Shortform #66 Waht, where did 7 months go?

Working mostly, actually. So that was good, and I'm still enjoying my hospital technology related job quite a bit, but I've been sorely missing having other aspects of my life than work (despite enjoying the work a lot).

I experienced a truly wonderful thing tonight, and that was a Norfolk Rationalists meeting with great conversations between excellent people, we went for five & a half hours and only stopped because we all got too sleepy.

Re: Shortform #65: no, I probably will not go to medical school. I am happily focusing on technology jobs and quite enjoying those in the healthcare environment. I would still like to do research, but until a later stage of life and other job decisions, any research I do will have to be independent, which is fine. I have so much to learn about so many areas, even within very specific niches, not only for my profession but also the research area(s) I'm interested in. Such learning will keep me occupied for some time while I grind for knowledge that I must acquire for professional & personal development plus satisfaction. Here's to learning new things every single day!

I am eating healthier, driving far less, walking & exercising more, and have noticed that my general competency improves as I improve in those areas of my life. This feels great!

I did not listen to music while writing this post, it's quite late & I did not wish for the extra stimuli. The gentle hum of the air conditioning was sufficient.

Cheers,
Willa

Shortform #50 Voicing Voice

My consume vs produce ratio is not well balanced, I consume dramatically more media, information, entertainment, and other such things compared to what I produce. How can I even notice let alone refine my own thoughts and opinions amidst the ruckus and maelstrom of external inputs rummaging around my mind constantly? Furthermore, many if not most of those external inputs don't actually pay rent, though there are (and in some ways quite notable) exceptions (e.g. what I learned reading The Sequences).

In response to this problem, I am altering my media consumption "diet" to restrict non-deliberate consumption and increase deliberate, focused, helpful consumption plus increase conscious production efforts to generate significantly more outputs / products than I do now.

These efforts should help me notice and cultivate my "voice", and give voice to myself. Developing my thoughts into refined ideas and producing them is highly aligned with my interests, goals, and more, so I'm excited for this! (note to self: the actual methods for how I do these things and what I actually do, plus what my successes and failures turn out to be are good source material for two po... (read more)

Shortform #20 It's time to hunt down a job!

Today was marvelous :)

1. I walked 2.18 miles indoors while on phone calls; I did 20 pushups and 100 situps at noon.
2. I virtually co-worked for about 2 hours and made good progress towards writing my review of Gears-Level Models are Capital Investments.
3. I began organizing and packing up in preparation for moving.

It was pointed out to me that I keep working on a bunch of different things but haven't yet started searching for jobs, despite that finding a good job will enable me to move to Seattle and do more fun things in life. Point noted and taken to heart!

Job hunting is now my highest priority, and I will be focusing on that exclusively while virtually co-working plus will do that while doing productive stuff by myself too. I will continue writing my three reviews (for the LW2019Review) during non-workday hours / in my spare time, but my workday hours will be focused on job hunting.

Good luck y'all :)
Cheers,
Willa

2021 Week 1 Review 1 Jan - 9 Jan

This week saw rapid mood changes, a descent into depression, and many actions taken to combat the aforementioned things. I'm happy to report that the actions I took ultimately led to a significant improvement in and stabilization of my mood, the removal of depression and ascent to a slightly higher happiness set point than the week before, and I've learned some good things.

Most significant thing noticed or learned this week: Living alone is really bad for me. Runner up: The power of co-working!

Once I realized (noticed) that living alone is really bad for me, I talked with family and they accepted my request to relocate from where I'm living now to go live with them. Now that I have a plan that's actively being worked towards for combating the "living alone is really bad for me" thing, I've been much more capable of dismissing isolation or loneliness feelings and my mood has improved significantly.

I noticed that co-working (only virtual so far) can "rescue" a day that's going poorly or make an already good day a great day, because I enjoy the social interaction + getting shit done. This upcoming week I have to pack and organize a lot, but I will sched... (read more)

Shortform #16 The power of co-working!

Today was an excellent day :) I woke up late, but immediately started virtually co-working with a friend and during that time we both completed a nice amount of tasks. Jumping from "I'm finally awake now" to virtual co-working helped me stay on track this day, it was very effective and helpful.

I scheduled the January and February Houston Rationalists' meetups, replied to some messages, tidied up, walked for 30 minutes, and later hungout with a friend around a campfire outside, twas nice!

Tomorrow I will post my 2021 Week 1 Review by 13:00. I will also setup co-working sessions for next week, quite looking forward to those! Seems like I'll be getting a lot more extra physical activity starting tomorrow because I must start prepping to move cross country and that takes a fair bit of organization, packing, etc. physical effort.

I did not listen to music while writing this shortform.

Be well!
Cheers,
Willa

Shortform #94 Boundary Setting at work is suddenly much easier after attending Retreat

Prior to attending the organizer's retreat, I would let people send me tasks that fell outside of my primary responsibilities, even if they were mundane and not good learning opportunities and/or even if the individual in question actually had time to do the task. After the retreat, I noticed today, I haven't been doing that and have been saying no much more often, or enforcing better boundaries generally about work tasks.

I'm not sure what changed. My current job admitted... (read more)

Shortform #100 Writing publicly considered beneficial, fun, and not that scary

After writing one hundred shortform posts, writing publicly no longer feels scary and really just feels like a habit more than anything else (especially because the last 33 posts were near daily or daily). A habit I intend to continue as these are fun to write (even when I feel grumpy or hit an ugh field before doing so) and occupy a nice role in my life, plus I love growing my writing & other skills when creating these posts.

I feel a strong desire to write bigger posts than ... (read more)

Shortform #88 Retreat Debriefing & Staying in Touch | I will review some AI Safety literature

Today was a bifurcated day, I spent the morning and early afternoon dealing with the remnants of travelling (picking up my car from my local airport and then my baggage from an airport an hour away from home because that's where my connecting flight had been routed to last night after the initial one was unexpectedly cancelled) then finally made it to my apartment to shower & recombobulate.

I met with my Norfolk Rationalists co-organizer (shoutout Yitz!!! ht... (read more)

Shortform #87 Travelling Occurred

Today I spent the entire day (other than a very lovely short morning breakfast at the retreat venue and a few last wonderful conversations) travelling. I am now safely in bed, time to crash and get some rest.

149. Solve easy problems & what's your default query tool?

I am committing to solving at least five problems in my life per week that aren't just regular chores. Here's the current list: (most of this list is: I am tired of seeing my deadname around too frequently)

1. Done: requested name change with US Department of Education
2. Done: requested new card from $bank1 so my name is correct on it
3. Partial: Called $bank2 about name change and they are snail-mailing me the paperwork for that.
4. To do: Call $university1 & $college1 to do name change at both places

Shortform #119 Art is Fun!

I hadn't played the piano in months, but decided to have a solo jam session where I let myself play whatever felt good to play, and wow was that nice! Some of the time I played existing songs, but most of the time I flowed from chord to chord and jumped around the octaves.

Recently I acquired a drawing tablet, I spent some time learning Krita and drew some things, it was cathartic and very fun at the same time.

I don't think I let myself just play around very much, nor spend much time doing art things that I enjoy. I would like to c... (read more)

Shortform #65 Work Work Work, jobs are nice | Thoughts about career and future things

I started a new job in October, it was about time, and I've greatly benefited from working again! I'm enjoying the work, the environment, the industry, and am looking for W2 fulltime positions (I'm contract at the moment) at the institution I'm at plus a similar few nearby. Turns out I quite like working at hospitals and medical institutions, even if I am still doing IT work.

I started a second job this week which is very different from my main job. Instead of working in pe... (read more)

Shortform #41 Feeling Good

Today was an excellent day :)

1. I walked a little over 3 miles (~7200 steps) today plus ate decently.
2. I felt great upon waking up in the morning.
3. I was virtually social for ~2 hours today.
4. I tore through the garage and got most of the old tech stuff out of their various boxes and almost ready for recycling. (PLEASE RECYCLE YOUR OLD ELECTRONICS, do not throw them away; most cities or metropolitan areas have somewhere you can take most if not all of your electronics for recycling. Please please please recycle that stuff, throwing it

Shortform #25 Work Work Zug Zug

I enjoyed today!

1. I practised more CS fundamentals via coding in Swift for about 5 hours and 30 minutes.
2. I spent about 3 hours being virtually social, it was nice.
3. I spent 1 hour doing chores and miscellaneous < 5 min tasks
4. I logged my calories today, ~2226kcal
5. I successfully used gtimelog to log my time for the day, but I found copy + pasting the whole log to the shortform onerous and not that valuable, so I'm only mentioning the time spent doing things congruent to stated goals.

Unfortunately, I did not exercise today. ... (read more)

Today was a lovely but very tiring day, I had a great day!

I continued reading Steve Silberman's NeuroTribes for a bit today, but otherwise didn't read much at all today because of all my time going elsewhere. Looking forward to settling in for a few hours of reading tomorrow though :)

My time spent exercising today was much lower than yesterday, but that's because most of my time was spent with family, plus I got roped in to help clean for a few hours (which counts as some physical activity, yay!). After cleaning for a few hours I stole 30 minutes to run ou... (read more)

Shortform #92 Woohoo for Organizing :)

Houston Rationalists now have an in-person local organizer! Thank you David M for organizing, I look forward to seeing how the group grows and supporting how I can from afar.

Norfolk Rationalists will become Virginia Rationalists this week! We are still meeting in Norfolk, but the name change should reduce confusion amongst people I or others speak to about the group. Plus, I would like to provide infrastructure & support to organizers in other parts of Virginia and support as many Virginia groups as possible, let's... (read more)

I have attended 2 CrossFit classes each week for the past two weeks! I will attend 2 classes this week and push for doing 3 classes a week starting next week. Finally getting into a habit of regular exercise each week (it's still not a huge amount, but I'm growing that habit!) makes me feel fantastic, and I'm so happy I've done this.

I'll be in Las Vegas later this week to party and have some fun :) If you're reading this and have recommendations for what to do, where to go, etc. I'm happy to hear your recommendations.

You should listen to the "Having a succ... (read more)

Shortform #10

Writing that weekly review yesterday challenged me motivationally, but I pushed through the ugh and wrote it anyways, I'm very happy about that, it was quite helpful to write.

Perhaps one of the most valuable products of writing that weekly review was that of noticing.

Reviewing my past week, the shortforms from that week, and other things focused my attention on things I would have otherwise missed, and thus helped me notice what I improved, what I completed, what I failed at, what was challenging, and so on. I'm deliberately incorporating more... (read more)

I'm taking a few minutes now to write what comes to mind, reflect on my day, plan, organize, blah blah blah.

Today was a good and productive day!

I successfully avoided Hacker News, didn't doomscroll at all on any site, and completed >50% of things I listed in yesterday's shortform!

Didn't read much today outside of light LW post skimming and chugging through a book while sitting in the car and waiting (had to wait a few times for >5 minutes in the car today but that's why keeping a book in the car at all times comes in handy; note: I always shut the en... (read more)

Shortforms will resume on Monday 3 October.

Shortform #127 CoWorking is Great!

I don't have much slack in my life right now, so working in the same space as a friend plus taking occasional breaks to talk is great. I get some amount of social hangout time and am able to work.

Problem: I'm hecking exhausted from working hours a day on other things in addition to my day job. Really need to change something in the next few months I think. I'm enjoying the work at least :)

Shortform #115 Christopher Nolan's Tenet

I watched this movie tonight and had a blast, it was actually quite a bit of fun keeping track of the timeline stuff and whether someone or an object was operating "inverted" or "non-inverted". Is the premise absurd? It definitely feels that way, but the movie was fun and kept my attention well occupied for its duration. One provocative takeaway from the movie: be careful with rigidity of thought & not updating your priors. It felt like the movie was mostly about rapidly updating your priors and not just for usua... (read more)

Shortform #108 Tool use, software, and digitising operations

How does one as a human being stay relevant and able to solve enough problems that others experience to earn a living? No, AGI does not seem to be here yet, but our lives are governed, shaped, impacted by, and sometimes even ended via machine algorithmic decision making.

What tools are you using as prosthetics to augment your capabilities? Do you care about privacy or should privacy be given up to allow a closer integration with digital operations & support from machine algorithmic decision mak... (read more)

Shortform #107 So much to build, do, and create...so little time in a day!

I have moved from "wanting to do things" to simply doing things and getting a lot done each day. This feels fucking fantastic, I love turning my attention to X things and plowing through them! Scheduling and time block planning are helping quite a bit, but I'm still looking for room to optimize my workflows & cut out time sinks.

Here's what I'm thinking of:

• either pay out of pocket for laundry wash & fold delivery service once I obtain a job upgrade this month or next month -

Shortform #101 Conversation experiment: Tabooing $topics after previously discussed for $time

Do you ever find yourself talking at length, sometimes repetitively about the same topic(s)? Do you notice others around you doing similarly? Experiment with tabooing that topic or topics (with consent of your conversation partner(s), of course) for an evening (or whatever your time interval is) and see what happens!

Spur of the moment tonight, I asked my friend after we finished coworking and were hanging out if they wanted to try the conversation topic taboo exper... (read more)

Shortform #80: immortalityisgreat.com go live date is 28 August, 2022 | Meetup Organizer's Retreat

While filling out my information on the Meetup Organizer's Retreat get to know each other document, I included a commitment that I would launch immortalityisgreat.com by 28 August. For a bit of further challenge, a friend & cohort member from the Guild of the ROSE created the following prediction market page: https://manifold.markets/XidaRen/will-willas-website-go-online-by-au Here we go!

My goal with the aforementioned site is initially quite small: create... (read more)

Shortform #77 Decreasing personal maintenance time: haircut edition!

I like to increase the time I have for things I enjoy or bring about professional, intellectual, personal, social, or other growth. My hair had grown ridiculously long (went almost all the way down my back), was consuming a not insignificant amount of time to maintain per week, and was annoying me. I decided to stop procrastinating and finally do something about that, so I went to the salon and now I have short hair that doesn't even reach my shoulders. FINALLY! Now I will have better look... (read more)

Shortform #61 In Which Half a Month Passed, Unexpectedly

Whoosh is the best way to describe the last ~17 days. Time to make some adjustments, it's not pleasant nor desirable when time goes by so quickly while barely noticing it passing. A surprisingly illegible and inscrutable 17 days, unfortunately.

Adjustments:

• daily shortform writing: this will increase legibility and potential for reflection regarding each day(s) and week(s)
• increase fruits & vegetables consumption: this will improve my nutrition
• step back down one increment on X: the increase of on

Shortform #59 The Great Outdoors and Good Conversations; Hammertime Days 6 (Mantras) and 7 (Aversion Factoring)

Yesterday we went hiking for 3 hours around the absolutely stunning hills / mountain surrounding Devil's Lake, Wisconsin. The road trip there and back was fun and picturesque too, Wisconsin is gorgeous. We had dinner with one friend's friend at a grand café in town and that was lovely, great food and great conversation.

Today we went to an excellent brunch at one friend's friend's house and spent several lovely hours there eating great food and hav... (read more)

Shortform #55 Alons-y; Hammertime Day 1 - Bug Hunt

I spent the first ~10 minutes of my workday creating my day's agenda. It turns out that setting a timer for 10 minutes before doing any work for the day to create an agenda for the day is a most excellent and helpful ritual, so I'm doing that from here on out.

I scheduled very aggressively and didn't leave buffer time, so tomorrow I'll add 5-10 minutes of buffer time between each non-travel-required / other unavoidable time sink item on my schedule and see if that's enough. Despite the no buffer time and mul... (read more)

Shortform #49 Specificity

I mostly talk about my own life in these shortforms, and I'm partly okay with that, because doing so has been nice and helpful for me thus far, but I want to talk about other stuff too. So, I'll work other sorts of topics into these posts as I desire: right now I want to learn more about and discuss specific life interventions others have tried and the resulting effects from said interventions. Time to ask that question via the site's "New Question" feature!

If you haven't yet read Liron's Specificity Sequence you should go check it... (read more)

Shortform #40 Egads! A Title, but not a real Title.

Today was nice :)

1. I was virtually social for >4 hours today. This includes the 3 hours I attended and facilitated the Houston Rationalists meetup, which was quite a fun and nice meetup, I had a good time and we had a few new members!
2. Today's step count was ~9871 steps, for about 4.1 miles of distance walked. A large part of that came from walking around a field for an hour or so during the afternoon, it felt great to go walking outside again.
3. Completed initial onboarding for a new project, excited to s

Shortform #34 Unable to Formulate Title

Today was an excellent day :)

1. Had a morning interview and it went well! I'm now doing volunteer software development for a cool place, and am excited for that :) It is very helpful and good experience for me to gain.
2. My neighbor brought us over taco soup and cornbread, and it was fantastic, thank you to her!
3. I walked 5.3 miles today, 13,263 steps
4. I was virtually social for a few hours.

I am continuing to read Worm and am really enjoying it!

Yay for the weekend :)
Willa

Shortform #29 Almost Back on the Wagon!

Today was an excellent day :) I did not stick to the schedule I put together, but writing it last night was helpful since I had it for reference today. I allowed myself to sleep in and that seems to have helped considerably in many ways.

1. I logged my calories today, totaled ~2230kcal
2. I was virtually social for >4 hours via phone calls
3. I was up and active for the majority of the time I was on the phone, I spent >5 hours packing and organizing things today. (including but not limited to, boxing up all 375+ of my b

Shortform #26 Oh wow, a marathon of posts! Also, mild ranting.

Today was good, but felt very split into three pieces. The morning, the trip into town, and the rest of the day: I did productive things for almost three hours in the morning, then drove into the nearby big city for my doctor's appointment, and several hours passed before I got home. The doctor's appointment was great! All good things, but when you have to drive for so long there and back, that does take quite a chunk out of the day. The rest of the day started around 15:30 and went nicely too :... (read more)

Shortform #22 Packing, Organizing, and Preparing.

Today was a good day.

I spent most of it going through things, throwing away, organizing, sorting, and packing said things depending on what they were, and got a lot done in preparation for moving because of that. I'm looking forward to finishing up my resume tomorrow and getting feedback on it then finishing up my profile on the job sites I made an account on.

I've enjoyed watching the most recent season (part 3 IIRC) of Disenchantment as well, and apparently The Magicians has a new season too, exciting!

Happy... (read more)

Shortform #21 Functional strength training and job hunting, oh my.

I had a most excellent day :)

1. I created accounts on job posting sites and started hunting.
2. Joined a discord video call with two friends and we did 30 minutes of functional strength training together, I am now really sore, but am happy I worked out!
3. I did virtual co-working for ~3 hours.

My resume is out of date and pretty bad, I'll fix it up tomorrow using RMarkdown and other nice R things so that my newly created resume will be up to date AND pretty / well styled. I'm meeting (virtually) ... (read more)

Shortform #11

Welcome to the new year! same as the old year As promised, I am resuming my daily shortforms :)

The last 4 or 5 days were simultaneously the worst and best days I've experienced in quite awhile.

Best: Hanging out with great friends on the 31st and 1st, this was fantastic, I had an amazing time. (yes, we all tested negative for COVID prior to deciding to hangout) | Having an emotional breakthrough realization

Worst: The descent into cripplingly bad depression from loneliness late on the 1st once I was alone again. Feeling shattered from isolation ... (read more)

Holidays are great, I'm extending my enjoyment of this one through the end of the weekend. Shortforms will return with #11 on Monday the 4th :)

Today marks day 7 of daily shortform writing, tomorrow will mark day 8, and so on :)

Yay for one week of daily shortform writing! Feels like a nice accomplishment, now I'm aiming for one month.

In an "ironic for 2020" turn of events, I did not contract COVID from the family Christmas gathering, no, that test came back negative thankfully. I contracted the plain ol' flu instead, and this is probably why I was so tired yesterday and why my ear has been hurting. Much of today was spent resting and the other half of it was spent at the doctor trying to get diagn... (read more)

Much shorter update for today, since today was quite bifurcated. Morning to early afternoon were chaotic and all consuming until I dropped my parents off at the airport. Afterwards I was tired and settled down on the couch for a bit, but eventually got up, took the dogs to the field (the grass was less soggy today than yesterday), and walked for two miles. That's all the exercise I did though, and it was quite a leisurely walk, so I think today was my "rest" day. I'm happy I went walking outside, that was fun plus the dogs enjoyed it too!

I did some virtual... (read more)

Shortform #134 Cloud Atlas

It is possible that Friday evenings after working all week may not be my most effective evenings for focused study.

Instead of studying anything tonight, I watched Cloud Atlas for the first time and wow, what a movie (how's the book? haven't read it). I was confused at first, because the movie begins by throwing multiple characters in different locations in time and space at you completely independent of context or exposition, but my confusion lessened as the movie progressed and I found the whole experience quite novel and deeply ... (read more)

Shortform #129 More test taking

Tomorrow morning I take the second out of two exams for an IT cert I'm pursuing. I've studied well and know the material thoroughly. I'm excited to take that test and obtain that cert as it will help with short term survival with getting better IT jobs while I figure out how to transition to doing different work. Not much else to say tonight, the exam is the main thing on my mind. I'll gain some slack back in my life by obtaining the cert, so that's a nice thing too.

Be well,
Good night!

Daily shortforms shall resume on Monday 5 September, 2022. I am taking IT certification exams this weekend and need to focus.

Shortform #106 Four Days of Consistent Sleep & Wake Times: going well!

Waking up at 6:13am on Thursday & Friday felt like normal work wakeup time but with more energy & less tiredness than usual because of falling asleep by or slightly before 10pm.

Waking up at 6:13am on Saturday and Sunday made my weekend feel like it was unbelievably long in a great way. I wasn't tired at all, felt plenty energetic, and immediately after waking up both mornings spent a solid two or three hours working on important personal tasks or projects. I really am sharper... (read more)

Shortform #78 Design Matters: The Triumph of the Curved Shower Rod | Lighting: Hedonistic Adaptation

For those of you suffering from narrow tub-shower hybrids with shower curtains that inevitably brush up or press against you while showering, for (new retail price) $30-$60+ you can become the proud owner of a curved shower rod that dramatically increases the horizontal space you have in such a shower. I've just installed one (do measure your tub-shower hybrid's length from wall to wall before buying one, that measurement does matter) and the result is a muc... (read more)

Shortform #76 Noticing mood, behavior, & energy impacts from food types consumed

When I eat processed sugar, I take a negative hit in all three categories mentioned above.

When I eat mostly vegetables, some carbs, and none or a smattering of meat, I feel great. As the meat to vegetables ratio increases, the worse I feel.

When I eat fruits, the impact from their non-processed sugar is not the same as the impact I have from processed sugar: usually there's little to no impact and sometimes I even feel better from eating the fruit.

When I eat processed foods,... (read more)

Shortform #56 Travel; Hammertime Day 2 - Yoda Timers

I followed my media diet today except regarding Discord, plus didn't get in my full reserved hours of work. On the whole, I was reasonably productive, but didn't focus my actions very well today.

This evening we had a Houston Rationalists virtual meetup which went quite well! Had a new attendee, several regulars, and great discussion. We focused a lot of the discussion on timelessness, or, why is it some ideas, cultural practices, books, etc. survive over the long term whereas others do not (yes the lindy ... (read more)

Shortform #19 Meetups are great!

Today was an excellent day :)

1. I spent about 4 hours on direct messaging and caught up on almost all my inboxes! The time per day required for giving timely responses to each person will now decrease thanks to being caught up. I enjoyed talking with everyone I talked with, and look forward to those continuing conversations :)
2. I walked indoors for 2.3 miles, that was nice.
3. I had a great time at today's Houston Rationalists Virtual Meetup, it lasted about four hours and was quite fun! I have some good ideas for what to do at f

Well, daily shortform posts do get significantly more boring while sick, unfortunately :(

I've scaled back a lot of my activities and plans so that I can rest and get over the flu more quickly.

However! I have successfully overcome giving in to the temptation to fully go into a cocoon and not do anything, i.e. I have avoided totally isolating myself which is a habit I've routinely fallen into while sick in the past. My plan of being extraordinarily more (virtually) social to prevent the onset of depression is really paying off! I spent the majority of active... (read more)

148. April 9 Williamsburg VA Meetup, AI, and thank goodness Spring is almost upon us

If you find yourself in or near Williamsburg, Virginia on 2023/04/09 come join for a Virginia Rationalists Meetup and the Williamsburg 2nd Sundays Art & Music Festival.

This week was a bit overwhelming in AI news, with GPT-4 releasing, new Midjourney, Stanford's Alpaca, more AI offerings from Google, Microsoft CoPilot 365, and honestly a bunch more things. I've spent too much time already talking with the GPT-4 version of ChatGPT given how long it's actually been available... (read more)

Shortform #147 Working & Considering Partial Digital Nomadism

I experience significant value-add to my life / nice things when I travel. I trialed working semi nomadically in December when I stayed at 7 or 8 households over 10 days while working remotely full time. That was fun, exhausting, and a very valuable learning experience! I definitely overbooked myself on that trip and did not schedule enough downtime, plus, I found working from a single laptop screen a bit less efficient than my normal 4 screen work setup & other desktop accoutrements.

With... (read more)

Shortform #146 Happy New Year! (a few updates; all dates from 2022 unless specified otherwise)

Resuming on October 16th didn't happen, oops. Looks like January 3rd (today) will have to do! Now for some updates:

• I changed jobs in October: I went from a contract employee to a full employee at the healthcare org I work at, with a promotion to a new team! Now I am supporting clinical & medical technology systems, it's cool stuff, I'm learning a ton, and I love the position, it's a very good fit.
• November disappeared into the abyss of working a lot, I can't

Shortform #145 Audio Journaling | Rethinking Shortforms

I tried audio journaling for the first time today, it felt weird but I think the experience was actually great! Recorded for about 30 minutes on an old non-internet connected phone (to pacify my paranoia) and then listened to the recording and got hit in the feels in all sorts of good and helpful ways.

I like writing these shortform posts, but am not sure how valuable they've been over the last few weeks in particular (I know writing the posts as a whole has been incredibly valuable to my personal devel... (read more)

Shortform #143 Taking small actionable steps to improve my life

Starts Monday Oct 10. I am coasting now on my past commitments because they have become habits (for the most part). Time for new commitments! Note: I find that small continuous actions of improvement, (see also Kaizen), more sustainable & actually doable than big innovations, so those are my guidelines with most of my new commitments.

Health:

• Eat one or less egg per day instead of the two I've been averaging
• Eat meat no more than once every other day instead of the once a day I've been aver

Shortform #142 What entertainment are you consuming or interacting with?

Right now I am listening to Fragments, by Bonobo. I love that album!

Tonight was my once or twice a month "watch YouTube videos" night, and...I'm not sure how much I like that habit. I do skip a lot of videos I used to watch almost compulsorily when I watched YouTube videos multiple times a day...so that's an improvement at least.

I am not watching any TV shows right now, but I will possibly watch a movie this weekend. I'm reading a book on Kaizen which I'm quite enjoying and am also slo... (read more)

Shortform #140 Routine-breaking Weekend

I tend to settle into a fairly predictable routine, and this weekend roused me from that.

On Friday there was a tropical storm and no power in my apartment when I went home after work (though it did come back on that evening thankfully). Because my building sustained no damage, it was a pretty relaxing night, I read some while it was still light out and then the power was back on by nightfall so I hopped on my computer and was somewhat social virtually for a bit.

On Saturday I went to Richmond, VA for the ACX Meetup Eve... (read more)

Shortform #139 Note to self: don't reschedule weekly meetup

Tonight's Virginia Rationalists: Norfolk meetup was great! We had a new individual join us who is familiar with ACX.

In retrospect, I think it was inconsiderate to suddenly reschedule the group's weekly meetup just because I couldn't attend. My co-organizer and others likely could have attended yesterday, and there were a few people who just couldn't make the rescheduled meetup but had included Wednesday nights in their routine as "meetup night". So, I intend to not reschedule the weekly social meet... (read more)

Shortform #138 A good but slightly disorienting day

I applied for a promising job today, here's to hoping that bears fruit!

I am somewhat out of whack due to having to suddenly house sit instead of going to my own home after work. I do not enjoy this, but it's an obligation I'm fulfilling.

No meetup tonight, I rescheduled Norfolk's meetup for Thursday evening (the 29th). I'm excited for the meetup tomorrow!

Shortform #137 Meal Prepping & Rambutan

In pursuit of healthier eating, I prepared containers of seeds, fruits of various kinds, and vegetables that I can eat during meals & take to work for lunch. I also tried a new-to-me fruit called Rambutan, I like the flavor okay but it's a little bland, and now have a container of that fruit to eat through too.

I meditated for 5 minutes, rowed for 5 minutes, and did 5 pushups tonight. Small continuous improvements, here we go!

Shortform #136 Sugar* Considered Harmful

• = sugar in excess of what one would consume normally by eating fruits & vegetables and maybe 1 square of dark chocolate.

I splurged (everything else were essentials / healthy food) on one item this weekend from Trader Joe's: Pumpkin Spice Cinnamon Rolls. Yes they were tasty, duh. After consumption...now I feel physically ill: almost sweating and general discomfort, anxiety, elevated heart rate, trouble focusing, restlessness, etc. Oh! This is not an isolated set of bad feelings, these bad feelings occur every ... (read more)

Shortform #135 Rest and Shrinking the "World"

Last week I read about 10 arcs of Ward, listened to a ton of UNspoiled! podcast network podcasts, and played video games some too. I increased how much I slept each night and averaged a bit over eight hours, and improved the healthiness of my food choices. As much as I escaped into fiction and the "other worlds" that come with fiction, I felt that that came at the expense of the reality / world we all live in (hence part of this post's title). The more I engage with fiction, the more I withdraw from reality / th... (read more)

Daily Shortforms will return on Sunday 25 September, 2022. I need to focus on building other habits right now, but also...a bit of extra rest is nice.

Shortform #133 Knowledge Intake

As mentioned yesterday, I re-read the comments on Have you considered getting rid of death? and added what was recommended to my knowledge intake system. I believe I'd benefit from working methodically through a textbook while reading another more foundational conceptual book so to those ends I suspect the first two books I read specifically for increasing my Biology knowledge are:

• Molecular Biology of the Cell
• Every Life is on Fire: How Thermodynamics Explains the Origins of Living Things

If I notice significant gaps in ... (read more)

Shortform #132 Small but good actions.

Tomorrow evening's reading material is a re-read of the comments on Have you considered getting rid of death? where several people recommended good things to check out. I will add that material to my intake system and begin processing it.

I will post Friday's reading material tomorrow, I have got to get to sleep now. Tonight's Virginia Rationalists: Norfolk meetup was fantastic!

I have completed similar "prep for tomorrow" actions tonight like I did last night. The extra slack provided by those actions from yesterday came in handy today.

Shortform #131 TWI & Kaizen

In the spirit of continuous, sustained, small-step daily improvement (hello Kaizen or its precursor, TWI), I am adding a small component my daily shortforms: spend 10 minutes or less reading about a pre-registered subject each day and share my thoughts on what I read that day in my shortform.

Tomorrow I'm choosing or "pre-registering" my reading material for 14/09/2022 through 18/09/2022. Tonight I prepared tomorrow's lunch, set out tomorrow's clothes, and did a few other things to make tomorrow go more smoothly & increase my slack.

Shortform #130 More Slack

I passed my second cert exam (this cert requires passing scores on two separate exams) this morning and have thus obtained my new IT cert! I now have more slack in my life, which feels so good. I'm not completely out of churning waters yet, but they are quieter and a bit slower than before.

I look forward to discussing Twelve Virtues of Rationality in my upcoming meetups.

Shortform #128 Organizing for Immortality

Thank you to everyone who read and/or commented on Have you considered getting rid of death?! Your thoughts, resources, and support are welcomed :)

I've reflected on that post, discussions I had with others about it, and the comments, plus my current life circumstances: I have a small amount of time slack but zero financial slack, so what is the highest value added work I can put forth towards the bigger immortality project? Organizing, I think.

I intend to read, write, and produce original research for that project, ... (read more)

Shortform #126 Running More Specific Meetups

We had nine attendees (including myself) at our [Virginia Rationalists: Norfolk] social tonight! It was great, I had a most excellent time, and everyone else said they enjoyed it too.

Only four out of nine attendees (including myself) were familiar with LW/ACX/EA, and when you don't have a group where most of the people are "in-group" so to say (i.e. familiar with things inside our walled gardens), that changes the dynamics of the experience quite a bit.

I may have to vary between open and closed socials in additio... (read more)