Problem:
Spending too much time using your phone each day (surfing, messaging, watching videos, ..etc.).
Solution:
Change your phone's display settings to only display in grey scale.
Notes:
I saw this tip online a long time ago, and have tried it on several occasions to break an addiction to my phone (where I was glued to my phone for hours daily).
It's shocking how well this trick works. You realize after using your phone in this mode for a few days how effective colours are in getting and keeping your attention, all in the name of getting you more "engaged" wi...
Problem:
Regularly eating unhealthy snacks/food.
One-time solution:
Put all the unhealthy snacks/food in a hard to reach shelf in the pantry, and shove them all the way to the back.
Notes:
This solution is very effective in reducing the snacking and junk-food eating. It's based on two laws of behaviour change.
Problem:
Endless watching of Netflix (or Youtube).
One-time solution:
Disable auto-play on Netflix (it's a config setting, which applies across all devices).
Notes:
Auto-play on services like Netflix is extremely dangerous, especially when watching TV shows whose plot advances episode to episode as if it's a really long movie. For me, watching videos is really immersive and induces a flow state, which famously causes time to dilate (in this case, it shrinks). Hence, without a clear signal that a "unit" of watching has completed, I would get stuck wa...
Intuitively, this feels accurate to me (at least for a certain category of problems - those that are solvable with divide and conquer strategies).
I've always viewed most software best-practices (e.g. modularity, loose-coupling, SOLID principles) as techniques for "managing complexity".
Programming is hard to begin with, and programming large systems is even harder. If the code you're looking at is thousands of lines of code in a single file with no apparent structure, then it's extremely hard to reason about. That's why we have "methods", a mechanism to men...
My first downvote, yay! Didn't feel that bad :)
Anyway, my comment was merely an attempt to allay the philosophical worries expressed in the parent quote and so I used the same terms; it wasn't meant as pedagogy.
Luckily you only have to make fewer mistakes than your opponent to win.
Good work guys!
This might be the excuse I need to finally go through the complete sequences as opposed to relying on cherry-picking posts whenever I encounter a reference I don't already know.
Not buying anything, just trying to satisfy my desire to optimize any skill I have (Raven's matrices, crumbled paper basketball, driving, how to hold a pen, or any other skill).
See my previous answers to JonahSinick for more details.
I appreciate your response, but I think you're forgetting my original question.
I got the answer in under 2 minutes (didn't time it exactly). However, when I first identified my answer candidate (answer 2), it was probably about two thirds of the way in. I got the correct answer by going across at first, but then spent additional time double checking my work using columns, and then double checking my answer before "committing".
I got the answer correctly and in under 2 minutes. I saw the pattern relatively effortlessly, but was only inquiring a...
I'm reminded of Graham's number (g notation) as an example where new notation (kind of) was invented for the purposes of a math paper.
I read a riveting blog post a few months ago introducing several concepts and building up to graham's number in a very accessible read if anyone's interested:
I agree with your overall response, but your note that "weird-looking notation intimidates you" kind of surprised me.
From my perspective, it's not a question of intimidation so much as it is a recognition that the question is targeting a different audience (one who knows such notation).
If you encounter new notation, there is no way to derive the answer anyway by simply "facing" it head on (i.e. without being intimidated), you actually have to look up the notation and any associated information you didn't already know, which requires a higher activation energy (and enthusiasm) than trying your hand at a question with known notation.
See my response to JonahSinick below
The replies to my query suggest a bit of concern that I'm be placing too much value on IQ tests, which to be honest is not quite true. I've never actually taken a formal IQ test and don't actually know my IQ score. It's really not a big concern to me, though I do believe I'm smarter than average, but then again, most people think that too.
However, to answer your question,it's just my personality - I like to optimize stuff. It doesn't matter what it is, if I recognize that there's a slightly more efficient way to do something, I want to learn it and do it b...
One thing that kept nagging at me while reading this post is my own experience with taking the SAT's back in grade 11.
I don't remember my score exactly on the verbal section, but it was something like 590. Now, I've always had a noticeably above average command of language and verbal reasoning in my native tongue (based on academic feedback + my own observations), but this is obviously not reflected in the above score.
However, this is explained in my case by the fact that I only really began learning English in grade 10 (I only knew basic words from being ...
I got the answer in under 2 minutes (didn't time it exactly). However, when I first identified my answer candidate (answer 2), it was probably about two thirds of the way in. I got the correct answer by going across at first, but then spent additional time double checking my work using columns, and then double checking my answer before "committing".
I've taken a couple of online Raven's Matrices type tests in the past, but that was a while ago, so I don't believe memory played too much of a role. However, I seem to have internalized the idea that ...
I had the same reaction to calling it "fancy".
I got the answer fairly quick (didn't time it, but probably about a minute or two). In my head, I was thinking of subtraction, not even "cancelling out".
In a row, cell 1 minus cell 2 equaled cell 3.
I suppose that is an XOR pattern after all, but you only need knowledge of basic arithmetic to verbalize the pattern.
(edit: upon rereading my answer, I guess it's not fair to call it a subtraction only, since I'm still keeping around shapes from cell 1 or cell 2 provided they weren't subtracted. Apparently my brain is doing XOR while thinking of it as a subtraction)
What code or syntax is this?
I used to have the same problems, but I solved it with a Beeminder goal of doing 10 minutes of cleaning per day (6 days a week).
Even with very little money on the line ($0 or 5$), I still had enough incentive to actually punch in 10 minutes on the microwave timer and turn into a Tasmanian Cleaning Devil until I heard the ding!!
I feel strangely accomplished afterwards (both for having the discipline to fulfill my commitment on Beeminder and for having an orderly house). I was and still am able to maintain extraordinary levels of cleanliness ever since!
As a somewhat recent follower of LW (less than 1 year), it was actually quite useful to sift through your critiques back then (while occasionally they felt a bit personal and unnecessarily emotionally-motivated, I still valued the gist of the content - they were refreshingly contrarian).
Basically, when I first stumbled upon LW, I was excited, awed, and to some extent hypnotized.
The content was an interesting mixture of mathematics, computer science, philosophy and cognitive science, and as a new reader, I found myself easily convinced of many of the main...
Hello all!
I've only just registered on the lesswrong site, but I've been lurking on here for a while. The main reason as to why I finally decided to sign up is that I've been going more frequently to the Toronto meetup sessions and have found that there's tremendous value in thrusting myself into topics/discussions even when I'm not very well-read or knowledgeable on the topics before hand.
By merely listening in and pondering some questions I become more and more interested in the topic, catch some concepts by mere osmosis, and get interested to do further...
This one rang true for me, whenever I write down a couple of ideas, the ideas just won't stop, and I ride that high for the rest of the day.
I'm curious on how well it works when done intentionally, and for a prolonged period. I'm going to implement this as a habit over the holidays, and see how it goes.
For those interested, I found this article from James on his own website where he talks at length about this idea and provides details around implementing it:
The Ultimate Guide for Becoming an Idea Machine