ShIxtan

• ShIxtan 9 Oct 2014 17:24 UTC

  3 points

  in reply to: Adele_L’s comment on: Open thread, Oct. 6 - Oct. 12, 2014

  Thanks! I added myself to that list. I’ll be looking at it in more detail when I get home tonight.

  I’m really excited about the density of LWers there, as I tend to do better at in person things than online. Honestly, reading stuff about the community was a big part of the reason I applied. I look forward to meeting you too!

• ShIxtan 9 Oct 2014 0:01 UTC

  6 points

  on: Open thread, Oct. 6 - Oct. 12, 2014

  Long time lurker here, I just recently got accepted to App Academy (A big part of my inspiration for applying came from this post) And I’m really excited to attend some meetups in the area.

  I have a few questions for Less Wrong people in the area, and this seemed like a good place to post them:

  1. I’ll be going in December, any chance I’ll have Less Wrong company?

  2. I understand that at least a few folks from here have been to app academy. Any advice? I’ve got an Associates in CS, and none of the prep work they’ve given me is too difficult, but is there anything else I should do to prepare?

  3. They allow students to stay there, but I’m hoping to bring my fiancee with me. Unfortunately, rent seems to be ridiculous and I have no idea where to look (I’ve never moved to a city that wasn’t driving distance from me). What’s the best way to find apartments in SF?

  4. Related to the above, is anyone in the SF area looking for a roommate(or two) starting December? We are clean, quiet, and can be very unobtrusive if need be. The main issue I see is that we would prefer to also bring our cat along.

• ShIxtan 16 Aug 2013 3:44 UTC

  2 points

  on: Group Ra­tion­al­ity Diary, Au­gust 1-15

  I’ve been a lurker here for a while now, but thanks to Beeminder I’m finally posting!

  In an effort to increase my luminosity I decided to start positively rewarding any thoughts about my internal state with a smile. For a few days it seemed to be working wonderfully. I would think about my resolution, smile and feel good about it very often. After a few days I started responding to this smile by trying to gauge my emotions.

  Turns out this was a bad idea. The whole reason I’m doing this is that I find this type of purposeful introspection difficult and frustrating. So I turned the positive reinforcer into a negative one. As a result, I haven’t been nearly as introspective the last couple days. I’m switching back to simply rewarding self-aware thoughts, no more trying to provoke them.