Comment author: iceman 25 September 2015 06:50:34AM 1 point [-]

It's not just you. I can't use the arrow keys either. Chrome 45 on Windows 8.

Comment author: matt 24 November 2015 09:53:44AM 0 points [-]

Anyone else having trouble with keyboard input on Lesswrong? (Arrow keys and page up & down work for me on OSX Chrome, Firefox & Safari.)

Comment author: lululu 02 July 2015 06:56:22PM *  5 points [-]

As a narcoleptic, I am always suspicious of extreme polyphasic sleep claims. Biphasic seems to be natural, but anything like the uberman schedule seems to conflict with what I know about narcolepsy.

The primary symptom or possibly the primary cause of narcolepsy is skipping straight from light sleep to REM within minutes of falling asleep. When I was tested, I entered REM between 3 and 7 minutes of falling asleep. Sleep cycles are fractured and slow wave sleep is reduced or skipped entirely.

By contrast, a normal person enters REM after usually more than an hour, stopping along the way in three different phases of sleep. The deepest stage, slow wave sleep, is where quite a lot of brain repair occurs. Glial cells are restored, free radicals are cleared out, glucose is stored in the brain. Growth hormones repair tissue damage.

Many of the claims of ubermen proponents seem to rest on entering REM almost immediately after staring a nap. Much like a narcoleptic. Stage four is arguably more important for mental health, but this stage is not mentioned by proponents that I have seen. Furthermore, some of the symptoms of narcolepsy seem to match the experiences of polyphasic sleepers, particularly the general awakeness/non-grogginess which is occasional unexpected and uncontrollably strong daytime sleepiness.

Background: The idea of less sleep super appeals to me because I need so much. Before I was diagnosed I tried Uberman but it didn't seem to reduce my daily hours of sleep needed, and in retrospect it obviously could never have done that for me. But my natural sleep cycle is super polyphasic, 3 or 4 naps a day and reduced sleep at night. Unfortunately, my body wants is 10+ hours regardless of whether its in one chunk or spaced out throughout the day, and spacing seems irrelevant since I rarely have SWS regardless.

Comment author: matt 10 July 2015 01:23:09AM *  2 points [-]

I'm polyphasic on Everyman 3 since about March 2011 (Jan and Feb spent unsuccessfully trying to make Uberman work). According to my aging Zeo I get approximately the same REM and SWS as I did on 7.4hrs of monophasic sleep before I adapted. Nearly all of the SWS is in my 3hr core. On Uberman I never achieved enough SWS in my naps to get me through. The adaptation was ridiculously hard - both for how very unpleasant it was and for having to get through that while sleep deprived.

Comment author: lmm 03 February 2014 07:06:39PM 0 points [-]

Seriously, citation needed; all the claims I've seen are that cycling is dramatically safer.

Comment author: matt 05 March 2014 10:30:53AM 1 point [-]
Comment author: ciphergoth 16 January 2014 05:32:45PM 0 points [-]

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/107056/Minicamp2012/PolyphasicSleep/index.html

This is now a 404.

(Came here to re-download the nap tracks, which still work fine :))

Comment author: matt 18 January 2014 07:53:18PM *  0 points [-]

Meetup : Melbourne, practical rationality

0 matt 21 July 2013 07:46PM

Discussion article for the meetup : Melbourne, practical rationality

WHEN: 02 August 2013 07:00:00PM (+1000)

WHERE: 491 King Street, West Melbourne VIC 3003, Australia

Practical rationality. This meetup repeats on the 1st Friday of each month and is distinct from our social meetup on the 3rd Friday of each month.

Topics for August:

  • CfAR Melbourne workshop in February - how to help lock this in
  • Melbourne Effective Altruism progress report & next actions
  • Rationality Hacks hosted by Brayden

Discussion: http://groups.google.com/group/melbourne-less-wrong

All welcome from 6:30pm. Call the phone number on the door and I'll let you in.

 

ETA 2013-07-23: Rationality Hacks hosted by Brayden is our new proposed activity, subject to change by popular outcry on the night.

 

Discussion article for the meetup : Melbourne, practical rationality

Comment author: Baughn 31 May 2013 01:40:25PM *  6 points [-]

Actually, I would suggest not focusing your attention on evolutionary anthropology while you're supposed to be piloting a multi-ton vehicle at high speeds.

Most people are far worse at driving than they believe themselves to be.

Now, assuming you're not in a car at the moment, you can probably hack something up using mplayer - there's at least one android port of that. You may need to write your own UI, though, and I suspect it'll reduce your battery life significantly. (Android native players take advantage of decoding hardware, mplayer probably doesn't. Also, the fourier transform required to speed up voice without affecting pitch is expensive.)

Comment author: matt 28 June 2013 04:51:26PM 3 points [-]

Actually, I would suggest not focusing your attention on evolutionary anthropology while you're supposed to be piloting a multi-ton vehicle at high speeds.

When you're driving a daily commute your mind is going to wander unless you have extraordinary focus control / mindfulness training. It's not obvious to me that it's more dangerous to have it directed to evolutionary anthropology than to what you're going to do when you get home (or wherever else it wandered).

Book: AKA Shakespeare (an extended Bayesian investigation)

-1 matt 28 June 2013 04:34PM

Disclaimer: I have not read this book. I'm posting it in the expectation that others may enjoy it as much as I'm sure I would if I had time to read it myself.

This looks interesting as an extended worked example of Bayesian reasoning (the "scientific approach" of the title).

AKA Shakespeare: A Scientific Approach to the Authorship Question

The goal of AKA Shakespeare is to analyze the Shakespeare Authorship Question in such a way that you, Dear Reader, can review the evidence for yourself and come to your own conclusions. You will be presented with three candidates for the great playwright and poet whom we know as “Shakespeare.” He was either the gentleman from Stratford-upon-Avon (referred to as “Stratford”), Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford (referred to as “Oxford”), or a vague “somebody else” (such as Christopher Marlowe, Henry Neville, etc., referred to as “Ignotus”). The book is built around 25 key questions. Concerning education, for instance, you are asked to infer Shakespeare's education level from his writings, and to compare that with the known (or more-or-less known, or speculated) education levels of Stratford, Oxford, and Ignotus. For each question, you are asked to express your opinions numerically. Rather than say “I strongly believe …,” you say, for instance, “I give 10 to 1 odds that … You then enter your numbers in a chart in the book. Alternatively and preferably, you enter your numbers in the companion website aka-Shakespeare.com which contains a program, “Prospero,” who will process your entries and return your resulting conclusions, expressed as probabilities that Shakespeare was Stratford, or Oxford, or Ignotus. To accommodate a mix of information, debate, and speculation, AKA Shakespeare is written as a dialog involving four fictional characters who meet, drink, and talk in interesting locations—from Napa Valley to Big Sur—in Northern California. Beatrice, a professor of English literature, begins as a committed Stratfordian. Claudia, a detective-story writer, is skeptical. Her husband James (a once-successful engineer, now a less successful vintner) helps to identify the relevant questions. Martin is the scientist who develops and applies the necessary analytical procedures. (To see their portraits and biographies, open up aka-Shakespeare.com.) Beatrice and Claudia end up agreeing that the leading candidate is de Vere, with Ignotus second and Stratford a very distant third. Beatrice’s entries lead to a final probability of 10−13 (one chance in ten million million) that Shakespeare was the gentleman from Stratford-upon-Avon. Claudia’s entries lead to an even smaller probability. James ends with the wry remark: “We—in our smug presumed wisdom—wonder how any men or women could possibly have been so foolish as to believe that the Earth was flat. Maybe, in a hundred years’ time, people will wonder how otherwise sensible men and women could have believed that the works of Shakespeare were written by a butcher’s apprentice from a small town in Warwickshire!” You are encouraged to review the evidence for yourself. You may find that you agree with Beatrice, Claudia, and James. On the other hand, you may not.

http://amzn.com/0984261419

 

Edited to add:
There are many signs in the above block of text that this book is not up to Lesswrong standards. As gwern suggests, reading it should be done with an adversarial attitude.
I propose some more useful goals than finding someone for whom we can cheer loudly as a properly qualified member of our tribe: find worked examples that let you practice your art; find structured activities that will actually lead you to practice your art; try to critically assess arguments that use the tools we think powerful, then discuss your criticism on a forum like Lesswrong where your errors are likely to be discovered and your insights are likely to be rewarded (with tasty karma).

Comment author: JoshuaZ 26 June 2013 10:58:32PM *  17 points [-]

Many of those references don't support the claim or only support it very weakly. For example, one of the articles in the long list of citations is this one, and says:

None of the LI changes observed between and within the three arms of the trial were found to be statistically significant. Thus we failed to prove that glucose consistently stimulates or lipids inhibit tumour proliferation despite a trend in this sense.

So the data isn't quite that strong. Some of the other bits above are a little weaker than one would hope for:

Ketone bodies can serve as an alternative energy source for those cells with normal mitochondrial function [23], [24], but not for cancer cells [25].

But the reference for 25 is only for brain tumors in certain limited contexts in children.

Overall, this is an interesting area of ongoing work, but it isn't nearly as universal as you might think. There are also other issues involved: people with late stage cancers often have enough trouble eating as is (a large fraction actually die of starvation), and getting them to eat anything is an accomplishment. So at that level, for a lot of post-metastasis patients, this will be happening naturally anyways.

Comment author: matt 28 June 2013 04:19:56PM 3 points [-]

people with late stage cancers often have enough trouble eating as is (a large fraction actually die of starvation), and getting them to eat anything is an accomplishment. So at that level, for a lot of post-metastasis patients, this will be happening naturally anyways.

Starvation does not equal ketosis. If cancer patients are suffering from nausea and lack of motivation to eat anything, they and their carers may not select high fat low carbohydrate foods that would promote and sustain ketosis and may instead choose simple and easy to digest carbohydrates and sugary treats.

(Your comment upvoted.)

Meetup : Melbourne, practical rationality

0 matt 26 May 2013 07:07PM

Discussion article for the meetup : Melbourne, practical rationality

WHEN: 07 June 2013 07:00:00PM (+1000)

WHERE: 491 King Street, West Melbourne VIC 3003, Australia

NOTE: We've moved a stone's throw from our old office. Note the new address (which is unchanged from May, but changed from April).

Practical rationality. This meetup repeats on the 1st Friday of each month and is distinct from our social meetup on the 3rd Friday of each month.

Topic for June: Hypothetical Apostasies - bring a written down belief you think it likely that at least several other attendees will share but that just might be wrong http://lesswrongmelbourne.uservoice.com/forums/203428-general/suggestions/3881488-small-groups-hypothetical-apostasies (http://wiki.lesswrong.com/mediawiki/images/c/ca/How_to_Run_a_Successful_Less_Wrong_Meetup_Group.pdf p23)

Discussion: http://groups.google.com/group/melbourne-less-wrong

All welcome from 6:30pm. Call the phone number on the door and I'll let you in.

Discussion article for the meetup : Melbourne, practical rationality

Comment author: [deleted] 06 May 2013 05:29:15PM 5 points [-]

Conversely, there are some niche places that look very favorably upon LaTeX CVs. It's important to know the culture.

In response to comment by [deleted] on Maximizing Your Donations via a Job
Comment author: matt 07 May 2013 10:52:25PM 10 points [-]

At TrikeApps our job ads say "Choose an appropriate file format for your resume – we’ll draw conclusions about you from the tools you use". Anyone who expects us to prefer a proprietary file format over LaTeX or PDF is probably applying to the wrong place :)

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