Raffi: One way in which I think we're different is that you aim for really thorough mastery of something ( Read more... )

When it appears that someone has failed to do their job properly, and I'm trying to figure out why, I would like to be in the habit of considering the following possible causes in this order:

1. Misunderstanding on my part. I missed the email where they said they did it, or that it was no longer necessary for some good reason.
2. Miscommunication on ( Read more... )

Whenever I have to do a long writing assignment for my music theory class, I'm always tempted to say "screw it" and write a Python program to do the voice leading for me ( Read more... )

I'm not religious, and not seeking to adopt new beliefs about the divine anytime soon... but there's something very comforting about reading Proverbs ( Read more... )

Thoughts prompted by iampied's recent (friendslocked) postThe way to be your best, to be An Awesome Person (TM), is not to go for the most hardcore discipline or the most overloaded schedule or the most difficult subspecialty ( Read more... )

skuffle asks: How do you feel about suicide?From what perspective ( Read more... )

callianassa asks: If you could do your life over, what major decisions would you make differently?This is another tough one ( Read more... )

le_coeur_chante asks: Is the MIT undergrad experience really as worthwhile as it's reputed to be ( Read more... )

Sorry for the one-day hiatus. Time to get started on these uncomfortable questions. arujei asks: I'd like to hear about your personal philosophy of ethics. Meaning, is it utilitarian, deontological, et cetera, and how did you come to that framework?At the moment, I don't know. I don't know because I haven't consciously chosen a framework, I've just ( Read more... )

The Secret Geek has a satirical article about how to be depressed. Apart from being really funny, I think the advice could be really beneficial if you just reverse everything. The list of abstract destructive thought patterns ("heuristics from hell"?) was kind of eye-opening, for me at least (maybe all y'all who are good at introspection already ( Read more... )