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Excellent, this will be my first one.

Any other n00bs, feel free to come along and n00b it up with me :)

bummer, Wednesday at 7 is my OChem lab. Regular schedule is smart, but if there's a special event that calls for deviation from the schedule, I'd love to hang out with LW. Any other day of the week and I'm there.

I would reference the behavioral economics on loss aversion to up the value of a task. Rather than focusing on increasing the positive value via upping the reward, I would increase the negative value of inaction. Personally, I've taken to fining myself for not getting things done on time (all the money goes into a jar next to my desk, which goes to charity at the end of the month). This system has worked wonders - it even has power to control my less rational selves (e.g. drunk self and just-woke-up self)

That's actually a pretty good idea, shokwave - thanks

I'd be more interested to know what LW thought of creating a Probability Distribution for a continuous outcome. This seems to be cumbersome with all of the above tools, which I'll admit are quite helpful for binary events; but when you're purchasing a new computer, it's months that the computer will last before breaking, not whether it breaks in the first two years, that is relevant.

If taken to inanity, one could construct a large number of binary outcomes and try to smash them together to get a probability distribution for a continuous variable. But, that's pretty annoying - surely there are better ways

"The plan is to roll an n-sided numbered die and have the faithful of all religions pray for the die to land on "1"

Elijah did this; from what I can tell, it was insufficient to end disagreement :) Read 1st Kings 18 (alternatively, wikipedia

"The plan is to roll an n-sided numbered die and have the faithful of all religions pray for the die to land on "1"

Elijah did this; from what I can tell, it was insufficient to end disagreement :) Read 1st Kings 18 (alternatively, wikipedia

I'm bothered by the intertemporal implications of this, i.e. if I have $100 that I will spend to help the most humans possible, then I could either spend it today or invest it and spend $105 next year (assumed 5% ROR). Will I then ever spend the money on charity? Or will I always invest it, and just let this amassed wealth be distributed when I die?

I've often been curious as to what goes on at these, and this one would work (I'm a researcher at Cal). For a vet: how would describe a LW meetup?