All of Cog's Comments + Replies

With a time limit, enforced by someone else if you can't do it yourself. Actual stakes that you care about if you fail are also helpful.

If you can't do this with a job, do it with a hobby organization (e.g., offer to teach a workshop on the thing you want to build).

I have been using this app for about 6 months:

Pomodoro Calendar

I have found it to be very, very beneficial in terms of my productivity and focus*. It's based on the pomodoro technique, which follows the basic pattern of working in 25 minute chunks. Whenever you do a work chunk, it can be automatically synced with google calendar. At the end of the day, it's easy to see how many work chunks you have done. Additionally, it can be set up so that you can easily create preset categories for the type of work you are doing. I have categories for different projec... (read more)

On top of Cambridge/Boston, Research Triangle Park, DC, Bethesda, I'd also suggest Houston (I live here, so I suppose I could have some level of desire to justify that decision. I don't think it amounts to much, but fair warning). I think the city is largely underrated, because it has been a late bloomer and has had some issues in the past. However, it has the largest medical center in the world, renowned scientists and clinicians, and a quickly growing biotech sector. It also rates as one of the best cities in the country for young professionals, and the ... (read more)

Hey Blashimov,

I don't even know if you are still paying attention to LW, but I just found this response. Yes, there is some semblance of a LW group in Houston, mostly focused around the Rice/Med center area, unsurprisingly. Right now, we're on temporary hiatus. There are three regular members, including myself. We have been going over ET Jayne's "The Logic of Science", but our collective workloads have gone up recently, and we were no longer able to put in the effort required to get something out of it. Hopefully we will get started back again in... (read more)

I recall seeing opposite advice regarding extraverts and introverts on some TV show about dinner parties a long time ago. They suggested alternating them when arranging a table - the extroverts should be close enough to talk, but they have to talk around introverts. Introverts would have the opportunity to fluidly join conversations going on around them and have an easier time disengaging because someone else beside them will fill in the gap. Obviously, this would be miserable for an extreme introverts, but you can put those people in a corner.

Again, this is a half remembered piece of information, but it stuck with me because it seems to make sense.

One additional point - I think it has been made above, but it is good to emphasize: If you want to do any biological science at a high level, focus on hard subjects in undergrad. It's still difficult to learn organic chem or neuroanatomy in grad school, but it's much more difficult to add mathematical skills to your repertoire if you're doing time consuming wet lab work in grad school. Mathematics/Engineering/Physics will get you into better schools, and bio programs will be happy to have you. Every time I talked to a professor, they became much more inter... (read more)

I am currently in my second year as a grad student, focusing in theoretical/computational neuroscience. Here are my observations on the matter:

1) Neuroscience is a hard science, but as in many things, there’s a continuum. The computational folk are at the hardest part, while the fMRI researchers are considered the softest. In general, the larger the structure you study, the softer it is. Exceptions exist, and within the field there are controversies as to how solid some of the theoretical frameworks are for even the most rigorous parts of the profession... (read more)

I have been told that math would also help in English and other humanities as well. Statistical analyses of literature, as well as things like procedurally generated narratives, are beginning to take root. Literary/artistic criticism through the lens of neuroscience/cognitive psychology is also ready to take off, so many of the scientific fields listed above would be useful.

This is not to say that I think that a focus in humanities will lead to the greatest personal utility, but if you feel that you must do something in that vein for a career, then a background in hard science/math would be a good thing. It will make you quite unique and valuable, something that you will need if you enter that horribly over saturated market.

I'm not sure I understand the leap in logic there. If people have a reasonably comfortable minimum income regardless of what they do, how does that induce runaway speculation? Would venture capital firms not be as hesitant to hand out money to people who consistently failed to return on investment? Granted, VC firms could still get caught up in fads like in the dot-com bubble, but I don't foresee a minimum income really driving (very rich, well above the minimum income level) VCs into higher risk taking behavior.

I brush up against the field. I'm a grad student in computational neuroscience, and work with modeling how the brain's neural networks might be structured for certain tasks. Right now, I'm focusing on issues involving timing at the seconds/minutes level, as well as the neurological architecture involved with perceptual discrimination (Weber's law and the like, if anyone is interested). That may expand in the future, depending on how productive my current line of research is.

Yes, date typo. It is today. Sorry for any confusion.

Could you give a definition of cybernetics that does not include both? Cybernetics, as a word, has two different meanings. First is the study of the structure of regulartory systems. This, in regards to electronics, is where I believe it got its second meaning, which is much fuzzier. Most of us have an image of a Neuromancer style biomechanical ninja when we hear it, but have nothing in the way of a set definition. In fact, it appears normative, referring to something that is futuristic. This, of course, changes. Well designed mechanical legs that let you ... (read more)

In terms of passing information to the brain, yes, it is. It excites neurons in a specific pattern in such a way as to form certain connections in the brain. It does this through cells in the retina, and the information does pass through a specific set of filters before it reaches the cortex, but I don't think that is an important distinction. To give an example, one of the things a friend of mine is working in the lab next door is inserting a channelrhodopsin gene into the visual cortex of monkeys. Channelrhodopsin is the protein in retinal cells that cau... (read more)

Cool. We'll seeya then. Any preference on games?

Could you clarify this notion of a group of people who exist independently of labels? Perhaps a name that Frankl used to classify them? I have found nothing online about it.

This jives relatively well with one way I classify people. I imagine what would happen if I were to suddenly take them out of their life and drop them in a city across the country without friends or family and less than a grand on their person. I think most people I know would find it incredibly taxing. A relative minority would simply take in their surroundings and start building again.

Good to hear. We look forward to having you.

It appears that Brasil's will be our venue for Sunday. Parking is nearby on the street. It shouldn't be difficult to find a place within a block or two. PM me for my cell number if you think you might need help getting there.

Revised: 96 Blades in the hackerspace right now, another 500ish in storage.

If you can come, we'll be happy to have you.

As for what our group does, if you mean the Hackerspace, the website is at :

http://www.txrxlabs.org/

If you mean the Less Wrong group, then we do not have a specific goal as of yet. I was hoping to meet people and get a feel for what lesswrongians might want to do. I would like to do a reading group, possibly with Jaynes' "Probability Theory: The Logic of Science", or Pearle's "Probabilistic Reasoning in Intelligent systems". I'd also like to do a basic self help thing akin to the New York gro... (read more)

http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/5vw/houston_hackerspace_meetup_sunday_may_29_500pm/

Announcement for the next Houston meetup.

Friday or Saturday might be future possibilities - aligning our schedule with TX/RX makes that difficult sometimes, but there's no reason why we have to meet in the hackerspace. If several people end up wanting other times, we can move things around. I wasn't expecting much interest outside of Houston, so I didn't think that later Sunday would have been a problem.

If anyone else in the area wants to come by, but has times they can't make it, let me know.

We will probably have another next week at the same time. I will PM you whenever I settle upon new dates.

I won't claim it was hugely successful - no one else showed up, but I did get a couple of people at my hackerspace interested, and some vague promises of people coming next week. Still, I think there's potential here. We'll see.

Thanks for the up votes. The meet up post is up. I look forward to becoming a more active part of the less wrong community.

A friend (Dvorak) and I are going to start a Houston meetup group, but he already runs a hackerspace and can't really take on more organizational duties. I'm a long time lurker, and would be mostly in charge of organizing the group. Unfortunately, I don't have the Karma to post on the discussion area. Can I beg an up vote or two off of someone?