"Ask for help on your project" open thread

This thread may not be the right place for it, but LessWrong should host a job board and a place for finding startup co-founders and similar business deals.

It would benefit users:

1. Instrumental rationality should, if it's all it's cracked up to be, make for better employees and business partners.
2. The people here are self-selected for greater-than-average intelligence.
3. A person's LessWrong karma and postings (along with other online materials) give some sense of their abilities.
4. LessWrong fosters a sense of community, which is useful in making deals.

LW would not be as useful for recruiting to industry-specific roles requiring specific training and experience , but that's not too much of a problem as there is a heavy weighting of people in their earlier twenties,who have not yet launched a career.

It would benefit LW: It would be another draw and build the sense of community; and in the long run, it may result in donations to the relevant organizations; if it is very successful, LW could even charge for job postings.

I note that Quixey has already taken a shot in this direction. There were some negative reactions, which I agree with--why do they get to put commercial material here?

But if this business function were to become official, there would be fewer objections. Such a sub-site could even give advantage to posters with high LW karma.

I didn't post about it in the "What are you working on" thread, because... well... I was busy working on it :P

I'm working with a few other Less Wrong folks (from various meetups) to foster a larger, healthier, happier, more productive, more interconnected community of meet-space rationalists. At the Megameetup last weekend I tested some ideas about telepresence, and pitched some ideas to people from Cambrige and Washington DC.

While there are subtler things we're working on, there are four big tentpole events that I hope to rally people around:

1) Hold a Less Wrong meetup at the Reason Rally on March 24th (this was already underway, but a little more concrete now).

2) Hold a Summer Solstice festival (celebrating the natural beauty of the world, and getting us outside for some much needed fresh air and exercise).

3) Sometime in the fall (preferably on some kind of historically significant day), hold a celebration of technology. This holiday will not be repeated each year. Rather, it will be repeated once per cycle of Moore's Law's progress. (We'll be purchasing a cheap computer specifically for Moore Day, and run some complex, visually interesting task that we display on a large monitor. Approximately every 18 months, we'll upgrade it or get a new one and see how well it can perform the original task). This is the event that I was particularly interested in telepresence for. I'm hoping to get multiple communities participating simultaneously and at least briefly getting to wave to each other from across cyberspace. One thing I think most of Less Wrong can agree on, and get excited about, is how awesome technology can get in the future. (Even if we disagree on some particulars, or on ethical concerns).

4) We will be reprising the Winter Solstice, paying tribute to the harshness of the world, respecting the universe as a worthy opponent, and vowing to help create a better future.

What do I need from other people? Well, as much as people have to offer, really. I am confident than I can put something worthwhile together even if I'm doing it alone, but the more people contribute ideas, activities, organization, and grunt work during the execution, the better this will be. And the more people we get ultimately participating, the better the payoff.

If you have any kind of interest, whether in contributing skilled labor, a desire to influence the nature of the events, or a williness to carry boxes or prepare food, you can join the mailing list.

I'm working on a Chinese translation of FacingTheSingularity.com; if you are a Mandarin speakers willing to proofread or help translate, please PM me.

A version of the first chapter can be found here.

(I created this thread after wondering about whether I should post an ask this in an open thread, or as a top-level post)

I (and another LWer) are working on an overview/review of Bryan Caplan's Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids. We have a very rough draft and would appreciate feedback on that.

Caplan argues that twin and adoption studies strongly suggest that parenting has much less impact on adult life outcomes of the children than most people expect. So far we've focused on presenting a rough outline of that argument. Our main intent is to make people interested in reading the book as well as draw out criticism of the book's thesis. I'm curious if you think our focus should be expanded and what can be cut out or should be added.

As mentioned here, I've spent some time figuring out what specific things I can do to procrastinate less. I turned what advice I found in Piers Steel's The Procrastination Equation into a 'flowchart' that I printed and posted directly above my computer monitor. The instant I notice I'm procrastinating, I look at it, find a specific thing to do, do it, and get back on track. It's been working really well for me.

If anyone is interested, I'd love to get some feedback from others who try out the poster, whether it's helpful, whether it makes sense, what could be changed, etc. The picture is available here.

I'm looking for a biochemist to cofound a pharmaceutical research laboratory with.

How would I say this, if I were speaking it out loud?

"All x : Die(x) = Not Exist x : Not Die(x)"

Working on collaborative argument mapping/debate mapping with a bunch of other people. Facebook group here. It's very multidisciplinary and has the potential for high impact.

I'm initiating an expert group to evaluate the risk of emerging zoonotic infections (the source of most new pandemic hazards).

We have an initial meeting set for the end of the month, and I could use any tips for ensuring that the group provides the most accurate and useful information possible. I see my role in this group as that of Confessor, but I have a fair bit of control over the group's structure and deliberation process.

I've been reading up on eliciting expert probability estimates and group judgement, but I'm sure there are low-hanging fruit remaining for the aspiring rationalist.

I can provide more information by PM/email if requested. Thanks in advance!

I am a student entering University that just found out that he will have to take some placement exams during orientation. Specifically for Chemistry 131 and Calculus 1. I'm pretty sure that I can place into Cal 1, but I've never taken Chemistry before. I think it would be a cool challenge to see if I can teach myself Chemistry well enough to pass an exam by the time mid June rolls around.

If anyone wants to help just send me a PM telling me what your experience with basic Chemistry has been, and what you think I should focus on for the exam.

I know this isn't anything cool, but it's what I'm working on. It will also be interesting to see how well I am able to use my instrumental rationality to achieve this goal of mine, so I could make it interesting by keeping y'all updated? I don't know, just please let me know if you have thoughts for me.

I stopped believing in God a few years ago, and - like this tradition - I'm writing an essay to explain how that happened.

I need some constructive, critical feedback on the current draft. Is anyone interested?

For the last 30+ days, I've been randomly taking vitamin D before bed and recording sleep data with Zeo as well as my best guess whether it was D or placebo: http://www.gwern.net/Zeo#vitamin-d

But I'm going to finish within the next <10 days, and then it's time for analysis. I would like to do a real statistical analysis, like a 'one-tailed T test', on the ZQ and components like length of REM sleep, but I don't actually know how - I've never used the standard statistical programs or packages like R. (Yes, yes, I know, I should learn real statistics. I haven't yet, though.)

My needs aren't too complex, I'm just asking whether the vitamin D did anything (bad), so maybe there is an easy to use online tool or something which would handle it?

mydata <- read.table("c:/sleepdata.csv", header=TRUE, sep=",") # Read in data w/ variable names in header
fit <- lm(ZQ ~ guess + placebo, data=mydata) # Compute linear regression
summary(fit) # Get estimated coefficients with t-statistics and p-values

I have a second post nearly ready, in what could (but I have no firm expectations on this score) develop into a mini-sequence on rationality and software engineering. It's about causal inference, causal diagrams, and some famous results on causes of software project failure.

Anyone interested in reading the draft and commenting, before I post to Main?

Any advice on the timing of releasing this second post? Specifically, is it too soon yet after last week's?

Also, I'd be interested in getting in touch with people who have access to the SpringerLink article database. For, um, general discussion, please pm me.