Links and thoughts, 1/2016

Posted: 2016-02-02 , Modified: 2016-02-02

Here’s a list of what I’ve read/listened to/watched the past month.

(*) means particularly interesting, and (h) are links to personal highlights.

I’m taking notes on the classes I’m attending this semester (tenatively MAT515, MAT597, and MAT519). They will be available under the “Notes” tab above.

Rationality, Productivity, Life advice
- Generalizing from one example (h)
- The illusion of explanatory depth (h), see also here, original paper
- I started using Mnemosyne, a flash-card tool that uses spaced repetition.
  - Using memory software to learn Japanese
  - Why isn’t spaced repetition software more popular? Part 1, Part 2
  - When is spaced repetition appropriate?
  - 20 rules (h) (I’m not sure I agree with all these. Use your judgment.)
  - If you like a nice-looking web app instead, try Memrise.
- Life advice
  - (*) Stop trying to try and just try (h)
  - The art of response (h)
  - 6 harsh truths that will make you a better person (Summary: What you are is determined by what you do, and is important insofar as it determines what you do. Don’t say “deep inside me there’s a writer,” just write. The world is a needy place - it does no good to “need” things. Produce things of value. It’s easier to criticize than create - but a little bit of creation is far braver than a vast mountain of criticizing.)
  - Don’t ask yourself what do I want to do h (Summary: Don’t ask what you’re passionate about, ask what struggles you’re willing to endure.)
  - Screw finding your passion
- “Giving honest negative feedback to someone we care about can actually be a huge display of vulnerability.” (h)
- Materialism vs. experientialism is a wrong dichotomy (h)
- What are some blogs/websites I would like if I like The Last Psychiatrist?
- (*) Eigenmorality A circular definition of morality isn’t vacuous - it defines morality as a fixed point, in much the same way that importance is defined by PageRank. What follows from this definition?
Education
- Criteria for fact-based apps What makes a app teaching multiplication facts, etc. good?
- Problem-based learning needs a different crux - Don’t try to “elicit the right question” - that’s mind control.
Programming, Haskell
Podcasts
- Freakonomics Radio: Is America’s education problem really just a teacher problem? Instead of framing as “replace all bad teachers by good teachers,” ask makes teachers great and change the system to teach those qualities.
- IndieFeed
  - Sarah Kay
  - The End of It
- (*) Reply-all/Radiolab: The Cathedral A moving piece on the creation of That Dragon, Cancer, a computer game based off a parent’s experience losing a child to cancer.
- TED Radio Hour
  - Building better cities
    - Daniele Quercia talks about making an mapping app that focuses on the most beautiful parts of cities (found through crowdsourcing).
    - Benjamin Barber and Kasim Reed talk about how mayors are the ones solving some of the most challenging social problems. Mayors are closer to the people (cities are closer to direct democracy), and focus on problem-solving rather than ideology. Barber created the Global Parliament of Mayors. (h1, h2)
      
      Until you see a city how people who are most in need of help see it, you’re never going to reach them… And I think that if you don’t take care of the basics and do them very well -make sure that the finances of the city are well-run, make sure that you provide police services, pick up trash, fix potholes - that you will never be able to do anything aspirational. And once you take on those issues and solve them, the public will then allow you to spend resources on the things that you care about.
  - Courage
- This American Life
  - Say Yes to Christmas Christmas improv
  - (*) Something only I can see Particularly recommend Act 1 on how a muscular dystrophy patient found a connection between her genes and a famous athlete’s.
  - How to win friends and influence people In particular Act 3 on dressing as Superman.
  - Family physics
  - (*) If you don’t have anything nice to say, SAY IT ALL IN CAPS Act 1 on a Internet troll’s repentance
  - (*) Poetry of Propaganda Act 1 on an ad campaign targeted to guerrillas to lay down their arms, including Christmas trees in the jungle. (cf. memetic immunity from 11-2015 links)
- 99 percent invisible
  - 193 Tube Benders - On the art and symbolism of neon signs.
  - 192 Pagodas and Dragon Gates - How the architecture of Chinatown came to be.
  - Desire paths
- To keep my Chinese in practice, I decided to find some Chinese podcasts: 1, 2, 3 I decided on:
  - 青春愛消遣 - An entertaining talk show from Taiwan
  - TED in Chinese
- Fun
  - (*) Undertale is an AMAZING game. It has amazing story and character, great gameplay, good humor, inventive mechanics, and lots of easter eggs. Most interestingly, it subverts the RPG genre of killing monsters, allowing a pacifist run that brings out the “true story” (on the flip side, there’s a genocide run…) AND people have turned the boss battles into Stepmania:
    - Spider dance (download)
    - Megalovania, (download)
    - Metal crusher (download)
  - Participated in the MIT Mystery Hunt. A math puzzle we enjoyed, a math puzzle we did not enjoy.
  - A satire of cake-cutting
  - Vi Hart!
    - Shepard Tones
    - Float: A puzzle game for VR
  - (*) The number line: A Journey
- Other
  - What’s eating Silicon Valley?
  - Hive Mind
  - Extraversion vs. Extroversion
  - A new way to cook rice that halves the calories
  - Bernie Sanders ice cream
  - Learned about reversible computing (wikipedia)
  - Why foot-binding persisted in China for over a millenium
  - Random professor stalking: Robert Ghrist - Funny Little Calculus Book; Elementary Applied Topology
Books I read/am reading
- Nexus, Ramez Naam - An incredible exploration of what happens when we can program our own minds. One of the big themes is the decision between technological freedom and censorship. 5 stars.
- Buddha, Karen Armstrong - A great intro to Buddhism. 4 stars.
- The Invention of Morel, Adolfo Bioy Casares - 3 stars.
- The Great Conversation, Normal Melchert - A comprehensive and clear overview of Western philosophy. I’m taking notes. (I took this as a recommendation for a philosophy textbook from the best textbooks on every topic.)
- In the Land of Invented Languages, Arika Okrent
- The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching, Thich Nhat Hanh
- Short stories I liked from 1/2016 issue of Science Fiction and Fantasy:
  - The White Piano, David Gerrold
  - Caspar D. Luckinbill, What are you going to do?, Nick Wolven
  - Robot from the future, Terry Bisson