Group rationality diary, 10/1/12

This comment should probably be here. My main rationality-related effort at the moment is working on calibrated predictions - learning as much as I can and starting to teach others. I've been reading Nate Silver's "The Signal and the Noise" - now on chapter 11 of 13, and while it has its moments I can't say I'm bowled over with it.

I've just shot up to the top of the rankings in my GJP team. Though I started Year 2 of the GJP somewhat disappointed (owing in part to several bugs in the interface, and lack of participation from some team members) I'm now happier to have played along. I feel like I've learned a few things about making good forecasts, and it's been quite instructive to witness biases in myself and others.

Nate Silver's book has an intriguing description of poker as rationality training, so I've been playing a little Texas Hold'Em against the computer to get a feel for the game and might revisit Rational Poker at some point - OTOH I'm concerned that the game might prove overly addictive for me, and it seems too much of a hassle to try making any money from it.

I'm considering matched betting instead, if I can figure out whether it's possible to play from my country. One thing Silver eloquently describes is how there is a "performance waterline" in many competitive activities, such that depending on where the waterline currently lies it can be very easy to outperform most players with a bare minimum of training. Economic circumstances have forced the waterline way up in poker, but it still seems to be fairly low in e.g. betting arbitrage and some prediction markets.

I tried using pomodoros for the first time over the weekend. They've been on my to-try list since minicamp, but I never got around to it. The trivial inconvenience of not having a timer seemed to be the biggest cause. On Saturday, I needed to work on some homework that was due today, but I was feeling tired and unmotivated. So I decided to procrastinate by looking for a web-based pomodoro app I could try (here).

Holy crap did it work. Normally when I'm sitting at my computer working on a vaguely difficult problem, like e.g. interpreting some equation (I often write up HW in latex), I quickly find myself on the internet reading mostly useless information. Suddenly I had a Schelling point - every time I tried to click over to Chrome, I just told myself "not in the middle of a pomodoro, wait 10 more minutes and you'll have a break" and that was usually enough.

I didn't strictly abide by the break / work times - often taking a bit longer on my break or my pomodoro in order to finish whatever I was doing, but I don't think that mattered. I also didn't keep track of my "score," e.g. how many pomodoros I'd completed, but it didn't seem important while I doing it, but I'm going to try it out to see if I notice any effect.

I've had trouble working on one of my research-related subproblems for more than an hour or two a day. I started visualizing myself explaining to a peasant farmer ancestor that, really, working for more than an hour a day on this subproblem was just too hard. That's been motivating me to put in closer to 4 hours (with a commensurate increase in results), but I don't know how much staying power that visualization will have. Probably enough to finish our this subproblem (I only have ~15 hours more work to do), but imaginary shame only goes so far.

Two of us from my meetup (both unemployed) decided to help each other look for jobs. We check in by skype or email about weekly to set goals for the week and prod each other about things we said we were going to do. We've been doing this about two months, and one of us did get a job in that time. I wouldn't attribute that directly to the job-finding partnership, but I do think it increased both our output of interview practice and applications completed.

At risk of getting shunned: I read a list of predictions in the Old Testament/Tanakh about the Jewish messiah that are said to be fulfilled by Jesus. They're... awfully specific. And numerous. On matters of common historical fact, that couldn't be orchestrated by him or faked by his supporters.

...so now I have to reconsider my rejection of theism. :\