Q1 Progress Report: March Week 5

Last Q1 progress report! I'm planning to do a quarterly review on Monday, at which point I'll decide whether this experiment in self-documentation has actually been worth the trouble. Right now, I really can't say whether I'll decide to continue it or let this join the long list of productivity strategies I've abandoned over the years.

I am feeling like I'm making some progress this week. Mainly, this is because I finally made it up to the Linda Hall Library, which turns out to have an amazing collection of engineering books. This includes a number of aerospace books I had thought I would have to buy, but can in fact read for free. Between this and digging into the local library catalog a bit deeper, it turns out that most of my to-read list is already available to me.

In other news, I spent some time organizing my inbox and getting my job-application plan in better order. Linda Hall Library seems like a much better place to work than the public library, so I may be going there to work through a larger number of applications in a day. (I find the situation at home less amenable to extended focus.) We're also working on developing some new programming for the local rationalist group, which I'm looking forward to implementing.

My GRE scores also arrived this week, but I'm not really so much interested in how well I did as what KU Aerospace thinks of the matter, so I'm basically living with Schrodinger's Score until I get an answer from graduate admissions.

My focus this coming week is reading engineering books at Linda Hall and applying for more jobs. If I decide to continue with quarterly planning—or any other sort of time-delineated planning system—I'll be working on that as well.

March Links

Scott Alexander digs deep into wage stagnation and the great decoupling. Unsurprisingly, it's complicated.

Sarah C argues that GPT-2 results support the claim that humans not concentrating very hard aren't really intelligent, and discusses the implications for the future of education and debate.

Related: you can now ask the public distribution of GPT-2 questions via Tumblr.

80000 Hours clarifies what they should have said instead of introducing the ambiguous term "talent gap". A lot of discussion about earning to give and the effective altruism scene hinges on assumptions about what "talent gaps" actually are, and this goes a lot way towards reducing the confusion.

Kaj Sotala explains internal family systems using the analogy of a poorly-programmed robots. Evolution doesn't seem like a very good programmer, so the comparison seems quite plausible.

Crime appears to be going up in Canada. It's not clear why, nor is this a sudden new development; the rates bottomed out in 2014.

Speaking of 2014, here's an old article arguing that poor waste disposal systems are what actually killed President Harrison.

New Hampshire considered becoming the second state in the nation to use ranked choice voting, with the legislature tabling a bill that would have applied RCV to state's presidential primary. The bill's supporters in the legislature promise to continue pushing for electoral reform in the Granite State.

In a related story, the case for using ranked-choice voting in any replacement for the Electoral College.

A bipartisan group of Senators led by Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) are reintroducing the Nuclear Energy Leadership Act that died in committee last fall. Coupled with other energy bills, NELA could provide the necessary impetus to test, certify, and license the next-generation reactor designs necessary to make clean energy financial viable in the coming decades.

Q1 Progress Report: March Week 4

I took the GRE as planned on Monday. It wasn't exactly the experience I expected, but in many ways the testing environment was more conducive than expected. My preliminary quantitative score estimate was acceptable though not particularly impressive, so we'll see if KU is satisfied with my credentials.

To a certain extent, it feels like I have finally graduated. Dealing with the old house, taking the trip to Texas, applying for grad school—there's been something large hanging over my head at every waking moment since May 13, 2018. Now, finally, I have a largely free hand. This is a nice feeling, and I'll be taking advantage of it to scope out some better work spaces and participate in more social outings than I would have been able to attend six months ago.

Warm weather is helping with that, of course. It feels like spring in March, which is...not really the way it's been the last several years (to my memory, at least). On the Equinox itself, I met up with a few friends, and did some stargazing, which was a lot of fun and something I'd like to get into again as the weather improves.

Dad did have his procedure that morning; it seems to have gone okay, though he's still pretty tired day-over-day. He'll check in with the doctor this week, so hopefully we'll get to know whether it was a success.

Those seem to be the major activities this week. For the time being, the ball is in another court. While I wait for an answer, I'm getting back in the saddle on job applications, studies, and my writing projects. But there's nothing interesting to say about that at this early point.

Q1 Progress Report: March Week 3

This week was almost exclusively GRE preparation. I take the test tomorrow. On the practice exams, I've scored close to but not precisely at the level I need, so I'm a little nervous. I canceled plans for today so I would have time to go over more practice problems.

In the Verbal section, I'm doing far better than I need to, so I haven't really worried about that since the first practice run. Quantitative is the stickler. A lot of this math I haven't had to do in any rigorous form since high school, or possibly even earlier, so it's not really clear why this is an indicator of my ability to perform as an engineering graduate student. Probably cargo cult admissions if we're being totally honest with ourselves, but it seems to be the only game in town.

I don't really have a whole lot of plans for the rest of the week, besides a Spring Equinox party on Wednesday. My Dad is having a small-ish medical procedure done that day, so hopefully all goes well and I won't have to cancel. There aren't any a priori reasons to expect complications, but human bodies are an uncooperative mess atimes. We'll have to wait and see.

Job search was strong in the first half of the week but is currently taking a back seat to GRE prep. I'll be back on that sometime this coming week.

Q1 Progress Report: March Week 2

Not really a great deal to talk about this week, because I've been mostly focused on preparing for the GRE. I've also put some time into a few job applications and maintained my usual study routine, though both of those may slip in this final week. I'll probably have a lot more unstructured time to work within after finishing that last step on my grad school application package.

Daylight savings really messed with me today, though, so I didn't get too much done. I'm hoping to avoid too much disruption in the coming week, because I really would like to put in the effort. It's oddly nice having an external academic project to put effort into; I guess college really has reshaped the motivation pathways of my brain. In either case, grad school or engineering employment sounds like a nice alternative to feeling undirected.

Of course, if I have a bit more time on my hands, I can certainly come up with directions on my own. I've just been preoccupied with the application schedule since we sold the old house. Time-blocking has definitely helped with my productivity in the last fortnight, however, which is raising my confidence to undertake larger self-guided projects. Oddly enough, my time visiting relatives in Texas totally obliterated my procrastination habits, at least for a little while. I'm slipping back, but seeing my own desire to slack off disappear like that was hugely reassuring.

Now I just have to figure out how to replicate that on a smaller carbon footprint.

Q1 Progress Report: February Week 5/March Week 1

As intended, I finish my grad school application this week and scheduled my GRE. Since hitting "submit", I've also gotten back into the swing on regular job applications; momentum which I hope to continue as a prep for the test. I've been blocking out my time in half-hour increments this week, which is helpful insofar as it gives me a detailed routine to be following. It's not a productivity panacea, of course, nor does it make getting out of bed any easier on cold mornings like today.

I took Sunday off, though. It snowed today, though not too deeply. I was able to shovel our driveway in maybe half an hour, which took my Dad and I a good too hours to do when we had a heavier snow back in January. Hopefully the nasty winter weather is over (but I know it probably isn't).

Regardless, this coming week I need to study for the GRE and apply to more jobs. Based on the initial success of time-blocking, I'll be continuing that into the coming week. I've also got a bit more than usual on my social calendar and a blog post to finish up and post, so I'm probably going to need it.