"overstimulation"

in a previous post, I mentioned a post about 10 myths about introverts, and one of those myths is:

Myth #9 – Introverts don’t know how to relax and have fun.
Introverts typically relax at home or in nature, not in busy public places. Introverts are not thrill seekers and adrenaline junkies. If there is too much talking and noise going on, they shut down. Their brains are too sensitive to the neurotransmitter called Dopamine. Introverts and Extroverts have different dominant neuro-pathways. Just look it up.

..which paints this picture of an introvert going into a club and saying "oh no! it's too exciting and fun in here! I want to go read a book which is slower and simpler!"

and it defends this picture by saying that introverts' brains are "too sensitive" to dopamine to handle such high energy situations, "just look it up."

well, a friend found the reference: http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/epp/3/1/37/

now mind you, I didn't read it — I couldn't be bothered to pay for what is probably tax funded research — but I read the publicly available abstract, which indeed suggests that introverts are more susceptible to dopamine than extraverts..

however, it doesn't say that lots of talking and noise produce dopamine.

here's an alternative model:
kids like to bang pots and pans together. adults find it annoying.
extraverts like lots of people packed together with loud noise. introverts find it annoying.

they don't find it annoying because there is too much information to process.
they find it annoying because there is very little information at all — the information is just really loud.

note to self: you can double-click the files in the sidebar of Sublime to open them in their own tab (single clicking opens them in the viewer, but without a tab, so clicking another tab essentially closes them)

Introverts vs Extroverts

there's a meme going around, something like "introverts aren't so bad".
here are some examples I've seen:

from TED: Susan Cain: The power of introverts

from some web comic: How to Live with Introverts (featuring a hamster ball)

and a friend just pointed me to a list of: "Top ten myths about introverts"

one issue though,
I feel like people start with the premise that socializing is good,
and try to say that introverts do socialize,
just in different ways,
or different amounts.

but I don't think socializing is good,
anymore than sex is good.

It's fun,
for some people,
sometimes,
but the activity itself isn't inherently valuable — it doesn't push humanity along — except to the extent to which it keeps people undepressed enough to do truly valuable things

communication is valuable.
reproduction is valuable.
socializing and sex often have these valuable side effects

but both of these side effects can be achieved without socializing or sex,
through the marvel of technology

so,
extroverts,
if you like socializing,
go for it.

First Kickstarter Pledge

I just pledged money toward this device.

I thought at first: why pledge money? I could just buy it when it comes out.

But then I thought, this is how I think products should be made. Rather than someone going to venture capitalists to get money, who expect to make 10x on their investment, causing weird incentives, since many cool ideas are really cool, but aren't going to take over the world, entrepreneurs can just ask for money in advance. If enough people like what they plan to build, then they can buy the product before it exists, and cause it to be created. And the entrepreneurs don't need to sell their souls. They just need to build the thing they said they'd build — no five year exponential growth plan, no pivoting, no desperation to sell the dying company. And if it turns out that the thing does explode into exponential goodness, the entrepreneur retains full control.

So, as an experiment, and somewhat against my nature, I'm being an activist, hoping against reason to nudge humanity microscopically closer to the direction I think it should be headed in.

moved the "near" and "bayesian truth serum" apps to heroku (and into their own github repos, here and here).

I almost have everything off of apps.glittle.org..

I've moved TalentCourt from EC2 to Heroku, and from my own crazy in-memory "database" to MongoDB.

The transition to MongoDB was pretty seamless. +1 to MongoDB.

Tennis Court

so.. I was working on Talent Court, and wanted to make sure I was spelling "court" correctly, so I typed "Tennis Court" into Google, and I saw this video as the second result.. and I watched it.. and, it was pretty great: