# who gets our $5k contract **URL:** \ **Category:** uncategorized\ **Created:** [July 19, 2011, 6:08pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/who-gets-our-5k-contract/1303 "2011-07-19T18:08:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dreev](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/dreev/32/4311_2.png) [@dreev](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/dreev)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 6:08pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/who-gets-our-5k-contract/1303/1 "2011-07-19T18:08:17Z")
From: Daniel Reeves [dreeves@beeminder.com](mailto:dreeves@beeminder.com) Date: Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 21:05 Subject: who gets our $5k contract To: [akratics@beeminder.com](mailto:akratics@beeminder.com) Bethany and I have $5000 at risk on these goals: [bd – dashboard – beeminder](http://beeminder.com/bd) The Davids Yang and Reiley have bid up to $150 for it: [http://doc.bmndr.co/bdminder](http://doc.bmndr.co/bdminder) David and David, what if we award it to both of you? Each cough up $75 and split the $5000 if you win (ie, if we lose). Regardless, we’re paying the $5000 if either us go off any of the 10 [bd – dashboard – beeminder](http://bmndr.com/bd) yellow brick roads at any time. – [http://dreev.es](http://dreev.es) – search://“Daniel Reeves” [http://beeminder.com](http://beeminder.com) – What are _you_ beeminding? – [http://dreev.es](http://dreev.es) – search://“Daniel Reeves” Follow the Yellow Brick Road – [http://beeminder.com](http://beeminder.com) ---
**Author:** ![dreev](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/dreev/32/4311_2.png) [@dreev](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/dreev)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 6:10pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/who-gets-our-5k-contract/1303/2 "2011-07-19T18:10:47Z")
From: Daniel Reeves [dreeves@beeminder.com](mailto:dreeves@beeminder.com) Date: Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 19:54 Subject: Re: who gets our $5k contract Hmm, it’s terribly socially inefficient for you to _both_ send money (postage, paypal fees, hassle). What if we flip a coin and one of you sends the full $150? (You still each own half the contract, just that one of you gets lucky and gets their half paid for by the other.) The Davids are an economist and a superhacker, respectively, so I know they at least see the point of that idea. I suspect normal people can’t fathom how anyone could ever agree to such a thing, unless they had some kind of gambling addiction or something. True, normal people? PS to Jill and my mother and others I’ve chatted with about it: Eager to have you chime in on the other thread about how you like being forced to stay on your roads. On Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 12:37, David Yang wrote: > I’m ok with it as well - paypal? > > On Dec 4, 2010, at 11:08 AM, David Reiley wrote: > > > That’s OK with me. Let me know where to send the check. > > > > David ---
**Author:** ![dreev](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/dreev/32/4311_2.png) [@dreev](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/dreev)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 6:11pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/who-gets-our-5k-contract/1303/3 "2011-07-19T18:11:24Z")
From: Daniel Reeves [dreeves@beeminder.com](mailto:dreeves@beeminder.com) Date: Sun, Dec 5, 2010 at 20:12 Subject: Re: who gets our $5k contract Ok, it’s official! Davids Yang and Reiley each own 50% of the [bd – dashboard – beeminder](http://beeminder.com/bd) contract. Next time we should use a mechanism that lets any number of people buy shares. How about a chinese auction where you buy tickets for a dollar apiece and the contract is then split in proportion to how many tickets everyone has? (That’s a lot like how angel investing works, come to think of it, with future investment rounds diluting the previous investors.) Would anyone have bought any tickets if we’d done it that way for my and Bethany’s contract? ---
**Author:** ![dreev](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/dreev/32/4311_2.png) [@dreev](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/dreev)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 6:12pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/who-gets-our-5k-contract/1303/4 "2011-07-19T18:12:20Z")
From: Daniel Reeves [dreeves@beeminder.com](mailto:dreeves@beeminder.com) Date: Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 23:41 Subject: Re: who gets our $5k contract I think I have a great idea for a way to auction these contracts. A kind of proxied, ascending chinese auction (but should be as simple to understand and participate in as the standard “do I hear one dolluhdolluh-gibbitybippity, two dolluhdolluh? … going once…” thing, which is called english outcry, btw). Anyone have a new commitment contract they want to start so we can try it out? On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 22:54, Melanie Reeves Wicklow wrote: > I may have bought tickets, few bucks worth. > > – > Melanie Reeves Wicklow > [http://MelzaFit.com](http://MelzaFit.com) ---
**Author:** ![dreev](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/dreev/32/4311_2.png) [@dreev](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/dreev)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 6:14pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/who-gets-our-5k-contract/1303/5 "2011-07-19T18:14:08Z")
From: Daniel Reeves [dreeves@beeminder.com](mailto:dreeves@beeminder.com) Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 02:34 Subject: Re: who gets our $5k contract Mid-contract update on [bd – dashboard – beeminder](http://beeminder.com/bd) … We’re 100 days in, with 72 days to go. It’s safe to say that we’re far, far happier with how the last 100 days have gone than we would’ve been had we not been bound to these 10 yellow brick roads. (Not quite so much happier that if we lose the $5k it will have been worth it though!) Specifically: 1. [inbox – d – beeminder](http://bmndr.com/d/inbox) – This one is pretty awesome. My inbox has to shrink by one message per day. I’m way more on top of things in general because of this. (Also the Boomerang plugin for gmail is helping a lot.) 2. [push – d – beeminder](http://bmndr.com/d/push) – Also just brilliant. The cost/benefit for doing a few minutes of pushups a day is such a no-brainer. I’ve done almost 5000 pushups total so far – easily 10 times more than I’d ever do just trying to will myself to get into the habit of doing them. 3. [mm – d – beeminder](http://bmndr.com/d/mm) – Turned out to be trivial. It should probably be a commitment to spend at _most_ a few hours a week on Messy Matters. 4. [meta – d – beeminder](http://bmndr.com/d/meta) – This one is hard. Sometimes it’s stressful and interferes with weekend activities and whatnot. But, well, I just really need this kind of kick in the butt to stay on task. 5. [ontask – d – beeminder](http://bmndr.com/d/ontask) – Speaking of staying on task, this one is not hard but it’s valuable. It should probably be a greater fraction of my working time. Every so often I near the edge of this road and it’s a great reminder to stop being scattered and bury myself in some code or other clearly describable task. Up next: We decided to risk $1000 on [uvi – meta – beeminder](http://bmndr.com/meta/uvi) and are still thinking about [blog – meta – beeminder](http://bmndr.com/meta/blog) Footnote: Btw, the really hard part about our time-based goals is that we track our time stochastically. See [TagTime: Stochastic Time Tracking for Space Cadets | Messy Matters](http://messymatters.com/timepie?secretpreview) if you don’t know what I’m talking about. For example, if I’m a half hour below my yellow brick road for the day and wait till 11:30pm to get started, the stochastic self-sampler could fail to sample me – we call it getting pinged – during that half hour and I’d be out of luck. With $5k at risk we’ve worked out the probabilities carefully and start to get nervous when there’s something like a .01% risk of not getting the requisite pings by midnight (the risk such that the overall risk for all 172 days of the contract is 1%). When there’s a 1% risk just for today, we consider that panic time. (That’s happened a couple times so the Davids certainly didn’t overbid for this contract!) Fear works: no matter how unmotivated we were before crunch time, if we’re 3 pings below our road and there’s less than 8 hours till midnight, we find a way to stay focused till those pings have pung. Of course ideally we get into the top lane of the yellow brick road before we go to sleep each night. Then there’s essentially no risk. Right now I’m 1 ping short [PS: I got it while writing this; phew] but will probably go to bed. There’s a 99% chance of getting it within the first 3.5 hours of work tomorrow… ---
**Author:** ![dreev](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/dreev/32/4311_2.png) [@dreev](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/dreev)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 6:15pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/who-gets-our-5k-contract/1303/6 "2011-07-19T18:15:52Z")
From: Daniel Reeves [dreeves@beeminder.com](mailto:dreeves@beeminder.com) Date: Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 14:35 Subject: Re: who gets our $5k contract It’s amazing how much less nerve-racking this is now that we simply color-coded the graphs in the gallery: [http://beeminder.com/bd](http://beeminder.com/bd) (See the red graphs? Bethany has to do pushups by midnight and I have to get my inbox down to ~50 emails, which is why I’m replying to this now!) On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 11:10, Bethany M. Soule wrote: > Updates from bee: > > 1. [workout – b – beeminder](http://kibotzer.com/b/workout) – this one has been nipping at my heels for > the past several months (since it got too cold for cycling) and it’s > awesome because it’s keeping me active through the gray cold months > and keeping me on that slow inexorable weight road, and that > _definitely_ would not be happening otherwise. > > 2. [weight – b – beeminder](http://kibotzer.com/b/weight) – I was totally coasting for the first half, > (notice that my dots are basically flat from December through > January). But then the end of January got a bit risky as the road > finally caught up with me and if it weren’t for the bet I most > definitely would have just sailed right on through the top edge of the > road at a steady 62(ish)kg. I’ve done it plenty of times before.\*\* > > 3. [push – b – beeminder](http://kibotzer.com/b/push) – This one has been for the most part a total > no-brainer, as I’m frequently doing pushups as part of my workouts > anyway. Occasionally I slip down into the danger zone, and then it’s > generally no biggie to rack up a quick 50 and be clear for a few days. > Sometimes it seems a bear if I’m maxed out on non-pushup upper body > stuff. But I guess it’s still a small price. > > 4. [job – b – beeminder](http://kibotzer.com/b/job) – is hard. I’m glad for the vacation days, > which after 4 (unanticipated) days of sick kids and slightly buggy > self this last week are suddenly starting to feel pretty scarce. > Still, my idealist taskmaster self thinks it’s a good thing to be > doing. > > 5. [craft – b – beeminder](http://kibotzer.com/b/craft) – so far it’s been really easy to stay on > track. It has gotten me to pick up and finish several projects that > had been sitting around waiting for buttons to be sewn on for \>6 > months, and it’s also kept me from starting new projects when there > are unfinished ones lying about, which was exactly the intention, as > well as occasionally justifying some time taken out of my day to sit > down with a knitting project or whatnot, which I occasionally feel > guilty about otherwise. Total win. > > B > > \*\* Especially since 62kg vs 61kg is pretty arbitrary and both are well > within my ‘ideal range’… 61 is arbitrary, but it’s my pre-pregnancy > weight, which seems like a reasonable number to fixate on. ---
**Author:** ![dreev](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/dreev/32/4311_2.png) [@dreev](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/dreev)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 6:16pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/who-gets-our-5k-contract/1303/7 "2011-07-19T18:16:52Z")
From: Bethany M. Soule Date: Sun, May 29, 2011 at 11:02 Subject: Re: who gets our $5k contract Workouts: was stupidly hard. Doesn’t seem like it ought to be, but I only barely eked out victory on that one – burpees and running laps in DTW’s terminal tunnel in a pencil skirt… um, yeah. Weight: had a few dangerous days, but I ultimately even dipped below the original goal on the cruise (apparently due to chasing a certain 2yo instead of dining). But now I clearly need an incentive not to let it shoot right back up. (Can anyone say sedentary lifestyle?) Push: nothing much to say. I did them. I probably got stronger. Job: it would be ridiculously extravagant not to keep up this road or its equivalent. It actually got easy at the tail end because we had the additional constraint of finishing certain Beeminder tasks before we left on vacation, and that required excellent concentration and a lot of extra hours. Craft: I might like to make this one slightly more constraining – I probably spent less time on craft projects than I might have liked to. Still, it was really good to have the incentive to finish old projects, and actually, if I had wanted to be more constrained by the graph, I could have started new projects until I was once again bumping up against the graph. So maybe it was about perfect? B ---
**Author:** ![dreev](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/dreev/32/4311_2.png) [@dreev](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/dreev)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 7:43pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/who-gets-our-5k-contract/1303/8 "2011-07-19T19:43:54Z")
From: Daniel Reeves [dreeves@beeminder.com](mailto:dreeves@beeminder.com) Date: Sun, May 29, 2011 at 11:28 Subject: Re: who gets our $5k contract This is the final report on my and Bethany’s 6-month-long $5k contract. We managed to hold on by the skin of our teeth. Actually, it got a bit easier towards the end because we had an unrelated constraint of finishing the Kibotzer-\>Beeminder migration before our vacation (see [Beeminder on Rails | Beeminder Blog](http://blog.bmndr.com/rails) ). You can see how we got way above our roads before leaving on vacation: [http://beeminder.com/hist/bjob2011.png](http://beeminder.com/hist/bjob2011.png) [http://beeminder.com/hist/dmeta2011.png](http://beeminder.com/hist/dmeta2011.png) You can also see how badly we need to start another contract! As for my other goals: Inbox: I clawed my way down to 26 messages in my inbox just in time, often by forwarding things to myself in the future. Now my inbox has shot up to 200+ again and I desperately need to re-commit to an inbox goal. Pushups: Easy and very worthwhile, as evidenced by the fact that I haven’t done a single pushup since the contract ended. Messy Matters: Turned out to be a no-brainer. I probably don’t need a contract on this. Ontask: This one was sometimes a little hard, but had a lot less value than I thought. As long as I’m working 40 hours/week I’m not sure I care what fraction of that is on premeditated tasks. Maybe some variant would be valuable though. See Bethany’s email just now for her retrospectives. ---
**Author:** ![dreev](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/dreev/32/4311_2.png) [@dreev](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/dreev)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 7:44pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/who-gets-our-5k-contract/1303/9 "2011-07-19T19:44:31Z")
From: Bethany M. Soule Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 11:10 Subject: Re: who gets our $5k contract Updates from bee: 1. [workout – b – beeminder](http://kibotzer.com/b/workout) – this one has been nipping at my heels for the past several months (since it got too cold for cycling) and it’s awesome because it’s keeping me active through the gray cold months and keeping me on that slow inexorable weight road, and that _definitely_ would not be happening otherwise. 2. [weight – b – beeminder](http://kibotzer.com/b/weight) – I was totally coasting for the first half, (notice that my dots are basically flat from December through January). But then the end of January got a bit risky as the road finally caught up with me and if it weren’t for the bet I most definitely would have just sailed right on through the top edge of the road at a steady 62(ish)kg. I’ve done it plenty of times before.\*\* 3. [push – b – beeminder](http://kibotzer.com/b/push) – This one has been for the most part a total no-brainer, as I’m frequently doing pushups as part of my workouts anyway. Occasionally I slip down into the danger zone, and then it’s generally no biggie to rack up a quick 50 and be clear for a few days. Sometimes it seems a bear if I’m maxed out on non-pushup upper body stuff. But I guess it’s still a small price. 4. [job – b – beeminder](http://kibotzer.com/b/job) – is hard. I’m glad for the vacation days, which after 4 (unanticipated) days of sick kids and slightly buggy self this last week are suddenly starting to feel pretty scarce. Still, my idealist taskmaster self thinks it’s a good thing to be doing. 5. [craft – b – beeminder](http://kibotzer.com/b/craft) – so far it’s been really easy to stay on track. It has gotten me to pick up and finish several projects that had been sitting around waiting for buttons to be sewn on for \>6 months, and it’s also kept me from starting new projects when there are unfinished ones lying about, which was exactly the intention, as well as occasionally justifying some time taken out of my day to sit down with a knitting project or whatnot, which I occasionally feel guilty about otherwise. Total win. B \*\* Especially since 62kg vs 61kg is pretty arbitrary and both are well within my ‘ideal range’… 61 is arbitrary, but it’s my pre-pregnancy weight, which seems like a reasonable number to fixate on.