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Messages (61)
for some reason i am slightly afraid of the only post as internetrules rule. im afraid i might break it i think. but i dont think i would break it because there doesnt seem like any reason to.
if i forget to add my name in the "author" section i can just write a followup message saying that the last message was me and i forgot to sign it.
it does not seem like there is anything to worry about with this rule.
forgetting is not a big deal. i thought people sock puppeting their own threads would be bad so i came up with this policy. part of the point of the threads is to be able to talk to a particular person and ask them questions. that works better if they are actually present in the discussion under their own name. i don't want to be talking to an anonymous that might or might not be Joe and have that be normal in Joe's thread. and this way there is a record of what Joe said or learned in his thread – you can just search for his name and see all the posts by him. you're not going to do a bunch of sock puppeting by accident. and if u want to post anonymously u can go in open discussion or somewhere else.
i dont actively try to learn shortcuts in computers enough. i should try to learn more shortcuts.
currently its like every few months il spend some time trying to learn some shortcuts but then i stop trying to find shortcuts.
i think i should spend some more time learning shortcuts.
i think they save the time you end up spending on learning them
when i do something and it seems kinda slow, or maybe i do it all the time, then i think i should try to learn a shortcut for it
if i do thing A every day, and thing A takes 10 seconds without shortcuts, but 5 seconds with shortcuts. and it takes 60 seconds to learn the shortcut, then it will take 13 days to start saving time from learning the shortcut (5 x 13 = 65 which is over 60)
ok lets see how much time i will save in a year
5 x 365 = 1825 -60 = 1765. 1765 seconds to minutes 29.41667 minutes! i would save half an hour in a year from spending 1 minute of learning!
#18285 A rule of thumb is to learn shortcuts the third time you use them (if it's in a short enough amount of time you that you can remember it's the third time).
This is similar to writing reusable code the third time you do the same thing.
Three times is a rough indicator of a pattern. If you have a pattern of entering a command, then a shortcut is good. If there's no pattern (like use it once or twice ever) then learning a shortcut isn't worth the effort.
Also, in general with lots of stuff, slowing down and doing it the right way early on is worthwhile. Then you form good habits. You don't wanna form a habit of doing something the wrong way or the inefficient way.
If you're not sure how much you'll use something, or you're not sure what the best way is, then you can try stuff. But when you recognize you'll use it a bunch and figure out what the best way is, then you immediately wanna start doing the best way and making that your habit.
Do you use ctrl+c and ctrl+v for copy/paste? (ctrl+x is usually cut, too)
They're good ones to start with.
I use ctrl+page-up/down to move between tabs in browsers a lot (next/prev tab). ctrl+l to go to the URL bar, too. Those might be good ones if you do a decent amount of browsing.
> ok lets see how much time i will save in a year
Reminds me of this: https://xkcd.com/1205/
> Do you use ctrl+c and ctrl+v for copy/paste? (ctrl+x is usually cut, too)
yeah. i dont like ctrl x cuz im worried i could end up acidentally deleting things. for small messages like this tho it would probably be worth using it if it is relevant. if i somehow delete this message or your quote no big deal.
> I use ctrl+page-up/down to move between tabs in browsers a lot (next/prev tab). ctrl+l to go to the URL bar, too. Those might be good ones if you do a decent amount of browsing.
for me ctrl + tab cycles windows and ctrl + e goes to search bar. i should use both more.
#18289 o hey that was me internetrules. i forgot to put the name in
> i dont like ctrl x cuz im worried i could end up acidentally deleting things
I sometimes accidentally ctrl+x -- I either ctrl+v it somewhere else, or ctrl+z to undo the deletion (but whatever you cut usually stays on the clipboard, so you can still paste it).
I don't use ctrl+x much. Mostly to move stuff between documents.
> ctrl + e
In chrome (browser I'm using atm) it goes to the search bar with 'Search Google:' already up there (so I couldn't type a new url, just a search query). ctrl+k does the same thing.
> ctrl + tab cycles windows
ctrl+tab or alt+tab? ctrl+tab usually cycles tabs for me (and alt+tab does windows). on Windows 10 win+tab will bring up the multi-desktop interface which looks a bit like expose on Mac.
> if i forget to add my name in the "author" section i can just write a followup message saying that the last message was me and i forgot to sign it.
I think Alisa mentioned to me that changing the workflow you use when filling out a comment helped her. (It's helped me too, since.) I usually double click the author field first to bring up past names and select 'Max'. Building that habit has helped a lot.
>> ctrl + tab cycles windows
> ctrl+tab or alt+tab?
i meant alt+tab
i want to post onto this microblogging thing more. this message seems like it will help me do that.
#18406 What's up?
#18408
i guess im trying to think of something to post. now that i realize this i have thought of something to post.
now i need to think a bit about the logistics of posting it cuz i dont think its just an ez copy paste cuz i think i need to rewrite it a bit. but a lot of the thinking with the actual text is already done i just need to figure out how to post it.
some thoughts about writing things
i want to write some thoughts about the Alcatraz books.
how do you do that? i think i just like start writing? sounds right.
write about what tho? i have pre existing stuff i wrote about, i guess i can use them as prompts.
how do u come up with what to write about? idk. i think i mostly just write about things that i feel like writing about. this seems like something worth thinking about more. how to figure out what to write about seems really important!
being able to come up with thing to write easier seems like it would help me write about things! i want to be able to write about things easier.
this started as trying to like reason thru how to start writing about alcatraz. i stated something i wanted to do, then tried to figure out how to do that.
----
i wrote all this text pretty quickly, but it took me like 15 minutes to actually post on curi. i think if i post more stuff on curi and if i try to post stuff to curi quicker that i will then post stuff quicker.
#18418 I wrote this earlier today:
For an idea, there are many generic things to talk about:
- what is the purpose of the idea? aka the goal or the problem it’s trying to solve.
- how does the idea accomplish that purpose? how/why does it work?
- problem history: what other ideas have tried to accomplish this goal? what’s wrong with them to motivate a new idea? how does this new idea try to do better compared to past attempts?
- what have you already done to criticize/test/check this idea? (general purpose stuff? specific stuff?)
- what unknowns, sources of error and risks remain outstanding?
- what new info or scenarios would change your mind about this idea?
- what is the current status of this idea? did you conclude in favor of it, or is it just a guess you think is worth investigating, or something else?
- how does this idea connect with other ideas and fields? where is its place in an intellectual hierarchy/tree/pyramid or graph/web? (graph is arbitrary nodes and connections)
- what new issues does this idea lead to? what might be next? what are areas for further development or refinement?
#18418 For a novel you can write about the plot, a specific event, a character, or an opinion you have. What was the book about? What was a character like? Why did that event happen? Was that decision good or bad? What didn't happen but would have made the book better? What unanswered questions were left at the end? Could you predict anything that happened in the book before you read it? Did you see any foreshadowing in advance? Did you see any hints in retrospect (after X happened, you realized that something earlier in the book was a hint that X would happen)? Do you have any questions? Is anything confusing? What were you favorite parts and why? What do you think was high or low quality? How was it similar to and different than other books?
#18419 #18420
trying to do all these things at once seems like it would be really overwhelming. so i think the pro strategy is to think about one at a time, or like pick a few you really like and do those. or you could write a few thoughts for each question.
#18422 Yeah 1-3 at a time is good. Mostly: If you get stuck with nothing to write, look through them and find a way to get unstuck. If you ever get through all of them and still have nothing to say, say that.
alcatraz
ima try writing about Alcatraz the book series!
i have read the first 3 books. i have liked them all
one of the main things in the book is the magic system. it has the magic with glass. and there is magic from smedry talents. i like the magic.
i like how each book starts with a beginning theme or something. like at the beginning of each book alcatraz says something about himself, they were something like:
first book: i am not a good person.
second book: i am a liar.
third book: i am awesome.
fourth book: i am an idiot.
it gives you a main thing to think about during the book i think. like you can try to see if the theme relates to things in the book. i dont think i connected the theme with contents of the book a lot. less than 1 time per 5 chapters i think.
also he talks about the theme during the book. so in book one he talked about some writing tricks that writers do because they are not nice people. like they will start the book with a really interesting thing that you want to see, and then not get to that thing until way later in the book.
i dont know how common the writing things he talked about were cuz i dont read many books. i took his word for the writing stuff he talked about.
i dont think i noticed many relations with the theme of the book, and the contents of the book.
ok im gonna try to think about the first books theme and its contents and see if i can remember a relation:
one of the things relating to the theme was in a scene where he was prisoner in a dungeon and he thought about why he broke things in his foster parents houses. and he started doing it intentionally so he wouldnt have to make connections with his foster family only to lose them cuz he accidentally broke something. so i guess that makes him not a good person cuz he intentionally broke important stuff so the foster parents would get rid of him.
thats the only thing i can remember at the moment. im gonna post this and probably write more tomorrow
> also he talks about the theme during the book. so in book one he talked about some writing tricks that writers do because they are not nice people. like they will start the book with a really interesting thing that you want to see, and then not get to that thing until way later in the book.
Some books do that. I think it's more common in movies and TV. They have an intro scene and then are like "3 days earlier" and sometimes you don't find out what happened until the end of the whole TV season after 22 episodes. Or they just have something exciting happen to get your attention and then start doing some normal scenes after and you don't get more exciting scenes for a while.
Epic fantasy books fairly often have something in the prolog of book 1 that you won't understand very well until like book 5 or later. It's like here is what the gods/heroes/kings/wizards/monsters do, for a few pages, which you won't understand yet, and ok that's enough of that, now meet the 18yo farm boy main character as he begins his adventure that will very eventually mean he meets gods/heroes/kings/wizards/monsters. Shorter stuff like standalone novels or even trilogies do this less often IME.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlxlduEBGNA
6 min in liking this vid so far
take aways:
runners get really annoyed during their runs. so even when they get WR or PB they say stuff like "this run sucked" he says its cuz their expectations are 2 high, so when they dont live up to them they get annoyed
me: if they fail like 1 thing their gonna be tilted cuz they are like: ***but i succeed at it like 95% of the time!***, but there are like 100 things like that in a run so they are likely to fail atleast one of those things (oh cool later in the video he also said this)
DERUST:
when they come back to a game after not playing for a while their expectations are lower, and they are having more fun, and thene sometimes they will get the PB or WR because of this even tho they might be worse at the game, them liking playing it gives them an advantge.
runners expect everything to work perfectly and they add comments like: (i forget what i was gonna put here)
runners can get insane starting pace and then be like "this sucks" cuz of nerves. I WANT ELABORATION
o so if they are on a super good run but they say that, they are afraid it will like jinx them cuz then they will be super stressed. but if they say its a trash run then nbd if u fail it was trash anyway.
that seems like a weird kind of lying idk it seems weird it might work tho
paraphrase: lying to your self and viewers is healthier for you mentality than viewing it objectivly cuz u will get depressed if u fail.
early timeloss immediately hinders quality of PB and makes mentality worse than late timeloss.
speedrunners call their WR bad sometimes. paraphrase: ****does saying world record bad mean everyone is bad? no***. then he talks about personel potential stuff
speedrunners focus on suboptimal moments to much and only think a run is good if its like run of your life
"being dissatisfied is crucial for drive to keep improving" is it? i think you can have the attitude of "omg that was a great run i loved it. i want to do a better run now"
"when it comes to speedrunning what reason would you have to improve a time your already satisfied with?" i think there are answers to this question that arent just you need to be dissatisfied to improve your runs
paraphrase: loss percived more intensely than a gain of similar ammount this is known as loss aversion
ppl not as forgiving to them selfs if they mess up a tirck theye practiced a bunch and think they should be good at
stopping at 13:44 for now might watch rest of vid later
i liked the vid up to like 7 minutes, after that i think it started talking about more mentality stuff. idk how to think about mentality stuff. i think the FI beleif is that ppl get it wrong a lot so i tryr to be skeptical of mentality stuff
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlxlduEBGNA
I watched this a few days ago and liked it too, mostly. There is some interesting stuff in there about lying/dishonesty & lying to yourself.
(for anyone just reading it's *Why Do Speedrunners Hate Their Runs?* by AverageTrey)
> 6 min in liking this vid so far
nbd but had to read this 2/3 times b/c it didn't parse until I guessed the [and] implied conjunction.
> runners can get insane starting pace and then be like "this sucks" cuz of nerves. I WANT ELABORATION
Did the video end up answering your qs on that? I think that topic gets elaborated on at some later point.
> stopping at 13:44 for now might watch rest of vid later
> i liked the vid up to like 7 minutes, [...]
It was helpful you mentioned the timestamps. I had an idea of what you'd seen. Including timestamps seems like it could be a fairly obvious thing maybe but my estimate is ppl often omit them.
> i liked the vid up to like 7 minutes, after that i think it started talking about more mentality stuff. idk how to think about mentality stuff. i think the FI beleif is that ppl get it wrong a lot so i tryr to be skeptical of mentality stuff
a few things occur to me:
- analyzing social dynamics & dishonesty can be objective and doesn't necessarily affect your worldview. Also, learning and understanding it isn't a bad thing. Like knowing how ppl lie in social situations can help you see the times when you do it. Knowing which lies other ppl tell themselves and the *mechanism + effect* of those lies can help figure out a way to get the benefit without the lie. So learning about mentality stuff can still be useful; you don't have to believe it to benefit from it.
- ppl do get lots of stuff wrong about mentality, but there's also lots of good stuff baked into common sense & traditional knowledge, some of which overlaps with mentality. so being sceptical is okay as long as you don't like prematurely throw away stuff before understanding it and why to throw it away. Advice in curi's recent podcast (rationalism and convention) on social stuff comes to mind here.
- there's a lot of overlap between mentality stuff and static memes / social dynamics. unlike social dynamics (much of which can be entirely cut out without replacement), ideas about mentality are necessary. they answer questions like 'how should I feel about this potential project? will I be able to succeed in this particular context?'
I'm not sure if curi has written about mentality explicitly. There are lots of ideas about mentality baked in through his work, though. The topic might make a good podcast.
- I think there are better ways to get the benefits mentioned without lying to yourself.
---
there are some bits about the video I don't like, too. Like at 6:40 AverageTrey mentions Murphy's Law, which he didn't need to, and he doesn't even quote it / give correct examples either.
the overly long sentence at 9:27 -> 9:41 is another thing, which I disagree with but think I understand. (I dislike it because of the content, not it's length or that it goes like 3 prepositions deep)
i havnt posted in a while.
ima post something EZ!
im trying to learn the 10x tables. that seems like it will help with math things. EZ POST!
#18616 what is 10x tables? times tables where u multiply by 10 like 9x10 or 3x10? those are ez!
#18617 well more specifically 2x2 thru 9x9.
2x is ez cuz u just double
5x is ez u just times by 10 then half.
4x is mostly easy u double and double again.
numbers like 3 6 7 8 9 are harder. but they still feel easy enough cuz i practiced them.
uhhh i guess i have learned the 2x2 thru 9x9 table, i meant to say im practicing them so they become easier.
> what is 10x tables?
O HEY! i dont think i actually directly answered your question!
im pretty sure 10x tables is all the multiplications with integer numbers between and including 1x1 to 10x10
soda tax
https://youtu.be/iz0sHXhWBck?t=42
in chicago there was a tax on soda.
there were advertisements paid for by Michael Bloomberg that seemed to scare parents/children into not wanting to drink soda
at 0:42 the advertisement says:
> just 1 soda a day can lead to an extra 10 pounds a year
i think they assumed that someone is going to add a soda to their diet and not compensate for the soda. they assume that ppl eat 2100 calories per day of normal food, and then ppl just add an extra 140 calories on top of that with soda. so if they removed the soda ppl wouldnt gain weight.
i think if someone adds 140 calories to their normal diet, that they are going to eat less of something else. idk for sure cuz ppl are complex. i dont think that you can just say that if ppl drink soda that they dont compensate for the extra calories.
i dont like how they said: "just 1 soda a day ***can lead to***". "can lead to" seems really bad without giving an explanation or something. like anything can lead to pretty much anything else.
i think they are trying to imply that drinking soda means you will get fatter, without actually saying it, they are trying to have plausible deniability or something while still making the claim they want to make. (curi gave a reply to this part in discord slow channel)
here are some "can lead to" examples i made up:
1. reading books can lead to beating up your wife. this is because some books could make you really bad, and if u are angry u might beat up your wife
2. playing video games can lead to murdering your friend. this is because you might play a game with your friend, and then ur friend does something that made you really mad, so u decide to kill them.
3. reading advice that tells you something can lead to something, can lead you to do said thing. this is because you might get influenced by the text and do things that leads to its outcome becoming true, thus becoming some sort of self fulfilling prophecy.
4. drinking water can lead to death. because you might drink to much of it and die from water poisoning.
5. wearing bike helmets can lead to death. this is because you might be more confident while wearing a bike helmet, and you could do something you would not otherwise do without a bike helmet, and then you may die because you felt safer with the bike helmet.
some math
SOME MATH:
im gonna assume 1 pound = 3500 calories, and a soda is a 12OZ/355ml can that has 140 calories in it.
140 calories (1 soda) times 365 (days in a year) = 51100 calories per year if u drink 1 soda a day
if i do 51100 / 3500 i think that will give me how many times 3500 calories (1 pound of fat) can go into 51100 calories (how many calories are in 1 soda a day for a year)
51100 / 3500 = 14.6 , so 14.6 pounds from a soda a day for a year.
caloric deficit myth article
#18754 was me.
while i was trying to figure out how many calories were in a pound of fat, i saw the "The 500-Calorie Deficit Myth" section in this article:
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/calories-in-a-pound-of-fat#TOC_TITLE_HDR_4
main problem i have with this article: they dont clearly differentiate between eating 500 calories less than you normally do, and being in a 500 calorie deficit. it seems like they swap between the 2 positions.
they are not debunking that if you are in a 500 calorie caloric deficit that you will lose a pound a week. they are debunking something else, but they are still calling it a caloric deficit even tho a caloric deficit means you are eating less than you need to maintain your body weight.
it said:
> When you reduce calorie intake, your body responds by making you burn fewer calories. ***You start moving around less***, and the body becomes more efficient. ***It does the same amount of work, but uses fewer calories than before***
the article says your body starts moving around less, but it also says your body does the same amount of work. those 2 things sound like they contradict each other.
if before you did 50 things a day, but now you are in a caloric deficit and you feel more exhausted so you only do 40 things a day, that means you are doing less work.
maybe they meant it uses less energy for a specific action?
so like maybe if ur really well fed and u do a single pushup, ur body will do the pushup really quickly and wastefully. but if u are starving and do a pushup, it will try to be way more efficient, so it sacrifices the speed and ease of doing a pushup for efficiency. i dont think they meant this tho
#18755 if the body could do stuff more efficiently, and was already built to do it the better way sometimes, it would do that normally. it wouldn't waste calories for no reason when it already has a mechanism set up that's superior. evolution works better than that.
#18756 idk how the body works. i feel like it could have 2 modes, like an efficient and slow mode, or a non-efficient fast mode. so i was talking with the body maybe having 2 modes in mind.
i feel like i might be misunderstanding something, or that i might be wrong about something, and that makes me feel worried.
#18757 being slower is a downside. doing something slower isn't doing the same work.
two modes for the body is fine but there have to be upsides and downsides to each mode for it to make sense. if a mode was only downsides then evolution would have gotten rid of it.
#18758 i think i might be confused and i might be missing something.
im not sure what part your first message(#18756) is responding to. it might not actually be responding to anything specifically it might just be making a more general statement.
right now i think #18756 is making a general statement. but before i thought it was more directly responding to something.
i think all my messages agree with what you have said. im worried that i might be missing something, and that i might be wrong.
me worrying about being wrong seems bad. i am trying to mention when it happens.
#18759 i think ur fine if u agree with what i said in #18758
i was trying to clarify my point from my previous message
#18758 being slower is a downside. i agree. its better if u can do something fast rather than slow
> two modes for the body is fine but there have to be upsides and downsides to each mode for it to make sense. ***if a mode was only downsides then evolution would have gotten rid of it.***
i dont know how evolution getting rid of things works. if u have 2 modes like:
1. fast and efficient
2. slow and efficient
i think that the slow and efficient mode is unnecessary. and if ur body used mode 2 sometimes then that would be a negative, if someone never used mode 2 that would make them better.
one thing im unsure about is with this part of your message:
> doing something slower isn't doing the same work.
if work is like a movement, then i agree with you.
if work is like making or completing a thing, then i think i disagree with you.
if you can do 10 pushups in 10 seconds, that is not the same work as doing 10 pushups in 5 seconds.
if you can build a birdhouse in 10 minutes, i think that is the same work as if you built a birdhouse in 5 minutes.
you built the birdhouse faster in the second scenario, but in both scenarios you completed the same work of "build a birdhouse".
i dont think i liked writing this, i think im like talking about semantic things or something and i dont find it fun.
i agree with what you said in #18758 . i think i am unsure of what you meant by work.
i didnt have fun in the last message writing about work.
im gonna go read a book and have fun doing that.
i think i feel some kind of badness about not having fun writing about "work" in my last message
#18762 IR: You are currently my favorite FI poster after curi and Ingracke. You put into words the kinds of thoughts I have when I discuss things here, but I don't think I've ever much tried to share my thoughts the way you do. You have a way of being honest without being boring. Like even when you're sharing that you don't know something, you bring up specifics that make it interesting to read. Your posts inspire me to post more. Thanks.
#18764 ok so when you discuss on FI, you have the same kind of thoughts as me, but you dont say them as much as i do.
> You have a way of being honest without being boring.
i should put effort into not being bored while doing things! i should be having fun with philosophy stuff and not treating it as like: "oh boy i have to do some philosophy work stuff". i think philosophy, and progress, and things like that, should be fun, and you should want to do them.
i should put effort into having fun with things, and trying to do things in ways that are fun.
sometimes i spend to long like just editing a single paragraph, and thats not fun.
but if i can write the paragraph more quickly and then move onto other stuff, that is fun!
> Your posts inspire me to post more. Thanks.
that seems good! i am also trying to post more.
> sometimes i spend to long like just editing a single paragraph, and thats not fun.
it's not efficient to do that either (except occasionally, as a test, to see what it's like how and well you can do it – that's fine)
if something takes a long time it means you haven't built up the earlier skills to make it easy yet. there is a more gradual progress you could do. you're skipping some steps which are why it's hard.
my posts about overreaching are relevant e.g. http://curi.us/2182-time-based-metric-for-overreaching
and posts about powering up and only doing easy (efficient) things. i think i did a podcast on that too.
#18761
> i dont know how evolution getting rid of things works.
A sort of rule of thumb is 'use it or lose it'.
Life need to spend resources (energy, nutrients, etc) to grow, maintain, and use features. If a life form doesn't use a feature but still has to grow it then there's a cost. The mutant sibling that doesn't have that thing *doesn't have the associated cost*. If that feature is important for the life-form surviving then the mutant sibling is at a greater risk of dying than the non-mutant (all else being equal). If the feature *isn't* important for survival then the non-mutant is at a *disadvantage* b/c they have to spend more resources but they don't get any benefit from them.
There are two things that make this more complex: selfish genes, and mutations in the regulation of gene activations instead of mutations in the features themselves.
> if u have 2 modes like:
> 1. fast and efficient
> 2. slow and efficient
> i think that the slow and efficient mode is unnecessary.
What if 'fast and efficient' only works for 10s or 60s? Do you need 'slow an efficient' after that?
Example: Our muscles work a bit like this. There are 3/4 primary energy systems used during exercise:
- ATP-TP (lasts ~10 seconds; high energy burst, like a sprint)
- lactic acid (lasts ~60 seconds; high-ish energy but more sustained, like a 400m/800m run)
- and oxygen + glucose and oxygen + fat (fat gets used after your glycogen stores are depleted).
They all have a cost to maintain and they're all have a diff balance of speed and efficiency (not to mention, they're efficient for different *goals*)
If you want something to think on, why would we need 3 or 4 systems?
(This relates to CF stuff, too)
----
also, WRT caloric restriction and weight loss stuff, I think this video from thunderf00t is good: The '5kg in 50 days' Diet!
- I haven't watched it recently tho and I think some of this other stuff is problematic. This vid seemed okay the times I watched it.
a soda a day
#18753
> in chicago there was a tax on soda.
>
> there were advertisements paid for by Michael Bloomberg that seemed to scare parents/children into not wanting to drink soda
>
> at 0:42 the advertisement says:
>
>> just 1 soda a day can lead to an extra 10 pounds a year
>
> i think they assumed that someone is going to add a soda to their diet and not compensate for the soda. they assume that ppl eat 2100 calories per day of normal food, and then ppl just add an extra 140 calories on top of that with soda. so if they removed the soda ppl wouldnt gain weight.
Yes. You'd never see a public service ad that said "just 1 apple a day can lead to an extra 5 pounds a year"! People assume that if you eat an apple a day, you're eating it instead of something else you'd otherwise be eating, not adding it on top of what you'd otherwise be eating.
having fun with philosophy stuff
> i should put effort into not being bored while doing things! i should be having fun with philosophy stuff and not treating it as like: "oh boy i have to do some philosophy work stuff". i think philosophy, and progress, and things like that, should be fun, and you should want to do them.
>
> i should put effort into having fun with things, and trying to do things in ways that are fun.
I think this too, for myself. I'm not very good at having fun learning philosophy. I often think something like "oh boy i have to do some philosophy work stuff".
Then sometimes once I get started I enjoy what I'm doing. And sometimes I do something without thinking I *should* do it, like answering this post of yours. There's a part of me that thinks it doesn't count and won't help me learn anything if I'm having fun doing it.
when does practice count?
#18809
> There's a part of me that thinks it doesn't count and won't help me learn anything if I'm having fun doing it.
Every post you make is practice. It could be practice writing or getting your thoughts out or finding out what someone means or trying to add value to a conversation. *There's always a goal you can practice*.
You can be bad a prioritisation and still do lots of practice. Though, you shouldn't expect to make much progress if you don't prioritise bottlenecks. But that doesn't mean the practice has to be wasted. Sometimes it's good to practice on things that are more fun than on things that might be more difficult. You can't do difficult stuff all the time, and doing easy stuff is better than doing nothing!
Whether it *counts* or not is up to you more than anything else I think. It's possible to do stuff in a way that doesn't help you learn. One thing that might help is thinking about the goal of what you're posting before you post it. That way you can better focus on achieving that goal, and that will make the practice more worth while (and more explicit).
> ... won't help me learn anything if I'm having fun doing it.
This is curious to me. Some ppl have the idea that learning is way better / easier / effective when you're having fun. That seems like a pretty common idea too. I'm not sure I've heard anyone suggest the opposite, though.
>> sometimes i spend to long like just editing a single paragraph, and thats not fun.
> it's not efficient to do that either (except occasionally, as a test, to see what it's like how and well you can do it – that's fine)
> if something takes a long time it means you haven't built up the earlier skills to make it easy yet. there is a more gradual progress you could do. you're skipping some steps which are why it's hard.
> my posts about overreaching are relevant e.g. http://curi.us/2182-time-based-metric-for-overreaching
> and posts about powering up and only doing easy (efficient) things. i think i did a podcast on that too.
my initial reaction to this was feeling bad cuz i wasnt good at writing or something. i didnt know a conscious reason, but it was something about not being good at writing and being criticized for it.
a minute after reading your response i was thinking how your response was a good thing.
my original message was about how i didnt like spending a bunch of time on writing a paragraph, your response agreed with that!
i can do easier things first that dont involve doing the thing i dont like! thats good!
feeling bad while writing is a sign something bad is happening while writing. i think this applies to everything not just writing.
-----
> if something takes a long time it means you haven't built up the earlier skills to make it easy yet. there is a more gradual progress you could do. you're skipping some steps which are why it's hard.
it feels like its hard and a challenge to build up writing skills, like where would i even start is kind of how im feeling, and it might be to hard for me to even begin trying. that is my reaction to reading this paragraph.
o hey typing speed is a writing skill! i increased my typing speed once already and learnt touch typing! i am confident i could increase it again if i practiced. so that is a place i *could* start! (FYI current typing speed is maybe like 80 WPM when writing normally)
im not sure what writing skills i should learn. i feel kinda lost for where to start. i havnt tried finding out where to start to write better.
i dont think i do a good job using commas. you wrote a guide about how to use commas curi.us/2293-using-commas . i could try to follow that when i write things. thats a place to start!
while writing this message i have been practicing thinking the words i want to say in my head, then typing them out. it seems to be helping with avoiding spending a bunch of time on a paragraph. im not sure what i do to spend a bunch of time editing a paragraph, but this seems to be helping me avoid it. so im already starting at a place to help me write better! i dont write this way all the time, which seems like a reason its not automatic. so if i make it automatic i should be able to write better and have more fun while writing!
so thats like 3 things i know of where i could try to start writing better. and i am currently practicing one of them! that makes it seem a lot less hard to find a place where to start if i already know 3 places to start!
> i can do easier things first that dont involve doing the thing i dont like! thats good!
yes
> feeling bad while writing is a sign something bad is happening while writing. i think this applies to everything not just writing.
yes
> it feels like its hard and a challenge to build up writing skills, like where would i even start is kind of how im feeling, and it might be to hard for me to even begin trying. that is my reaction to reading this paragraph.
reading is a place to start. grammar is another. writing topics that you understand really well already is another. it's easier to write "basics of how to use a microwave" than about philosophy. writing short stuff is easier too. you could start with sentences before paragraphs.
another place to start is *talking*. ppl learn to talk before write. most ppl can give a verbal reply to someone right away. they don't have to stop and think first. silences in conversations seem awkward to ppl. u can probably already do that in general. so if u could talk a reply fast, why would writing one take a long time?
one way u can write is talk out loud, record it, and then write down what u said (check the recording if u forget some, or use otter.ai or dictation or something to type it for you)
> o hey typing speed is a writing skill! i increased my typing speed once already and learnt touch typing! i am confident i could increase it again if i practiced. so that is a place i *could* start! (FYI current typing speed is maybe like 80 WPM when writing normally)
yeah that's another skill one can work on. if ur typing is more automatic then it distracts you less from figuring out what to say. 80wpm is pretty good already so it's probably not your main problem (improving it probably won't make a big difference).
i was looking some stuff up and found this article:
http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/carbon-footprint-factsheet
the second picture in it is a graph:
"Pounds of CO2e per Serving 13
(4 oz. meat, 1/2 c. asparagus & carrots, 8 oz. liquids)"
http://css.umich.edu/sites/default/files/styles/factsheet_image/public/Figure_2_Pounds%20of%20CO2e%20per%20Serving_0.png
i think the point of this graph is to show which foods are worse/better for the environment compared to each other. the way you should compare foods CO2 impact vs each other is by comparing how much CO2 is made per calorie. instead they compare CO2 made per serving for some reason.
i think that the maker of the graph intends people to think that one serving of food feeds someone around the same amount as a serving of a different food.
the problem with servings is like (these are fake numbers for example btw): 1 serving of beef could be 1000 calories and it creates 10 pounds of CO2 (1 pound per hundred calories), and 1 serving of potatoes might be 100 calories but it also creates 10 pounds of CO2. so on this graph the 1000-calorie serving of beef and the 100-calorie serving of potatoes would look like they have the same environmental impact even though potatoes would be 10x worse than beef.
in the graph it shoes "Beef" creating 6.61 pounds of CO2 per serving, and Carrots creating 0.07 Pounds of CO2 per serving. assuming servings feed someone about the same amount, then that would make beef look 94 times worse than carrots, cuz you could feed someone 94 times with carrots OR feed them once with beef and that would make about the same amount of CO2 (carrots are 0.07 pounds of CO2 per serving, so 0.07 x 94 = 6.58 pounds of CO2 for 94 servings of carrots. which is about the same amount of CO2 for 1 serving of beef)
so when we use CO2 per serving beef looks 94 times worse than carrots, but what if we use CO2 per calorie?
they say that 1 serving of meat is 4 oz, and 1 serving of carrots is half a cup of carrots. this website says that a cup of chopped carrots is 52 calories, so half a cup would be 26 calories: https://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/usda/carrots
also acording to that website 4 oz of beef is 327 calories: https://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/generic/beef-cooked-ns-as-to-fat-eaten?portionid=2247&portionamount=4.000
so 1 serving of carrots is actually 26 calories, and one serving of beef is 327 calories. so pounds of CO2 per calorie for beef is: (Pounds of CO2) 6.61 / 327 (calories) = 0.0202 and for carrots it is: 0.07 / 27 = 0.0026. using these numbers you could feed someone 8 times with carrots and that would about equal feeding them once with beef.
the numbers in the graph make beef like 94 times worse than carrots when it comes to CO2, but if you use pounds of CO2 per calorie instead of pounds of CO2 per serving it turns out that beef is only 8 times worse than carrots.
the graph seems like misinformation designed to make people think certain foods are much worse than they actually are.
#19717 Well spotted and good analysis.
> the way you should compare foods CO2 impact vs each other is by comparing how much CO2 is made per calorie.
depends. eating for sustenance is one goal. eating for pleasure is another, so you could e.g. try to compare pleasure per CO2. how? asking ppl to rate pleasure of eating stuff on a 1-10 scale is gonna work really poorly. so maybe the best option is find people who can easily afford plenty of calories (so they aren't shopping by calories) and then see how much they will pay to get food they get more pleasure from (beware: they will also pay more for foods that help with social status, which are prepared and delivered by someone else, which are served at a fancy table, and possibly some other factors).
#19727 but basically, if i cared about CO2 (i disagree with that view), i'd view market price per CO2 as more meaningful than calories per CO2.
@internetrules, Thank you for asking the question that lead to https://curi.us/podcast/being-friends-with-girls
I've listend to it multiple times since early 2019 and it's helped me change my mind about a lot of that stuff.
(Thanks also, ofc, to @curi for the podcast and follow up one)
news person caffeine
https://youtu.be/fTWHxocsHDM?t=25
> it is estimated about 75% of ***children, adolescents, and young adults*** in the US ***consume caffeine***
"children, adolescents, and young adults"
that includes like everyone ever? why not just say people? maybe it sounds scarier if you specifically mention children?
"consume caffeine" includes people have had a single sip of coke
does the group of people who "consume caffeine" include people who have only had caffeine once in their life? maybe its once a year? or a month? or a week?
the thing the news person said just seems really bad. what am i supposed to get from it?
#19822
> that includes like everyone ever?
do you think it includes a 50 year old person?
#19823
when i wrote that message, the answer would be yes. i have now looked up "adolescents" on wikipedia.
originally i thought "adolescents" meant like: 25+, but now i think its 13-18
so the point of the news person saying "children, adolescents, and young adults" was to talk about younger people (like 23ish and below)
spreadsheet WW2
i wonder how powerful spreadsheets would have been in WW2. i think they would have allowed for logistics and calculations to be done so much easier.
i guess they would have
computers are like really useful.
the amount of implications having a 1980-2020 computer in WW2 would be a fucking lot so im gonna stop here.
James Randi trick!
i watched this video with james randi in it: https://youtu.be/Kor_L12bBB0
in the first 2 minutes he does a trick.
the trick that it seems like he does is: he gets another person to pick a random word from a random book, and then he successfully guesses what the word is by writing it down, and then having the other person say what the word is.
here are a few things i noticed about the trick:
1. he tells the person to pick a word "that is not the kind of word that would occur on the top line of every page in this library", i think that excludes a lot of words. i think that would exclude words like: the, be, to, of, and, a, in, that. that is a lot!
2. when he is guessing the word he rights down like 4 things on a piece of paper, and then asks what the word is. when he is told the word he could then figure out a way to combine the 4 things in a way that would look like the word. he can also flip the paper upside down, and because of the way he wrote the letters they can look like different letters when he flips them upside down.
3. he guessed the word "entangled", i noticed that the way he wrote the "t" in "entangled" looked like it could be "j" it could be "t", if you flip it up side down it could be "f", i feel like it could even pass as an "I"
its a very cool trick, idk how its done, but i think it has to do with him telling the other person what kind of word to pick, and then writing down his guess in a way where it could be a lot of different words depending on how you look at it.
James Randi's book test
#19945 Randi did a version of a classic magic trick known as the book test. I have some guesses about how he did it.
The book test is sometimes done with two books that were picked in advance by the magician, but here, the guy was free to choose any of the "almost 4,000 books" in Randi's library, provided they were "approximately the same thickness and size". However! After being handed both books, Randi opens Edward Cayce's *Story of Jesus* and actually glances inside it. Randi might have memorized the uncommon words on the top line of whatever page he was looking at. Amazon says that book has 413 pages, and it looks like Randi peeked at around 25% in to the book, which would have been around page 91. He certainly didn't look near the end of the book.
Then Randi starts flipping through the other book, Lyall Watson's *Super Nature*. He stops around when the guy tells him to. Now Randi claims that the guy said "stop" just when he was at page 91. But he didn't actually *prove* that he stopped there. He just *claimed* it was page 91. Also, the guy took a long time to say "stop" the first time, and Randi claimed he slipped and had to start over.
Amazon says that that edition of *Super Nature* has 310 pages. 91/310 is just under 30%. Judging by how many pages are on each side of the pages where Randi stopped, it looks to me like [he actually stopped about 20-25% of the way through, which would be somewhere between pages 62 and 78. I'm skeptical that Randi actually stopped exactly at page 91.
Randi intentionally writes his guess upside down. I suppose that adds to the surprise of the audience when he guesses correctly. Here are two other examples of him doing that:
- Glenn Garvin, "At 86, James Randi is still amazing", *Miami Herald* (2014-08-30)
- Susan Gerbic, "James Randi Book Test @ Dragon*Con 2012", *YouTube* (2012-08-07)
One part of the trick I still haven't figured out is this: what if the book actually has more than one uncommon word in the top line? This actually seems to be the case with the top line of page 91 in Edward Cayce's *Story of Jesus*:
> those who were entangled in matter, yet with a spiritual
I don't get how Randi guessed "entangled" but not "matter" or "spiritual". Those are also words that are "not the kind of word that would occur on the top line of every page in this library".
#19946 Correction: the link to the top line of page 91 in Edward Cayce's *Story of Jesus* was missing a trailing "j". It should actually be this: https://imgur.com/a/9WBUjDj
#19946 I wrote:
>> One part of the trick I still haven't figured out is this: what if the book actually has more than one uncommon word in the top line? This actually seems to be the case with the top line of page 91 in Edward Cayce's *Story of Jesus*:
> those who were entangled in matter, yet with a spiritual
> I don't get how Randi guessed "entangled" but not "matter" or "spiritual". Those are also words that are "not the kind of word that would occur on the top line of every page in this library".
I may have figured it out. I think Randi somehow tells the person or suggests to them that they should pick the first word in the line. At 73 seconds, Randi says:
> Ok, what was the first word that your eye hit on there that you thought would be suitable?
The theory leaves something to be explained, though: at the time Randi told the guy to choose the word, he didn't suggest it should be the first prominent word. At 48 seconds, Randi just said:
> "Look at the top line on... on 91. Choose a word out of there that is not the not the kind of word that would occur on the top line of every page in this library. Don't say it!"
However, the editors did cut out a lot of the trick. Maybe they cut out something where Randi suggested that the guy should pick the first word.
At DragonCon 2012, Randi says:
> Just read over that line to yourself... now if you come to a prominent word there... that you will settle on... don't use a word like 'he' or 'she' or [unintelligible]... something prominent there that wouldn't be on the top line of every page that you turn to... You have it? Ok.
Putting all that patter together, if you tell someone to read over the line, and when they come to a prominent word, to settle on that... that kind of suggests that they should pick the first prominent word.
#19946 One other thing I noticed. In the Miami Herald article, the reporter claims Randi *showed* him the page he stopped on:
> I arbitrarily chose a couple of books on flying saucers; Randi took one and I held onto the other. “I’m going to riffle through the pages of my book, and you tell me where to stop,” he told me. He slipped perhaps a fifth of the way through before I stopped him — on page 47, as he showed me.
That would make the trick a lot more impressive. But I wonder if the reporter mis-remembered? Randi didn't show what page he stopped on at DragonCon.
There are ways to stop on a particular page if you can prep the book in advance, e.g., putting a coin in between the pages you want to stop on. But the Miami Herald guy says he chose a couple of books arbitrarily.
posting easy things
i dont think i write enough things at my skill level where i can do it automatically.
if i write more easy things, then post the easy things, posting stuff will become easier.
then if i write a hard thing, posting will be an easy part of the hard thing, so i only have to worry about the hard parts of the hard thing.
i think i take to much time when trying to post messages, and i think that makes it so i dont post a lot of messages cuz i find it hard (idk if this is accurate but i feel like thats what it is)
im trying to write this within 5 minutes cuz that is an easy amount of time. i dont have to spend to much time on writing this.
#19997 ya and if u start with posting easy things then the hard part can be doing a post, and u don't have to worry about the content much, so there are fewer hard parts.
Time Will Run Back
i read Time Will Run Back by Henry Hazlitt. i liked it
Basic semi-spoilery summary of the book: theres a guy who becomes dictator of totalitarian communist state, and implements capitalism to it step by step.
funny thing about that is: he didnt try to make capitalism, he just tried to make the economy more free, but that means capitalism.
i did not understand all the parts of the book describing capitalism, im trying to re-read it, and make notes about what each chapter had in it.