All of free_rip's Comments + Replies

You could use an intermediate step, like Charity Science's fundraisers (I'm sure there are plenty of other places that allow you to do this if Christmas/Birthday/Event doesn't fit your needs) so you can see how much is being donated. Then when you donate the whole lot to Givewell etc. at the end you can ask for a receipt/show it on your bank statement.

Yeah, I think it would make more sense to just have a project match-making thread - people can say what they're working on, and others who want to help/make it easier for the runner of the project (even in ways not directly related to the project, which seems to be what the side-kicking thing is about) can offer said help.

Pretty much this.

Focus on what you are doing, and who you are helping, not who you aren't. This is a broader problem than just EA too - you could think of all the possible achievements or research or inventions or friendships you could make in your life, and thus any particular string of them is irrelevant. But if you don't focus on that infinity of great things you could do, you're able to realize this particular life is pretty great too. Think of it in terms of 'if I wasn't here, these particular people would be worse off' (usually quite a long list, eve... (read more)

How many hours is your coding job? If it's 10+ and they'll allow you to reduce them, you could go for that - you'll still get to list having x months of experience there on your CV, will still get that experience and network from it, but will have a bit more time.

Don't cut into the basic time you need for the essentials of life - being stressed or sleep deprived etc. will only make you less productive and exacerbate the problem. You also don't mention any hobbies - do you get regular exercise? I know this means more time spent, but if you don't get much al... (read more)

I use a joint iron/B12 supplement every couple days (I'm vegetarian). I started taking it a few years ago because I was very pale and low in energy, and it's helped a fair bit on those counts.

I used to rate my happiness and productivity on 1-10 scales at the end of each day, and this was my experience too. I've since dropped that part of my diary routine, instead focusing on just writing the three best things and three things to improve/do more/do next. I still have an idea if I look back later of trends of happiness and productivity, since I can see some good things are better than others, but I don't have that feeling of disappointment in myself every time I don't make an 8+ for both.

That said, the only way I can analyze this is looking back over it, I can't input it to make informative graphs or the like.

HabitRPG is completely open-source, and has very little actual staff (I think about 3 currently). Contributing to HabitRPG has more info (scroll down to 'Coders: Web and Mobile') - basically the philosophy is 'if you want something changed, go in and change it'. I thought you might like the app in general, and by adding that feature be able to get everything out of it you do with your own app, while helping lots of other people at the same time.

Fair enough - it does require more testing, and if you've got one going that works for you that's great :-)

Yep, although it hasn't yet implemented losing health if you don't meet it by a deadline - it's on the list of improvements to come, though. @Florian_Dietz, if you were interested in using what HabitRPG already has and implementing that functionality there, I'm sure a lot of people would be very grateful!

Sounds similar to HabitRPG - missing out on daily/weekly habits there lose you 'health' and doing them/doing your to-dos/habits such as a certain amount of work you get experience, which lets you level up.

Never worked for them in particular, but my experience with such online tutoring businesses hasn't been great: generally don't get many hours, are expected to commit fully to being available at certain times every week (which when in uni, with tests etc. at unexpected times, isn't too possible - might be possible for you in your situation) and they take a fair chunk of your earnings. On one occasion I put a lot of time into signing up, getting documents etc. to verify myself, and then never got a single student. On the other hand, signing up for services s... (read more)

Exactly my experience - it helps with making little decisions throughout the day and staying productive, but when it comes to ones I'm reluctant to make... no matter how many times the little people in my head go 'this one!' the issue isn't cleared.

Yep, pretty much, it's a rallying cry type of thing

An even more recent study has failed to replicate the glucose effect entirely, too: Lange, F., & Eggert, F. (2014). Sweet delusion. Glucose drinks fail to counteract ego depletion. Appetite, 75, 54-63 <-- This one also has an interesting survey of the methodological flaws in similar studies.

Also, there's some evidence (still preliminary) that ego depletion effects decline with age: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0026351 <-- free access paper if anyone wants to read it. It basically looks at a meta-analysis by ... (read more)

Cool, be good to have you there :-)

One of the ways of building intimacy or closeness, which is a key component of companionate love (the type you seem to be going for here, have a look at the research on passionate vs. companionate love if you're interested) is self-disclosure that is responded to by one's partner with warmth, understanding and supportiveness.

You can spend a lot of time doing things together without having this self-disclosure: to get it, you need to want to disclose/hear more about the other person, and preferably have dates etc. where you spend some time just talking abou... (read more)

I completed my statistics internship, and got strong all-around compliments from the audience on my presentation, and my adviser on my report.

I succeeded in being selected for a consulting job after a long interview/testing process, and taught myself how to do competitor research, to good feedback from my team.

I asked two people to be references (this doesn't sound like a big one, but it was probably the hardest thing on this list for me - I've always felt really uncomfortable about asking for this) and they both said yes, they'd love to.

I integrated Habit... (read more)

I'll head in soon; will have internet there so if you get lost, feel free to PM me. Anyone is welcome to come, see you all there :-)

I've been reading about maximizers and satisficers, and I'm interested to see where LessWrong people fall on the scale. I predict it'll be signficantly on the maximizer side of things.

A maximizer is someone who always tries to make the best choice possible, and as a result often takes a long time to make choices and feels regret for the choice they do make ('could I have made a better one?'). However, their choices tend to be judged as better, eg. maximizers tend to get jobs with higher incomes and better working conditions, but to be less happy with them... (read more)

Indeed, be good to have you there. I don't think many of us will have attended one before, but if this goes well it will hopefully become a regular thing

Hmm... perhaps How to be Happy - I can bring along my positive psyc textbook to supplement it and it's something everyone should be able to contribute to whether they've read the article or not. No need to stick too closely to it though, I think for the first meetup fairly free discussion could be more fun, to see what everyone's interests are.

I'd guess it will go about 3 hours, but we'll end when things naturally close, and if anyone needs to go earlier that's fine.

I used to have the same, to the extent that I wouldn't ask even ask teachers, people paid to help me, for help. I hated the feeling that I was a burden somehow. But I got over it in the space of a couple months by getting into a position where people were asking me for help all the time - and that made me realize it wasn't an unpleasant or annoying experience, I actually liked it, and others were probably the same. In most cases you're doing people a favor by giving them a chance to get warm-fuzzies for what's (usually in the case of rejection therapy) a r... (read more)

For everyone who's interested, check out the details of the first meetup here: http://lesswrong.com/meetups/z6

The meetup is launched! A little late for schelling day, but we can call it that in spirit. http://lesswrong.com/meetups/z6

Nope. Probably Sunday 16th or 23rd

Alright, I'll see what people think of Saturday. I suggested Sunday because the library is open to 9pm on Sunday and only 5pm on Saturday, but if we did early afternoon and everyone could make it there's no reason Saturday couldn't work

It is indeed. I'll give an exact room, directions, and contact cell number for if anyone gets lost when I put up the actual meetup

Great, thanks for commenting and I'll be sure to keep you informed

Oh, good catch, forgot there are probably several. In New Zealand

I find the Love Languages test, http://www.5lovelanguages.com/ , despite sounding a bit odd, to be useful. It rates whether you express and feel affection more strongly from Physical Touch, Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Acts of Service or Gifts.

Mainly useful because while the results made sense, they were not the ones I tend to think of and present as most important (or that I would like to be most important to me) - so they gave me a bit of insight into what emotionally felt best, rather than what I would like to appreciate most. Similarly it's useful to have partners try it, as it may be different from what they ask for or think is important.

Depending on if you have them already, invest in a few tailored pieces clothing that go with a lot and you can wear regularly.

Offer to pay for your friends to come with you to do what you like (for instance if you like ice-skating and you all usually end up at bars, offer to pay for them to come ice-skating with you - they'll be happy to go for free, and you'll get better quality out of your time with them).

Give small amounts to charities you see along the street, if you identify with them (for the warm fuzzies).

Make a habit of buying something nice at a b... (read more)

Throughout college, I've used tutoring (tertiary, not kids) as my supplementary income source. If you know your stuff well enough, there are several key benefits: you can usually tutor on campus if your client goes there too (which is super convenient), you get to brush up on all the basics as you go so it's like extra study while you work, it requires little to no prep if you know your stuff, and I personally find it lots of fun. It also tends to have a high pay-rate, and once you get some experience you can set your own (when I started I charged $15ph an... (read more)

Took the survey. Prisoner's dilemma was a nice addition - would be interesting next year to have 'would you co-operate in a prisoner's dilemma situation' earlier in the survey before the for-stakes version, and compare how often people co-operate in the for-stakes then as compared to this year (also compare across who has taken a LW census before, since this one might bias that a bit).

Same here, in Christchurch, happy to answer any questions.

First ones that come to mind with this structure:

Intelligent Winning

Calculated Success

Acting for Success

Intelligent Change

Rational Success

Purposeful Rationality

Purposeful Wisdom

Purposeful Thought

Purposeful Strategy

& whatever institute, foundation, center etc. bits people want to add on.

If you like chips better, eat chips. The rule here is 'don't waste calories' - not 'eat chocolate rather than chips.'

ie. instead of buying the cheap stuff you don't like as much, buy the expensive stuff because it's costing you more than money - it's costing calories as well, so you should get the most utility out of it you can, and put on the minimum calories for it. If you happen to like the cheap stuff more per calorie, then eat that. I always feel satisfied quicker with high-quality chocolates than chips and I assume that's true for most people, but it won't be for everyone.

"I am entirely incapable or many of the things mentioned" "I might be very good at coming up with certain types of examples or providing a certain kind of hard to articulate meta intuition. I also know a bunch abaut art and design." They've stated they're looking for people who can do just a one or a couple steps (as well as all-rounders), so sounds like you should go for it.

"I am unable to commit or fully participate due to helth and geographical reasons, and a bunch of other things... what should I do?" If I were you, I'd se... (read more)

Thank you! I am still enjoying the site - there's so much good stuff to get through. I've read most of the sequences and top posts now, but I'm still in the (more important, probably) process of compiling a list of all the suggested activities/actions, or any I can think of in terms of my own life and the basic principles, for easy reference to try when I have some down-time.

Taken. Moral views question gave me a bit of trouble, I didn't agree with any of them. Another option like 'There is morality, but I don't define it in any of the ways above' would be nice.

In general I thought the categories covered things pretty well.

These are learnt best in full drama (not just acting) lessons, with daily, weekly or monthly performances and at least some devising left up to the students, letting them work it out together with decreasing guidance. I've taken these types of drama lessons for four years, and found them very useful for the above. I took formal acting lessons (where the teacher made all the decisions, gave all the feedback) and quit after three months.

A good way of teaching it can be to demonstrate concepts through lecturing and requiring daily performances for a week or t... (read more)

More skills:

Group-work skills: compromise, listening to other's ideas, shifting your own, recognizing when someone's is better than your's and when it isn't, recognizing when it's important to someone that their idea be used and when it isn't.

How to take criticism, and use it. (In four years of drama, I've never done a performance with more than a week prep time where I haven't gotten feedback that's made it better.)

Creativity, quick-thinking, improv.

Anna commented on basically the same question earlier:

"We'll let people know by a week from today (i.e., by Monday, May 2). If anyone needs to know before then, please message me privately and I'll see if we can fast-track your application."

Hi, David. I was very happy when I read

I work in government and am interested in practical applications of rational thinking in large and complex organisations.

A huge amount of people here have math/computing/science majors and/or jobs. I'm in the same basket as you, though - very interested in the applications of rationality, but with almost no education relevant to it. I'm currently stuck between politics and academia (in psychology, politics, economics maybe?) as a career choice, but either way...

And we need that - people from outside the field, who... (read more)

Models? The only one I saw was basic 'ask for things you think will be rejected' - with a few extra bits like the 30-day-challenge and rejection cards. What different models did you find? And which do you think would work best?

Haha, thanks Isaac.

I meant scary to try, although it would be terrible if everyone did it - what request could you trust they meant? I read a few of the blogs, and a common thread was when people unexpectedly said 'yes', the... what to call them?... wannabe rejectee would feel guilty for requiring them to go out of their way for something they didn't really want. On the other hand, if you only ask for things you really want, it limits your options and usually has higher stakes.

Before my tangent gets too far lost, I'm bringing this up because I get way more... (read more)

This would be great next year, when I take my gap year between high-school and uni. Although I must say, just seeing the results will be amazing in itself - I can't wait until you release the details of the games and such you used, and how well they worked. (I'm taking from your previous replies to comments that you intend on this, for now at least.)

Are there age limits? I saw on the application it asks about degrees, employment etc... which, as a 16-year-old, I don't have yet. But I think I could really benefit from this if it's still running in 2012.

I'm ... (read more)

Mine has an assessment in it in early high school, but it's not a main part of the course and you only learn it if you take applications. (As opposed to Multimedia, Programming or Hardware.)

Anyway, I got from about 15WPM to 25WPM at school. Then I got my own computer at home, and in two weeks I was up to 60WPM just from using it so much.

I'm now at around 75-80WPM

Both colons and semi-colons are known to break the flow of writing. Dashes generally flow better than semi-colons. This is something I've found after writing many pieces (often with lots of semi-colons, which my natural style has a lot of) on a peer review writing-site and having reviewers tell me - 'x sentence doesn't flow well' for basically every sentence with a semi-colon.

They work better in non-fic writing, where the flow can be more formal.

I don't know about the rest of it, but with the summary of David Chalmers article, while it's not original, it's original (or perhaps 'new' would be better) to LW. As in, if it's discussing ideas that could promote new thinking in LW, I think it qualifies for the articles section.

You wouldn't want the whole main page clogged with summaries, especially those where the article itself could simply be linked, but a few seems okay.

Just my personal thoughts, not based on any guidelines other than the ones listed here.

Ah, okay, I think I understand it a bit better now. Thank you!

I think I will order Godel, Escher, Bach. I've seen it mentioned a few times around this site, but my library got rid of the last copy a month or so before I heard of it - without replacing it. Apparently it was just too old.

Thanks! That looks like a great list, just what I need.