All of KenChen's Comments + Replies

Strongly agree that you would have a much, much higher impact by making this game available on the web. Straight-up Java is pretty much dead now. Consider even making a Facebook app, which would allow players to share the game with their friends for stronger distribution.

Our for-profit company, Lambda, uses Xero, a web-based accounting tool. They claim to serve non-profits as well: http://www.xero.com/us/not-for-profit/

I can't speak to how good they are for non-profits, but many startups are using Xero these days.

A friend and I are starting a marketplace to connect fecal transplant donors with people who need them. Let's make this happen. Check out fecalnet.com.

I founded a company, Lambda, a talent agency for exceptional developers, designers, technology professionals.

Here's the pitch:

It's currently very difficult for many nontechnical people to find high-quality software developers and designers to do contract work. Because it's often difficult to judge technical ability if you're not a technical person yourself, people often select the lowest bid for the project they want to get done, resulting in poor work or missed deadlines. People want to pay for high-quality talent, they just can't tell the difference.

By s... (read more)

me 30%, would need crash space

Anyone should be able to join -- I just tested this with another email address, and there are indeed a few people on the list now. If you are still having issues, send me your email and I'll add you.

Something like this exists: https://www.charitytick.com/

Me 80%

Omega updates the truth to fit its priors.

Sure, I'll go. Interested in a meetup there. (I'm from NYC)

You might just be seeking status. You might feel like you gain status whenever you declare that you will be working on a new project, and you might feel that you won't gain as much status by finishing an existing project that people are aware of already. At least, this may be true until you gain a reputation for not finishing projects.

It makes sense to say that a computer language is Turing-complete.

It doesn't make sense to say that a computer program is Turing-complete.

Interesting article, thanks. Reposting the abstract here:

The relationship between money and happiness is surprisingly weak, which may stem in part from the way people spend it. Drawing on empirical research, we propose eight principles designed to help consumers get more happiness for their money. Specifically, we suggest that consumers should (1) buy more experiences and fewer material goods; (2) use their money to benefit others rather than themselves; (3) buy many small pleasures rather than fewer large ones; (4) eschew extended warranties and other f

Another related post by Eliezer.

Yes. I paid for the perfect stock photo to make this joke, so I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Personally, I don't like this because it's awkward. What do you call the community?

"The aspiring rationalist community"?

Plus, people are liable to drop the "aspiring" part anyway, because it's a pain to say.

FYI, Bug report: The push-pull experiment is illustrated by a diagram of the future discounting experiment.

EDIT: It is fixed now.

I think the Millennium Prize Problems isn't the best example in this context, because for the one problem that was solved in that set, the prize was rejected.

Note that if the Fed raises interest rates, credit will become more expensive, demand will decrease, and prices will decrease (all else equal).

In the United States, mortgages with fixed rates are better right now (if you stay in your house) because interest rates are extremely low right now. If you take an ARM, you will lose if you stay in your house, because interest rates are bound to rise.

If you select a 30-year mortgage, you will pay more overall. But it turns out that you only need to beat a 2-3% annualized return (assuming you took out a fixed-rate loan at interest rates right now) with the extra money you save every month in order for a 30-year mortgage to beat a 15-year mortgage. Of cours... (read more)

If a statement is false, that's the worst thing you can say about it.

-- Paul Graham

The thing is, when you pick your target, you're going to pick someone who is unaware of their surroundings. By the time you're stalking them, it's too late for them. They're not going to notice you because you've selected for that.

I meant to say don't use your phone. Edited.

An exercise I learned from a martial arts class was to walk around at night, pretending that you're an attacker. Stalk a few people, and try to get into the mindset of preparing for an attack by catching them unaware. Note down what types of people you are more likely to attack, and what types of people you are likely to skip.

Event calendar.

Since this is a regular meetup, I added it to the meetup page on the wiki.

Shoe

Intensional: Article of clothing primarily designed to be worn on the foot.

Extensional: Hiking boots, flip-flops, snowshoes, Vibrams.

Hope

Intensional: Human sensation of the anticipation that a severe negative outcome will be avoided, when the circumstances are outside of one's control.

Extensional: A student waiting to receive the result of their final exams, for which a passing grade is required to pass the course. A rationalist wishing that cryonics will be successful. A religious person praying to God to cure a family member's cancer.

N.B. Perhaps it... (read more)

My idea was to have some sort of calendar, where users can add events for one-shot meetups, or recurring events for the regular meetups. The events could then link to the appropriate post and/or mailing list.

Integration with Google Calendar / Apple iCal would also be awesome.

I commit to working on modifying the code to organize meetups in a way that makes more sense, if someone else is able to provide direction and authority. I haven't worked on the code before, and I can't promise anything except that I will attempt to work on it.

I have just read the github wiki. I will try to get an instance of the site running. What's the next step after that? Who else should I be coordinating with?

You've been telling everyone at this cocktail party about this fantastic new rationality club, and how it's changed your life. You manage to get a few people interested enough to actually listen to what you're saying, a smaller subset to remember the name of the site, and a smaller subset to take the time to actually check out the site for an entire 90 seconds.

That's all you got.

So, after telling a room full of people about the awesomeness of rationality, maybe you get one person who decides to visit the site. They are looking for a justification for why t... (read more)

IMO, there's a distinction between regular meetups, and one-shot meetups. It wouldn't make sense for a newcomer to see only one-shot meetups on the list, when a community in their city already exists.

Perhaps some sort of calendar would make sense, where anyone can post one-shot meetups, and regular meetups are represented by a recurring event.

As a quick alternative, would it make sense to create a promoted top-level post containing the Sequences, and "sticky" that post so that it's the first thing newcomers see?

You could create a preference to not display it for logged in users, if that's an issue.

Done.

Sorry. I was sure there was previous discussion on this, so I just linked to the first thing that I could find. I didn't really read what you wrote, to be honest.

Hugh Ristik, who was linked in the article, addresses the question of how to generate good pickup advice:

Feminists tend to criticize male sexual behavior and only explain what not to do. PUAs are exploring what to do. If feminists want to guide the expression of male sexuality in ways other than shouting “don’ts” from the peanut gallery, then they would do well to study the teachings of the seduction community, take from it what they like, and throw away the rest.

Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.

– Douglas Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

I took the liberty of updating the meetup groups wiki page to include these weekly meetups. I couldn't find any mention of the regular Sat/Sun monthly meetups, so I didn't include those.

Also, it would be nice if these meetup posts linked to the wiki, which would allow newcomers to more easily find meetup information in one place (especially since I sometimes refer people from other cities to LW).

I seem to recall that Sweden is "somewhat mountainous", so I suppose that the correct value is around 2000m.

I remember looking up the population of Libya recently, which is around 6m, and I feel like the population of Central African Republic is a bit lower. I suppose the correct value is around 3m.

"Ease of reading" is at least somewhat subjective, as different people learn and process information differently.

To the extent that the same idea may be presented in different ways, it may be beneficial to have different people write different writeups of the sequences (not necessarily shorter or less dense).

There is a site, True Knowledge, that attempts to answer such questions using methods similar to Watson's.

It relies on NLP and "facts"; for example, the query "What is the capital of the United States" relies on this fact:

This fact asserts that the relationship '"is the capital of"' exists between "Washington, D.C." and "the United States" at some point in time. Other facts in the knowledge base assert that this fact applies for the following time periods:

Each "fact" is assessed by a variety o... (read more)

Is there a page that lists all recurring LW meetups, everywhere?