Shoshannah Tekofsky

Dec 1, 2024 | lesswrong.com | Shoshannah Tekofsky

When I was 21 I wanted to become a video game programmer. Except I didn’t know how to program. I tried to teach myself and failed. Then I went back to school and learned the basics of Java in a week, aced the course in two months, and earned a cum laude MSc in Computer Science three years later. I’m 38 now and can teach myself nearly everything. By “nearly everything” I mean that if I want to learn a thing, I will achieve this if the knowledge is out there and it is within my intellectual ability.

Sep 29, 2024 | lesswrong.com | Shoshannah Tekofsky

I can get runner’s high on demand. It takes about 15 minutes of jogging at a pace of 6-7 kph and a heart rate of around 140 bpm. I need to be hungry but not starving. And my body has to otherwise be doing fine. The ability unlocked rather suddenly for me and I’m not sure why it did. However, people have told me they’d like to hear the story so they can try to achieve the same, so here goes. I was not athletic as a teenager. Sports interested me roughly zero percent.

Sep 28, 2024 | lesswrong.com | Shoshannah Tekofsky

At least, if you happen to be near me in brain space. What advice would you give your younger self? That was the prompt for a class I taught at PAIR 2024. About a quarter of participants ranked it in their top 3 of courses at the camp and half of them had it listed as their favorite. I hadn’t expected that. I thought my life advice was pretty idiosyncratic. I never heard of anyone living their life like I have.

Sep 27, 2024 | lesswrong.com | Shoshannah Tekofsky

I’m trying to figure out how to build a universal education platform. I don’t know how to do it. By a ‘universal education platform’ I mean a system that allows anyone to learn anything and everything. That’s a little ambitious. So for argument’s sake, let’s drop some of the most obvious constraints and imagine our target student is healthy, literate, and can sit behind a computer for at least an hour a day.

Sep 20, 2024 | lesswrong.com | Shoshannah Tekofsky

And how surprisingly untraumatizing it apparently is when mom feigns amnesia. I’m going to be honest here and say I just did the mental equivalent of a fist pump when my 5 year old responded to a prompt to pick any book in the book store with … The Handbook for Superheroes. Part 9. We are definitely starting at part 9. For reasons. Perfectly legible reasons. That my 5 year old will one day explain to me, I’m sure. Either way, we found ourselves in dire need of superhero-themed bedtime rules.