Both exacting and highly individual in the struggle for goodness. All opinions are my own and not those of my employer.
This is a writeup of how I run Secular Solstices, in as much detail as I can muster. I think most of the existing guides to running Solstices are now somewhat outdated, and not as step-by-step "this is what you need to do when"; I hope this one is a helpful addition. This post assumes you are basically familiar with what Secular Solstice is and what tends to happen in one; if you aren't, I'd…
I've heard some scary stories about potential bad outcomes from meditation. These outcomes seem to mostly be from people practicing insight meditation for very long periods of time, though. So I figured, hey, a few minutes here and there of loving-kindness meditation should be totally fine and not scary, right? I've never heard of anything weird or out-of-model happening to your brain from just…
I have a very short list of books that have actually changed my life substantially -- three so far. I think The Renaissance Soul by Margaret Lobenstine is going to be the fourth. This book is fundamentally about solving a dilemma I've had my whole life, namely: if you are interested in too many random things, how do you get a meaningful and satisfying amount of depth out of them, without having to…
Ever since I read this book review about Georgism , I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. I'd always heard from the economists I knew that the land value tax was a good idea that we could never really do because of politics, and I didn't understand why. But now, having gone down the Georgism rabbit hole, I understand far more acutely both why it would be a great idea, and why politics…
It was never meant for us. You might be excused for thinking it was, because it was so beautiful. With its tree-lined avenues, distant hills that twinkled with lights after dark, the restaurant patios open until late in summer, the gentle sunlight that returned day after day through the green winter, you might think, of course this place was meant for us to enjoy. What else could it be for? Who…
(In this case, for a loose definition of "lately"; this post has been sitting in my drafts for a while.) Online Lady Archimedes by White Squirrel ( link ) -- 7/10. A worthy conclusion to The Arithmancer. Similar review to my first: comforting, not ultimately all that standout, but still a fun read. Worth the Candle by Alexander Wales ( link ) -- 9/10. In terms of sheer writing quality -- plot…
This is a review/testimonial for the book 7 Principles for Making Marriage Work , by John Gottman. I often find myself using concepts from this book to talk about relationships; it's reached a point where I want more of the people I know to know these concepts, and I also think more people should know about them for their own benefit. So here's me writing some of this stuff down, so that even if…
When I was growing up, in a middle-class intellectual family, I got a lot of interesting messages about money. I went to Quaker schools for a long time. Though modern Quakers vary in how well they do it, and it's not as explicit these days, Quaker ideology prizes poverty as the correct state, morally speaking. After all, "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich…
Christianity I never realized how carefully Universalist and non-Christian the Quaker school I went to was. I think we even sang the George Fox song without the verse about "If we give you a pistol, will you fight for the Lord?" As far as I remembered from my childhood, the "ocean of darkness" verse was the third one. When people used to ask me if Quakers were Christian, I would straightforwardly…
At the end of 2018, I made a list of "Things I want to do in 2019." Not resolutions, exactly; not goals, exactly; more like a plan with some assorted ideas for things that I wanted to happen, without restricting myself or forcing myself to do any particular thing. Here's how it went. Do a triathlon -- No, but I did get through most of Couch to 5k and did a 5k near the end of the year. I think a…
I've been thinking about Quakerism a lot lately. It's the religion of my childhood -- my parents weren't exactly active practitioners, but I went to a Quaker school, and sometimes went to Meeting with my dad growing up. I always felt connected to it on a spiritual level, but not on a social level. The people there were important for making the ritual happen, not much else. The school I went to…
[Sort of a response to In My Culture (Duncan Sabien); see also In My Culture (Ozy Frantz). Yes, this is belated; this draft has been sitting around for a while.] The phrase "in my culture" has been making the rounds of the rationalist blogosphere. While I'm not sure if I like the phrase itself, I think it is very helpful to express something like "the way I interact with other people follows…
Epistemic status: reflective I've been doing this thing lately where I give people constructive feedback on things that they do that I don't like. It's an investment in them, and it's a sign of trust. If I didn't think I was going to stick around, it wouldn't be worth the time and pain. If I didn't think they would listen, it wouldn't be worth the time and pain, plus there would be a risk that…
Some more short book reviews. Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik -- 10/10. Naomi Novik continues to create beautiful fantasy worlds, supported by rich detail from historical and real-world cultures, and characters with depth and charm who change in fascinating ways. In Spinning Silver, the protagonist is a young Jewish woman who makes her own way through the fantasy plot that's been assigned to her.…
When I was in college, some friends and I thought: Hey, wouldn't it be neat to encourage a fair distribution of housework using a market-based auction system? Capitalism is pretty great at scale, so why not try it at home? Turns out: we were totally right, and it was awesome. We wrote an app called Choron. It's like a utilon is the unit of utility, or a hedon is the unit of hedonism: a choron is…
I enjoy making rituals for myself around specific holidays -- ways to celebrate them that are less materialistic, and more focused on the things that I personally get out of those holidays. This year I think I've hit on a good formula for Valentine's Day that helps me feel closer to friends and family. Friends and family I send out cards to people I care about, and write each one a personal note.…
There are three key components to doing code reviews professionally. 1. Be thorough You know what's embarrassing? Giving someone else's code an LGTM, only to have a second code reviewer point out a key bug that would cause major production issues. Clicking "yes" on someone else's code without reading it doesn't do anyone any good. It doesn't do the author any good, because now they're not getting…
In this day and age, the convention of giving all of one's children their father's name is outdated and oppressive, not to mention limited in the family situations it handles. But the alternatives have their own shortcomings. My spouse and I decided to keep our own names when we got married, and kick the can down the road for when we actually have children. But we're going to have to decide how to…
I switched software engineering jobs earlier this year, mostly because I felt I wasn't growing enough at my previous company. It was very stressful, but I'm happy with how it turned out. Here are some assorted observations on the process of interviewing at different companies, written in haste right afterward and edited briefly some months later. Recruiting Companies I mostly went through two…
Algebraic data types are a fantastic way to make code clearer. They're used all the time in Haskell, because they're a fundamental part of the language, easy, and lightweight. But it turns out you can use them in imperative programming languages like Python and C++, too, with just a bit of hackery. What's an algebraic data type? Having "algebraic data types" means that you can create a new type by…
Here's a useful habit I've picked up as a software engineer. Every time you do something difficult, create a reproducible artifact that can be used to do it more easily next time, and shared with others. Some examples of this: You spent all afternoon debugging a thorny issue. Write down the monitoring you checked and the steps you took to reach the conclusion you did. Put these details in the…
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work ( Goodreads ) - This book gave me a mental concept that I've been using all the time since: All the conflict resolution skills in the world won't help you if you don't like someone. And if you like them, then conflict resolutions suddenly becomes tremendously easier. See also: Simple Affection and Deep Truth . I recommend this book to anyone trying to…
[Partially a response to The Craft is not the Community .] Whenever a group of humans get together to accomplish some goal, there's a fundamental tension between meritocracy and trust. If I know you can reject me for lack of skill, I may worry about this and lose confidence. But if I know you never will, I may phone it in and stop caring about my actual work output. Both meritocracy and trust…
"Nerd culture is so unfriendly!" I've heard people say from time to time. "Star Trek posters! Inside jokes from geek TV shows and book! It's so hard to be a programmer when you're not already a part of it!" To this I say: What? Here's what happened to me when I started to get into geek culture in late high school and early college. The conversations would go something like this: "Oh yeah, 'nuclear…
Every time I mention to someone that I'm working on a cohousing project with the rationality community, they go, "Oh, like a group house?" Every. Single. Time. So this is my once-and-for-all attempt to say, "IT'S NOT A GROUP HOUSE." It's a village. What are the important differences? 1. More private space. There's a greater separation between places that are "your space" and "my space." It's…