Thinking About Disasters
There are a lot of things that could go wrong that aren't very likely but would be pretty bad, and where planning ahead seems like it could be helpful. These are things that are either so sudden that...
View ArticleContra Caller Gender II
Dance weekends with two callers try to book ones of different genders. When the majority of callers were male this meant avoiding booking two men, but now that the majority is female it means avoiding...
View ArticleFestival Stats 2017
Another year, another set of gig stats. For more details, see what I wrote the first time I compiled these. Here's my raw data if you'd like to see what went into these numbers. Corrections welcome!...
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L and R hand positions
A few months ago I was wondering whether we could base contra role names off of whether hands face up or down. [1] Recently I realized we already did! In the picture below, the first person is holding...
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Small Child Handrails
Handrails on stairs are generally about three feet up [1] and I don't think our youngest (1.5y) has that much vertical reach with her hands straight above her head. They're also generally too far...
View ArticlePayPal Giving Fund
The PayPal Giving Fund seems good enough that I feel like there must be a catch, but looking at it I think it's fine. So either there's something I'm missing, or we should be sending basically all...
View ArticleGuardedness in EA
There's a continuum of guardedness: how careful are you in how you communicate, putting a lot of effort into saying only exactly what you intend to say? For example, public statements by heads of...
View ArticleMoving to HTTPS
About a year and a half ago I added HTTPS support to my sites but kept them running on HTTP for the time being. Chrome plans to eventually mark all HTTP pages as "Not secure", however, and HTTP is in...
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Getting Booked For Dances II
When the Free Raisins had been playing for ~3.5 years I put together a set of charts showing how booking had worked for us. Since it's now been another 3.5y I thought I'd make some updated charts....
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Two Minute Quesadillas
Lily has recently gotten excited about having quesadillas all the time, so I've been thinking about how to make them better. There are normally two ways: the slow tasty way, via stove, grill or oven,...
View ArticleKids and Global Warming
I've been seeing people linking to this study to argue that you should have fewer kids: We recommend four widely applicable high-impact (i.e. low emissions) actions with the potential to contribute to...
View ArticleSuperintelligence Risk Project: Conclusion
I spent most of July working on a project to evaluate risk from AI that is smarter than humans. I posted updates as I went [1] but intended to write up a summary with conclusions when I finished....
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Fixing SSH with RCN 1Gbps Service
Update 2018-04-06: Our modem became unreliable, and today an RCN tech came to swap it out. The new one doesn't have this issue. The tech said when they first started distributing these they had all...
View ArticleUsing Docs for Running Notes
When I work I keep two kinds of notes: Short summary notes aimed at people who are interested in what I'm doing (boss, coworkers, me way in the future trying to figure out what I was working on then)...
View ArticleRejoining Google
A week from Monday I'm starting back at Google. [1] I'm pretty excited about it, both the company and the team I'll be on. When I left Google for Wave I wrote: This does mean taking a pay cut: I'll be...
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Regularly Scheduled
Events that happen on a regular schedule lower the energy it takes to be social. Things like church every Sunday, a dance that's every 1st Saturday, or a dinner with friends on 2nd and 4th Wednesdays....
View ArticleForking Currency
Lets say I start a new currency, the Credit, to compete with the Dollar. The traditional way to do this would be for me to offer to convert between Dollars and Credits, but let's say instead I give...
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