(Accidentally deleted comment; the main idea was that friendships come from growing up together, or doing some growth activity together, and that's why it's harder to get friends as an adult unless you're taking some kind of class.)

Thanks.

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/fteSdEFCv4r43rhj7/open-thread-september-2018 [LW · GW]

1. What accomplishments are you celebrating from the last month?
2. What are you reading?
3. What reflections do you have for yourself or others from the last month?
4. What have you tried out this month?

My answers:

1. Some huge meditation progress including finding 5th jhana, and digging myself out of a crash. Writing more now and someone on the discord challenged me to write 20k words in a week so I will probably do that.
2. Reading several books about meditation, breathing, morality, compassion and more.
3. I made some useful discoveries by going over old notes. I would suggest others keep a book and regularly review their notes.
4. Various types of meditation with different objects.

I'm interested in collecting information on alternative platforms to facebook (that seem to offer some benefit).

E.g.:

Mastodon

Diaspora

If you know of others, especially though not necessarily with strong reasons for using them preferentially, I'd appreciate knowing!

Hey admins: The "ë" in "Michaël Trazzi" is weird, probably a bug in your handling of Unicode.

So I have a question. I'm really stoked about the potential of AI. For a number of reasons, I think that robotics - using machine learning systems to run physical robots, and using the data from physically interacting with our world plus the revenue they earn - is the fastest and most certain way to make genuine forward progress in AI. The reasons have to do with the fact that modeling the immediate term physical world is something that you can get by far the greatest accuracy with, that a robotic system produces far cleaner data than any type of passive observer, and I think that higher level thought requires subsystems trained on lower level phenomena.

But if you look at job listings - I am a few months from finishing the OMSCS Master's in machine learning and have years of embedded systems experience - I rarely see postings for anyone working on these kinds of systems. Where can I get a job in the field?

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/RZrw9wpEWEwWRTzLk/more-art-less-stink-taking-the-pu-out-of-pua#p5Y9gDGGbRXZoJaFD

Recent resurrection of an old post.

blog link: Aenigma Mundi Rect

these posts are generated in part by mentally pushing towards what seems most true-and-important (usually with indirect links to reducing existential risk), then touching a thread of felt sense, and then trying to express that felt sense/model with as much adherence to the spirit as possible. in particular, clarity, organization, and literalness are sacrificed (even beyond a regrettably clumsy writing faculty); nonetheless interpretation and feedback is desired about what happens in you if you read or skim some stuff there.