scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/2qzjoo.md

## Happy New Year Everyone (if you go by the Gregorian calendar that is)!

* Author: u/xamueljones  *My arch-enemy is entropy**
* URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2qzjoo/happy_new_year_everyone_if_you_go_by_the/
* Score: 4

* 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.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosh_Hashanah)
> 
> 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](http://njop.org/resources/holidays/complete-guide-to-holidays/tu-bshevat/new-year-for-treesthe-four-new-years/), according with the four simultaneous twelve-month year.

>> **u/autowikibot** [+1]  (3 hours later)
>> 
>> #####	
>> 
>> ######	
>> 
>> ####	
>>  [**Rosh Hashanah**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosh%20Hashanah): [](#sfw) 
>> 
>> ---
>> 
>> >__Rosh Hashanah__ ([Hebrew](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_language): רֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה‎, literally "head of the year") is the [Jewish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism) [New Year](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Year). The Biblical name for this holiday is __Yom Teruah__ ([Hebrew](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_language): יוֹם תְּרוּעָה‎, literally "day [of] shouting/raising a noise") or the __Feast of Trumpets__. It is the first of the [High Holy Days](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Holy_Days) or יָמִים נוֹרָאִים *Yamim Nora'im* ("Days of Awe") which usually occur in the early autumn of the [Northern Hemisphere](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Hemisphere). Rosh Hashanah is a two-day celebration, which begins on the first day of [Tishrei](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tishrei). Tishrei is the first month of the Jewish civil year, but the seventh month of the ecclesiastical year.
>> 
>> >====
>> 
>> >[**Image**](https://i.imgur.com/4Di2yR8.jpg) [^(i)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Liten_askenasisk_sjofar_5380.jpg)
>> 
>> ---
>> 
>> ^Interesting: [^Rosh ^Hashanah ^LaBehema](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosh_Hashanah_LaBehema) ^| [^Rosh ^Hashanah ^\(tractate)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosh_Hashanah_\(tractate\)) ^| [^Rosh ^Hashanah ^seder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosh_Hashanah_seder) ^| [^Psalm ^81](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psalm_81) 
>> 
>> ^Parent ^commenter ^can [^toggle ^NSFW](/message/compose?to=autowikibot&subject=AutoWikibot NSFW toggle&message=%2Btoggle-nsfw+cnb3463) ^or[](#or) [^delete](/message/compose?to=autowikibot&subject=AutoWikibot Deletion&message=%2Bdelete+cnb3463)^. ^Will ^also ^delete ^on ^comment ^score ^of ^-1 ^or ^less. ^| [^(FAQs)](http://www.np.reddit.com/r/autowikibot/wiki/index) ^| [^Mods](http://www.np.reddit.com/r/autowikibot/comments/1x013o/for_moderators_switches_commands_and_css/) ^| [^Magic ^Words](http://www.np.reddit.com/r/autowikibot/comments/1ux484/ask_wikibot/)

>> **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](http://probmods.org).  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.](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/caffienekitty/11224213/2575701/2575701_original.jpg)  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.
>> 
>> [That's a terrible plan ;-).](http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/R/Real-Programmer.html)

>> **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](http://i.imgur.com/Kwy0C.jpg) 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.

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