2024 - 09 September

Having Kids - Paul Graham Highlights:

To most 6 year olds, 2 year olds are just defective 6 year olds

My version of this with a 6-month-old:

• The 6- and 8-year-old cousins absolutely adored meeting her, wanted to take care of her, even wanted to help change her diaper and feed her.
• Her 4-year-old cousin is also warming up to her: he’s getting excited about the idea of teaching her things in the future, and likes when she grabs his finger.
• To her 2-year-old cousin… she’s just defective.

The Mistakes Are All Waiting To Be Made

Another parenting reflection essay. My favorite section

this is a totally normal number of problems for them to have. Additionally:

• If your baby goes minutes at a time without blinking, and sometimes never seems to blink at all, that’s normal.
• If your baby randomly stops breathing sometimes, that’s normal.
• If one of your (male) baby’s nipples is much bigger and harder than the other, that’s normal.
• If that nipple, and only that nipple, on your (male) baby, starts producing milk, that’s normal too.
• If people call it “witch’s milk” and claim that “goblins feed on it”, that’s the most normal thing of all.

Too much efficiency makes everything worse: overfitting and the strong version of Goodhart’s law