matt

Karma: 1,730

Educated as an engineer, I’ve been a product designer & product designer manager, a factory & tool room manager, a logistics & supply chain consultant, a programmer & software consultancy manager, and a director of a handful of startups. I’m one of the Bellroy founders & executive team members.

We humans don’t come with instruction manuals, but if we did they’d have to mention: systematic habit acquisition, conceptual model building, polyphasic sleep, speed reading, optimised exercise & diet and many other uncommonly adopted but excellent things.

My company, TrikeApps, was responsible for the first Lesswrong codebase. I’m very happy to have been involved, and very happy with what our successors have done with the current Lesswrong codebase (for the avoidance of any undue credit, we did not contribute to the new codebase, and would have been proud of the result if we had).

matt Aug 22, 2012, 1:30 AM
1 point
in reply to: aelephant’s comment on: Group rationality diary, 8/20/12
Yah—Wozniak is fairly well known in the polyphasic community for having very strongly held views that are directly contradicted by the experience of polyphasic sleepers. See for example http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/2006/11/01/an-attack-on-polyphasic-sleep/.

I did not gather objective evidence of the differences in my cognition before and after polyphasic sleep, but any differences are small enough that they’re invisible to me and those who live with me.

matt Aug 21, 2012, 10:28 PM
11 points
in reply to: aelephant’s comment on: Group rationality diary, 8/20/12
(Note that there are a few LWers attempting or contemplating polyphasic sleep right now. If you are considering it seriously we’d love your participation in a data collection effort on before and after cognitive performance.)

Polyphasic Sleep
How to have 19-22hrs of fun every day

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/107056/Minicamp2012/PolyphasicSleep/index.html
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/107056/Minicamp2012/PolyphasicSleep.zip

which includes at slides 114 and 115

Theory:
http://trypolyphasic.com/forum/post/8455/#p8455
http://trypolyphasic.com/forum/topic/876/uber-and-everyman-theory-analysis/
Experience:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/ … and see links at bottom, particularly...
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/11/polyphasic-sleep-log-days-25-30-final-update/
Note that Steve’s experience of the flexibility of his near-uberman schedule doesn’t match with other reports. I think this flexibility may be available after stabilisation, but come at a high cost before.
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/01/polyphasic-sleep-update-day-90/
Steve’s report of euphoric mood is fairly common on the Uberman schedule, and much less common on schedules that include regular core sleep.
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/02/polyphasic-sleep-20/ Some experiments in flexibility
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/04/polyphasic-sleep-the-return-to-monophasic/ Why did he stop?
http://trypolyphasic.com/forum/forum/17/adaptation/
And https://groups.google.com/d/topic/polyphasic/FTWKW0pvKZ0/discussion

and finally

My sleep tracks (which include masking sound including walla to drown out distracting conversation):
My schedule calculator: http://bit.ly/poly-schedule-tool
What links here?
- Risto_Saarelma's comment on Group Rationality Diary, November 16-30 by therufs (Nov 23, 2013, 7:38 AM; 0 points)

matt Aug 21, 2012, 10:11 PM
1 point
in reply to: gwern’s comment on: Group rationality diary, 8/20/12

I’d point out that being a polyphasic sleeper is a major confound here

Agreed.

… we all know that sleep is necessary for learning & long-term memory formation...

With some sleep phases more important than others. High quality evidence is thin on the ground here, but what is available says I’m getting a normal amount of REM and slow wave sleep, and nearly none of the other phases. Wiki (and other sources I’ve found) suggest that those are the sleep phases important in memory formation. (Note some studies listed on that wiki page have found napping to improve memory—my schedule gives me REM naps during the day (which is right at the top of the list of my super powers).)
[Lots of speculation here ↑. Available data below.]

Incidentally, do you do spaced repetition? I and Wozniak would be interested in your statistics/database if you started it before the polyphasic sleeping.

Before polyphasic sleeping I didn’t have enough time to do spaced repetition :)
[That was the available data—sorry about that.]

There are moves afoot to organise the several July minicampers who plan to try a polyphasic schedule to gather before and after data. Do you want an introduction to the organisers of that effort?

matt Aug 21, 2012, 12:42 PM
3 points
on: Group rationality diary, 8/20/12
I tried Bacopa, found in some studies to improve learning and memory. It made me very sleepy in the day following taking it:
```
10 Aug  Bacopa  Good

11 Aug  Bacopa  Lethargic all day

12 Aug  Bacopa  Lethargic all day

13 Aug  -       Lethargic all day

14 Aug  -       Good

15 Aug  Bacopa  Good

16 Aug  Bacopa  Morning lethargy, clearing after 3hrs

17 Aug  Bacopa  Lethargic all day

18 Aug  Bacopa  Lethargic all morning

19 Aug  Bacopa  Lethargic, less than other days

20 Aug  -       Good
```
I’ve stopped.

Important: I’m a polyphasic sleeper: 3hr core, 3x 20min naps, stable for 18 months.

(http://www.australianvitamins.com/products/view/1808)

[Edited to increase visibility of polyphasic sleep.]
What links here?
- gwern's comment on Thoughts on the January CFAR workshop by Qiaochu_Yuan (Jul 9, 2013, 3:02 PM; 0 points)

matt Aug 21, 2012, 7:14 AM
6 points
in reply to: John_Maxwell’s comment on: LessWrong could grow a lot, but we’re doing it wrong.
Erm… that’s security by obscurity in the same way that Wikipedia relies on security by obscurity, right?

matt Aug 14, 2012, 6:28 AM
1 point
on: Meetup : Melbourne social meetup
I’ll be there.

Issue 301 shipped: Show parent comments on /comments

mattAug 3, 2012, 6:14 AM

43 points

4 comments1 min readLW link

matt Aug 2, 2012, 7:26 PM
7 points
on: Meetup : Melbourne, practical rationality
Ouch—downvoted, presumably because it’s a dup. For the record, I raised http://code.google.com/p/lesswrong/issues/detail?id=327 and worked with John to fix the cause of the dup.
Deep down, under the annoying double post character defect, I try to be a good person.

Meetup : Melbourne, practical rationality

mattAug 2, 2012, 5:15 PM

7 points

4 comments1 min readLW link

Meetup : Melbourne, practical rationality

mattAug 2, 2012, 5:14 PM

2 points

0 comments1 min readLW link

matt Jul 2, 2012, 11:00 PM
5 points
in reply to: albeola’s comment on: New “Best” comment sorting system
Bayesian reformulations welcome.

matt Jul 2, 2012, 10:59 PM
2 points
in reply to: dbaupp’s comment on: New “Best” comment sorting system
Work done by John Simon, and integrated by Wes.

matt Jul 2, 2012, 10:56 PM
2 points
in reply to: Kaj_Sotala’s comment on: New “Best” comment sorting system
I think “Popular” adds weight to recent comments. This seems to be a much worse way of achieving what “Best” shoots for.

New “Best” comment sorting system

mattJul 2, 2012, 11:08 AM

35 points

21 comments1 min readLW link

matt Jun 24, 2012, 10:12 PM
1 point
in reply to: Viliam_Bur’s comment on: Web of Trust lists Singularity.org as having a bad reputation
The page expressly says “Supplement your rating by leaving a comment. Comments provide more information, but do not affect the reputation.”

If you click “Rate this website” you can rate each scale as you wish. Surely some users choosing different values on the scales is a much simpler explanation than that the site programmers built in a more complicated rating system then lied about it?!

matt Jun 24, 2012, 7:51 PM
0 points
in reply to: Viliam_Bur’s comment on: Web of Trust lists Singularity.org as having a bad reputation

Can this be true? I don’t know how to check it; googling “link:singularity.org″ reveals nothing (but the functionality of “link:” seems broken or something; I’d be glad if someone could explain me how it works).

Google Webmaster Tools isn’t helping here either: screenshot of webmaster tools

(Webmaster Tools Links to Your Site shows “No data available”)

matt Jun 24, 2012, 7:48 PM
0 points
in reply to: RobertLumley’s comment on: Web of Trust lists Singularity.org as having a bad reputation
Your comments don’t count, your ratings do: screenshot of WOT page showing relevant controls and explanatory text

(look for the green “Rate this website” link above right of the rating graphic)

matt 24 Jun 2012 19:45 UTC
0 points
in reply to: gwern’s comment on: Web of Trust lists Singularity.org as having a bad reputation
See https://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55281
To find a sampling of links to any site, you can perform a Google search using the link: operator. For instance, [link:www.google.com] will list a selection of the web pages that have links pointing to the Google home page. …

…

See a much larger sampling of links to a verified site:
1. On the Webmaster Tools Home page, click the site you want.
2. On the left-hand menu, click Traffic, and then click Links to Your Site.

matt 23 Jun 2012 18:41 UTC
10 points
in reply to: Viliam_Bur’s comment on: Web of Trust lists Singularity.org as having a bad reputation

But the important part is this: Someone from SIAI should follow the link “Click here if you own this site”, verify the site ownership, and request a review.

Done (with at stretch at the “someone from SIAI” part). Comment above

matt 23 Jun 2012 18:21 UTC
31 points
on: Web of Trust lists Singularity.org as having a bad reputation
I’ve registered at WoT and requested a reevaluation. We’re also making a couple of changes the WoT reevaluation request process seems to suggest are important (like more prominently linking the site’s privacy policy).

http://www.mywot.com/en/forum/24394-singularity-org
http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/singularity.org
What links here?
- matt's comment on Web of Trust lists Singularity.org as having a bad reputation by RobertLumley (23 Jun 2012 18:41 UTC; 10 points)

matt

Is­sue 301 shipped: Show par­ent com­ments on /​comments

Meetup : Melbourne, prac­ti­cal rationality

Meetup : Melbourne, prac­ti­cal rationality

New “Best” com­ment sort­ing system

Issue 301 shipped: Show parent comments on /comments

Meetup : Melbourne, practical rationality

Meetup : Melbourne, practical rationality

New “Best” comment sorting system