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[Jackrabbit]

Somethingsomething is a technical term, shut up.

After having been linked to it via Tom Francis' excellent blog, I watched this video and like it did for him, it changed the way I think and approach problems. Why share this in general discussion? Well, frankly, you'll discuss it to death even if that wasn't my intention, so why not, but mostly I want to share this, because it's extraordinarily interesting and useful.

The link to Tom Francis' site will summarize it if you want a general overview but watching the video itself is something I can't recommend enough. Very, very good stuff.

[Max White]

*Watching video*
*About 2 minutes in*
231!!!!

Wait, apparently he didn't want me to answer that one. I think I have spent too much time in front of a compiler to be human any more...

EDIT: Still watching.
*Something about how every time you think about a problem, you use some of a finite supply of blood glucose, and over time it starts to run low*
So... I guess that is why I need a cup of tea to work, I will have about three teaspoons of sugar in there to keep me going.

[Darvi]

I'm so going to use that in my exam tomorrow. If I'm going to fail anyway I can at least hand in a huge "screw you guys".

[Vector]

*Something about how every time you think about a problem, you use some of a finite supply of blood glucose, and over time it starts to run low*
So... I guess that is why I need a cup of tea to work, I will have about three teaspoons of sugar in there to keep me going.

I haven't watched the video, but my professor always said that mathematicians have to eat like mountain climbers.  Seriously, if you're trying to do hard mental work and you don't eat an absurd diet, you probably aren't doing it right >_>

Eh, I'll probably watch it later, but for now I'm going to sit on my cushy cloud of thinking that I'm already pretty good at this stuff.

[Max White]

Well they say the brain eats an absurd amount of energy. I have seen myself trying to work without a cup of tea constantly next to me, and it often ends in Robot Unicorn Attack. Now were I trying to eat while working, I would end up throwing up, as sitting down all day and eating that much can not be healthy.

Regardless,
*Time flies like an arrow*
I got 'Record the rate of flies with the same accuracy that an arrow would hit a target', at about the same time as the first guy spoke up. Got that way by taking each word, and looking for alternative meanings. So, starting with Time, as in the concept, but it could also be to record a rate of something. Then I could read it with flies as a noun, and were set. Done quickly, and with conscious thought. I, once again, blame being a programmer. Breaking down a task into smaller parts is one of the first things we must do on a project. It is how we think. You can't make a class if you don't understand the smaller parts of the class, so you need to be skilled at looking at something and dividing it.

So, perhaps there are exceptions to what this man is saying. You just need to drive yourself insane with walls of logic, and be powered by glucose and antioxidants.

[Vector]

Time flies like an arrow -> Time flies (creature) with precise linear graphs for data interpretation, rather than logarithms

Would be what I got, basically simultaneously thinking.  I'd probably never get the accuracy version, because in my mental schematics arrows are associated with straightness more than any quality of accuracy.

I did find that I needed to let my subconscious loose more over the past couple of years, because it is pretty beast at solving problems.  On the other hand, I also discovered that I needed to give my conscious mind a lot more control in other situations, because there are places where drawing diagrams will do you miles more good than allowing yourself to defocus, or places where all one can manage is trial and error.  Explicit pattern-finding.

I agree, from the math-side, that one of the first things one must do is to break down a project into small chunks; however, for me this chunk was small enough that no explicit work whatsoever was necessary.  I guess it varies from person to person... there's certainly no general rule for where these delineations should be placed.

Well, anyway.  Seems like an interesting video.

[ChairmanPoo]

Fruit flies like bananas.

[Darvi]

Well duh. Bananas are fruit after all.

[Simmura McCrea]

Well duh. Bananas are fruit after all.

Actually, I think it's a berry.

[Cthulhu]

Which is a type of fruit.

[scriver]

I'll never understand why scientists need to change the meaning of an already established word because it no longer fits after Science marches by. There's a whole dead language's worth of words they can use for it, why do they have to make my fruits berries? [/grumpyoldman derail]

[G-Flex]

I'll never understand why scientists need to change the meaning of an already established word because it no longer fits after Science marches by. There's a whole dead language's worth of words they can use for it, why do they have to make my fruits berries? [/grumpyoldman derail]

Which is a type of fruit.

[Darkmere]

What's interesting to me is that the entire lecture is an oblique reference to zen and mindfulness, but of course those things are silly and have no place in a serious corporate culture. Let's slap a different name on it and the spirituality bias goes away.

It's all about how you look at the world, and understanding that your predispositions towards processing sensory and emotional input in a certain way drastically alter mental functioning.  The problem is this entire mindset is directly opposite to western education.

The focus on analytical abilities is NOT bad. In fact, such things are very useful for shorthand data processing. The problem, as stated in the lecture, is that most thought ability on an analytical level is dictated by conditioned lower-level responses. These responses are something you can contemplate and consciously alter, and in turn understanding your lower-level responses lets you function on a higher-more receptive and productive level in any situation.

This is mindfulness: the ability to understand how you understand things. Thinking about thinking.

Before I ramble on more, I'll say I've done personal study into a lot of these things from a "right-brained" perspective for years, so I'm up for discussion about anything. I'm just not sure where in the topic to begin, so...

[counting]

What's interesting to me is that the entire lecture is an oblique reference to zen and mindfulness, but of course those things are silly and have no place in a serious corporate culture. Let's slap a different name on it and the spirituality bias goes away.

It's all about how you look at the world, and understanding that your predispositions towards processing sensory and emotional input in a certain way drastically alter mental functioning.  The problem is this entire mindset is directly opposite to western education.

The focus on analytical abilities is NOT bad. In fact, such things are very useful for shorthand data processing. The problem, as stated in the lecture, is that most thought ability on an analytical level is dictated by conditioned lower-level responses. These responses are something you can contemplate and consciously alter, and in turn understanding your lower-level responses lets you function on a higher-more receptive and productive level in any situation.

This is mindfulness: the ability to understand how you understand things. Thinking about thinking.

Before I ramble on more, I'll say I've done personal study into a lot of these things from a "right-brained" perspective for years, so I'm up for discussion about anything. I'm just not sure where in the topic to begin, so...

Zen for ones' dummy
A way of thinking thinking and perspective. A new way of viewing the same thing as different, isn't it interesting and feels good  .

[Jackrabbit]

What's interesting to me is that the entire lecture is an oblique reference to zen and mindfulness, but of course those things are silly and have no place in a serious corporate culture. Let's slap a different name on it and the spirituality bias goes away.

I don't know if you've watched till the end but the guy's position on that topic is that everyone has the ability to utilize skills like this and the fact that they're tied to religion is not a good thing, as they don't need to be.