Dating, by the book

September 1st, 2010 elsewhere

This is an interesting idea: dating someone who has about the same reading list. I think it is interesting to meet someone who reads the same books to see what they love about the author but I don’t see how that would work for a woman, dating-wise. According to some stats folks, the optimal strategy is to reject the first 37% of all the candidates, and then select the first candidate who is better than any previous candidate.

In terms of reading habits,

1. Women read mainly fiction; men read mainly non fiction

2. There are more women readers than men readers.

So if the point is to match up based on reading tastes, this site doesn’t really let you implement that optimal strategy.

MBTI: INTP’s survival games

August 20th, 2010 elsewhere

From here

In a nutshell, the worse thing you can do with ….
a Rational:

• challenge or question their competency;
• stifle their drive to achieve;
• dismiss their ingenuity

“How do the four temperaments react when
under extreme stress or feeling threatened?” They react by playing certain “survival games.” For example:

Rationals

Play the game of “Robot” when they fear a loss of their ability to
continue to be competent, achieving, and resolved. Variants of the
Robot game include:

That’s Illogical: keep others on defensive by asking lots of
questions, and once others try to defend or explain themselves, then accuse them of being Illogical.

Super-Intellectual: behave as very intellectual and devoid of
emotion. Appear cold, stiff, distant and impersonal to others. They intellectualize everything — even emotions.

Nitpick: they become preoccupied with minute details, completely disregarding the big picture. Rarely satisfied, perfectionistic. The book makes the example of the graduate student who never finishes her dissertation.

Superstition: go to extreme to avoid something — like germs. May also engage in repetitive rituals like cleaning, counting or chanting or hand-washing.

Blanking Out: experience moments when they can’t think of familiar words, names or numbers; most likely to happen when performing as in taking a test.

Haunted: cannot make unpleasant thoughts go away, such as a song playing in their head, or become obsessed about loved ones.

Faceless Corporations

July 5th, 2010 elsewhere

From Interacting with Machines:

Instead, these interactive platforms are a rare opportunity to endow a brand with agency, to inject some emotion into an emotionless corporation.

I’m not sure how this can work. Even if they inject emotion I might still not believe it it comes from a corporation. I would still think it comes a human not the corporation.

Bonds

April 13th, 2010 books, elsewhere

There is a passage in Couples (Updike) spoken by Ken Whitman,a scientist studying molecular events of photosynthesis, of his wife’s Foxy affair. Molecules have bonds, he lectured, observing that Piet and Foxy’s bonds were stronger than his and Foxy’s. Today, it struck me to wiki molecular bonds.

The strength of bonds varies considerably; there are “strong bonds” such as covalent or ionic bonds and “weak bonds” such as dipole-dipole interactions, the London dispersion force and hydrogen bonding.
…
A covalent bond is a form of chemical bonding that is characterized by the sharing of pairs of electrons between atoms, and other covalent bonds. In short, the attraction-to-repulsion stability that forms between atoms when they share electrons is known as covalent bonding.
…
An ionic bond is a type of chemical bond that involves a metal and a nonmetal ion (or polyatomic ions such as ammonium) through electrostatic attraction. In short, it is a bond formed by the attraction between two oppositely charged ions.
…
Intermolecular forces are due to differences in charge density in molecules.

Poor Ken.

Where to live

April 5th, 2010 elsewhere

Finding a flat to live in:

If you want to find a good place to live, just ask people if they trust their neighbors. Levels of social trust vary enormously, but countries with high social trust have happier people, better health, more efficient government, more economic growth, and less fear of crime (regardless of whether actual crime rates are increasing or decreasing).

This is like a place I saw yesterday. I was standing at the security area of a residential block and I see the security guards chatting/teasing with the kids who lived in the block. A boy and his cat came next to me and played around me (instead of avoiding me like kids in HDB flats). I think it would be nice to live there, where the environment is trusting.

This reminds me of the Grant Study. Trust makes us more vulnerable than suspicion because it is a positive emotion. A quote from one of the men: “It’s important to care and to try, even tho the effects of one’s caring and trying may be absurd, futile, or so woven into the future as to be indetectable.” The article concludes “Only with patience and tenderness might a person surrender his barbed armor for a softer shield. Perhaps in this, I thought, lies the key to the good life—not rules to follow, nor problems to avoid, but an engaged humility, an earnest acceptance of life’s pains and promises.”

Sleeping with John Updike by Julian Barnes

February 2nd, 2010 books, elsewhere

Resentment, jealousy, dishonesty simmers along (for 40 years?). Nothing boils over in this story of two women on a train on the way home. Found here on guardian books.

“They liked that story of yours about Graham Greene.”
“They usually do,” Jane replied with a slight air of complacency.
“I’ve always meant to ask you, is it true?”
“You know, I never worry about that any more. It fills a slot.”

More on Supernatural

January 11th, 2010 elsewhere, screen

I love this long post about Sam Winchester (the character).

“When The Levee Breaks” is another example — we had Sam’s version of events, for about twenty minutes. However, it wasn’t so much Sam as Sam’s sub-conscious (Sam’s brain and body were going through detox) experiencing wild withdrawal symptoms. Sam wasn’t himself; he was too busy conjuring his biggest fears to both absolve and accuse himself before taking on the role of judge, jury and executioner, again for himself. We learned about what Sam feared the most; but little was uttered about exactly WHY Sam was convinced drinking demon blood to go after Lillith (to save the world) was not only an option, but the only option.

It is why I fear showing “The End” while leaving Sam’s motivations –and entire experience– for later will only set up a disappointing and/or anti-climatic explanation that will not satisfy or even explain Sam’s troubled thinking to us or to Dean. It could be a gross disservice to a complex character. I’m not spoiled, and I absolutely don’t wish to be; but future titles give me hope we will see more of Sam from the inside when season 5 resumes.

Convention videos! Woohoo! Big plus: Misha Collins is extremely entertaining – hilarious!

Painting from life?

December 31st, 2009 elsewhere, radio

Listening to Van Gogh: Seeing Red on BBC it occurred to me how different his paintings were to his life. Van Gogh lived an isolated life and his intense relationships with Theo and Gaugin hinted of loneliness yet his art was not lonely. They were complete and happy to me.

Hopper who was not lonely, had friends and a supportive wife in Jo knew loneliness so well.

Barbara Novak tells a story about a party she and O’Doherty threw in the Sixties, towards the end of the Hoppers’ lives. Edward and Jo were the first to arrive. They sat down next to each other on a settee, and as the other guests – many of whom were the most successful artists of that new generation – piled in, they thought the Hoppers seemed happy and left them alone. Halfway through the party Novak turned to look at them and saw that a large empty space had been left around the Hoppers’ sofa. It was an image straight out of one of his paintings: even in a crowded room, they radiated isolation – together.

‘We don’t know what she died of,’ Novak says when I ask about Jo. ‘I think she died for lack of him. And,’ she adds, ‘he would have died for lack of her. It really was a folie à deux.’

From here

Effect Enid Blyton had on from former British colonies

December 29th, 2009 elsewhere

Could it be Blyton’s fault that I’m always tweeting about food? The children in Enid Blyton were always eating delicious spreads – whether at tea, supper or at midnight: ham, boiled eggs, tongue sandwiches, fruitcake, pound cake, tea,  scones and jam, muffins with so much butter they run down your chins, apples, treacle (sounds absolutely delicious), eclairs, ginger buns, ginger ale, biscuits, jellies, eggs, bacon, milk, fresh bread. She could make boiled egg and sardines sound delicious. So if I had not read Blyton when I was a child, I wouldn’t be obsessed about food, I wouldn’t have the problem of love handles and I won’t be self-conscious about being in a sari for J’s wedding.

On The Psychology of Social Status

December 28th, 2009 elsewhere

A report found on SciAm talks about gaining better social standing makes the brain go mmmmm extends the topic further in another report (also found on SciAm) on the protection of social standing.

Henry took on the traditional Culture of Honor hypothesis to suggest instead that differences between herding and farming cultures in violence actually stem from differences in status. His theory is based on a considerable psychological literature demonstrating that individuals from low-status groups (e.g. ethnic minorities) tend to engage in more vigilant psychological self-protection than those from high-status groups. Low-status people are much more sensitive to being socially rejected and are more inclined to monitor their environment for threats. Because of this vigilance toward protecting their sense of self-worth, low-status individuals are quicker to respond violently to personal threats and insults.

The interesting bit about this article is that it includes a short mention of another study where it is found that generous and helpful behaviour improves social status – that is, the aggressive behaviour employed by persons trying to protect their status is not a successful strategy.

Why is this strategy pursued continually if it is not effective? One answer is that the aggression is innate – it becomes an expression of persons being protective of their statuses, so the aggressive behaviour isn’t a strategy, it is an outlet. Within the a particular status group, there will be persons who can, through generous and helpful behaviour, rise to the top of the group. Social status is tied closely to economic status so jumping status group could be hard without the money part. Even with the money, jumping status group is probably rather difficult.