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I agree it would be good to add a note about push polling, but it's also good to note that the absence of information is itself a choice! The most spare possible survey is not necessarily the most informative. The question of what is a neutral framing is a tricky one, and a question about the future that deliberate does not draw attention to responsibilities is not necessarily less push-poll-y than one that does.
One good idea to take out of this is that other people's ability to articulate their reasons for their belief can be weak—weak enough that it can distract from the strength of evidence for the actual belief. (More people can catch a ball than explain why it follows the arc that it does).
I love GEB! For these kids, it's not going to be a proof-based class. I'm more trying to get them to understand that stat is "a guide to how to update beliefs" rather than "a list of tests with sig/not sig outcomes."
I have learned about Focusing from CFAR instructors and what you took away from it is what I took away as the core, useful thing. Even though this isn't really how it was taught. The version I heard had a lot more focus on the physical sensations (which did bupkis for me) while the thing you described "Is it X?" did more.
I am interested but not planning to move to the Bay Area. I might move to Hyattsville, though: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/fareforward/2014/03/this-is-what-we-do/
- have kids
- polyamory
- read fiction
- earn to give
- animal rights
I'd be interested to see your results!
And I wouldn't invent a new name for ITTs for two reasons: First, you're cutting down on the ability of people who are interested to find other examples, but not teaching them the commonly used name (and limiting how many ITT-interested people find you!). Second, I think the ITT name makes sense, Turing's original example (which he called the Imitation Game) was basically an ITT for gender; it makes sense to keep the allusion.
Knowing where the AEDs are in your workplace is a good idea, too!
Yeah, I'd say so.
My job (not at the WSJ!) gave me The Wall Street Journal Guide to Information Graphics: The Dos and Don'ts of Presenting Data, Facts, and Figures in my new hire bundle, and I love it!
I think they're all pretty exciting! Different forms of monasticism suit different people (and are vulnerable to different forms of doing them wrong) but I'm pretty happy to live in a world with chatty Dominicans wandering and teaching, contemplative orders meditating, etc.
I really liked some of the discussion of Orthodox spirituality in The Mountain of Silence.
With regard to the theological differences, the Orthodox and Catholic churches agree on most of the big things for day-to-day things (sacraments, etc) and, although there are disagreements (the filioque, etc) they're more the kind of thing I'd need to get a theology degree in order to sort out for myself.
I published a book! And Amazon ran out on the second day of it's release!
My book, Arriving At Amen: Seven Catholic Prayers that Even I Can Offer explains how I learned seven kinds of Catholic prayer after conversion.
I can promise it's the LW-iest book you've got to read on prayer, so, if you want to better understand a religious friend or have some ways to open a conversation, you might like it. Plus it cites Ender's Game and Terry Pratchett.
I had to learn prayer in the language of reference I spoke, so my chapter on Confession has a big section on the Sunk Cost Fallacy, and how it makes us afraid to make our sins "real" by acknowledging them. The chapter on Mass explains the communion of saints by referring to cartesian coordinate systems and explaining how people can all be aligned along one dimension of interest.
I had a great time writing this, and, I should mention, Beeminder helped me pull it off!
I think of irrationality as being stuck in a pocket universe. The real world is the way it is, but my biases/blind spots/false beliefs exile me to a smaller world, disconnected from the real one, and I want to correct my errors and return home.
In fact, it's even worse than a pocket universe, because my actions take place in the real world. So every error can have consequences (imagine walking around, blind to trees, and how often you'd bonk your head)
In the US, the federal RFRA law (Religious Freedom Restoration Act) actually has a quasi-relevant test here. RFRA was passed when a ban on certain kinds of drugs kept Native Americans from using peyote in religious rituals, and Congress decided it wanted to re-balance how religious people could seek relief if a law wound up hampering their religious practice. The law wasn't supposed to become a blank check, but it was supposed to give a way to carve out exemptions to neutrally written law (a la Alice doing the "normal" thing without specifically targeting the neighbor).
Here's the test:
You can get an exemption IFF:
- the law represents a "substantial burden" on religious practice
- the law doesn't further a "compelling" state interest
- or, if it does, then the law isn't the "least restrictive means" of serving that interest
I like this test, both for law and for interpersonal issues. So, if Alice were happy to use headphones instead, that might be a less restrictive means and she should do it. If the neighbor dislikes the noise, but isn't "substantially burdened" then Alice might go on as she pleases.
All the terms of art ("substantially burden" "compelling interest" "least restrictive means") have more precise definitions in law than in everyday life, but they give me a few helpful lenses for looking at a disagreement.
I'm sure you'll see me pop up while researching :)
I've just started a job as a news writer at FiveThirtyEight (author archive here), I'm really looking forward to this, and I'd love for folks to think of me as a possibly-summonable research person. If you have a question/dataset/etc related to American news, send me an email (leahDOTlibrescoATgmailDOTcom) and I may wind up researching it and covering it.
The urge occured about as often as before, but when I did roll a one, I felt like I'd really lucked out. When I missed one, I felt good about having it settled, with no tsuris.
I'd tried Beeminding it before then (a cap per week) at it made it feel like I was using up my cookie slots when I went, muting my enjoyment, and meant I always spent a while mulling whether to go.
I try to structure questions so that they'll be less vulnerable to shibboleth exploits (plus, some shammers do do a bit of research to be able to drop in jargon!).
One other approach to avoid constantly haggling with yourself (which I agree is draining and annoying) but without giving up the temptation completely is just to randomize whether you act on your urges.
At an old job, I used to want to go out to get a cookie in the afternoon a couple times a week. I didn't want to act on the urge every time I felt it, but I also didn't want to solve the problem by making afternoon cookies verboten forever. So, when I wanted a cookie, I went to random.org and set it to pick a number from 1-3. If it was a 1, I got a cookie, if not, not.
No decision fatigue, no being "bad cop" to myself, and I got to enjoy a thing I wanted intermittently!
I'm running an Ideological Turing Test about religion, and I need some people to try answering the questions. I've giving a talk at UPenn this week on how to have better fights about religion, and the audience is going to try to sort out honest/faked Christian and atheist answers and see where both sides have trouble understanding the other.
In April, I'll share all the entries on my blog, so you can play along at home and see whether you can distinguish the impostors from the true (non-)believers.
I'm doing a hashtag/image on social media of #LittleAngelsReadUp (a reference to Night Watch). I'm using it to ask friends who haven't ever read Pratchett to tell me, and then I'll buy/loan them a book. I'm getting three people books now.
If you want to join up, I've got the image to share here
I really like the Jesuit examen (a way to review your day and plan for the future) and I recommend Fr. Timothy Gallagher's book on this practice. Gallagher is great at outlining the practice and giving concrete examples of how Catholics have used this debugging-your-life ritual -- it helped me notice not just active errors I was making but ways I was passively letting opportunities to be kind slip by.
Mazel tov! Good luck on the AIME!
I've done a couple LW posts on speaking skills (none intended to be Dark Arts-y), in case you find any helpful:
Four Tips for Public Speaking - The four tips that seemed to improve speeches the most, fastest, when I was mentoring other speakers in college
False Friends and Tone Policing - Ways to recognize if you're giving inadvertent offense that is making it impossible for your audience to listen to you
Change Contexts to Improve Arguments - Putting thought into choosing good environments for disagreement (my living room, with freshly baked cookies, makes people feel safer and more inclined to engage with ugh fields, than rapid-fire and in public on facebook)
That is delightful.
I wonder if the final room is not visible on the Marauder's Map because it's warded or because the room you enter is determined by whether/how the potion is flawed.
As a veteran Potion's professor, Snape would be able to predict very accurately the way a first year would screw up such a fiddly task. Screw it up in the right way, see an innocuous final room with a little "Well done, don't spoil it!" from the Headmaster. Execute it perfectly and trigger... what exactly?
Good job! I still don't know what the best sustainable way for me to practice French is, but I'm sure that doing Duolingo everyday is a big improvement from thinking it would be a good idea to practice French, so that's what I'm doing til I have a better idea.
Excellent point.
I thought Sirius.
Could the thing in the mirror be the Resurrection Stone, instead of the Philosopher's one? Linking Hallows seems more likely to lead into the prophecies about Harry than simply retrieving Flamel's stone.
I've been asked for previous salaries in webform applications where the question is marked as required and won't take dummy info (I tried both "no response" and 0 without success)
I'd nominate C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters as a soft skills book, that gives your System 1 a lot of vivid, specific ways human thinking goes wrong to chew on and find ways out of.
One of my favorite examples is this passage which made a big impression on my System 1 about things that do bore me but I nonetheless get sucked into. (Context note: Screwtape Letters is written as a series of letters from a senior devil to a junior tempter about how to lead human lives astray)
You will find that anything or nothing is sufficient to attract his wandering attention. You no longer need a good book, which he really likes, to keep him from his prayers or his work or his sleep; a column of advertisements in yesterday's paper will do. You can make him waste his time not only in conversation he enjoys with people whom he likes, but also in conversations with those he cares nothing about, on subjects that bore him. You can make him do nothing at all for long periods. You can keep him up late at night, not roistering, but staring at a dead fire in a cold room. All the healthy and outgoing activities which we want him to avoid can be inhibited and nothing given in return, so that at last he may say...'I now see that I spent most my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked.'
For me, thinking of this passage (and the horror of coming to say "I now see that I have spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked") helps me feel very motivated to snap out of boring, sterile activities. It makes the consequences clearer, and, it gives the action of closing the site/app/etc a sense of thrilling defiance.
Boomerang for Gmail is a great way to send delayed messages. I've used it to schedule replies for "tomorrow" while still being able to write the reply immediately, and thus keep up my good "Do it now" Inbox Zero habits.
Yup, I think those are good approaches. There are also franchise-y places like CulinAerie that will offer classes. But I think craigslist/friends might be best if you want someone to tailor to your needs/experience. Also worth finding out wherever restaurant line cooks tend to look for normal job postings and trying to place an ad there.
Yup! Also a put it on hold person. I always wind up reading library books first because they have to be returned, and it makes it easier for me to carve out time that I want to carve out for reading, because the library book has a deadline.
- one-on-one cooking tutoring (get s/o who's good at household cooking to teach you to shop, knife skills, expand recipe repertoire)
- take a level in badassery (lockpicking lesson, car repair, archery class -- anything that will give you a frisson of pleasure when you think - yeah, I know how to X)
- trip to unusual/disciplined environment (Ignatian retreat, etc)
- throw strange, themed party that your friends will remember and discuss for a long time
- fix whatever egronomic thing annoys you most, at present (standing desk?)
- pay s/o to reorganize messy thing in way that makes it easier for you to maintain the tidiness going forward w/o ugh of doing the initial clean-up yourself
I use beeminder to hold myself to a 1am bedtime (my graph is here). I don't use any fancy inputs, I just type the time I'm going to bed in on the app just before I get into bed.
It does give me flexibility to sometimes be up late, as long as I've gotten enough buffer ahead of time.
It was easiest for me to set the input format by entering time in a 24 hr format, where noon is 0. Thus, my bedtime of 1am is 13, and it's easy for me to indicate a midnight (12) or too late 2am (14) time without having to do math on how many hours past bedtime I am/use negative numbers.
I wear a bunch of nerdy shirts (from xkcd, webcomics, thinkgeek) when I'm not at work (where I have to be business casual) and I'm really pleased by the effect! I've gotten into conversations with people who recognized the source, discounts on coffee from the nerdy barista, and I try to hold up my end of the bargain by saying "Nice shirt! I love [X]" to other people wearing similar shirts.
an atheist turned Catholic
Ditto. :)
I suggest rot13ing the quotes/spoilers, so folks like me (who aren't planning to watch the ep) can read the quotes without inconveniencing others.
And thanks for assembling them!
What kind of freelance writing are you doing/could you do? Whether or not you have a job at a newspaper, do you have any relationships with editors who you can pitch? Most people enter writing by doing a lot of freelancing and (maybe) ending up with a job, but amassing a big portfolio of clips.
I'm not sure, from this post, which kind of journalism you're interested in. Longform profiles? Reviews? Beat reporting? Editorial?
You can't get steady work doing any of those easily, but you can often get sporadic work (and feedback/experience) doing any of them
I have a half hour walking commute, which I really love taking. I get to say Morning and Evening Office on the walk and still have time for some reading. When it gets cold, I tend to read more on kindle, since the "pages" are easier to turn in gloves. But, overall, it's nice, active time to read.
I built my first arduino project this month! I was Alina Starkov, the Sun Summoner, for Halloween, so I built accelerometer controlled LED gauntlets so I could turn the lights at my wrists on and off with gestures.
The instructable I wrote is here.
I had an enormous amount of fun, and the arduino system (I was using LilyPad, since I needed it to be sewable) was very beginner friendly. Glad to answer questions/provide encouragement!
Oh, and here are pics of the final costume. (I ran into a HJPEV at my Halloween party)
I built my first arduino project this month! I was Alina Starkov, the Sun Summoner, for Halloween, so I built accelerometer controlled LED gauntlets so I could turn the lights at my wrists on and off with gestures.
The instructable I wrote is here.
I had an enormous amount of fun, and the arduino system (I was using LilyPad, since I needed it to be sewable) was very beginner friendly. Glad to answer questions/provide encouragement!
Oh, and here are pics of the final costume. (I ran into a HJPEV at my Halloween party)
I break the project down into small sections (I hate writing long things, and if I had written my book as a book, rather than as chapters, each divided into ~1k word sections, I would not have written it). So, the first question is how it makes sense to start divvying up.
For the book, I knew what the different chapters would be (Rosary, Divine Office, Examen, etc), so I made a Freemind diagram of all the points/ideas/etc I expected to use in each of those sections. (And that just needed to be enough of a handle for me to remember what I was talking about. Seeing a sub-bullet under "Confession" that said "Tam Lin" probably wouldn't be much help to anyone else!).
So, when I worked on the book, I wasn't working on the whole book. I just needed to turn "Confession -> Tam Lin" from notation into text.
I did a similar thing with my college thesis, where I started by grabbing references, dumped them all into a doc, moved them around so they were grouped together in categories like "Human Flesh Search" "Gov't Using Collective Score-Settling" etc, and then worked on individual sections.
I thought of what I was doing as a very small task, just filling in connective tissue between citations and examples. This tends to help me a lot.
I think the other benefit of the "break it down" approach is that you don't wind up with a blank document thinking "What will I do?" You sit down saying "Ok, today, I need to explain why we should approach Confession in the same spirit as Janet did her rescue of Tam Lin." Writing and choosing what to write work better for me if they are two separate tasks.
Meh, I could not remember where I was in relation to this threshhold without scrolling up, and I don't open tabs to check people's karma while I'm reading and commenting.
I keep wrapping paper around, both for wrapping presents and to give me a tool for killing bugs at a can't-jump-on-me-from-here distance.
Just wanted to say good job for realizing the problem was probably with this job, not with you. You may find it helpful, motivationally, to talk to friends/acquaintances and ask them what they like best about their job, so that "a job that doesn't make you miserable" feels more achievable and you feel more hopeful/driven about pursuing it.
I say this b/c a friend of mine was miserable at his job, and I realized how miserable when I told one funny story about my workplace, and he wondered if he could work there, specifically, because I didn't seem unhappy. It was clear he didn't alieve that you could be less unhappy than he was (throwing up every day) at most jobs. In that state of mind, it's hard to get excited about applying!
Also, try to do nice things for yourself, generally. Being as unhappy as you sound in your job is kind of like having walking pneumonia -- it's a big energy drain on everything else you're doing. You may find it helpful to ask "What would I do to be kind to a friend who had walking pneumonia?" and then do those things for yourself. You'll wind up in a new job eventually, but, in the interim, you may want to make sure you treat the symptoms, as well as the root problem.
I like reading the transcripts of TAL, but I hate listening to podcasts, so I don't know what the audio is like. I do definitely recommend the reporting/storytelling!
Right, I'm saying that I do think it's possible that people working 60hr weeks might be more productive while being unhappier than the 40hr people. I don't trust that happiness and productivity are tightly correlated enough that an employer trying to get more of the latter out of me will help me out with the former.
Plus, there are a bunch of jobs that currently exist where the model is to extract a lot of productivity over 2-3 years while quashing an outside life and then to just hire a new crop of people when your current set burn out (TFA, I-banking, Hill jobs, etc).