I’ve been struggling to figure out how to make money lately. I used to be a software engineer, you see, but that line of work isn’t holding my interest these days the way it used to. In my younger years, people joked about me being a robot. I’d always been somewhat fixated on logical rigor, and while that cognitive habit sometimes held me back in matters of friendship, it made programming easy and fun. ...

I have become increasingly convinced that you, dear reader, will never actually die. What could I mean by this, you ask? In this essay, I’ll explain how our modern understanding of physics might give rise to immortality, and explore some practical and philosophical considerations of immortality. Multiverse In the history of science, we have often found that the world is not as it seems. Although the Earth appears flat to the senses, measurements tell us it is round. While the course charted by the sun and stars is plain to see, we know now that it is we who move as the heavens stand still. More recently, Einstein showed us that time and space are not the unchanging stage we intuit, but bend with the events of the universe. The case I’m about to present relies on the dissolution by science of one more illusion: that the universe follows only one true storyline. ...

I’ve been intrigued by the world of quantitative trading for many years, so when ex-Jane Street trader Ricki Heicklen ran a trading bootcamp at Manifest recently, I jumped at the opportunity! The bootcamp was a two-day intensive program designed to teach the fundamentals of quantitative trading and provide a glimpse into the experience of being a professional trader. Using a play currency, we went through various hands-on exercises to solidify concepts taught in energetically-delivered lectures. I learned a lot and made friends, and had so much fun that I’m considering a career pivot to quant trading. So, this post has two purposes: to give interested readers some background in trading concepts and a sense of my bootcamp experience, and to serve as a proof of work showing potential employers what I learned. ...

Bleh, I really don’t feel like writing, but I didn’t write yesterday, and the commitment for Halfhaven is a post every other day. This one’s gonna be 500 words of low-effort stream of consciousness, just to clear that bar. I’m not obligated to write, of course. I don’t really believe in the concept of obligation. I hope to do a high-effort post on this at some point. For now, I recommend Nate Soares’s writing on the matter, which heavily influenced my own view. No, I don’t have to write, so why am I doing so even though I don’t feel like it? Well, I want to follow through on Halfhaven. I’m looking forward to the feeling of pride about my 30 blog posts at the end of two months. I’m against self-coercion, but sometimes hard or unpleasant things are good to do. The trick is to remind oneself of why one is doing it. For a while, I just didn’t do hard things, and it turned out that only doing easy things wasn’t a recipe for happy thriving. Ever closer to my dao! ...

Index of posts for Halfhaven Treading Water, Oct 1 Introducing Halfhaven, Oct 3 Lighthaven, my favorite place in the world, will be running Inkhaven, a month-long residency in November aimed at growing people into great writers. Apart from support in the form of advisors running workshops, Inkhaven provides a commitment mechanism: publish every day, or be kicked out of the program. I won’t be participating in Inkhaven. The price is beyond my means these days, and I’m not so committed to writing that I want it to be my main focus for a month. However, I do want to write more, or at least to have written more. So, when my friend keltan told me about Halfhaven, a less-intense and free version of Inkhaven’s peer group and commitment mechanism, I decided to give it a try. ...

I signed up for a membership at my local YMCA a couple days ago, inspired by this post. The YMCA is full-featured, and remarkably cheap remarkably cheap by Bay Area standards, as far as I can tell. My plan is to start a strength training habit of some sort, but I haven’t done so yet. Instead, today I took advantage of the pool. I was low on energy today, due most likely to some mix of poor sleep habits and the drain of ongoing emotional processing. Whatever the cause, with the clock approaching 7 p.m., I found myself lying in bed, ruminating on some issues in my life and staring at the overdue “Exercise” on my to-do list. Luckily, when the inspiration struck that I could solve both problems in one fell swoop, I still had enough motivation to get up and give it a shot. I grabbed my bathing suit and a towel, and walked down to the gym. ...

The world has a shortage of people doing things. I think one reason for this is that people are afraid the things they do won’t be “good enough”. Something is better than nothing; don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Lower the bar for ideas As I’ve previously discussed on the blog, it’s possible to write more by writing worse. I’m publishing this rough collection of tidbits and references, rather than publish nothing because I haven’t written “enough”. ...

I thought I hated mushrooms, but yours are making me reconsider. – My brother Mushrooms are one of my favorite ingredients to cook with, bringing rich umami flavor and a delightfully meaty texture to dishes. Because they can be so delicious, it makes me sad that so few people seem to get them right. I’ve seen even nice restaurants serve pale, watery mushrooms, which is a travesty, especially when the fix is so simple. ...

I want to share some communication advice my dad gave me recently. I had been telling him about some uncertainties I had around a work situation and a dating situation, and the advice was relevant to both. Really, it’s a general technique to help resolve any interpersonal uncertainty. The communication technique consists of a few components: Ask questions. Share information. Use simple sentences. Ask Questions In an uncertain situation, you’re missing information about the other person’s internal state. You want to know what they’re thinking and feeling. Instead of wondering and guessing, you can just ask! The other person has more insight than you into their experience, and will often be happy to tell you about it. ...