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Comment by Trevor Hill-Hand (Jadael) on So you want to save the world? An account in paladinhood · 2023-11-23T00:01:09.237Z · LW · GW

I see people upvoting this, and I think I can see some good insights in this post, but MAN are glowfics obnoxious to read, and this feels really hard to read in a very similar way. I'm sad it is not easier to read.

Comment by Trevor Hill-Hand (Jadael) on When should I close the fridge? · 2023-05-18T17:29:37.021Z · LW · GW

Something that may help build a better model/intuition is this video from Technology Connections: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGAhWgkKlHI

I mentally visualize the cold air as a liquid when I open the door, or maybe picturing it looking similar to the fog from dry ice.

Since it's cold, it falls downward, "pouring" out onto the floor, and probably does not take more than a few seconds, though I would love to see someone capture it on video with a thermal camera.

After that, I figure it doesn't really matter how long the door is open, until you start talking about leaving it open for 10+ minutes where you can then start to worry about the food's temperature rising, and the fridge wasting energy trying to cool the open space.

On the timescale of just a few moments while you grab stuff, the damage is already done once you open it the first time, and leaving it open or opening/closing it again doesn't really affect anything.

This is also why grocery stores and restaurant kitchens tend to have reach-in fridges, open from the top like a chest freezer, instead of vertical doors (though, that's also for convenience).

Comment by Trevor Hill-Hand (Jadael) on ask me about my battery · 2023-04-22T03:35:04.828Z · LW · GW

I don't think it would be TOO long, I happily read through very long posts on here.

However, that said, I was curious enough to read that blog post, and that's about the length and level of detail I expect in a normal short-to-medium size LW post, but it also stopped short of where I wanted it to. I hope that helps calibrate a little? I don't know how "typical" I am as an example LW reader though.

Oh, and because I know it annoys me when people get distracted away from the main question by this sort of stuff, question is "Can you share the experimental results with just enough explanation to understand the methodology", because I think everything else will flow naturally from questions about the experiment and the results.

Comment by Trevor Hill-Hand (Jadael) on Transcript: Testing ChatGPT's Performance in Engineering · 2023-03-01T16:07:18.978Z · LW · GW

I've been doing similar things with my day-to-day work like making stuff in CSS/Bootstrap or Excel, and my hobbies like mucking about in Twine or VCV Rack, and have noticed:

  • a similar vibe of there seems to be a "goldilocks prompt narrowness" that gives really good results
  • that goldilocks band is different for different topics
  • plausible-sounding errors sneak in at all levels except the broadest, where it tends more towards very hedged "fluffy" statements like "be careful!"

However, if you treat it almost like a student, and inform it of the errors/consequences of whatever it suggested, it's often surprisingly good at correcting the error, but here is where differences between how much it "understands" domains like "CSS" vs. "Twine's Harlowe 3.3.4 macro format" become easier to see- it seems much more likely to make up function and features of Harlowe that resemble things from more popular languages.

For whatever reason, it's really fun to engage it on things you have expertise in and correct it and/or rubber duck off of it. It gives you a weird child of expertise and outsider art.

Comment by Trevor Hill-Hand (Jadael) on A simple proposal for preserving free speech on twitter · 2023-01-15T22:29:35.063Z · LW · GW

My first thought, and the first thought my wife had, was that this idea feels really good at first, and the reasoning sound, but it also feels a bit like what you would do if you wanted to intentionally exacerbate echo-chamber effects. Whether it would it actually have that effect, I don't know.

Comment by Trevor Hill-Hand (Jadael) on How to eat potato chips while typing · 2023-01-03T15:16:53.681Z · LW · GW

I've been doing this for years! When I worked in an office, I had a set of metal chopsticks I was able to leave on my desk — metal was easier to clean.

Comment by Trevor Hill-Hand (Jadael) on Using Obsidian if you're used to using Roam · 2022-12-11T22:28:59.719Z · LW · GW

RE:Footnote #4:

I'll come back to this at some point. Specifically, I'd like clicking that link either to take me to the correct note if it already exists, or CREATE the note if it doesn't exist, while triggering the Templater action that generates all the nice dynamic content on the Daily Note.

I found today, after following this tutorial (which is great, btw, with some tweaks for personal preference this thoroughly fixes everything I felt missing from Obsidian), that putting the template in both the "Daily Notes" template AND as a "Folder Template" made the yesterday/tomorrow links works as-is, with the file either being visited, or created with the template. My hypothesis is the template you put directly into the Daily Notes settings only triggers when using the "Open Today's Daily Note" button, so Templater's "folder template" trigger is needed.

In fact, it seems like the Folder Template is all you need, but I have a hunch that the "direct" Daily Note template might be faster in some cases? It's probably just a superstition, I don't know if there's a good way to test it.

EDIT: To make it immune to what setting you have for here new notes are created, I had to specifiy the full path in the template:

<< [[Daily Notes/<% fileDate = moment(tp.file.title, 'YYYY-MM-DD dddd').subtract(1, 'd').format('YYYY-MM-DD dddd') %>|Yesterday]] | [[Daily Notes/<% fileDate = moment(tp.file.title, 'YYYY-MM-DD dddd').add(1, 'd').format('YYYY-MM-DD dddd') %>|Tomorrow]] >>

The path and the daily note name format have to match whatever you've set up for Daily Notes.

Comment by Jadael on [deleted post] 2022-10-01T18:18:25.622Z

courage to reject an all powerful authority on moral grounds

This was the most interesting part of the whole story to me, and it's an angle I haven't quite seen in this type of story before. However, I think it was in competition with the personalities of Elohim and Shaitan. They felt too petty and talking-past-each-other to make sense as people from an enlightened race. Maybe if their "conflict" was also a pre-planned part of their strategy, instead of a squabble?

The cultural and literary references didn't bother me, but they did mean that by the end of the first few paragraphs I was like, "Oh okay, we're doing an Erich von Daniken/Assasin's Creed/Prometheus," and then everything played out about how I expected.

I wanted a few more surprises, I think. At first it felt like maybe the main characters were far-future humans, and maybe it would have been fun to let that possibility linger for longer. Or just focus in more on the central theme and how it could subvert and/or support the Ancient Aliens narrative.

But I did enjoy reading it! Got me visualizing some neat things.

Comment by Trevor Hill-Hand (Jadael) on How do you concisely communicate & navigate the politics / culture at your job working at a large corporation or institution? · 2022-07-12T19:54:19.921Z · LW · GW

Oh, and whenever you are able, run things through www.hemingwayapp.com and optimize for shortest length and lowest grade level without losing information.

"I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead."

Comment by Trevor Hill-Hand (Jadael) on How do you concisely communicate & navigate the politics / culture at your job working at a large corporation or institution? · 2022-07-12T19:48:45.425Z · LW · GW

I ended up as part of a team managing the internal communication & knowledge platform for a company that was at the time (early 2020) about ~100,000 employees, now ~146,000. My area of responsibility now includes over 20,000 employees, but I do not directly oversee anyone. I did not have education or much experience particular to this domain, but somehow became a preferred pick for the role, so make of that what you will.

The strategy I've always tried to employ is to treat everyone as intelligent equals, and making as much effort as possible to understand, and earnestly explain, the way things are "supposed" to work in a bureaucratic perspective — who needs to approve, what process needs to be followed, while at the same time consciously addressing instances where what people want/need might be different, and that bureaucracies must be understood in that context. In other words, be aware of the Chesterton's fence principle, but also be aware that taking down the fence is an option that may need to be discussed.

The most common... I don't want to say "obstacle" because that feels so strong, but the thing I most often have to be consciously aware of, is getting the input of everyone whose input should be included. You have to actively seek it out, and push people to give input. It's never because anyone feels "silenced" or anything like that, it's more often that people just feel too busy, or feel their insight isn't important enough, or is not different enough, or wouldn't matter anyway. Voter turnout problems, now that I think about it.

These two talks cover a lot more in ways I think are really useful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkLGLKcplkM — Concrete Practices to Be a Better Leader: Framing & Intention

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRaFJHK0S4 — Game Studio Management: Making It Great

There's also a little anecdote, by Adam Savage, talking about Michael Stevens, that I can't find (it's somewhere in his Q&A videos on the Tested channel), so I won't try to directly quote it. Adam was talking about asking Michael how he manages to stay so respectful of people, even when telling them things they don't know, and Michael answered something like "Overestimate their intelligence, underestimate their vocabulary."

Comment by Trevor Hill-Hand (Jadael) on What is the LessWrong Logo(?) Supposed to Represent? · 2022-06-29T14:53:56.006Z · LW · GW

I think an important aspect to mention explicitly is that it's paired with the phrase "a map that reflects the territory". It's important not because Harold Fiske or the Mississippi River are important to rationality, but because this image exemplifies the idea of that a map is meant to help you understand and reason about something that is not the map.

Comment by Trevor Hill-Hand (Jadael) on It’s Probably Not Lithium · 2022-06-29T14:47:21.677Z · LW · GW

I agree. Their 'candidate explanations' felt unsatisfying when I got to them, because they spend so much time building up what a good explanation would necessarily feel like. Maybe that was the goal, but if it was, they didn't make it explicit.

Comment by Trevor Hill-Hand (Jadael) on Kurzgesagt – The Last Human (Youtube) · 2022-06-29T14:29:18.719Z · LW · GW

Watched this last night. Kurzgesagt is one of the greatest achievements YouTube has enabled, in my opinion.

As a LessWrong reader I had heard a lot of these ideas before, but part that surprised me was Scenario 1: Even if we "only" thrive about as long as other Earth mammals, the 200,000 years modern humans have been around is still only about 1/5th of the way through our story.

Comment by Jadael on [deleted post] 2022-05-18T15:29:28.183Z

I'm doing this as a comment, not an answer, because it's only slightly related to the specific question, but Matt Parker did some videos about similar "impossible" events and/or probability claims, and he includes discussions on why we tend to make errors like that, as humans.

How lucky is TOO lucky? — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ko3TdPy0TU

How did the 'impossible' Perfect Bridge Deal happen? — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9-b-QJZdVA

Comment by Trevor Hill-Hand (Jadael) on In the very near future the internet will answer all of our questions and that makes me sad · 2022-03-24T14:18:54.906Z · LW · GW

I suppose the hope is that then there will be a third tier: "How to move your couch the right way, and why everyone thinks you need avocados for it."

Comment by Trevor Hill-Hand (Jadael) on Being right isn't enough. Confidence is very important. · 2020-04-07T12:59:23.609Z · LW · GW

The above comment just helped me realise that the connotation above is why I like the word "credence". Does "credence" have similar problems in other cultures though?

Comment by Trevor Hill-Hand (Jadael) on Cambridge Prediction Game · 2020-01-25T19:55:42.927Z · LW · GW

Can you elaborate more on whether there have been noticeable results in either A) taking successful actions based on the most recent predictions or B) improving the forecasting skills of the players? And if so- how were these things measured? How would you prefer to measure them?

Comment by Trevor Hill-Hand (Jadael) on Door Ideas · 2019-10-25T13:30:44.188Z · LW · GW

Opening in the center, away from you, for sure. Whether symmetric or asymmetric.

In your scenario of carrying in cargo (whether groceries or, say, a sleeping child), having both swing away is a clear advantage.

I think that does make the door significantly less secure against forced entry, but it there's already a secure outer door that's maybe less important?

Comment by Trevor Hill-Hand (Jadael) on Implementing an Idea-Management System · 2019-10-19T15:46:13.547Z · LW · GW

I've been using Roam for about four weeks (found via the Zettelkasten Method article linked in an earlier comment). I wholeheartedly agree with every claim above- Roam lets me freely write down things I want to remember, in a way that I can trust future-me will actually be able to use.

I track commitments using the /TODO feature, and have found that it doesn't even matter when and where I write it (it doesn't even have to be on the page for the relevant project), because all you have to do is browse to the page "TODO" to see all your to-do items.

When you check them off ("{{[[todo]]}}" renders as a clickable checkbox), the word "TODO" gets replaced with "DONE" and thus the item vanishes from the TODO page.

I too make a page for anything I want to mentally upgrade to a "project"; my rule of thumb is anything that is going to require meetings is a 'Project' rather than just a 'Task'. I also throw the #project tag into it somewhere.

I also encourage this as a lifehack: make a page for "?" and periodically review any questions you've written down.

I keep the follow pages in my favorites: TODO, DONE, ?, and any active projects.

Comment by Trevor Hill-Hand (Jadael) on A Personal Rationality Wishlist · 2019-08-27T14:07:23.346Z · LW · GW

Yes- maybe they're just very uncommon, but I've never been on a bike that I could gear down low enough that it felt easier to pedal than to take a step, on a moderate hill.

Comment by Jadael on [deleted post] 2019-07-28T21:52:24.914Z

Are there any other Vegas locals that might be interested?

Comment by Trevor Hill-Hand (Jadael) on Why Don't Creators Switch to their Own Platforms? · 2018-12-23T07:24:29.121Z · LW · GW

I am actually starting to see this; Droput.tv is one example https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/11/19/dropout-tv-review/

But, they still advertise on existing platforms like YouTube, Twitter, etc.

I don't know how that affects this model.

Comment by Trevor Hill-Hand (Jadael) on Is the human brain a valid choice for the Universal Turing Machine in Solomonoff Induction? · 2018-12-08T18:43:38.079Z · LW · GW

Wouldn't carrying this analogy to its conclusion mean that you would have to generalize it for a human mind which doesn't already have a bunch of prior understanding of the world? Instead of a universal turing machine, you're using "a universal turing machine that has been taught about witches", which feels like it should be called out as part of the experimental methodology.

So really you would imagine describing the hypothesis and all of the information required to understand the hypotheses to a human that doesn't already know English and isn't already familiar with witches. Rather than a single sentence you'd end up with a book.

I remember somewhere in the sequences the example of Thor causing thunderstorms *feels* simpler to us than weather dynamics, because our brains handwave away the complexity of Thor.

Source: pure speculation and hazy recollection of old LessWrong articles.

Comment by Trevor Hill-Hand (Jadael) on An Ontology of Systemic Failures: Dragons, Bullshit Mountain, and the Cloud of Doom · 2018-09-09T15:14:46.140Z · LW · GW

To be more specific, after rereading the article and thinking for a few minutes, the skill seems to be in correctly deciding whether to accept "everything is a little slow and painful!" as a single big symptom (Mountain), or seeing it as an excuse to not examine and uncover the many small symptoms contributing to that feeling (Cloud). Probably a good place for some heuristics on what bad diagnoses look like.

Comment by Trevor Hill-Hand (Jadael) on An Ontology of Systemic Failures: Dragons, Bullshit Mountain, and the Cloud of Doom · 2018-09-09T15:11:21.408Z · LW · GW

The difference between Mountains and Clouds seems to be the most critical. They're both described as "problems with many small causes", and now I know they need different strategies, but I don't feel well equipped to notice differences, if any.

Comment by Trevor Hill-Hand (Jadael) on Zetetic explanation · 2018-08-27T02:35:29.663Z · LW · GW

This post helped me notice a difference I've felt between satisfying and unsatisfying explanations; why Feynman explaining something feels different from Wikipedia explaining something. I love it.

Comment by Trevor Hill-Hand (Jadael) on Critiquing Gary Taubes, Final: The Truth About Diets and Weight Loss · 2014-05-22T23:40:51.876Z · LW · GW

There was one famous chicken that was beheaded (during a routine slaughter) just high enough to keep the brain stem intact. A clot coincidentally prevented death from blood loss, and it lived for two years as a touring attraction, before finally dying by choking. It spent most of its time attempting to preen and peck.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken

Comment by Trevor Hill-Hand (Jadael) on Meetup : Las Vegas/Henderson, NV · 2014-03-30T05:48:23.493Z · LW · GW

I am down to clown.