zedzed

Karma: 597

zedzed 8 Aug 2016 4:07 UTC
1 point
in reply to: justwanttorecommend’s comment on: The Best Textbooks on Every Subject
Second the rec on Sadava. I strongly preferred it to Campbell, the other standard intro bio text, which I found insufficiently precise. I’d go to make an Anki card about some concept, only to find that Campbell’s discussion lacked enough precision for me to state exactly what was going on. Sadly, I haven’t read another biology book (having been quite satisfied with Sadava’s), so I can’t make a Luke-compliant recommendation.

zedzed 4 Mar 2016 2:16 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Will_BC’s comment on: The Best Textbooks on Every Subject
Book’s homepage: http://www.mcafee.cc/Introecon/

There seems to be threeish versions about:
1. The original (the one your link goes to), which McAfee believes may be preferred by the mathematically sophisticated or engineers. This is the one I’m personally using, currently.
2. A second version, meant to improve accessibility, which McAfee expects professors considering the text to prefer
3. Version 2.1, which appears to be a refinement of version 2. Includes solutions to exercises, cosmetic improvements, and “small edits for consistency of notation and for clarity.”
(I’m vaguely reminded of Debian-Ubuntu-Mint Linux distros. Yay open source?)

zedzed 4 Jan 2016 17:24 UTC
2 points
in reply to: polymathwannabe’s comment on: Open Thread, January 4-10, 2016
http://markmanson.net/std-guide

zedzed 15 Oct 2015 16:06 UTC
0 points
in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: A very long list of sleep maintenance suggestions

There are theoretical reason to expect long-term harm from it.

Such as?

zedzed 30 Sep 2015 7:45 UTC
2 points
in reply to: raydora’s comment on: Ultimatums in the Territory
I wouldn’t be surprised if every single principle of effective learning has, by someone, somewhere, been co-opted into a dark art.

zedzed 29 Sep 2015 0:03 UTC
5 points
on: Ultimatums in the Territory
My favorite part of this post was the inclusion of the exercise left to the reader; working through it really helped me deeply understand what you were saying. I suggest that this type of thing become more common because generation effect.

zedzed 2 Sep 2015 14:37 UTC
0 points
on: Should there be more people on the leaderboard?
The answer is 42.

(But, seriously, I think 15 is fine. I’d even be fine reducing it to 10 (username is currently #12)).

zedzed 23 Aug 2015 23:38 UTC
5 points
in reply to: PhilGoetz’s comment on: Instrumental Rationality Questions Thread
From a technical perspective. However, many of my friends respond to fb messages and not emails. Near as I can tell, they’re young enough that, when establishing a “best way to contact me,” they chose “website I’m going to be on anyway.”

I think, now that they’re graduating college, they’re going to have to get themselves a professional email, but the best way to contact them socially is going to remain fb because, for most social stuff (or at least, social stuff my friends and I get up to), we don’t really need any more features than fb has, which I find disappointing, being in the minority who could really use everything you listed.

zedzed 23 Aug 2015 3:05 UTC
4 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Instrumental Rationality Questions Thread
Thank you for the reply. I somewhat disagree that this detracts from the purpose of the thread—I find signalling via grammar (a) nonobvious and (b) useful, making my comment very much in place in a thread about instrumental rationality (albeit less so in a questions thread)—but I do very much appreciate the feedback.

zedzed 23 Aug 2015 0:54 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Username’s comment on: Instrumental Rationality Questions Thread
In that case, “it’s” is a contraction equivalent to “it is”. For a possessive, use “its”.

Examples:

Practical advice from its members.

and

It’s inspired by the stupid questions.

(What’s the point of paying attention to this stuff if you’re communicating clearly? Briefly, signalling. If I notice you’ve made a grammatical error, on average, I estimate you’re less well educated or not invested in making the writing worth my while than in the opposite case, and am less likely to finish reading if I get bored or have to expend mental effort to understand what you’re saying or something. Also, there’s an aesthetic element: error-free writing is, ceter paribus, more pleasing to read.)

(Also, wondering if this was downvoted because someone thinks I’m incorrect, because they think I’m being an ass, or for some other reason.)

zedzed 22 Aug 2015 23:06 UTC
8 points
on: Instrumental Rationality Questions Thread
Are there any nootropics that have decent evidence of nonnegligible effectiveness that aren’t listed in Slate Star Codex’s Nootropics Survey Results. Asking so I can use replies to this comment + survey as an exhaustive list of nootropics worth considering.

zedzed 18 Aug 2015 21:59 UTC
0 points
in reply to: RomeoStevens’s comment on: Open thread, Aug. 17 - Aug. 23, 2015
Are there any 2014 videos? I can find the 2013 keynotes here, but nothing since then.

If there were videos recorded and never posted for 2014, then the 2015 prospects look not so good.

zedzed 16 Aug 2015 23:28 UTC
2 points
in reply to: Elo’s comment on: Rational approach to finding life partners
Please do.

zedzed 12 Aug 2015 12:18 UTC
5 points
in reply to: Sherincall’s comment on: Crazy Ideas Thread, Aug. 2015
So, Folding at Home, but with money involved? Any idea if it can justify the increased electrical bills?

zedzed 11 Aug 2015 19:41 UTC
1 point
in reply to: James_Miller’s comment on: Crazy Ideas Thread, Aug. 2015
I agree with the point, though my immediate intuition is that a few months might work better than a few years; in StarCraft, there’s almost no lag, but that hasn’t stopped people from innovating, and any meta that persists more than a few months starts feeling stale.

Maybe have 3ish-month seasons like SC2*, and competitors disclose at the end of the season.

* There’s three stages of a season: qualifiers, lower league, and upper league. Anyone can compete in the qualifiers, which consist of single-elimination brackets. The lower league is composed of 24 qualified competitors and the bottom 24 (out of 32) finishers from the previous season’s upper league. The qualified competitors match up against the competitors who dropped from last season’s upper league, and the winner advances to this season’s upper league. These 24 players, along with the top 8 competitor’s from last season’s upper league compete in a single-elimination bracket, until a champion is crowned (or, I guess, trophied). (There’s also dual tournaments, which have the exact same effect of eliminating half the players in a round, but I prefer because it’s more forgiving of bad seeding—you don’t have #1 seed knocking out #3 seed in round of 32, for instance).

zedzed 21 Jul 2015 6:32 UTC
4 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Interesting things to do during a gap year after getting undergraduate degree

Korean academy in Guatemala

I notice that I am confused. What, exactly, is a Korean academy doing halfway around the world? Were you teaching people-who-speak-Korean English in a Spanish-speaking country?

zedzed 15 Jul 2015 2:13 UTC
5 points
in reply to: tanagrabeast’s comment on: Bragging Thread July 2015
And thus, another school that could have implemented effective SRS (probably) won’t (I’m assuming, with you there to advocate for it, near-universal adoption is inevitable, but without an advocate, nobody will undergo the trivial inconvenience of doing something new, especially when they don’t fully understand the cognitive psychology behind it). I’m reminded of Teaching Linear Algebra, where someone applies cognitive psychology to teaching, is hugely successful, and promptly never teaches again because a better opportunity came along.

That said, best of luck!

zedzed 13 Jul 2015 20:44 UTC
6 points
in reply to: roland’s comment on: Open Thread, Jul. 13 - Jul. 19, 2015
Obligatory link to The Best Textbook on Every Subject.

I’m told that Mas-Colell’s book is the classic on microeconomics (provided you have the mathematical prerequisites), although this recommendation is second-hand since it’s still on my to-read list.

zedzed 14 Jun 2015 7:58 UTC
2 points
in reply to: DataPacRat’s comment on: Seeking advice: Writing skills and workspaces
Oops. I did, in fact, mean vocal music. Fixed and thank you.

zedzed 13 Jun 2015 23:51 UTC
3 points
on: Seeking advice: Writing skills and workspaces
Regarding the audio environment: you’re combating the irrelevant speech effect. Shuffling and instrumental music are bad; people talking and vocal music are worse. A good bet is industrial-grade earmuffs + earbuds (possibly noise-isolating) playing white noise.

Regarding turning off the internet: experiment. I find it annoying and a hindrance, but I know that it’s wildly helpful for other people.