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Thinking about the natural tendency to procrastinate, and how different theories of mind explain it.

IFS (Internal Family Systems) probably does a neat job of it: you have some kind of inner child that doesn't want its ego hurt and so a guardian is set up to avoiding getting to the brass tacks of it all.

Like a lot of things, it's all about our emotional attachment to the world being a certain way. We don't want to put off finding out if the world of outcomes is in fact not what we would like it to be. Like, sometimes it's just easier to live in this fuzzy realm of "maybe things are good" than to try hard and see our limitations pointed out in start relief.

I still like that Churchill saying "One ought never to turn one's back on threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching you will reduce the danger by half." It's never truer than when the danger is to our precious egos, since only a small subset of problems get easier by ignoring them...

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I did not LET myself go. I just WENT.

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A friend had some thoughts on chemistry (as better than alchemy, like because it's real and works and still does remarkable things) and I came up with:

"I think that "magic"-y bit of chemistry is important - like at every level, you just get emergent phenomenon that requires a new language to discuss. Like, you go from particle physics to chemistry to neurochemistry to psychology to even larger abstractions, and each level has its own rules. So, like, in theory you sorta could discuss macroeconomics in terms of particle physics but you probably shouldn't.
I think the relative unpredictability and incomputability from the lower levels to the higher is important. Like in a universe governed either by a domino like chain of cause and effect stretching from the big bang (or possibly flavored with quantum die rolls) it seems like in theory free will couldn't exist, but in practice the incomputability means that living our life is the only way to accurately run the computation 😃"

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A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquillity. I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule. If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind. If this rule were always observed; if no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquillity of his domestic affections, Greece had not been enslaved, Caesar would have spared his country, America would have been discovered more gradually, and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed.

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Netflix seems to be using more of a "clickbait" model. The article mentions one possible different path: analytics wise they ARE more closely tracking user engagement for like, entire series and 80% of full show, vs their previous "at least 2 minutes of watching".

I'll mention another factor that might ameliorate their clickbait trend: on most of their apps, their skim feature is really good. Empirically it looks as if they load a single giant image of thumbnails early-on, and once that is loaded you can skim the whole move -- effectively watching the whole thing on 10 or 20x fast forward, so if you ARE looking for something in particular: steamy scenes, battle scenes, whatever - you can ascertain that pretty quickly.

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Pfizer Vaccine Is First to Get Full FDA Approval, Has a New Name: 'Comirnaty'

Comirnaty? Some of Melissa's friends (Kristin and Dave) live in central MA and have access to a private neighborhood pond and minibeach... it's a nice thing to have! We met up with Anna and Kellie.

I'm as happy as a clam. You know, that animal that's well known for displaying emotion.

--My super niece, Meme by Meghann

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Folks in Sydney in the early 60s, asked about life on other planets:



(via James Harvey) My horn "Scheiny" and a little friend, Matt M's pocket trumpet:

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"What does he want from me?"

"He wants you alive."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"That's all anyone can tell me. 'I don't know'. So what's the point in serving a god if none of us knows what he wants?"

"I don't think it's our purpose to understand. Except one thing: we're soldiers. We have to know what we're fighting for. I'm not fighting so some man or woman I barely know can sit on a throne made of swords."

"So what are you fighting for?"

"Life. Death is the enemy. The first enemy and the last."

"But we all die."

"The enemy always wins. And we still need to fight him."

"That's all I know. You and I won't find much joy while we're here. But we can keep others alive. We can defend those who can't defend themselves."

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Did I really just order a $20 sewing machine? (And are they any good for light tasks?) Dieting and Weight Talk Are Bad for All Adolescents, Says American Academy of Pediatrics Ugh. My usual approach in talking with young people is, you know, just talking with them, kind of as a adults, and trying to take their point of view, and admitting what sucks but then discussing what you can do about it. Sounds like that kind of straightforward talk might be counter-productive about weight, which is an issue near to my heart because I have worked out strategies that more or less work for me but it's still a grind. Gotta be careful with not advising kids I play an avuncular role with, probably especially the females.

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More from Supper Mario Broth: I've always liked when the games play with the logos and iconography of their characters...

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Clouds are a glimpse into the mighty power of fluid dynamics, complicated equations made real and actual and gorgeous, painted across the sky.

(If you get bored of it, skip to 2:30 for a nice closer) A day with a bit of hiking and biking in Gustavus before heading back to Juneau

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Disheartening things about directing movers alone for big stuff, then spending day on dregs: 1. aloneness 2. too much big stuff 3. too many dregs. I'm so far removed from a minimal kind of way I( think I)'d prefer to be.
--A tantrum supercut, via bb. Cathartic! Lots of swears though.

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What I say is that, if a man really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow.

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I've said it before and I'll say it again... Alka-Selzter + Emergen-C is awesome.

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http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2012/08/23/waste-creativity-and-godwins-corollary-for-technology/ good waste vs bad waste, "civilizations are defined by the resources they can waste", the singularity vs the collapse
--via very demotivational. Yeesh, is that true? The guy part is true. How often is the gal?

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If my mental model about how dreams work, that it relies on the brain's ability to let higher levels of the brain's visual processing system labeling and categorizing the (in this case more random) data, it implies an artist might have fewer "realistic" dreams, because they're trained to really see what's in front of them, not just take the brain's "word for it".

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Most people are not rational, they are TRIBAL: 'my gang yay, your gang boo!' It really is that simple. The rest is cosmetics.

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Unfortunately, rational folks are just another kind of gang. (And paradoxically have MORE problem recognizing that than the other gangs do.)

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Reading "Ready Player One". Its worship of 80s pop culture is actually kind of embarrassing for people who were there, and liked it a bit.

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Earthquake?? Nothing major at this point...

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Kinda might be happier not working on the 8th floor though...

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Oh, right, I'm in Back Bay, so the earthquake was extra sloshy! #isurvivedquakepocalypse2011
--Man, I love Nancy's stylized an anchronistic oddness! via Princess Sparkle Pony's Photo Blog

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Notes synching on iPhone 4 is f'in broken. I lost data - notes WEIRDLY reverting - to a broken "feature" I barely knew I had. Sucks.

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In the fight between you and the world, back the world.

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http://www.slate.com/id/2264312/ - cool piece on Quicksand: it's decline and fall in popculture, and the people who fetishize it...

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I cry a little on the inside when I see a super slow site with a ".jsp" URL. Friendster was the worst. Now Bank of America? Yeesh. via Obama/Biden? A bit too much alliteration. EB suggests "O-n-Joe".

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Video of the Moment

(death star over sf)

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Poem of the Moment

I like the duck-billed platypus
Because it is anomalous.
I like the way it raises its family
Partly birdly, partly mammaly.
I like its independent attitude.
Let no one call it a duck-billed platitude.

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Newsweek special issue cover: "What Bush Got Right"... must be a pretty thin issue, hardyhar

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"So many of my friends are so tired and stressed. So few of them are enjoying their lives. You're about it." EB to me now-yikes, pressure! Man. Walking the bikepath is such a drag now that I've gotten use to biking. It feels so slow and inefficient. Bikes zoom right past, and here I am using my legs like a sucker. On the other hand I am typing this on the way, so there's at least some fun to be had.

Bikepath trivia: the intersections of the bikepath and the regular road are marked by pairs of roadcone-like green plastic cylinders. These are spring loaded, popping back up after being pushed down... not for the the benefit of an errant rollerblader needing to come to a sudden stop before getting socked by a passing car, as I had first guessed, but so landscaping type vehicles can roll right over them.

It was a bit scary passing those slow moving vehicles on my bike, as both the riding mower and the pickup truck take up a majoprity of the bikepath.

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Pamphlet of the Moment

--Boingboing linked to this instructional pamphlet (Warning, mildly NSFW links) on how to overthrow your office and create a new society of hippy harmony, to be stuffed into business reply envelopes. The artist's site also includes similar works such as "A Day at the Mall" and "Welcome to Geneva!".

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Literary Bit of the Moment

But then, the sky! Blue, untained by a single cloud (the Ancients had such barbarous tastes given that their poets could have been inspired by such stupid, sloppy, silly-lingering clumps of vapor.)

Interestingly, the book is shaping up to have similar themes as the last set of links. Damn, just had my vacation requests more or less denied because a biggish contract that needs attending to at work. I'm sure my company will try to make it up to me but still.

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Site of the Moment
Bill the Splut pointed out a great snarky site, The Comics Curmudgeon. Kind of one of those sites that seems obvious in retrospect... there is so much weirdness and lame-osity in the comics section these days. Bill says it can't compare to the defunct Baltimore City Paper's "Funny Pages" but I like it better, since it doesn't try to summarize EVERY comic, and shows the comics right in place. Plus there's an index to sort by individual comic. If you're in a hurry, this day's commentary on Family Circus captures the tone of the blog pretty well.

Yesterday I redid my car stereo's welcome message to "Howdy" from "The Puck". I'm not sure if they said "Howdy" on Bonanza or not, but figured it was an acceptable artistic license. And right friendly to boot.

I know I'm such a poser when it comes to anything cowboy-ish. But I've been listening to "Ghost Riders in the Sky" a lot, ever since I heard Spike Jones' parody version of it.

Also, best name of a poem on the Blender ever: Cowsome Loneboy.

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Video of the Moment
Funny but mildly offensive to the humor impaired, The Old Negro Space Program made me laugh out. (via Bill the Splut)

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Cultural Science of the Moment
Asians and North Americans literally see the world differently...when shown a scene, North Americans tend to focus on the thing in the foreground, while the Asians give more attention to the background and the scene as a whole. That's really interesting...I wonder what all the implications of that are.

--I just want to mention: Lena and Bjorn have TOO MANY REMOTES. That is all.

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Link of the Moment
Awe-inspiring page of optical illusions and eyetricks. You know, it seems like for years you always saw the same illusions over and over...look, the cube is inside out! Look, it's a vase AND two flowers? Look, the two lines are the same length! Hey hey it's Escher! But this guy is doing new amazing kinetic stuff. I wish I understood the color principles behind it better. If you're in a hurry, do Ctrl-F and cut and paste a search for "Dongurakokko"...

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Ads of the Moment
Can't get enough banner ads? Then head on down to BannerReport.com! There is something strangely compelling about seeing so many ads all stuck toegether. Despite being the bane of the Internet in the late '90s (and that was before bizarre popups and unders and through and what not) it's an interesting attempt to put a valid and compelling commercial story in a little bitsy space.

Some of my previous attempts for linkexchange:



With the latter one, I was trying to follow that theory that saying 'click here!' and giving a mousepointer cue, as goofy (and intelligence insulting) as it seems to net-saavy people, actually gets more hits.

Anyway, the site came via this Wired.com article. Man, I still love Wired. Just got the most recent issue, and they find some of the best stuff to write about... Factoids of the Moment

Amount the Defense Department has lost track of, according to a 2000 report by its inspector general: $1,100,000,000,000

Ratio of this amount to the rest of the world's military budgets combined: 2:1

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Video of the Moment
I'd wanted to see that Fatboy Slim video with Christopher Walken dancing, and here it is online. Someone has also made a stick figure version.
I thought that the original would have more wall dancing, but it was still kind of interesting. My buddy John "Whiskey" Sawers (get it, his last name is pronounced "sours" and...oh, never mind, it was just a nickname that I failed to get to stick) had his car stolen the other night...right from his driveway! It was a really old Subaru with a massive dent, rusty bits, and 170K miles...I joked that it must've been really dark that night.

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Small Gif Cinema of the Moment

mo mad

--from a series of cathartic self-portraits by mo

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Observation of the Moment

But the bottom line is that the players and kids stopped showing up. I think this is a weird fact, but every week we looked at earnings around the country, and the day that the Clinton report from the testimony of Monica Lewinsky got published on the Internet, the earnings in the arcades dropped 20%. Unfortunately, [those earnings] never returned! At that moment, I think the Internet became a source of entertainment.

He's the designer of Smash TV, NBA Jam, and NFL Blitz. NFL Blitz is interesting, a pro-wrestling take on football, but in the interview he says the released version had about 60% of the tackles and moves removed.

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News of the Moment
Interesting story about some recent war games by the armed forces...one of the leaders of the "bad guys" of the exercise thinks it was rigged to make the new policies of the DoD look good. Looking to the past, our enemies have been both dumber than we might have expected (Iraq underestimating our ability to come at them through the desert) but also better at jury-rigged solutions, from running explosive-laden motorboats into Navy cruisers to using inexpensive decoy tanks in the former Yugoslavia. That makes it tough to judge the claims General Van Riper (pronounced "Ripper", how cool is that?) that he was unfairly constrained against the counterclaim that he's so experienced as head of the "Red Force" (bad guys) that he has an unfair advantage. Myth about Taxes
You know that tax rebate, them $300 so many of us are getting? T'aint a rebate at all! Rather, it's an advance on next year's refund! Now, it's not all smoke and mirrors; the amount of the refund ties into how much larger they expect people's refunds to be because of changes in the taxcode. Still, they're being pretty quiet about the true nature of the checks people are getting.

UK Teen Myths About Pregnancy:

You can't get pregnant on a boat
You can't get pregnant if you drink a lot of milk
You get pregnant if you take folic acid
Keeping your eyes closed stops you getting pregnant
A boy is only fertile if his testicles feel cold
There's no risk if you're standing on a telephone directory
If you drink a lot of alcohol you won't get a girl pregnant
You can't get pregnant unless you have sex every night
Coke douches work and you can use crisp bags as condoms
You can't get pregnant if you don't have an orgasm
You can't get pregnant if you have sex in the bath

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Quote of the Moment

I'm not a robot like you. I don't like having disks crammed into me... unless they're Oreos, and then only in the mouth.