thejash

Karma: 135

thejash Sep 10, 2011, 6:17 PM
4 points
on: Living Forever is Hard, part 2: Adult Longevity
Up-voted for the great links at the end about diet and nutrition as related to longevity. I’ve been looking for something exactly like that (a relatively scientific overview of nutrition as related to living as long as possible) for a long time.

Thanks!

thejash May 26, 2011, 5:22 PM
7 points
in reply to: Raw_Power’s comment on: Freedom From Choice: Should we surrender our freedom to an external agent? How much?
Just a few quick points, to help:

The main problem is that the article is all over the place. Next time, try to pick a single coherent thing that you want to say, and just say that, in as few of words as possible, with as much evidence (in the form of links to either LW, or outside sources, preferably scientific) You present far too many questions in the introduction, each of which are far too vague to actually be answered or discussed in a coherent way.

The pictures add nothing. I can think of no other LW post that uses pictures like this (though I could be wrong) There are also typos, and misunderstandings of some concepts.

I would suggest reading a little bit more of the site, specifically some of the hardcore articles about decision theory, etc. Then you will have a better idea about how to write a good post. I hope that was helpful!

thejash May 26, 2011, 5:10 PM
1 point
in reply to: Bongo’s comment on: Official Less Wrong Redesign: Nearly there
Above, emile broke it down to:

“Current reasons to vote on a post: A: Agree/disagree with the conclusion B: Think the post is well argued / badly argued C: Think the post is witty / appeals to applause lights”

Separating into agree/disagree and upvote/downvote changes it into A and B+C, as emile pointed out.

However, none of us really want karma to be about C. Maybe we could do better with a simple rewording? “good argument/poor argument” vs “upvote/downvote”? Wording could go in place of the icons, or as hover text.

thejash May 26, 2011, 2:17 AM
3 points
in reply to: InquilineKea’s comment on: Peter Thiel announces the 20 talented people he will pay to drop out of college to pursue innovative scientific and technical projects
I agree that unrealistic projects have long time horizons. They ALSO require lots of people and capital. Starting a NEW, long-term project is NOT a task cut out for a young person—you need connections and experience for it to have a good chance of succeeding.

The candidates who want to work towards these unrealistic goals SHOULD—but they should do so in a way that is more likely to succeed. In this case, a better use of the person and $100K would be giving him a job at SpaceX (which Thiel is an investor in), and using the $100K to hire another person there too :)

Also, it’s funny that you mention that other quote. Am I the only one that reads that and sees a contradiction? You cant fight the problem of “oh no researchers aren’t thinking long-term enough” by telling them to “bring technologies out of the lab and into the market sooner...” I understand what she’s trying to do, it’s just written strangely.

thejash May 26, 2011, 12:44 AM
11 points
on: Peter Thiel announces the 20 talented people he will pay to drop out of college to pursue innovative scientific and technical projects
Overall, very neat and I’m glad it’s being done, and some of the projects look promising. All of the people selected seem exceptionally bright.

However, it seems that some of the projects are so unrealistic as to be counter-productive. As the most glaring example, one person wants to “develop space industry technologies to solve the problem of extraterrestrial resource extraction.”

Really? With $100K? I am fairly confident that the probability of that is extremely low. I think it would be better, in this case, if the individual went through college and did some directed research, since there is a good chance he’d create something valuable. Directly attempting this goal right now seems like a waste of talent.

I wonder why the candidates with unrealistic projects were chosen. Any ideas?

thejash May 17, 2011, 12:42 AM
1 point
in reply to: curiousepic’s comment on: Life Extension through Diet Modification
I too have (accidentally) consumed less than 800 calories in a day (got caught up in something and lost track of time). I felt noticeably worse.

Does anyone know if/how much people can get used to such a diet? For people that fasted regularly (more than one day), is it always like that, or do you sort of get used to it? Being distracted by being hungry is a pretty big downside for me since I spend a lot of time programming, and distractions make me considerably less productive.

thejash Apr 19, 2011, 5:59 PM
0 points
on: Pittsburgh Less Wrong meet-up April 22 7pm
I would love to be there, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be out of town this weekend. Is there any way we could reschedule? If not, I’m happy to wait for the next one as well.

thejash Feb 8, 2011, 1:55 PM
25 points
0
on: Procedural Knowledge Gaps
Not to be annoying (as I often have questions like this as well), but I’ve found that Google is remarkably helpful in answering those questions. In fact, I tried two of the example questions and the answers seemed very reasonable to me:

http://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+deposit+a+check

http://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+buy+stocks

I also use Google’s suggestions (ie, by typing into Google Instant or Firefox search bar) to help phrase my question in the most common way, or to provide alternative related questions that might be more what I mean. For example, when typing “how to buy stocks” it suggested:

“how to buy stocks with out a broker”

“how to buy stocks online”

“how to buy stocks for beginners”

thejash Apr 19, 2010, 3:47 AM
10 points
on: Attention Lurkers: Please say hi
Hi. I lurk because I haven’t had time to read enough of the sequences, and because I usually read posts well after they are published. By the time I get around to reading an post, all of my arguments and counter-arguments are already presented for me in the existing comments. That’s a big part of why I liked the site in the first place.