One Thousand Hours

Either we see another day, or we don't.

I have fifty odd years to live, statiscally speaking. I should plan for that time; if I endure so long, the time will pass anyway whether I am intentional in my use of it or not.

A friend of mine started playing guitar when he was thirteen. He's thirty three now, and he estimates he's got 23,000 hours or so logged on guitar. It shows.

In one thousand hours I might:

*learn to please myself calligraphically
*finish the first draft of a novel
*write a cycle of sonnets or songs
*finish and produce a game, from soup to nuts (or apple to egg, as the Romans said)
*read a couple hundred novels
*watch all the movies I must for my Master's in Creative, as well as make my own forty minute film
*work half a year full time (40/168 h per week)

What could you do, if you started now?

Remember, you can't start, except where you are.

MacDonald

The Diary of an Old Soul
George MacDonald

September 18

Why is it that so often I return
From social converse with a spirit worn,
A lack, a disappointment--even a sting
Of shame, as for some low, unworthy thing?--
Because I have not, careful, first of all,
Set my door open wide, back to the wall,
Ere I at others' doors did knock and call.

---
Father, again and again I tire, and groan, and remember
the futility of my former days, and wonder that I
ever will progress, with all my past debt burdening
the way and shadowing my path.

But if a shadow stretches before me, a warmth is on
my back--of the Sun, finding me and glowing
to cheer me along and along, sometimes disappearing
as I dip, and reacquainting me with the heat of life
as I rise, and run again.
---

More
Words by Pierce Pettis and Andrew Peterson

Album: The Far Country

(John 12:24)

This is not the end here at this grave
This is just a hole that someone made
Every hole was made to fill
And every heart can feel it still--
Our nature hates a vacuum

This is not the hardest part of all
This is just the seed that has to fall
All our lives we till the ground
Until we lay our sorrows down
And watch the sky for rain

There is more
More than all this pain
More than all the falling down
And the getting up again
There is more
More than we can see
From our tiny vantage point
In this vast eternity
There is more

A thing resounds when it rings true
Ringing all the bells inside of you
Like a golden sky on a summer eve
Your heart is tugging at your sleeve
And you cannot say why
There must be more

There is more
More than we can stand
Standing in the glory
Of a love that never ends
There is more
More than we can guess
More and more, forever more
And not a second less

There is more than what the naked eye can see
Clothing all our days with mystery
Watching over everything
Wilder than our wildest dreams
Could ever dream to be
There is more

Games

I love Vincent.

In case you're wondering, the post linked to above is by Vincent Baker, who made Dogs In the Vineyard and several other story games. His blog is here:

http://www.lumpley.com/

The post, Killing Darlings is great, and it reminds that I've finished only one game.

My friend Brennen is doing a thing a day for a month.

Maybe I should follow suit, but in games.

So what would that look like?

I'd add a column to my every day list, of game development, .25 h.

I don't think I'd require myself to finish a game each day. Maybe each week?

Yeah. Let's make it every Sunday at 0001.00 I owe a game text posted here.

Learning II

I prefer to learn by hearing.

Some people like to see what you have; others want to feel or touch the subject at hand.

An excellent way to check one's comprehension is to explain a given concept or technique to someone else, such that they can use it immediately.

Gerald J Sussman at Don Friedman's 60th Birthday Party

Original video here.

DECLARATIVE KNOWLEDGE

What is True

IMPERATIVE KNOWLEDGE

Find an Approximation to f(x)
Make Guess (G)
Improve Guess by averaging G and (f(x))/G
Recur until G good enough

Computer languages
I can say some things more precisely than before

CELESTIAL MECHANICS
Chaotic Motion shown by machine

I've learned a lot, and I'd like to tell you the things I've learned

Structure and Interpretations of Classical Mechanics

Mathematical Notation Fundamentally sucks

cos^2(x)

cos^-1(x) /= 1/(cos(x))

Mathematical notation is an impressionistic natural language.

Mathematicians haven't been clear because they don't have a good language.

No good for teaching elementary stuff.

Right answers by wrong arguments.

Understanding ideas /= Manipulating symbols

FUNCTIONAL PROGRAMMING

Requires precision.

Write a program to explain things.

precise
formal
~overly rigorous

Edgar Allen Poe The Philosophy of Composition 1846

Minsky Paper Title

MINDSTORMS: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas by Seymour Papert

Learning is fun!

I'd forgotten until my Digital Logic Tuesday morning the immense pleasure I obtain from lecture, on occasion.

The teacher, Dr. Singh, was explaining a method for designing a particular machine using some simple binary operations. It was very abstract and high level (i.e., right up my alley.)

It's probably somewhat gross psychologically, in that competition and therefore pride play a role. I catch on to abstract, numerate, or verbal things pretty quick. (Ah, the joys of unspecified scope in comparators. Quick relative to what population, Will?)

--
Learning is delightful, and some folks don't believe that. How utterly tragic. Nothing is simpler or humbler than our capacity to learn from every situation. It is the root of social relations, prediction, abstraction--so much that I'm abashed to have begun a list.

Frank Herbert writes of Paul Muad'Dib in Dune that he never forgot that one can learn from every situation.

(The learning/growth distinction is one I'm still working on--feel free to throw a comment down if you think you can add light [or, I suppose, heat].)

(Learning is our dyadic relation with All, oneself and the world at large. Surely there is no more basic joy. If you can think of a counterexample, I'll ask Thomas to send you brownies.)

Buster(s)

On the advice of my lawyer, I submit this frail offering as evidence that I have a sense of humor care about you, Constant Reader.

Original comic here.

She's really an amazing with watercolor. (She'd say watercolour, actually.)

Of course, that my school pussed out on classes today after mere Tornado Warnings helped.

Maybe after lunch I'll actually finish something.

Mood: (Are you kidding me? Do you really think I'm going to write something so inane as my mood down?)

Music: Exorcist Children - Sea of Amorphia, Drop of Quiddity