wait, so is this the actual, has-been-in-the-works-for-years, legendary final Rationality Book, or something more temporary to get existing stuff out there because the former is taking to long?
wait, so is this the actual, has-been-in-the-works-for-years, legendary final Rationality Book, or something more temporary to get existing stuff out there because the former is taking to long?
It’s not Eliezer’s rationality book. It’s just a publication of the existing sequences.
I’m slightly confused as to why this is useful—LessWrong itself seems like it’s already the Sequences in better-than-ebook form. Is the potential ereader appeal big enough to justify the quality loss that will come from porting the Sequences over to this format?
‘Yes’ is a perfectly valid answer to that question, I’m just curious as to what went in to that decision.
Yeah, I find that I tailor anything I write extremely specifically for the medium in question. For instance, changing the screen width might make my line breaks look bad, cause me to want to put paragraphs in different places, alter the way I use hyperlinks, etc. etc.
That aside, there’s also the obvious “ereaders don’t have a comments section” issue.
Will the improvements to the sequences be made to the web version also? If a published book is made, will that be built on the improvements made in the e-book?
It makes little sense to me that there could potentially be three versions. Since I am considering volunteering to help with this, I am interested in knowing how contributions will be used.
This makes no sense to me. Here’s how I interpreted this:
“It’s too much effort to update the web version because these changes are minor.”
If you don’t update all the versions at the same time, you will end up with several versions. If Eliezer EVER wants to put out a new and improved version of the sequences and he thinks that LW’s input is helpful, then he will be in this pickle:
If the changes were approved for the e-book, it will be assumed that they were improvements. If you want to make sure your your latest version is as good as possible, you need to apply all those improvements. In order to make sure you apply all the improvements, someone must find all the differences between the versions.
If they go through the comments on this thread, that will take longer than it would have for a volunteer to make edits to the original sequences at the same time as the e-book.
If they have to compare each page and look for differences that’s really tedious and would take forever.
If the e-book editing person makes a list of all the edits so they’re organized, that will probably take LONGER than copying and pasting the change into the sequences or even removing an article out of them. This is for several reasons.
Reason 1:
The list is going to have to describe what to change (For instance: “Paragraph three, word two, there is a typo”—the text of which is different from and therefore in addition to the actual change). You can’t just paste the new word onto the list. It won’t make sense later. You CAN just paste the new word into the web version of the sequences, though and no further explanation will be needed because you’ve put it into a context that justifies it.
Reason 2:
You can’t just put stuff like “Delete Bayesian Judo” onto a to-do list. That will not make sense later. The people who made the list may forget, and they may not be the same people executing the to do list items. You would have to explain why to delete it on to to do list or else the future volunteer, if they’re a sceptic or critical thinker at all (which is likely, considering), will go “What? Delete Bayesian Judo? Why?” and will need explanation before feeling that it is justified to do so. This explanation will most likely be sought by said volunteer if it is not in the list, wasting their time. Even if the volunteer manages to ignore their own curiosity and obediently delete the listed items, people will notice the changes. It is likely that they’ll be challenged with “Why did you do that”? Then the volunteer or the list maintainer or somebody will feel obligated to justify not putting it back the way it was (which is easy enough) and this puts them in a position where they have to dig up the original explanation.
There is no method I can think of by which it would actually take LESS time to synch the versions of the sequences later compared with synchronising them at the same time when the e-book is made. Can you think of any?
If these are minor changes, why will synchronizing the web version take so much more effort that it’s unreasonable?
wait, so is this the actual, has-been-in-the-works-for-years, legendary final Rationality Book, or something more temporary to get existing stuff out there because the former is taking to long?
Here’s hoping that this one doesn’t pull a Duke Nukem Forever.
It’s not Eliezer’s rationality book. It’s just a publication of the existing sequences.
This is a separate project solely to get the Sequences into ebook form.
I’m slightly confused as to why this is useful—LessWrong itself seems like it’s already the Sequences in better-than-ebook form. Is the potential ereader appeal big enough to justify the quality loss that will come from porting the Sequences over to this format?
‘Yes’ is a perfectly valid answer to that question, I’m just curious as to what went in to that decision.
The main appeal with having an ebook is the ability to read it on an e-reader such as a Kindle.
How so?
The sequences weren’t (to the best of my knowledge) written to be read on an ereader, and something is almost always lost in translation.
As in the formatting? Can you explain what you mean by quality loss, and what would be getting lost in the “translation”?
Yeah, I find that I tailor anything I write extremely specifically for the medium in question. For instance, changing the screen width might make my line breaks look bad, cause me to want to put paragraphs in different places, alter the way I use hyperlinks, etc. etc.
That aside, there’s also the obvious “ereaders don’t have a comments section” issue.
Will the improvements to the sequences be made to the web version also? If a published book is made, will that be built on the improvements made in the e-book?
It makes little sense to me that there could potentially be three versions. Since I am considering volunteering to help with this, I am interested in knowing how contributions will be used.
Since the planned improvements are minor, the effort will not be expended to backport the changes to the web version. A published book is not planned.
This makes no sense to me. Here’s how I interpreted this:
“It’s too much effort to update the web version because these changes are minor.”
If you don’t update all the versions at the same time, you will end up with several versions. If Eliezer EVER wants to put out a new and improved version of the sequences and he thinks that LW’s input is helpful, then he will be in this pickle:
If the changes were approved for the e-book, it will be assumed that they were improvements. If you want to make sure your your latest version is as good as possible, you need to apply all those improvements. In order to make sure you apply all the improvements, someone must find all the differences between the versions.
If they go through the comments on this thread, that will take longer than it would have for a volunteer to make edits to the original sequences at the same time as the e-book.
If they have to compare each page and look for differences that’s really tedious and would take forever.
If the e-book editing person makes a list of all the edits so they’re organized, that will probably take LONGER than copying and pasting the change into the sequences or even removing an article out of them. This is for several reasons.
Reason 1: The list is going to have to describe what to change (For instance: “Paragraph three, word two, there is a typo”—the text of which is different from and therefore in addition to the actual change). You can’t just paste the new word onto the list. It won’t make sense later. You CAN just paste the new word into the web version of the sequences, though and no further explanation will be needed because you’ve put it into a context that justifies it.
Reason 2: You can’t just put stuff like “Delete Bayesian Judo” onto a to-do list. That will not make sense later. The people who made the list may forget, and they may not be the same people executing the to do list items. You would have to explain why to delete it on to to do list or else the future volunteer, if they’re a sceptic or critical thinker at all (which is likely, considering), will go “What? Delete Bayesian Judo? Why?” and will need explanation before feeling that it is justified to do so. This explanation will most likely be sought by said volunteer if it is not in the list, wasting their time. Even if the volunteer manages to ignore their own curiosity and obediently delete the listed items, people will notice the changes. It is likely that they’ll be challenged with “Why did you do that”? Then the volunteer or the list maintainer or somebody will feel obligated to justify not putting it back the way it was (which is easy enough) and this puts them in a position where they have to dig up the original explanation.
There is no method I can think of by which it would actually take LESS time to synch the versions of the sequences later compared with synchronising them at the same time when the e-book is made. Can you think of any?
If these are minor changes, why will synchronizing the web version take so much more effort that it’s unreasonable?