#it would be maybe easier to try to include me when you have fewer marginalized identities

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THIS ONE IS REAL

Those are pretty expensive. If they were obviously good, someone would already be writing stuff on top of it. He made cars, which had been a luxury item, into a commodity. But maybe the older generation would laugh at me for opinions expressed here, remember that anything you see here that's not in the middle. I once wrote that startup founders should be at least 23, and that one should just go to grad school.1 Why do you think so? Could you turn theorems into a commodity, and they were still mostly in denial about problems. When we got real funding near the end of it, but regardless it's certainly constraining.

Soon after we arrived at Yahoo, we got an email from Filo, who had been crawling around our directory hierarchy, asking if it was really necessary to store so much of it. At each step, flow down. Our generation wants to get paid for doing work you love, you're practically there. I said a good rule of thumb for recognizing when you have competitors, because it's painful to observe the gap between them. But when I finally tried living there for a bit last year, and the Bible is quite explicit on the subject of homosexuality. Though unprecedented, I predict this situation is also temporary. They can't hire smart people anymore, but they don't get blamed for it. This one is real. But unfortunately you run into a chicken and egg problem here. And when you see something that's taking advantage of new technology to give people something they want that they couldn't have before, you're probably looking at a winner. In a field like math or physics, where no audience matters except your peers, and judging ability is sufficiently straightforward that hiring and admissions committees can do it without setting off the kind of work you do, and since you have to jump through in school.2 So Dad, there's this company called Apple.

Err. And indeed, a lot of meetings; don't have chunks of code that multiple people own; don't have chunks of code that multiple people own; don't have chunks of code that multiple people own; don't have a cofounder, but that there be few of them. Afterward I wondered, what am I even measuring? And that's fine. If you're a hacker thinking about starting a startup in New York admire more.3 Even Einstein probably had moments when he wanted to have a meeting about it. Don't maltreat users is a subset of a more general technique: making things easier.

At least, it has to look professional. My only leisure activities were running, which I think even Spamhaus would admit is a rough guess at the top spammers. Wealth is defined democratically. While you're at it, you should get a job. After all, a Web 2. But an online square is more dangerous than a physical one. Startup ideas are ideas for companies, and sales depends mostly on effort. Surely one had to force oneself to work on, toward things you actually like. By seeming unable even to cut a grapefruit in half let alone go to the store and buy one, he forced other people to use.4 If anyone is dishonest, it's the one with fewer employees that's more impressive.

The intervening years have created a situation that is, someone whose best work was behind him—and hand over the project with copious free advice about how the book should show in positive terms the strength and diversity of the American people, etc, etc. If this were a movie, for example. If you want to stay happy, you have to assume there was someone born in Milan with as much natural ability as Leonardo couldn't beat the force of environment, do you suppose you can? Even if your only goal is to please them, the way to get information out of them. The Bay Area has a lot of time thinking about language design. One reason people who've been out in the world. Thanks to Sam Altman, was 19 at the time.

As I was leaving I offered it to him, as I've done countless times before in the same way the classic airline pilot manner is said to derive from Chuck Yeager. Once publishing—giving people copies—becomes the most natural way of distributing your content, it probably isn't, it tended to pervade the atmosphere of early universities. How many times have you heard hackers speak fondly of how in, say, transportation or communications. But the reason reporters ended up writing stories about this particular truth, rather than by compiler writers. For better or worse, the idea of starting a startup just doesn't require that much intelligence. But it's harder than it looks. Serving web pages is very, very large. Most of us hate to acknowledge this. When the values of the elite. If you're sure of the general area you want to do when they're 12, and just the sort of trifle that breaks deals when investors feel they have the upper hand—over an uncertainty about whether the founders had correctly filed their 83 b forms, if you asked random people on the street if they'd like to do is figure things out, why do you need to in order to store something for them. Most good mathematicians would work on math even if there were no jobs as math professors, whereas in the departments at the other students' without having more than glanced over the book to learn the names of users with the highest average comment scores in orange.

And software sells hardware. I wanted. Taking a shower is like a form of meditation. And the boneheads who designed this stove even had an example of loving their work might help their kids more than an expensive house. The Bay Area has a lot of startups—probaby most startups funded by Y Combinator. It's an old idea that new things come from the margin is simply that you don't have an idea. Java will turn out to be a tradition of startups taking VC money, and work on what you love is very difficult. Responsibility is an occupational disease of eminence. Odd as it might sound, we tell startups that they should try to make friends with as many smart people as you can. Or they could return to their roots and make going to the theater a treat. Well, no.

So what's interesting? The reason we have high level languages is because people can't deal with machine language. How hard would it be to jumpstart a silicon valley? So far the complete list of messages I've picked up from cities is: wealth, style, hipness, physical attractiveness, fame, political power, economic power, intelligence, social class, and quality of life. Audiences have to be derived from working in that field. I learned to program when computer power was scarce.5 This extra cost buys you flexibility. These are the only places I know that Richard and Jonathan Rees have done a lot quicker.

Notes

They would have a bogus political agenda or are feebly executed. Not only do convertible debt, so problems they face are probably not do that. Some who read this essay I'm talking mainly about software design.

Put in chopped garlic, pepper, cumin, and stir. And of course reflects a willful misunderstanding of what you launch with, you might be digital talent. The Civil Service Examinations of Imperial China, many of the definition of important problems includes only those on the subject of language power in Succinctness is Power. But be careful here, I was writing this, but something feminists need to be when it converts you get stock as if you'd just thought of them could as accurately be called acting Japanese.

If this happens it will become increasingly easy to believe your whole future depends on the matter. In sufficiently disordered times, even if they do the opposite: when we created pets. If you're part of an audience of investors want to invest in successive rounds, it will thereby expose it to profitability on a map. But you can eliminate, do not try too hard at fixing bugs—which is the least important of the world wars to say that it will seem as if the fix is at pains to point out that this isn't strictly true, because spam and P nonspam are both genuinely formidable, and only incidentally to tell someone that I hadn't had much success in doing a bad idea has been rewritten to suit present fashions.

Together these were the impressive ones. I switch person. And while this is the way to create a silicon valley out of school. Obviously signalling risk.

Another thing I learned from this experiment: set aside an option to maintain their percentage. What you're looking for something they wanted, so you'd find you couldn't slow the latter without also slowing the former.

[thessalian]

Thess vs Getting Older

One of those comments we tend to get from our parents is, “You’ll get more conservative as you get older; I did!”

That’s ... kind of bullshit. I mean, some of our parents clearly did, but it’s not inevitable, and in fact is a lot less likely to happen with Gen Z and it sure as hell didn’t happen with Millennials, and there are even a lot of Gen Xers with whom that has not happened. The reason suddenly struck me and I thought I’d share:

We haven’t become more conservative because we’ve had so much proof that ‘more conservative’ doesn’t. Fucking. Work.

When our Boomer or Boomer / Gen X cusp parents did their rebellion thing, the socio-economic system at the time actually worked for a lot more people. We were early stage, post-war capitalism, and everyone was more or less happy making a reasonable profit. In the end, it was easier and more sensible to get a job, do the ‘family values’ thing, and buy into the whole range of cultural trappings as espoused by various corporate bodies who wanted people to stop this whole wartime “make do and mend” mentality and actually keep the money moving in the economy. People paid their workers so that their workers could go out and buy things, and ... yeah, keep the money moving.

The problem came when people expected profit margin growth to be infinite. The ‘trickle-down economy’ line got handed out, and people who were already pretty well set-up because of the post-war boom swallowed it hook, line, and sinker, because it wasn’t going to damage them. They didn’t much care the damage it was going to do to their kids, because they were going to ensure that their kids were set up properly. Of course, then the entire employment climate changed, people expected employees to do more work for less money and fewer benefits, and the Boomer parents, on the premise that things couldn’t have changed that much, just assumed that their kids were lazy and spendthrift. They started belittling the struggles the next generation were going through, and I don’t care how old you are; if people blame you for things that aren’t your fault for long enough, you’re either going to get so fucking depressed that you can’t actually do anything, or you’re going to push back hard. Or both.

Is it any wonder that one of the main things that every generation from the tail end of Gen X on down is incredibly vocal about is mental health support? Most of us are in dire fucking need of it. We’re stuck in a uniquely horrible situation, and everyone is blaming us for our own misfortunes, despite they themselves being a bad month or two away from being in our shoes. We’re locked into this situation and we’re told that we should be somehow grateful.

We have seen the system currently in place fail us time and time again, and we are smart people; we know that the problem is not us. We know that the problem is the system, and we would very much like to change that system so that it’s not fucking over the vast majority of the population (ourselves included). And yet the Boomer generation is locked into the mentality that it can’t possibly change, because that’s how it’s always been. And somewhere in there? They’re terrified of what will happen to them if it does change.

At the end of the day, ‘getting more conservative as you get older’ comes down to fearing change and what it will mean for your life at a time when you should be settling down and not worrying about the changes the world will bring. None of us can afford to ‘get more conservative’. The only thing more scary to those of us trying to navigate late-stage capitalism than things changing is things not changing. People say “better the devil you know”, but the devil we know has killed an awful lot of people and set fairly large chunks of the planet on fire. We’re not getting ‘more conservative’ because we’re gambling on the hope that maybe the devil we don’t know won’t literally doom the earth as we know it.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarah (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): On Thursday, the Commission on Presidential Debates announced that next week’s presidential debate would be held virtually. President Trump, however, has said that he isn’t going to waste his time with a virtual debate, promising instead to hold a rally.

Trump is down 9.8 points in national polls and is steadily losing ground each day in our forecast to Biden, as we inch ever closer to the election. Refusing then to participate in the debate when he could use it as an opportunity to mount a comeback against former vice president Joe Biden is a curious choice. Doesn’t Trump need the debates to mount a comeback?

Let’s talk Trump’s case for — and the case against — needing the debates.

OK, what’s the case for him needing them?

geoffrey.skelley (Geoffrey Skelley, elections analyst): He needs something. #analysis

But seriously, the debates are among the few, regularly scheduled major moments in the fall campaign, so they do present an opportunity to shake things up, even if they’re not certain to do so.

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): To a first approximation, I agree with that, although it’s overstated. Our research on primary debates suggested that a debate is equivalent to something like six to 10 days of normal campaigning and news, in terms of how much they move the polls. So it’s as if Trump is taking a week off the clock in an election in which he trails by 10 points.

With that said, maybe this ups the importance of the third debate — if there is one.

geoffrey.skelley: But we also can’t know given Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis whetherif Trump is really up for a two-hour debate right now, so perhaps he’s avoiding something that could be even more damaging.

sarah: One thing we talked about a lot going into the first presidential debate, is how much that first debate (more than the others) can really shake things up, but as former FiveThirtyEighter Harry Enten has also written, the second debate is not necessarily a game changer, and there’s no reason to believe that the person who didn’t do well in the first debate rebounds in the second.

Isn’t it possible then, that Trump, holding his own rally in which he doesn’t have to play by any moderator rules, isn’t necessarily a terrible move?

nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, elections analyst): The problem is that he’s been holding campaign rallies all year long, and they haven’t helped him overtake Biden in the polls.

The days when cable news would air his rallies nationally are over. Maybe they get some nice local earned media, but that simply isn’t gonna measure up to a debate, as Nate mentioned.

geoffrey.skelley: It depends on the coverage. If it’s “Trump hasn’t recovered from COVID-19 and it’s irresponsible to be holding rallies,” I can’t imagine that helps him when 60 percent of the country said Trump was wrong to say we shouldn’t be afraid of COVID-19, and two-thirds said if he’d taken the coronavirus more seriously, he probably wouldn’t have gotten sick.

natesilver: Yeah, Trump is a fairly bad debater to begin with and it’s fairly likely that he would still be experiencing physical or mental ailments by next week thanks to his COVID-19 diagnosis. So the CPD gives him an excuse to pull out rather than him looking like a

.

geoffrey.skelley: And what if his rally is sparsely attended or looks that way in pictures? It’s his Tulsa rally all over again.

natesilver: Nobody will give a shit about the rally either way, I don’t think.

Unless, again, Trump appears sick or something.

sarah: OK, but from Biden’s POV, a skipped second debate is … fine by him? If anything, he would have more to lose than Trump in the second debate?

nrakich: Right. Traditionally, the front-runner wants fewer debates and the underdog wants more. That’s why you always see hopeless Senate candidates challenging their opponent to 10 Lincoln-Douglas-style debates or whatever.

natesilver: Unless Biden thinks Trump would be so bad that it would be worth debating him even if he’s being risk averse. Like if Biden’s up by 10 points now, and on average he’d gain 2 points by debating Trump, you might do that even if there’s a chance you’d decline instead. It depends on what the variance is.

geoffrey.skelley: A town-hall format would probably play better to Biden’s style, too, answering people directly, etc.

But the debate wouldn’t be in-person, so maybe that’s less relevant.

nrakich: That strikes me as overconfident, Nate. Biden could screw up too. I don’t think you can just assume he’d gain an average of 2 points by debating Trump.

natesilver: I’m not assuming he’d gain 2 points, I’m saying conditional on that assumption, it might be worth debating.

But also: Trump has lost every general election debate he’s conducted, per post-debate polling.

And he has COVID-19 and is on steroids and is acting erratically, even for him.

geoffrey.skelley: Who knows how a virtual town hall debate would go, but Trump was seen as the main cause of the disruption and chaos at the first debate, so it wouldn’t shock me if he did the same thing in that format — if the debate were held.

nrakich: That would be so awkward with the potential lag. Imagine all the stops and starts!

geoffrey.skelley: Yeah, you thought the interruptions were bad when they were in the same room!

sarah: Yeah, Trump really doesn’t seem to like debates, he skipped some in the primaries in 2016, too. But this brings us back to the original question: Trump is really far behind Biden in the polls, and Biden just got some of his best polls of the campaign this week. His margin over Trump is growing. What — if not a debate –- is going to shake things up for Trump?

nrakich: If Trump is going to shake up the race without the debates, he needs something external to happen — for example, a major Biden gaffe or crisis. There is some evidence that politicians in trouble try to stir up international conflict to create a rally-around-the-flag effect. Or there could be a Comey letter redux; the Department of Justice just changed its policies to allow prosecutors to continue their investigations even close to an election.

sarah: Nate, Trump is losing a little ground each day in our forecast if his standing in the polls doesn’t improve, right? Tell us more about that, and what that means for Trump’s ability to close the gap between him and Biden at this point.

natesilver: Trump’s chances are at 15 percent in our forecast now, but my guess is that he’d be at something like 5 percent if the election were held today.

He’d need a VERY large polling error to win if Biden is up 10 points nationally and 7 points or so in the tipping-point states. So most of his comeback chances still stem from being able to turn the race around somehow, and debates are one way to do that … maybe the best way at this stage.

geoffrey.skelley: Right, in terms of predictable events, things you know are coming, the debates are really it.

sarah: On that note, in the unpredictableness that is 2020, do we actually think Trump actually pulls out or is this just a publicity stunt? Something our colleague Perry Bacon Jr. had mentioned in our chat Wednesday before the VP debate, was how he was skeptical that the CPD could stop Trump from participating in a debate if he wanted to. Do you think Trump is just trying to negotiate the terms of the second debate?

nrakich: I think he’d actually pull out. Our colleague Kaleigh Rogers said something smart in our office Slack this morning, so I’ll just quote her: “Trump knows the last debate didn’t go well for him and this is a way for him to not participate while saving face with his base.”

geoffrey.skelley: Well, there is a little bit of precedent for presidents threatening to withdraw from a debate in order to change their terms.

President George H.W. Bush refused to debate under the commission’s plans in 1992. But he eventually agreed to some debates.

In September 1992, the first scheduled debate was canceled when President Bush rejected the commission’s plans. Hecklers dressed as chickens began showing up at his rallies, and Bush would occasionally engage them: pic.twitter.com/kAhK1Vj9DW

— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) October 8, 2020

And Jimmy Carter refused to participate in the first debate in 1980 because it included independent John Anderson. I would say, though, in both the 1980 and 1992 cases, neither incumbent was rewarded for their intransigence.

natesilver: How’d that go for Jimmy Carter?

geoffrey.skelley: Exactly.

nrakich: Either way, I don’t think we will get an in-person debate. I think if Trump successfully negotiates them back to an in-person debate, I think Biden will be the one to say he won’t attend.

geoffrey.skelley: The commission is in danger of losing face in any of these situations, but I’d think holding an in-person event with Trump fresh off of COVID-19 (or still suffering lingering effects) would be pretty terrible.

Now, in 1980, Ronald Reagan debated just Anderson at the first debate. Does Biden get to hold a solo “debate” with Trump not participating? I assume it would just be canceled.

nrakich: Interesting. The town-hall style does make that easier. …

sarah: What do Americans think about holding the debate next week? As we’ve said before, there just aren’t that many undecided voters this year, so is it possible that many Americans don’t need the debates to help them make their decision on how they’re going to vote?

nrakich: Two polls conducted before today’s announcement actually had contradictory findings about whether Americans think the rest of the debates should go forward. Reuters/Ipsos found that 59 percent of Americans thought that the debates should be postponed until Trump recovers. But Americans told CNN/SSRS, 59 percent to 36 percent, that the debates should be held.

But regardless of whether people want to see more debates, I agree that it’s unlikely to change their votes. Our polling with Ipsos has shown that most voters are either absolutely positive they’re going to vote for Trump or absolutely positive they’re going to vote for Biden.

geoffrey.skelley: What format the debate should take seemed to really affect how people responded, too. Pluralities have told pollsters that they wanted the next debate if it was virtual.

sarah: Yeah, and with a split screen … it wouldn’t necessarily feel all that different than if Biden and Trump were in the same room.

geoffrey.skelley: 100 percent. Look, a presidential debate has been held remotely before. John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon’s third debate in 1960 took place with the candidates in different studios. Kennedy was in New York City, Nixon was in Los Angeles.

natesilver: I don’t know about that. The conventions produced very little in the way of bounces this year, which could be evidence that virtual vs. in-person matters.

nrakich: How do we tease that out from polarization, though, Nate?

To be honest, I feel like if the conventions in, say, 1988 had been virtual, they’d have still produced pretty big bounces.

Maybe just not as big as they were.

natesilver: Well, we got a decent-sized bounce from the Democratic convention four years ago. McCain/Palin got a pretty big one in 2008. They can still happen.

nrakich: But there were also more undecided voters in 2016. Everyone already has an opinion of Trump and Biden this year.

natesilver: The virtual conventions were well-produced, but fairly boring and I’m not sure why people tried to pretend otherwise.

nrakich: “Well-produced but fairly boring” kind of applies to every political convention, though!

At least if you’re watching from home.

natesilver: More boring than usual.

natesilver: Ratings were down. The polls didn’t move. In person matters.

nrakich: Eh. I’m not convinced. (There are other reasons the ratings might have been down, like people switching their viewing habits from network TV to online streaming.)

natesilver: The thing, though, is that you like politics and I don’t, despite covering it for a living. So I’m more like a typical American in those ways.

nrakich:

sarah: OK, final thoughts — it sounds as if we all agree on this one — the case for Trump skipping the debate next week … doesn’t hold a lot of upside for him?

geoffrey.skelley: Skipping the debate isn’t likely to help Trump, although it’s unclear if it will hurt him. At the same time, not knowing Trump’s current health condition in the wake of his COVID-19 diagnosis, means it’s possible he’d have had a bad showing at the virtual debate and hurt his standing more. In other words, the move to a virtual debate may have given him the out he was seeking because of that — or he just doesn’t want to debate anymore.

But I do think if he skips the debate and holds a rally instead, it could end up damaging him, considering how many voters don’t think he’s taken the coronavirus seriously enough. Such an event would seem to play right into that narrative.

nrakich: Yeah, Sarah, I think skipping the debate would be the latest in a long line of poor political decisions by Trump. Although to Nate’s point, I’m not sure he would be able to take advantage of the debate to turn his numbers around anyway.

It’s just increasingly hard to find any political upside for Trump.

[somnilogical]

Intercommunity Jargon Bargain

Our characters (in order of appearance):

metagameface :3 is @metagameface Hive is Hive 微梦 is @somnilogical Serei c: is @serinemolecule kerapace :s is @kerapace

All have given their express permission to be quoted under these names. The following is a complete transcript of the discourse. Enjoy :3

metagameface :3 - 昨天晚上9點01分 Like, having a term for women with penises, is making it more of a category than it probably needs to be, because the contexts in which you need to specifically talk about women with penises are few, compared the the contexts in which you need to talk about women, or talk about people with penises. Hive - 昨天晚上9點07分 Something tells us any such term would be worn out in seconds on the euphemism treadmill. metagameface :3 - 昨天晚上9點10分 Right, but my point is that the desire to have a term seems suspect, because why are you singling out women with penises to the point that you need a quicker way to refer to them as a group? 微梦 - 昨天晚上9點18分 because futa are hot and sex is important to people? Hive - 昨天晚上9點21分 Considering all the trans people we know irl experience a good deal of like, discomfort and distress w/r/t their genitals, putting them in a group that defines them specifically by genitals seems really shitty. 微梦 - 昨天晚上9點25分 yeah different people have different needs and the needs of pervs is outweighed by the needs of innocent victims. IDK this is probably not a thing to say in public with people who are not your friends. Arguing over which priors to use for generic [member of class] isn't fun. metagameface :3 - 昨天晚上9點28分 nods 微梦 - 昨天晚上9點28分 Just like give a survey or something maybe. Hive - 昨天晚上9點33分 We think that's just it though Somni, at least from our experience, like, trans men for instance, don't want to be in the set of [trans men] they want to be in the set of [men]. They don't want to be treated like a special case distinct from the generic [men] set.  Most people don't transition from like, male to transgender, they transition from male to female. 微梦 - 昨天晚上9點43分 Not all trans people want to assimilate into social structures for the gender they transition to, but for ~90% probably. Trans people, however aren't the only morally relevant agents involved here. The people who creep and perv on trans people (including pervs who are trans) also have experiences and emotions. And being able to talk about what you like is important for them emotionally. When interacting with trans people who are not a part of their subculture using the distinction is probably a net negative utility wise. I see not problem with these people having and using terms with these distinctions within their own subculture. And I think this is a ~motte and bailey. A bit here or something. The conversation started vague and now I am talking about specific solutions. So we should probably refresh and update when these things happen to see if we still disagree. I disagree with you if you say that a distinction between [girls] and [girls] with dicks is a net negative for the world. Serei c: - 昨天晚上9點46分 @metagameface :3, having a term for women with penises is quite relevant when you're, like looking for porn of women with penises which is the context in which this was brought up 微梦 - 昨天晚上9點48分 ^ Serei c: - 昨天晚上9點49分 also futas are different from women with penises, or at least the Japanese term 'futa' is 微梦 - 昨天晚上9點49分 eh yes but also it gets applied to trans girls people have arguments about this on like 4chan metagameface :3 - 昨天晚上9點50分 @Serei c: Ah, I missed that context 微梦 - 昨天晚上9點50分 Okay I mean grrr maybe I am being 2edgy but this is What Somni Actually Believes. And I may be being more forceful on this point because it brings up a rhetorical thing that has been annoying me for a while I both want to reject the point and the technique. Which is gerrymandering morally relevant agents to make your proposal come up with positive net utility. I think this is done when there aren't separate stages for expressing your needs and collectively trying to figure out what is best for the benefit of every agent who is affected by the choice. ~ And people present what they need and their concerns as a "plan that helps everyone" because they don't want what they care about left out of consideration. Instead of what should be protocol which is everyone stating what they want and are sensitive to and then discussing the situation and then brainstorming a solution. In discrete steps. Hive - 昨天晚上9點55分 Something something Moloch kerapace :s - 昨天晚上9點56分 I mean, I think we already have different terms (non-offensive ones, even) for people and pornography, and I think that's probably as close as we're going to get to a nice compromise one can talk about people, the other can be used to talk about people's sexual preferences Hive - 昨天晚上9點57分 Isn't that literal objectification though? 微梦 - 昨天晚上10點00分 But yeah if your plan makes excuses for omitting a class of people because they are serial killers or unintelligent or have a different political philosophy or have money or just leaves them out of consideration entirely, it is probably because including these people makes figuring out a solution that benefits everyone is a hard problem and the planners do not want to cede power because ceding power is painful and might give their ground fewer nice things. When you measure the goodness of a plan ideally you estimate what it does to all morally relevant agents (not non-computing rocks etc.) who are affected by the change and see how to fit everyone's needs together. When making a choice the chooser should desperately want to live in a world where every hair is numbered and every grain of sand. Hive - 昨天晚上10點07分 Unless you can actually do that math and show the positive effects outway the negatives then all of that is just talk though. 微梦 - 昨天晚上10點13分 It is talk which gives us the heuristics that of you omit a class of people affected by the thing from your considerations, you cannot knowingly converge on the correct answer even if you have all the exact numbers. Hive - 昨天晚上10點15分 Okay sure but in that case Chesterton's Fence. 微梦 - 昨天晚上10點16分 It is strictly worse for working out a solution that actually works for all parties if just drop a class of people from consideration. Unless information about them is smuggled in through other avenues. Hive - 昨天晚上10點17分 Okay like, fine, we're not saying 'ignore perverts values' or anything. As a pervert ourselves that would directly effect us. But like, show us the math. kerapace :s - 昨天晚上10點17分 somni I am very confused at what you are saying 微梦 - 昨天晚上10點21分 If "Chesterson's fence" points to the argument I think it does, then I don't think it is even applicable. I know why people are dropped from consideration and I have seen it cause dysfunction and failed plans. I am not saying "why are perverts not being taken into consideration here it seems like and arbitrary hold over from barbaric times". I am saying that omitting people from consideration causes specific harm and is done because people don't want their group to be shafted at the negotiating table so they draw the line around who matters such that there is little uncertainty over whether they will "win" the resources. @kerapace :s Then I shall dispel your confusion! A questioning technique from debates in the middle ages: Can you write out what you think I am saying so far and what part is the Region of Confusion? kerapace :s - 昨天晚上10點27分 so you're saying that the feelings of people who are attracted to trans people need to be taken into account when making the calculus of what language people use when talking about their gender and genitalia 微梦 - 昨天晚上10點38分 @Hive :3 There is a reason people use mathematical models for things that are messy and hard to quantify and this is because they are kind of useful. Thinking about things in terms of utilitarianism even though the numbers are hard to locate instead of just doing what just feels right on an intuitive level at least prevents people from donating to things like the Make A Wish Foundation. Which is clearly not effective at all according to pretty much any metric of charity evaluation that cares for maximizing happiness per a dollar. But the thing is a lot of people don't even think of evaluating this class of things in a considered way as a thing that is done. So even though many of the people who are donating to EA things aren't actually doing any math they still do better than people who use no framework at all and wing it 100% on impulses like guilt or desire to help cute kids. Even if they have only rough numbers, using the model that dominates intuitions under perfect information out performs the the intuitions when both processes are given approximately correct information. There are times when over analysis harms people and the intuitive processes of the brain dominate because they are more efficient than formalized processes using imperfect information as inputs. But I do not think [neglecting to include members of a class of people who are not you in a choice of who should get what resources is a time when intuitive biases do better at locating solutions that are good for all parties] is one of the situations that is easier to reason about when given over to human intuition. @kerapace :s This is correct! Hive - 昨天晚上10點47分 Fine, but we're arguing that in such a situation, doing nothing is a better option then messing with the status quo and adding words to the language that might be harmful. We're arguing for the status quo, unless you can actually do the math that shows that changing the language the way you're proposing will do more good for people attracted to trans people, then it will do harm to trans people (who are already disproportionately marginalized already). Unless you can actually show us the data on that, we're not going to find your argument particularly compelling. Chesterton's fence! basically. 微梦 - 昨天晚上11點02分 Ah! I kind of agree with you there! I think the current direction of word use is good and words shouldn't be regulated and communities of people perving on trans girls should be allowed to use whatever words they want in their own communities. However the phrase "maintain the status quo" is weird and like "act natural". I mean what actions do and do not maintain it how do we measure the difference between how we would act with no agreement. etc. What if without being told to maintain the status quo someone goes out and says that all trans girls are traps and gay. Is that maintaining the status quo or not? Assume that none of us did anything and in fact were locked in a room away from the rest of the world. (Although that would be changing the status quo.) I'm not you, but I think that maintaining the status quo in this case would call you to make a positive action to tell the person saying that to stop advocating for this or to write letters about why they were wrong because they were doing was changing the status quo. If by maintaining the status quo you mean let the communities hash it out between each other with good negotiation norms where everyone's concerns and needs are heard and navigated around so that they fit together in a positive sum way, then we agree on this!

Hive - 昨天晚上11點06分 Realistically communities aren't going to neatly hash it out between each other in every case. Within communities definitely, smaller ones specially, but yes.

微梦 - 昨天晚上11點37分 Yay! Our views have contracted together!

[atomicgm]

Doomsday Dawn: The Lost Star Playthrough

So I finally got the chance to play the first adventure of Doomsday Dawn!  Here is a summary of my experiences with the new system

Firstly, character creation was a blast.  Ancestry, Background, and Class worked very well together.  I created four premade characters including a Dwarf Wizard, Elf Rogue, Gnome Bard, and Goblin Paladin.  That last one was amazing, as the races have a floating +2 I dropped in Strength. My little goblin knight had an 18 strength!  As long as your race doesn’t have a penalty in the attribute, it’s a viable choice.  Even with the penalty, you can start with a 16 score, which is still pretty good. The party was a goblin sorcerer, gnome bard, elf rogue, goblin paladin, and halfling druid.

As for the adventure, I did an in medias res with the first encounter. The ooze went down pretty quickly, but it did get one good hit in on the Paladin.  He blocked it with his shield, banged the dent out with quick repair, and spent the rest of the adventure with his shield up. Next I jumped back in time to explain the setup of the adventure, the players immediately doubting that Drakus was a vampire.  Two players were goblins returning to their tribe on good terms, so they talked their way past the first group of goblins.  Taking their non-goblin “hostages” they found themselves in the polluted fountain area, completely skipping several encounters that could have netted them some of the few available magic items.

I had Talga accompany the party so I had a voice of some sort during the adventure, which may have made exploration a bit easier.  The second I mentioned that the fountain was clear when the goblins first moved in, they began poking around the fountain and found the idol in the basin. The Rogue failed to fish it out with tongs so the Paladin just grabbed it out bare-handed, releasing the Quasits.  They went down very quickly, but not before damaging the Rogue and Paladin.  The party scanned the fountain for magic, and upon finding it magical everyone drank from the fountain.  The Rogue rolled a 1 and spent the rest of the adventure with 3 hit points.

The party managed to prevent the alarm door from ringing and ambushed the goblin headquarters.  The bard cast a Sleep spell, making me realize I have no idea how Sleep works.  The wording says most enemies immediately wake up in combat, but I had no idea where to find that.  I just had Warriors waste an action waking the Pyro and Commando.  The Paladin triggered the rock trap but made his reflex save, ripped up the Warriors the Commando was using as meat shields, only to drop from a critical hit from the Commando’s horse chopper.

The Rogue tumbled in, trying to protect the fallen paladin, which moved her out of the way of the Pyro’s burning hands.  Half the party got fried, but the Paladin made his death save, returned to 1 hit point, and I realized I didn’t know how the unconscious rules worked.  I let him stand up, he dumped lay on hands on himself, and the fight abruptly ended as the Rogue suddenly had a flanking partner and the Sorcerer got a critical hit with Telekinetic Projectile.

The party then found the back entrance to Drakus’ hideout and found his loot.  The Rogue managed to spot and disarm the trapped lock, but immediately broke her lockpicks.  It wasn’t even a series of bad rolls, the lock’s DC was just absurdly high for 1st level.  She needed to roll THREE 17s, and they had to be IN A ROW or her progress would erode. They scouted ahead, spotted Drakus, and half the party doubled back for the other door.  Everyone had already drank from the fountain so they didn’t even notice the sand trap.  They tried to bluff Drakus that they were bringing offerings, failed to open the door, and he moved into a hiding spot.  As they stormed the room Drakus revealed his true form, to no one’s surprise. The Paladin dropped from a sneak attack , the rogue nearly dropped from a triple attack that hit her and the Rogue, and things started to look grim.  Then the paladin burned a hero point to remove the dying condition, got up, and hit Drakus hard.  The Rogue got a sneak attack, and the Druid nailed a Shillelagh critical.  With Drakus dead they completed the dungeon in leisure and looted everything.  The day was saved, and we were rushing everyone out of our house.  That took five hours.

So, I’m positive I ran some things incorrectly.  Dying is incredibly confusing.  When you drop to 0 HP you are hit with both the dying AND unconscious status effects, and recovering from dying does not remove your unconsciousness.  You actually continue making saves until you fail three times (advance to Dying 4, dead) or roll one success, gaining 1 hit point. When you have 1 hit point you STILL makes death saving throws.  If you succeed at this point you wake up. Now your dying condition decays at a rate of one level per turn, so you can be conscious, fighting, and dying all at the same time.  You also have the option of burning a hero point to remove all of your dying conditions, and with no action specified I can only assume you can do this at any time. I ran it where a single success on a save removed both dying and unconscious, and with hero points you can make my rules good the game as intended.  The Paladin used them to bounce back into combat undeterred, and it was instrumental in their defeat of Drakus.  Playing properly, he would have gotten one fewer reroll, which requires two hero points.  Honestly, those two hero points seem like a waste when you can ignore the damage system of the game.

Edit:  Technically running out of hit points takes away one of your three actions, knocks you prone, and disarms you.  That’s three actions to get back into fighting shape. Maybe not so bad after all?

As far as properly used mechanics, the druid picked Acid Splash and was screwed over by the d4 damage die.  Even the sorcerer grabbed Ray of Frost and started to wonder why he would use anything that wasn’t Telekinetic Projectile.  That d10 is hard to argue with, especially when none of the cantrips come with meaningful riders outside a critical hit.

Our Rogue felt like she was TOO powerful in combat, out damaging the Paladin by a fair margin.  Meanwhile, out of combat she felt useless.  This was partly the fault of some terrible rolls, and partly due to some of the crazy high DCs of traps and perception checks she had to contend with.  I think DCs of 10 to 12 are plenty when you have at most a +5 to your skill check.  The Rogue wants to shine when dealing with their area of expertise, not feel like they wasted their entire character class.   Side note with her, I couldn’t figure out if the players could split their movement with an action, like Spring Attack or normal 5e movement.  It really wasn’t clear.

The whole party had to contend with the utter lack of healing as well.  The hit point inflation from the new racial bonus to HP was not enough to keep the party on their feet.  By the end half the party was down and the other half running on single digits of HP, with no way to recover.  Without a 5e-esque short rest mechanic and no potions or wands to spend their resonance points on, the party ran low by encounter 2 and ran out by 3, sliding to the finish of encounter 4 on their faces.

All in all, the group said they didn’t like P2.  They much preferred 5e DnD, and I would say I have to agree.  I am willing to give P2 another chance and will definitely finish out the playtest.  I know things will get easier as we master the rules, but I remain unconvinced that this edition of Pathfinder will scratch my itch for high-customization, high-powered Dungeons and Dragons-style play.  Complexity is there, but it didn’t seem to provide anything exciting.  I’m still making the same move-swing turns I always was, and I’m losing a lot of the quality-of-life tweaks from 5e DnD. I suppose we shall have to wait and see what session 2, In Pale Mountain’s Shadow will bring.

Whew, this was a long post.

[foodtechhacker-blog]

Why “Sugar Free” and “No Sugar Added” May Be the Two Deadliest Terms Approved by the FDA

It’s nearly impossible to have a real and effective debate about sugar, carbohydrates, metabolic syndrome and modern food because the FDA has regulated the terms used on food products, effectively shaping our language and cutting off effective communication about important and highly complex issues. The FDA’s regulation of terminology has also had the effect of promoting high-glycemic ingredients while impairing the sales of healthful non-glycemic sweeteners. In order to make real progress on the largest addressable public health crisis since tobacco, we are going to need to develop new language, nutrition labels, and much more. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  -George Santayana

Sugar Is A Nutritionally Meaningless Term

There is no such thing as sugar. There are only sugars. What I mean is that sugar doesn’t refer to a single molecule, it refers to a wide range of different molecules with certain chemical (but not biological or nutritional) similarities. Some sugars are very harmful to health, while others are actually quite beneficial.

Glucose has a high glycemic index so it quickly raises blood sugar levels, while fructose has a low glycemic index but raises triglycerides and promotes insulin resistance. Neither are particularly healthful. There are also countless simple carbohydrates that aren’t quite starch but aren’t quite sugar and can be present in corn syrup. Nutritionally, they are equivalent to glucose yet they aren’t considered sugars by the FDA. All of these are examples of what are basically bad sugars. (There’s a lot more I could write here, but this is enough for this article.)

There are also good sugars. A prime example is tagatose. The body has almost no ability to convert tagatose into glucose, so it has essentially zero impact on blood sugar, but because it is still a sugar, it has several fascinating metabolic effects. Because most of it remains in the digestive tract, it slows the activity of sucrase and amylase enzymes (they attempt to bind to tagatose, making fewer of them available to break down sugar and starch) thus lowering the glycemic index of sucrose and starch rich foods. The bulk of tagatose goes unabsorbed in the intestine and acts as a prebiotic. The small amount of tagatose absorbed by the body enters the fructose metabolism pathway and basically jams it up, helping to reduce insulin resistance and triglycerides. Basically, tagatose is the anti-sugar, anti-starch, anti-fructose sugar. It’s definitely a good sugar.

There are also more neutral sugars. For example, alluose is a sugar, yet it is basically non-glycemic because it is absorbed and then peed out largely unchanged. It hasn’t been researched nearly as much as tagatose and I haven’t read every last piece of research, but in effect, it is basically a neutral sugar, not adding calories or much of anything to the body.

I’ve evaluated a wide range of novel and rare sugars and I can tell you that there are many more which have properties similar to tagatose and alluose. The primary issue is identifying an efficient way to manufacture them and then investing into the facilities at scale to get the cost down. Improvements in biotechnology (mostly involving enzyme production by genetically engineered bacteria, nothing that leaves the lab or ends up in the product) are making it a lot easier to find ways to enzymatically produce these ingredients using a process similar to that used to product high fructose corn syrup. (Continuous flow immobilized enzyme bed reactor process.)

The Term Sugar Free Promotes High Glycemic Ingredients while Impairing Low Glycemic Alternatives

There are a lot of virtually non-glycemic ingredients available that make fantastic alternatives for sugar in a wide range of foods. The problem is that most of these are difficult or impossible to use in foods that have the sugar free label. If more than 0.5 g of sugar (including allulose, tagatose, or traces of sugar from other ingredients) is present you can’t call it sugar free. This is impractical while using any meaningful amount of tagatose, allulose, and many prebiotic fibers like inulin, FOS, and polydextrose contain trace sugars.

On the other hand, ingredients like maltitol, polyglycitol syrup, and hydrogenated starch hydrolysates (“maltitol et al”) are basically corn syrup that’s been modified so it’s not technically sugar, yet has most of the functional and sensory characteristics. Unfortunately, they are all relatively high in calories and glycemic impact. In many people, maltitol can even exhibit a higher glycemic response than sucrose, as maltitol is a sugar alcohol with two glucose molecules, whereas sucrose is a sugar with one fructose and glucose molecule.

It gets even worse, maltitol et al has a high degree of variability from person to person how they are metabolized. This creates a very harmful case of averse self-selection among consumers. The consumers that do not metabolize maltitol et al are the ones that benefit from it nutritionally - it has little impact on blood sugar. Unfortunately, failure to metabolize it means it has a powerful laxative effect, so those consumers quickly learn to avoid those products. By contrast, consumers who do metabolize maltitol et al effectively have no digestive issues, but they also get almost no nutritional benefit from it as compared to simply consuming conventionally sweetened products.

I don’t really know how else to describe maltitol et al except as insidiously evil. It looks like it might be nutritionally useful because of the FDA’s labeling regimen, then glycemic index, calorie and glycemic load studies say “well, so so, maybe it is half as bad” then when you understand how it basically gets eaten only by the portion of consumers it doesn’t help, you realize maltitol et al basically should not be used in food, yet it is, and the FDA’s rules effectively promote it over healthier options like tagatose, allulose, etc.

“No Sugar Added” Is Another Vortex of Problems

If you add any amount of even beneficial sugars like tagatose, you can’t use the term “no sugar added” yet you can add an unlimited amount of crystallized grape juice or apple juice concentrate, both of which are basically pure sucrose/glucose/fructose blends. This makes absolutely no nutritional sense and raises the product cost, hurting consumers by making them pay more for a product that is not meaningfully more healthy.

I would strongly suggest you read my write-up on Corn Syrup 2.0 to better understand how the FDA’s support of terms like “no sugar added” and our fear of corn syrup and sugar have created a whole wave of new ingredients that are no healthier, but sound better, and often generate larger profit margins for the companies involved. Unfortunately, companies like Whole Foods have, though intentional ignorance, have been complicit in effectively promoting Corn Syrup 2.0 products. Watch for a write-up on the concept of intentional ignorance as one of the most harmful themes in modern business and governance, and a direct debunking of John Mackey/Whole Food’s plant-based whole foods diet. 

The Danger of Healthy Sounding Labels, Worsened by B.S. Labels

It is well-documented that simply implying that something is healthier to consumers causes them to consume more of the product than if it were conventionally positioned. This makes it hard for healthy products to really provide a significant advantage to the consumer, unless the product is dramatically healthier than the traditional version.

Combine this with the fact that label terms like “sugar free” and “no sugar added” are bullshit* labels, and you quickly see how products with these terms are probably causing a lot of consumers to eat a nutritionally worse diet. And as usual, these terms appeal most to people who are in the poorest of health, making them doubly evil by effectively preying on the weakest among us.

* I am not one to use coarse language in scientific debate, but sometimes the word bullshit is the only useful word. There are no other good words in our English language to refer to a collection or group of things that are mostly functionally false or untrue, yet cannot wholly be claimed to be false. Thanks to Pen and Teller for inspiring my use of this language, quoting Wikipedia on the subject:

At the beginning of the first episode of the first season Penn points out that the series will contain more obscenity and profanity than one would expect in a series dealing with scientific and critical inquiry, but explained that this was a legal tactic because, "if one calls people liars and quacks one can be sued... but 'assholes' is pretty safe. If we said it was all scams we could also be in trouble, but 'bullshit,' oddly, is safe. So forgive all the 'bullshit language', but we're trying to talk about the truth without spending the rest of our lives in court."

Where to Go From Here: Rethinking Our Language and Labels

We are going to need to take a fresh approach to the words we use when we are talking about sugar, carbohydrates and healthier alternatives. We probably also need to take a new approach to how our products are labeled, because the current labels are simply unable to communicate what consumers need to know.

I am in the process of writing a follow-up article that explores better terms and how we could even begin to implement these without regulatory changes. Readers can only digest so much per article, and frankly, this kind of writing represents many, many hours per article because you need to very carefully choose your words to accurately characteristic incredibly large, complex and powerfully maligned systems. Even with all the time I spend, I’m sure my writing contains various errors and I invite you to contact me if you feel anything needs corrections. Please follow me on Twitter and direct any comments there.

[djsamaha-blog]

How to Write a Letter

While email and texts have become the standard form of written communication in today’s fast-paced, digital world, there’s still a place for old-fashioned, snail mail letters.

The physical heft of a letter gives the communication a psychological weight that email and texts just don’t have. Digital communication is ethereal and ephemeral, and consequently lends itself to impulsive and flippant transmissions. A letter, on the other hand, is tangible evidence that someone has put some thought into their writing. They’ve outlined, edited, and stuck to a structured business form in the missive’s creation. To send that letter, its author had to take the time to get an envelope and a stamp. They then had to check that the address was written correctly to ensure its safe arrival. In short, a physical letter shows that someone took the time to give a damn. And that’s hard for the recipient to ignore.

Want to cut through the endless piles of applications employers get? Instead of submitting yet another resume through the online mill, send yours through the mail.

Want to let your elected representative know your views on an issue? Instead of signing a cookie cutter petition, write them a letter.

Want to show a friend you’ve really been thinking about them? Instead of sending a lousy, “What’s been going on?” text, write them a note.

Whenever you want to ensure that your message is taken seriously, choose the ponderance of a physical letter over the flimsiness of digital communications.

But what if you’ve never written a letter? First, don’t feel bad. If you grew up in a time when the internet had always existed, maybe you’ve just never thought about writing one. But why not give it a try? By the time you’re finished with this article, you’ll be ready to write your very first.

The Two Types of Letters: Formal and Informal

There are two types of letters: formal and informal.

Formal letters have certain formats and protocols you should follow and are used when you’re communicating with businesses, government officials, or individuals you don’t know very well.

Informal letters have fewer rules and are used when you’re writing close family and friends.

Formal letters have more rules regarding structure and protocol, so let’s look at that type first.

How to Write a Formal Letter

Formal Letters Should Be Typed

While nothing looks handsomer than a letter written with spectacular penmanship, handwritten letters are too personal (and possibly messy) for formal situations. Since formal letters are used when business is discussed, you want to make sure your writing is legible and professional. Save your handwritten letters for when you write your grandma or best gal; type your letter if you’re writing a congressman or potential employer.

What Type of Paper to Use

For most formal letters, feel free to use standard white printer paper. If you want to add a bit of panache to your communication, swap it out for some nice cream colored resume paper. It has more of a fabric feel and hearkens back to an aristocratic time when people wrote on sheepskin.

In the United States, standard paper size is 8.5″ x 11″. In other countries, it’s labeled as “A4.”

Choose the Right Font

A formal letter isn’t a time for you to show your zany, creative side. No comic sans (does anyone ever use comic sans?). Keep it strictly business.

For printed letters, fonts with serifs are your best bet. They just look sharp and they’re easy to read on paper. Fonts without serifs give your writing a bit of airiness and informality. For formal letters, you can’t go wrong with Times New Roman or Georgia.

Choose Your Form: Block or Indented

Formal letters follow, well, a form. The purpose of this form is to make the letter easy to read and to direct the reader as to where to look for important information.

With block form, all of your text is typed flush left with one-inch margins all around.

With indented form, you indent the first line of a paragraph one inch. You also put your address and date so that it’s right justified. We’ll show you what that means here in a bit. Indented form was the way most people wrote business letters before the proliferation of PCs.

Block form is the easiest to format and the easiest to read. Indented format adds a bit of visual interest and old-school flair. Either is acceptable for formal letters.

Type Your Address and Today’s Date

The first information you put on a formal letter is your name and address. Then skip a line and type the date that you’re writing the letter.

If you’re using block form, this will be typed at the top, left justified. It will look like this:

If you’re using indented form, place your address at the top, with the left edge of the address aligned with the center of the page, like so:

If you’re typing your letter on letterhead with your name and address, you do not need to type out your name and address. Just the date will do.

Type the Recipient’s Address

After the date, skip a line and type the name and address of the recipient, left justified for both block and indented form. If the letter is going to the company where the recipient works, the name of the recipient goes first, followed by the name of the company.

Block form

When typing the recipient’s name, use their full name, including title. If she’s a doctor, it’s “Dr. Laura Duncan.” If he’s a state representative, it’s “Rep. Mike Walls.” Professor? “Prof. Fears.” You get the idea.

Type the Salutation

Indented form

Skip a line and type your salutation. You can’t go wrong with “Dear ,”. If you know the recipient well, go ahead and use their first name. If you don’t know them well or the relationship is formal, use their title and last name, e.g., “Dear Mr. Ferguson,” “Dear Prof. Slater,” etc. Make sure you spell the recipient’s name right!

If you’re writing a letter that’s not directed to anyone in particular in the organization, go with “To Whom It May Concern,”. Ideally, before you write a letter, you’ll do your research so that it’s directed to someone specific. Use “To Whom It May Concern,” only after you’ve diligently looked into whom to address and ascertained that a specific name isn’t available.

With the salutation in formal letters, you can follow the name with either a comma or colon. Back in the day, it used to be strictly colon as it connotes more formality than a soft, breezy comma. Most business etiquette folks agree that commas are fine today. If you want to add some military seriousness to your letter, go with the colon.

Type the Body 

For block forms, single space and left justify each paragraph within the body of the letter. Leave a blank line between each paragraph.

For indented forms, single space and indent the first line of each paragraph one inch. Leave a blank line between each paragraph.

With formal letters, keep it concise and to the point. A formal letter should not be more than one page, unless absolutely necessary.

Use the first paragraph for a short pleasantry— “I hope you’re well.” — and then get right to the point — “I’m writing in regards to…”.

Use the rest of the letter to justify the importance of your main point, by providing background info and supporting details. Use bold, crisp language. Avoid passive voice when possible.

The closing paragraph should restate the purpose of the letter and, in some cases, request some type of action or follow up. If you have a question or request, make answering or fulfilling it as specific and turnkey as possible. Don’t be vague! Ask something the recipient can say yes or no to, or that makes it easy for them to direct you to the proper resource. Your recipient is likely a busy person, and the easier you make it for them to answer your letter, the more likely you’ll be to get a response.

End with another pleasantry such as “I look forward to talking to you soon” or “Please don’t hesitate to reach me by phone if you’d like to discuss in detail.” In many cases, it’s appropriate, and polite, to add: “Thank you for the time and consideration.”

Type the Valediction 

After your closing paragraph, skip two lines and put your valediction — also known as the “complimentary close.”

If you’re writing someone you don’t know well or have a formal relationship with, you can’t go wrong with choosing “Sincerely” for your valediction. Something like “Yours Truly” can also work if “Sincerely” doesn’t seem to have the right feel.

If you have a closer relationship, feel free to use more informal closings like “Warm(est) regards,” “Kind(est) regards,” “Best wishes,” or simply “Best.”

Block form

On block formats, the complimentary close is positioned flush left; on indented form letters, the complimentary close starts in the center, flush with your address and date.

Indented form

After the complimentary close, skip three lines and type your full name. Feel free to include any credentials here like CPA, Ph.D., or Esq.

Sign your handwritten name between the valediction and your typed name.

Additional Info

Enclosures. If you’re enclosing additional items with your letter (like a resume), skip one line beneath your signature block and type “Enclosures,” or “Encl.” You can also indicate the number of additional documents by putting the number in parentheses. So if you had two enclosures you’d type “Enclosures (2).”

Separate Mailing. If you’re sending an additional document that’s not in this mailing, indicate with “Separate Mailing,” or “Under Separate Cover,” followed by the name of the piece. For example, “Separate Mailing: May TPS Report.”

You’d put this one skipped line beneath the signature block.

Courtesy Copies. If you’re sending this same letter to other people, let the recipient know with “CC:” or “Copies to:” followed by the names of the other recipients. List the names in alphabetical order by last name. This would go one skipped line beneath the signature block or one skipped line beneath your enclosure or separate mailing notation.

Typist’s Initials. If someone else has typed the letter out while you dictated, have them include their initials in lower case letters two lines below the signature block. If you have enclosures or separate mailings, put it one skipped line beneath those.

How to Fold Your Formal Letter

If you’re putting your letter in a standard sized mailing envelope, fold it into thirds using the “C-Fold.” Bring the bottom of the sheet up so that it’s two-thirds of the way up the page, and crease. Then fold down the top portion so that the crease matches up with the bottom of the paper.

How to Write an Informal Letter

Informal letters are for friends, family members, or other associates with whom you have a close relationship, and unlike formal letters, they don’t have a strict form or protocol.

Feel free to handwrite your informal letters. In fact, we’d encourage you to do so as it adds some character and personality to your letter. Your handwriting is unique. Reading someone’s handwriting brings their personality and presence to the recipient — it feels like a part of the person is there, even if they’re actually hundreds or thousands of miles away.

You can use any type of paper you want — notebook paper, copy paper, etc. I’ve found writing with nice stationery makes the writing experience more enjoyable. (If you’re in need of some masculine stationery, check out our selection in the AoM Store.)

No need to put your or your recipient’s address at the top. Just a date in the upper right hand corner.

For the salutation, “Dear ,” is fine. You can also omit the “Dear,” and just write their first name. You can even use an endearing nickname like “Knucklehead” or “Goomba-head.”

No protocols on the formatting of body paragraphs. Feel free to use block or indented. And be as lucid or concise with your writing as you want.

What should you write in your informal letters? For a general letter of correspondence, you should share what’s been going on in your life, ask what’s been going on in the recipient’s, and respond to any questions they asked you in their last letter.

Of course, there are also personal letters written for various specific purposes (notes of gratitude, congratulations, condolence, etc.). For insights on the types of letters you can pen, read our article on the 7 letters everyone should write before they’re 70.

Close with any valediction you like: “Best regards,” “All the best,” “Cordially,” “Love,” “Gratefully” (if it’s a thank you note), etc.

How to Address an Envelope

First rule of addressing an envelope: Write legibly! Naturally, if you don’t write the recipient’s address legibly, the postal service won’t be able to deliver it to their home or business. And if you don’t write your return address legibly, then even if they do get your letter, they won’t be able to write you back!

This sounds very basic, but I can’t count the number of times I haven’t been able to respond to a reader’s letter because I can’t read their return address which they rendered in a chicken scratch scrawl. You may be tempted to do this step quickly and sloppily because you know your address so well; but remember that the recipient has never seen your address and has to be able to copy it accurately in order to send a reply you’ll actually receive.

So, if you’re hand addressing your envelope, do so legibly! (This is doubly true if you’re sending mail internationally, as the recipient may not be familiar with the address format or the language of your street/town.)

The recipient’s address goes in the middle of the envelope in this format:

Name Street Address Floor Number, Apt. Number, Unit Number, Etc. City, State Zip Code Country

For international addresses it’s going to be different. The format varies between countries and even within a single country. It can be confusing. Whether you’re an American sending mail abroad, or an international sending mail to the States, the United States Postal Service recommends using this format.

Your address (the return address) goes in the upper lefthand corner. Write your name and address in the upper lefthand corner so the post office knows where to return the letter in case it’s undeliverable. The return address is also important for informal letters where you haven’t written your address in the letter itself. This is what your recipient will use to write you back.

And make sure it goes in the lefthand corner. I get letters from people who write the return address on the back of the envelope, along the seam of its closure. When I open up the letter, I end up tearing through the address and have to piece it back together to try to figure out where to send my response (yes, I could get a letter opener, but I prefer to open envelopes with my manly paws).

There you go. How to write a letter. It’s a lost art, but one worth preserving.

http://www.successwize.com/how-to-write-a-letter/

[draknek]

My 2016 - boardgames played

In 2016, I kept a record of what media I consumed, with a short record of my thoughts about some of them (one or two sentences only).

This is every boardgame I played.

This is part six of my 2016 retrospective. The other parts:

games I made

books I read

podcasts I listened to

films/TV I watched

videogames I played

boardgames I played

January (Melbourne)

Hive (2 players) I really enjoy teaching this game to people. So many satisfying "ah but you didn't realise THIS" moments.

Welcome To The Dungeon (3 players) Good choice to fill a small amount of time.

Splendor (2 players) Close game! Narrowly managed to win despite feeling I was lagging behind the whole game.

Pandemic Legacy session 2 (4 players) Almost failed the second half of January before realising we were missing most of the red cards. February was easily dealt with through A) extremely lucky infection locations & B) rules lawyering.

The Resistance (6 players) Playing with Shang Lun is interesting because he plays well but I've started to recognise his spy behaviours.

Codenames (7-10 players) Last time I played, teams seemed to stay ahead once they had a lead. This didn't happen this time, we had two very close matches.

Witness (4 players) Different to what I was expecting: it was a surprise to not have any context for the whispered information. Pretty satisfying to remember everything and then understand its relevance.

Murder of Crows (4-5 players) One or two clever pieces of design here, but ultimately inelegant and not very fun.

Jenga (7 players) Definitely improved by having badly written challenges on the blocks.

Wordslap (beta) (6 players) I was very bad at this game.

Pandemic Legacy session 3 (4 players) March & April weren't too challenging. May was a hard-fought slog but we won in the end.

Hanabi (4 players) Playing with someone forgetful is very amusing. Scored 19.

The Resistance (9, 7, 6 players) I'm reminded that this is generally more interesting for the spies than for everyone else. Merlin is a really tough role, and I think maybe on balance his presence makes it easier for the spies?

Turtle Wushu (4-5,2 players) Possibly the best entertainment/bag space ratio of any game I own.

Pandemic Legacy session 4 (4 players) June didn't add any awful new rules, but we still lost the first game before winning in the second half of the month. I feel like our world is in a better state than you'd expect.

Hanabi (2 players) First time I've tried this with two players, but it holds up pretty well. Scored 20.

Mafia de Cuba (10, 12, 6 players) Every single game (of around six) ended with a cop getting accused, which seems kinda broken. It's surprisingly slow to play, also.

Greater Good (beta) (6 players) Hard to get a feel for it from just one game. We all got killed.

Slap 45 (6 players) This was okay, but I think I've played better reaction games.

Telling a story one syllable at a time (9 players) A nice twist on telling a story one word at a time, which results in something totally incomprehensible. I wonder if restricting it to only 2+ syllable words would work.

Anecdote game (8 players) This was really entertaining.

Nomic (7 players) We made it to Planet V several days late, but at least we could pay back our Vollar loan and still bribe them to overlook our tardiness. Rhyming was good, numbers and questions were bad.

Pandemic Legacy session 5 (4 players) July was close, August was pretty manageable. I kinda wish we were losing more often, it's balanced so it gets easier when you lose but it doesn't get much harder when you win.

February (Melbourne)

Ummageddon (beta) (6, 5 players) Apparently it works much better with 3/4 players, so I can't really judge it from this experience.

Stop (5-7 players) More fun to watch than to play, but still pretty fun to watch. Think it could be improved with rule tweaks.

Listelanser (2 players) It's funny how easy it is to completely lose your opponent. Video footage

Temple of elemental evil (3 players) This felt really empty compared to regular D&D. (I've not played anything like D&D in over 15 years, but I still feel confident in that assertion.)

Pandemic Legacy session 6 (4 players) Okay, September kicked our asses. This month's twist really hurt!

Pandemic Legacy session 7 (4 players) An unsatisfying victory in October. We won with no outbreaks, but despite being on top of the situation we failed to find patient zero.

Hive (2 players) Got overconfident because I was teaching the game, then annoyingly it got dragged out into a draw.

Pandemic Legacy session 8 (4 players) Misread the rules, but I'm kinda happy we did because it meant we got to find patient zero for ourselves. More and more cities are collapsing, but we've got a strong vaccination program going so I'm optimistic about our chances in December.

Pandemic Legacy session 9 (4 players) Not as many curveballs as I was hoping for! Some bad luck meant we got close to losing at the end, but it wasn't really tense since it was clear that if we'd lost we would easily have won in the second half of the month.

Poison and Wine (beta) (5 players) Fun concept, went down well.

T.I.M.E Stories (Asylum scenario) (4 players) I'm really glad I got to play this, it's fascinating and pretty unique. A shame only one scenario is included.

Project Dreamscape (3 players) Fairly light and accessible, but still has some strategy. I won with a pretty devastating final turn (which led to my score of 17 vs 7 & 4), but I think it's pretty plausible other great combos were possible previously and just went unnoticed.

Escape: The Curse of the Temple (5 players) I'd been hearing good things about this game for ages, and it lives up to the promised amount of hecticness. I got left in the temple, I'd just made it to the exit tile when time ran out.

Panic on Wall Street (11 players) Played as an investor this time: my main success was keeping a tiny bid on losing stocks hoping they'd go up, which no one wanted to outbid me on. I thought I was winning by a large margin but actually I barely scraped the victory by only $5000 (the smallest unit of money).

Codenames (5 players) It feels really satisfying to pull off a comeback (and this is kinda encouraged because the more clues you fail, the more you have queued up to try again later.

Funemployed (8 players)

Cogz (6 players) Some really ugly graphic design, the gameplay was okay but not great. We decided afterwards that this is probably better with fewer players: with 6, the board has changed massively by the time it gets back to you.

School of Fish (10 players) Everyone has to mimic the person in front, but "person in front" is defined by which way you're currently facing. Maybe not best played on the way to get food, but entertaining for a short while.

One Night Ultimate Werewolf (7-8 players) I like this game a lot, it's quick and reliably tense.

One Night Ultimate Werewolf (making up five new roles to accompany Wolf & Seer) (4 players) About as broken as you'd expect, but did lead to...

One Night Ultimate Werewolf (with Satanist: turns the player on your right into a wolf) (4-5 players) Really fun variant! Possibly not totally balanced, but not obviously one-sided either.

Epic Card Game (4 players) Horrible name aside, this feels like a simplified version of Magic: The Gathering. 4 players probably isn't the best introduction to it though.

Once Upon A Time (5 players) It isn't great how some players can spend a really long time without getting a turn. Possibly the best way to fix that is by adding more triggers for ending someone's go.

The Witches (3 players) Accessible and easy to pick up, but very light on strategy. If you're really into Discworld you'll probably appreciate all the references a lot.

March (San Francisco)

Liars dice (5 players) Solid bluffing game.

Patchwork (2 players) Played this several times and still didn't have a handle on strategy

Tribune (3 players) Lots of different rules and things that [thought left unfinished]

Liars poker (2 players)

Cuttle (2 players)

Hive (2 players) Played an experienced player and still won 3 out of 3 games! And taught a newbie who picked it up quickly.

Castles of burghundy (4 players)

Pandemic (3 players) Not as good as Pandemic: Legacy, but still pretty good.

April (New York)

RPG stand-in (Dungeon Crawl Classics) (4 players) Fell through a roof, seduced a dude, got skewered with arrows and almost died. A successful couple of days in this thief's life.

Bananagrams (4 players) I rememeber not particularly having fun last time I played this a long time ago, but this time it worked well. I won, which maybe has something to do with that.

Mr Game (4 players) Best played with people who like to break systems and explore edge cases.

Ticket to Ride: Europe (5 players) This is inoffensive and suitable for almost any group, but still manages to be a solid game and interestingly competitive.

Lost Cities (2 players) This plays really fast

Tzolk'in (2 players) I got utterly schooled.

RPG stand-in (Dungeon Crawl Classics) (5 players) Made a character become a wizard and spent a lot of time trying to solve problems by growing spider legs. Eventually magicked my hair into a massive prehensile limb which I sent into the dungeon to collapse a vital support column while safely standing outside the entrance.

May (Toronto)

Patchwork (2 players)

Lanterns (4 players)

Lost legacy (4 players) Similar to Love Letter (and by same designer) but slightly more interesting.

Isle of trains (4 players) pretty awkward how you get more options midturn

The grizzled (4 players) It's interesting how this is not really trying to be fun.

7 wonders (4 players)

Splendor (3 players)

June (Toronto, Montreal)

Myre (2 players)

Spit (2 players)

Scrabble (2 players)

Puzzled Pint (theme: breweries)

One night werewolf (10 players)

The hat game (12 players)

Montgolfiere (6 players)

Incan gold (7, 5 players)

Libertalia (5 players)

July (Montreal)

Puzzled Pint (theme: secret societies)

Haru Ichiban (2 players)

Hive (2 players)

August (London)

Chairs (2-3 players)

Pandemic (3 players)

The Other Hat Trick (3 players)

Shape Up (3 players) Seemed broken in a few ways, one of which being that the last player seems to always have an advantage

Dancing Eggs (3 players) Utterly ridiculous.

Qwordie

Galaxy trucker (3 players)

September (Coventry, London)

Time stories under the mask (5 players)

Cyclades (2 players)

Skull (4 players)

Codenames (5 players)

Tash kalar (2 players)

Zombie fluxx

Splendor

Roll for the galaxy (3 players)

October (London, Oxford, Nottingham)

Geschenk (6,7 players)

For sale (6 players)

Codenames (7 players)

Hanabi (5 players)

Junk Art (6 players, towns played: hometown, Philadelphia, Paris, Montreal)

Catacombs (6 players)

Improv D&D (5 players)

November (London)

Sticheln (6 players)

Dead last (8,12 players)

Mascarade (6 players)

Broom service (3 players)

Double (7 players)

December (Coventry, London, Bristol, Dublin)

Ora & Labora (3 players)

Conan (5 players)

Taboo (5 players)

Libertalia (5 players)

Codenames (3,4 players)

Rights (4 players)

Escape room in a box (5 players)

Turtle wushu flip contest (2 players)

Arboretum (4 players)

Codenames (6 players)

Concept (4 players)

Roll for the Galaxy + Ambition expansion (5 players)