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Red Light Green Light

jamessevedge.com

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Re: Red Light Green Light

#141

Post by zestyping »

skrebbel wrote: post #100
aeternum wrote: post #15

Similar things happen surprisingly often in companies. Many intense arguments can be diffused by first being specific about what we agree upon. Just to add to this, one strategy from the rationalist community that I rarely see practiced is to 'taboo' certain words. For example if two engineers are arguing about a solution not being scalable, taboo the word scalable. They both re-explain their POV without using the wo…

A great word to taboo in hardware tech is "performance". I once witnessed a very heated argument among a group of programmers discussing some code on a microcontroller. Half of them thought the performance was abysmal. The other half thought the performance was great. To everybody it was obvious to see what the performance was, why were the other half being so bone-headed about it? Turned out the first group were tra…

Applause! I hate the word "performance" and its evil spawn, "performant".

Do you mean speed? Efficiency? Accuracy? Say what you mean.

Re: Red Light Green Light

#142

Post by PoignardAzur »

kovek wrote: post #85
aeternum wrote: post #15

Similar things happen surprisingly often in companies. Many intense arguments can be diffused by first being specific about what we agree upon. Just to add to this, one strategy from the rationalist community that I rarely see practiced is to 'taboo' certain words. For example if two engineers are arguing about a solution not being scalable, taboo the word scalable. They both re-explain their POV without using the wo…

This might not be the right place to ask.. How to find value from LessWrong? I see people derive value from it, but when I visit it, it’s not obvious

The site has a "curated" feed with articles the moderators deem to be useful.

What value you'll derive from it varies (especially if you're not into AI alignment) but there are a few gems every few weeks.

Re: Red Light Green Light

#143

Post by darkerside »

nkurz wrote: post #52
darkerside wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You ever seen a 3 year old in the front seat?

Yes. I'm 50, and grew up before the common use of car seats for children. Children of all ages would commonly ride in the front seat, or even in the back of pickup trucks. Even today, only about half the states have rules specifying that the carseats must be installed in the rear: https://saferide4kids.com/car-seat-laws-by-state/ As a fun anecdote, my father grew up prior to the time that most cars even came with fac…

Hmm, I know car seats weren't always as big a thing, but I think it's pretty rare these days for a 3 year old to be in the front seat. Am I the only one who would instinctively feel it was unsafe? I feel like this would have been obvious even before I had kids and was basically clueless about their safety.

Re: Red Light Green Light

#145

Post by hnlmorg »

ummonk wrote: post #22

It's weird it took her so long to realize what was happening - I knew as soon as I read the first paragraph what was going on. I suppose it's because I am younger (and thus have memories of being a kid) and was rather short as a kid, so I know what sorts of limited visibility you can have as a kid, and more recently I'm also used to driving at confusing intersections where it's not clear which light applies.

I don't think it's an age thing, I think it was just bloody obvious. So much so that I suspect that story was embellished a lot of dramatic effect. ie the author figured it out themselves quicker than they claimed to but it wouldn't have been as dramatic read if it was the literal sequence of events. Another oddity was the suggested age: 3 years old is very later to be teaching your kids the different between red and green.

Also worth baring in mind that the story happened roughly 20 years ago and I certainly can't remember every conversation I had with my family 20 years ago.

Re: Red Light Green Light

#146

Post by 3minus1 »

ummonk wrote: post #22

It's weird it took her so long to realize what was happening - I knew as soon as I read the first paragraph what was going on. I suppose it's because I am younger (and thus have memories of being a kid) and was rather short as a kid, so I know what sorts of limited visibility you can have as a kid, and more recently I'm also used to driving at confusing intersections where it's not clear which light applies.

Something about the context--this is a short article posted to HackerNews--makes it easier to realize. I already had a feeling that the story was leading to the adult being wrong somehow.

Re: Red Light Green Light

#147

Post by berkes »

khendron wrote: post #38
Waterluvian wrote: post #6

This anecdote is a ridiculously great example of something I’ve found to be VERY VERY IMPORTANT with parenting (and probably lots else.) You must be incredibly delicate with “wrong” answers otherwise you might gaslight, discourage, or otherwise mess with your child’s ontology. I’ve learned to ask “why do you think that?” When I get a “confident wrong answer” as I call them. A surprising amount of the time my child ha…

This makes me recall the time I was riding on the bus, and there was a little boy (maybe 4 years old) with his mum. The little boy was proudly reading the numbers off the other buses he saw drive by. "7, 23, 5, 86," the boy proudly stated. Then a bus numbered "5X" came by. "What's that?" The boy said, pointing in confusion. "That's the bus number!" his mom said. "X is a number now?" the poor kid asked in a painful to…

Still happens to me as a programmer when diving deeper into the domain.

Just to continue on the "number" theme: that address-form you recently built is probably wrong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_numbering

(where "wrong" is considered in the larger domain. It is probably "right" for your use-case and niche-domain, though. E.g. where you are certain you'll never ship to Thailand. Ever)

Re: Red Light Green Light

#148

Post by jccalhoun »

aeternum wrote: post #15

Similar things happen surprisingly often in companies. Many intense arguments can be diffused by first being specific about what we agree upon. Just to add to this, one strategy from the rationalist community that I rarely see practiced is to 'taboo' certain words. For example if two engineers are arguing about a solution not being scalable, taboo the word scalable. They both re-explain their POV without using the wo…

The one thing that was drummed into my head in grad school was to define your terms. I often ask students "How much is 'most?'" as in "most people think X." Technically 50.1% would be "most" but when I say "most" I generally think closer to 75% or more. So people could think they are disagreeing over whether "most people think x" is true but they are really disagreeing over the definition of "most."

Re: Red Light Green Light

#149

Post by dragonwriter »

jccalhoun wrote: post #148
aeternum wrote: post #15

Similar things happen surprisingly often in companies. Many intense arguments can be diffused by first being specific about what we agree upon. Just to add to this, one strategy from the rationalist community that I rarely see practiced is to 'taboo' certain words. For example if two engineers are arguing about a solution not being scalable, taboo the word scalable. They both re-explain their POV without using the wo…

The one thing that was drummed into my head in grad school was to define your terms. I often ask students "How much is 'most?'" as in "most people think X." Technically 50.1% would be "most" but when I say "most" I generally think closer to 75% or more. So people could think they are disagreeing over whether "most people think x" is true but they are really disagreeing over the definition of "most."

Communication is improved if, rather than redefining terms in common use, you just use the terms in common use that already mean what you want. So if you mean “at least 75%”, just say “at least 75%” rather than “most”, especially if you are negating it in a condition where negating it with the common definition would not be true.

Re: Red Light Green Light

#150

Post by nefitty »

zestyping wrote: post #141
skrebbel wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A great word to taboo in hardware tech is "performance". I once witnessed a very heated argument among a group of programmers discussing some code on a microcontroller. Half of them thought the performance was abysmal. The other half thought the performance was great. To everybody it was obvious to see what the performance was, why were the other half being so bone-headed about it? Turned out the first group were tra…

Applause! I hate the word "performance" and its evil spawn, "performant". Do you mean speed? Efficiency? Accuracy? Say what you mean.

This is my excuse for why I have no idea what "performance optimization" entails or means. Now to convince interviewers..
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