I used microcovid a lot but less so in recent months, because it is not useful for omicron and because it does not include rapid tests. Also I have become less careful after vaccination. I’ve also had the feeling microCOVID was a bit conservative. Does the risk estimate take into account that a part of infectious people deliberately stay at home and you are less likely to meet them?
Updates I would suggest (in addition to other update mentioned in other comments)
I have similar experiences as those described in the post and in the other comments.
I speak Dutch, English and German, all of them to an advanced level and all of them currently in use. I learned each language in a different way and use each language in a different situation. But they are closely related languages and the differences are subtile. My vocabularies in each language do not fully overlap, and knowing three languages gives me access to a wider range of words and phrases - which I unfortunately cannot share with most conversation partners.
Dutch is my native language but since I left the Netherlands I don’t use it in everyday work or life but do use it in personal notes and calls with my family. I can flow into a Dutch conversation with ease even if I haven’t been exposed to the language for weeks. Similar to Kaj, I do feel this emotional connection with words and phrases in Dutch that is lacking in any other language. Dutch phrases can come across as unusually friendly in some subtile way. I like to talk in Dutch whenever there is an opportunity, although not all native Dutch conversation partners I meet seem to share this.
Reading and writing in Dutch - somehow - feels awkward and unnatural. Discussing things like rationality, effective altruism, and software engineering in Dutch even more so. I spend a lot of effort finding my words, and once I got them, I want to throw them away because nothing quite fits.
My experiences with English and German are also different from each other. I learned the basics of both at school, but became advanced in English by reading university textbooks and I became advanced in German by socializing with native speakers. There are many everyday objects - household appliances, bike parts, tools, foods - that I know the name of in German but not in English. I have trouble understanding conversational English from native speakers.
I live in a multilingual area and it’s common that when you meet a person for the first time, you agree on which language to speak and stick with that, also if you have more than one language in common. And if there wasn’t a norm that conversations should be held in one language, I would mix much more so we could access our larger shared vocabulary.
Unfortunately, this meetup has been cancelled. I'm sorry for this.
Edit: this meetup is on 21 September and not on 20 September, because we decided to have our meetups on Sundays (biweekly) from then on.
We will put a more detailed description later at meetup.com: http://www.meetup.com/LWEANL/events/200065632/ You can also ask Sören. (LW username SoerenMind)
Ok, I'll do that.
Thank you for your reply. I hope I will have time to go through the sequences, there is now some ethics stuff on my reading list.
Our meetups will be announced on LW as well and I invite everyone to come! (If you live far away it might not be worth the travel cost, but you're welcome anyway)
Address
Filmcafé OSKAR Slachtstraat 5 (bij De Neude) 3512 BC UTRECHT
I'm Imma, recently graduated from university (mix of physics and chemistry) and I self-identify as effective altruist . I'm not very familiar with LW material but want to gradually improve my rationality. I consider attending the CFAR workshop but have to prioritize this to donating the money to effective charities.
I'm involved in a combined EA/LW meetup group in Utrecht (Netherlands). We have biweekly events which I'm planning to announce on LW as well.
This is a quite conflict :(.
There is only one LessWrong Community Weekend. But you might have the opportunity to attend another EAGx in Europe this year: EAGx Nordics on 26-28 April or EAGx Utrecht on 5-7 July.
I attended previous LWCW and EAGx events, and no, I guess it would be a really bad idea to attend both in the same weekend. Both are intense and extremely interesting, and 100 percent of EAGx overlaps with LWCW.