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Antisuji
Somewhat related: I’ve been having a lot more success keeping myself focused since I started using the fullscreen mode of iTerm to do my writing. There’s no clock in the upper right corner of the screen to draw constant glances and I find myself less likely to randomly switch to other apps to check on my feeds, emails, etc.
It’s even slightly helpful for getting myself started, since all I have to do is switch to iTerm and take a look at my notes, at which point I often just pick up where I left off and can continue undistracted. (E.g. this morning a quick app switch to remind myself where I was became a solid 40-minute session—I was putting off breakfast to get stuff done!)
Along the same lines, earplugs (or in-ear phones if you work well with music) help too.
Since you will make the same decision both times, the only coherent state is α=1/(p+1).
I’m curious how you arrived at this. Shouldn’t it be α = (1/2)p + (1 - p) = 1 - p/2? (The other implies that you are a thirder in the Sleeping Beauty Problem—didn’t Nick Bostrum have the last word on that one?) The payoff becomes α[p^2+4p(1-p)] + (1-α)[p+4(1-p)] = (1 - p/2)(4p − 3p^2) + (p/2)(4 − 3p) = 6p - (13/2)p^2 + (3/2)p^3, which has a (local) maximum around p = 0.577.
The conclusion remains the same, of course.
An engaging video, thanks. The study sounded familiar, so I looked for it… turns out I’d seen the guy’s TED talk a while back: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html
I’ll try to make it, though other plans have a way of materializing on Saturday evenings. First LW meetup for me; what should I expect?
I’ll be there, though probably 20 to 30 minutes late.
Sorry to reply to an old comment, but regarding item (2), the loss of status is at least in proportion to the number of listeners (in relatively small groups, anyway) since each member of the audience now knows that every other member of the audience knows that you were wrong. This mutual knowledge in turn increases the pressure on your listeners to punish you for being wrong and therefore be seen as right in the eyes of the remaining witnesses. I think this (edit: the parent post) is a pretty good intuition pump, but perhaps the idea of an additive quantity of “lost status” is too simplistic.
It sounded to me like muflax was asking about making friends, not asexual romantic relationships. It’s true though that when making friends gender matters quite a bit more than it seems like it should, at least in some social circles.
If I’m wrong and that’s not what muflax was asking about, I’ll ask it myself: how does an adult make friends with other adults?
This was the video that helped me the most. Martha Stewart’s instructions are similar and probably work pretty well if you’re used to dealing with linens, but this procedure simplifies a couple of the steps.
I thought it was an excessive number of notes too at first, and balked at the scrolling. And then I came up with a solution that’s almost as good as if the notes were hyperlinked, and now I’m kicking myself a little bit for not thinking of this sooner:
Open the article in a new tab next to this one. Scroll down to the footnotes in the new tab and stay with the main text in the old one.
Hopefully this will save one or two people some time and annoyance when faced with similarly noted text.
I had a similar experience in the realm of cooking and baking after watching several seasons of Good Eats about 5 years ago. I wasn’t exactly a stranger to the kitchen before that, but I didn’t really have the confidence to try new or technically tricky recipes until I’d whisked up a few batches of mayo and cooked variations on AB’s split pea soup a few times. I probably wouldn’t have tried perfecting my rye bread recipe as I did a few years ago (well, nearly perfected) nor tried my more recent experiments with preserves and candymaking without that initial grounding in success.
By the way, if you happen to be making an extra cribbage board in the near future I’d definitely be interested!
Yes, though it’s hard to get out of work in time to get anywhere before 9 or so on weekdays.
If I hosted a meetup every Sunday at 5pm in the Mission, would you[1] come sometimes?
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[1] General you.
In the spirit of The Best Textbooks on Every Subject, which book would you say is the best introduction to drawing and which two specific books that you’ve read/used is it superior to, and why?
I’ll be there. Is there a topic of discussion?
Consider this, from The Neuroscience of Pleasure
3 Anticipation matters. Anticipating future pain is itself painful, and anticipating pleasure is itself pleasant. Spend more time reliving happy memories and anticipating future pleasures, and spend less time anticipating future pains. [emphasis mine]
and this
4 Your brain generates reward signals when experienced value surpasses forecasted value. So: lower your expectations and your brain will be pleasantly surprised when things go well. Things going perfectly according to plan is not the norm, so don’t treat it as if it is.
How does one balance these recommendations? In my experience, when I anticipate future pleasures in cases where I am not certain of the outcome I tend to inadvertently boost my estimation of success or “get my hopes up”. Is the solution to only actively anticipate pleasure when my estimation of the probability of success is high to begin with? This is not an easy thing to do, and in fact 4. in general seems difficult.
The problem of getting good data on how other people see you is a topic I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I’d love to see a top-level post on this, because I think it’s pretty essential for many areas of self-improvement, and I’d write it myself but I don’t think I have a clear enough idea of the problems involved. I didn’t think about this particular failure mode, for example.
Alternatively, are there any other resources that can help me get this information?
I very much like the idea of this. In the interest of driving this less in the direction of wouldn’t-this-be-cool and more in the direction of actual awesomeness, I think it would be useful to list skills that we have that we feel qualified and willing to teach. I’ll go first:
Juggling
Go (I am only around 5k, but I have a pretty solid understanding of the fundamentals and can certainly give a good introduction to the game)
Programming
Cooking (probably best not to start with this one, though)
If anyone is interested in learning these things or sharing their knowledge, I’d love to hold a meetup to that end. It would be informal and depending on the activity might have to be limited to a small group. I am based in San Francisco, so it would be held here, probably somewhere in the Mission District. Reply or PM me if you want to participate and I’ll arrange something in the next week or two if there’s enough interest. Ok!
There is also the decision of whether or not to play at all. See also: slot machines.
Hey Lucas, what time are we meeting at the Starbucks?
Consider hyperbolic discounting: grief now is far worse than grief later.
Also, in addition to shame there is anger and a sense of betrayal. See Jonathan Franzen’s recent essay in the New Yorker on, among other things, David Foster Wallace’s suicide.
Also, the thing you have an aversion to might be something you have to do a lot, so if you do something about the aversion you’re making future iterations easier. Of course, if you can remove multiple future needs all at once that might be even better.