Category Archives: Personal Experience

Write Down Your Process

Posted on July 24, 2017 by

Previously: Help Us Find Your Blog (and others) Mark Rosewater is the lead designer of the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering. This means he is part of Magic’s R&D department, one of the world’s few pockets of cooperation, sanity and … Continue reading →

Posted in Facebook Sequence, Good Advice, Magic: The Gathering, Personal Experience, Uncategorized | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Book Review: Weapons of Math Destruction

Posted on June 4, 2017 by

Epistemic Status: Minus One Million Points Shortness Status: Long (this is a proposed new norm I want to try out, in the sense of ‘apologies for writing a long letter, I did not have enough time to write a shorter … Continue reading →

Posted in Death by Metrics, Economic Analysis, Personal Experience, Reviews | Tagged , , , , | 16 Comments

How to Destroy Civilization

Posted on May 24, 2017 by

Epistemic Status: Parable. Can’t tell to what extent I am being serious but it’s not zero. I. Recently I made a huge mistake. At heart, I am a gamer. Playing games is fun and makes me happy, whereas not playing … Continue reading →

Posted in Games Other Than Magic, Personal Experience, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

Meditations on Mexico City

Posted on March 24, 2017 by

As I begin writing this, I am on a flight back from Mexico City to New York (I finished the next morning back in the city). It has been a good one-week trip. Most of the time outside of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal Experience | Tagged , | 2 Comments

On Cutting Wages

Posted on December 24, 2015 by

This post is a response to Bryan Caplan’s request that I share my experiences cutting wages. It was not fun. While I was CEO of MetaMed, we were continuously short of revenue. We started the company thinking we would be … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal Experience | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

The Thing and the Symbolic Representation of The Thing

Posted on June 30, 2015 by

Let’s assume there is a thing that all would agree is, in context, a Good Thing(tm) that someone in your situation would want. Do you want the thing, or do you want the symbolic representation of the thing?* This sounds … Continue reading →

Posted in Death by Metrics, Impractical Optimization, Personal Experience, Rationality | Tagged , , , | 24 Comments

Two Words That Offer Final Ultimate Proof That Medical System Is Evil

Posted on May 21, 2015 by

Music therapy. At the hospital, I have just learned, they offer Music Therapy. By music, I mean random folk singers with guitars. By therapy, I mean letting those folk singers sing, and play their guitars. And by offer, I mean … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal Experience | Tagged , , | 1 Comment