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The life and times of David Geisert

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The Great Ideas of Psychology

This person has a very different view of science than most scientists I’ve known.  I think this is because he likes including more of what he does in the category of being science.  By his definition a lot more of art can be put into the category of science than I believe should be.  Working in the ‘soft’ sciences will do this, as much of what is trying to be shown is not universal laws, but instead deal with conventions and labels.  It is hard to describe the difference in a hard way, but politics would be another good example of something that follows a method, but isn’t science.  Same can be said for law and ethics.

The book is fantastic at breaking down the history of psychology and how some of the different theories are flawed when you take them to their ultimate conclusions.  This is very similar to what can be done with many ethical positions.  Even though I don’t agree with everything said in the book, I agree with most of what it implies.  I like to think that thinking has more to it than an electro-chemical process.  I like to think that I am; not that I am just a mass of mainly carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen, with other things mixed in, that happens to be doing what I’m doing.

Audible Link

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Effective Communication Skills

This lecture series I finished a while ago and never got around to posting about it since I was getting busy and distracted.  I enjoyed most of what was said in this book.  The series of books I’ve read have built up well, with logic, argumentation, and communication.  There was a lot of repitition of concepts from the other books in this one, but it was taken in a new light.  Instead of trying to win arguments you were trying to steer conversations.  I like this approach much better than the previous ones, and I think it is more applicable in everyday situations.  A lot of what is described can be summmarized as just talking to persons, not talking to people.

Audible Link

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Motorcycling Day 2

Today we had a lot more interesting maneuvers for the motorcycling.  It wasn’t nearly as tiring and not nearly as hot it seemed.  I had a good time and was taking corners a little too quickly in some situations.  We all did rather well on everything except the U-turn box.  Adam had the hardest time with the U-turn box, but he managed to pull it out in the end.  I think that situation is the one we have to worry about the least, as you can always just roll the bike instead of riding it in tight quarters.  I didn’t do great on the test, but was far from the worst score.  Jeremy did the best with a score of 1.

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The Counter

After the motorcycle class Adam, Tina, Amit, Jeremy, Steph, and I went to the Counter on California Ave.  Steph and I got there first with Adam showing up just afterwards.  Jeremy took another 10 minutes to get there, but Amit and Tina took somewhere between 45min to 1hour to show up.  They stopped by Amit’s and got all cleaned up.  It was soooo nice to be in the air conditioning and have some nice cold beverages after the day out in the sun with the Motorcycling gear on.  I got the contradiction burger on spinach instead of the bun.  It was delicious and I ate more than I should have.  I didn’t feel too bad about it since I had had a long day and was pretty light for what I normally like to weigh.

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Testing out some more Tzolk’in

Adam destroyed me multiple times in all 3 games of Tzolk’in.  I wasn’t able to get the resource strategy to generate points.  It was strange to have so much resource, so many people, and so little points.  I built more than 10 buildings in every game we played, and most of the games I also got a monument.  Despite that I was scoring very poorly.  I think the next strategy I’m going to try is the skull/god strategy.  Nick joined in for the second two games.  He got 2nd in the first play, and I got 2nd in the second play of him being at the table.

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First day of Motorcycling

We had our first course on the motorcycles yesterday.  It was hot out and we were all dying in the log sleeves.  Some people even had the leather jackets that you might normally need for riding at full speed.  With the speeds we were going at (max at about 15mph) there was little or no respite from the heat with any kind of wind.  The class went at a good pace, but some of the other riders weren’t particularly learning quickly.  Everyone in our group did really well.  Steph got a difficult bike and couldn’t easily shift.  She also dropped the bike twice, which I thought was a little funny.  By the end of the day I was feeling rather comfortable on the bike, and I’d be willing to take a motorcycle out on the road (not yet highway).  I probably was on the nicest of the bikes there, and it was really easy to handle and shift with.

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Hotline Miami

David showed me a game on his PS3 called Hotline Miami.  It was an incredibly violent stealth attacking game.  The premise is that you are a hitman who needs to take out a ton of gangsters from the other sides.  It is incredibly easy to kill and be killed and each building floor must be completed or you have to start over.  I picked up the game decently quickly and was able to complete a level.  I died so many times it was a little absurd.  The game itself is really tight mechanically, but the theme isn’t something that I’m particularly drawn to.

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Jimmy, Riley, and David

Friday night Jimmy, Riley, and David were hanging out at Beachhead.  David was just moving in and the others were sitting around the living room smoking hookah.  David’s stuff was everywhere, but the TV was set up and he had his PS3 going.  It looked almost exactly like the previous setup.  It was interesting to see Riley back at Beachhead since he is so against going anywhere.

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Spelunky

Steph downloaded Spelunky onto her computer and we played with 2 keyboards on the same computer.  It was difficult to control the characters and the controls were not very intuitive.  It was clear that the game had been made for the Xbox.  This made us not enjoy it as much as we could have.  Especially since we were always hitting each other into traps.  Steph wasn’t the most observant player and she was particularly bad about jumping into the traps or bottomless pits.  With the way the screen works the other players have to follow the leader by jumping down into the pit.  It is really difficult to control a character off screen.  If we got controllers for it I would want to play it again, but not otherwise.

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