10 KiB
Happy New Year Everyone (if you go by the Gregorian calendar that is)!
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Author: u/xamueljones My arch-enemy is entropy*
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2qzjoo/happy_new_year_everyone_if_you_go_by_the/
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Score: 4
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Created: 2015-01-01T05:48:20
Post:
It's a brand new year upon us and I have decided to issue a challenge!
Make a New Year's resolution about anything and use your skills in rationality to keep it.
Don't forgot to share your resolution and how well you maintained it.
Comments:
u/None [+2] (3 hours later)
Happy New Year to all of you who don't actually know the New Year started in late September.
I "resolve" to finish my Bayesian stats textbook, and start into my textbooks in Algorithmic Information Theory and Probabilistic Models of Cognition.
Technically, I've started the latter already, and was already planning to do the former. Aren't rational resolutions so easy?
u/VorpalAuroch [+2] Life before Death (3 hours later)
Or in late March, or in late August, or in late January, according with the four simultaneous twelve-month year.
u/autowikibot [+1] (3 hours later)
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#### Rosh Hashanah:
Rosh Hashanah (Hebrew: רֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה, literally "head of the year") is the Jewish New Year. The Biblical name for this holiday is Yom Teruah (Hebrew: יוֹם תְּרוּעָה, literally "day [of] shouting/raising a noise") or the Feast of Trumpets. It is the first of the High Holy Days or יָמִים נוֹרָאִים Yamim Nora'im ("Days of Awe") which usually occur in the early autumn of the Northern Hemisphere. Rosh Hashanah is a two-day celebration, which begins on the first day of Tishrei. Tishrei is the first month of the Jewish civil year, but the seventh month of the ecclesiastical year.
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^Interesting: ^Rosh ^Hashanah ^LaBehema ^| ^Rosh ^Hashanah ^(tractate) ^| ^Rosh ^Hashanah ^seder ^| ^Psalm ^81
^Parent ^commenter ^can [^toggle ^NSFW](/message/compose?to=autowikibot&subject=AutoWikibot NSFW toggle&message=%2Btoggle-nsfw+cnb3463) ^or [^delete](/message/compose?to=autowikibot&subject=AutoWikibot Deletion&message=%2Bdelete+cnb3463)^. ^Will ^also ^delete ^on ^comment ^score ^of ^-1 ^or ^less. ^| ^(FAQs) ^| ^Mods ^| ^Magic ^Words
u/xamueljones [+1] My arch-enemy is entropy (4 hours later)
What are the names of your textbooks? It's hard to find a good textbook on my areas of interest without asking someone who's already looked through a couple.
Also, doesn't it defeat the purpose of pledging "rational" resolutions if you are going to do it anyway? It seems to only help by clarifying it as a clear goal instead of something you might get to later. Which might be your point!
Carry on, nothing to see here.
u/None [+1] (4 hours later)
What are the names of your textbooks? It's hard to find a good textbook on my areas of interest without asking someone who's already looked through a couple.
Bayesian stats: Introduction to Bayesian Statistics by Bolstad, with Probability Theory: the Logic of Science by Jaynes for when I just want to read a mathematician ham it up on the level of the finest anime characters.
Probabilistic Models of Cognition: my God I just gave you the book's name. And I've preordered Pfeffer's Practical Probabilistic Programming to help me learn this stuff in a typed language ;-).
Algorithmic Information Theory: Information and Randomness by Calude
I've also got Smullyan's Logical Labyrinths and some old The Elements of Mathematical Logic and The Theory of Sets my advisor threw out (NO REALLY MY MSC ADVISOR THREW OUT THESE BOOKS WHEN HE MOVED OFFICES). Also Conceptual Mathematics and Certified Programming with Dependent Types. And Aluffi's Algebra: Chapter 0. And possibly a Coursera sequence on statistics, ML, and data analysis, though I'm currently using Understanding Machine Learning by Shalev-Schwartz and Ben-David for the last course of my MSc.
EDIT: OH, and then the Homotopy Type Theory book is very interesting just as a cool new approach to founding math in computation.
SECOND EDIT: NOTE TO SELF, STOCHASTIC DOMAIN THEORY NEEDS TO BE A THING.
THIRD EDIT: LEARN TOPOLOGY. IT'S BASICALLY THE DETAILED MATHEMATICS OF COMPUTATION. ALL TOPOLOGY THEOREMS ARE, IN SOME FASHION, COMPUTATION THEOREMS.
Basically, by the time I'm actually done with all the textbooks I want to get through, I will go from my current academic levels (BSc Comp Sci, MSc Comp Sci, uncredited minor in mathematics with focus on statistics) to BSc Comp Sci + MSc Comp Sci + uncredited second BSc major in mathematics with a focus on statistics + uncredited MSc Theoretical Comp Sci + research-level background in programming languages and a hope to start understanding computational cognitive science.
AND IT STILL WON'T BE ENOUGH. I might, at that point, be kinda-sorta ready for a PhD program.
u/None [+1] (5 hours later)
Also, doesn't it defeat the purpose of pledging "rational" resolutions if you are going to do it anyway? It seems to only help by clarifying it as a clear goal instead of something you might get to later. Which might be your point!
Yes, that's my point. New Year's resolutions are usually signals rather than plans.
EDIT: So in that spirit, my New Year's resolution is to actually find time to indulge a fiction-writing hobby. This is something I've been profoundly failing at.
u/xamueljones [+1] My arch-enemy is entropy (4 minutes later)
I'll start us off with a classic.
I've only ever done running as serious exercise (jogging 4 miles every other day) and I'm building up some muscle in hopes of being healthy enough to live until the medical singularity. Therefore I promise to exercise every day for five days out of the seven days in a week. The exercise requirement is permanently set at 25 pushups per day.
The quota is deliberately set so low, because the hardest part of exercise is getting started. If I only need to do a trifling amount, I'm sure to do more most days.
I already started by doing 50 push-ups within the first 15 minutes of the New Years!
PS If you have more suggestions of how I should do things, I'm willing to listen and spend five minutes by the clock thinking about it.
u/None [+2] (3 hours later)
I've only ever done running as serious exercise (jogging 4 miles every other day) and I'm building up some muscle in hopes of being healthy enough to live until the medical singularity. Therefore I promise to exercise every day for five days out of the seven days in a week. The exercise requirement is permanently set at 25 pushups per day.
Wait wait wait wait. You're excited about indefinite longevity, so you actually set yourself a program of diet and exercise?! If you manage to succeed in this, you are already way, way ahead of most so-called immortalists. Congratulations.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
I'm not setting a program of diet and exercise, per se, but I do plan to dance more. Mostly by myself while attached to an mp3 player. Exercise doesn't suddenly count more if other people can see it.
u/None [+1] (3 hours later)
[deleted]
u/xamueljones [+1] My arch-enemy is entropy (12 hours later)
Good luck! I hope it goes well for you and your wife.
u/VorpalAuroch [+1] Life before Death (3 hours later)
Well, I've already made one, which is to come clean about my crushes on my friends between now and mid-February, when I move out of town; this is intended as an exposure-therapy-type thing to make me more comfortable admitting to emotions. And while it doesn't have the usual form of a resolution, I'm following through on my plans to become a Real Programmer by moving to SF for App Academy and learning Real Business Programming.
u/None [+2] (5 hours later)
I'm following through on my plans to become a Real Programmer by moving to SF for App Academy and learning Real Business Programming.
u/xamueljones [+1] My arch-enemy is entropy (4 hours later)
I'm curious, what do you consider to be the criteria for being a Real Programmer?
u/VorpalAuroch [+1] Life before Death (13 hours later)
Actually be employed as a programmer, not just a hobbyist with poor ability to start projects.
u/CalebJohnsn [+1] Theoretical Manatician (2 days later)
Sorry, wasn't online much for the last couple days, trying to sort things out for my resolution, which is to start following my Emi push-up sheet and stay 3-4 chapters ahead in my Differential Equations, University Physics, and Electronics textbooks and make easy to reference typed summary sheets for each chapter I finish before going through the homework.
Also, how to unicycle and aim a bow properly.
Much fun to be had.
