Author: patruff

I made an app

Nerd alert : r/HighQualityGifs

 

2 actually, 3 if you double count Android. Basically I made a soundboard app with a ton of MP3 files from movies/games that my brothers/family know/cherish. I made it for Joe for his bachelor party before I realized he didn’t have Android. Then I remade the app with React Native so it would be cross-platform (iOS and Android). I think in the future it would be cool to automate the processing/clipping of the audio and upload them to the cloud where they can be used in the app. I think a lot of people have quotes they use but don’t have them always handy, that’s what the app does. Not amazing but still cool to learn the process (summary: Android is better, iOS development forces you to use a newer Mac and also you need to pay $100 to be a “developer” whereas Android just charges $25 to publish to their app store).

 

https://github.com/patruff/androidSoundboard

and

https://github.com/patruff/reactNativeSoundboard

Half Full

Quarter moon or a half moon? | Moon Phases | EarthSky

As I was walking to the car just now I noticed the moon. It’s half full. I saw it and thought about how I view a half full glass as half full. A-glass-half-full kind of guy, that’s me. I’ve always been open, extraverted, dopaminergic (i.e. what’s next? let’s goooooo), but just thinking about it calling a glass half full just makes sense. You never say something is 3/4 empty, or rather, it doesn’t make sense to focus on what isn’t there. On a deeper level, humans have foresight and can foresee things that MIGHT happen, but most (almost all) of those things won’t happen. It’s better to recognize that, not worry, and be more animalistic in terms of simple stimulus/response. Like, if you want something, work for it, sure, but recognize that not getting what you think you want is actually the most likely outcome. Maybe you get more (optimism)!

 

To take the inverse, when we look backward, we’re often more upset over things that might have been. Again, this is stupid, there are an infinite number of things that could have happened, rarely do people look back and see the “empty” aspect of things (in this inverse, the empty would be the horrible things that you don’t regret, but don’t even know that you dodged). Your kids stress you? Were they born with Down syndrome? Were they born blind? It’s possible they were, but do you stop and think about how lucky you are (not unlucky that you missed the positive 1% chance)?

 

Stoics, Epicureans, Taoists, many others all preach on the “natural” way, and maybe to simplify things, think of “natural” as average. It’s usually looked down upon, but being a part of it isn’t bad, it’s normal. You get what I MEAN.

Vegeta Day

It's Over 9000! | Know Your Meme

So just a quick math problem:

Current price of the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index: 3789

Historical Average % Annual Increase: 11.88%

 

After plugging those 2 into a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) calculator, we see that in year 7 we have 8508 and that in year 8 it’s 9519 so basically, at some point just before the turn of the decade we’ll hit Vegeta Day…

The day that the S&P 500 tops $9000 a share. It’s all based on earnings going up though, so who knows with populations in decline and the world slowing down (theoretically). I guess the counter to that would be maybe profits still increase because things get more efficient but I don’t know about that.

 

Let’s see. One interesting thing before signing off was to cite Warren Buffet’s S&P 500 bet against a hedge fun. Basically the index beat the hedge fund.

 

“His victory didn’t always seem so certain. Not long after the wager started on January 1, 2008, the market tanked, and the hedge funds were able to show off their strong suit: hedging. Buffett’s index fund lost 37.0% of its value, compared to the hedge funds’ 23.9%. Buffett then beat Protégé in every year from 2009 through 2014, but it took four years to pull ahead of the hedge funds in terms of cumulative return. (See also, Hedge Fund Fees: Exotic Expenses.)

In 2015, Buffett lagged his hedge fund rival for the first time since 2008, gaining 1.4% versus Protégé’s 1.7%. But 2016 saw Buffett gain 11.9% to Protégé’s 0.9%. Another downturn could conceivably have handed the advantage back to Protégé, but that didn’t happen. At the end of 2016, Buffett’s index fund bet had gained 7.1% per year, or $854,000 in total, compared to 2.2% per year for Protégé’s picks – just $220,000 in total.”

 

So in essence put all of your money in the S&P 500 (use a fund with a low expense fee) and profit.

Kids These Days (For Sarah)

Small Wonder – CULT FACTION

She’s a small wonder, lovely and bright with soft curls.
She’s a small wonder, a child unlike other girls.
She’s a miracle, and I grant you
She’ll enchant you at first sight.
She’s a small wonder, and she’ll make your heart take flight.

source: https://www.lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/smallwonderlyrics.html

 

This is what I’ve learned about parenting in my 2.5 years since Oliver was born. Basically, each child is different so everything below might be useless but if anything is helpful use it (I know there are books and books on this stuff, some of which I’ve even read). Babies seem dumb but they are not. They are really good at learning and mimicking things. Early on their sense of vision is bad but they can see 6 inches (the distance from boob to face). They love faces, they NEED faces (if they don’t know faces well it means they will have a hard time socializing later). Breast milk gives a few IQ points (not huge, but if you can, try to give them boob). 

 

They are heavy and will break your wrist, your shoulders, your back, etc. There’s no real workaround for this except that you need to utilize others when you can and don’t be afraid to put the baby in their bouncer as much as possible. Sometimes you HAVE to carry them, but that’s usually when they are sleepy/cranky. On that point, timing is SUPER important. At the early stages they will wake/sleep pretty frequently, no concept of night/day, so YOU need to keep track of how long they’ve been up and make sure to not disturb the schedule. In the middle of the night there are 2 scenarios:

 

Scenario A, the “dream feed”

 

You boob/bottle the baby who woke up after being put down 3 hours ago (or so), and she (it’s a she) finishes eating in 10-15 minutes or whatever. Kevin then burps her as you go back to sleep. Usually during the burping you can get a good sense of how active the baby is. Sometimes the baby will just sort of collapse into your hand and barely be active. I usually like to pat up the back (pat pat pat from bottom to top) and keep her upright for about 25-30 sets (so usually like 3 or 4 minutes of burping). Just keeping the baby upright is enough, even if sleeping they will usually get some gas out. Then pick her up, I keep her upright in my arms, sometimes they fart at this point, but if sleepy maybe not. Putting her down is crucial, I’ll do a section on that below. But if all goes well you put her down and she goes right back to sleep (and you do too!).

 

Scenario B, No Such Luck

 

If in the middle of the night baby is wide awake or becomes wide awake when you put her down (eyes open, definitely lots of movement), you probably have at least 45 minutes to kill. Take them up from the crib, bring them to a different room (so they don’t disturb Mom). For the first bit of time just lay them down and look at them, make faces, cuddle them. Don’t carry them, save that for when they get fussier. Give them toys, read to them in the bouncer, whatever to just kill time.

 

Around 30 minutes or so, the baby will be bored/tired/fussy. You’ll be able to tell, they won’t like anything except for being held and carried around. Carrying you can face them out and just walk around, or (and this is good for gas too) try carrying them over your shoulder. Over the shoulder is tough on the back though and they usually have trouble with keeping on you unless you lean back some (BE SURE TO KEEP THEIR BACK/HEAD SUPPORTED IN CASE THEY DECIDE TO THROW THEMSELF BACK). As for carrying, I suggest making circuits. For reps just when you carry them you might get tired but really it hasn’t been much time. So do something like

 

“I carried you to the end of the hall, now I’m turning around, I need to do another 10 reps of this before baby will be comfortable enough to be put down.”

 

After a good number of sets/time of being carried, the baby will show signs of sleepiness. Signs include red eyes, rubbing eyes, babbling, etc. There are a couple of options here, either give the baby another small feeding (this usually helps them pass out quickly) OR (less likely to work) you can try to put them down. Sometimes they will fall asleep while being carried. If that happens give it a couple more minutes of carrying to make sure they are good and sleepy and THEN put them down (drowsy but awake is BS).

 

Putting them down

 

Lay them GENTLY onto their back, usually a hand on the butt and a hand on the head. You can keep your hand/hands under them but I think that’s tricky. If you do it too soon they usually wake up, if you wait too long they will wake up. Best to get them on their back and then take the hand from the head away but keep the other hand under the butt and hold their feet a bit. If they feel supported still they will fall asleep and then you can take your hands away. Swaddling is good too, if they are wrapped up it makes it easier but it’s harder to get them swaddled. Even if you just sort of wrap them in a little blanket while carrying before putting them down is good, they don’t like the cold of the crib/bassinet right after being warm on you so the blanket helps.

 

Snoo tips

 

You have to connect it to 2 ghz network not 5 ghz. You should control it yourself, meaning bump it up to level 2 (pink) for 10 minutes of fussiness and then see if she stays asleep. You can usually tell if it’s working or just pissing them off. If pissed off upping the setting won’t work (but if you’re dead tired and can’t carry them I’d say better to have them fussing a bit in the snoo instead of dropping them).

 

In terms of them making sounds while down I’ve learned a lot. At first (with Oliver) we were super worried about every little sound but they tend to make a lot of sounds. It’s only when they escalate, when you can tell they are frustrated/hungry, you NEED to get them. I think it’s on you the parent to know, like, if the baby has been asleep for 2-3 hours they probably need to get up and eat/fart for a little bit and hopefully it’s a dream feed. IF on the other hand you just put her down and it’s like 10-15 minutes later. So you know she’s sleepy and probably will sleep but is moving/making sounds. IT IS OKAY to leave them. When they are pissed you need to get them, but if they are babbling or moving a bit and you know they are awake but not pissed, just let it play out. You can give it say 15 minutes or something and if the babbling/moving stops they’ve gone to sleep on their own (YAY!) if not maybe you need to pick them up.

 

A lot of it is following the cycle. Like, they get up, have lots of energy, can be put in a bouncer/whatever, but then 45 or 50 minutes later they start to show signs of getting sleepy again.

 

The general schedule is

 

Put down to sleep (around 9 PM)

First wake up (between 1 and 3 AM)

Goes back to sleep (15 minutes later after eating/burping if dream feed, otherwise 1 hour)

Second wake up (between 3 AM and 5:30 AM)

Goes back to sleep again (MUCH less likely to have a dream feed here, looking at 1 hour later)

Your day begins (between 6 AM and 8 AM)

 

Night and day are really similar, especially at first

 


Really rough timeline

 

For the first month it’s really hard because there’s just no telling night from day and their window is shorter. As they get older and older it gets easier and easier in terms of them being able to sleep for longer and longer stretches. Just recognize the beginning is SO SO HARD but it gets better! You WILL do this. Call me to complain/vent 😛

 

The good news is the first month they aren’t as fussy, they just want to cuddle, eat, poop, and sleep

 

Months 2, 3 normalish, but baby can be fussy (although neck gets stronger)

Month 4 (can roll, has the dreaded 4-month sleep regression where they sleep badly, this also happens at 8 months)

Months 6-12 very similar although they get smarter, can hold things better, start to crawl, walk, etc., “talk” (mama, dada, etc.)

 

12+ FUN TIMES (walking well, beginning to communicate better (can sort of talk, baby sign language is good), eating at the table, etc.)

 

For bottle feeding we had good success at the beginning, like anyone could feed Oliver or Ocean, but eventually they both got to a point where they wanted Mom at night (maybe Kevin can wear perfume and a mask to mimic you?) and only Jenny’s boobs could comfort them. So for the first couple of months pumping and keeping the milk to be warmed up can be good and hopefully the baby doesn’t get hooked on just boobs.

 

 

Mistakes you might make

 

  1. Baby falling asleep on boob/bottle without burping. Don’t worry about waking them up right after the feed, they go back to sleep quickly. IF you don’t keep them upright for 5-10 minutes though, do the burping described above (the one where it looks like a choke hold, Kevin can do it), if you don’t do this the baby tends to sleep poorly and when gassy they don’t even like being held so it’s REALLY hard.

 

For a tip/trick with bad gas and/or no poop when you know they need to. Put a rectal thermometer in their butt and (gently) press it down some so it opens their little butthole. A lot of times the gas will SHOOT out (often poop too, so make sure to do it on a pee pee pad and diaper) and they will feel much better.

 

2. Not switching off properly – this is basic but you both need to sleep, a good strategy is that if you wake up and feed the baby, the other person burps/handles putting them back down. You’ll both wake up when the baby wakes up, but the amount of time will be less (like if you feed for 10 minutes Kevin can get up, pee, get a drink, put some headphones in, whatever, and then take her, burp her, put her back down, MAYBE have you feed her again after an hour). If you guys need help (and if you do it will probably be in the first few weeks/months), you might want to look at a night nurse or night nanny. Is a night of sleep worth a few hundred bucks? If so try to find someone to help out. It might even be a once a week thing at least then you guys will have one night a week to “treat yoself” to some sleep. Just google night nurse or check some place like https://www.care.com/night-nannies/baltimore-md

 

Other random stuff

Words for baby. Just talk, describe whatever. They did a study on low-income v. high-income babies, low spoke 600 words an hour V. 10000 an hour. Basically language is the most important thing. The more you talk about things the better. Somewhat related but when they are older if they can describe their feelings that’s really good.
A note on communication, once she’s 4+ months and can use her hands better you can teach her the most important word in language…
MORE
For baby sign language it’s just putting your hands together with the fingers touching, it’s easy and really helpful for feeding them later

A minor update but for the waking up for an hour that’s usually a good time to change them. If they just dream feed don’t worry about the diaper since changing it will definitely wake them up (they can sit in a pee pee diaper for a bit it’s fine).

At 4 months there’s a noticeable “sleep regression” where the baby will have trouble sleeping (so instead of sleeping for 4 hours or something they’ll sleep for 2 hours, or worse, for Oliver he was waking up every 15 minutes or something crazy). There are other regressions at other times but that’s the hardest one.

This is hard, if you read this far it means you’re serious and you care about raising this kid. That alone is SUPER important. The fact that you care and that you love them is all that really matters, but it doesn’t hurt to get as much support as you possibly can. Don’t be a hero. Don’t break your back. Switch things up with others as much as you can. Cut out everything in your life that you don’t need. Like to grab a drink and chill, cut that out. Like to watch TV to calm down, cut that out. You basically need to cut all leisure activities and just use any time you have to eat and sleep.

 

See you in a year 😛

(teach her how to crouch 😛 :P)

YOU WILL GET THROUGH THIS

 

 

UPDATE:

4-month sleep regression…hits hard. Ocean went from being a good little sleeper, then to a consistent wakes-up-3-time-a-night-but-goes-right-back-down sleeper, to a consistently hard to put down sleeper. This might also be because we transitioned out of the SNOO which I think other people complain of so you might want to wait a bit longer (like, 6+ months instead of around 5 months) because I think the older they are the better they can roll so just generally safer.

 

We do the whole “attachment parenting” thing where we meet the babies needs and don’t let them cry it out. If you do go down the cry it out route I don’t know when to start that but I’ve heard later is better psychologically. So if you were to do cry-it-out you could do it maybe during the 4-month sleep regression where they are going to cry a ton anyway? I’m not sure, I would look into that though if that’s you’re plan.

 

If you are planning to be like us and just pick them up when they cry GET READY because it’s been nuts in terms of the lack of sleep (for Jenny mostly). I don’t actually have any useful tips, maybe just make sure that you don’t stay up late when they first go down (the best time). Like, if Ocean goes down around 8 PM at night she might sleep until 10 or 10:30 so you might feel tricked into thinking “Oh she’ll sleep all night.” Nope. Get done what you need to while wearing the baby during the day and then at night (or any time you can during the day). SLEEP!!!!

 

So if you can sleep good but then your other stuff will fall apart (messy house, bills to pay, etc.). I think you’ll need to multi-task as much as you can. Get a good bouncer and when the baby is content there (give them a toy or something) you can do other things. Then they’ll fuss and you’ll need to carry them. Potentially just put them in a carrier for a while (tops is an hour, but you can get a lot done during that time). If you need a mental break and the baby is willing (like, fed/changed, but still not too sleepy) get them in the stroller and go outside (bundle up!). It’s a lot of work though to bundle them up just to be outside for a while but the fresh air and going out can be really good FOR YOU and the baby likes it too. Other than that keep fighting the good fight sister!!

Low Point

I recently learned that hunter/gather societies (basically humankind for over 100,000 years until about 10,000 years ago at most) spaced out their children by 4 or 5 years, basically they wouldn’t have another child if they could help it until the previous child could walk on their own. Agriculture allowed humans to have children in a narrower range. My siblings and I are all 2 years apart and I think this is more or less “normal” in that shorter than this might be considered too close (derogatorily called “Irish twins”) and a larger gap might mean that the children aren’t as close (at least at the younger ages).

 

I bring this up because I have a 3 month-old and an almost 2.5 year-old. Oliver, the elder, is very needy of Jenny still. If Jenny isn’t the one to help him go back to sleep he will FREAK OUT. This past week was Labor Day weekend and we went down to the Jersey Shore. Oliver loved the beach, but he also was still recovering from a bad cough (his runny nose was over as of last week). However, Ocean, our little baby girl, was the last to get the sickness that started with Oliver and it was BAD. Choking on mucus, runny nose, and no idea what was going on she cried, couldn’t sleep, and had a terrible time overall. The 2.5 hour drive back turned into 6 hours with traffic and while that day was bad, last night was worse (hence the “low point”). Jenny had not been sleeping well or at all for days and last night was no different. Both children were asleep by around 9:30 or 10 PM last night, but Ocean woke up with phlegm and coughing/crying 2 hours later. Then just as we got her somewhat soothed, with 2 humidifiers, lots of shower steam, and even trying some cough syrup (almost everything we could try we did)…on the monitor we heard loud coughing and “Mama” from Oliver. I tried to go into his room and comfort him or give him water but of course he refused anything except Mama. After some failed bargaining I went back in to grab Ocean from Jenny. She was FINALLY asleep and so I went from keeping her upright/bouncing to being held in a more comfortable position for me (in the steam room of our bedroom bathroom). Then around 3 AM after lots of holding Ocean woke up again and was crying and wanted Mom, so I went into Oliver’s room to get her. Then I farted. And it was REALLY stinky. So Jenny had to get up, then deal with Ocean again, all while I tried to keep Oliver busy. It didn’t last long and Oliver on his own happened to get up around 4 AM to play. I followed him while Ocean was still coughing and Jenny was helping her. Oliver was at first energetic, but then got emotional and wanted to go outside (at 4:15 AM). Instead I was able to convince him to watch some Daniel Tiger (his favorite show). After 30 minutes of that (where I fell asleep during some of it), Oliver again wanted to go outside. He got emotional and then wanted Mama. I tried to tell him Mama was busy but then he went in anyway. Ocean was coughing and so I took her again and then Jenny again went with Oliver to his room. He woke up again at 6 AM, just as Ocean was waking up again (so Jenny/I swapped, her taking Ocean again and me taking Oliver). This time Oliver AGAIN wanted to see Jenny so I had to forcibly carry him away from our bedroom door and he was pissed. I eventually resorted to feeding him ice cream to calm him down, then we went about our day normally (oh, I had work after that too). What a crazy time. Things can only get easier from here.

Giving Up

When you are so exhausted and/or sick that your body doesn’t listen. When you seemingly can’t do anything or have lost all “will” to do anything. When you can’t progress in any meaningful way in any area. Give up. I think I would consider myself a dopaminergic person, I set goals and those goals become more important to me than almost anything. I don’t often STOP and just look around or be thankful for everything I have. I definitely do, but definitely not as much as I should (I don’t, for example, take stock every day and thinking about it). I should. I think a lot of meditation and its benefits spring from doing (seemingly) very little and just existing and being okay with “just existing.” I see it in Oliver a lot too, he REALLY wants something and will stop at nothing. I get that he’s a kid and he doesn’t have emotional control yet, but I’m willing to bet that he’ll be (eventually) one of those people that gets SUPER into something, you know, goes really really deep and spends a lot of time on it. In computer science terms I’d say a dopaminergic person is someone that heavily “depth-first” in terms of a search strategy. Instead of looking around, testing out a ton of different things, going really broad and general, a dopaminergic person looks somewhere FAR into the future, sets a lofty goal, and then just bangs their head against the wall (metaphorically speaking), pushing and striving until they succeed or until their head hurts too much.

That’s the subject of this post. I think the “depth-first” strategy is FINE but the problem often becomes time itself. Say you like Physics. Maybe you want to be a PhD in astronomical physics (the reason for this, let’s just take as a given), or you want to study Physics your whole life. You can do this! The problem is you need to give up A LOT to get there. You might not realize you have to give up a lot, you might not realize at the time you set the goal T(0) that you might actually want those things at a later time and you might not even recognize that the you of T(0) when the goal was set is not the you for all time. At a certain point motivations and goals (and limitations) change, you might not be able to proceed. It’s a question of meaning/value (similar to other posts I’ve made) and the trick isn’t to just not set any lofty goals, but to

OOPS, have to give up (baby is awake), value judgement shifted (writing this post WAS important, but now Baby >>>>>> Dada’s thoughts)

Unreasonable Post

I have no reason to write. I had no preconception of what I “wanted” to write about. I’m basically forcing myself to write this. Why? It’s like a message in a bottle (good song by the Police), I’m just writing because…nothing? Writing is good? Writing in and of itself is a good thing. Writing is the equivalent of conscious thought and thought, even meandering or nonsensical, is good? I added the question marks because I’m not certain that just any writing is “good writing.” I actually think that most of life is sifting through the massive amounts of TRASH thought in order to find (if lucky) the good thinking or the “correct” thinking. What is good or correct? At the very least it could be logical thinking (1 + 1 = 2), if someone tries to say something like “1 + 1 is actually equal to 3″ then you know right then and there that it is wrong/trash/not worth your time. So applying logic is one great way to sift through the trash.

 

Another good way to find something worthy or correct or whatever would be to apply previous experience (empirical evidence). So if I start to watch a bad show or movie and it seems very similar to other bad shows or movies (again, objective logic is a good foundation), I can tell via induction that this will, most likely, be a bad show or movie. So while this is not hard evidence (like a clear violation of something) it can be a nuanced way of sifting through trash.

 

The first way (logic) is safe, but the 2nd way (a developed sense over time) is at least something that can be improved upon. Often, I read things or see things and QUICKLY lose interest, because I think my 2nd sense of feeling that this will be a waste of time is very strong. Maybe logically the person or book or game or whatever didn’t do anything wrong, but I can feel (subconsciously) that there’s something wrong.

 

I think this sort of gets at a larger topic which is your brain, biases, relying on feeling/emotion/”gut” instinct V. constructive thought, logic, etc. You obviously need both but I think that objective reality is “better” in so far as it is slower but higher in accuracy. Most of the time the tradeoff is such that you’re better off just reacting via instinct, but that’s sort of a trap. In situations you aren’t familiar with there is no built-up library or put another way the training data for your mental model is sparse and you are much more likely to react poorly. The counter to this thought is that it’s very hard to live objectively, even if you know you are biased/emtional/etc. you can only really mitigate this effect (but not eliminate it).

 

The best of both worlds (objective reality meets lived experience) works within the confines of leveraging instinct but having it balanced out by objective reality. I think of gamblers that are VERY good at calculating odds instinctively/based on years of experience, but even these gamblers will know that their ability to function is impaired when they drink too much or they are angry or any number of factors. Maybe the gambler makes a rule like “I will only drink 1 drink every 2 hours” or “after losing a big hand I walk away from the table” or any number of rules aimed to mitigate the effects of feeling. The other piece is that you should look at things objectively OVER TIME. So for example, you may FEEL that you aren’t losing weight or whatever your goal is, but if you measure it you might see a different story. Maybe you THINK/FEEL that your life is terrible, but actually analyze it based on the possible outcomes of what COULD HAVE been your life. Taking stock of things is very important and should be done every few months if not more frequently.

 

The final piece of advice would be to live as the Stoics do. No matter what has transpired before, just imagine your previous self as “some other person” and then imagine that this person is dead (like, they just died). Now think about who you WANT to be, in this moment. Then live that. It’s so much harder to do than to say, but the concept is sound. If you can de-identify with who you were and begin to identify with who-you-wish-to-be, then you’ll be able to start acting it out.

Who cares?

One thing that’s been in the back of my mind for a while now is “Who cares?” or “Who gives a flip?” when it comes to MANY things in life. You’re not supposed to care what others think but in almost any endeavor it DOES matter what others think (will you get funding? will you be judged favorably? how many likes will you get?). Essentially “the group” is always incredibly important, whether that’s the people in your neighborhood or your peers or colleagues or customers. You’re always dancing to the others’ tune OR, and this is a big OR (and it’s exclusive), it might be considered MEANINGLESS. You can define your own meaning (look up logotherapy) and honestly a lot of what you do will be local and won’t matter to anyone (like this website). But if what you are doing matters to YOU, that is the most important thing. Nobody can tell YOU what YOU should value or hold meaningful (actually, people can and will do this, but ultimately it’s up to you). I want to expand upon this and I think I will later but for now I think it’s important to know that almost everything you do won’t matter to the VAST MAJORITY of people. However, it will matter, to some. Locally you could be HUGE. Locally or within your small circle you might be the best X, which is nice.

You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

I usually dislike truisms like this (hey reflexive property, x=x, wow, who knew), but in this case I think it’s interesting to look at the concept of insufficient information when problem solving (you know, what all of us do all our lives). You can never have “enough” information, and your mind is subjective, so what might be “good” or “enough” for you might be bad or insufficient for someone else.

 

Today I saw a pen on the floor. It was a pen that my son had opened and put the cap in his mouth (a choking hazard). The day before I had taken the cap and pen and put them out of reach of him. To see the pen on the floor amongst his toys made me upset and I immediately asked “Did you put the pen back?” or “Why did you put the pen back?” (in a snarly/angry tone) to my wife. In my mind, there were only 2 people that could have put the pen back, myself or my wife and I knew I didn’t put the pen back so I assumed she did. This was wrong. There was ANOTHER possibility, there was more information. In fact this was a pen identical to the pen from yesterday, there were 2 pens! It’s logical that however the first pen got among his toys this one did too. I hadn’t concerned that, based on my (limited) information, I had made the logical assessment.

 

This problem is a HUGE problem when scaled. WW1 is a great example. All of the major powers could claim they were acting “defensively” and that “if there was going to be a war, now was a logical time to do it” (well, maybe not Russia). My point is that acting logically, which is I agree the most sensible approach to life, doesn’t always give the best results, and ESPECIALLY not when information is limited. We all need to make decisions, and make them relatively quickly, but for BIG things (like long-term, life-changing decisions) it’s wise to gather A LOT of information to aid the decision.

 

Logic though is sort of a trap. It’s like, if humans were completely logical they would be very easy to predict/manipulate (more so then they already are). I think that’s part of the message of Dune. Machines, in their cold logic, destroy humanity since humans are static/predictable to a fault (their own destruction). The good thing about humans is that we have illogical local phenomenon that are based on logical long-term outcomes (i.e. natural selection). I might think something is a bad idea, like, I don’t want to have sex with anyone, it’s a hassle and it can be frustrating, etc. but biologically my body is saying “no, no, you WANT to do this and there will be chemical rewards if you do.” I will stop for now, but leave you (the reader) with the concept of incomplete information. What about your life could you add some more information to in order to produce more favorable results? What should you read up on? What ARE your big decisions?

15 Minutes And Your Post Is FREE

I only have 15 minutes before my daily stand-up. I challenge myself to write a post in that time.

This post will be about how understanding is more important than knowledge or almost anything else. As my Windows PC boots up I’m just emailing myself (to save time).

My thoughts are this, you can memorize things, you can “KNOW” something like (Einstein was a Jew), but I think understanding is more valuable and is also more contextual. Einstein was a Jew, true, but I understand that he didn’t believe in God per se, he believed in a “mover” or a “divinity” that followed an established set of rules. He believed in the God of Spinoza, a sort of “God is in everything” type of belief, not a “God is my personal savior and he told me not to have sex with other men.” So I think it’s really UNDERSTANDING that needs to be put forth. How can you show you understand? Well, I think it comes down to results. Like, if you UNDERSTAND how building muscle works and you want to prove it, then show it by building muscle. If you want to show that you understand operating systems, build one that can perform the various functions of an operating system. That’s a bit tricky though, in that you can create without understanding (children for example). Understanding another human being is fairly difficult but a worthy pursuit. One thing that really helps with understanding is TIME and THOUGHT and ACTION. If you think about something, then try something out, you can then look at the results. You might not understand, but at least you can say “I applied stimulus X for response Y” which is a whole lot better than ASSUMING X (without results).

In short, SCIENCE!

-Pat