Working through these slowly; should be up to date by 4/24.

I think the delivery could be greatly improved by introducing symbols and clarifying the logical environment where the derivation is happening. Allow me to do this, without using LateX I'll assume /\ stands for logical conjunction and ~ for logical negation.

Proposition symbols

Our universe is normal: N
We exist: E
Our universe is magical: M

Logical environment

[1] The universe is either normal or magical: M = ~N
[2] The magical universe is strongly biased to support our existence: P(E|M) = 1

Derivation

By Bayes theorem:

P(N|E) = P(E|N) P(N) / P(E) <-->

P(N|E) = k P(E) /\ k = P(E|N)/P(E)

By partition of unity and [1]

P(E) = P(E|N)P(N) + P(E|M)P(M) => (by fact [2])
P(E|N)P(N) + P(~N) => (by law of probability)
P(E|N)P(N) + 1 - P(N)

If P(E|N) -> 0 with P(N) fixed (say c), we get

P(E) -> 0/c + 1 - c = 1 - c

From this

P(N|E) = k P(E) -> k (1-c) /\ k -> 0 / (1-c)

so that

P(N|E) -> 0

Thanks for the incredible essay. I have to read it more thoroughly when I find the time. The point about the priors rejecting the hypothesis is a point I never considered and something that should be hammered to those of us working with data (and only consider hypothesis testing using null hypothesis). I wonder what other more mundane problem this might apply to...

Alas, yes; I found that unfortunate as well, since I, too, had wanted to attend both!

It was unfortunate that the CFAR for ML Researchers workshop collides with the European LW yearly meetup. I am a ML researcher, and I would love to go to San Francisco, but I don't want to miss the European meetup either. :)

Wow plenty of apps. :) But I did not notice anything to read RSS feeds (blogs and etc).

Personally I use few apps:

1. Feedly (to read blogs)
2. Google News (news and weather)
3. Opera Mini (for fast browsing)
4. YouTube
5. Google Maps (sometimes, for the GPS)

Ah, and I have in the "background" these:

• Google Calendar
• Tasks Free

I have only glossed over the other answers, but there is a cool way to approach this question that nobody mentioned...

For the sake of this exercise, let's say that you are part of a household with 100 people. All cousins live together, I don't know. You're just one big family who share the budget.

If one family member gets sick, it's alright. The other 99 are still healthy.

Let's say there is a p=0.1 chance any one member of the family is sick for a year. That member cannot take money home during that full year. Let's see how many family members will be sick that year.

The answer is this binomial distribution: http://postimg.org/image/vkn76o9sd/

P(N <= 20) = 0.9991924. There is a 0.9991924 probability that 20 members of the family are sick in a given year. Or, in other words, P(N > 20) = 0.0008. After N>40, my 64-bit does not have enough precision to show the probability. It is effectively zero.

Now, I am going to flip the graphic so that is shows the probability of each person being healthy. I am also adding a x-axis at the top showing how much income each family member has: http://postimg.org/image/cprhxbum9/

Now, contrast that with living alone and having a probability=10% of getting sick where your income drops to 0, which would be this discrete probability distribution: http://postimg.org/image/5tdb44vhr/. (Sorry for the ugly graphics :P)

Nobody lives in huge families anymore. The huge family is the insurance company.

In the real world, this is why big rent-a-car companies do not buy insurance. They are like the big family. If some car goes to the shop, no worries, the other make up the income. But small rent-a-car companies to buy insurance.

Rushing is faster, unless rushing causes mistakes. This is why people rush. And they usually rush during tasks where mistakes are not likely and/or mistakes are mostly inconsequential in the event they happen.

Slowing down can feel better—it can induce less stress. And it can help you avoid time-wasting mistakes, as you've mentioned.

There are plenty of exceptions where a little bit of "slow" time spent planning before engaging in a hurried task can reduce the total time spent. This might be a good compromise.

But as far as overall net time spent doing menial tasks, I'd guess rushing buys you time...unless you are a complete klutz.

I am very much interested, but I will need to confirm closer to the date... I need time to convince my girlfriend... :P

Reversed stupidity is not intelligence.

(Perhaps that's actually your point and you're not agreeing with Lumifer but suggesting that he dislikes regulation only because he associates it with the USSR, or something. In that case, I think you're being unfair; he's smarter than that.)