vital functions
Mar. 8th, 2020 10:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberettReading. This Is How You Lose The Time War, Amal el-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. I can't tell if I loved this or was indifferent to it? I definitely want to reread it? I care a lot about the individuals but I also want to (1) know more about the mechanics involved and (2) am not entirely convinced that, on first reading, their emotional trajectory makes sense?
Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman. I am slightly charmed by the dude's discovery (related in the introduction) that an intellectual approach of "huh, why do you say that?" or "I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at - can you go into more detail?" yields much more constructive results and collaboration than "you're wrong and misguided until you convince me otherwise".
Beyond that, though (by which I mean: a few pages more into the book), so far I've mostly been taken aback at the statistical assumptions the authors assume I'll make (is [a person] more likely to be a farmer or a librarian? is K more likely to appear as the first or the third letter of a word? -- that second one being particularly jarring because their studies, albeit sample size undisclosed, found that people go for "the first" because of the "availability heuristic", which they specifically illustrate with a straw Scrabble player, where surely any half-interested Scrabble player knows perfectly well that the section of the dictionary beginning with K is notably slender...?); I'm wondering if I'm too autistic for this. (It's not that I'm Too A Scientist: a bunch of their initial studies drew from colleagues in the university.)
-- but okay, now I'm getting into "this is the context in which we published our first big paper on the topic" (social scientists assuming humans generally acted rationally, with exceptions arising from strong emotions). And apparently inclusion of those examples was crucial (though it took them a while to realise this) to the cross-discipline appeal: philosophers etc who had seen themselves fuck this one up were more open to the conclusions of the paper. (This itself being a cognitive bias...?) -- which is where the liveblog ends for this week, because I got seriously stuck into some Duolingo and also got stuck on wanting to make a note about the thing about intuition ("Doggie!" as analogous to master chess players) but keep not getting to it.
The Will To Change came back from the library (in the process, I discovered that I can borrow ebooks for up to 21 days...) so I've picked that back up, slowly. Mostly I think I wantme_and to read this & tell me what he thinks.
Listening. TMA (surprise!). In particular, I am charmed that we have just -- episode 66 -- hit Jon realising that he's fucked up a perfectly good filing system.
Cooking. Onion soup! Lots of salad! Pear and apple crumble!
Eating. Fancy local-to-the-bit-of-the-Alps-we-were-in honey! Raclette! Fondue!
Exploring. Lanslevillard, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes; lots of sitting looking out the window at the mountains, some pottering, and one cable-car trip up to 2000m.
Growing. To my relief and also my very great surprise, not only had none of the seedlings died during the week away (I'd carefully hardened them off some in anticipation but wasn't sure I'd done a sufficiently good job of it) but they've mostly produced new leaves, too, which good for them.
The walnut, which I brought inside when the weather got decidedly cold a couple of weeks ago, is sprouting some new leaves for spring, and the fig's leaves are similarly feathering out of its buds where the bubble wrap's come off. The lemon still has its three leaves, bless it.
At the plot, I discovered that in fact all four of the broad beans I planted out have survived; the Ribes are starting to put out leaves; the garlic's doing enthusiastically and the shallots are struggling on. There is lots to do and I'm feeling enthusiastic about it, and also resentful about how much I'm sleeping and how little time I'm managing to spend there, but what else is new.
Observing. Lanslevillard: a raucous confection of blue tits and, I think, bullfinches, making their way back and forth between a bush of rosehips and a conifer full of pinecones.
Also: ICICLES.
Also: some charming metamorphic rocks, which are not normally my sort of thing but were in fact very fetching in the snow.
Playing. Pokémon has continued providing me with impetus to Go Out and Explore Places.
Two hours after I got off the Eurostar on Friday night, I was in a local church hall at the penultimate rehearsal for this term's concert: second horn for Mozart Overture: La Clemenza di Tito, Sibelius Pelléas and Mélisande, Bruch Romanze Opus 89 for viola and orchestra, and Beethoven Symphony No 1. Frustratingly, despite playing well in both rehearsals I'd misjudged not the amount of lip I had but my fatigue levels -- I ended up needing to lie down briefly in the Saturday afternoon rehearsal, and was just scattered and all over the place come the evening.
But: nevertheless I was playing much better than I have been; nevertheless my accuracy is improving; nevertheless I'm feeling more confident and competent. I'd still be buzzing, I think, if I'd managed to nail a couple of the exposed bits in the actual show, but such is life and here's for trying again next term.
Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman. I am slightly charmed by the dude's discovery (related in the introduction) that an intellectual approach of "huh, why do you say that?" or "I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at - can you go into more detail?" yields much more constructive results and collaboration than "you're wrong and misguided until you convince me otherwise".
Beyond that, though (by which I mean: a few pages more into the book), so far I've mostly been taken aback at the statistical assumptions the authors assume I'll make (is [a person] more likely to be a farmer or a librarian? is K more likely to appear as the first or the third letter of a word? -- that second one being particularly jarring because their studies, albeit sample size undisclosed, found that people go for "the first" because of the "availability heuristic", which they specifically illustrate with a straw Scrabble player, where surely any half-interested Scrabble player knows perfectly well that the section of the dictionary beginning with K is notably slender...?); I'm wondering if I'm too autistic for this. (It's not that I'm Too A Scientist: a bunch of their initial studies drew from colleagues in the university.)
-- but okay, now I'm getting into "this is the context in which we published our first big paper on the topic" (social scientists assuming humans generally acted rationally, with exceptions arising from strong emotions). And apparently inclusion of those examples was crucial (though it took them a while to realise this) to the cross-discipline appeal: philosophers etc who had seen themselves fuck this one up were more open to the conclusions of the paper. (This itself being a cognitive bias...?) -- which is where the liveblog ends for this week, because I got seriously stuck into some Duolingo and also got stuck on wanting to make a note about the thing about intuition ("Doggie!" as analogous to master chess players) but keep not getting to it.
The Will To Change came back from the library (in the process, I discovered that I can borrow ebooks for up to 21 days...) so I've picked that back up, slowly. Mostly I think I want
me_and to read this & tell me what he thinks.Listening. TMA (surprise!). In particular, I am charmed that we have just -- episode 66 -- hit Jon realising that he's fucked up a perfectly good filing system.
Cooking. Onion soup! Lots of salad! Pear and apple crumble!
Eating. Fancy local-to-the-bit-of-the-Alps-we-were-in honey! Raclette! Fondue!
Exploring. Lanslevillard, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes; lots of sitting looking out the window at the mountains, some pottering, and one cable-car trip up to 2000m.
Growing. To my relief and also my very great surprise, not only had none of the seedlings died during the week away (I'd carefully hardened them off some in anticipation but wasn't sure I'd done a sufficiently good job of it) but they've mostly produced new leaves, too, which good for them.
The walnut, which I brought inside when the weather got decidedly cold a couple of weeks ago, is sprouting some new leaves for spring, and the fig's leaves are similarly feathering out of its buds where the bubble wrap's come off. The lemon still has its three leaves, bless it.
At the plot, I discovered that in fact all four of the broad beans I planted out have survived; the Ribes are starting to put out leaves; the garlic's doing enthusiastically and the shallots are struggling on. There is lots to do and I'm feeling enthusiastic about it, and also resentful about how much I'm sleeping and how little time I'm managing to spend there, but what else is new.
Observing. Lanslevillard: a raucous confection of blue tits and, I think, bullfinches, making their way back and forth between a bush of rosehips and a conifer full of pinecones.
Also: ICICLES.
Also: some charming metamorphic rocks, which are not normally my sort of thing but were in fact very fetching in the snow.
Playing. Pokémon has continued providing me with impetus to Go Out and Explore Places.
Two hours after I got off the Eurostar on Friday night, I was in a local church hall at the penultimate rehearsal for this term's concert: second horn for Mozart Overture: La Clemenza di Tito, Sibelius Pelléas and Mélisande, Bruch Romanze Opus 89 for viola and orchestra, and Beethoven Symphony No 1. Frustratingly, despite playing well in both rehearsals I'd misjudged not the amount of lip I had but my fatigue levels -- I ended up needing to lie down briefly in the Saturday afternoon rehearsal, and was just scattered and all over the place come the evening.
But: nevertheless I was playing much better than I have been; nevertheless my accuracy is improving; nevertheless I'm feeling more confident and competent. I'd still be buzzing, I think, if I'd managed to nail a couple of the exposed bits in the actual show, but such is life and here's for trying again next term.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-03-09 09:24 am (UTC)ALAS NO two died and I squashed one (though its stem hasn't died yet???). Fingers crossed for some of the other seeds coming up - apparently it takes up to twelve months to germinate...
(no subject)
Date: 2020-03-10 03:55 am (UTC)(I am... trying to decide if it is worth trying to sprout some of the seeds from this fruit that followed me home from the grocery store...)