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All of imajunryou's Comments + Replies

Meetup : Fall Equinox: Festival of Heroes
imajunryou00

Looks like the pavilion name may be inaccurate. According to this the pavilion is either Sugar Beet, or Sego Lily. Both on the south-side of the park, though one is east, and the other west. Both have nearby parking.

There's a map at the above site with the pavilions highlighted, to get a better idea, if you are unfamiliar with the area.

edit: After hearing from hamnox, the pavilion is Sego Lily, roughly south-west side of the park.

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SotW: Be Specific
imajunryou20

Action exercise:

Instructor provides a set of somewhat vague tasks to a few groups or individuals ("Draw me a tire swing" / "Write me a poem about fish" / "Tell me about [yourself | your selves]"). The instructor has a specific interpretation in mind, in advance ("An old tire from a dump truck, tied via blue-painted rope to hang horizontal to the ground, 3 feet from the ground, from a large branch of a willow tree" / "A haiku about salmon and how they are unpleasant when used as projectiles" / "Your fa... (read more)

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2handoflixue
I like the idea of "provide abstract instructions, and leave it up to the students to realize that this is too general, and that they need to ask for more information." I would say, however, that usually when you need more information, you're aware of that need. In Eliezer's example, Paul can automatically recognize that he needs more information, because he doesn't have enough information for his own task. The very simple example would be to split in to pairs: a describer and a picker. The describer is given a picture of the piece they need, and a quick description to read (print these ahead of time!): i.e. they might need a blue 2x8x1 block, but they're told to ask for "a long block". The picker then has to realize they don't have sufficient information, and ask to clarify. It's teaching a VERY basic level of "realize I need more information, and then ask for it" - after the first example, every student will REALIZE what they need to be asking (size + color), so there's minimal sense of discovery/novelty. I think you would only be able to spend 5-10 minutes on it before adults got bored, but you could probably go a bit longer dealing with young kids. I chose Legos specifically because they don't have a ton of variables, and it's very quick to hold up a piece and get told "no", which I think is a big help here. You don't want someone to spend 5 minutes drawing a picture only to discover they got it wrong, because that creates a big negative, a lot of frustration that you don't want in a quick-and-basic exercise like this. Save frustration for the bigger challenges, when you want to illustrate the cost of failing at this skill :) This exercise would mostly serve to prime the audience's thinking in the right direction, and as a very mild "success spiral". You would definitely need to lead-in to a more complex and challenging example, to keep the audience engaged
SotW: Be Specific
imajunryou00

I was thinking along the same lines. A set of similar images are presented to person A. A single one of those images is also presented to person B. Person B is to provide a description to person A, specific enough that A can accurately identify the image from the set.

The main difference from "Guess Who" would be that person B provides their description up front with multiple details, rather than detail by detail, back and forth, and person A has a single chance to decide.

If this were done in a setting with computers and internet connections, u... (read more)

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0handoflixue
I'd expect learning to do wine tasting would be an easy way to get introduced to describing flavors. It's something I've been considering for myself :)
Meetup : Salt Lake City LW Meetup #2 Logistics
imajunryou20

My preferences are A > E > B > The rest. I am definitely not free before 6:30pm Monday-Friday. I am fine with the library as a location, but would mention the price of parking. If one chooses to use the underground parking garage, the first 30 minutes are free (or first two hours if you have a disability decal), and then it is $1.50 per half hour afterwards.

There is metered parking outside that is cheaper ($0.75 per half hour, I think), but I believe is capped at a 2 hour duration (which might be totally fine if the meetup is less than that),... (read more)

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0HeatDeath
These time preferences match mine.
Meetup : First Salt Lake City Meetup: 22 January 2012 03:00PM
imajunryou00

I, too, intend to attend. Just have to make sure I haven't forgotten about any overlapping plans. You have my thanks, as well, for putting this together!

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[Link] A gentle video introduction to game theory
imajunryou30

As I have been watching the videos, I noticed that chapter 13, video 6 on your list there links to video 7 of the AI class' website. Your video 7 link is to the youtube version of the same.

Thanks for writing this up, it is nice to have these sort of things broken down into bite-sized pieces that I can enjoy in between lulls in my day without a lot of backtracking to figure out where I left off.

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1[anonymous]
Fixed the link. Thanks for pointing out the error. Glad to hear this!