This is a discussion topic for Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum (a pseudonym, Ayn Rand's birth name). Other people are welcome to make comments. Alisa has agreed not to post under other names in this topic.
This is a discussion topic for Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum (a pseudonym, Ayn Rand's birth name). Other people are welcome to make comments. Alisa has agreed not to post under other names in this topic.
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#19879 I finished the multiple choice questions for chapter 1 of Reisman's *Capitalism*.
Before answering each question, I decided whether or not I cared about the question and whether or not I was confident in my answer. (Credit to Elliot for suggesting that I do this.)
There were 68 questions. I got 66 (97%) correct.
The two I got wrong were (retyped from the pdf at the link above since it doesn't allow copy/paste):
3. The importance of economics derives from the importance of wealth insofar as the subject can be no more important than is wealth.
The answer was True. I put False. This is one of the questions that I both cared about and was confident of my answer in. In retrospect, I'm not confident that I understand the question. It should have recognized that I wasn't confident.
59. Striking down residency requirements for the receipt of welfare requirements represents violating the freedom of taxpayers.
The answer was True. I guessed False. This was a question that I cared about but wasn't confident of my answer. I don't think I understand the question, but the subject matter looks like something I would care about: residency requirements for welfare recipients and the "freedom" of taxpayers.
I think I did OK overall. I'm going to move on to the essay questions for this chapter. If that goes OK, I'll try the same thing on the second chapter of the book: read the chapter, and then answer the multiple choice Q&A questions and the essay questions.
#20342 There should have been quote marks for the questions I got wrong:
> 3. The importance of economics derives from the importance of wealth insofar as the subject can be no more important than is wealth.
> 59. Striking down residency requirements for the receipt of welfare requirements represents violating the freedom of taxpayers.
#20342
The command below takes a PDF that doesn't allow copying and creates a version that allows it:
> gs -q -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=output.pdf original.pdf
> #20342
> The command below takes a PDF that doesn't allow copying and creates a version that allows it:
> > gs -q -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=output.pdf original.pdf
Really useful tip, thanks Alisa
#19955 My client-side javascript for the "quote" button has a problem: it removes all links in the quoted text. I don't think the server-side implementation had that problem.
For example, check out #20351 on this page, which I think it was made using the "quote" button. It quotes me as saying "The command below takes", but what I actually said was "The command below takes".
I don't think it'll be that simple to fix, because my code uses the innerText property to read the body of the comment to be quoted, and the links won't show up in innerText. I think I'd have to use innerHTML instead, replace the "a href" links with markdown-style links, and then convert other HTML stuff to plain text, e.g. replace ＆gt; with an actual greater-than sign.
#20353 i think we can live with that limitation. sounds better than using the old code again. (btw your script won't quote images either)
could do an AJAX solution but i don't think it's important enough
and it only removes markdown links. if someone posted a full url or a #20353 type link, it'll still work with your quote code.
#20355 Oh yeah, good correction. My code only removes markdown links, not other links.
In #20353, I wrote:
> I don't think it'll be that simple to fix, because my code uses the innerText property to read the body of the comment to be quoted, and the links won't show up in innerText. I think I'd have to use innerHTML instead, replace the "a href" links with markdown-style links, and then convert other HTML stuff to plain text, e.g. replace ＆gt; with an actual greater-than sign.
I know Elliot said we can live with the current version of the code, but I thought of a pretty simple way to fix the issue: first iterate over all the link tags in the DOM tree for the comment body and replace each one with a markdown-style link. Then copy the innerText as usual.
#20359 Correction: I’d have to replace the links without messing up the original DOM tree, like by making a copy first and modifying the copy or by saving the original innerHTML and restoring it at the end.
#20361 I updated the JavaScript code for the quote button handler to properly quote Markdown links: https://pastebin.com/LvJD8U8K . It doesn't touch comment-number links such as #xyz or raw http/https links – it leaves both as plain text.
Tested on a Mac with Chrome 89.0.4389.114, Safari 14.0.3, and Firefox 87.0.
SMB1 update
I haven't reached my goal of getting 5m 15s in SMB1 yet. I've spent over 32 hours on SMB1 since I got my previous personal best on 2021-01-28. Here's how much time I've spent on SMB1 so far:
- 2021-01-03 5m 47s (goal: 5m 54s; time spent: 70 hours)
- 2021-01-14 5m 37s (goal: 5m 39s; time spent: 19.5 hours)
- 2021-01-28 5m 20.54s (goal: 5m 24.846s; time spent: 48 hours)
SMB1 on an emulator
#20366 I tried playing SMB1 on an emulator on my Windows machine, and I had input lag issues. I tried all of the allowed emulators listed in the speedrun.com rules for SMB1 (go to https://www.speedrun.com/smb1 and click Rules), and all of them seemed to have input lag. The world record of 4m 54s 948ms was set by Niftski a week ago using an emulator, so I expect my lag issues are either imaginary or can be fixed, but I haven't figured out how to do that yet and I'm reluctant to put in the time for now.
Reisman essay questions for Chapter 1 of *Capitalism*
I tried answering the first three of Reisman's essay questions for Chapter 1 of his *Capitalism*. I found it pretty hard. I also found it hard to tell if I was doing a good job.
I think my best option is to continue with only the multiple choice questions. This will help me learn something about capitalism while still testing my reading comprehension to some extent.
Below are my answers to the first three questions. I'm not satisfied with them, but I'm sharing them here so people can see what I mean when I said that answering them was hard for me.
> 1. What is economics, according to the instructor?
I think Reisman said something in Chapter 1 like: *Economics is the study of the creation of wealth under a division-of-labor society*. However – did the U.S.S.R. have a division of labor? As I understand it, a society in which most people or small groups of people rely mainly on themselves to produce what they consume is a society without a division of labor. But if people rely mainly on others to produce what they consume, then there is a division of labor. So it seems to me that a communist society could have a division of labor. This is a really hard question for me. I suspect I'm making a mistake somewhere. I would want to look this up again to see what Reisman says.
> 2. What are some frequent alternative definitions of economics?
I think that one alternative definition is: *economics is the study of ways to divide scarce resources*. I think there are more alternatives, but I don't remember them. I would want to look this up too.
> 3. How does the individual live under a division of labor—that is, for whom does he produce and from whom does he obtain the goods he consumes?
Insofar as the goods he produces will primarily be sold to others, an individual living under a division of labor produces for others. He also obtains the goods he consumes primarily from others. [This answer doesn't have any explanations.]
5m 9s SMB1 run
#19782 I got a 5m 9s Super Mario Bros. (SMB1) any% speedrun today. I submitted it to speedrun.com, but, unfortunately, the audio quality is bad, so the run may well be rejected by the moderators. If, on the other hand, they verify it, then my goal of getting a time of 5m 15s or better will have been accomplished, and I will be tied for 451st place on the leaderboard. That would be a big improvement over my current position of 623rd (from my earlier verified run of 5m 20s).
5:09 sounds like a great time! Are you satisfied with it or still want to push lower in any%?
#20392 At approx frames 7900-8100 your screen blanks. if there's an issue for verification I think it'd probs be that. mb they would verify anyway if the times matched perfectly (or worse), but IMO that'd be reason for rejection (which sucks, b/c i guess it was mb the capture device).
#20394 Just checked the speedrun link:
> Rejected: At 2:11 Their is a black screen before Mario enters the pipe.
:(
#20393 I'm neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with my time. I was doing this as something that's fun and a good learning project. I'm still enjoying SMB1, and I think I would enjoy improving my time further, so if you think it's still a good learning project, I'll continue with it and try to go even lower, e.g. 5m 5s.
380 on 1-1 underground section in SMB1
I got my first 380 on the underground portion of 4-1 today! This means 380 showed on the timer as I entered the pipe to go back up. I normally get 379 here.
Kosmic spends about 2m 20s of his SMB1 speedrun tutorial talking about "the famous 380". Today I did it by accident, but I had recorded it, and I watched the recording frame-by-frame and remembered the way I had pushed the buttons. I also kind of remembered the way it looked different and felt that time, and I could recognize when I wasn't doing it the 380 way. Eventually, I was able to figure how I did it and even re-create it a few times. Once I master that, my 1-1 will be on pace for a sub-5-minute time. My 4-2 is already there (it's the easiest level), as is my 8-3.
I'm questioning whether I want to continue posting every day. I've been doing it for over a year and a half without missing a day. I think I've shown that I can do it. I think I've gained by learning to do it. But I'm not sure I want to continue. I have other things I'm doing that I think help me more, like:
- getting monthly philosophy coaching from Elliot
- having well-defined projects to work on
- doing something on my projects every day and tracking what I did in a spreadsheet
I'm considering posting only the following kinds of posts:
- periodic higher-level updates, such as in the learning updates thread
- posts I make when I have something I already want to share (without trying to find something to share)
5m 8s SMB1 run
#19782 I got a 5m 8s Super Mario Bros. (SMB1) any% speedrun today. I didn't submit it to speedrun.com because I still haven't solved my video capture problems. The screen blanks out around 2:12 again. It blanks starting at frame 8010. The start frame was 268, so that's 7742 frames into the game.
In my previous run, it blanked starting at frame 7939. The start frame was 185, so that's 7754 frames into the game. Pretty close to what happened this time.
In both runs, the blank screen seems to happen right as Mario touches the wall above the pipes near the end of 4-2.
#20451 To be clear, the blank screen happens in the original video saved from OBS, not just in the postprocessed videos with frame numbers added and scaling applied. I'm going to see if it's somehow reproducible. Does it always or often blank at that point?
Weight loss project update
On January 16, 2021 (#19607), I wrote:
> My BMI is 29.5
On March 10, 2021, my BMI was 28.7.
Today, April 26, my BMI is 29.3. I got a bit fatter since March 10, but not quite as fat as I was in January.
> - enter everything I eat into an app that tracks calories, macronutrients, and net carbs
I hadn't been tracking data every day. I decided to eliminate the gaps. On March 1, 2021, I added a column to my daily spreadsheet to help remind me to enter calories. Since then, I've been tracking every calorie I eat. Sometimes I go out to eat or I eat at someone's house where I don't want to weigh my food. In those cases, I just put in my best estimate. Like if I have 3 fried chicken wings, I put in 3 fried Popeye's chicken wings (which the program knows the calories for). Or if I have some dessert, I put in my best estimate of how much it weighed.
Along with the calories I ate each day, I also enter into my spreadsheet what my Apple Watch says were my "Move" calories for the day. I think that's meant to be close to the calories I burn from motion, above and beyond the calories burned by my basal metabolism.
I read somewhere that, at least over short periods, a pound of fat is gained when you eat 3500 calories more than you burn. Using that info, I calculated that if my calories in minus move calories equals about 1850 per day (and my overall lifestyle stays the same and I keep recording my calories the same way), then I would basically maintain my weight. On any day where I eat more than 1850 calories, I would gain weight, unless I balance it out with move calories or by eating less on another day.
I plan to continue recording my calories in and move calories every day. I'll also continue to record my weight periodically and see how I'm doing. I want to see whether this careful calorie tracking together with the knowledge of where my calorie break-even point is will help me make decisions that I'm satisfied with about what to eat and how much to exercise.
> On January 16, 2021 (#19607), I wrote:
> > My BMI is 29.5
> On March 10, 2021, my BMI was 28.7.
> Today, April 26, my BMI is 29.3. I got a bit fatter since March 10, but not quite as fat as I was in January.
> > - enter everything I eat into an app that tracks calories, macronutrients, and net carbs
> I hadn't been tracking data every day. I decided to eliminate the gaps. On March 1, 2021, I added a column to my daily spreadsheet to help remind me to enter calories. Since then, I've been tracking every calorie I eat. Sometimes I go out to eat or I eat at someone's house where I don't want to weigh my food. In those cases, I just put in my best estimate. Like if I have 3 fried chicken wings, I put in 3 fried Popeye's chicken wings (which the program knows the calories for). Or if I have some dessert, I put in my best estimate of how much it weighed.
Estimates can be fine. The more you measure stuff at home when you have the opportunity, the better you'll get at eyeballing stuff. You can also find portable digital scales.
> Along with the calories I ate each day, I also enter into my spreadsheet what my Apple Watch says were my "Move" calories for the day. I think that's meant to be close to the calories I burn from motion, above and beyond the calories burned by my basal metabolism.
if you go to Activity iphone app and tap the wheel at the top, you'll see both "Move" and below that and a graph a "Total" calories figure that includes basal
> I read somewhere that, at least over short periods, a pound of fat is gained when you eat 3500 calories more than you burn. Using that info, I calculated that if my calories in minus move calories equals about 1850 per day (and my overall lifestyle stays the same and I keep recording my calories the same way), then I would basically maintain my weight. On any day where I eat more than 1850 calories, I would gain weight, unless I balance it out with move calories or by eating less on another day.
FWIW i've found that many estimates of basal that i've seen are egregious overestimates. Yours may be fine though. The apple watch calculation i get for total calories seems pretty on point
#20460 My Apple Watch calculation for total calories significantly overestimates how much I burn from basal metabolism (assuming its active calories calculation is correct and 3500 kcal per pound).
#20452 I tried using a different program, XSplit, to record my runs, and I also noticed the blank screen issue in the recordings. So now I think it may be something in my capture hardware. (Either that, or it's the OS. I'm using Windows 10 and I'm up-to-date on patches. However, I think I didn't have any issues when I was using Windows 7...) I'm using an external component video to HDMI converter followed by an external HDMI to USB converter. I researched PCI video capture cards that can directly capture component video, picked one, and ordered it.
#20342 After my philosophy coaching call with Elliot today, I'm changing my approach to the *Capitalism* project. As a reminder, the goals of the *Capitalism* project are to improve my reading comprehension and my understanding of capitalism. To that end, I'm going to continue doing the short-answer questions, but I'll do them open-book if necessary. I'll try answering them from memory first, but I won't consider it a complete failure if I don't succeed. I'll just look back at the relevant section of the book and try again. Just doing the multiple choice questions wouldn't improve my reading comprehension or my understanding of capitalism as much as this will.
What follows are some of my notes on the part of the call where Elliot and I talked about this project. What I'm writing here is (almost) all stuff that's new to me that I learned on the call with Elliot. He tried multiple ways of explaining each thing until he found a way that made sense to me.
## Notes
I'm going to try making an outline of each chapter as I read. One goal of the outline is to help me understand the different ideas at different levels of abstraction and how they relate to each other. Kind of like if I were reading a large computer program (like the Linux kernel), I would make some kind of a diagram or text or something else that would help me understand how the different functions and parts of the program are related and what parts make up what other parts.
When I read a word, I don't think of each letter individually. I understand the word as a unit on its own that's independent of the letters. Similarly, I can understand the point of a sentence, after I've read it, without thinking of every individual word in the sentence.
One thing I thought of as I was writing these notes is how I understand the difference between boiling water and non-boiling water without consciously thinking of the individual motion of the atoms in the water. Temperature is made up of the energy of individual atoms, but I can also understand it on its own, without thinking about individual atoms.
This idea of understanding a higher level thing without consciously thinking of each lower level thing that goes into it also applies to paragraphs, sections, chapters, and even entire books. Some texts may do a better or worse job of giving you the outline or organization explicitly, similar to how some software source code is well organized and some isn't. But either way, the structure is there to be discovered. Otherwise it would be just a collection of random facts and trivia. I have to re-create that structure and organization in my own mind using the source text (and maybe other stuff) as a guide.
#20451 On my coaching call with Elliot yesterday, he suggested that, for SMB1 speedrunning, I could look at when my personal best would have been the best in the world. My 5m 8s run from 2021-04-26 would have been the best in the world on or before 2004-04-23, when Scott Kessler got the world record with a 5m 10s run. That record was beaten on 2004-10-09 by Trevor Seguin with a 5m 7s run.
#19883 I'm planning to put my learning Japanese project on hold unless and until I have a plan to actually move to Japan. In the mean time, I have other projects that I think would be better to spend my time on.