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Comment by Zian on There is way too much serendipity · 2024-01-21T18:27:47.624Z · LW · GW

As anecdotal support for "constantly tasting everything", I offer my high school scientific calculator. After one year of 2 hrs per day of chemistry class, its crevices around the display had a permanent collection of precipitate.

I suspect that even without intentionally tasting things, nearly everything in a lab is ingested as an aerosol. It would be unsurprising if months of such exposure led someone to develop a hunch about a molecule.

Comment by Zian on Experiments as a Third Alternative · 2023-10-29T08:11:10.724Z · LW · GW

If you're looking for an experimental protocol, the ADHD MTA trial's protocol looks pretty good.

It is described at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10591283/ and explains in detail how the doctors decided when to try increasing the dosage. It supports evand's assertion that improvement should be noticeable quickly.

Comment by Zian on What's the easiest way to make a luminator? · 2023-09-06T04:41:47.062Z · LW · GW

How much ambient light is there? Is it all from sunlight?

Comment by Zian on What's the easiest way to make a luminator? · 2023-09-06T00:15:55.373Z · LW · GW
  1. Find a company that makes or sells high quality LEDs
  2. Buy their largest lighting fixture.
  3. Install fixture.

Sample companies:

  • Waveform
  • Yuji LED
Comment by Zian on A Golden Age of Building? Excerpts and lessons from Empire State, Pentagon, Skunk Works and SpaceX · 2023-09-05T07:19:52.829Z · LW · GW

You may also be interested in the Transit Cost database, which compares the cost of constructing things by country.

If you're feeling down, here's a recent project that seems to have worked out.

San Diego Mid-Coast Trolley Extension:

Comment by Zian on Neuronpedia - AI Safety Game · 2023-08-07T06:32:36.140Z · LW · GW

I got a little weirded out at the OAuth prompt because it said "johnny" wanted to get my account. I know who Neuronpedia is. I didn't know who "johnny" was until I did some more reading and figured out that you're Johnny.

Please consider registering a dedicated account for the organization ("Neuropedia", perhaps) and doing the OAuth through the organization's account so that the prompt doesn't surprise users as much.

Comment by Zian on Another medical miracle · 2023-06-27T03:07:56.792Z · LW · GW

In a later comment, the original poster said that the Total Protein seemed fine. Unfortunately, https://www.ajkd.org/article/S0272-6386(99)70278-7/fulltext suggests that the person looking at the labs would have to know that they ought to look closely at the albumin level, specifically. It wouldn't be the first time that "Reality has a surprising amount of detail" where overlooking 1 thing is enough to get into trouble.

It would be unsurprising if the albumin level turned out to be low, if the A/G ratio was slightly off despite the normal-looking total protein values, etc.

As SirTruffleberry said, this situation would be a place where having long-term trends could help.

Comment by Zian on Another medical miracle · 2023-06-25T23:48:36.796Z · LW · GW

It is also possible that his lab values fell just barely within the normal ranges.

Comment by Zian on Guide to rationalist interior decorating · 2023-06-22T01:57:31.967Z · LW · GW

What are you comparing?

Comment by Zian on Guide to rationalist interior decorating · 2023-06-19T07:31:11.026Z · LW · GW

FYI, the Waveform article promotes the use of the Kruithof curve but that relationship between lumens and preference could not be replicated by a study from 1990 (https://doi.org/10.1177%2F096032719002200102).

Chapter 5 of a 2005 thesis ("Human lighting demands : healthy lighting in an office environment") from TU/e has specific recommendations for brightness, contrast, etc. Its DOI is 10.6100/IR594257 (https://doi.org/10.6100/IR594257).

Full citation: Aries, M. B. C. (2005). Human lighting demands : healthy lighting in an office environment. [Phd Thesis 1 (Research TU/e / Graduation TU/e), Built Environment]. Technische Universiteit Eindhoven. https://doi.org/10.6100/IR594257

Comment by Zian on Discussion about AI Safety funding (FB transcript) · 2023-05-01T06:13:58.691Z · LW · GW

The content may be public but does copyright law allow these sorts of quotes?

Which venue controls Facebook posts' copyright? I assume that Lesswrong.com's liability is also affected by the law that applies to the location of Lightcone's office.

I do not know the answer but desired to mention them in case they are relevant.

Comment by Zian on Gas and Water · 2023-04-21T08:46:01.757Z · LW · GW

Do you mean that the container with the contaminated fuel was stored outdoors in the container that you linked to?

If yes, then a couple things come to mind:

  1. Did you confirm that the container was watertight?
  2. Is it possible that the relatively small size of water molecules meant that they could sneak past mechanisms designed to hold back large hydrocarbons?
Comment by Zian on The UBI dystopia: a glimpse into the future via present-day abuses · 2023-04-18T08:42:08.641Z · LW · GW

Thanks for the clarification.

Comment by Zian on The UBI dystopia: a glimpse into the future via present-day abuses · 2023-04-15T08:21:48.669Z · LW · GW

Are you limiting the phrase "Social Security" to the funds given to the elderly or are you including things like disability payments?

Comment by Zian on Repugnant levels of violins · 2023-04-14T09:20:15.441Z · LW · GW

It seems that having a teacher tell you when to move up/onwards is critical. Otherwise, it can be tricky to realize that the hardware is the limitation after months of working on your own abilities/skills.

Comment by Zian on Let's make the truth easier to find · 2023-03-20T05:24:32.177Z · LW · GW

Regarding the shopping example, I find that B2B websites like Fisher Scientific and McMaster-Carr have good search and filter options. Pcpartpicker.com is also a good example.

Comment by Zian on Tesla Model 3 Review · 2023-01-17T11:35:36.818Z · LW · GW

How did you mitigate the risk of being arrested as a car thief due to false reports by Hertz?

Comment by Zian on Things that can kill you quickly: What everyone should know about first aid · 2022-12-29T08:42:54.104Z · LW · GW

Calling 911 or your local emergency number is also a good default action because the call taker should be trained to walk you through some of the things the post described.

Don't be afraid of creating duplicate 911 calls for something like a big fire or car crash. Merging duplicates and rapidly closing out unnecessary calls is the communications center's job, not yours.

Expect to be asked for a description of the problem and your location. Don't worry if you don't know an exact address. You may also be asked for your phone number.

It is also OK to indicate that you are uncertain about something such as whether or not the patient is breathing.

Comment by Zian on Levelling Up in AI Safety Research Engineering · 2022-12-26T03:52:08.182Z · LW · GW

I recognize many of the institutions you mentioned such as Nvidia and MIT. How confident are you that the more obscure ones like Hugging Face are trustworthy?

Comment by Zian on Reflecting on the 2022 Guild of the Rose Workshops · 2022-12-25T00:38:44.556Z · LW · GW

The title says "Reflecting on the 2022 Guild of the Rose Workshops" but the article does not discuss the results of the workshops or the experiences related to operating them. Instead, the article lists the contents of each past workshop.

Is it possible to update the title to better reflect the article's contents?

Comment by Zian on "Attention Passengers": not for Signs · 2022-12-07T05:51:51.370Z · LW · GW

How do you think the employees in charge of the signs will benefit if they start omitting the phrase?

Comment by Zian on Open & Welcome Thread - November 2022 · 2022-11-27T23:12:31.142Z · LW · GW

Please don't forget to deal with boring risks while working on existential risks.

Drive carefully and purchase vehicles with acceptable levels of risk.

Even an IIHS "TOP SAFETY PICK+" vehicle may be unacceptable if you are unwilling to let your head "[strike] the window sill of the driver door hard" when another vehicle strikes you from the side. That vehicle's head injury score was 391 and a score of 250 roughly equates to a concussion. There are other vehicles that allow the passenger's head and the driver's head to make "no contact" with hard surfaces in that situation.

Comment by Zian on Open & Welcome Thread - November 2022 · 2022-11-13T22:57:54.535Z · LW · GW

An article about an airplane crash reported an example of over-fitting caused by training in the airline industry. 

Pilots were trained in roughly the following order:

  1. How to recover from a stall in a small airplane by pushing down on the yoke.
  2. Later, they were trained in simulators for bigger planes and "the practical test standards ... called for the loss of altitude in a stall recovery to be less than 100 feet. ... More than a hundred feet loss of altitude and you fail."

And then an airplane crashed when the pilot flying pushed the wrong way on the yoke during a stall, possibly because #2 had trained the pilot's instincts to try to limit the loss of altitude.

If that was a contributing factor, then the crash is an example of a slightly misaligned intelligence.

It's not hard to imagine that when training #2 began, everyone assumed that the new training wouldn't cause the pilot to forget the basics from #1. Or, to use a closer-to-AI perspective, if an AGI seems to be doing the right thing every time, then giving it some extra training can be enough to make it do the wrong thing.

I assume that the pilot's self-perceived terminal values did not change before #2 and after #2. He probably didn't go from "I should avoid killing myself" to "Dying in a plane crash is good." So having a perfect understanding of what the AGI thinks it values might not suffice.

Comment by Zian on Viliam's Shortform · 2022-10-21T05:26:39.550Z · LW · GW

It seems that the broken hand example is similar to situations where we have a deep understanding of the mechanics of how something works. In those situations, it makes more sense to say "this leg is broken; it cannot do 99% of the normal activities of daily living." And the doctor can probably fix the leg with pins and a cast without much debate over exactly how disabled the patient is.

Comment by Zian on Tracking Compute Stocks and Flows: Case Studies? · 2022-10-10T05:06:27.613Z · LW · GW

A large fraction of the ITAR list.

Some examples of dual-use items:

  • Rockets
  • Iron powder
  • Ship hulls
  • Airplanes
  • Helmets
  • Cordless telephones (digital spread spectrum)

Out of that list of examples, airplanes and ship hulls probably fit your requirements.

Comment by Zian on [deleted post] 2022-10-10T01:31:04.071Z

How about this instead?

//start quote

The statue made a rising whine as the lights began to pulse rhythmically. The legs stretched out, probing a bit in random directions for an instant before one found the surface of the floor and the rest immediately followed, each with its own sharp little click. When the machine appeared sure of its footing, it began to slowly push itself up while the weapon on its back glowed a dull red and swiveled around sharply. It was so beautiful! And a bit terrifying. I took a step back, and the statue seemed to notice! I can't say how I knew, but I was sure it looked right at me.

//end quote

There was a thudding sound. I turned around. I was alone now. The priest was being consumed by the statue.

Seconds later,  a tremendous crashing noise was heard as an appendage burst out into the open air.

And, the voice of John Henry boomed in my ears as he assured me that I had done the right thing. I had a bright future ahead as the first of a new group of clear-headed priests.

We were going to do so much together!

Comment by Zian on Baby Monitor with Delay · 2022-10-03T04:21:54.864Z · LW · GW

How confident are you that it is possible to differentiate something significant (vomiting) from something that should be delayed? Is it hard to differentiate between different types of cries?

Comment by Zian on Better Construction Cost Estimates? · 2022-09-29T05:28:57.015Z · LW · GW

Which spreadsheet did you look at in the HUD data? Did you use the contract price?

Comment by Zian on Announcing $5,000 bounty for (responsibly) ending malaria · 2022-09-25T23:50:53.816Z · LW · GW

Many widely-known organizations in this field have publicly-identifiable persons and assets that can be pursued if they fail to follow through on their promises. For example, in the United States of America, the Internal Revenue Service requires some organizations to complete Form 990, which can be viewed by everyone.

Are there plans to provide a similar level of assurance to people who are interested in this cause?

Comment by Zian on Put Dirty Dishes in the Dishwasher · 2022-09-11T20:15:12.810Z · LW · GW

Also, for people in the United States, consider running the hot water from a nearby faucet until the hot water is hot. Then, turn off the faucet and turn on the dishwasher.

As always, check your dishwasher's manual for specific recommendations.

Comment by Zian on How to Do Research. v1 · 2022-09-09T04:38:40.107Z · LW · GW

"Learning to research out of desperate need is like learning to drive on the way to the hospital."

Fully agreed as to the greater point but the flip side is that in real life, if the need is desperate, then entire chunks of this article can be skipped.

For example, if aliens will murder you if you don't tell them the correct name of the " Tiffany" in the CGP Grey poem, then you can blurt out "Theofania" and collapse into a heap in bed. No need to write anything

Similarly, if you are bleeding profusely from a stab wound, then it is probably sufficient to find the nearest competent emergency room and skip the step of quizzing a librarian.

Finally, so as to avoid creating too many strawmen, if you have an acute disease, then finding a few very reliable summary articles and convincing a doctor to help you implement the steps may have excellent odds of curing the disease. For example, there are many protocols for diseases.

Comment by Zian on Covid 9/8/22: Booster Boosting · 2022-09-09T04:08:00.216Z · LW · GW

Would the costs of figuring that out and implementing it exceed the expected benefits? Assuming that everyone in the household is already boosted with the monovalent version, it seems unlike for the costs to be worthwhile.

Comment by Zian on Squiggle: An Overview · 2022-09-07T21:06:49.972Z · LW · GW

For completeness, Guesstimate's URL is https://www.getguesstimate.com/.

Comment by Zian on adamzerner's Shortform · 2022-08-28T23:46:25.310Z · LW · GW

To the degree that people do things only to signal, I don't expect your idea to take off.

Comment by Zian on AI Risk in Terms of Unstable Nuclear Software · 2022-08-26T21:03:56.553Z · LW · GW

The note about being under specified sounds like the article "They Write the Right Stuff". In the article, the writer describes the exacting process used to make software for the Space Shuttle. It involves considerable effort up front in defining the specifications and a large testing effort. And, there are also cultural factors and implied table stakes like everyone having a security clearance.

Comment by Zian on Lies on the internet · 2022-08-24T05:21:59.010Z · LW · GW

Yes they do.

Comment by Zian on Lies on the internet · 2022-08-24T05:21:24.034Z · LW · GW

A 2010 journal article found that if you ask 3 different people to measure the probed pocket depth, they will agree exactly about 55% of the time and they'll be within 1mm of each other 97% of the time.

There are also other symptoms to look for besides depth before a diagnosis should be given (e.g. bleeding and bone loss).

The American Academy of Periodontology published 2 tables that walk the user through staging and grading periodontitis. The tables include the following factors:

  • Amount of bone loss visible when looking at the tooth directly
  • Amount of bone loss visible from looking at an x-ray
  • Number of teeth with bone loss
  • The type of bone loss
  • Maximum probing depth
  • Whether there's a pattern to the affected teeth (are they all next to each other?)
  • Amount of biofilm/plaque
  • Smoking: Yes or no
  • Diabetes: Yes (and if yes, how well-controlled is it) or no
Comment by Zian on For God's sake, Google it. · 2022-08-08T03:46:14.336Z · LW · GW

I have a real world example.

Last week, I noticed a 3M Command Wire Hook kept falling down. Trivial fixes like cleaning the wall as described in the instructions did not work.

I tried to search for information about calculating the total load that is placed on the hook by 5 cables with different lengths and diameter along with various points of support.

After about fifteen to thirty minutes of trying to figure out statics (with no formal training besides the standard introductory college physics classes), I gave up. Then, I searched for information about the likely weight of each cable and assumed that the full weight was born by the hook.

The results led me to use a jumbo hook with a five pound capacity and it had not fallen down after 2 days.

And if this problem had nerd-sniped you a la Xkcd and you want to show off, this is the problem I faced.

From left to right:

  • Long headphone cable
  • Headphone cable held down on desk by a tissue box
  • Dell monitor with USB 3 and HDMI cables plugged in
  • USB cable supported by a pile of paper
  • Headphone cable, USB cable, HDMI cable wrapped together with a velcro strip
  • Two speaker cables plugged into a USB dac and amp
  • Another velcro strip
  • Headphone cable and USB cable connected to USB hub and different USB dac plugged into the hub
  • Velcro wrap holding the HDMI cable and two speaker cables together

Hook that falls down

  • Speaker cables dangle down to the floor
  • HDMI cable dangles loosely from the hook (not connected on most days)

(I am fairly certain that if you read this far, you ought to be doing something more useful than being nerd sniped by a physics problem.)

Comment by Zian on What are the simplest questions in applied rationality where you don't know the answer to? · 2022-07-21T08:00:13.648Z · LW · GW

What is the expects benefit of each additional hour of sleep? What is the QALY cost of a mattress as it ages?

Comment by Zian on Favourite new AI productivity tools? · 2022-07-10T16:04:13.802Z · LW · GW

OneNote OCR

tesseract for detecting image rotation and fixing it

Comment by Zian on Why haven't we celebrated any major achievements lately? · 2022-07-03T17:57:15.453Z · LW · GW

I wouldn't fret too much about bias here. It's hard to incorrectly read "0". :)

Thanks for linking to a source.

Comment by Zian on Hydrophobic Glasses Coating Review · 2022-06-30T03:40:04.432Z · LW · GW

I've also seen stores use Kimwipes to clean lenses.

Comment by Zian on Hydrophobic Glasses Coating Review · 2022-06-30T03:38:52.889Z · LW · GW

What is the name of the coating?

Usually, you can look up somewhat detailed information about a lens coating using the Internet. Then, at the store, you can select the one you want.

For example, Sola had a patent on coatings that got transferred to Zeiss and Zeiss has a PDF that lists all the options and which coatings can go with which lenses.

Comment by Zian on We're already in AI takeoff · 2022-05-30T10:02:00.559Z · LW · GW

Thanks for quoting the bit about Elua at the end. It is helpful to remember that despite Moloch, et al, humanity has managed some pretty impressive feats, even in the present day.

It's easy to think that the counterexample of science in earlier posts is something accomplished "Once upon a time in a land far away."

As a concrete example, I'm quite glad that the highly effective mRNA vaccines (Moderna/Pfizer) exist for the common man. They exist despite things like the FDA, the world of academic publishing, the need to find funding to survive, and so on.

Comment by Zian on What's The Best Place to Look When You Have A Question About x? · 2022-05-30T07:03:35.163Z · LW · GW

Seconding UpToDate as a starting point and treating it like Wikipedia by using it as a source of references.

Then, you can use those references as a starting point in PubMed.

This suggestion is based mostly on watching my primary care physicians look things up at a major academic (university) medical center and conversations with physicians after using UpToDate + PubMed on my own.

Comment by Zian on Open & Welcome Thread - May 2022 · 2022-05-30T06:57:52.810Z · LW · GW

>access if they wanted one

Based on a nearly universal sense (reading/personal experience/conversations with doctors) that it's hard to find an in-network psychiatrist/psychologist who's will to see a new patient, my prior on this is very low.

>motivation

That would help too. But there's probably a large set of people who could be helped if the "access" barrier was reduced/removed on its own.

>difficulty?

Agreed for both rationalists and non-rationalists.

>knowing how to fix brains?

Which condition(s) specifically come to mind when you think of something that "clinical psychology research already has...covered"? I was unable to think of one off the top of my head.

Comment by Zian on Bernal Heights: acquisition of a bicycle · 2022-05-20T04:37:45.109Z · LW · GW

I'm pleasantly amused to see you write that the one you liked turned out to be an unsellable floor model because my current bike gave the impression of having been an unsellable floor/some-other-issue model (clearance, last one in the store of that model, unknown brand, etc) when I got it.

I hope you have lots of fun with the new bike. Don't forget to plan ahead for yet maintenance though. As you realized, it is no fun to try to move the heavy thing around on foot, especially with the battery.

Comment by Zian on Long COVID risk: How to maintain an up to date risk assessment so we can go back to normal life? · 2022-05-20T04:25:28.052Z · LW · GW

While I haven't evaluated their covid stuff, I agree with your assessment for other conditions where I've done some digging.

I meant to elicit some comments about whether the value of new-thing-digging-in would be sufficiently greater than what we could get out of making more optimal use of existing resources.

I'm going to use allergic rhinitis as an example below but I could probably have called it "disease X".

There's the set of things (e. G. Buy Kleenex, take those red round things, etc.) that the average person knows to do from surrounding people, culture, advertising, instinct, and the contents of store shelves. Let's call this the low info & ultra conservative corner.

Then there's the higher info and less conservative ground occupied by something like the MASK ARIA guidelines that implies that anyone who puts forth a real effort should be in pretty good shape after no more than a week with occasional exceptions. And to use EY's idea here, the goal should be to get those Exceptions into the hands of Exception Handlers as quickly as possible.

Up to date is higher info than average-person-on-street but more conservative and certainly less efficacious than a pad of post it notes + MASK ARIA.

I'm not sure what the MASK-ARIA equivalent for long covid is but I imagine that if it exists, it might be good enough.

Comment by Zian on BIDA Air Quality Measurements · 2022-05-17T08:10:14.969Z · LW · GW

Have you (or a reviewer) compared their device with a traceable & calibrated device? I'm curious about how accurate it is.

Small thing:

"requiring high-filtration masks" is a broken link.

Comment by Zian on Long COVID risk: How to maintain an up to date risk assessment so we can go back to normal life? · 2022-05-09T09:04:50.947Z · LW · GW

Have you looked at other resources that do something similar to what you're asking? For example, what are the shortcomings of using Up to Date for this purpose?