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Nomic Game 2: Another Conclusion
This morning Chelsea won our second game of Nomic with a timing attack: Our game was set to use random numbers to figure out if someone had won. Effectively, each point you earn should give you an...
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Nomic Game 3
Our third game of nomic ended quickly, before all of the players had even managed to join (#107). While trying to fall asleep last night I realized a way I could win: #33 gives a point per PR merged,...
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Bathroom Construction: Framing
I've been working on redoing our bathroom (plans) and after I finished the demolition ( details) it was clear that I couldn't just put a new bathroom on top of the old framing. Not only were the...
View ArticleNomic Report: Sockpuppets Thwarted
About a week ago Todd sent out a PR (#226) that would allow new players to join the game without anyone needing to approve their join request. This opens up a way to win: add enough sockpuppets to get...
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Beantown Stomp: Registration Numbers
The dance weekend is a month out, and we're filling up! In fact, if everyone who has filled out the registration form goes ahead and pays then we're pretty much full! [1] I suspect some people who...
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Nomic Report III: Conclusion
The Nomic game has ended, with David (dchudz) the winner: Since the last update a week and a half ago we made some good progress: #67, #68, and #69: removing players for inactivity. The first was a...
View ArticleBackup Strategy
After reading a post from someone who nearly lost all their data to a joint NAS and external hard drive failure I decided to think through my data durability. Most of my stuff lives in the cloud:...
View ArticleSimultaneous Shortage and Oversupply
Here are two things I wouldn't expect to be true at the same time: The effective altruism (EA) movement has a ton of programmers, many of them earning to give, and many of them interested in moving...
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Nomic Report II
This second week has been a pretty slow one for the game. Pavel and I were both sick, some players have silently stopped participating, and the code is basically where it was a week ago. The biggest...
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Bathroom Construction Update
I've now started working on the new bathroom (plans), so here's where we are while things are still fresh. Last look at the old bathroom: I was planning to start demolition on Saturday 1/5, so earlier...
View ArticleNomic Report
After proposing automated nomic last week I coded something up and started a game. After playing for a week, here are some thoughts. The general idea is, people submit and review PRs, and whether a PR...
View ArticleSplitting Things
Update 2019-10-22: I no longer endorse this post; see this update. I had a good conversation in person with Quill today about the splitting things portion of my outcomes of a safety report post. I had...
View ArticleAutomated Nomic
Nomic is a game where you start with an initial rule set, and gameplay is all about modifying the rules. I've only played in person, with human rules interpreters, but I think an automated version...
View ArticleOutcomes of a Safety Report
(This is written with the contra dance community in mind, but is reasonably general.) If someone brings a safety report to you, that's just the beginning. You'll generally need to talk to the person...
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Boston Solstice 2018 Retrospective
Last night we hosted the Boston Secular Solstice, which I wrote about planning a couple months ago. It felt like it went really well! Several people told me it was their favorite one we've had in...
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Present Timing for Kids
We recently did an early family Christmas, before the rest of our relatives come to town. We usually go around in a circle, taking turns picking out a present to give to someone, with most of the...
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College and Earning to Give
In the effective altruism movement it's common to break things down into three general approaches: earning to give: earning more so you can donate more, using this money to fund things you think are...
View ArticleInterpreting genetic testing
Several years ago I participated in a study where my DNA was sequenced, and while I ended up not getting the sequence data [1] I did get a file of 23andme-style SNP variant calls. I loaded it into...
View ArticleNot losing things
I almost never lose things, especially important things like my keys, laptop, or ear warmers. Here's an attempt to write up the system I use, in case it's useful to others. The #1 rule for this sytem...
View ArticleTaking a Safety Report
(This is written with the contra dance community in mind, but is reasonably general.) Let's say you're an organizer or on a safety committee, and someone comes to you with a problem. How should you...
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