Astral Codex Ten

Book Review Contest

7 min read

Book Review Contest

Article

Book Review Contest is a recurring event in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 14 times across 14 issues between March 21, 2021 and October 21, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as “Thank you for your patience as I try to read 105 entries to the Book Review Contest”; “entries to the Book Review Contest that neither ended up as a finalist nor in the runners-up packet”; “there will be another Book Review Contest next year”. It most often appears alongside ACX, Discord, Istanbul.

Metadata

  • Category: Events
  • Mention count: 14
  • Issue count: 14
  • First seen: March 21, 2021
  • Last seen: October 21, 2024

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Open Thread 164
March 21, 2021 · Original source
1: Thank you for your patience as I try to read 105 entries to the Book Review Contest in order to narrow them down to a pool of finalists.
Open Thread 175
June 06, 2021 · Original source
1: A few people have emailed me saying they submitted entries to the Book Review Contest that neither ended up as a finalist nor in the runners-up packet. All reviews should be in one of those two places, so if that happened something went wrong. In two cases it was your fault for sending me inaccessible Google Docs, and in a few cases it might have been the spam filter, but in at least one case it seems to have been a clerical error on my part. If this is you, I'm sorry. In compensation, if you choose to put your review up somewhere, I will link to it from an Open Thread. I'll also let you include it in any future book review contests here even if you put it up elsewhere in the meantime. If this is you, please send me an email about it. If you've already sent me an email, I've lost your name, so please remind me about it.
4: This is your last chance to vote for book review runners-up. Check out the runners-up packet (A-R here, S-Z here), choose a review at random, rate it on a scale of 1-10 here, rinse and repeat as many times as you care to. I’ll probably promote two runners-up to finalists, close voting and post them this Thursday and Friday, then have final voting next week. Thanks for your patience with this protracted contest. This year’s survey will include a section on whether you enjoyed the book review contest and whether we should do it again.
Inline links: here, here, here
Open Thread 201
December 06, 2021 · Original source
5: This should be obvious, but there will be another Book Review Contest next year. I will let you know when I have exact dates and rules together, but assume it will be due sometime like March or April, and otherwise pretty similar to last year. I don’t think there are any surprises that should stop you from starting to prepare entries now if you want
Open Thread 218
April 03, 2022 · Original source
1: Last chance to send in Book Review Contest entries, due date is still 4-5-22!
Inline links: send in
Open Thread 223
May 08, 2022 · Original source
1: Based on your ratings, I’ve selected twelve finalists for the Book Review Contest, and will be posting one every Friday from now until July.
Open Thread 225
May 23, 2022 · Original source
1: The full list of Book Review Contest finalists is: Consciousness And The Brain, Making Nature, The Anti-Politics Machine, The Castrato, The Dawn Of Everything (EH’s review), The Future Of Fusion, The Illusion Of Grand Strategy, The Internationalists, The Outlier, The Righteous Mind (BW’s review), The Society Of The Spectacle, and Viral.
Mostly Skeptical Thoughts On The Chatbot Propaganda Apocalypse
February 02, 2023 · Original source
In 2030, an AI won’t be able to write blog posts as good as a 75th percentile ACX post, by my judgment. The AI will fail this task if there’s any kind of post I write that it can’t imitate - for example analyzing scientific data, or writing fiction, or reviewing books. It will fail this task it it writes fluently but says false things (at a rate higher than I do), eg if it makes up references. It doesn’t have to be able to coordinate complex multistep projects like the Book Review Contest: 45%
Open Thread 268
March 20, 2023 · Original source
1: Remember, your due date for this year’s Book Review Contest is April 5. You can read more, including how to enter, here.
Inline links: here
23
May 23, 2023 · Original source
And if you’re following the Book Review contest, here’s a Manifold market on who will win. I notice that Cities got a big boost just after I posted it; I wonder if that will happen consistently or if the number of likes and comments outperformed expectations.
Open Thread 292
September 04, 2023 · Original source
4: I know I need to start thinking about closing up the Impact Certificate Mini-Grants and the Book Review Contest; expect more on this in the next few weeks and thanks for your patience.
Open Thread 316
February 19, 2024 · Original source
4: Some people have asked if I’m doing a book review contest this year. Let’s say yes, same rules as last year, but the due date is pushed back to May 5th. I’ll post more about this later and might make minor rule changes.
Inline links: same rules as last year
Open Thread 327
April 28, 2024 · Original source
2: Reminder that the due date for this year’s Book Review Contest is May 5, ie next Sunday. You can find where to submit at the link.
Inline links: this year’s Book Review Contest
Open Thread 350
October 07, 2024 · Original source
1: I sent Book Review Contest finalists and Honorable Mentionees an email requesting a short biography to use in the announcement post. But because I foolishly included the word “congratulations”, many people said it got caught in their spam filter. If you’re a finalist and didn’t get the email, either retrieve it from your spam filter, or just send me (scott@slatestarcodex.com) a short bio of yourself like the ones here, including however you want me to publicly list your name (pseudonym? etc). I’ll announce winners Friday.
Inline links: here
Open Thread 352
October 21, 2024 · Original source
1: I think I’ve given out all Book Review Contest prizes, including free subscriptions. If you think you should have gotten a prize, but didn’t, please email me.