The marathon continues. Today was, despite neck problems continuing a bit, a fairly good day.
So yes, generally a good day. I'm also pretty tired.
Things are coming near the end here. This is probably a good thing, as I'm getting pretty tired and a bit socially exhausted and I really miss my cats. Looking forward to heading back home (and getting back to work). I think next year I'm going to need to do better with snacks, bringing granola bars on the trip down and back. I don't have a lot of access to food at odd hours here, and that's a little uncomfortable (and occasionally expensive).
Events:
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Anyhow, before I left on this trip I was down to having about 30 tabs open on my phone. I'm back up to 80-ish, with things to read about, media to check out, and things I might write about. Unsure if that's good or bad, but it's a lot of stuff. Probably good to have that prepared for the trip home. My phone has not been amazing on battery for this trip; I should have brought a battery.
Tomorrow's sessions wrap up around 17:00. That leaves plenty of time for me to make it to the train station by 20:00.
I'm back from DragonCon now, and did a normal workday, but let's wrap up coverage.
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It's always sad when these things are over, but people are also pretty tired near the end. It was good to get on the train and start the trip back, and great to see my cats again when I got home. A few more general thoughts:
Thought of a better way to explain the issues I see with when people design software for only the most common use-cases, leaving out APIs, preferences, and all the rest - I dislike such things because they put people in the habit of reduced intent. When I use software I want the ability to write policy for whatever the software does - to write rules that are automatically applied. The one-size-fits-all software gets me out of that mode of thinking and pushes me to only have the simplest kinds of intent towards my data. In doing so it simplifies me, reducing me as a thinkier. Consider a music app that lets me rate my music. I should be able to tell it when I'm in the mood to just enjoy music I already like, and when instead I'm in the mood to listen to new stuff that's not classified yet so I can decide what to keep and what to discard. I can easily do this if I write my own software (and in fact did, with my pre-Google-Play music setup. Unfortunately, Google Play Music is awful at managing music it doesn't provide, periodically deciding something you gave it is corrupt and refusing to ever play it again. So I stopped using it, but the app is designed for that kind of "only want simple things" person. We should want more from our software.
Been thinking about how music in films can act as a substitite narrator comment that you might see in a book that's been adapted to film - for some reason we've become disused to narrators, and we can at least get a bit of what they did back. Although perhaps we should get used to them again, and films should see their return.
Been wondering, for long term life partners, whether it makes sense to commit to sharing the same world-of-terms as well as judgements on matters where only one person sees the relevant info. I've been thinking about fairness that transcends family again, namely the idea that our commitment to be fair and our commitment to justice should take precedence over relationships in our life. And I still believe it should - if I knew that someone close to me had committed a serious crime, I would not pretend it had not happened, and I likely would turn them in. But what if I did not know that and they claimed it did not happen. Would I remain neutral? Previously I think I would need to. Now I'm realising that where there is uncertainty, it may be acceptable to commit to, when lacking information, always accepting the claims of a life partner. I would want it clear to the world beforehand that I have made this commitment (as a matter of integrity), and be sure that it's limited to when I lack information and when the claims are at least plausible. And that it really should just be limited to a life partner (readers will remember that I assume monogamy and don't think we should treat polygamous relationships as life partnerships or marriage for any of the people involved in them), because if we extend this to family, solidarity turns us into some Confucian monstrosity rather than a potentially just society.
This Thursday was an interesting day.
Looking forward to the upcoming trip to Janelia.
There are some big ideas I've been playing with, including things I'd love to someday take some time off and write a book about. One thing is to talk about living philosophy and the practice of diluting pure ideas, as well as what it means to accept a philosophical idea.
Sitting in a coffeeshop near Union Square, and was thinking about having just kept an eye on my laptop while in line to get the drink. Was realising that I would, with no hesitation, go after anyone trying to take it even if there were a good risk of damaging the laptop, but also was thinking about some people I once knew who, things having been stolen from them, they were angry at the event but hoped the resources would see a new good use. By contrast, I would rather property be destroyed than taken, and would prefer to do significant damange to the person as well. The underlying metric for proportion being that the value of the item and the likelihood of getting away from it should be balanced by a proportionally stronger response to the threat if I manage to get them, in order to make it not just not worth it, but *really* not worth it to try to take things that way. An eye for an eye is not quite good enough if a person has a good chance to get away, having taken the eye and suffered no loss of their own. This would not justify unlimited retribution though. Just exaggerated.
The endless summer suddenly ended last week; thoughts still consumed with thoughts of octobers past.
A few thoughts on things:
I'm doing my usual wind-down of my work mode before travel, taking some extra time off this week as I'm travelling for work to do three days of neuroscience collaboration at Janelia. Looking forward to that, but travel is exhausting and there are chores to do in prep for it. The timing for this travel means I won't be around for Halloween, and that's a bit of a bummer; some coworkers dress up (maybe I would've too had I been around) and that's fun to see. The travel also means I'm missing some IQ2US debates and some other stuff, although later tonight I'm going to a Sum 41 concert and that sounds fun. Tomorrow's a travel day.
Been feeling a little more social recently; I almost had a date sometime this week - saw someone on OkC who I was actually attracted to and started talking. We were making arrangements for the where when she shutdown her account. No messages or anything. In theory I should be annoyed, but I get that people usually do that when they've met somebody promising and want to shut out the other potentials. And I'm also just generally kinda scared of meeting someone too. I don't like being alone, but I'm very used to it and there's a lot of hassle and management of hopes and so on in trying to figure out if someone's good for me in my life. We can't skip all that with someone new, but I dread it at the same time I want its result - a stable, happy relationship with someone.
I've found a few good NYC social orgs that might have events through which I might meet somebody, or just have a good time. When I get back I'll get started with those.
Earlier this month I went to a Rights-and-Religions forum organised by groups that help people who are transitioning out of insular religious communities - in this case there were three orgs, one for ex-Muslims, one for ex-Amish, and one for ex-Haredim. I was mostly aware of this because Sarah Haider runs the ex-Muslim group and she's one of the interesting people I've followed on Twitter for a long time. The forum went well, and they're tackling some difficult social problems. This was my first time seeing some of the people there in person.
Thoughts:
Broadly, I am comfortable with some paternalism in our laws and institution, when it serves a valuable societal end. Recently I spotted a Twitter quiz asking people to think about age minimums for various things. And so, some thoughts.
Earlier today I went to see Bettlejuice - the play. I found myself initially weirded out at the large plot and characterisation differences from the film, but once it was clearly far enough from that that I had to let go, I was fine - it was as if they took the original film, put it in the blender with a sprinkle of the cartoon series and few other ingredients, and made a very new echo. And it was a lot of fun on those terms. And in some ways they had more fidelity to the original plotline than my memory did - I had forgotten that Lydia was a stepdaughter rather than daughter of Delia, for example, and the married-for-immigration-status thing was an echo of a joke in the original. There are a few topics in the play that are .. difficult for me, in that they touch on some emotional trends that I normally like to keep mostly-buried, but overall I had a great time and I loved the set design.
Was hoping to get tickets for Hadestown, which was advertised in the playbook, but it seems to be quite hard to find affordable tickets. Not that I couldn't afford it, but I have a notion of reasonability for tickets and I'm not willing to go above that or to accept less good seets to stay below.
This past week I went for tea with some coworkers. Had a good time - some of the best desserts I had ever had. We're going again at the beginning of December, at least partly to give our fourth member, who wasn't able to make it this time, a chance to see it.
Glad that the shot Tortfeasor got seemed to cure his nose-cold, for now. Hoping that the thyroid meds Beefalo is now getting as an ear cream are working well for her.
Playing along with the artifice of the boundaries of the clock, and at peace with it right now because of the idea of constraints being helpful for creativity. Physical analogy: bridges over gaps.
Yesterday, on Christmas, I decided to have Chinese food, and it led me to a very nearby restaurant (less than a block away) that had very good food. Perhaps that's another example. I liked the experience of seeing NYC with slightly fewer people - still more than a normal Pittsburgh day by a wide margin, but comparatively desolate for here. Novelty is something I worry about getting enough of, particularly as I am alone and need to take care to feed myself enough of it to avoid ossification.
Been slowly growing close to some more coworkers, although some of them look like they're preparing to lift anchor and the pain of that loss is already something I anticipate and resent.
My body has been reminding me that although I now understand my headaches and can mitigate them somewhat, they're not gone. Still helpful.
I'm starting to put together the set of ideas that will turn into my DragonCon 2020 costume idea; I am pretty sure I'll be going as Tychoides (from Mage:Ascension). The problem here may be that it's a bit underconstrained, as the character was never very well described in the official source material, and interactions and persona are entirely lacking. But that's fun too. Brainstorming into a Google Doc. I also should be starting to plan the trip to Buenos Aires next year; I had hoped to get a feel when the neuroscience conference at Janelia will be so I can steer clear of that, but I can't wait on that forever.
Having a bit of fun with the New Year in that I selected a new set of sounds for my phone. Been nostalgic for "The Critic", and its nice smooth intro seems like it would be good to wake up to. As one example.
Some inputs and thoughts: