sediment

Karma: 486

sediment 31 Mar 2015 17:56 UTC
2 points
in reply to: polymathwannabe’s comment on: Open thread, Apr. 01 - Apr. 05, 2015
Ambiguous between sarcasm and sincerity :(

sediment 31 Mar 2015 17:47 UTC
5 points
on: Open thread, Apr. 01 - Apr. 05, 2015
On putting all one’s charitable eggs in one basket:

I note that GiveWell recommend splitting one’s charitable giving between their top charities in a certain ratio. But it seems that this would reduce the expected value of one’s giving. Is this considered by others to be the best way to donate, or is it better to give all of one’s donation to that single charity estimated to be most effective? I imagine this is the sort of thing that has already been discussed, so pointers to any previous discussion would be of use.

sediment 26 Mar 2015 21:01 UTC
2 points
on: Why I Reject the Correspondence Theory of Truth
Always glad to see pragmatism represented on LW. I feel like rationalist types instinctively lean towards a correspondence theory of truth, but I feel like as a group, they are actually (or at least, could be) more sympathetic to the pragmatist view of truth than they realized.

This post follows pretty closely the argument I was going to make in a LW-targeted defence of pragmatism of my own which I had been half-heartedly planning to post for a long time. Thanks for doing a good job of it.

sediment 26 Mar 2015 20:55 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Capla’s comment on: [link] If anyone wants to discuss Gödel, Escher, Bach, we have a read-through of it going in /r/rational. Join us!
No.

sediment 22 Mar 2015 21:17 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Styrke’s comment on: [link] If anyone wants to discuss Gödel, Escher, Bach, we have a read-through of it going in /r/rational. Join us!
But the preface is extensive and interesting, and contains his updated thoughts on several aspects of the book.

sediment 21 Feb 2015 20:52 UTC
0 points
in reply to: gjm’s comment on: Open thread, Feb. 9 - Feb. 15, 2015
That’s the ticket! Thanks so much.

sediment 15 Feb 2015 14:57 UTC
0 points
in reply to: RomeoStevens’s comment on: Open thread, Feb. 9 - Feb. 15, 2015
Weird; I’m starting to wonder whether I imagined the whole thing. Your link helps, at least, though. Thanks.

sediment 13 Feb 2015 9:20 UTC
4 points
on: Open thread, Feb. 9 - Feb. 15, 2015
I seem to recall a discussion thread about ways one can spend money to save time (e.g. paying to get one’s laundry done), together with estimates for their respective dollar/hour rates. I’m moving from unemployed to full-time employment this week, so the appropriate dollar value of my time is about to shift dramatically, and as such, I’d like to give this thread another look over, but I can’t find it. Can anyone else remember what I’m talking about and/or provide a link? Thanks.

sediment 12 Feb 2015 18:26 UTC
11 points
on: Bragging Thread February 2015
- Got a job in the field that I took a master’s degree to enter (computer programming) at a company which appears to have a good culture and extremely good opportunities for progression. In particular, they expressed that they liked the fact that I’m not originally from a computer science background but still had good technical knowledge, and suggested that there might be potential for someone with my skill set to eventually move into the management/business side of the company, should that someone wish it. I start Monday. Going to set up a standing order to the Against Malaria Foundation as soon as I know when my paycheque comes.
- Booked the first gig for an electronic music set/act/project on which I’ve been working for nearly five years. I bypassed promoters etc. by getting in touch with a venue myself directly and booking it for myself and two musicians I know to play, and promoting the night myself. (Hey, if something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing yourself, right?) The show is still a couple of weeks away, so I don’t know how it will go, but the project is really important to me so I’m excited about it.

sediment 5 Feb 2015 18:04 UTC
2 points
in reply to: gwern’s comment on: Rationality Quotes January 2015
And, while we’re on the subject, here’s a classic:

Let me see if I understand your thesis. You think we shouldn’t anthropomorphize people?

-- Sidney Morgenbesser to B. F. Skinner

(via Eliezer, natch.)

sediment 26 Jan 2015 10:49 UTC
5 points
in reply to: RolfAndreassen’s comment on: Rationality Quotes January 2015
I also don’t think this is a concern. It’s just analogy, metaphor, figurative language, which is more or less what the human mind runs on. I also don’t think it leads to real anthropomorphization in the minds of those using it; it’s more just a useful shorthand. Compare something I overheard once about atoms of a certain reactive element “wanting” to bond with other atoms. I don’t think either party was ascribing agency to those atoms in this case; rather, “it wants X” is commonly understood as a useful shorthand for “it behaves as if it wanted X”.

Edit: see also: http://catb.org/jargon/html/anthropomorphization.html

Thus it is common to hear hardware or software talked about as though it has homunculi talking to each other inside it, with intentions and desires. Thus, one hears “The protocol handler got confused”, or that programs “are trying” to do things, or one may say of a routine that “its goal in life is to X”. Or: “You can’t run those two cards on the same bus; they fight over interrupt 9.”

One even hears explanations like “… and its poor little brain couldn’t understand X, and it died.” Sometimes modelling things this way actually seems to make them easier to understand, perhaps because it’s instinctively natural to think of anything with a really complex behavioral repertoire as ‘like a person’ rather than ‘like a thing’.

At first glance, to anyone who understands how these programs actually work, this seems like an absurdity. As hackers are among the people who know best how these phenomena work, it seems odd that they would use language that seems to ascribe consciousness to them. The mind-set behind this tendency thus demands examination.

The key to understanding this kind of usage is that it isn’t done in a naive way; hackers don’t personalize their stuff in the sense of feeling empathy with it, nor do they mystically believe that the things they work on every day are ‘alive’. To the contrary: hackers who anthropomorphize are expressing not a vitalistic view of program behavior but a mechanistic view of human behavior.

sediment 25 Jan 2015 15:13 UTC
4 points
in reply to: SolveIt’s comment on: Open thread, Jan. 19 - Jan. 25, 2015
Yes, perhaps for some, but I’m already closer to underweight than I am to overweight, so for me that’s a big con.

sediment 25 Jan 2015 15:10 UTC
2 points
in reply to: NancyLebovitz’s comment on: Open thread, Jan. 19 - Jan. 25, 2015
Yep, the model in that post is quite close to the one I’m trying to describe.

sediment 21 Jan 2015 19:16 UTC
6 points
in reply to: Dorikka’s comment on: Open thread, Jan. 19 - Jan. 25, 2015
A month or two ago I started taking Modafinil occasionally; I’ve probably taken it fewer than a dozen times overall.

I think I’d expected it to give a kind of Ritalin-like focus and concentrate, but that isn’t really how it affected me. I’d describe the effects less in terms of “focus” and more in terms of a variable I term “wherewithal”. I’ve recently started using this term in my internal monologue to describe my levels of “ability to undertake tasks”. E.g., “I’m hungry, but I definitely don’t have the wherewithal to cook anything complicated tonight; better just get a pizza.” Or, on waking up: “Hey, my wherewithal levels are unusually high today. Better not fritter that away.” (Semantically, it’s a bit like the SJ-originating concept of “spoons” but without that term’s baggage.) It’s this quantity which I think Modafinil targets, for me: it’s a sort of “wherewithal boost”. I don’t know how well this accords with other people’s experience. I do think I’ve heard some people describe it as a focus/concentration booster. (Perhaps I should try another nootropic to get that effect, or perhaps my brain is just beyond help on that front.)

I did, however, start to feel it suppressed my appetite to unhealthily, even dangerously, low levels. (After taking it for two days in a row, I felt dizzy after coming down a flight of stairs.) I realize that it’s possible to compensate for this by making oneself eat when one doesn’t feel hungry, but somehow this doesn’t seem that pleasant. For this reason, I’ve been taking it less recently.

I’d be curious to know whether others experience the appetite suppression to the same extent; it’s not something that I hear people talk about very much. Perhaps others are just better at dealing with it than I am or don’t care.

It’s also hard to say how much of its positive effects were placebo, given that I took it on days when I’d already determined I wanted to “get a lot of shit done”.

I might still try armodafinil at some point.

sediment 13 Jan 2015 18:17 UTC
1 point
in reply to: harshhpareek’s comment on: Open thread, Jan. 12 - Jan. 18, 2015

I’m a vegetarian and I looked into this stuff a while back. The Examine.com page What beneficial compounds are primarily found in animal products? is a useful reference with sources and includes the ones you wrote above. An older page with some references is this one.

Thanks, this looks good. The sort of thing I was after.

I had a basic panel done

I’ve never heard this expression! I wonder whether that’s just transatlantic terminology variation. Will look into whether I can get this on the NHS.

Excessive amounts of creatine (look up “loading”) is recommended for bodybuilders but 5g/day is recommended for vegetarians. See gwern’s review and the examine.com review.. The examine.com review mentions that the fear of this compound is irrational and recommends 5g a day for everyone, pointing out that creatine would have been labeled a vitamin if it wasn’t produced in the body.

Perfect; thanks.

sediment 13 Jan 2015 18:09 UTC
8 points
in reply to: Baughn’s comment on: Open thread, Jan. 12 - Jan. 18, 2015
- You should ask a dietician, not us.
I know plenty of LW people are interested in nutrition; it’s within the realms of possibility that one of them might know enough about what I’m asking to be able to give me a quick summary of what I’m after. As for asking a dietician, I’ve never met one and wouldn’t know how to go about getting hold of one to ask. (I’m also not totally sure I’d trust J. Random Dietician to have a good understanding of things like what counts as good evidence for or against a proposition. Nutrition is a field in which it’s notoriously difficult to prove anything.)
- There are many other vegetarians; this seems like it should be a solved problem.
Well, erm, yes, that’s why I’m asking about it. (I don’t go around making posts asking for proofs that P=NP, for example.)

sediment 13 Jan 2015 18:04 UTC
0 points
in reply to: RomeoStevens’s comment on: Open thread, Jan. 12 - Jan. 18, 2015
Yes, as of a few months ago when I researched the issue, I am OK with eating bivalves. I just haven’t gotten around to doing so yet.

sediment 12 Jan 2015 9:25 UTC
9 points
on: Open thread, Jan. 12 - Jan. 18, 2015
Reposting this because I posted it at the very end of the last open thread and hence, I think, missed the window for it to get much attention:

I’m vegetarian and currently ordering some dietary supplements to help, erm, supplement any possible deficits in my diet. For now, I’m getting B12, iron, and creatine. Two questions:
- Are there any important ones that I’ve missed? (Other things I’ve heard mentioned but of whose importance and effectiveness I’m not sure: zinc, taurine, carnitine, carnosine. Convince me!)
- Of the ones I’ve mentioned, how much should I be taking? In particular, all the information I could find on creatine was for bodybuilders trying to develop muscle mass. I did manage to find that the average daily turnover/usage of creatine for an adult male (which I happen to be) is ~2 grams/day—is this how much I should be taking?

sediment 11 Jan 2015 22:35 UTC
2 points
on: Open thread Jan. 5-11, 2015
I’m vegetarian and currently ordering some dietary supplements to help, erm, supplement any possible deficits in my diet. For now, I’m getting B12, iron, and creatine. Two questions:
- Are there any important ones that I’ve missed? (Other things I’ve heard mentioned but of whose importance and effectiveness I’m not sure: zinc, taurine, carnitine, carnosine.)
- Of the ones I’ve mentioned, how much should I be taking? In particular, all the information I could find on creatine was for bodybuilders trying to develop muscle mass. I did manage to find that the average daily turnover/usage of creatine for an adult male (which I happen to be) is ~2 grams/day—is this how much I should be taking?
(Edit: reposted this in the new open thread; please respond there, not here!)

sediment 1 Dec 2014 20:13 UTC
8 points
on: December 2014 Bragging Thread
Received the results for a master’s degree in computer science which I completed this summer. I passed and got a “merit”, with which I’m fairly happy. Translating grading conventions between countries is challenging, especially the UK’s byzantine system for grading degree- and postgraduate- level qualifications, so I’ll simply say that a merit is good though not astounding, being the category below “distinction”, the best possible.

Nonetheless, I’m happy, especially given that I really struggled with the thesis which was a requirement of the course. I learnt (well, actually, confirmed, since I already suspected as much) the hard way that self-directed, large-scale, academic projects are Not For Me. Actually, I found it so hard that I had to get a substantial (!) extension on it. (I also posted on here at one stage asking for advice as I was struggling so badly with the thesis, so anyone who remembers that post and wonders what became of the situation can now breathe a sigh of relief that it has at least a moderately happy ending.)

And now I’m seeking a job in software development, which was the reason why I did the degree in the first place.