I’m probably one of the oldest here at 54. As a child my superior intelligence was lauded. I empathize with rationality because to a man with a hammer, the hope is the world is a nail. Coming from middle class Long Island (Farmingdale High School) what I have enjoyed most has been contributing research and analysis and working around superbly interesting, motivated, and intelligent people. My great luck has brought me to Swarthmore College, Bell Labs (when it was still Bell Labs), Caltech, and Qualcomm. I was a Physics major philosophy minor for my B.A. and Applied Physics for my PhD. I took nearly enough math and economics to be minors, and have continued to learn primarily practical economics since then. I beleive in the Physicist/Mathematician/Chemist distinctions where I fall strongly on Physicist: Ithink I understand something when I can build a machine (usually program) that does something based on my understanding, and care not one whit for proofs which don’t help me do something.
I live in Sandy Eggo with my wife and 12 & 14 year old daughters who are charming and wonderful and, near as I can tell, not particularly rationalist although I don’t thiink they have anything aginst rationality. We have a Golden Doodle name Lucy that I refer to as “the doctor.” My hobby is reading, I love economics, evolutionary psychology, futurism, science fiction. I also watch a lot of girls U14 soccer.
That’s great. I have a cat named Walter (after the PTSD afflicted character from The Big Lebowski). I regularly accuse him of being a know-it-all because he got a PhD and I didn’t. It’s quite ridiculous.
Walter is also known as ‘The Fat Baby,’ ‘The Bat Faby,’ and ‘Koshka Belaey’ (White Cat in Russian)
I designed a data compression scheme for information about GPS satellite orbits. As dull as that sounds, the exciting part is that millions of downloads of the data are done a day. That jazzed me good.
Books:
The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
Blindsight by Peter Watts
A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge
The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley
The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder
Stumbling On Happiness by Daniel Gilbert
Fortune’s Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street by William Poundstone
Genome by Matt Ridley
Freakonomics (and super, the sequel)
That list is weighted towards more recent, and I left out my “stock porn” books like “The Big Short” and “Too Big To Fail.” But the bio of Buffett is incredible in my opinion.
Oh wow, that’s awesome! When my dad was in the USSR, one person would have a really good radio, and everyone would gather in their basement to try to listen to Voice of America, which the Soviets would try to block. I bet they wouldn’t have any problems if they’d had your radio! lol
I tried reading Anathem by Stephenson. That didn’t last.
I’m probably one of the oldest here at 54. As a child my superior intelligence was lauded. I empathize with rationality because to a man with a hammer, the hope is the world is a nail. Coming from middle class Long Island (Farmingdale High School) what I have enjoyed most has been contributing research and analysis and working around superbly interesting, motivated, and intelligent people. My great luck has brought me to Swarthmore College, Bell Labs (when it was still Bell Labs), Caltech, and Qualcomm. I was a Physics major philosophy minor for my B.A. and Applied Physics for my PhD. I took nearly enough math and economics to be minors, and have continued to learn primarily practical economics since then. I beleive in the Physicist/Mathematician/Chemist distinctions where I fall strongly on Physicist: Ithink I understand something when I can build a machine (usually program) that does something based on my understanding, and care not one whit for proofs which don’t help me do something.
I live in Sandy Eggo with my wife and 12 & 14 year old daughters who are charming and wonderful and, near as I can tell, not particularly rationalist although I don’t thiink they have anything aginst rationality. We have a Golden Doodle name Lucy that I refer to as “the doctor.” My hobby is reading, I love economics, evolutionary psychology, futurism, science fiction. I also watch a lot of girls U14 soccer.
That’s great. I have a cat named Walter (after the PTSD afflicted character from The Big Lebowski). I regularly accuse him of being a know-it-all because he got a PhD and I didn’t. It’s quite ridiculous.
Walter is also known as ‘The Fat Baby,’ ‘The Bat Faby,’ and ‘Koshka Belaey’ (White Cat in Russian)
Thanks for the intro! 54 isn’t that old!
What are some of your favorite books?
What have you accomplished in your work that you are most proud of?
Thanks for your interest!
More than 20 years ago, I built a radio reciever using a superconducting device for my thesis. It was the most sensitive radio in the world for a while, in the 300 GHz to 500 GHz range. My one and only wikipedia article is about that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconductor-insulator-superconductor_tunnel_junction
I designed a data compression scheme for information about GPS satellite orbits. As dull as that sounds, the exciting part is that millions of downloads of the data are done a day. That jazzed me good.
Books:
The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein Blindsight by Peter Watts A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge
The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder Stumbling On Happiness by Daniel Gilbert Fortune’s Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street by William Poundstone Genome by Matt Ridley Freakonomics (and super, the sequel)
That list is weighted towards more recent, and I left out my “stock porn” books like “The Big Short” and “Too Big To Fail.” But the bio of Buffett is incredible in my opinion.
Oh wow, that’s awesome! When my dad was in the USSR, one person would have a really good radio, and everyone would gather in their basement to try to listen to Voice of America, which the Soviets would try to block. I bet they wouldn’t have any problems if they’d had your radio! lol
I tried reading Anathem by Stephenson. That didn’t last.