The iPod also turned 10 this week. Hmm.
And Bootsy Collins turns 60 today. OMG!
I had never noticed the CAPS LOCK in the title before. Is that actually federal law like that? If I get arrested for violating the "USA Patriot Act," can I get released because they didn't spell it correctly?
Also the 35th annual 24 hour bike ride of Louvain-la-Neuve. I need to buy groceries and barricade myself in.
The iPod also turned 10 this week. Hmm.
Can't help feeling that the inventor of the iPod might have approved of the USA PATRIOT Act...
Jobs in his dying days seems not to have gained any special wisdom or perspective. He has unkind things to say about Rubinstein, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Barack Obama, Google chairman Eric Schmidt, and others. In the case of Obama, Jobs refused to meet with the president unless Obama called him personally to ask for the meeting. When the pair finally met, Jobs comes across like a version of Montgomery Burns on The Simpsons, suggesting, among other things, that the U.S. should be more like China when it came to regulating (or not regulating) companies as they built factories, that the president should get rid of teachers' unions, and that schools should stay in session until 6 p.m. and operate 11 months out of the year.
If I get arrested for violating the "USA Patriot Act," can I get released because they didn't spell it correctly?
Only one way to find out. For science.
Potted meat product, bitches!
I had never noticed the CAPS LOCK in the title before... If I get arrested for violating the "USA Patriot Act," can I get released because they didn't spell it correctly?
Actually, the full name is the OPINIONATED USA PATRIOT act.
7: I can get arrested (I assume) but I can't write my own citation.
[S]chools should stay in session until 6 p.m. and operate 11 months out of the year.
Do we oppose this now? I thought such a schedule had been the goal/unreachable star of progressive education reformers of the "Everything is better in Europe; I spent a semester there in college" stripe since the '70s.
In the case of Obama, Jobs refused to meet with the president unless Obama called him personally to ask for the meeting.
Cry me a fucking river.
Hey, let discuss Steve Jobs urine splatter again.
Pardon the Interruption also turned 10 this week.
Do we oppose this now? I thought such a schedule had been the goal/unreachable star of progressive education reformers of the "Everything is better in Europe; I spent a semester there in college" stripe since the '70s.
Eh? Schools don't operate 11 months a year in Europe and in, say, Finland, which is the country usually pointed to by progressive education reformers, the school day does not last until anywhere near 6pm. 2pm is usually the latest.
The title of the act is a ten letter acronym (USA PATRIOT) that stands for: Uniting (and) Strengthening America (by) Providing Appropriate Tools Required (to) Intercept (and) Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001.
According to wiki.
16: Why did progressives spend the '90s humping the "American schools operate on an agricultural calendar in the information age, which is why we're falling behind France/Japan/Korea/Sweden" key on the Wurlitzer, then?
And don't forget that in many civilised countries school starts later than in the US.
re: 18
What dsquared always refers to as wowserism?
18: Did they? I associate that sort of thing with school-reform types, who largely tend to be private-enterprise-fetishist union-busters.
19: School has to start early in order to allow sufficient time for homework after school.
I do hate the sort of issue where being concerned with it at all is a strong signal of where you stand on it. I think schools are terribly important, and that a lot of things should be changed about our public schools, but I also look at anyone whose pet issue is 'school reform' as someone who's very likely to be actively trying to break the parts of the system that work now, in favor of a system that channels public money to private enterprise with even more inequality than we have now.
As for Patriot Act capitalization, it's because that's just an abbreviation of the real name of the thing, a long name deliberately chosen to lead to that ridiculously forced acronym.
And as for school schedules, everything is better in Europe, I spent a year there between high school and college, and the school year is probably shorter than in the U.S. As for the length of the day, it was more broken up. The first class of the day was probably at the same time in my French high school as in my American school and the last class of the day was usually later, but lunch break was much longer and we generally got longer breaks between classes.
Obviously I don't really believe that "everything is better in Europe" and obviously an anecdote isn't data. But a desire by progressives to emulate the true schedule of European schools is probably very low on the list of causes of current trends in American education.
I'm pretty sure we could pare the school day down to 4 or 5 hours, and at a bare minimum no harm would be done.
18: Don't ask me, if it's true that they did. But in my experience over here, it's usually conservatives who point to Korea. And in neither case does it have much if anything to do with the calendar.
18
16: Why did progressives spend the '90s humping the "American schools operate on an agricultural calendar in the information age, which is why we're falling behind France/Japan/Korea/Sweden" key on the Wurlitzer, then?
First of all, I'm not sure that the assumption there is even true (for one thing, what do you really mean by "progressive"?). I seem to remember moderates being the people most concerned about international competition in test scores, while the actual left had occasional problems with pseudo-controversial culture war crackpottery, but overall was pretty sure that the problem with education was a shortage and/or inadequate distribution of funding. (But of course, yet again, what do I know.) NCLB was a joint initiative of Bush (in his "compassionate conservative" persona still, remember) and Teddy Kennedy, and I think it was popular enough with everyone except people who actually worked in education.
And even if you're right about progressives in the '90s and I'm completely wrong, remember that the '90s was over 10 years ago now. (Sorry for reminding everyone.) Since then we've had at least two wars, two recessions, two presidents and 10 years of cultural drift. Even if progressives had been obsessed with the school calendar back then, I'm pretty sure they aren't now.
re: 25
Mine wasn't that far off. Start at 8:45, finish at 3.30ish. Hour for lunch, breaks mid-morning and mid-afternoon.
In some European countries, the school day is deliberately scheduled to make it hard for women to work. For example, they send kids home for lunch. I would call that "not better".
What kind of cake should we get it?
a yellow cake.
re: 30
Which countries would those be?
||
So the Oakland Police are now trying to claim that they have not been using flash-bang grenades on the protestors, when there is ample video evidence that they are doing exactly that.
||>
The great thing about 0830-1530 as a school day in northern England, or God forbid, Scotland is that you don't see the fucking sun all day for a large chunk of your childhood.
re: 36
Yeah. Dark all the time in mid-winter, and I'm not even from that far north. The only time you saw daylight was when some sadistic bastard made you play rugby on a pitch crusty with ice.*
* luxury, blooody luxury, when I were a lad, etc
I'll bet the absolute worst part of coming from northern England or Scotland is the obligation to refer to Monty Python every time you have any less-than-idyllic story about being younger than 30.
It is true that a lot of school reformers want longer school days and especially shorter vacation periods to combat summer learning loss (e.g., all the Promise Academy Charter Schools). But it's really orthogonal to any union issues, except insofar as the unions want to hold on to the current scheduling or keep money away form charters. And, yes, the fight over school reform is largely an intra-Progressive fight.
36. I remember reading Ray Bradbury's "All Summer in a Day" when I was a little kid in So Cal and thinking, okay, that's a little sad, I guess? I only really got it when, as an adult, I moved to New England, and learned what it was like to go into the building in the half-gray morning and emerge at twilight, and think, well, I've missed the entire day. Again.
||
One of my students is worried about the corrosive effects of pear presser.
|>
The Act's tenth birthday party is in Oakland!
WaPo photo accompanying Occupy Oakland news: a police officer petting a kitten.
But it's really orthogonal to any union issues, except insofar as the unions want to hold on to the current scheduling
Or be paid more for working a longer day/year. That story about the Providence schools firing all the teachers in some middle/high school was a story about an attempt to unilaterally increase unionized teachers' working hours without paying them for it.
42 is insane. Clearly I'm not cynical enough, because that picture surprises me. I'll try to work on that. Your liberal media, ladies and gentlemen!
24: Obviously I don't really believe that "everything is better in Europe"
I really want the standard phrase for this kind of talk to be Why can't we be like enlightened, topless, Europe?
the corrosive effects of pear presser
Let me guess. The student goes on to explain that the juice control everything.
Eh? Schools don't operate 11 months a year in Europe and in, say, Finland
The school where I taught in Germany is in session for close to 11 months a year, ending in late June and starting the new year in mid-August. But they also have several week-long breaks throughout the year and lots of long weekends, and the younger kids are usually done for the day by 1 or 2 pm.
24.1 makes me feel, just slightly, that the world might make a little sense.
It's stupid, but it has rules with recognizable scope conditions.
38. Monty Python? Bloody luxury! We had to turn on our tellies two years before Monty Python was invented and watch that sketch on At Last the 1948 Show!
The only time you saw daylight was when some sadistic bastard made you play rugby on a pitch crusty with ice.
Ah, at my humane school we stopped playing rugby when the ground froze solid (unless there was also enough snow on top to cushion the impact of falling over, in which case, game on). We went cross-country running instead.
I'll bet the absolute worst part of coming from northern England or Scotland
Scotland?
re: 53
We played it a few times on crunchy soil. Definitely first and second year at high school. I don't remember playing it on icy soil older than that, so maybe they relented, or maybe it was just that one sadist.
Cross country running, definitely. With the 'chocolate staircase' [a steep hill that turned to icy mud after a few kids had run up it].
Scotland?
It's the top 30% or so of the island of Great Britain - the bit where all the politicians come from (except Tories).
So it's not another same for Yorkshire?
Meanwhile, enlightened but thankfully not in the least topless Europe is falling asleep in meetings and having hissy fits about who-said-what-about-whom-behind-whose-back.
And both my conference calls have unhappened. There goes a completely wasted day.
Gah. How about some music? Like so. Or perhaps even like so, although lyrics and general atmosphere far from SFW.
There's a thought. I am not taking part in a compulsory cross-country run in a snowstorm!
So did any one here (Brit or Yank or other... but especially Brits of the northern/Scottish variety) regularly get chilblains growing up as a friend of mine from the Lake District says he did (few years older than me so a child mostly in the '50s). He says he cannot believe in retrospect how much wearing of short pants in the cold there was.
42: And some would call him "pig".
The Minneapolis contribution to that AP article was ridiculous. The sheriff (who still has two of my tents!) released a list of supposed malfeasance by the Occupiers, which included reports of two men and a woman running around the Gov't Ctr. Plaza in their underwear, one open container violation and the ridiculous "Riot Equipment" box nonsense. (I have not heard for sure whether that was a joke on the part of a protestor or an actual provocateur incident, my guess is the former, the plaza is notoriously unstable, so the bricks might very well have been left by some work crew).
I regularly got chilblains growing up in the south of England. But that was so long ago that nobody had central heating - nowadays I'd think they were a poverty indicator.
re: 61
Short trousers isn't really a 'thing' in Scotland. I remember wearing them a bit in primary school when the weather was nice, but it wasn't compulsory. I do remember wearing my little sisters wooly tights under my trousers a few times though when it was really cold. Cold by Scottish standards, not northern US. So below freezing, but not below -20 (C).
What exactly are chilblains? Something you get from hanging around in the cold, but not frostbite - what are the symptoms?
61: I have never heard of any students in Mpls. getting frostbite in the normal course of their school day. But then, we only wear shorts if it above 35 degrees Fahrenheit, we're not idiots.
Many memories of standing outside in the pitch dark at 6:45 on a winter morning when the windchill was down to 20 below (F) though. For awhile in 3rd grade I had this obsession with blowing spit bubbles in such a way that they would freeze before landing on top of the bolt head of the fire hydrant at my bus stop. 3rd grade was a really boring and horrible year. If Robbie Weinberger had not had access to Jumping Jack fireworks, which we would set off in the drainpipe of the house by the bus stop, I would have probably gone crazy.
The school where I taught in Germany is in session for close to 11 months a year, ending in late June and starting the new year in mid-August. But they also have several week-long breaks throughout the year and lots of long weekends, and the younger kids are usually done for the day by 1 or 2 pm.
It's true that many European countries have shorter summer breaks than the US, but it's usually compensated for by breaks elsewhen. And European countries other than the UK tend to have lots of public holidays as well.
Yeah, my familiarity with chilblains comes from novels. (Oh, and I seem to recall a scene in one of the Lindsay Davis books where a Roman doctor is about to amputate a leg with chilblains on it, as he thinks it must be a plague.)
As far as I know I've never had chillblains, and have lived most of my life in houses without central heating. FFS, the flat I live in _now_ doesn't have central heating. Which is bloody stupid considering it's otherwise lovely.
"Chilblains ( also known as pernio and perniosis)[1] are a medical condition that is often confused with frostbite and trench foot. Chilblains are acral ulcers (that is, ulcers affecting the extremities) that occur when a predisposed individual is exposed to cold and humidity. The cold exposure damages capillary beds in the skin, which in turn can cause redness, itching, blisters, and inflammation.[2] Chilblains are often idiopathic in origin but can be manifestations of serious medical conditions that need to be investigated. Chilblains can be prevented by keeping the feet and hands warm in cold weather. A history of chilblains is suggestive of a connective tissue disease."
Huh. I always thought it was a silly Britisher name for regular frostbite. Never heard of anyone around here getting those either though.
They're the condition of your toes itching like hell IME. The pedia thing says they're technically some sort of ulcer, but I'm not sure that's very helpful. Nobody ever suggested treating them when I was a kid - you just put another pair of socks on till they went away. The myth was current that they were caused by heating up too fast when you were cold - you were told never to hang on a radiator or stand in front of the fire immediately after you came in.
There's a thought. I am not taking part in a compulsory cross-country run in a snowstorm!
Nothing - absolutely nothing - that has happened to me since leaving school has been half as unpleasant as those winter cross-country runs. Concussion, broken bones, serious illness, redundancy, near-death experiences, bad romantic breakups, other cross-country runs that are much longer and more physically demanding... none of it has been as bad.
71: Maybe because the cold of the upper Midwest lacks the concomitant humidity? That's the best I can think of.
Scottish school year has about 12 weeks of holidays a year. England, I'd guess, is broadly similar although the summer holidays are later in the year.
71: the key is that it's a product of being cold and damp. Like immersion foot (formerly trench foot). So it's not something you get from being out in the snow in minus 30 centigrade in Minnesota - that would be frostnip or frostbite. It's something you get from being out in the mud and rain in zero centigrade. A very British ailment.
Even being pwned by oudemia is not as painful as cross-country running.
Scottish school year has about 12 weeks of holidays a year.
To which you have to add half term, which now lasts a week in England (it was a long weekend when I was at school).
It's true that many European countries have shorter summer breaks than the US, but it's usually compensated for by breaks elsewhen.
A friend who went to school outside of Denver had a very long winter break and very short summer break. Apparently due to the difficulty of transportation in bleakest midwinter but also -- and supposedly mainly -- because everyone would be skiing.
I wouldn't be suprised if it was similar in places like Minnesota. My mum went to university at Carleton and in the winter they'd walk between buildings via tunnels to avoid going outside. I understand they've closed them now, for obvious, depressing reasons.
82: Maybe I'll be a Graboid for Halloween. Occupy the Earth!
80: to university at Carleton and in the winter they'd walk between buildings via tunnels to avoid going outside
Carleton College? In Minnesota? I looked up "tunnels carleton college" and found only vague references. My father is an alum and I don't remember him mentioning them. Was it steam tunnels that are now locked?
There are a lot of tunnels at the Twin Cities campus of the University of Minnesota. Steam and pedestrian, sometimes overlapping. Not really enough though -- always seemed like you wound up having to go outside no matter which two buildings you traveled between.
I think Bemidji State has a pretty complete tunnel system, of course, you'd pretty much have to up there or no one would attend.
The most complete tunnel system I personally have experienced is beneath downtown Houston. Other end of the weather spectrum, obviously. They're weird and confusing and hard to get to unless you are in an office building which connects (and only open during weekday business hours), but they are pretty extensive (one site said 7 miles in total).
My dad from the Yukon had all those "in my dad" conversations beat silly. They never saw the sun in the winter. However, they also didn't get chilblains (too dry). Those sound horrible.
The concourse level below downtown Minneapolis is fairly large, but it can't be 7 miles. Same problems as the Houston one though -- lots of buildings are always locked as well.
When the pair finally met, Jobs comes across like a version of Montgomery Burns on The Simpsons, suggesting, among other things, that the U.S. should be more like China when it came to regulating (or not regulating) companies as they built factories,
A surprisingly common view among certain Silicon Valley types. Carly Fiorina actually called for emulating China in lack of regulation during her Senate campaign last year.
re: 89
This is, I suspect, part of my nerd-animus. I've met far too many who are indistinguishable from right-wing corporate/Republican/Tory types except through having different dress sense, and aesthetic tastes.
My mum (from London) talks about chilblains. I don't really understand what they are.
School in England: 190 school days a year - 38 weeks. Both my daughters have 5 x 1 hour lessons a day and finish at 3.10. One starts at 8.25, one at 8.40. 6-7 weeks off in the summer, 2ish weeks at Christmas, 2ish weeks at Easter, plus a week break in the middle of each term. This is pretty standard for state schools.
My alma mater has an extensive and easily accessible steam-tunnel system. Technically off-limits, but that didn't stop, um, some people. (And from what I hear they've made it more impassible in more recent years by adding locked gates or something.) Rumor had it one of the tunnels would pop you up right in the football stadium, but I don't know if that's ever been confirmed.
93: My undergrad and gradschool, too.
Days of school and breaks:
I think that 180 days is the minimum number of school days in Massachusetts for public school. Private schools often have fewer.
In highschool we had two 3-week vacations (Christmas and March 5-25) and a long weekend after exams in January. Summer went from the beginning of June to early-mid September.
Start Time of School
I think grade school was 8:30.
High School was 8:15, but most of us lived there and it was no more than 10 minutes to the classroom building.
My boyfriend's uncle just retired from teaching grade 6 in Winnipeg. I don't know what time they finish school, but they don't start until after 9.
Huh, the underline tag didn't work.
||
Man, I hate it when I get really stuck on work stuff. I've had a giant pile of shit to get done that used to have a fairly long deadline, and now the deadline's getting close and I'm not getting it done. This place hasn't been lively enough to soak up all the procrastination I'm doing, I'm down to reading archives on other blogs. My life would be so easy if I were only sane about this shit.
|>
damp and cold
People underestimate quite how shitty damp and cold is.
99: If you break the job into lots of smaller jobs, you can ignore many deadlines.
I've been there, Lopez. I've been there.
You're going to stick with the Lopez thing, apparently.
Not that this is a problem; the Lopez summer was a good one.
I'm procrastinating from filling out a form for a career coach, cleaning my kitchen and some paperwork for work. (I had to leave the office early, so I should do some more work so that I don't wind up lying too much about my hours.)
Let me procrastinate by helping you with your procrastination. What do you feel is getting in your way?
Combination of poor character and upbringing and not wanting to deal with my boss; she tends not to want to engage at all with a project until it's in final, polished form, at which point she can think clearly enough about it to decide that it should have been dealt with in an entirely different way from the beginning, and should be scrapped and redone from the ground up. I hate this process, which makes me put off giving her drafts, and this thing is particularly difficult, because it's an odd litigation with a lot of fundamentally different directions we could go in; when I give her the polished final product and she tells me to have done something different, it's going to be radically different.
But I shouldn't put it all on her -- largely it's just that I'm like this sometimes.
Calling it poor character is not helpful.
largely it's just that I'm like this sometimes.
Okay, that's not what I was getting at.
What does she mean by 'final, polished form?' Have you tried bringing less polished stuff to her and saying, "I just want to make sure that I get this right."
||
Richard Epstein is on the News Hour. He looks like such a crank and a caricature. I was shocked when I saw that it was someone from an actual university.
|>
106: Trust me, I've worked on that one. I'm not going to be changing her process here.
"Poor character" is me being goofy, but I do act this way even in the absence of questionable management. The questionable management is about 30% of the problem, if that.
107: Well, I mean it just sounds like you're saying something bad about yourself rather than trying to notice what's going on and tackle it in pieces.
I get overwhelmed a fair amount and then procrastinate. (That's not why I'm procrastinating now.) Trying to figure out why I feel overwhelmed can be helpful.
Oh, it's a perfectionism thing (which is absurd, when you look at the shoddiness of the work I actually turn out). The screwy management is objectively screwy, but it's particularly bad for me because I don't like doing work that will turn out to have been imperfect. Which means I avoid everything until the last minute and then turn out crap.
That is, when I say perfectionism, really not the kind that involves producing actually perfect work.
I have a similar problem. Still, though, it's tricky, because you know that the work isn't great. But you can always say, "if I hadn't done it at the last minute, it would be great."
What if you did a 90% polished draft that felt perfect-ish and handed that in? I bet you could do that quickly enough and then you'd have more time for the complete re-do.
Nope, I push pretty hard on her minimum standards for what she'll look at; if I drop below her level of finish, it just comes back unread.
Oh, it's a perfectionism thing
Do you have the problem where you'll look at a pile of work and mentally think, "If I'm being productive that should take about two days to do" and then put off actually starting because (subliminally) it's too frustrating to go through the disappointment of realizing that it will take a week and a half to do?
That may not be a good explanation, but that's something that happens to me a lot. The full thought process is something like this:
Mental estimate: "2 days"
This is wrong for two reasons, first that initial estimates are always overly optimistic. There's some detail that you've glossed over that will end up eating a days worth of work." Secondly it's wrong because it takes more than two days to do "two days worth of work." There's inevitably down time and the odd afternoon when you can't brain into gear and that's part of any project, but it isn't part of the mental estimate.
As long as I'm not actually writing anything for the project then I don't mentally start the clock of how long it's taken (even though I'm turning it over in my head, and thinking about it in the background). That's a bit of a cheat because it is actually part of the work process and, by not including it, I don't have the feedback to correct my mental estimates (though I've gotten better on this score).
Once I actually start working I immediately run into the two inaccuracies in the estimate mentioned above. At that point part of my brain knows what's going on and accepts it as part of life. But part of my brain starts becoming outraged over the fact that it's taking so long and starts feeling like either I'm to blame, because I'm wasting so much time, or starts feeling like I hate my work and I hate my job because everything always takes longer and is more frustrating than I hoped it would be.
Both of those negative reactions are (say) 70% irrational and untrue and 30% close enough to be true to have some bite to them.
But, either way, that can be a dynamic that makes me want to put off a project that's been sitting around for a while -- that I just don't want those frustrations. And, as long as I haven't started writing I can sort of ignore them.
Does that sound familiar to you?
113: Why, yes. In detail. Exactly.
Well, not exactly. I'm not quite starting the clock from when I literally start working on something, more like when I really buckle down. So there's a horrible extended period of picking at projects like this, before I actually get to work.
113: Why, yes. In detail. Exactly.
Oh good. It's nice to hit the mark occasionally.
I can offer two pieces of advice (beyond just recognizing the patter):
1) Learn to think of down time as part of the work process. Learn to count those days when you didn't get anything meaningful done as a success, not a failure (well, they're only a success if it doesn't cause you to miss deadlines). Decide that it's better to have time when you're not productive than to force yourself to be unhappy about the work.
2) Try not to extend your hours when you're in that state (again, deadlines permitting). I understand the temptation to think, "If I stay at work an extra three hours, I can get an extra hours worth of work done and, at this point, I'll take that." It's very tempting, but probably not the right thing to do. In my experience it is almost always better to get out of the office at that point. It isn't just better in the long-run, it's better in the medium run.
That's my 2c, and this is something that I've run into a lot.
Well, not exactly. I'm not quite starting the clock from when I literally start working on something, more like when I really buckle down. So there's a horrible extended period of picking at projects like this, before I actually get to work.
Oh, gosh yes. I left that out for the sake of not adding any additional elaboration to a somewhat crazy sounding comment, but that is absolutely part of the experience for me.
Huh. Actually, one of the few things that does work for me in this state is "I can't go home until I've accomplished X." If I try to be sane about it, I end up not getting shit done until it's a genuine emergency that has to be handled as such.
I just installed skype. That should be good for effective time use. I almost bought Civ V today but I'm no longer deluded enough to believe I won't play until 4 in the morning.
Anyone want to play Scrabble on Facebook? I've already got a game going with Jackmormon, but that's no reason not to add another couple.
Huh. Actually, one of the few things that does work for me in this state is "I can't go home until I've accomplished X."
We may differ on that one.
For me, if I leave at the point when I'm no longer productive there's a chance that when I come in the next morning I'll have a bust of productivity -- "I should have done this yesterday, but I can bang it out this morning and it will be quick."
If I stay and keep looking at the same puzzle not accomplishing anything, then it's the last thing I want to look at early the next morning. But I leave with the idea in my head that, had I just stayed around a bit, I could have done X,Y,&Z then I can sometimes be energized to come back to that. If I come back the next morning and it still feels a slog then that's a sign (it could be a sign of a couple of things. Either that I'm tired, and really need dead time. Or that my sense of the puzzle is wrong, and brain is trying to come up with a better definition of the problem. Or it could just be a bit of work that's inherently unenjoyable).
Team Just Do It Tomorrow? Maybe another night. I'm going to exercise and then sleep. I put off the homework for my class, so I only got four hours sleep last night in order to be ready for class today.
Yeah, I think this one thing where I might be more productive if I had a drinking problem. Being exhausted is disinhibiting, and sometimes I need to be too tired to think straight before I can really get work done (and then I can fix it later, but at least it's on the page). I sort of assume the classic drunken writer was doing the same thing more efficiently with a couple of quick shots of bourbon, but it seems like such a bad idea going there.
Can I just say: there is part of me that really wants to make my e-mail signature:
"Why, yes. In detail. Exactly. " -- LizardBreath
I'm not going to do it, but the temptation is there. It just looks so good to read that sentence.
On chilblains:
72: They're the condition of your toes itching like hell IME. The pedia thing says they're technically some sort of ulcer, but I'm not sure that's very helpful. Nobody ever suggested treating them when I was a kid - you just put another pair of socks on till they went away. The myth was current that they were caused by heating up too fast when you were cold - you were told never to hang on a radiator or stand in front of the fire immediately after you came in.
I feel as though I know this from childhood winters in New England. Generally experienced after having spent time outdoors in socks and boots that got soaked through in snow/ice/slush, yet you remained outside running around for some time. Once you came in and stripped off your soaking wet socks, and warmed your toes, they became red and swollen, and itched and were sort of chapped. Uncomfortable toes!
It seemed like a normal part of winter. It generally dissipated by the end of the evening; just cold and wet toes freaking out in the aftermath, I thought.
120: I don't actually want to, but how do you join a game?
I spent hours today slowly writing, but mostly procrastinating, an answer and discovery demand. I feel very much like a real lawyer.
You set up the app, however one does (I can't remember. Search for Scrabble, and then do what it tells you to do) and hit the New Game button, and it'll give you a list of your friends to invite. It's all self-evident in that software kind of way.
127: Yay! Soon the true horror of what you've done to yourself will begin to eat slowly into your soul.
Tangentially related to the procrastination question above, one of the talk I was at last week wanted to measure the degree of self-sabotage that students introduce out of anxiety/fear of failure/give themselves an out. The sample survey question was "Does this describe you: 'If I'd studied harder, I would have done better.'?"
I got so aggravated by that question, and I tried to politely say that there are all kinds of reasons a student might agree with that statement, which aren't necessarily self-sabotage. The woman re-explained self-sabotage to me and it became obvious that I ought not harass her further.
125: That's it? I didn't even know that was a "thing."
The idea of self-sabotage is that the student brings in an obstacle, which then gives them an out if they fail. I left out the word "obstacle" above.
The woman re-explained self-sabotage to me and it became obvious that I ought not harass her further.
I think the Amway people use the same definition of self-sabotage. It makes for really annoying people since considering the opinion, feelings, or ideas of anyone else becomes "self-sabotage."
128: Can you watch a friends' game without playing one? Are games only between 2 people or can they have more?
I don't know about watching, but up to four people can play, I think.
The woman re-explained self-sabotage to me and it became obvious that I ought not harass her further.
I think you should have harassed her further.
Is this Scrabble you're talking about the Words With Friends one, or actually Scrabble? I don't play it on Facebook, but if I know your user name I can start a game with you on the iPad.
It is actually Scrabble&trademark;. I don't actually know if the Facebook app communicates with anything outside of Facebook.
That should have been "Scrabble™".
Also, this: one of the talk I was at last week wanted to measure the degree of self-sabotage that students introduce out of anxiety/fear of failure/give themselves an out
is utter hogwash. Measure? Measure self-sabotage? By defining it in terms of obstacles brought in? Does the woman not understand the distinction between reasons and excuses? What kind of weird agenda did this woman have?
Bleh.
But mostly I was kidding about how badly I want to do something other than work. I mean, I do want to play Scrabble with anyone up for a game, but probably not tonight.
What kind of weird agenda did this woman have?
I'm picturing Deloris Umbrage without magic.
I spelled that wrong. I blame Seinfeld and the fact that the name is supposed to make me think of "taking umbrage."
Words with Friends is called that in its Facebook app as well.
I'm mauerschau if anyone wants to play me! Right now I am only playing against Tweety's mom, uncle, and aunt. Oh, and I'm not particularly good, so you can probably win!
Okay, that makes a game sound appealing. I'm mediocre at Scrabble, and convinced I should be good -- you should be just my speed.
I got Skype almost entirely so I could play Words with Friends with my mom. I haven't tried it yet.
142, 143: I see that that is a Harry Potter reference, Moby, and it's therefore beyond my purview. Who is taking umbrage here? I am.
The felt need to measure things and produce reports on them before anyone will acknowledge and attend drives me up a wall. There was a rather painful NPR story this evening on Doug Elmendorf's testimony before the congressional Super-Committee in which he apparently told them that yes, according to CBO studies, cutting government spending slows economic activity because yo, we have determined that it means less money available for people to spend, so now that we've proven that with our study, there you go, chew on that. And the Super-Committee and NPR reporters were all like, Oh. Well. Huh. This casts a new light on things.
Relevant TPM piece here.
(/end rant)
If people want news, according to people I've never met before in my life but who have twitter accounts, Occupy Oakland looks to be heading to round 2.
You don't like measuring things?
You have to stretch them first. Stretch them by hand.
147: It is a settled question, but not an absurd one. Or wasn't absurd at some point in the past. Government spending is taxed or borrowed from somebody*. You need to see the multiplier effects and current account balances and other stuff that I forgot to see if government spending is increasing activity or just moving it.
*Unless the government spending is from increasing the money supply in which case you need to be sure the gains are real and not just nominal.
The question of whether academic failure is (partly) driven by some kind of combination of traits that could be profitably measured by some kind of metric that could semi-accurately be described as "self-sabotage" (but then described in greater detail) is not self-evidently absurd, either.
149: Not when it's completely freaking obvious what the results will be. Not when people will refuse to believe or act on the obvious unless they're provided with studies and statistics, and an endorsement. It's some kind of weird avoidance of potential liability thing: show me the proof! Cite, cite!
Drives me nuts sometimes. I don't know what is wrong with us.
I don't know what is wrong with us.
Self-sabotage and wine.
153: I thought the basic concept was fine and interesting. I thought their methods for evaluating it were nutty, or at least the presenter was not following my point enough to discuss it.
As a courtesy, I will not tell you all about the interview I heard on CSPAN Radio this morning with Megan McArgle. McArdle.
123: this actually works great, until it stops working.
...or at least the presenter was not following my point enough to discuss it.
Maybe the presenter isn't allowing herself to understand it so she doesn't have to listen to criticism?
157: I will not tell you all about the interview I heard on CSPAN Radio this morning with Megan McArgle.
Could you at least let us know whether she would give us half a bob to go to the waxies' dargle?
161: To the extent that I understand the request, I think the answer is no.
But I don't know what a waxies' dargle is, really.
Somebody has started a fake twitter for the mayor of Oakland (the one in California, not the main one). It's @JeanQuann and it might be funnier if you knew local issues.
I'm pretty sure I do a lot of poor study behavior out of self-sabotage. I'm not all that comfortable with the idea of public success, even where public can mean "within a fairly small community", and though it's not clear I'd ever achieve it, I've done a very good job of not reaching it while not completely closing the door on the future either.
That way of measuring it really does seem stupid. "Done better" can mean anything from could have gotten a higher grade to did fine, but didn't meet some imaginary standard that may or may not coincide with grades.
Thanks, though. That saves me a trip to Monto Town at least.
The Oakland (or maybe Alameda?) police acted similarly during the anti-war protests in 2003 and maybe 2004 too, if I remember correctly. Also, IIRC, there was not a lot of news coverage outside of the alternative/progressive press.
164, 166: Ah. No, McMegan is of no help.
||
My dogged calling and texting prompted one former roommate to invite me to meet him for beers tonight. He paid me the $100 he owed me and bought me the beers. Minor personal victory!
|>
116
1) Learn to think of down time as part of the work process. Learn to count those days when you didn't get anything meaningful done as a success, not a failure (well, they're only a success if it doesn't cause you to miss deadlines). Decide that it's better to have time when you're not productive than to force yourself to be unhappy about the work.
2) Try not to extend your hours when you're in that state (again, deadlines permitting). I understand the temptation to think, "If I stay at work an extra three hours, I can get an extra hours worth of work done and, at this point, I'll take that." It's very tempting, but probably not the right thing to do. In my experience it is almost always better to get out of the office at that point. It isn't just better in the long-run, it's better in the medium run.
I disagree with both of these. I think it is important to get something done every day. If you don't want to work on one thing work on something else but don't just do nothing all day.
And often the main obstacle is just getting started so if you get started near the end of the normal working day keep working a while (other obligations permitting). It is true that it is pointless to stay late doing nothing.
159: Aside from being unsustainable, the unsustainable plan is often very attractive.
125, 131: On chilblains: ... Once you came in and stripped off your soaking wet socks, and warmed your toes, they became red and swollen, and itched and were sort of chapped.
What you describe is a more transitory phenomenon that looks like it can be a contributory cause (or maybe a trigger) for chilblains* and which have manifests similarly, but is not the thing itself. These bumps appear 12-14 hours after exposure to the cold. and There are two types of chilblains: chronic and acute. The chronic type of chilblains last for at least five months of the year for at least three years. ... People who have acute chilblains only have them for one to two weeks.
Although a bit heavy on stereotypes, The Straight Dope has a decent write-up.
*Turns out a "blain" is an archaic term for a sore, or a bulla, pustule, or blister.
And per several above, the south of England is indeed a relative descriptor with regard to the climatological (indoor and outdoor) conditions that lead to chilblains.
_South_ of England? Pffft. Lightweights.
84: Google throws up this, with pictures and everything.
I'm having WMD for breakfast: Waffles of Much Deliciousness.
People underestimate quite how shitty damp and cold is.
Not I, I assure you. I am a regular sufferer from what Sellars and Yeatman described (in "Diseases of the Horse") as Flanders: depressive neurosis afflicting both horse and man, caused by sitting in septic mud for years on end. Cure: keep end as dry as possible.
I remember watching a 70s-era (I guess?) documentary about WWI vets and they were all asked what memory stuck with them the most. "The wet."
*Turns out a "blain" is an archaic term for a sore, or a bulla, pustule, or blister.
So the parents who name their kid Blain are kind of being jerks?
They are, but because it's not a name, it's a major appliance.
This is what happens if you pull a war in a landscape that has been artificially managed for 700 years or so by the Flemish or Picard version of Megan in order to maximise various kinds of intensive farming and river navigation and minimise events that fill the Cloth Hall with filthy water and really piss off the Burgomaster while also drowning sundry peasants. Not only does the maintenance stop, but as soon as one side feels they're getting the worst of it, they blow things up and carefully pessimise all the sluices and locks and whatnot. And then, of course, both sides' artillery agrees to cooperate across the lines in churning everything up.
I'm sure Megan could convert most of California into damp and cold given the right circumstances.
I disagree with both of these. I think it is important to get something done every day.
I was thinking about this last night. I think it is going to very from individual to individual. In my case I'm actually pretty highly motivated to get work done, over the long term, I just have short term motivation issues. In that case I've decided that it's often sane to allow myself those lulls of motivation, because I'm not too worried that they will drag on too long.
But that's also specific to my current job/experience level. I don't know what advice I would have had for myself when I was just starting out, for example, but it probably would have been different than my advice to myself now.
So, in other words, I think the diagnosis is helpful, but the response is going to very based on individual circumstances.
181: Evil Megan sounds pretty badass.