall apart whenever I'd get sick or otherwise be prevented from engaging in it for a while. The problem was that, while I could get the habit going by pushing myself, getting the habit started always required some active pushing. What I needed was something that would naturally pull me instead, causing me to get outside without requiring active willpower expenditure.
When I asked myself how I could achieve that, the answer was pretty obvious: I knew a bunch of people who were getting exercise by playing location-based games. And I knew that I had a tendency to get addicted to games very easily, so this seemed just like the thing that would work for me. For various reasons (most importantly wanting to limit my Internet use), I had long resisted acquiring a smartphone, but I felt that actually getting some exercise was important enough to give in. So I bought one and installed two games I'd heard about, Ingress and Zombies, Run!.
Zombies, Run! I only tried once and then never replayed it, but Ingress became a lasting habit. As of this writing, I've walked/jogged/ran a total distance of 162 kilometers (101 miles) during the 54 days that I've played it. The habit has persisted throughout the kinds of events that used to break my previous exercise habits, including one occasion of getting sick for a few days, and a period where I was so focused on finishing my studies that I only had minimal time for exercise for a couple of weeks.
Finally finished all the last coursework needed for my MSc degree. I've filed the last forms needed for graduation: now all that remains is to wait for the university's bureaucracy to finish doing whatever it is that they do, and then collect my degree certificate at a small ceremony on Dec 16th.
Wrote a paper starting work on an important but as-of-yet untouched FAI subproblem (building an actual model of what exactly "human values" are), which was accepted to the AAAI-16 AI, Ethics and Society workshop. Will upload a copy of it on the public Internet sometime soon, after finishing some final revisions.
If you have any interest in it, I'll point out that Pokemon Go, being made by the same company as Ingress, is presently in production. If anything, it'll be what gets me out of the house.
In response to
Bragging thread, December 2015
I've made a point to encourage any artists, musicians, and writers I've found that need it. More recently, it's become clear to me that I am actively making the world better by doing so -- I saw someone that I'd encouraged paying it forward, so speak, just a few days after I gave them encouragement, giving encouragement to someone who admitted to feeling depressed at their art. It's a nice feeling, to make the world better even in small ways like that.
After all, anyone could be the next person to produce a great work of art, music, or literature.
In response to
Open thread, Oct. 19 - Oct. 25, 2015
What website would you suggest for looking into medical research, for someone who's not versed in reading medical literature? I'm specifically looking for any developments or studies into the treatment of urethral strictures for my own reference.
In response to
October 2015 Media Thread
Other Media Thread
Undertale is a deconstruction of RPGs, and video games in general. While, as in most, you are given the option to fight enemies, random encounters turn out to be NPCs in the overworld. If you avoid harming anyone, instead using the MERCY option, the game becomes a heartwarming and heartbreaking experience.
If, instead, you grind out the encounters, you will be treated as the genocidal scum you are.
I've done my best avoid spoilers here, as to be quite honest, this is an incredible experience to play through yourself. As far as the gameplay goes, it makes overtures at being an RPG -- ATK, DEF, LV, EXP -- but combat plays out like a bullet hell on the defense. Its music is amazing, too; the creator of the game was originally a composer before he branched out into programming, and it shows.
I truly can't recommend this game enough. It was an incredibly inspiring experience to play, and I am far from the only one to feel that way. Without spoiling too much, the gameplay and story intertwine -- and while it comes across hammy sometimes, that's usually intentional -- and moreover, it works.
It's ten dollars on steam or the humble store, and even though a playthrough (of which, as I alluded to, there are multiple styles) will only last 6-12 hours, I'd pay ten times that.
For those not sure if they're interested, there is a demo available at the Undertale website.
The soundtrack, too, is available (for the most part; a few spoilery end songs are omitted), at the bandcamp here.
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Honestly, you mentioned it in there, but there are people that've been working at this for far longer than we have been thinking on this; I'd suggest finding a monastery or nunnery nearby and speaking to them about it. I realize this may be kind of obvious and low-hanging as far as suggestions go, but it's the best I've got. I wish you the best fortune in your endeavours.