Can you report back any consensus here? I can't make it (nowhere near there), but am pretty interested in the answers and ideas...

A recording would also be of interest, if people were open to it.

http://www.amazon.com/Vic-Firth-Stereo-Isolation-Headphones/dp/B0002F519I/ref=pd_cp_MI_0

Only downside is sort of obvious--they're pretty tight on your head, but I can wear them comfortably all day.

I use classical conditioning on myself with genres of music to either help me focus or to relax. Basically I just always (and only) play a certain type of music when I'm working, and then switch to another type of music when I want to start winding down for the day.

I use these two stations because they have no words or commercials: (work): http://somafm.com/thetrip/ (relax): http://somafm.com/dronezone/

It definitely helps me. Sometimes if I forget to turn off the music I end up working way too late. Also, it's incredible how the focus and desire to work comes on almost instantly when I put my headphones on. I use very good passive noise cancelling headphones (they reduce ~25db of sound), so literally all I hear is the music, and I have to take them off to talk to people/leave the computer, which probably strengthens the effect

I went to the very first rationality workshop in May of 2011, and it was literally life-altering. See here for my review and discussion about it in the context of a similar post for the workshops that happened earlier this year:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/b98/minicamps_on_rationality_and_awesomeness_may_1113/66nz

It was just an error of omission. The company is called Addepar. For a variety of reasons, the website doesn't do the best job of describing what we do, but it is being fixed.

If you are a good programmer, the company I work for is looking to hire. We pay very well and offer great perks and benefits (catered breakfast/lunch/dinner, infinite snacks, they buy whatever you want to help you work better, completely flexible work hours and vacation days, plus everything else like health insurance, etc).

Also, the people are great (some even read LW), the work is fun, and the upside is huge. This company is working on a huge problem that will have a significant positive impact in the world, and has the resources to tackle it. There are about 60 people now, and it's set to double in size in the next year. We make actual money, and are very well funded.

Please send me a message if you want to know more/want to apply. Rough requirements:

• Are you a good enough programmer to get a job at Google? (some of our recent hires were hired away from Google)
• Willing to work full time in Mountain View
• Java/Scala familiarity are a plus

Thanks! I would love it if I got to work with more fellow lesswrongers because of this :)

PS: if this doesn't apply to you, but you know someone that might be interested, I would appreciate it if you sent them our way.

Full disclosure: I think I get paid something for recruiting new people, but I don't know how much. I'm honestly just trying to attract more awesome people to work with because I really like this job.

Also a Pittsburgh one: http://lesswrong.com/meetups/8z

We will be having a presentation on "anthropics" by Katja.

I forgot to create the meetup post. Sorry about that!

Someone else above asked for the negatives as well. Didn't we all submit suggestions for improvement and criticisms last year? Are those publishable? If you don't have permission, you could just email people for permission to publish their criticisms. You can definitely publish any of my comments.

I can definitely understand your perspective. I pretty much ONLY read the negative parts of reviews--if there is NOTHING bad, that is a bad sign in itself.

I also commented positively below, but since you asked, here are my complaints about the last minicamp:

• A little disorganized. Apparently knowing about the planning fallacy does not make you immune to it ;) I suspect this will be fixed for this year.
• Large number of college students (graduate and undergraduate). I would have liked to see a wider range of attendees. Again, this was probably partly due to the short notice for last year.
• Some sessions were not valuable to me. However, most of those were valuable to others, so I think this is due more to the fact that brains are different than that the sessions were poorly done.

Actually, I'm pretty sure we all gave detailed feedback afterward (including lots of suggestions for improvements). Could Anna or someone post links to those too? Perhaps seeing the minor details that were negative will help people get a better sense for how useful it was overall.

I helped make some of the food last time. I would call that menu "college random" ;) It was basically left as a problem for us to solve.

I assume that this time they will have it straightened out (and is probably part of the higher price), but I am also curious.