Ouch, on one hand I want to say "yes", on the other hand I imagine all kinds of slippery slopes this starts...
OK, I guess this could work: Yes, you can join on November 1st. Not on any day of November, only 1st. And then the clock starts ticking, so you have to publish your first blogpost during the first five November days.
Also, anyone who gets kicked out during October gets a second chance and can join again on November 1st.
But notice that if you only publish every other day during November, you won't have 30 articles out there until the end of November. So you get a half-Halfhaven. (And there will be no smaller fractions.)
The software is free (but you need to be able to install and maintain it).
No problem. I am not really planning to use the website to play the games, although I might try them offline, and it's good that the website clarifies the rules by example. Just thought you might want to know.
Thank you, I saw that comment previously but couldn't find it. I will contact henryaj.
EDIT: no response yet
That sounds impressively self-aware. Most journalists would just "predict" the future, expressing certainty.
There is a small bug in the web version: if you join two fish to create a shark, the squares with the original positions of the fish remain selected, so it is not obvious whose turn it is now. I think the game froze when I did it for the first time (no side could move), then I undid the move and did it again, the two squares still remained selected, but now the other side could move, and afterwards the fields unselected and the game continued normally.
As an alternative to Inkhaven Residency, for the people who can't take a 30 day break, I propose an alternative. I am writing about it here, in case someone else also wants to do something, so that we could coordinate. Please respond here if you plan something, otherwise I will announce my plan officially in a LW post on Sept 30.
My current vision, which I provisionally call Halfhaven, is to make an online blog-writing group, probably on Discord, that will try to produce the same total output in twice as much time. That is 30 articles posted during October and November 2025, so on average one article in two days. Feels slightly more doable for the people who have a job/school.
The rules, still somewhat under construction:
Anyway, this is all honor-based and there are no rewards (other than the intrinsic ones, using the peer pressure to boost your personal productivity). If someone wants to cheat by posting AI-generated articles, or making tweet-sized articles, etc., I can't really stop them. (Maybe in case of blatant cheating, we should have a vote on expelling the transgressor?) But there are no hard lines, like whether your article should be 10000 words or only 1000. I'd suggest, do it the way you expect yourself to do it after this marathon is over; otherwise you are not really training yourself for the real thing.
Technically, I imagine this as a channel that will be exclusively for posting references to your published content, along with the number from 1 to 30, such as: "1) My First Article", and then another channel for the debate among the participants. And maybe another for sharing useful resources. Maybe some pressure that after X days if you haven't posted Y links, you will be kicked out. (The numbers not too strict, I was thinking e.g. after 7 days you need to have at least 1 article, after 10 days at least 2 total, etc.) It would be ironical if I had to kick myself out, but I precommit to stop posting in the forum (but otherwise keep maintaining it) if that happens.
Once in a week I might post a summary on LessWrong, and that summary won't count towards my number of published articles. (Because the articles should be more than just a bunch of copy-pasted links.) Authors can opt out of this if they wish; the details will be discussed in the forum.
Some reasonable limitations on the content, such as no terrorism and no porn. Sorry, I don't have an exact definition, you will have to accept my judgment.
People who go to Inkhaven Residency are allowed to participate, but only during October. (Please do not mention this fact in the forum, until Oct 31.) Actually, it could be interesting to compare your productivity and experience during both months.
"change in how one parses the world" rather than by "change in self-image"
Not sure if this is helpful, but instead of contrast, I see these as two sides of the same coin. If the world is X, then I am a person living in X. But if the world is actually Y, then I am a person living in Y. Both change.
I can be a different person in the same world, but I can't be the same person in different worlds. At least if I take ideas seriously and I want to have an impact on the world.
Don't miss: Halfhaven virtual blogger camp