I don’t know how much of the reading I’ll have done as I’m attempting to stay rational(ish) while moving, but I’ll be there...
purplerabbits
Karma: 115
This is very interesting. When I was dieting I noticed that a taste of food (but not diet coke which I drink tons of) was often enough to give me more physical and mental energy, but that it also made me feel more hungry, possibly because it set off the stomach acids ready for digestion. I wondered at the time if it could be explained by glycogen. Glycogen as I understand it is how the body stores readily available sugars that are not in the blood but where they’re a lot more easily broken down than in fat. (It’s also heavier than fat per calorie so it explains a lot of high early weight loss effects). I thought that maybe tasting food prompted the body to release some glycogen into blood sugar so it had the energy for digestion.
Of course this doesn’t mean that distractibility isn’t a Thing too. Will power is almost certainly one of those things that’s ‘a bit more complicated than that’…
I’m coming from Edinburgh
Any idea why not?
When I was reading the sequences in reruns I felt like a first student in a class in a glass box with ALL the graduates looking on and free to shoot down my ideas :-) Plus I am not a naturally prolific commenter...
I don’t think it’s unfair at all, but your comment made me rethink something that may be relevant. Quirrel set a surprise exam, and it was surprisingly easy and everyone (except Hermione) passed. I think probably the worst thing that you can do in the face of a surprise exam is not attempt to answer, and maybe that’s part of the lesson EY is trying to convey here :-)
I also note that Quirrel failed Hermione in the knowledge that he would be resurrecting her, and this is either very mean, or a very good lesson for resurrected Hermione, or both.
I’ll the there
I made it to this one and I’m Edinburgh based. If there’s enough interest I’d be up for alternating Glasgow/Edinburgh
Thanks, there’s most likely to be some kind of concession price if I can make the numbers add up.
I totally agree about timing! The reason for August is that there’s a good deal on the venue, but if that’s not viable I’m happy to go later. And if it is viable and successful I will likely be doing a similar event again.
Yes, I would expect 2-3 hours work dealing with it plus a loss of utility for the holiday of around £200. If I cost my time at a tenner an hour that works out at under 50p for a luggage free bathroom break, which sounds pretty reasonable to me.
Good point, it’s what I would usually do and I shall remember to do that in future
Collecting expressions of interest in a rationality conference in August
Be a little bit more trusting than most people think sensible
Sundays could well be doable. And I agree about a public place at first.
When you come to move, and a thing you’re planning to move is still in a box since the last move, throw it out.
If you are keeping a thing ‘because it might come in handy’ and the occasion arises when it WOULD have been handy except you forget you have it, throw it out.
On smaller purchases I note that I have a danger zone of between £3 and £8 where it’s easy to just spend money without discernible benefit (it’s no coincidence that this equals about a coffee and a bun in Starbucks). So I have a rule that unless it’s something I actually need Right Now, I make a maximum of one such purchase per non-working day.
Sadly I can’t make this even though I am extremely keen to attend a regular local meetup. I think it could be worth organising a meeting outside normal working hours and avoiding talking about students in the announcement. What do you think?
I’d also love to meet somewhere quieter that doesn’t require expenditure, but that may be asking a bit much to start with...
Yes. The obvious one to me is that it is totally irrational of me to want to eat pile of sweets that I know from previous experience will make me feel bad about myself ten minutes after eating it and which I rationally don’t need nutritionally. I can make myself not do it, but to make myself not want to is like trying to not see an optical illusion...
Hi, I’m Alison—I used to be a professional tarot reader and astrologer in spite of having a (fairly average) science degree. I recovered from that over 15 years ago and feel it would be valuable for more people to understand how I came to do it and how I changed my mind. I am also a 45 year old woman, which makes me feel in a tiny minority on LW.
I’ve been reading large chunks of the sequences for the last year, as well as books like Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear and a bunch of rationalist blogs (and been thoroughly sucked into HPMOR).
Topics I’m particularly interested in include day to day rationality, tackling global warming, rationality from the perspective of people with mental health issues and tackling irrationality while maintaining polite and less arrogant discourse.
Will you be helping to coordinate crash space for the nights around the weekend again? It was very much appreciated last time, and would like to stay a bit longer in Berlin if possible...