Location and time for this Wednesday's meetup are confirmed! It will be at 7:30pm (not 7pm) at Zendo. I will not be there, but Michael Keenan will be giving a talk about robot cars.

Michael Keenan is an entrepreneur, activist and futurist who works with The Seasteading Institute and the Center For Applied Rationality. His talk, How Robot Cars Are Near, describes how robot cars will save millions of lives, billions of hours and trillions of dollars.

Michael will also be speaking at the Extreme Futurist Fest on December 22.

For directions to Zendo, see the mailing list:

http://groups.google.com/group/bayarealesswrong

or call me at:

http://i.imgur.com/Vcafy.png

There will be a meetup tonight at Zendo as usual. I will not be around but Alex Mennen will be hosting. This will be a boardgames meetup. Come hang out and play a game from Zendo's game library, or bring a game of your own if you like. For directions to Zendo, see the mailing list: http://groups.google.com/group/bayarealesswrong or call me at: http://i.imgur.com/Vcafy.png

This Wednesday's meetup will feature Hermeneutics!, a brand-new game invented by Scott Siskind. You can read about it on his blog:

http://squid314.livejournal.com/343000.html

The purpose of the game is to see how easy it is to come up with plausible false arguments, and how plausible such arguments can sound coming from others. As far as I know, this may be the first time the game has ever been played. Doors open at 7pm, and we'll start playing the game at 7:30pm. For directions to Zendo, see the mailing list: http://groups.google.com/group/bayarealesswrong or call me at: http://i.imgur.com/Vcafy.png Next week we can have another social-skills-themed meetup.

This week's Berkeley meetup will be a structured discussion about getting better at skills. One way to get better at skills (like aikido) is deliberate practice. Another way to get better at skills (like making friends) is deliberate performance, which is what you do when practicing isn't an option. (If you meet an especially cool person, you don't want to try your risky bold untested friend-getting technique, because you actually want to make friends with them.) Very generally, the tools are

• making predictions
• experimenting
• analyzing what happened
• doing post-mortems on near-misses
• getting experts to critique your technique

This is horribly abstract; at the meetup we'll have a structured discussion about how this could actually work in practice, and what we have been actually doing to become skilled. You don't have to read these linked articles to attend the meetup,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practice_(learning_method)#Deliberate_practice

http://peterfadde.com/Research/Deliberate_Performance-PI-1011.pdf

but if you've read this book I really hope you attend:

http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Expertise-Performance-Handbooks-Psychology/dp/0521600812

Doors open at 7pm, and the meetup begins at 7:30pm. For directions to Zendo, see the mailing list:

http://groups.google.com/group/bayarealesswrong

or call me at:

http://i.imgur.com/Vcafy.png

This week the Berkeley meetups return to their usual time and place: 7pm at Zendo.

The topic this week mirrors that of the South Bay meetup: "Recent success stories". This is a meetup to share things that have worked well for you — habits of thought, changes in behavior, tools, optimized routines, new experiences. Also of value are things that you tried which did not work. Hopefully we'll all learn about new things to try.

Doors open at 7pm and the meetup properly begins at 7:30pm.

For directions to Zendo, see the mailing list:

http://groups.google.com/group/bayarealesswrong

or call me at:

http://i.imgur.com/Vcafy.png

Today Zendo and I are unavailable. Several people on the mailing list have suggested that people meet at the Starbucks on Center and Oxford Street at 7pm. You should come there if your coming there acausally implies that other people will come there.

This week Zendo is unavailable for a meetup. Instead we will meet at the Free Speech Cafe in Moffitt Library on campus. Wednesday, October 3, 7pm. They have sandwiches and outdoor seating. There will not be a Berkeley meetup on Wednesday of next week. Instead there will be a meetup party on Thursday of next week. Map: http://goo.gl/maps/5nCVW

If you need help finding the place, call me at http://i.imgur.com/Vcafy.png

In anticipation of the Singularity Summit, there will be a small Overcoming Bias / Less Wrong meetup party, featuring Robin Hanson and Katja Grace of Overcoming Bias. Please join us on Thursday, October 11, between 7pm and 10pm for conversations about important and interesting things, and maybe dancing. OG House has generously offered their home for this event. Bringing drinks or snacks is not required but greatly appreciated. There is street parking, and Ashby BART is half a mile away.

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/09/oblw-party-berkeley.html

Let's have a meetup in Vienna!

The Cafe Illy at Favoritenstraße 55 is on the southeast corner of Favoritenstraße and Johannitergasse. You can take the underground line U1 to the Südtiroler Platz station. Inside the station, follow the "Bahnorama" signs to get to the southern exit. Then walk south through the construction site to get to Favoritenstraße.

Alternatively, you can take U1 to Keplerplatz and simply walk north to the intersection with Johannitergasse.

I will be sitting inside at 19:00 with a sign that says "Less Wrong". I look forward to meeting you!