Post image for How to Get the Most Out of the Next Year

(Cross-posted on Less Wrong: How to get the most out of the next year.)

We are not automatically strategic. Since we want to get stuff done, it only makes sense to try harder—and what better time than the start of a new year?

In short: the New Year is a great time to do some life review and planning. How are things going? How was the past year? Do a thorough personal review to find out. What are you going to do next year? Make a plan. How can you increase your chances of success? Take all of your plans, projects, and goals and optimize them based on what you have learned on Less Wrong.

In the spirit of communal winning, here are the details on how I do my yearly review. Maybe you will find this process as useful as I have? [click here to keep reading…]

Post image for The Cognitive Science of Rationality – lesswrong.com

“The last 40 years of cognitive science have taught us a great deal about how our brains produce errors in thinking and decision making, and about how we can overcome those errors. These methods can help us form more accurate beliefs and make better decisions.” (from the introduction).

This article should be required reading!

Written for beginners, it covers what rationality is, what human reasoning is, why and how human thinking can go wrong, and a brief discussion on rationality skills. Awesome.

Read the full article here: The Cognitive Science of Rationality by lukeprog.

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As a followup to my trip through the highlands of Ecuador, I thought it would be cool to share my favorite black and white photos.

All photos were taken with my iPhone 4 camera and edited using Photoshop Express, a free photo editing iPhone app from Adobe.

Away From Home

Not only was this Quito dog very photogenic, this being my first time to a different continent I was missing home (and particularly the girlfriend) quite a bit. [click here to keep reading…]

Day 41-43 – Mindo

Some of the hills around Mindo

Mindo, my last stop before heading home, did not disappoint.

Between zip-lining, a ‘Tarzan’ swing, and some great hiking we drank good coffee, played cards with some fellow travellers, and preached the gospel of the Kindle to some other interested travellers.

Mindo has some of the best bird watching in Ecuador, though we didn’t see too much (of course, we didn’t know where or how to look). On the last day we went on a long hike to a waterfall, hoping to catch some good bird sights, without much luck.

That's intense

We did manage to avoid a cow ‘stampede’. Those guys looked fierce.

On our hike back to town we finally spotted a genuine Toucan hanging out in the trees. I managed to snap a single photo before it flew off, though the bird doesn’t fill more than a few pixels of silhouetted black, so it’s not worth showing. :P

We caught the last bus of the day from Mindo to Quito.

Day 44 – Climbing in Quito

The Rocodromo

Day 44 was my last day as a free man in Ecuador. Of course, we made the most of it by spending the morning climbing at the Rocodromo.

They only had smaller shoes, but I managed to squeeze my feet into a size 8 climbing shoe (my regular shoes are 10.5). As my feet shrank a full shoe size due to the compression, and among my cries of agony, I messed around on the various bouldering walls—eventually giving up on the shoes and going ‘pure’ bare-foot.

It being the last evening in Ecuador, we thought to go out and get a drink. But realizing that neither of us were in the mood to drink, we instead killed the night (pun intended) blowing up monsters in two-player MiniGore. Epic.

Day 45 – UIO > IAH > YYZ

Toronto at night

Up at 4:30am. Taxi to UIO in Quito, Ecuador. Flight left at 7am. Stopover at IAH in Houston, Texas. Slight delay for second flight. Finally made it to YYZ in Toronto, Canada.

And now I’m home for the holidays. :)

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