There’s a lot of Orion’s Arm to wade through. Are there any sections you’d particularly recommend? Any stories or pages you enjoyed most?
moreati
Karma: 66
Have you asked this question in a Windows specific forum? e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/windows
Ah, sorry. I wasn’t seeking answers to those questions. They were meant to suggest lines of enquiry you should follow, and workarounds you could try.
A few thoughts based on eliminating/ruling out possible causes:
Can you avoid making cell → cell calls? If you’re both on a smartphone with wifi could you use e.g. Skype or Messenger?
Can you both use a hands free kit? This should eliminate poor positioning of the microphone/earpiece.
Are you or your girlfriend in a poor signal area? Does going outside to make the call reduce the problem? There are options such as GSM signal boosters and femtocells that might be worth exploring.
Some carriers have deployed HD Voice service. See if your phone and carrier(s) support this.
There’s also “Pain is weakness leaving the body”, which is less specific but probably pre-dates Eliezer’s quote.
BBC Inside Health: Drug Driving; End of Life Care; Smart Drugs, also available as mp3. The smart drugs piece starts at 16m 58s.
Mostly I mention it as mainstream(ish) coverage of the topic, which I though note worthy.
Sorry, I wasn’t aware the US release is delayed vs the UK
I saw Ex Machina this weekend. The subject matter is very close to LWs interests and I enjoyed it a lot. My prior prediction that it’s “AI box experiment: the movie” wasn’t 100% accurate.
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For those that worry it’s Hollywood, hence dumb I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. The characters are smart and act accordingly, I spotted fewer than 5 idiot ball moments.
Ex Machina (IMDB) looks like AI Box Experiment: The Movie. It’s due for release in Jan 2015. Synopsis:
A young programmer is selected to participate in a breakthrough experiment in artificial intelligence by evaluating the human qualities of a breathtaking female A.I.
The trailer contains a possible spoiler: V guvax V fnj n tyvzcfr bs gur lbhat cebtenzzre jvgu na negvsvpvny obql.
A client for http://chirp.io in Python https://github.com/moreati/chirppy
I started this over Christmas, and I’ve been poking at it on and off since then—firstly trying (and failing) to reimplement the error correction. The extent of my knowledge there is http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/663643/discover-parameters-of-a-reed-solomon-code-from-its-output.
My current effort is to implement the audio as continuous phase—so there are no discontinuities in the chirp, which make a nasty click noise in the current implementation. Doing so, I’ve learned a lot about acoustic modems and amateur radio modulations.
I can’t think of an academic name, the common phrases in Britain are ‘stuck in your ways’, ‘bloody minded’, ‘better the the devil you know’.
When you read a comment how often are you consciously aware of who wrote it? How often do you read the username before you read the comment?
Not being poly and only a bit rational (so far), I’ll only propose
Is polyamory actually higher amongst LW people than the general population? Do you just have more exposure to polyamorous LW people than a wider polyamorous population?
Do polyamorous LW people talk about their polyamory more than polyamorous non-LW people?
Reading failure, “never been hit on” is very different to “never been hit”. It sounded wrong when I (mis)read, and I didn’t notice.
If it’s material you want to/are required to learn from try taking notes as you read the material, to force yourself to recall it in your own terms/language.
If it’s just recreational/online reading try increasing the font size/spacing or decreasing the browser width, or using a browser extension like readability. Don’t scroll with the scroll bar or the mouse wheel—use pg up/pg down to make it easier to keep your position.
I had NO IDEA how much discrimination I suffered for wearing glasses until I gave them up.
I’m intrigued. What was the nature of the discrimination? How did you know glasses/not-glasses was the cause? Any specific examples?
As promised, the answers rot13 here so people can still choose to play, and unsullied so you can verify the hash
My answers (2nd, unsubmitted guess in brackets)
Gbbgu
Fpnes (Synt)
Svban Oehpr (Hyevxn Wbuaffba)
Vgnyl (Jnyrf)
Wnpx Fcneebj (Oynpx orneq)
Correct answers:
Gbbgu (grrgu npprcgrq)
Synt
Qnivan Znppnhy
Fcnva
Wnpx Fcneebj
Family Fortunes Pub Quiz
On a Sunday night I take part in a pub quiz. It’s based on a UK quiz show called Family Fortunes, which in turn is based on the US show Family Feud. To win you must answer all 5 questions correctly, the correct answer is whatever was the most popular answer in a survey of 100 people.
I’m curious to see if LessWrong does better than me.
We asked 100 people...
Name a part of your body that you’v had removed
Name something you might wave at a Football match
Name a female TV presenter
Name a country that has only 5 letters in it’s name
Fact or fiction, name a famous pirate
Rules/notes
In the pub you may not use the internet/reference material, but given the international audience I’ll relax that rule.
The questions are reproduced verbatim e.g. any ambiguity/odd wording you see was present to start with.
Submit just the SHA1 hash of your answer, or your answer ROT13d—to keep it fairish/avoid spoilers.
Include a second answer for any questions, if you wish. It won’t count, except for “I knew it!” moments
I’ll reveal my answers and the correct answers no later than 72 hours from now (sha1 b91d4589b142dbf8c567dae83d3e4d7b18c4e826).
You can work individually or as a team, your choice.
If you’ve not already, you’ll probably enjoy Accelerando, also by Charles Stross.
Meta: I really like the three top-level comments you made to structure the conversation. Is this something you came up with, or perhaps picked up elsewhere? Does it have a name?