lolololol I love this!

I still wouldn't consider this "gamifying" a task because it doesn't seem like much of a game, there's no winning or losing or challenges involved. Maybe "gamifying " is just a misleading term?

7: What are some ways to gamify the task? Try to have fun with it!

Does anyone actually regularly do this? I understand in theory why it makes sense to turn a boring task into a game, but I feel like it takes an inordinate amount of willpower to do so. When I'm procrastinating, I usually just feel way too lethargic to set up a bunch of self imposed rules and tell myself "okay instead of just processing one hundred widgets, I'm going to go really fast and try really hard to process two widgets every minute!" or whatever. Maybe I'm just thinking about it in the wrong way though.

Great post, by the way. I will probably end up using this at some point. Making a checklist like this is something I wanted to do eventually, now I don't have to. :)

Took the entire survey and all extra credit questions in one go; minus ACT, SAT2400 and Respectable(tm) IQ scores since I don't have them, and </=140 character LW description because I was starting to get tired after the 40 min. IQ test.

So much fun! I'm very curious to see the results.

Meetup report! We had a total of 4 Attendees plus a well behaved infant. Much lower than usual, but not unexpected due to scheduling issues.

Meta-meetup discussion: Nominated planner for next meetup. It has been suggested that in the future, if an organizer/presenter cannot make it to their meetup, that it not be postponed unless at least 3-7 days notice can be given (since not everyone checks their email, facebook and/or the Less Wrong posting daily).

Presentation: Skipped in favor of scouting the area as a location for future meetups. While I'm currently re-working the whole thing (found some critical flaws), it should be ready again by the meetup after next if there is interest.

Location Impressions: While the Wine Loft's menu isn't designed for eating a full meal, the indoor seating and ambiance are great for running group exercises or just being social. Very lounge like, with couches, cushions and easily moveable, low-to-the-ground tables. The outdoor seating is a little cramped and loud for my tastes, as it's small and adjacent to the main thoroughfare off the expressway, but well shaded and cool this time of year. They're also mostly empty on Sundays prior to 9 p.m., so we should be able to conquer a nook fairly easily even without a reservation; and that shouldn't be a problem as long as our expected group size doesn't fall below 6.

The Greene itself is pleasant to walk through, with wide sidewalks, lampposts, outdoor cafe's, wall art, and non-repeating architecture. There is a small patch of greenery in the center which hosts events, some of them musical. There is a Books & Co. just across the alley from the Wine Loft; a spacious, two-story bookstore with podium and seating for a presentation area should we decide to run events for the public (such as educational material for CFAR) or start an ancillary Less Wrong book group. There is also a Funny Bone comedy club nearby that has shows every Sunday at 7 p.m., though I don't know how good the performers are.

Food choices in the area tend toward the upscale, but Choe's Asian Gourmet seems the most promising in terms of both price and the menu preferences of which I've been made aware. For future meetups I'd recommend having dinner there, then migrating to the Wine Loft for drinks, planning and rationality games and exercises.

Though we missed many of our regulars, a good time was had and much data gathered!

In my experience, when dealing with an average child, most of the day-to-day problems can be prevented or resolved by being proactive. This means modeling your child's thought process and behavior before it happens and addressing issues before they arise. You will still be blindsided on occasion, but much less so than if you simply react. This advice is fully general when dealing with other people "rationally", but it is much easier to follow with your own child, whom you presumably know better than anyone else.

Just one example: you can see unruly and crying children in a supermarket all the time. The child's mother (usually mother, not father), either ignores the cries and pleas for some item or some entertainment, or occasionally yells at (or even spanks) the child, or occasionally entertains for an instant or two, then goes back to the task of shopping. This behavior is quite predictable (at least after the first trip), so it is possible to prevent it from recurring by, say, having the child occupied by some solitary activity, or fed before the trip, or giving him/her the item they want for the duration of the shopping, or bringing another sibling along, or having a spare dummy or a milk bottle or... As long as you get yourself into the child's shoes, think what they think and feel what they feel, and know what they are likely to do, you are in a position to avert a disaster.

Unfortunately, an average parent often reminds me of this strip.

The reason I personally think paint makes a huge difference, is personal experience. (I decorate a room sans paint, and it looks meh. I paint a room and do nothing else, and it looks amazing) Therefore, the following "reasons" I came up with are after-the-fact rationalizations, but valid, I think, nonetheless.

1) Walls are the "biggest" part of what your room looks like. By that I mean if you closed your eyes, pulled out your camera, and shot a random photo, I would guess that >50% of the resulting photograph would be wall-space (given that you held your camera horizontally). In otherwords, when you're looking around your room, MOST of what your looking at, in area, is wall.

Note that it is completely POSSIBLE to have a room with white walls, and have it look like it was decorated that way, but it takes a lot of skill to pull off white walls well. Even then, you still might have to paint in order to have the RIGHT white.

2) White is the default color, and so signals a lack of effort. No matter WHAT color you paint your room, as long as it isn't white, there is an intentionality to your wall color, that white doesn't convey. The rest of your decor has to pretty much be of professional quality to make it look like the white was a conscious choice.

3) The walls are the background for everything else. Most obviously, it's the background for your art, but it's also the background for your furniture, and even yourself, when you happen to be in the room.

Note: Now that I think about it, I would like to mention that you should NOT paint your room and lose your deposit if you are not decently-off financially.

One crucial activity for me is listening to audiobooks while driving. I used to hate driving, but now I'm just a student in a car!

A fact about audiobooks is that they only go to such depth. I cannot find a better course than "the origins of the human mind" on evolutionary psychology. For my areas of expertise (Evo Psy, Pos Psy, Evolution, and Philosophy) there is nothing audiobooks can give me anymore. So I'm learning linguistics, economics and Anthropology.

My question to fellow less wrongers is: There is widespread rumor that the free days of finding good books, audiobooks, movies, and music on the internet are counted. Should we download Loads of good material, and keep it safe?

For those who've never used a command line interface and find them intimidating (one of my hurdles on the way to learning to program), I'd recommend Learn Code the Hard Way: The Command Line Crash Course. The exercises are designed to trip you up and force you to figure some things out for yourself, which has quickly increased my confidence and self-reliance so far.

I have not finished the book, but am already getting slightly addicted to "commanding" my computer to do my bidding instead of having to dig my way through windows explorer and context menus to get anything done. Am I right in thinking this may be good prep for migrating to linux?

Is the temporary amusement of some at the sniping of those others' status

This wasn't done. "My enemy is status signalling" is a moderately effective general purpose attack against positions one doesn't like but doesn't apply here (except in the Hansonian "Everything is Signalling" sense.)

I do not want such "ridicule of the less socially experienced and/or quick to read sequences" norms to become prevalent here.

And this isn't relevant. In fact, familiarity with the sequences would be in some ways negatively useful in the context (given that it may give the assumption that such usages of Rational in titles was the endorsed norm.)