@?book

This old woman predicted the end of the world. This was really good book! I don’t really read books like this normally but I actually laughed out loud at this one. Backlinks [[Book Notes]]N Metadata date: 2022-02-17 21:48 finished: true rating: 7 tags: - '@?book' - '@?public' - '@?safe-to-post-online' title: Good Omens

Space! I really enjoyed this. I listened to an audiobook version of it and there was something really soothing about walking or running at night and being able to look up at what Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan. It’s one thing to hear these descriptions of amazing places, like the surface of Titan or Mars, but to actually know that they’re right there above us is really cool. There was one particularly awe-inspiring description of the precision with which one of the Voyager probes was launched:

Harry Potter is really a wizard. Pretty good, like [[Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone]]N. Thought it was better because there was a bit more of a plot rather than just something bit happening at the end. Backlinks [[Book Notes]]N Metadata date: 2022-01-17 19:28 finished: true rating: 7 tags: - '@?book' - '@?public' - '@?safe-to-post-online' title: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry Potter is a wizard. Pretty good! Had been meaning to read for a while. Backlinks [[Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets]]N [[Book Notes]]N Metadata date: 2022-01-17 19:27 finished: true rating: 7 tags: - '@?book' - '@?public' - '@?safe-to-post-online' title: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Like Superman, but from a more rational Lex Luthor’s perspective. This was pretty good! It’s free to read online, listen to as a podcast or download an EPUB version (which is what I did). I read this after being recommended it on the [[Bit of a Tangent]]?? podcast, specifically episode 22 and the story is about Lex Luthor trying to grapple with Superman, who he considers an existential risk. Backlinks [[Book Notes]]N Metadata date: 2022-01-08 15:52 finished: true rating: 7 tags: - '@?

. Thoughts? Some of this reads like a “get rich quick” book page 126 Notes What is Optionality?? Optionality = the right, but not the obligation to take action. Optionality lets you explore freely, you have agency. From this definition, it seems pretty similar to the idea of slack which is defined by Zvi Mowshowitz as “the absence of binding constraints on behaviour”. Optionality lets you explore freely. Good options have an asymmetry between the cost and the potential benefit.

Man’s experience rises from a physical basis, but man has no good explanation of why and how it arises. Why should man get rich inner life? I read this but didn’t highlight any of it, so most of my notes come from Book Review: Being You by Anil Seth on LessWrong. Notes Measuring consciousness We now have technology that lets us point sensors at people’s heads and tell whether they are conscious even if they have full locked-in syndrome.

Metadata date: 2021-10-01 21:14 finished: false rating: -1 tags: - '@?notes' - '@?book' - '@?public' - '@?island' - '@?safe-to-post-online' title: Island

Man chooses if he is good or bad? This took me a while to finish because I stopped reading for about 2 months halfway through. I thought it was good, the description of the setting and atmosphere was amazing. Reading that first chapter as Steinbeck describes the Salinas Valley was great. Backlinks [[Book Notes]]N Metadata date: 2021-10-01 21:13 finished: true rating: 7 tags: - '@?notes' - '@?book' - '@?east-of-eden' - '@?

Man builds an AGI and then either destroys all of humanity or colonises $4\times 10^{20}$ stars. This book was really, really good. I’ve been interested in the idea of AI safety for a while now after reading LessWrong and this book was just full of so much good information and new perspectives. Flashcards Past developments and present capabilities Growth models and big history A few hundred thousand years ago, it took on the order of a million years to increase civilisations ability to support an extra one million citizens living at subsistence level.

Notes Introduction What is deep work? Spending a long amount of time alone and working hard on a problem. People have made big progress on important things in isolation. Jung had a tower that he worked in while trying to beat Freud' theories. Bill Gates has think weeks where he’d spend 2 weeks with no technology, just reading and thinking “big thoughts”. A knowledge worker is someone who’s job requires them to think for a living: programmers, doctors, scientists, lawyers, academics.

Man speak. Notes Introduction A Castle in the Air Perpetual Motion The Forces of Destruction A Reef of Dead Metaphors The Forces of Creation Craving for Order The Unfolding of Language Epilogue Thoughts Notes Introduction The word “going” transitioned slowly from talking about movement to talking about the future. You can say “I’m going to Basingstoke” or “I’m going to wash the dishes” or “I’m gonna eat that in a minute”.