Looking for a roommate in Mountain View
In September I will be moving to Mountain View, CA together with a friend of mine from MIT. It turns out that the quality/cost ratio increases noticeably with the number of people living together, so we are looking for one or more additional roommates. All things being equal, I would much rather live with other rationalists, which is why I’m posting this on LessWrong.
About us
My name is Jacob, and my roommate’s name is Jonathan. We both recently graduated from MIT (me with a bachelor’s in mathematics, him with a master’s in electrical engineering). I am going to graduate school in machine learning at Stanford; Jonathan works at Synaptics (the company that makes touch sensors).
You can find approximately four-month-outdated information about me at my old MIT website. I’ve been awarded both the Hertz and NSF Fellowships, which means that I have a guaranteed source of income for the next five years regardless of any external factors like my adviser’s ability to pay for me. I teach for SPARC (CFAR’s high school program) and am very interested in building up the rationalist community in the south bay.
Reasons you should live with us
we both have steady sources of income and are on highly successful career tracks
your behavior is strongly affected by the culture you live in; living with other rationalists will make you more rational
we both value open communication and are difficult to offend, which makes conflict resolution much easier
be at the center of exciting developments: I am working directly on important problems in AI and rationalist outreach, and know an embarrassingly large amount of math / computer science, even by LessWrong standards
I know a lot about sports and strength training, and am happy to help you out if your goal is to become stronger / more athletic
I am also first aid and CPR certified, so you are slightly less likely to die if you live with me
Jonathan is a pretty good cook and would be interested in leading the effort on group dinners and/or teaching some culinary basics.
Jonathan is good at do-it-yourself electronics (sensors, microcontrollers, FPGAs) and is willing to share experience / expertise
we are both willing to participate in house-wide life-hacking experiments (N = 3 is much better than N = 1 for data size)
What we are looking for
interest in building up the rationalist community
steady source of income
you are interesting to talk to and instrumentally rational
Contact info
If you might be interested in living with us, send me a PM telling me a little bit about yourself; I’ll then give you my e-mail and we can figure out if there is likely to be a good fit (obviously, we will also meet in person before any final decisions are made).
EDIT: One person said via email that they tried and failed to PM me. In case this is a larger issue, my e-mail is jsteinha@csail.mit.edu.
I suggest also posting to the bayarealesswrong@googlegroups.com list.
Thanks for posting this. It inspired me to write a more general roommate coordination thread. I’m interested in the living situation you describe, but my housing situation is set until I finish my computer science degree in May. I also don’t have a steady source of income right now.
When considering my prospects about where to live post-graduation, I’m torn between Silicon Valley and places that might have a higher quality/cost ratio. Can you share some of your rationale for choosing Silicon Valley over your other options? How would not having a steady source of income change your thinking about where to live?
Whoa, signaling overload (probably unintentional)...
I have been told in the past that I am insufficiently forthcoming about my strengths, so I tried to compensate for that here. Perhaps I went too far? If you have feedback I would appreciate it (either here or via PM).
I thought it was fine. Good, in fact, you sound cool.
I wasn’t put off by it. Actually, my reaction was “Wow, I wish I were looking for an apartment” and then “Wait, that’s really silly. I actually mean that these guys sound fun to hang out with.” :)