deathmtn

Via The False God of Attention

Attention, it turns out, is not nearly as important as curiosity, the same way that intrinsic motivation is superior to extrinsic motivation.

If you give someone an interesting problem to solve, attention doesn’t seem to be an issue. If they are solving the problem in order to satisfy their own curiosities, they will learn much more and work much longer than trying to meet a standard set by a teacher.

Strategies like those used at KIPP and other so-called “no excuses” schools are only necessary because school itself is a rather grim march through proficiencies, rather than a place in which to practice and engage curiosities.

Allowing the Mind to Wander Aids Creativity

The researchers presented 145 undergraduate students with two 'unusual uses' tasks that gave them two minutes to list as many uses as possible for everyday objects such as toothpicks, clothes hangers and bricks.
…
Those students who had done the undemanding activity performed an average of 41% better at the repeated tasks the second time they tried them. By contrast, students in the other three groups showed no improvement. The work will be published shortly in Psychological Science.

I don't know remember it producing "Eureka!" solutions, but I feel better about approaching medium-to-big problems after doing things like dishes or vacuuming. Maybe I should break from difficult thinking to do chores more often.

10-6-3-3. Big damp! Not much sun, though.

Why create a bot form of a work that was initially built as a web app? Well, one reason is that, in bot form, a work gains a time dimension. Viewers see it exist across a span of time. They see that it was working before they came across it and probably will after.

I think this usually causes to work to be received as more of a force or process than an object, which is sometimes what you want people to think about.

Most of the last three seasons of Kimmy Schmidt have been just OK, but due to getting tired of looking for something to watch that wasn't too intense, I watched another episode. The documentary/"men's rights" episode was excellent.

I've been trying to write out daily tasks each morning, which is helpful, but inevitably, I don't get to all of them. That leaves me with the dread I'm going to forget to do one of the things completely.

I could switch to a continuous omni-list that had everything I could ever think of to do, but those always feel inexorable and oppressive. Maybe that, in combination with daily lists can suppress all the sources of completion dread. It sure is a lot of writing, though, and feels awfully business-like.

Beneath the Remains has the sound I need right now.

BTW, that quote screenshot I accidentally attached to my post about my reps was from Human Acts by Han Kang. It is really good, and you should read it. I may say more about it later.

Rae Langton on Talking Politics (back when it was called Election):

Often one finds in discussions about bad speech is that [people say] "You should, of course, let people speak" and they just think bad speech can just be driven out by good speech. I would love it if that were the case. I am dubious that we have the conditions where that is going to hold very easily.

How often has some Nazi been profiled by a journalist, who then provided equal time to good speech? Good speech is "boring" now to many journalists and does not get clicks. The dapper "exciting" Nazi profiles don't bother with that.

In practice, speech is free for speech that sells or interests the powerful.

Nervosa are thrash, but upon first listen, I assumed they were grindcore? But yeah, those are thrash riffs and beats. They're just really harsh. (Also, a mild surprise: Nervosa are all women.)

"If you're not rich, you have to sleep on a chair." —The guy, on air travel