Caerbannog

• Caerbannog 30 Jun 2015 20:52 UTC

  3 points

  in reply to: Mirzhan_Irkegulov’s comment on: Solv­ing sleep: just a toe-dipping

  Regarding sleeping a lot and waking up tired: Is it possibly some degree of sleep apnea? As of a few months ago I had this problem.

  Then I tried those breathing strips (despite my skepticism) that help prevent snoring. If I snore now it’s at a much lower volume. The quality of sleep is vastly improved for me too. I generally wake refreshed after ~7 hours. The difference is like, ahem, night and day.

• Caerbannog 5 May 2015 14:59 UTC

  7 points

  on: Group ra­tio­nal­ity di­ary, May 5th − 23rd

  For a while now I’ve often felt tired and sleepy even after getting seemingly enough sleep. I also had a frustrating tendency to wake up at night for no apparent reason, then have trouble falling asleep. My partner noted my loud snoring and suggested nasal airway strips (the kind that go on the outside of your nose).

  I was skeptical, thinking “How could a little plastic strip have an impact?” and “I’m not overweight, so sleep apnea shouldn’t be a concern anyway.” I’ve tried them for ~1 week now.

  Positive Results: I seem to fall asleep much more quickly, I don’t wake up at night for no reason, my partner reports that my snoring is way quieter, and I feel more consistently well-rested than I have in a while.

  Downsides: They cost $0.25 per day. Also, after ~9 hours, the strips start to get itchy and peel off, making it harder to sleep. The solution might be to put one on immediately before going to bed.

• Caerbannog 7 Mar 2014 18:39 UTC

  20 points

  on: Amanda Knox Re­dux: is Satoshi Nakamoto the real Satoshi Nakamoto?

  I’m going to be more arrogant and say p << 1%:

  • Prior probability that a super-intelligent, reclusive, crypto-guy that values anonymity would use his given name as his pseudonym: very very low.

  • Subsequent evidence to believe Dorian is Satoshi: He’s an apparently intelligent guy that knows how to program + a quote wherein he appears to admit that he was once involved with Bitcoin, but he later claimed was misinterpreted and out of context.

• Caerbannog 24 Jul 2013 17:57 UTC

  7 points

  in reply to: PECOS-9’s comment on: low stress em­ploy­ment/​ munchkin in­come thread

  I had a similar experience with elance. I applied to a bunch of jobs and only got a reply back from one. That job ended up being not worth the time I ended up spending.

  However, Uvocorp (uvocorp.com) is another freelancing site I use, and my experience there has been much better. You have to pass a pretty easy writing test to be able to work at all. Once you pass, though, you can browse all the job offers, and you are assigned the job as soon as you hit ‘apply’.

  I’m very selective about what jobs I choose, in order to make them worth my time and to make sure I that can do a good job. Just read the job description carefully, so you know what you’re signing up for. By being very selective, I’ve managed to keep the pay above $20 to $30 per hour.

  I’m competing somewhat with writers from India or elsewhere that are willing to work for less than me, but I get a premium by being a native speaker of American English and having good ratings. I’ve been able to negotiate the price at times because I’ve been specifically requested by repeat customers.

  There have been a couple of disputes, and the administrators have been reasonable.

  Disclaimers:

  • The payment /​ time varies quite a bit from job to job, so be careful what you sign up for

  • It involves doing homework for college kids, in case you have moral issues with that

  • During the busy college season they will assign you jobs without asking you. You can still decline them without penalty.

• Caerbannog 23 Apr 2013 21:27 UTC

  2 points

  in reply to: prase’s comment on: Minor, per­spec­tive chang­ing facts

  Sorry, I forgot feet != meters. Ha.

• Caerbannog 23 Apr 2013 20:39 UTC

  11 points

  in reply to: SilasBarta’s comment on: Minor, per­spec­tive chang­ing facts

  I don’t agree with this.

  Your thought experiment with the dumbbell is an incorrect way of thinking about ambient pressure. Ambient pressure pushes against an object from every direction. It does not work to deform or break, only compress from all sides.

  Picture this: You have a hand-sized water balloon on a table. You place the two dumbbells on it; it breaks. You have another water balloon. You take this one, tie it to a dumbbell, and drop it into deep water. Do you expect it to break when descends to 3 feet (i.e. 10% increase in pressure)?

  I would not expect it to break at all. When water and other non-gases are put under pressure, the bonds and repulsive forces within push back.

  Don’t quote me on this part, but I would guess that to break a bone with just ambient pressure, you’d have to raise the pressure to about the compressive strength of the bone, around 100 megapascals. For reference, standard atmospheric pressure is around 100 kilopascals.

  edit: changed 3 meters to 3 feet, per prase’s comment.

• Caerbannog 23 Apr 2013 15:06 UTC

  31 points

  in reply to: SilasBarta’s comment on: Minor, per­spec­tive chang­ing facts

  This is very misleading. Most of the discomfort would be from the hard table against the back of your hand, and this would be because of local pressure on specific points.

  Pressure causes problems when there’s a big change in a relatively short time. Ears, for example, have a hard time with this, but you can equalize them by closing your nose and mouth and trying to blow out. Before I knew about this trick, I could never dive to the bottom of the pool. Now, no problem.

  A more realistic example would be to bury your hand in a foot or two of fine sand. Does that sound uncomfortable?

  In the sand example, it’s also important that the pressure is acting from all sides (top, bottom, left, right) so there’s no force acting to deform your hand.

  We can handle a relatively large range of pressures, and there are other problems before you start causing mechanical damage from the actual pressure (lack of oxygen at low pressure, dissolved gas at high pressure).

  edit: grammar

• Caerbannog 7 Mar 2013 22:16 UTC

  10 points

  in reply to: OrphanWilde’s comment on: Bor­ing Ad­vice Repository

  I think it’s possible you’re conflating potassium (element symbol K) with vitamin K. Vitamin K and warfarin (rat poison) are antagonists. Potassium (as chloride) is quite soluble in water, is prevalent in blood, and is primarily regulated by the kidneys.

• Caerbannog 23 Nov 2012 21:54 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: Kawoomba’s comment on: Re­quest for com­mu­nity insight

  I’ve been to doctors for the major joint problems, but they’ve said various contradictory things that have never helped. They’ve told me that it’s aging. When I had my knee scoped the orthopedic surgeon told me that I “have naturally soft cartilage” . I don’t think highly of that diagnosis.

  In my experience, modern medicine is not that good with things unfamiliar to it.

  I have been to doctors many times, but I don’t believe that they’ve given me information that’s useful.

Re­quest for com­mu­nity insight

• Caerbannog 9 Nov 2012 16:14 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: jmmcd’s comment on: On count­ing and addition

  Apples do require categorization by an observer to some extent.

  Is a nearly decayed apple still an apple? At what point does it stop being an apple? At what point does a fertilized apple blossom get to be called an apple?

• Caerbannog 1 Oct 2012 14:33 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: MugaSofer’s comment on: [Poll] Less Wrong and Main­stream Philos­o­phy: How Differ­ent are We?

  I don’t contest your first paragraph.

  Regarding your question: I don’t know. Probably update my understanding of this subject.

• Caerbannog 1 Oct 2012 2:13 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: MugaSofer’s comment on: [Poll] Less Wrong and Main­stream Philos­o­phy: How Differ­ent are We?

  A newly created copy or electronic upload of me (call him ‘Copy B’) would have all my behavioral attributes and memories. He could be called $myName by anyone else observing either of us (we could be indistinguishable to a third observer).

  However, to me (the guy writing this response, call me ‘Copy A’), there would be an obvious observable difference between Copy A and Copy B. I see the world from Copy A’s point of view, with his eyes and ears and I would observe Copy B from the outside as I would any other person, without knowing what is going on in his mind or experiencing the world from his point of view. Yes, Copy B might say the same about Copy A, but it’s my fear that Copy A would never find himself genuinely waking up inside a copying chamber or as an upload. If that’s true, uploading myself would be the death of my subjective point of view.

  I get where you’re coming from. I don’t necessarily have an epiphenomenal view of the mind, but I also believe that the concept of qualia is not well understood by anyone. I do not understand why I’m me and not someone else, and neither does our current knowledge on the subject.

  Based on this I’m agnostic on whether mind uploading in the style we’re discussing would really preserve me and my stream of qualia, or kill me and create another person with a new stream of qualia. Without any evidence that it would preserve me, I would not accept going through such a process.

  There are possible scenarios in which the copying process could preserve what I consider to be me: For example, if there is only one observer at all, who experiences all qualia streams throughout the world (that possibility scares me, honestly). Another possibility might be that copying me would simply double my measure in the world, and what I consider my qualia stream would have twice as many experiences after the copying process. These are just speculation, though.

  This has definitely been an interesting discussion for me. Examining my thoughts on this subject has raised more possible interpretations than settled anything, though!

• Caerbannog 28 Sep 2012 14:37 UTC

  −1 points

  in reply to: MugaSofer’s comment on: [Poll] Less Wrong and Main­stream Philos­o­phy: How Differ­ent are We?

  To you and everyone else, but not to me.

• Caerbannog 27 Sep 2012 15:46 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: MugaSofer’s comment on: [Poll] Less Wrong and Main­stream Philos­o­phy: How Differ­ent are We?

  I can observe myself in a way I that can’t others.

  From my vantage point, a copy or upload of someone else behaves the same as the ‘original’. From that same vantage point, a newly created copy of myself is clearly ‘outside’ my mind and therefore observationally different.

• Caerbannog 26 Sep 2012 19:40 UTC

  2 points

  in reply to: TheOtherDave’s comment on: [Poll] Less Wrong and Main­stream Philos­o­phy: How Differ­ent are We?

  Yes, my duplicate would think the same way as me.

  In a world that has duplicators, my duplicate would not claim to be original without evidence one way or the other.

  In our real world, if a copy of me were made using “magic”, both versions would believe themselves to be the original (at least at first). I had this kind of very specific scenario in mind when I said both would claim to be original, but did not explain this in the earlier comment (inferential distance and all that).

• Caerbannog 26 Sep 2012 19:24 UTC

  −1 points

  in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: [Poll] Less Wrong and Main­stream Philos­o­phy: How Differ­ent are We?

  I don’t know: If someone I knew had their physical body destroyed but they were uploaded with complete accuracy, I would consider them to be the same person (consistent with psychological view). I would not opt for that procedure for myself, though, because I don’t accept that my upload would really be me (more like physical view).

  I’m open to evidence and argument on this, though.

• Caerbannog 26 Sep 2012 19:10 UTC

  2 points

  in reply to: TheOtherDave’s comment on: [Poll] Less Wrong and Main­stream Philos­o­phy: How Differ­ent are We?

  Whether the duplicate claimed to be the original or not depends on the individual, I suppose.

  If I lived in a world that contained such duplication chambers, and found myself waking up in one, I would not know whether I was “the copy” or not without some outside evidence. I’d be inclined to accept that either I was a copy, or someone was playing a trick on me to make me think so.

  I understand that the duplicate would have the same memories and personality as me, but would not have my subjective sense of experience.

• Caerbannog 26 Sep 2012 15:19 UTC

  2 points

  in reply to: Jayson_Virissimo’s comment on: [Poll] Less Wrong and Main­stream Philos­o­phy: How Differ­ent are We?

  Other: For everyone else that I observe, an exact atom-for-atom duplicate is the same person as the original. If a copy of me were made, my ‘mind’ would reside in the original.

  I accept that my duplicate would claim to be the original, of course.

• Caerbannog 26 Sep 2012 15:03 UTC

  6 points

  in reply to: Jayson_Virissimo’s comment on: [Poll] Less Wrong and Main­stream Philos­o­phy: How Differ­ent are We?

  Other: Agree that it’s a false dichotomy.