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Just in! Call or visit our website for more information.... More
1999 PONTIAC FIREBIRD TRANS AM CONVERTIBLE, Low Miles, Clean Carfax. White Paint, Tan Top, Taupe Leather Interior. WS6 Ram Air Performance and Handling Package,... More
This 1999 Porsche 911 Carrera 2 Door Coupe (Stock # P10021) is available in our Pleasanton, CA showroom and any inquiries may be directed... More
1999 Shelby Series 1—Here is an extremely rare Supercharged Shelby Series 1. There were only 249 Series 1's produced in 1999. Of that, only... More
Just in! Call or visit our website for more information.... More
1999 Porsche 911 996 Carrera Coupe 6-Speed Manual with Locking (LSD) Differential Stock #0585 VIN # WP0AA2995XS621943 68,900 Original Miles Black (Schwarz) Metallic on Black Leather 6-Speed Manual Transmission No Accidents/Clean... More
This very late production (May 1999) 996 was built in Triple black, and ordered with an exhaustive list of options: CO-2 US emissions, M-288... More
1999 Dodge 3500 Dually Cummins 24 Valve Turbo Diesel. Automatic Transmission. Power locks, power windows. Tires are in good condition. Nice interior. Runs and drives well! $6,000 OBO. Call 863-635-9008 for... More
Stk. 1889 1999 Mitsubishi 3000 GT VR4 Detailed description coming soon. Call 800-650-1055 or visit our website at www.autobarnclassiccars.com for more information. ALL VEHICLES SOLD... More
Some of the highest praise we can give a car is that it is "factory fresh." For some that means a high-quality restoration but... More
199 Ford Mustang Cobra SVT Convertible This incredible Mustang is powered by the highly desirable SVT 4.6 Liter DOHC V-8 and 5 speed manual... More
Here is a beautiful M3 Convertible. It is Titanium Silver Metallic, gray leather seats, automatic transmission, black conv. top, Karman Kardon sound system, power... More
** PAYMENTS AS LOW AS $495/mo W/A/C **ONLY 22K MILES**CHROME WHEELS**SUNROOF**UMBRELLAS**PICNIC TABLES**VENEERED PANELS** Domani Motor Cars is proud to announce the arrival of... More
GR Auto Gallery is pleased to present this gorgeous 1999 Plymouth Prowler! The design of the Prowler was said to have been inspired after... More
For sale here is a very low mileage 1999 Cadillac Limousine. (27,783 miles). This California vehicle was originally used as an executive car converted... More
THIS IS AN ORIGINAL CALIFORNIA CAR THAT WAS MOVED TO OWNERS VACATION HOME IN SCOTTSDALE WHERE IT LIVED FOR MANY YEARS IN A CLIMATE... More
This beautiful 90's survivor with 86,000 CERTIFIED CLEAN CARFAX MILES is in wonderful condition inside and out, and features a near flawless ARCTIC SILVER... More
For sale in our St. Louis showroom is an elegant 1999 Mercedes SL500. Mercedes have been making the SL since 1953 when they... More
GR Auto Gallery is pleased to present this 1999 Chevrolet Corvette Coupe for purchase. ''The Heartbeat of America'' coined by Chevrolet to tout the... More
1999 PLYMOUTH PROWLER VIN.# 1P3EW6568XV502569 6053 ORIGINAL MILES ONE OWNER CAR FAX BLACK CLEAR COAT BLACK LEATHER 3.5L V6 253 HP 4 SPEED AUTOSTICK... More
1999 Porsche 911 / 996 The Porsche 996 is the internal designation for the Porsche 911 model manufactured and sold between 1998 and 2005. At its... More
Domani Motor Cars is proud to present this RARE and gorgeous 1999 Bentley Azure. Finished in White over White hides with a Blue... More
*Comprehensive Extended Warranty Available* Silver Tempest With Stratos Leather Interior. Seat Piping and Carpet Binding In Slate Color. Fitted With: Veneered Picnic Tables, Veneered... More
35th Anniversary Limited Edition (Body-color Decklid Spoiler and Midnight Black GT Leather/Vinyl Trim) and 4.6L V8 SOHC 18V. Wild Horses! Leather! Want to stretch your... More
This fast and luxurious convertible cost over $73,000 new in 1999, and it has aged extremely well over the years. The ALPINE GREEN exterior... More
With an original MSRP of OVER $70,000 this beautiful British luxury sedan will wow you with its posh interior and wealth of standard options.... More
The Corvette is Chevrolet's flagship sports car. It's a sports car that other manufacturers aim to try and outperform with very few actually succeeding.... More
The 996 generation of 911 debuted in 1999 with arguably the most radical departure from the iconic formula yet. Featuring a new interior, water-cooled... More
For Sale: 1999 Superformance MkIII 427S/C Cobra, SP00476. [VIN# K1398AM1476 Virginia ] Royal Blue/white stripes. Under the hood: Ford Racing 460 CID SVO V8... More
What a spectacular Jaguar we have here! 1999 Jaguar XK8 Convertible, we just purchased the lovely Jaguar from a customer who replaced it with... More
Lean, mean, and green is what this '99 VW Beetle is all about. Clearly this Beetle is far from stock and features tasteful performance... More
Chequered Flag International Inc is pleased to offer this 1999 Plymouth Prowler in Black with Black leather interior and top. Perfect, CARFAX Certified, 1... More
1999 Ford Mustang SVT Cobra Looking for a serious Mustang for some serious fun and horsepower? Stop right there. This 1999 SVT Cobra is the... More
Just Toys Classic Cars is very proud to present another piece of Rolls-Royce luxury to our diverse range of buyers. This is a... More
1999 BMW M ROADSTER $25,995.00 After reading this article in Road and Track it's hard to say anything more so here are some excerpts from... More
1999 Jaguar XK8, the XK8 was derived from the XJS and the first generation XJ8 shared the same platform as the Aston Martin DB7. ... More
1999 BMW "Z3" Hatchback Sport Coupe "Rare" 1-of-Ony 2,000 total Z3's imported in the 5-model years produced. Stunning "Arctic Silver" Metallic, Luxury Black Leather Sport... More
F355's do not come much more rare or desirable than this 1999 6-speed manual GTS we have for sale. This example is a 2... More
1999 Porsche 911C2 Coupe (VIN: WP0AA2995XS621411), black/black leather, 6-spd. manual trans, 42,000 original miles, horizontally opposed 3.4L DOHC water cooled flat 6 engine, 4... More
Chequered Flag International Inc is pleased to offer this 1999 Plymouth Prowler in Prowler Purple with Black interior. 13,213 miles from new with clean... More
GR Auto Gallery is pleased to present this 1999 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 Coupe for purchase. The Z28 was near the top of its peers... More
This jaw-dropping 1999 Suzuki Hayabusa is for sale in our Chicago Showroom. This 1999 Hayabusa is powered by a 1299 cc liquid cooled... More
Stk. 1874 1999 Chevrolet Corvette Convertible This mostly original Sebring Silver Metallic (code 13) C5 convertible is a real attention getter. The near flawless original... More
Well what do you know, another Blooming Bentley! Talk about a value, here is your opportunity to own a modern Bentley for tens of... More
This 1999 Ford Mustang SVT Cobra 2 Door Coupe (Stock # F13000) is available in our Fairfield, CA showroom and any inquiries may be... More
This 1999 Dodge Viper 2dr 2dr GTS Coupe features a 8.0L V10 SFI OHV 10cyl Gasoline engine. It is equipped with a 6 Speed... More
This 1999 Pontiac Firebird 2dr Daytona 500 Pace Car Convertible features a 5.7L V8 RAM AIR 8cyl Gasoline engine. It is equipped with a... More
1999 CHEVY CORVETTE COUPE RARE LIGHT PEWTER METALLIC WITH BLACK LEATHER INTERIOR * AUTOMATIC * CHROME WHEELS * OFFERED BEFORE YOU IS ONE OF THE NICEST 1999 FLORIDA " ALL... More
Introduced at Le Mans in 1998 just before Bentleys sale to Volkswagen the Arnage and its sibling the Rolls-Royce Silver Seraph were the first... More
Very clean black on black Porsche 911 Coupe. All factory original except for front bumper/spoiler. Recent complete body respray. Interior and mechanicals like new.... More
This 1999 Plymouth Prowler two door roadster (Stock # F-224) is available in our Fairfield, CA showroom and any inquiries may be directed to... More
5216 MILES,POWER RACK AND PINION STEERING,POWER DISC BRAKES ANTI LOCK BRAKES,CRUISE CONTROL,POWER BUCKET SEATS,POWER WINDOWS AND LOCKS,POWER SEATS, AC , CUSTOM WHEELS , SHOWROOM... More
One Georgia Owner! Fully Serviced! Loaded up and super clean Porsche 911 Cabriolet: 6-speed manual, carbon fiber trim, keyless entry, CD changer, satellite radio, dual power... More
1999 Porsche C2 Carrera, 6 speed, Silver/Black, 62500 miles, 2 owner history, well maintained & cared for. Excellent paint, interior and body, rust and... More
Yes now you can own a genuine Porsche convertible for the price of a used Hyundai and unlike affordable Porsches of the past it's... More
THIS WELL MAINTAINED, LOW MILLAGE, FULLY LOADED 1999 JAGUAR XJR SUPERCHARGED SEDAN IS IN AMAZING CONDITION AND VERY WELL MAINTAINED***GORGEOUS COLOR COMBINATION - STUNNING CARNIVAL RED... More
1999 Rolls Royce Silver Seraph - 5.4 Litre V12, automatic, full leather, sunroof, all power options, AM/FM CD stereo, keyless entry, rear trays, power... More
***Internet Special*** Payments as low as $1,585 mo. w/a/c with 20% down! Domani Motor Cars is proud to announce the... More
Jaguar 1999 XK8 convertible, beautiful condition, silver with black, 112K, tensioners were done and this timeless roadster truly is in just phenomenal shape, runs... More
Contact Information Cruisin Classics 3575 Fisher Road Columbus OH 43228 LARRY AND JACKI PENDLETON OR SALES MANAGER DAVID REECE (866) 230-2851 1999 Chevrolet Corvette Coupe Sellers Notes CRUISIN CLASSICS IS PROUD... More


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subset: commoncrawl


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Your Stiletto Self-Defense Class: Do Not Mess with This!
You don't know what your attack situation could be, but it's important to know your stuff and be ready. Last summer I met Jennifer Cassetta, a stiletto and self-defense expert.
A self-defense class based on stilettos? Wow.
Empower yourself and learn to fight back!
This clip was from my talk show last summer, but this fall —beginning Sept. 9 — we're going to the next level… the show is nationwide! I'm so excited! It's all thanks to you all!


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4938 Posts in 16827 Topics by 1490 members
Installing SilverStripe
SilverStripe Forums » Installing SilverStripe » Newbie Installation Problems - Database
Getting SilverStripe up and running on your computer and on your web server.
Moderators: martimiz, Sean, biapar, Willr, Ingo, swaiba, simon_w
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Community Member
2 Posts
Newbie Installation Problems - Database
6 November 2010 at 12:39pm
Hi I am a newbie.
I tried to upload the silverstripe folder to my server, and then went to the root folder /silverstripe to do the online install.
I came to this screen (please refer to screen shot), and it says that cannot find database server.
I have created a new database in my server, but i do not know how to link it.
How do i move forward from here?
Could anyone please help! Muchly appreciated! THANK YOU.
Forum Moderator
5508 Posts
Re: Newbie Installation Problems - Database
6 November 2010 at 5:07pm
Hi Kevin,
Well looks like you're close! Tried putting simply 'localhost' as the server?
The error message states that you cannot connect to your mysql.sock to localhost:80. Your hosting provider will have more information about how to use MySQL for your server but it could be that MySQL is running on another domain (eg mysql.domain.com) or running on a custom port number ie localhost:3085.
Consult your hosting providers help system for the correct server name to use. If you setup mysql yourself do you have a guide as to what process you followed? MySQL could perhaps be on a special port number.
Community Member
2 Posts
Re: Newbie Installation Problems - Database
6 November 2010 at 5:41pm
Thanks for that.
Problem solved, thank you Willr.
i contacted my hosting provider, and received the domain to put in there.
THANKS to you as well.
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Benny Anthony Mullinax
Benny Anthony Mullinax, 59, of Ellijay, died July 15, 2014.
July 23, 2014 | | OBITUARIES
Adam Lee Stegall
Adam Lee Stegall, 27, of Lawrenceville, died July 15, 2014.
July 23, 2014 | | OBITUARIES
Bobby Joe Wofford
Bobby Joe Wofford, 80, of Cumming, died July 20, 2014.
July 23, 2014 | | OBITUARIES
Taxpayers on hook for ethics probe
In 1997, Gov. Zell Miller appointed me to fill a vacant seat on the five-member State Ethics Commission and then reappointed me to a full term where I served until 2002. It was a rewarding experience and I am proud of the good things we accomplished at the commission.
July 23, 2014 | By Dick Yarbrough For the Dawson Community News | Opinion: Letters/Columns
I always wonder what Granny would do
It had been four months since Granny had passed. Not a day had gone by that I hadn't thought of her.
July 23, 2014 | By Sudie Crouch For the Dawson Community News | Lifestyle Columnists
James P. "Buck" Cheves Jr.
James P. "Buck" Cheves Jr., 90, of Dahlonega, died July 17, 2014.
July 23, 2014 | | OBITUARIES
Children learn flamenco dancing
Carmen Dauset Moreno, also known as the Spanish dancer Carmencita, originally from Spain, is known for making flamenco dancing popular in the U.S.
July 23, 2014 | By Amanda Head For the Dawson Community News | Education
Pruning in summer
Knowing when to prune different species of plants is a skill that many gardeners fail to grasp. Many plants have an optimal time or season when pruning should be done.
July 23, 2014 | By Clark MacAllister For the Dawson Community News | Lifestyle Columnists
2nd arrest in church burglaries
A second suspect has been arrested for his alleged involvement in a string of church burglaries over the past several months.
July 23, 2014 | Michele Hester | CRIME/COURTS
Commission sets millage rate
Some Dawson County residents may see a slight property tax increase following the county commission's vote last week to set the millage rate at 8.138 mills.
July 23, 2014 | Michele Hester | Government
Lumpkin Campmeeting this week
Lynn Nahlik looks forward to campmeeting at Lumpkin Campground all year.
July 23, 2014 | Michele Hester | LOCAL
Learning center gains accreditation
Students interested in taking religious education classes have a way to learn and gain graduation credit at the same time.
July 23, 2014 | David Renner | Education
Humane Society boutique opens
The Dawson County Humane Society opened its Resale Shop and Boutique last Thursday to excited patrons from around the county.
July 23, 2014 | David Renner | BUSINESS
Six ladies join elite group
Six Dawson County Lady Tiger soccer players join an elite group of All-Area performers as selected by The Times of Gainesville last week.
July 22, 2014 | Pam Jacobs | SPORTS
Parker commits to North Georgia
Verbally committing to the University of North Georgia is an exciting reality for Dawson County High School basketball player and rising senior Ashley Parker.
July 22, 2014 | By Amanda Head For the Dawson Community News | High School
Archive site results
Speeding SUV leads to marijuana bust
Several garbage bags filled with harvested marijuana plants were discovered during a routine traffic stop Tuesday in Dawson County.
June 26, 2014 | Michele Hester | CRIME/COURTS
City, chamber make agreement
The city of Dawsonville has decided to provide money to a Dawson County organization in return for promotional services.
June 25, 2014 | David Renner | Government
Family rescued from balcony during fire
Firefighters rescued three people from a third-floor balcony Thursday after a fire broke out at a home on Grizzle Farm Road.
June 25, 2014 | Michele Hester | LOCAL
Execution date set in 1991 slaying
An execution date has been set for Georgia death row inmate Tommy Lee Waldrip, who was convicted in the murder of a Dawsonville man more than 20 years ago.
June 25, 2014 | Michele Hester | CRIME/COURTS
Local doctor rides for reading
After jumping in a cold lake in February for three years in a row, Brian Burke has decided to find a warmer way to raise money for literacy.
June 25, 2014 | David Renner | Education
Some conversations need not to happen
One of the challenges of raising a child is having to explain the behavior and actions of celebrities. Sure, we can try to shield them from things on TV, but things are a lot different than when I was growing up.
June 25, 2014 | By Sudie Crouch For the Dawson Community News | Lifestyle Columnists
Head returns to DCN for summer internship
For the second consecutive summer, Amanda Head returns to the Dawson Community News as part of the Georgia Press Association's college internship program.
June 25, 2014 | From staff reports firstname.lastname@example.com | BUSINESS
Blood drive in memory of late teacher, historian
Dawson County residents will have a chance to honor a late teacher and historian with the gift of life.
June 25, 2014 | David Renner | Education
Ex-church intern charged with child pornography
A former youth ministry intern from Dawsonville faces nearly three dozen child pornography charges in connection with an investigation that originated earlier this year in neighboring Forsyth County.
June 25, 2014 | Michele Hester | CRIME/COURTS
Edible food science program at the library
The Dawson County Library was flooded with kids looking for food, fun and learning last week during the Edible Science display.
June 25, 2014 | David Renner | Education
First public hearing on millage rate is Thursday
A meeting Thursday will be the public's first of three opportunities to weigh in on a proposed increase to the county's millage rate.
June 25, 2014 | Michele Hester | Government
Churches targeted by electronic thieves
Two area congregations arrived Sunday to find electronic equipment missing from their churches.
June 25, 2014 | Michele Hester | LOCAL
County, city near deal for tax split
Dawson County and Dawsonville officials are soon expected to ratify an agreement on a proposed extension of the 1-cent sales tax that will go before voters in November.
June 25, 2014 | Michele Hester | Government
Part of America's Team
Many young athletes aspire to travel the globe playing their favorite sports, but one Dawson County High School sophomore is getting the chance to do just that.
June 25, 2014 | David Renner | SPORTS
Man charged with battery after fight with roommate
A verbal altercation between roommates that escalated into a physical fight hospitalized one man and sent another on the run early Saturday morning.
June 25, 2014 | Michele Hester | CRIME/COURTS
Older archive available
To search for material archived between January 2005 and Oct. 17, 2007, please click here. Material published earlier than 2005 is not available online.
Contents of this site are © Copyright 2014 Dawsonnews, Dawsonville, GA. All rights reserved. Privacy policy and Terms of service


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"Only very recently, the new Gallardo LP560 appeared on the world stage of automotive prodigies – and, already, Lamborghini tuner IMSA has taken care of it.
Here, for the first time, the legendary GTV kit for the LP 560 will shortly be available. Of course, it is also made of high-quality carbon from the autoclave. It consists of an aerodynamically optimized front apron, larger fenders for all four wheel arches and a rear bumper with an integrated diffuser.
Thanks to the corresponding side skirts, the dynamic design is harmoniously brought to perfection. Thus equipped, even the parked car looks significantly racier and reminds the beholder of the legendary GTV models from the good old days. A body kit whose dynamics convince without exaggeration ..."
The above is an excerpt from the official press release from IMSA GmbH, the German based tuner that has given us the amazing Gallardo GTV a few years ago, and today is able to extend this magnificent looking kit onto the recent LP560-4 evolution of the V10 Raging Bull.
A factory original LP560-4 already looks very nice, but after a stay at the IMSA workshop, the LP560-4 GTV looks even more impressive, thanks to the wide wheel arch extensions above all four wheels and the nicely integrated rear wing, all rather similar to the original GTV kit seen on the silver metallic demo car, however the front spoiler is now totally different with an styling closely related to the LP560-4 original unit.
Safe to say that people will again be lining up to have IMSA turn their regular Gallardo into a GTV edition, however expect a nice waiting list as it takes time to mount all the parts to your Gallardo once you leave the keys at IMSA.
Lamborghini Huracan LP620-2 Squadra Corse
With the new Huracan LP620-2 Super Trofeo being unveiled I'm sure the street legal version known as the Squadra Corse will be out in the near future too.
(added on August 26. 2014)
Lamborghini LM002 on display in Hong Kong
The massive LM002 is now shown in the Lamborghini Hong Kong Pop-Up museum, note the LM002 was the first four-wheel drive Bull ever.
(added on August 22. 2014)
Huracan Arrow by Duke Dynamics
A rather impressive tuning package for the new Lamborghini Huracan created by Duke Dynamics
(added on August 22. 2014)
We've seen this car as the Gallardo SE700 by Boxter before, but now it is called the Gallardo SR66-2 by Suhorovsky Design.
(added on August 21. 2014)
Lamborghini sells for record amount during auction
In the last few days several Lamborghinis changed hands for very high numbers during auction.
(added on August 18. 2014)
February 16. 2009
Text © Mark Smeyers
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400 - 3985 - 190


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Welcome International Customers
We're excited to share our jewelry collection with you!
Just choose your country and currency to personalize your shopping experience.
We're excited to share our jewelry collection with you!
Just choose your country and currency to personalize your shopping experience.
3.45 Carat Morganite and .33 ct. t.w. Diamond Pendant Necklace in 14kt Rose Gold. 18"
Our Price: $1,495.00
1.95 Carat Morganite and .19 ct. t.w. Diamond Pendant Necklace in 14kt Rose Gold. 18"
Our Price: $895.00
3.45 Carat Morganite and .21 ct. t.w. Diamond Pendant Necklace in 14kt Rose Gold. 18"
Our Price: $1,995.00
Item#: 838350 NEW!
Heaven awaits. This pendant necklace boasts a blushing 2.35 carat morganite in a double halo of .33 ct. t.w. diamonds. Suspends from a wheat chain with a lobster clasp. 14kt rose gold pendant necklace.
Details Gift
Box Our 100%
Necklace Drop DROP: A dangling or stationary detail which "drops" from a bale, strand or earring backing. Length:
7/8 inch
Necklace Drop Width:
1/2 inch
14kt 14KT: Karat (abbreviated kt or K) is a unit that indicates the purity of gold in the metal. 14kt is 58.33% gold. In the United States, 14K yellow gold is most favored and used in jewelry. Rose Gold ROSE GOLD: Gold is a precious metal which is naturally quite soft. To give it a rose color and increase its strength, gold is alloyed with other metals, such as copper and silver. The purity of the metal is indicated by a unit called a "karat," with 24kt having the highest percentage of natural gold.
Polished POLISHED: A buffed-out finish used to produce a mirror-like shine.
Wheat WHEAT: A chain formed by oval and twisted oval links woven together in the same direction. The result is a textural look with a semi-rigid structure.
Chain Size:
0.8 mm
Lobster LOBSTER CLASP: named after the pinching style of the hook, this clasp is often shaped like a lobster's claw. Use your finger to work the lever to open the clasp.
Fits Chain:
2 mm
Chain Included:
Stone 1:
Morganite MORGANITE: Named after the great American tycoon and gem collector J. P. Morgan, morganite's soft pink to peach shades add blushing beauty to jewelry designs. This rare gemstone is surprisingly affordable and brings an undeniable charm to rings, necklaces, bracelets and earrings. (Color: Pink, Quantity: 1, Shape & Cutting Style: Oval, OVAL: An elliptical shape that resembles an egg. Weight: 2.35 carats, Size: 10X8 mm)
Stone 2:
Diamond Diamond: The hardest and most brilliant of all gemstones, a diamond can make the heart race with its pure and fiery spark. An ancient symbol of love, a diamond is the preferred gemstone for tokens of affection, such as rings, earrings, necklaces and bracelets. Diamond is the birthstone for April. (Quantity: 72, Shape & Cutting Style: Round Single-Cut, SINGLE-CUT: A gemstone cutting technique that dates back to the 1300s. Still used today, the single-cut usually features 18 facets that go in one direction without crossing each other. Color Grade: H-I, Clarity: I1-I2, Weight: 0.33 ct. t.w.)
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2.35 Carat Morganite and .30 ct. t.w. Diamond Ring in 14kt Rose Gold
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3.18 Carat Morganite and .52 ct. t.w. Diamond Ring in 14kt Rose Gold
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3.25 ct. t.w. Morganite and .51 ct. t.w. Diamond Drop Earrings in 14kt Rose Gold
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Cat Beds & CubbiesCat beds provide numerous benefits to both cats and their owners. Because cats have heat receptors, they are naturally attracted to cozy spots they can curl in to rest or observe the goings-on in your home. Another advantage of having a cat bed is that your pet will be less inclined to sleep and shed hair on your bed, couch or other furniture. Talk about a catnap: cats sleep an average of 13-16 hours each day! We carry a ton of comfy beds, from cheap cat beds, like pads and blankets, to fancy cat beds, like pyramids and nests. If you really want to spoil your kitty, opt for a luxury cat bed. Condos, cabins and even heated beds are all available for under $100. Meow!
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In the eyes of UFC president Dana White, Renan Barao will not only be fighting to retain his UFC bantamweight title in the main event of UFC 173, he'll also be in the running to reclaim the ranking of No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the UFC.
The official UFC rankings have Barao (32-1-0-1) as No. 3 in the pound-for-pound rankings, trailing light heavyweight champion Jon Jones and featherweight champion Jose Aldo. White does not seem to agree with those rankings, telling assembled media following Saturday's UFC Fight Night card, "I still go back and forth with the Jon Jones and Renan Barao thing, but I think - without a doubt, Renan Barao is the No. 2 ranked."
The UFC boss admitted that prior to Jones' win over Glover Teixeira at UFC 172, he did think that Barao was the best pound-for-pound fighter in the UFC.
White said the appeal of watching a Barao fight is that he knows the 27-year-old Brazilian is not going to hold anything back when he steps into the Octagon, "No matter who he faces he goes in there to finish them, and that's what he does," said White. "I love guys that go in there to annihilate people and that's what he does."
Barao joined the UFC in May 2011. Since that time he has put together a record of 7-0. Three of Barao's first four fights with the promotion went to decision, but his last three bouts have all ended in finishes, with one submission and two TKO victories. Barao has also captured Fight Night bonus awards in two of his last three fights.
Barao will defend his bantamweight crown against No. 5 ranked T.J. Dillashaw (9-2) in the main event of UFC 173. That fight card will take place on May 24 from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, NV.


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SEAHAWKS @ RAIDERS | FINAL: 41-31, OAK | RECAP | Photo Gallery | Seahawks Headlines | Seahawks Roster | Twitter Wall | NFL Injury Report | Follow @1090TheFan
Smith Cove Terminal
Guide to Seattle's 2011 Cruise Season
Seattle's 2011 cruise season features even more choices than before! Select from 12 premier ships for your cruise adventure. Whether you're looking for a 7-day Alaska cruise or the more lesuirely 14-day voyage, it makes sense to sail from Seattle.


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Less Wrong is a community blog devoted to refining the art of human rationality. Please visit our About page for more information.
Why the tails come apart
[I'm unsure how much this rehashes things 'everyone knows already' - if old hat, feel free to downvote into oblivion. My other motivation for the cross-post is the hope it might catch the interest of someone with a stronger mathematical background who could make this line of argument more robust]
Many outcomes of interest have pretty good predictors. It seems that height correlates to performance in basketball (the average height in the NBA is around 6'7"). Faster serves in tennis improve one's likelihood of winning. IQ scores are known to predict a slew of factors, from income, to chance of being imprisoned, to lifespan.
What is interesting is the strength of these relationships appear to deteriorate as you advance far along the right tail. Although 6'7" is very tall, is lies within a couple of standard deviations of the median US adult male height - there are many thousands of US men taller than the average NBA player, yet are not in the NBA. Although elite tennis players have very fast serves, if you look at the players serving the fastest serves ever recorded, they aren't the very best players of their time. It is harder to look at the IQ case due to test ceilings, but again there seems to be some divergence near the top: the very highest earners tend to be very smart, but their intelligence is not in step with their income (their cognitive ability is around +3 to +4 SD above the mean, yet their wealth is much higher than this) (1).
The trend seems to be that although we know the predictors are correlated with the outcome, freakishly extreme outcomes do not go together with similarly freakishly extreme predictors. Why?
Too much of a good thing?
One candidate explanation would be that more isn't always better, and the correlations one gets looking at the whole population doesn't capture a reversal at the right tail. Maybe being taller at basketball is good up to a point, but being really tall leads to greater costs in terms of things like agility. Maybe although having a faster serve is better all things being equal, but focusing too heavily on one's serve counterproductively neglects other areas of one's game. Maybe a high IQ is good for earning money, but a stratospherically high IQ has an increased risk of productivity-reducing mental illness. Or something along those lines.
I would guess that these sorts of 'hidden trade-offs' are common. But, the 'divergence of tails' seems pretty ubiquitous (the tallest aren't the heaviest, the smartest parents don't have the smartest children, the fastest runners aren't the best footballers, etc. etc.), and it would be weird if there was always a 'too much of a good thing' story to be told for all of these associations. I think there is a more general explanation.
The simple graphical explanation
[Inspired by this essay from Grady Towers]
Suppose you make a scatter plot of two correlated variables. Here's one I grabbed off google, comparing the speed of a ball out of a baseball pitchers hand compared to its speed crossing crossing the plate:
It is unsurprising to see these are correlated (I'd guess the R-square is > 0.8). But if one looks at the extreme end of the graph, the very fastest balls out of the hand aren't the very fastest balls crossing the plate, and vice versa. This feature is general. Look at this data (again convenience sampled from googling 'scatter plot') of quiz time versus test score:
Or this:
Or this:
Given a correlation, the envelope of the distribution should form some sort of ellipse, narrower as the correlation goes stronger, and more circular as it gets weaker:
The thing is, as one approaches the far corners of this ellipse, we see 'divergence of the tails': as the ellipse doesn't sharpen to a point, there are bulges where the maximum x and y values lie with sub-maximal y and x values respectively:
So this offers an explanation why divergence at the tails is ubiquitous. Providing the sample size is largeish, and the correlation not to tight (the tighter the correlation, the larger the sample size required), one will observe the ellipses with the bulging sides of the distribution (2).
Hence the very best basketball players aren't the tallest (and vice versa), the very wealthiest not the smartest, and so on and so forth for any correlated X and Y. If X and Y are "Estimated effect size" and "Actual effect size", or "Performance at T", and "Performance at T+n", then you have a graphical display of winner's curse and regression to the mean.
An intuitive explanation of the graphical explanation
It would be nice to have an intuitive handle on why this happens, even if we can be convinced that it happens. Here's my offer towards an explanation:
The fact that a correlation is less than 1 implies that other things matter to an outcome of interest. Although being tall matters for being good at basketball, strength, agility, hand-eye-coordination matter as well (to name but a few). The same applies to other outcomes where multiple factors play a role: being smart helps in getting rich, but so does being hard working, being lucky, and so on.
For a toy model, pretend these height, strength, agility and hand-eye-coordination are independent of one another, gaussian, and additive towards the outcome of basketball ability with equal weight.(3) So, ceritus paribus, being taller will make one better at basketball, and the toy model stipulates there aren't 'hidden trade-offs': there's no negative correlation between height and the other attributes, even at the extremes. Yet the graphical explanation suggests we should still see divergence of the tails: the very tallest shouldn't be the very best.
The intuitive explanation would go like this: Start at the extreme tail - +4SD above the mean for height. Although their 'basketball-score' gets a massive boost from their height, we'd expect them to be average with respect to the other basketball relevant abilities (we've stipulated they're independent). Further, as this ultra-tall population is small, this population won't have a very high variance: with 10 people at +4SD, you wouldn't expect any of them to be +2SD in another factor like agility.
Move down the tail to slightly less extreme values - +3SD say. These people don't get such a boost to their basketball score for their height, but there should be a lot more of them (if 10 at +4SD, around 500 at +3SD), this means there is a lot more expected variance in the other basketball relevant activities - it is much less surprising to find someone +3SD in height and also +2SD in agility, and in the world where these things were equally important, they would 'beat' someone +4SD in height but average in the other attributes. Although a +4SD height person will likely be better than a given +3SD height person, the best of the +4SDs will not be as good as the best of the much larger number of +3SDs
The trade-off will vary depending on the exact weighting of the factors, which explain more of the variance, but the point seems to hold in the general case: when looking at a factor known to be predictive of an outcome, the largest outcome values will occur with sub-maximal factor values, as the larger population increases the chances of 'getting lucky' with the other factors:
So that's why the tails diverge.
Endnote: EA relevance
I think this is interesting in and of itself, but it has relevance to Effective Altruism, given it generally focuses on the right tail of various things (What are the most effective charities? What is the best career? etc.) It generally vindicates worries about regression to the mean or winner's curse, and suggests that these will be pretty insoluble in all cases where the populations are large: even if you have really good means of assessing the best charities or the best careers so that your assessments correlate really strongly with what ones actually are the best, the very best ones you identify are unlikely to be actually the very best, as the tails will diverge.
This probably has limited practical relevance. Although you might expect that one of the 'not estimated as the very best' charities is in fact better than your estimated-to-be-best charity, you don't know which one, and your best bet remains your estimate (in the same way - at least in the toy model above - you should bet a 6'11" person is better at basketball than someone who is 6'4".)
There may be spread betting or portfolio scenarios where this factor comes into play - perhaps instead of funding AMF to diminishing returns when its marginal effectiveness dips below charity #2, we should be willing to spread funds sooner.(4) Mainly, though, it should lead us to be less self-confident.
1. One might look at the generally modest achievements of people in high-IQ societies as further evidence, but there are worries about adverse selection.
2. One needs a large enough sample to 'fill in' the elliptical population density envelope, and the tighter the correlation, the larger the sample needed to fill in the sub-maximal bulges. The old faithful case is an example where actually you do get a 'point', although it is likely an outlier.
3. If you want to apply it to cases where the factors are positively correlated - which they often are - just use the components of the other factors that are independent of the factor of interest. I think, but I can't demonstrate, the other stipulations could also be relaxed.
4. I'd intuit, but again I can't demonstrate, the case for this becomes stronger with highly skewed interventions where almost all the impact is focused in relatively low probability channels, like averting a very specified existential risk.
Too good to be true
A friend recently posted a link on his Facebook page to an informational graphic about the alleged link between the MMR vaccine and autism. It said, if I recall correctly, that out of 60 studies on the matter, not one had indicated a link.
Presumably, with 95% confidence.
This bothered me. What are the odds, supposing there is no link between X and Y, of conducting 60 studies of the matter, and of all 60 concluding, with 95% confidence, that there is no link between X and Y?
Answer: .95 ^ 60 = .046. (Use the first term of the binomial distribution.)
So if it were in fact true that 60 out of 60 studies failed to find a link between vaccines and autism at 95% confidence, this would prove, with 95% confidence, that studies in the literature are biased against finding a link between vaccines and autism.
Failures of an embodied AIXI
Building a safe and powerful artificial general intelligence seems a difficult task. Working on that task today is particularly difficult, as there is no clear path to AGI yet. Is there work that can be done now that makes it more likely that humanity will be able to build a safe, powerful AGI in the future? Benja and I think there is: there are a number of relevant problems that it seems possible to make progress on today using formally specified toy models of intelligence. For example, consider recent program equilibrium results and various problems of self-reference.
AIXI is a powerful toy model used to study intelligence. An appropriately-rewarded AIXI could readily solve a large class of difficult problems. This includes computer vision, natural language recognition, and many other difficult optimization tasks. That these problems are all solvable by the same equation — by a single hypothetical machine running AIXI — indicates that the AIXI formalism captures a very general notion of "intelligence".
However, AIXI is not a good toy model for investigating the construction of a safe and powerful AGI. This is not just because AIXI is uncomputable (and its computable counterpart AIXItl infeasible). Rather, it's because AIXI cannot self-modify. This fact is fairly obvious from the AIXI formalism: AIXI assumes that in the future, it will continue being AIXI. This is a fine assumption for AIXI to make, as it is a very powerful agent and may not need to self-modify. But this inability limits the usefulness of the model. Any agent capable of undergoing an intelligence explosion must be able to acquire new computing resources, dramatically change its own architecture, and keep its goals stable throughout the process. The AIXI formalism lacks tools to study such behavior.
This is not a condemnation of AIXI: the formalism was not designed to study self-modification. However, this limitation is neither trivial nor superficial: even though an AIXI may not need to make itself "smarter", real agents may need to self-modify for reasons other than self-improvement. The fact that an embodied AIXI cannot self-modify leads to systematic failures in situations where self-modification is actually necessary. One such scenario, made explicit using Botworld, is explored in detail below.
In this game, one agent will require another agent to precommit to a trade by modifying its code in a way that forces execution of the trade. AIXItl, which is unable to alter its source code, is not able to implement the precommitment, and thus cannot enlist the help of the other agent.
Afterwards, I discuss a slightly more realistic scenario in which two agents have an opportunity to cooperate, but one agent has a computationally expensive "exploit" action available and the other agent can measure the waste heat produced by computation. Again, this is a scenario where an embodied AIXItl fails to achieve a high payoff against cautious opponents.
Though scenarios such as these may seem improbable, they are not strictly impossible. Such scenarios indicate that AIXI — while a powerful toy model — does not perfectly capture the properties desirable in an idealized AGI.
On Terminal Goals and Virtue Ethics
A few months ago, my friend said the following thing to me: "After seeing Divergent, I finally understand virtue ethics. The main character is a cross between Aristotle and you."
That was an impossible-to-resist pitch, and I saw the movie. The thing that resonated most with me–also the thing that my friend thought I had in common with the main character–was the idea that you could make a particular decision, and set yourself down a particular course of action, in order to make yourself become a particular kind of person. Tris didn't join the Dauntless cast because she thought they were doing the most good in society, or because she thought her comparative advantage to do good lay there–she chose it because they were brave, and she wasn't, yet, and she wanted to be. Bravery was a virtue that she thought she ought to have. If the graph of her motivations even went any deeper, the only node beyond 'become brave' was 'become good.'
(Tris did have a concept of some future world-outcomes being better than others, and wanting to have an effect on the world. But that wasn't the causal reason why she chose Dauntless; as far as I can tell, it was unrelated.)
My twelve-year-old self had a similar attitude. I read a lot of fiction, and stories had heroes, and I wanted to be like them–and that meant acquiring the right skills and the right traits. I knew I was terrible at reacting under pressure–that in the case of an earthquake or other natural disaster, I would freeze up and not be useful at all. Being good at reacting under pressure was an important trait for a hero to have. I could be sad that I didn't have it, or I could decide to acquire it by doing the things that scared me over and over and over again. So that someday, when the world tried to throw bad things at my friends and family, I'd be ready.
You could call that an awfully passive way to look at things. It reveals a deep-seated belief that I'm not in control, that the world is big and complicated and beyond my ability to understand and predict, much less steer–that I am not the locus of control. But this way of thinking is an algorithm. It will almost always spit out an answer, when otherwise I might get stuck in the complexity and unpredictability of trying to make a particular outcome happen.
Virtue Ethics
I find the different houses of the HPMOR universe to be a very compelling metaphor. It's not because they suggest actions to take; instead, they suggest virtues to focus on, so that when a particular situation comes up, you can act 'in character.' Courage and bravery for Gryffindor, for example. It also suggests the idea that different people can focus on different virtues–diversity is a useful thing to have in the world. (I'm probably mangling the concept of virtue ethics here, not having any background in philosophy, but it's the closest term for the thing I mean.)
I've thought a lot about the virtue of loyalty. In the past, loyalty has kept me with jobs and friends that, from an objective perspective, might not seem like the optimal things to spend my time on. But the costs of quitting and finding a new job, or cutting off friendships, wouldn't just have been about direct consequences in the world, like needing to spend a bunch of time handing out resumes or having an unpleasant conversation. There would also be a shift within myself, a weakening in the drive towards loyalty. It wasn't that I thought everyone ought to be extremely loyal–it's a virtue with obvious downsides and failure modes. But it was a virtue that I wanted, partly because it seemed undervalued.
By calling myself a 'loyal person', I can aim myself in a particular direction without having to understand all the subcomponents of the world. More importantly, I can make decisions even when I'm rushed, or tired, or under cognitive strain that makes it hard to calculate through all of the consequences of a particular action.
Terminal Goals
The Less Wrong/CFAR/rationalist community puts a lot of emphasis on a different way of trying to be a hero–where you start from a terminal goal, like "saving the world", and break it into subgoals, and do whatever it takes to accomplish it. In the past I've thought of myself as being mostly consequentialist, in terms of morality, and this is a very consequentialist way to think about being a good person. And it doesn't feel like it would work.
There are some bad reasons why it might feel wrong–i.e. that it feels arrogant to think you can accomplish something that big–but I think the main reason is that it feels fake. There is strong social pressure in the CFAR/Less Wrong community to claim that you have terminal goals, that you're working towards something big. My System 2 understands terminal goals and consequentialism, as a thing that other people do–I could talk about my terminal goals, and get the points, and fit in, but I'd be lying about my thoughts. My model of my mind would be incorrect, and that would have consequences on, for example, whether my plans actually worked.
Practicing the art of rationality
Recently, Anna Salamon brought up a question with the other CFAR staff: "What is the thing that's wrong with your own practice of the art of rationality?" The terminal goals thing was what I thought of immediately–namely, the conversations I've had over the past two years, where other rationalists have asked me "so what are your terminal goals/values?" and I've stammered something and then gone to hide in a corner and try to come up with some.
In Alicorn's Luminosity, Bella says about her thoughts that "they were liable to morph into versions of themselves that were more idealized, more consistent - and not what they were originally, and therefore false. Or they'd be forgotten altogether, which was even worse (those thoughts were mine, and I wanted them)."
I want to know true things about myself. I also want to impress my friends by having the traits that they think are cool, but not at the price of faking it–my brain screams that pretending to be something other than what you are isn't virtuous. When my immediate response to someone asking me about my terminal goals is "but brains don't work that way!" it may not be a true statement about all brains, but it's a true statement about my brain. My motivational system is wired in a certain way. I could think it was broken; I could let my friends convince me that I needed to change, and try to shoehorn my brain into a different shape; or I could accept that it works, that I get things done and people find me useful to have around and this is how I am. For now. I'm not going to rule out future attempts to hack my brain, because Growth Mindset, and maybe some other reasons will convince me that it's important enough, but if I do it, it'll be on my terms. Other people are welcome to have their terminal goals and existential struggles. I'm okay the way I am–I have an algorithm to follow.
Why write this post?
It would be an awfully surprising coincidence if mine was the only brain that worked this way. I'm not a special snowflake. And other people who interact with the Less Wrong community might not deal with it the way I do. They might try to twist their brains into the 'right' shape, and break their motivational system. Or they might decide that rationality is stupid and walk away.
Willpower Depletion vs Willpower Distraction
I once asked a room full of about 100 neuroscientists whether willpower depletion was a thing, and there was widespread disagreement with the idea. (A propos, this is a great way to quickly gauge consensus in a field.) Basically, for a while some researchers believed that willpower depletion "is" glucose depletion in the prefrontal cortex, but some more recent experiments have failed to replicate this, e.g. by finding that the mere taste of sugar is enough to "replenish" willpower faster than the time it takes blood to move from the mouth to the brain:
Carbohydrate mouth-rinses activate dopaminergic pathways in the striatum–a region of the brain associated with responses to reward (Kringelbach, 2004)–whereas artificially-sweetened non-carbohydrate mouth-rinses do not (Chambers et al., 2009). Thus, the sensing of carbohydrates in the mouth appears to signal the possibility of reward (i.e., the future availability of additional energy), which could motivate rather than fuel physical effort.
-- Molden, D. C. et al, The Motivational versus Metabolic Effects of Carbohydrates on Self-Control. Psychological Science.
Stanford's Carol Dweck and Greg Walden even found that hinting to people that using willpower is energizing might actually make them less depletable:
When we had people read statements that reminded them of the power of willpower like, "Sometimes, working on a strenuous mental task can make you feel energized for further challenging activities," they kept on working and performing well with no sign of depletion. They made half as many mistakes on a difficult cognitive task as people who read statements about limited willpower. In another study, they scored 15 percent better on I.Q. problems.
-- Dweck and Walden, Willpower: It's in Your Head? New York Times.
While these are all interesting empirical findings, there's a very similar phenomenon that's much less debated and which could explain many of these observations, but I think gets too little popular attention in these discussions:
Willpower is distractible.
Indeed, willpower and working memory are both strongly mediated by the dorsolateral prefontal cortex, so "distraction" could just be the two functions funging against one another. To use the terms of Stanovich popularized by Kahneman in Thinking: Fast and Slow, "System 2" can only override so many "System 1" defaults at any given moment.
So what's going on when people say "willpower depletion"? I'm not sure, but even if willpower depletion is not a thing, the following distracting phenomena clearly are:
- Thirst
- Hunger
- Sleepiness
- Physical fatigue (like from running)
- Physical discomfort (like from sitting)
- That specific-other-thing you want to do
- Anxiety about willpower depletion
- Indignation at being asked for too much by bosses, partners, or experimenters...
... and "willpower depletion" might be nothing more than mental distraction by one of these processes. Perhaps it really is better to think of willpower as power (a rate) than energy (a resource).
If that's true, then figuring out what processes might be distracting us might be much more useful than saying "I'm out of willpower" and giving up. Maybe try having a sip of water or a bit of food if your diet permits it. Maybe try reading lying down to see if you get nap-ish. Maybe set a timer to remind you to call that friend you keep thinking about.
The last two bullets,
- Anxiety about willpower depletion
- Indignation at being asked for too much by bosses, partners, or experimenters...
are also enough to explain why being told willpower depletion isn't a thing might reduce the effects typically attributed to it: we might simply be less distracted by anxiety or indignation about doing "too much" willpower-intensive work in a short period of time.
Of course, any speculation about how human minds work in general is prone to the "typical mind fallacy". Maybe my willpower is depletable and yours isn't. But then that wouldn't explain why you can cause people to exhibit less willpower depletion by suggesting otherwise. But then again, most published research findings are false. But then again the research on the DLPFC and working memory seems relatively old and well established, and distraction is clearly a thing...
All in all, more of my chips are falling on the hypothesis that willpower "depletion" is often just willpower distraction, and that finding and addressing those distractions is probably a better a strategy than avoiding activities altogether in order to "conserve willpower".
LW Women- Female privilege
Daenerys' Note: This is the last item in the LW Women series. Thanks to all who participated. :)
Standard Intro
The following section will be at the top of all posts in the LW Women series.
Several months ago, I put out a call for anonymous submissions by the women on LW, with the idea that I would compile them into some kind of post. There is a LOT of material, so I am breaking them down into more manageable-sized themed posts.
Seven women replied, totaling about 18 pages.
Standard Disclaimer- Women have many different viewpoints, and just because I am acting as an intermediary to allow for anonymous communication does NOT mean that I agree with everything that will be posted in this series. (It would be rather impossible to, since there are some posts arguing opposite sides!)
To the submitters- If you would like to respond anonymously to a comment (for example if there is a comment questioning something in your post, and you want to clarify), you can PM your message and I will post it for you. If this happens a lot, I might create a LW_Women sockpuppet account for the submitters to share.
Please do NOT break anonymity, because it lowers the anonymity of the rest of the submitters.
Submitter E
I'm a girl, and by me that's only great.
No seriously. I've grown up and lived in the social circles where female privilege way outweigh male privilege. I've never been sexually assaulted, nor been denied anything because of my gender. I study a male-dominated subject, and most of my friends are polite, deferential feminism-controlled men. I have, however, been able to flirt and sympathise and generally girl-game my way into getting what I want. (Charming guys is fun!) Sure, there will eventually come a point where I'll be disadvantaged in the job market because of my ability to bear children; but I've gotta balance that against the fact that I have the ability to bear children.
In fact, most of the gender problems I personally face stem from biology, so there's not much I can do about them. It sucks that I have to be the one responsible for contraception, and that my attractiveness to men depends largely on my looks but the inverse is not true. But there's not much society can do to change biological facts, so I live with them.
I don't think it's a very disputed fact that women, in general, tend to be more emotional than men. I'm an INFJ, most of my (male) friends are INTJ. With the help of Less Wrong's epistemology and a large pinch of Game, I've achieved a fair degree of luminosity over my inner workings. I'm complicated. I don't think my INTJ friends are this complicated, and the complicatedness is part of the reason why I'm an "F": my intuitions system is useful. It makes me really quite good at people, especially when I can introspect and then apply my conscious to my instincts as well. I don't know how many of the people here are F instead of T, but for anyone who uses intuition a lot, applying proper rationality to introspection (a.k.a. luminosity) is essential. It is so so so easy to rationalise, and it takes effort to just know my instinct without rationalising false reasons for it. I'm not sure the luminosity sequence helps everyone, because everyone works differently, but just being aware of the concept and being on the lookout for ways that work is good.
There's a problem with strong intuition though, and that's that I have less conscious control over my opinions - it's hard enough being aware of them and not rationalising additional reasons for them. I judge ugly women and unsuccessful men. I try to consciously adjust for the effect, but it's hard.
Onto the topic of gender discussions on Less Wrong - it annoys me how quickly things gets irrational. The whole objectification debacle of July 2009 proved that even the best can get caught up in it (though maybe things have got better since 2009?). I was confused in the same way Luke was: I didn't see anything wrong with objectification. I objectify people all the time, but I still treat them as agents when I need to. Porn is great, but it doesn't mean I'm going to find it harder to befriend a porn star. I objectify Eliezer Yukowsky because he's a phenomenon on the internet more than a flesh-and-blood person to me, but that doesn't mean I'd have difficulty interacting with a flesh-and-blood Eliezer. On the whole, Less Wrong doesn't do well at talking about controversial topics, even though we know how to. Maybe we just need to work harder. Maybe we need more luminosity. I would love for Less Wrong to be a place where all things could just be discussed rationally.
There's another reason that I come out on a different side to most women in feminism and gender discussions though, and this is the bit I'm only saying because it's anonymous. I'm not a typical woman. I act, dress and style feminine because I enjoy feeling like a princess. I am most fulfilled when I'm in a M-dom f-sub relationship. My favourite activity is cooking and my honest-to-god favourite place in the house is the kitchen. I take pride in making awesome sandwiches. I just can't alieve it's offensive when I hear "get in the kitchen", because I'd just be like "ok! :D". I love sex, and I value getting better at it. I want to be able to have sex like a porn star. Suppressing my gag reflex is one of the most useful things I learned all year. I love being hit on and seduced by men. When I dress sexy, it is because male attention turns me on. I love getting wolf whistles. Because of luminosity and self-awareness, I'm ever-conscious of the vagina tingle. I'm aware of when I'm turned on, and I don't rationalise it away. And the same testosterone that makes me good at a male-dominated subject, makes sure I'm really easily turned on.
I understand that all these things are different when I'm consenting and I'm viewed as an agent and all that. But it's just hard to understand other girls being offended when I'm not, because it's much harder to empathise with someone you don't agree with. Not generalising from one example is hard.
Understanding other girls is hard.
Too busy to think about life
Many adults maintain their intelligence through a dedication to study or hard work. I suspect this is related to sub-optimal levels of careful introspection among intellectuals.
If someone asks you what you want for yourself in life, do you have the answer ready at hand? How about what you want for others? Human values are complex, which means your talents and technical knowledge should help you think about them. Just as in your work, complexity shouldn't be a curiosity-stopper. It means "think", not "give up now."
But there are so many terrible excuses stopping you...
Too busy studying? Life is the exam you are always taking. Are you studying for that? Did you even write yourself a course outline?
Too busy helping? Decision-making is the skill you are aways using, or always lacking, as much when you help others as yourself. Isn't something you use constantly worth improving on purpose?
Too busy thinking to learn about your brain? That's like being too busy flying an airplane to learn where the engines are. Yes, you've got passengers in real life, too: the people whose lives you affect.
Emotions too irrational to think about them? Irrational emotions are things you don't want to think for you, and therefore are something you want to think about. By analogy, children are often irrational, and no one sane concludes that we therefore shouldn't think about their welfare, or that they shouldn't exist.
So set aside a date. Sometime soon. Write yourself some notes. Find that introspective friend of yours, and start solving for happiness. Don't have one? For the first time in history, you've got LessWrong.com!
Reasons to make the effort:
Happiness is a pairing between your situation and your disposition. Truly optimizing your life requires adjusting both variables: what happens, and how it affects you.
You are constantly changing your disposition. The question is whether you'll do it with a purpose. Your experiences change you, and you affect those, as well as how you think about them, which also changes you. It's going to happen. It's happening now. Do you even know how it works? Put your intelligence to work and figure it out!
The road to harm is paved with ignorance. Using your capability to understand yourself and what you're doing is a matter of responsibility to others, too. It makes you better able to be a better friend.
You're almost certainly suffering from Ugh Fields: unconscious don't-think-about-it reflexes that form via Pavlovian conditioning. The issues most in need of your attention are often ones you just happen not to think about for reasons undetectable to you.
How not to waste the effort:
Don't wait till you're sad. Only thinking when you're sad gives you a skew perspective. Don't infer that you can think better when you're sad just because that's the only time you try to be thoughtful. Sadness often makes it harder to think: you're farther from happiness, which can make it more difficult to empathize with and understand. Nonethess we often have to think when sad, because something bad may have happened that needs addressing.
Introspect carefully, not constantly. Don't interrupt your work every 20 minutes to wonder whether it's your true purpose in life. Respect that question as something that requires concentration, note-taking, and solid blocks of scheduled time. In those times, check over your analysis by trying to confound it, so lingering doubts can be justifiably quieted by remembering how thorough you were.
Re-evaluate on an appropriate time-scale. Try devoting a few days before each semester or work period to look at your life as a whole. At these times you'll have accumulated experience data from the last period, ripe and ready for analysis. You'll have more ideas per hour that way, and feel better about it. Before starting something new is also the most natural and opportune time to affirm or change long term goals. Then, barring large unexpecte d opportunities, stick to what you decide until the next period when you've gathered enough experience to warrant new reflection.
(The absent minded driver is a mathematical example of how planning outperforms constant re-evaluation. When not engaged in a deep and careful introspection, we're all absent minded drivers to a degree.)
Lost about where to start? I think Alicorn's story is an inspiring one. Learn to understand and defeat procrastination/akrasia. Overcome your cached selves so you can grow freely (definitely read their possible strategies at the end). Foster an everyday awareness that you are a brain, and in fact more like two half-brains.
These suggestions are among the top-rated LessWrong posts, so they'll be of interest to lots of intellectually-minded, rationalist-curious individuals. But you have your own task ahead of you, that only you can fulfill.
So don't give up. Don't procrastinate it. If you haven't done it already, schedule a day and time right now when you can realistically assess
- how you want your life to affect you and other people, and
- what you must change to better achieve this.
Eliezer has said I want you to live. Let me say:
I want you to be better at your life.
Calling all MIRI supporters for unique May 6 giving opportunity!
(Cross-posted from MIRI's blog. MIRI maintains Less Wrong, with generous help from Trike Apps, and much of the core content is written by salaried MIRI staff members.)
Update: I'm liveblogging the fundraiser here.
Read our strategy below, then give here!
As previously announced, MIRI is participating in a massive 24-hour fundraiser on May 6th, called SV Gives. This is a unique opportunity for all MIRI supporters to increase the impact of their donations. To be successful we'll need to pre-commit to a strategy and see it through. If you plan to give at least $10 to MIRI sometime this year, during this event would be the best time to do it!
The plan
We need all hands on deck to help us win the following prize as many times as possible:
$2,000 prize for the nonprofit that has the most individual donors in an hour, every hour for 24 hours.
To paraphrase, every hour, there is a $2,000 prize for the organization that has the most individual donors during that hour. That's a total of $48,000 in prizes, from sources that wouldn't normally give to MIRI. The minimum donation is $10, and an individual donor can give as many times as they want. Therefore we ask our supporters to:
- give $10 an hour, during every hour of the fundraiser that they are awake (I'll be up and donating for all 24 hours!);
- for those whose giving budgets won't cover all those hours, see below for list of which hours you should privilege; and
- publicize this effort as widely as possible.
International donors, we especially need your help!
MIRI has a strong community of international supporters, and this gives us a distinct advantage! While North America sleeps, you'll be awake, ready to target all of the overnight $2,000 hourly prizes.
2014 Survey of Effective Altruists
I'm pleased to announce the first annual survey of effective altruists. This is a short survey of around 40 questions (generally multiple choice), which several collaborators and I have put a great deal of work into and would be very grateful if you took. I'll offer $250 of my own money to one participant.
Take the survey at http://survey.effectivealtruismhub.com/
The survey should yield some interesting results such as EAs' political and religious views, what actions they take, and the causes they favour and donate to. It will also enable useful applications which will be launched immediately afterwards, such as a map of EAs with contact details and a cause-neutral register of planned donations or pledges which can be verified each year. I'll also provide an open platform for followup surveys and other actions people can take. If you'd like to suggest questions, email me or comment.
Anonymised results will be shared publicly and not belong to any individual or organisation. The most robust privacy practices will be followed, with clear opt-ins and opt-outs.
I'd like to thank Jacy Anthis, Ben Landau-Taylor, David Moss and Peter Hurford for their help.
Other surveys' results, and predictions for this one
Other surveys have had intriguing results. For example, Joey Savoie and Xio Kikauka's interviewed 42 often highly active EAs over Skype, and found that they generally had left-leaning parents, donated on average 10%, and were altruistic before becoming EAs. The time they spent on EA activities was correlated with the percentage they donated (0.4), the time their parents spend volunteering (0.3), and the percentage of their friends who were EAs (0.3).
80,000 Hours also released a questionnaire and, while this was mainly focused on their impact, it yielded a list of which careers people plan to pursue: 16% for academia, 9% for both finance and software engineering, and 8% for both medicine and non-profits.
I'd be curious to hear people's predictions as to what the results of this survey will be. You might enjoy reading or sharing them here. For my part, I'd imagine we have few conservatives or even libertarians, are over 70% male, and have directed most of our donations to poverty charities.
Q for GiveWell: What is GiveDirectly's mechanism of action?
I first wrote up the following post, then happened to run into Holden Karnofsky in person and asked him a much-shortened form of the question verbally. My attempt to recount Holden's verbal reply is also given further below. I was moderately impressed by Holden's response because I had not thought of it when listing out possible replies, but I don't understand yet why Holden's response should be true. Since GiveWell has recently posted about objections to GiveDirectly and replies, I decided to go ahead and post this now.
A question for GiveWell:
Your current #2 top-rated charity is GiveDirectly, which gives one-time gifts of $1000 over 9 months, directly to poor recipients in Kenya via M-PESA.
Givewell tries for high standards of evidence of efficacy and cost-effectiveness. As I understand it, you don't just want the charity to be arguably cost effective, you want a very high probability that the charity is cost-effective.
The main evidence I've seen cited for direct giving is that the recipients who received the $1000 are then substantially better off 9 months later compared to people who aren't.
While I can imagine arguments that could repair the obvious objection to this reasoning, I haven't seen yet how the resulting evidence about cost-effectiveness could rise again to the epistemic standards one would expect of Givewell's #2 evidence-based charity.
The obvious objection is as follows: Suppose the Kenyan government simply printed new shillings and handed out $1000 of such shillings to the same recipients targeted by GiveDirectly. Although the recipients would be better off than non-recipients, this might not reflect any improvement in net utility in Kenya because no new resources were created by printing the money.
There are of course obvious replies to this obvious objection:
(1) Because the shillings handed out by GiveDirectly are purchased on the foreign currency exchange market using U. S. dollars, and would otherwise have been spent in Kenya in other ways, we should not expect any inflation of the shilling, and should expect an increase in Kenyan consumption of foreign goods corresponding to the increased price of shillings implied by GiveDirectly adding their marginal demand to the auction and thereby raising the marginal price of all shillings sold. The primary mechanism of action by which GiveDirectly benefits Kenya is by raising the price of shillings in the foreign exchange market and making more hard currency available to sellers of shillings. So far as I can tell, this argument ought to generalize: Any argument that the Kenyan government could not accomplish most of the same good by printing shillings will mean that the primary mechanism of GiveWell's effectiveness must be the U.S. dollars being exchanged for the shillings on the foreign currency market. This in turn means that GiveDirectly could accomplish most of its good by buying the same shillings on the foreign currency market and burning them.
(Or to sharpen the total point of this article: The sum of the good accomplished by GiveDirectly should equal:
- The good accomplished by the Kenyan government printing shillings and distributing them to the same recipients;
- plus the good accomplished by GiveDirectly then purchasing shillings on the foreign exchange market using US dollars, and burning them.
Indeed, since these mechanisms of action seem mostly independent, we ought to be able to state a percentage of good accomplished which is allegedly attributed to each, summing to 1. E.g. maybe 80% of the good would be achieved by printing shillings and distributing them to the same recipients, and 20% would be achieved by purchasing shillings on the foreign exchange market and burning them. But then we have mostly the same questions as before about how to generate wealth by printing shillings.)
(2) Inequality in Kenya is such that redistributing the supply of shillings toward the very poor increases utility in Kenya. Thus the Kenyan government could accomplish as much good as GiveDirectly by printing an equivalent number of shillings and giving them to the same recipients. This would create inflation that is a loss to other Kenyans, some of them also very poor, but so much of the shilling supply is held by the rich that the net results are favorable. Printing shillings can create happiness because it shifts resources from making speedboats for the rich to making corrugated iron roofs for the poor.
(It would be nice if the Kenyan government just printed shillings for GiveDirectly to use, but this the Kenyan government will not realistically do. Effective altruists must live in the real world, and in the real world GiveDirectly will only accomplish its goals with the aid of effective altruists. One cannot live in the should-universe where Kenya's government is taking up the burden. Effective altruists should reason as if the Kenya government consists of plastic dolls who cannot be the locus of responsibility instead of them - that's heroic epistemology 101. Maybe there will eventually be returns on lobbying for Minimum Guaranteed Income in Kenya if the programs work, but that's for tomorrow, not right now.)
(3) Like the European Union, Kenya is not printing enough shillings under standard economic theory. (I have no idea if this is plausibly true for Kenya in particular.) If the government printed shillings and gave them to the same recipients, this would create real wealth in Kenya because the economy was operating below capacity and velocity of trade would pick up. The shillings purchased by GiveDirectly would otherwise have stayed in bank accounts rather than going to other Kenyans. Note that this contradicts the argument step in (1) where we said that the purchased shillings would otherwise have been spent elsewhere, so you should have questioned one argument step or the other.
(4) Village moneylenders and bosses can successfully extract most surplus generated within their villages by raising rents or demanding bribes. The only way that individuals can escape the grasp of moneylenders and rentiers is with a one-time gift that was not expected and which the moneylenders and bosses could not arrange to capture. The government could accomplish as much good as GiveDirectly by printing the same number of shillings and giving them to the same people in an unpredictable pattern. This would create some inflation but village moneylenders or bosses would ease off on people from whom they couldn't extract as much value, whereas the one-time gift recipients can purchase capital goods that will make them permanently better off in ways that don't allow the new value to be extracted by moneylenders or bosses.
If I recall correctly, GiveDirectly uses the example of a family using some of the gift money to purchase a corrugated iron roof. From my perspective the obvious objection is that they could just be purchasing a corrugated iron roof that would've gone to someone else and raising the prices of roofs. (1) says that Kenya has more foreign exchange on hands and can import, not one more corrugated iron roof, but a variety of other foreign goods; (2) says that the resources used in the corrugated iron roof would otherwise have been used to make a speedboat; (3) says that a new trade takes place in which somebody makes a corrugated iron roof that wouldn't have been manufactured otherwise; and (4) says that the village moneylenders usually adjust their interest rates so as to prevent anyone from saving up enough money to buy a corrugated iron roof.
The trouble is that all of these mechanisms of action seem much harder to measure and be sure of, than the measurable outcomes for gift recipients vs. non-recipients.
To reiterate, the sum of the good accomplished by GiveDirectly should equal the good accomplished by the Kenyan government printing shillings and distributing them to the same recipients, plus the good accomplished by GiveDirectly purchasing shillings on the foreign exchange market using US dollars and then burning them. It seems to me to be difficult to arrive at a state of strong evidence about either of the two terms in this sum, with respect to any mechanism of action I've thought of so far.
With respect to the second term in this sum: GiveDirectly buying shillings on the foreign exchange market and burning them might create wealth, but it's hard to see how you would measure this over the relevant amounts, and no such evidence was cited in the recommendation of GiveDirectly as the #2 charity.
With respect to the first term in this sum: Under the Bayesian definition of evidence, strong evidence is evidence we are unlikely to see when the theory is false. Even in the absence of any mechanism whereby printing nominal shillings creates happiness or wealth, we would still expect to find that the wealth and happiness of gift recipients exceeded the wealth of non-recipients. So measuring that the gift recipients are wealthier and happier is not strong or even medium evidence that printing nominal shillings creates wealth, unless I'm missing something here. Our posterior that printing shillings and giving them to certain people would create net wealth in any given quantity, should roughly equal our prior, after updating on the stated experimental evidence.
When I posed a shortened form of this question to Holden Karnofsky, he replied (roughly, I am trying to rephrase from memory):
It seems to me that this is a perverse decomposition of the benefit accomplished. There's no inflation in the shilling because you're buying them, and since this is true, decomposing the benefit into an operation that does inflationary damage as a side effect, and then another operation that makes up for the inflation, is perverse. It's like criticizing the Against Malaria Foundation based on a hypothetical which involves the mosquito nets being made from the flesh of babies and then adding another effect which saves the lives of other babies. Since this is a perverse sum involving a strange extra side effect, it's okay that we can't get good estimates involving either of the terms in it.
Please keep in mind that this is Holden's off-the-cuff, non-written in-person response as rephrased by Eliezer Yudkowsky from imperfect memory.
With that said, I've thought about (what I think was) Holden's answer and I feel like I'm still missing something. I agree that if U.S. dollars were being sent directly to Kenyan recipients and used only to purchase foreign goods, so that foreign goods were being directly sent from the U.S. to Kenyan recipients, then improvement in measured outcome for recipients compared to non-recipients would be an appropriate metric, and that the decomposition would be perverse. But if the received money, in the form of Kenyan shillings, is being used primarily to purchase Kenyan goods, and causing those goods to be shipped to one villager rather than another while also possibly increasing velocity of trade, remedying inequality, and enabling completely different actors to buy some amount of foreign goods, then I honestly don't understand why this scenario should have the same causal mechanisms as the scenario where foreign goods are being shipped in from outside the country. And then I honestly don't understand why measured improvements for one Kenyan over another should be a good proxy for aggregate welfare change to the country.
I may be missing something that an economist would find obvious or I may have misunderstood Holden's reply. But to me, my sum seems like an obvious causal decomposition of the effects in Kenya, neither of whose terms can be estimated well. I don't understand why I should expect the uncertainty in these two estimates to cancel out when they are added; I don't understand what background causal model yields this conclusion.
To be clear, I personally would guess that the U.S. would be net better off, if the Federal Reserve directly sent everyone in the U.S. with income under $20K/year a one-time $6,000 check with the money phasing out at a 10% rate up to $80K/year. This is because, in order of importance:
- I buy the analogous market monetarist argument (3) that the U.S. is printing too little money.
- I buy the analogous argument (2) about inequality.
- (However, I also somewhat suspect that some analogous form of (4) is going on with poor people somehow systematically having all but a certain amount of value extracted from them, which is in general how a modern country can have only 2% instead of 95% of the population being farmers, and yet there are still people living hand-to-mouth. I would worry that a predictable, universal one-time gift of $6K would not defeat this phenomenon, and that the gift money will just be extracted again somehow. In the case of Minimum Guaranteed Income, I would worry that the labor share of income will drop proportionally to small amounts of MGI as wages are just bid down by people who can live on less. Or something. This would be a much longer discussion and the ideas are much less simple than the above two notions, probably also less important. I'm just mentioning it again because of my long-term puzzlement with the question "Why are there still poor people after agricultural productivity rose by a factor of 100?")
What I wouldn't say is that my belief in the above is as strong as my belief in, say, the intelligence explosion. I'd guess that the printing operation would do more good than harm, but it's not what I would call a strong evidence-based conclusion. If we're going to be okay with that standard of argument generally, then the top charity under that standard of reasoning, generally and evenhandedly applied, ought to work out to some charity that does science and technology research. (X-risk minimization might seem substantially 'weirder' than that, but the best science-funding charities should be only equally weird.) And I wouldn't measure the excess of happiness of gift-recipients compared to non-recipients in a pilot program, and call this a good estimate of the net good if a Minimum Guaranteed Income were universally adopted.
So to reiterate, my question to Givewell is not "Why do you think GiveDirectly might maybe end up doing some good anyway?" but "Does GiveDirectly rise to the standards required for your #2 evidence-based charity?"
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Jefferson Papers Indexes | Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Index to volume 33 | D | Davis, Matthew L.
Memorandum from Aaron Burr, [ca. 17 March 1801] [Main Series 33:330]
From Aaron Burr, 21 April 1801 [Main Series 33:627]
From Aaron Burr, 21 April 1801 [Main Series 33:628 n.]+
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Approximately 150 protesters marched through downtown Phoenix for three hours to protest alleged police violence. Police cleared the way for the demonstration which went through traffic, downtown venues and in front of a local television station.
Congressman Luis Gutierrez spoke against gun violence, in front of a Phoenix High School were a student was shot and killed. Gutierrez was in Phoenix to endorse candidate Mary Rose Wilcox who is seeking to replace retiring Congressman Ed Pastor.
Two dozen anti-immigration protesters stood on the Arizona capital lawn to express their views over current immigration policies. They are concerned about the transfers from Texas and the surge of children arriving from Central America.
United States Senator John McCain called on the Obama administration to stop illegal entries by Central Americans "immediately" today at a press conference and called on a change in the law, allowing immediate deportation.
The United States soccer team's hope for a victory at the World Cup in Brazil ended in a 2-1 defeat to Belgium. Fans in Phoenix gathered in the George and Dragon Pub to watch the tense match.
Twenty dogs were found dead in a canine boarding facility and search parties have been looking for another who escaped from the same facility. County Sheriff, Joe Arpaio, has launched an investigation to determine what actually happened.
Approximately 15 protestors stood outside Chase Field in Phoenix to protest the Cleveland Indian's mascot, Chief Wahoo before their game. This comes amid growing controversy over the demand to change the Washington Redskins name.
In a match that found the USA soccer team pitted against powerhouse Portugal, fans in Phoenix, Arizona had moments of ecstasy and agony. The US fought back from a 1-0 deficit, only to see Portugal get an equalizer. The match ended in a 2-2 draw.
Soccer fans gathered in the George and Dragon pub in downtown Phoenix, Arizona to watch the USA soccer team take on rivals Ghana. In a country not known for its soccer acumen, turnout was heavy with late arrivals being turned away at the door.
Veteran's groups held a town hall meeting to answer questions and allow veterans to speak about difficulties they've had getting health care through Arizona's Veteran's Administration.
The Phoenix Comicon Convention opened at the downtown Phoenix Convention Center. Tens of thousands of costumed participants are expected for the four-day event that will also feature autograph signings by a host of celebrities.


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Associates in Teaching
- Eligibility, Expectations, and How to Apply
- Tips for Associates in Teaching Co-Teachers
- An article and a video about the Associates in Teaching program
Academic Job Search Series
- Academic Job Search
- Training Lab for Scientists
Preparing Future Faculty Series
- Preparing Future Faculty Series (I): Teaching Your Own Course
- Preparing Future Faculty Series (II): Beyond the Classroom
Associates in Teaching
Eligibility, Expectations, and How to Apply
The competitive Associates in Teaching (AT) program, offered under the aegis of Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, allows advanced Ph.D. students to expand their range of teaching experiences and responsibilities. During the application process, they work with a cooperating faculty member to conceptualize or redesign and plan out an undergraduate course. If selected, the graduate student then works together with the faculty member to jointly deliver the proposed course. Experience shows that this program, begun in 2009, provides a dynamic cooperative teaching experience for graduate students and faculty members both, with the faculty member offering direct feedback on curriculum, leading discussions, lecturing, demonstrating, or whatever teaching practices enlisted in that course.
Ten courses were selected for the 2014-2015 academic year:
- AMST, Laura Wexler & Lauren Tilton, "Introduction to Digital Humanities"
- ENGL, David Kastan & Carla Baricz, "Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson" (deferred to 2015-2016)
- HIST Jennifer Van Vleck & Taylor Jardno, "America's Backyard? The Cultural History of U.S.-Latin American Relations"
- HIST Joseph Manning & François Gerardin, "Ancient Empires"
- HIST, Peter Perdue & CJ Huang, "Twentieth-Century China in the World"
- HSAR, Timothy Barringer & Julia Lum, "Art and the British Empire"
- HSAR, Edward Cooke & Sylvia Houghteling, "Arts of the Global Maritime Trade, 1500-1800" (cancelled)
- NSCI, Ralph Dileone & Robert Wickham, "Nutrition and the Brain"
- PHIL, Keith DeRose & Julianne Chung, "Faith and Reason"
- PHYS, Simon Mochrie & Eric Holland, "University Physics for the Life Sciences"
Tips for Associates in Teaching Co-Teachers
An article and a video about the Associates in Teaching program
The Associates in Teaching program was featured in the April 2014 edition of the GSAS News, under the title "Yale Launches New Collaborative Teaching Initiatives." The article spotlighted three AT co-teaching pairs: Assistant Professor of Psychology June Gruber and Psychology graduate student Hillary Devlin ("Human Emotion"); Professor of Music Patrick McCreeless and Music graduate student Jonathan Guez ("Schubert's Lieder and Sonata Forms"); and Professor of Film Studies and Film Studies graduate student Anne Berk ("Contemporary Documentary Film and Video").
Guez said of the AT experience, "Working in close contact with a professor helped to hone my teaching skills. I learned so much from him, both in his office, before and after classes, and in the classroom itself." The seminar met "with a handful of dedicated and talented music majors at the height of their game, all of whom were interested in the subject. What an experience!"
The "Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Associates in Teaching Program" is a video featuring Julia Adams, Elizabeth Breese, and David Odo. Julia Adams is a Professor of Sociology, the Director of the Center for Comparative Research and the Director of the Division of Social Sciences; Elizabeth is an Associate Professor of Sociology; and David Odo is the Bradley Assistant Curator of Academic Affairs in the Yale University Art Gallery.
Academic Job Search Series
Offered in conjunction with Graduate Career Services, the Academic Job Search Series takes postdoctoral fellows and graduate students through the entire process of applying for and landing an academic position. Beginning with the development of a curriculum vitae and cover letter and ending with strategies for interviews and job talks, the series helps postdoctoral fellows and graduate students refine their materials and their skills.
1. Academic Job Search
Every fall we collaborate with Graduate Career Services on the Academic Job Search Series, to help postdoctoral fellows and graduate students prepare for the academic job market. Sessions are free and do not require advance registration. The fall series is for participants in all departments, while several sessions are then repeated in the spring to provide additional opportunities to prepare for an academic interview.
Fall 2013 Schedule
When: September 4, 9, 17, 26, and 30 from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m.
Where: HGS 119
September 17, 2013: "How to Show Evidence of Teaching, Teaching Statements, Evaluations, etc."
September 26, 2013: "Review of Question Types, Types of Interviews, and How to Frame Effective Responses"
NOTE: the September 26th session is two hours long
September 30, 2013: "Preparing to Teaching the Interview Class and the Job Talk"
Register here
2. Training Lab for Scientists
This series is designed to help postdoctoral fellows and graduate students and in the sciences find postdoctoral positions and/or prepare for an academic job search. Each session features outside speakers or Yale faculty members, who address topics such as how to find a postdoctoral position, what it is like to be a new faculty member, how to prepare application materials, and what selection committee members really look for. This series is offered in late May or early June.
Preparing Future Faculty Series
This series provides guidance similar to the Academic Job Search series, and includes sessions that will help the new assistant professor succeed in the first year of teaching and research.
1. Preparing Future Science Faculty Series (I): Teaching Your Own Course
Participants in this workshop series gain valuable tools for getting started as science teachers. Topics include course and syllabus design, presentation skills, writing a lecture, promoting active learning, incorporating science information literacy in the classroom, and the effective use of writing and other assignments. This series is offered in the spring and alternates between Science Hill and the Medical School area.
2. Preparing Future Science Faculty Series (II): The Classroom and Beyond
This workshop series addresses the skills and strategies that science graduate students and postdoctoral fellows will find helpful and they prepare for an academic job. This series is offered every two to three years and features guest speakers from the Yale faculty. Junior professors share their perspectives on what it is like to get started, and senior professors offer advice about teaching non-majors, engaging students in any course, and developing the leadership skills to manage and mentor your own lab group. The final session provides practical advice on writing a teaching statement, making the most of your teaching experience, and talking about teaching in an interview.