impressionistic thoughts

I use at least two modes of speaking to people. In one, I have a well-thought-out idea in mind, and I want to share the idea; I can answer all sorts of detailed questions about it because I understand it, and my agenda is to explain it. The other mode is more fuzzy and hand-wavy. I'm giving the impression of an idea, drawing loose connections, and saying that I see something there. The first mode is comparable to painting a photorealistic image, while the other is comparable to painting an impressionistic image. I'd like a word for the impressionistic version. I often say things like "just brainstorming", or "in a hand-wavy way". For example, I think this post is somewhat hand-wavy. Usually I feel the need to surround this stuff with disclaimers, and that takes time -- I think it's useful sometimes to say hand-wavy stuff, and I think people could do it more easily if they could bracket it with a word.

modes of thought

I'm going to try to list modes of thought that I encounter.

Here's the mode of thought I was in when I decided to create this post:
- I'm staring at something, or I have my eyes closed
- There is music playing in my headphones
- my hand is fiddling intensly with my pen
- my brain thinks it has stumbled accross a good idea
- I'm focused on the subtleties of the idea, making sure it is good, and refining the details
- I'm not really thinking in words or images -- the idea itself has it's own "form" in my mind

Here's the second mode that I noticed
- I'm engaged in some routine physical activity
- There is a lack of music playing in my mind
- I'm talking to myself (though not out loud), saying what I'm thinking

mode 3
- I'm tired
- I'm undecided about what to do
- my eyes are closed
- my mind is darting around, considering different possibilities, using bits of verbal and bits of visual and bits of neither of those
- I feel a sense of anxiety and uncertainty

mode 4
- I'm lying down
- my mind is drifting and landing on concepts without much conscious control, like a dream

mode 5
- I'm introspecting
- I'm identifying thoughts and feeling spatially in my brain (who knows where the thoughts and feelings are actually located, but my subjective experience is of identifying locations, and drawing boxes around them, and saying what's going on there)

mode 6
- I'm very focussed
- I feel like I can see a ways into the future, and I'm like a train travelling on a track, doing the stuff that I know ahead of time that I'll do
- I'm completely unemotional
- I'm not making value judgements of any sort, I'm just doing what my mind sees in the future
- Everything seems to make sense
- There is a feeling that I understand what's going on, and that it is good

mode 7

- I'm anxious about doing something
- The thing is important and very urgent
- My mind is completely focussed on the thing, letting everything else fall in priority
- If I'm waiting, I can't really do anything else productive, because my mind keep wanting to make sure that I don't forget the important and urgent thing

...more to come... hopefully...

ways to win life

I've heard different candidates for what people consider "victory" in life:

• go to heaven
• understand everything
• be content
• have kids
• become rich
• become famous
• become powerful

I think I fall in the "understand everything" category, with a part of me pushing to change my victory condition to "be content".

should

I recall my mom telling me as a child not to use the word "should". For instance, I might say: "I should bring an umbrella because it's going to rain". But she would say: "no, you want to bring an umbrella, because you want to keep dry, and you think an umbrella will help with that. God doesn't care if you bring an umbrella. Only you care."

I've since generalized this as follows:

Instead of "I should" or "is good", I generally use "I want".

Instead of "is true" or "is correct", I generally use "is useful".

Incidentally, I'm not sure why my mom told me that, since she is religious, and "should" seems like a common word in religion. And my generalization is even worse from a religious point of view, because it suggests that God isn't real so much as convenient.

the median

The median is pretty magical.

If we have data from a normal distribution, then we want to know the mean. But guess what, the median is expected to be the mean in this case.

If we have data from a log-normal distribution, then we want the geometric mean. But guess what, the median is expected to be the geometric mean in this case.

It takes work to figure out which sort of distribution we have: normal or log-normal, or something else.

It then takes work to calculate the mean or geometric mean.

Taking the median requires little work: sorting everything, and looking at the thing in the middle.

micro payments

I wanted to download some data from Wolfram Alpha. This requires a "pro" subscription. I bought a pro subscription, which is $5/month. When I try to download the data, I get this window:

Note that the download button is greyed out. This is because I only have 500 "credits". Apparently you need "credits" to download data, and this data requires 600 of them. So I need to purchase more, somehow.

I feel like payments for online stuff is broken. Everything is generally free, but when you want to do something cool, money is required. But because most people don't pay for anything, the people that do pay for stuff end up effectively paying for all the people who don't pay for stuff too, so it's more expensive than it needs to be.

Also, because few people pay, companies feel like they need to trap "payers" into paying even more with things like "monthly subscriptions" and "credits", both of which are trying to get me to pay for stuff I won't use (since I'll forget to revoke my subscription, and I won't use all the credits I purchase).

I feel like people should submit to micro payments online. I should pay maybe $0.01 to run a query on wolfram alpha. People who run few queries will pay practically nothing, but in aggregate, they will pay something, which from wolfram alpha's point of view will be substantially more than nothing, and may motivate more straightforward and reasonable prices for things.

Best "Optical Illusion" I've Seen Up Till Now

Someone sent this to me recently. It really feels like I'm getting a glimpse at some of the low level features that my eyes decompose images into before processing them with my brain.