matto

• matto 13 Sep 2023 15:46 UTC

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  in reply to: Elizabeth’s comment on: How did you make your way back from meta?

  Funny/​uncanny to read this. This is something I’ve just started working on (+improving sleep) maybe two weeks ago.

  How does this work for you if you don’t mind me asking?

• matto 9 Sep 2023 18:15 UTC

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  in reply to: Elizabeth’s comment on: How did you make your way back from meta?

  The pots theory reminded of this bit about creativity:

  In the mid-1960s, researchers Jacob Getzels and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi studied students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago to discover what led to successful creative careers. Giving them a variety of objects and asking them to compose a still life drawing, two distinct groups emerged: those who hastily chose an object and proceeded straight to drawing, and those that took much more time, carefully considering different arrangements.

  In their view, the first group was trying to solve the problem that had been given to them: “How can I produce a good drawing?” The second group was trying to find a problem in the situation they were presented with: “What good drawing can I produce?” A panel of art experts reviewed the drawings and rated the latter group of “problem finders” works as much more creative than the “problem solvers.” Following up on the students 18 years later, they found that the problem finders “were 18 years later significantly more successful–by the standards of the artistic community–than their peers who had approached their still-life drawings as more craftsman-like problem solvers.

  It struck me that, to extend the pots example, if you’re setting out to produce a god-tier pot, it entails massive resources and risk. It behooves you thus to avoid taking up such quests as much as possible, which in reality translates to creating pots when directed by an outside source, like a teacher or social pressure or whatever.

  But if you’re out to churn out 50 pots a semester, it’s a cheap and risk-free endeavor. After all, you could probably make 42 or 52 or exactly 50 meh pots in a couple of days and still get an A. But that’s kind of boring, why not find something cool or fun to do with those pots? Make really slim ones that beg the question if they’re pots or pipes. Make a clay klein bottle. Make personalized pots that you will gift to your friends later. Make cube pots. Make a clay Rube Goldberg pot-device. Sky’s the limit.

• matto 9 Sep 2023 17:30 UTC

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  in reply to: Erich_Grunewald’s comment on: How did you make your way back from meta?

  I can see how this can look like procrastination from the outside. But I think in my case, it really is some weird jedi trickery where meta-level replaced the object-level (at much less energy cost—so why would I ever do object level?)

  I’ve written more this week than in a long time just by clearly asking myself whether I’m doing something meta (fun, leisure) or object-level (building stuff) and there’s no ugh-field at all!

• matto 9 Sep 2023 17:23 UTC

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  in reply to: lillybaeum’s comment on: How did you make your way back from meta?

  Thank you for writing this out. It resonates with what’s happening in my head on a deeper, emotional level (“if I study enough meta, I will become a fearsome champion in my first match, ha ha”).

  The meta element of anything is a necessary evil

  This is going on a post-it on my desk.

• matto 9 Sep 2023 17:17 UTC

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  in reply to: Elizabeth’s comment on: How did you make your way back from meta?

  Thanks! Your comment made me realize I built sort of trap for myself: I would go for meta when I would be tired, telling myself “hey, maybe I’m not pushing on The Thing, but at least I’m pushing on it indirectly.” But that slowly moved me farther and farther away from The Thing because if I can keeping pushing on it with less energy by going meta, why would I ever push on the object-level which costs more energy for the same effect?

  But the effect is not the same of course. I just tricked myself.

  Also, from your other comment, the pots theory really resonated because it sounds so much like play—making 50 pots creates so much space for experimentation and silliness!

[Question] How did you make your way back from meta?

• matto 17 May 2023 1:13 UTC

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  on: We learn long-last­ing strate­gies to pro­tect our­selves from dan­ger and rejection

  I’m a big fan of the Replacing Guilt series. But I’ve always found the “guilt” part troubling because it always felt there was something more behind, something even more primitive.

  Perhaps it’s just me or people like me but now I believe that thing is fear. Completely subjectively I had an experience recently while watching my thoughts (inspired by https://​​www.lesswrong.com/​​posts/​​bbB4pvAQdpGrgGvXH/​​tuning-your-cognitive-strategies) and noticed that certain chains if thoughts terminated as if at a wall made up of this panicky feeling, the one where you feel your chest tigthen and your breathing become shallow and difficult. It felt a lot like fear.

  Looking forward to your next posts in the series!

  What links here?

  • David Bravo's comment on We learn long-last­ing strate­gies to pro­tect our­selves from dan­ger and rejection by Richard_Ngo (18 May 2023 17:46 UTC; 1 point)

• matto 13 May 2023 20:51 UTC

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  in reply to: mikes’s comment on: Where to start with statis­tics if I want to mea­sure things?

  Thanks, this is incredibly useful.

  I think I understand enough to put together a curriculum to delve into this topic. Starting with the harvard course you recommended.

• matto 9 May 2023 18:16 UTC

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  on: Good­hart’s Law in­side the hu­man mind

  I’m reminded of a post from not too long ago: https://​​www.lesswrong.com/​​posts/​​bbB4pvAQdpGrgGvXH/​​tuning-your-cognitive-strategies

  I haven’t run through the exercise that it suggests, but I’ve borrowed an idea that seems in line with the framework in this post. Internally, I call it a brain debugger.

  Basically, from time to time I ask myself what am I thinking and what was I thinking before. To better illustrate what I mean in the context of this post, here’s an example:

  • trying to solve problem at work

  • trying to solve problem at work

  • BREAK: I’m thinking about a problem at work. I was thinking about it before.

  • trying to solve a problem at work

  • getting upset at coworker for last week’s meeting

  • BREAK: I’m thinking about how upset I am at my coworker. I was thinking about solving a problem at work. WAT? How did I get here? Coworker X isn’t even here. Wait, I’m in an imaginary situation. Coworker X isn’t here. Why am I arguing with them? Let’s go back to work problem

  In other words, it’s helping me catch myself when my brain is getting stuck in a goodharting loop.

  (This doesn’t solve the underlying problems, but it does to help with reflection)

• matto 5 May 2023 13:47 UTC

  6 points

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  on: How to get good at programming

  This is good advice that I’ve seen work very well, both for myself and others.

  There is, however, a related problem, or rather a metaproblem: how do you choose what to whitebox?

  Going with the programming example, the field is huge. Do you invest time into ML? Linux? Rust? Data engineering? SRE?

  Then, within each of those categories you can find vast categories: as an SRE do you focus on observability or CI/​CD or orchestration or...? Each is a 1-3+ year subfield in itself.

  You can use a heuristic like “what’s useful for my job” but even then, unless you’re already an expert and working in exactly your domain, the number of categories could be vast.

  I’ve been investing my time in seemingly evergreen domains like Linux, programming (python/​go), and containers. I want to expand into statistics/​metrics.

  I’m curious how you and others here have managed this question though.

• matto 23 Apr 2023 20:06 UTC

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  in reply to: mikes’s comment on: Where to start with statis­tics if I want to mea­sure things?

  Thanks! I’ll look this over.

  Out of curiosity,

  Most people with a strong intuition for statistics have taken courses in probability. It is foundational material for the discipline.

  Do some people learn statistics without learning probability? Or, what’s different for someone who learns only stats and not probability?

  (I’m trying to grasp what shape/​boundaries are at play between these two bodies of knowledge)

• matto 23 Apr 2023 20:02 UTC

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  in reply to: Derek M. Jones’s comment on: Where to start with statis­tics if I want to mea­sure things?

  Thanks! This is really helpful—I think this is exactly what I’m trying to do.

  Are these texts part of a specific academic track/​degree or field of study? It sounds like something someone in engineering would spend a semester on. But also like something someone could spend a career on studying.

[Question] Where to start with statis­tics if I want to mea­sure things?

• matto 18 Mar 2023 15:56 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: Bezzi’s comment on: Fight­ing in var­i­ous places for a re­ally long time

  You raise a good question, but it still relies on following the (historical) authority of the Academy. Perhaps the Academy has changed? Perhaps the environment the Academy is operating has changed, forcing the Academy to adjust?

  Of course, this would apply to the non-Academy, ie. broader society, as well—but at different rates, and also different directions.

  A stab at answering your question: you should only apply an update based on the Academy if the Academy is an important entity for you. This isn’t binary. Awards factor into my perception of movies, but only play a minor role.

• matto 21 Jan 2023 19:39 UTC

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  on: Con­fus­ing the ideal for the necessary

  As someone who’s experienced this, I’ve found that Slack is a helpful idea to bring to bear.

  Sometimes, trying to utilize the small segments of free time leads to scheduling so much work that one small interruption snowballs into a huge failure. So I’ve often asked myself, “What can I do to create more slack so that I do have the required bigger chunks of time to truly focus on work that matters?”

• matto 20 Nov 2022 1:18 UTC

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  in reply to: gjm’s comment on: Re­view: Bayesian Statis­tics the Fun Way by Will Kurt

  Many thanks for letting me know!

Re­view: Bayesian Statis­tics the Fun Way by Will Kurt

• matto 8 Nov 2022 1:44 UTC

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  on: How to Make Easy De­ci­sions

  Wish I had heard this sooner. Coming from a place where every purchase had to be planned out weeks in advance, and after finding financial stability, it took me some years to realize I shouldn’t be trying to optimize the purchase of chopsticks or closet hanger.

• matto 4 Oct 2022 23:48 UTC

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  in reply to: Dagon’s comment on: Com­pany lead­er­ship and tac­ti­cal decisions

  Thanks for sharing your perspective. I remember you describing your experience in a little more depth some time ago and it makes me doubt my experience. Perhaps I’ve been in less healthy orgs. But more likely there are knobs/​patterns I can’t see, so org change work like this feels out of reach for me. I’ve got some thinking to do.

• matto 4 Oct 2022 23:38 UTC

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  on: matto’s Shortform

  I’ve been thinking about AllAmericanBreakfast’s recent shortform posts about mentition. It’s because I’ve been teaching myself three new things and I noticed that one practice I engage in regularly is playing with problems in my head. But this practice seems to largely depend on how good I am at something.

  Anecdotal examples:

  • Teaching myself TLA+. It’s a programming language used to specify models, which helps verify whether an algorithm behaves like it should, especially concurrent algorithms.

    • I have a few examples that I’ve looked at (from the course). Throughout the day, I’ll turn these around in my mind, looking at different facets, moving things around and occasionally hit on an insight.

  • Going through Bayesian Statistics the Fun Way for a much needed refresher on bayesian stats.

    • Here too I have a few simple examples, problems taken straight from the book, that I turn over in my head. It’s harder, though, because different “objects”, like numerators and denominators, are hard for my mind to hold onto for long. I need more focus.

  • Writing. Specifically, creative nonfiction.

    • Here, I have a few essays that I really liked that I’m playing with. But this one is the hardest of all to wrestle with in my mind. Ideas, sentences, paragraphs feel so liquid and unholdable. I can only do this type of work with pen and paper or a text editor.

  In the first case, in which I have some years of experience, thinking and focusing feels easy. Even in a weird language I’ve never seen before, I can see “things” and “relationships” and “sequences” and play around with them.

  In the last case, there are almost no things, no relationships. It’s all one mixed up soup. Only recently did I learn, thanks to a class, about things like ledes, nut graphs, points/​themes, angles, calls to action, etc. and this has been an immense help in slowly learning how to “turn around” these things in my mind.

  So, if this generalizes in any way, it seems that ramping up to a state where you can do mentition requires first learning to see the structure of whatever it is you’re learning. Sort of like priming the pump. Afterwards, there’s a lot less “ugh” and a lot more play.