I like the approach of password recipes to have a unique password for each service without needing to memorize very much.
PECOS-9
Karma: 858
Let me know if you find anything useful. I’m working on a project (though I haven’t done anything on it since making that post).
fubarobfusco’s reply to that post might be useful to you too.
Failing to do all sorts of things that I would have enjoyed merely because they involved some trivial inconvenience.
Can you be more specific (if you don’t mind sharing)?
I was about to ask whether it would be difficult to include something like /r/all (i.e. the ability to view posts from all subreddits without having to visit each individually), when I tried just editing the url to http://lesswrong.com/r/all, and sure enough, it works (it shows posts from both Main and Discussion)!
Is this functionality documented anywhere? Also, is it possible to view just the post titles on /r/all, without the full text?
Edit: Yes, it is possible to view just post titles: http://lesswrong.com/r/all/recentposts/
What do you mean by “have access to”?
Also, I’d be interested in that reading list, if it wouldn’t be too much effort for you to put together.
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posthypnotic_amnesia
“memory wiping” might not be the best term for it, since the memory is still in there, just really hard to access, but it’s definitely a real effect.
I’ve also personally used hypnosis to achieve the effects on friends of mine (who I’m certain weren’t just pretending), as well as to many strangers on omegle (who could have been pretending, but based on what I know about hypnosis I doubt they were).
I think that a lot of Derren Brown’s stuff, while not exactly fake, is done by hypnotizing them off-camera.
So he either hypnotizes them and finds out some information then wipes the memory of them telling him the information, or he hypnotizes them and gives a post-hypnotic suggestion that they will make a specific choice (but not remember being hypnotized to make the choice).
Edit: This post received 4 downvotes, can someone explain? Is it because of a general skepticism about hypnosis? I gave a source on post-hypnotic amnesia below but I’m still receiving downvotes. Even if you think the supposed effects achieved by stage magicians are illegitimate in some way (e.g. people are just playing along), hypnosis as an explanation for how Derren Brown does these tricks is still valid.
Unless peirce is interested in going back to the clubs, that sounds like it could make the activity even better (from a getting-over-social-anxiety perspective).
So I could set up a commitment contract stating I must do each of these activities until my anxiety has decreased to half of its initial level by the end of a certain date.
I think a completely objective goal would be better, e.g. “I must do each activity at least 5 times”.
This is similar to another frequently-recommended technique: Teach the material to someone else.
Ah, I’ve only seen the anime.
I’d also try “The person will die of cause A if X is true, and cause B if X is false” and other ways to try to push the burden of skill onto whatever mysterious universal forces are working instead of the human.
After finding a volunteer with a terminal illness, I’d test the limits of it. E.g. “The person will either write a valid proof of P=NP or a valid proof that P!=NP and then die of a heart attack.”
Can someone give an example of a situation where they would use this repository?
I typed up the below message before discovering that the term I was looking for is “data dredging” or “hypothesis fishing.” Still decided to post below so others know.
Is there a well-known term for the kind of error that pre-registrations of scientific studies is meant to avoid? I mean the error where an experiment is designed to test something like “This drug cures the common cold,” but then when the results show no effect, the researchers repeatedly do the analysis on smaller slices of the data from the experiment, until eventually they have the results “This drug cures the common cold in males aged 40-60, p<.05,” when of course that result is just due to random chance (because if you do the statistical tests on 20 subsets of the data, chances are one of them will show an effect with p<.05).
It’s similar to the file drawer effect, except it’s within a single experiment, not many.
It can cause or intensify a large range of emotions or moods.
Do you not have an emotional reaction to any music?
Once you’ve picked some goals, use this technique to improve your chance of achieving them (taken from “59 Seconds”):
Other researchers have developed “super-strength” visualization tools that aim to combine the motivational effects of imagining yourself doing well with the practical benefits associated with thinking about whatever is required to achieve your aim. Much of this research has been conducted by Gabriele Oettingen at the University of Pennsylvania and involves a little bit of Orwellian doublethink.
In 1984, George Orwell introduced the concept of “doublethink,” describing it as simultaneously holding two opposing beliefs in your mind and yet accepting both. In Orwell’s novel, this technique was used by a totalitarian government to continuously rewrite history and thus control the populace. However, recent research has shown that the same type of idea can be used in a more productive way, helping people to achieve their goals and ambitions. Oettingen speculated that one of the most effective states of mind involves people being optimistic about achieving their goal but also realistic about some of the problems that they may encounter. To investigate, she developed a novel procedure that encouraged people to hold both types of thought in mind, and she then carried out a series of studies to assess its effectiveness. The procedure is simple. People are asked to think about something they want to achieve, such as losing weight, learning a new skill, or changing their drinking habits. Next, they are told to spend a few moments fantasizing about reaching the goal and to note the top two benefits that would flow from such an achievement. After this, they are asked to spend another few moments reflecting on the kinds of barriers and problems that they are likely to encounter if they attempt to fulfill their ambition, and again, make a note of the top two issues. Now comes the doublethink. People are asked to reflect on their first benefit, elaborating on how it would make their life more enjoyable. Immediately afterward, they are asked to think about the biggest hurdle to such success, focusing on what they would do if they encountered the difficulty. Then they repeat the same process for the second positive aspect of achieving their aim and the second potential problem.
In several experiments, Oettingen discovered that this procedure provides the best of both worlds. When people focused on an existing relationship that they wanted to improve, those engaging in doublethink were more successful than those who just fantasized or focused on the negatives. Returning to the theme of romance, she applied the doublethink procedure to students harboring a secret crush. Those who employed the fantasy-reality technique were more successful than those who merely dreamed about their perfect date or dwelled solely on the difficulties of revealing their true feelings. Additional work has used the doublethink procedure to encourage employees to become more involved in training courses; nurses to build better relationships with patients’ family members and show greater commitment to best practice; and middle managers to make better decisions, delegate more effectively, and improve their time-management skills.
Once a month, set specific goals for that month. Make sure that it’s very easy to verify that you achieved the goal (“improve at programming” is not a good goal, “solve every practice problem in the first chapter of SICP” is a good goal. “solve every practice problem in the first chapter of SICP, or spend at least 2 hours thinking about each problem before giving up and looking up a solution” is even better).
After you’ve decided on your goals for a given month, don’t second-guess whether they’re actually the best thing you could be doing or whether you’re wasting your time—it’s only one month. If it turns out it wasn’t the best goal to try, just take note of it and use that knowledge to pick better goals next month. It’s more important that you actually follow through than that you follow the optimal path, and if you keep switching goals every week, you’re not gonna follow through.
Also, start using either anki or mnemosyne.
I’ve seen it suggested to practice at normal or faster-than-normal speeds, but only very short segments that you can play for sure without mistakes (one or two measures, repeated 10 times). Anecdotally it’s worked pretty well for me, but so have other techniques (playing the whole thing slowly, playing at normal speed with mistakes...)
Of course, then the answer to “What skill am I actually practicing” is “how to play this tiny part of the song (and then stop)”...
Just to finish your thought: Because of this, it’s possible that “A” and “the opposite of A” actually can both raise your estimate of p(B), even though “A” and “not A” can’t, as BlueSun stated.
The purpose of that suggestion is to protect against dictionary attacks. Agreed that the advice “should not contain any word in any language” is overly strict (better advice would be “should not simply be one or two words in some language”).
Regardless, password recipes are a solution for the problem of coming up with a different password for different services. Even using the technique in the comic to remember phrases like “correct horse battery staple”, it would be difficult to remember a different password for dozens of services compared to just remembering a single password recipe.