Category Archives: Author’s Notes

Author’s Note Ch. 97

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Surprisingly massive fan art update, holy smokes!
Note that all art may spoil up to Ch. 96, and that titles may spoil up to Ch. 89.

I have no realistic hope of providing cameos for all these artists with only one major arc left to go – but thank you very much to everyone for this gigantic outpouring of artistic inspiration!

Advertising by request:  Ergo is a science, rationality and philosophy meetup group in New York City.  Ergo is organized by Spencer, who runs a small hedge fund, and we owe him a favor because CFAR keeps hiring his friends and making them move to the West Coast.  Ergo’s membership application is here.

My host organization, the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, which occasionally kindly gives me several weeks of paid leave to write HPMOR, is almost at the end of its summer fundraising drive, a $200,000 matching grant currently with $150,063 achieved, with only 1 day left on the clock.  All donations will be matched dollar-for-dollar by the challengers up to and through August 15th, tomorrow.

In 2012 MIRI received donations from a total of 280 people, and 20 people gave over $5,000.  Over MIRI’s lifetime from its inception in 2000 to the start of 2013, MIRI has had only ~3,000 donors ever.  If you want the #8 spot on the all-time top lifetime donor list, it costs $70,000.  Robin Lee Powell is our #18 lifetime contributor just by virtue of steadily donating $200/month.  Please do not assume that other people are taking care of this – act heroically!

I am currently targeting Tuesday, August 27th for posting Ch. 98, or the rest of the arc if there’s more than 1 final chapter.  I will post an Author’s Note on Saturday, August 24th at 5pm Pacific to let everyone know whether I am on schedule to do so.  See you then, I hope!

75% credible target date: Wed 14 @7PM Pacific

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I assign 75% confidence that I will be able to update with Ch. 97 on Wednesday Aug 14th, at 7PM Pacific Time.  I probably won’t be able to hit Ch. 98, or otherwise post the end of the arc, for another 2 weeks after that, unfortunately.  I will be targeting Tuesday Aug. 27th at 7PM for that one, but no guarantees.

Author’s Notes Ch. 94

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Contents:

  • Fan artist cameos are running low.
  • Free physical copies of HPMOR are being sent to talented STEM youth.  We can use testimonials and help with distribution.
  • CFAR has upcoming workshops, and you can register interest in a traveling workshop for your city. CFAR now has a newsletter.
  • Fan art / fan works update.

The current arc is the second-to-last major arc of HPMOR (though there should be a couple of one-shot updates between the end of this arc, and the final arc).  This means I am running low on cameo opportunities for fan artists.  If you have not already received a cameo or have not yet contacted me with your cameo name, I cannot guarantee that there will be future opportunities to add cameos.

Certain parties have begun a project of distributing free physical copies of HPMOR Ch. 1-17 to various places where they may reach exceptionally talented youth or young adults.  (E.g., Stuyvesant High School, the MIT campus, the offices of Facebook, etcetera.)  If you live near a likely target location and would be willing to spread around some HPMOR paperbacks, check here to see if your location is on the list, or to make a case for it if not listed.

The project of distributing HPMOR to talented youth can potentially be helped by testimonials, especially from academic professionals, International Mathematical Olympiad contestants, C-level managers, Study of Exceptional Talent alumni, etcetera.  If you can honestly offer such a testimonial in HPMOR’s favor, please do so!  Help the next generation grow up cognitively reflective!

The Center for Applied Rationality has upcoming workshops in the Bay Area on July 20-23 and October 11-14, and in New York in November 1-4.  The July workshop has only a few seats left, so move swiftly on that one.

I attended some of the free units that CFAR ran at the Effective Altruism Summit.  They’ve improved further.  See the workshops page for more info.

CFAR is developing a lower-cost 1-day traveling workshop.  Let them know if you or friends would attend one of those in your city (the choice of cities may be affected by this, so don’t delay).

And finally, sign up for the CFAR newsletter to be kept informed of such in the future. CFAR may in the near future be piloting free tests of volunteer-run hours of life consultation and/or instruction in the advanced rational arts, and this newsletter should give you fast notice when they initialize the queue.

Fan art update:

Neel Nanda has produced an EPUB of Ch. 1-87 with Author’s Notes included (and the retracted note for Ch. 20 deleted).

Author’s Notes Ch. 93

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There will be a MIRI mathematical workshop spanning Jul 8-14.  This usually requires me to vanish from the world and I try to rest before and after them.  There may be updates on some but definitely not all of the following days:

  • Sun Jul 7 5pm
  • Thu Jul 11 7pm
  • Mon Jul 15 7pm
  • Wed Jul 17 7pm

All in Pacific Time.

(Spoilers for up to Ch. 93.)

Once we reach Ch. 96 I will require additional time to write the closing chapters of this arc, but Ch. 96 should be a relatively less stressful waiting point.  In case it’s not clear, I’ve been updating like heck until Ch. 93 to reach an emotionally less gloomy location at which to slow down.

The ‘Ticks’ in Ch. 88 are not randomly spaced; they appear after Harry thinks thoughts which predictably will not contribute to resolving the emergency in retrospect – ‘wasted motions’.  See this post.

I have written a long rant upon HPMOR’s anti-feminism or lack thereof.  If you don’t know what ‘fridging’ is or don’t care, you can skip this and probably should.  I generally believe that the text should stand on its own and that if the author has to explain how to interpret the text then the text has failed; and anything I say that isn’t in the text itself is merely, as it were, the Opinion of God.  Wisely or unwisely, I’m now talking about the text anyway.  If you don’t particularly think HPMOR is anti-feminist, you’re probably better off not reading it, and sticking with the text itself.  I find it unpretty when authors have to talk about their works, and you shouldn’t be surprised if it detracts from your appreciation of the story.

If you perhaps unwisely choose to read it anyway, you will find it here.

Revised Target Date: Sat, 5PM Pacific, possibly Jun 29.

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Revised updating day and hour!  The update will be on Saturday at 5pm Pacific Time of whichever week.  (Because I realized that Sunday is a work-night with Monday the next day, and that 7PM Pacific is 10PM Eastern, and under the circumstances this might cause cruel and unusual amounts of sleep deprivation.)  Now done with Ch. 91 and currently aiming to start updating June 29th, 2013 if I possibly can.

Progress Report, June 1st, 2013

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An exciting Progress Report, as promised!  No, I don’t have an improved word count – I spent the last month writing up a research report whose draft is due today.  But as soon as I finish up one or two more short things, my employer will again allow me time working solely to produce the next Methods update.  I feel nervous about promising anything I haven’t yet finished and delivered, but watch for it in late June or early July, on some Sunday at 7pm Pacific Time Saturday at 5pm Pacific Time.

Meanwhile:  The Eyre Affair (first novel in the Thursday Next series) seems to be shaping up well so far.  Postnuptial Disagreements is even better on a second reading.  Between these two data points, I’m beginning to believe that classical references are in fact a strong signal of quality.  And if you’re an economist, please check out my recent publication “Intelligence Explosion Microeconomics” (warning: nonfiction).

I will produce a Progress Report on July 1st (7pm Pacific) if there hasn’t been a Methods update before then, and if I don’t have lots of progress to report, shoot me.