I played a great game of suburbia last night. The strategy of tentacles is working really well. This involves setting up lines where you can drop the great C buildings that come out and you can get the most benefit from them. I ended getting 99 points and winning against Nick, Tina, and Adam. In a second game Steph took my place. She did really well, and won despite Nick trying to thwart her. Nick didn’t realize it, but spending money early game on blocking someone else is going to completely destroy your economy.
This book looks at many of the similarities of evolution of genes and memes as has been put by other authors. The book also looks at the power laws associated with speed of activity, and how the requirements of a body, or city will diminish with the fourth root, the output will actually increase with the fourth root. This law doesn’t just apply to the physical world, but also applies to the digital world. The author then breaks does the innovations into two dimensions individualist vs. group and market vs. open source. He points out that the shift in the innovations of the past decades has been to group and open source. I think the principles of this book bring to mind some ideas that can be applied in larger settings, such that the previous norms will be destroyed, and replaced with much more open and fluid methods. I can think of a few markets that could use this kind of opening up. They open source does not need to be fully open, but only on the scale of a mostly open API. With your API and data being at the source of the platform. The example of this mostly open API that the author goes into detail about is twitter.
This was a pretty good summary of the basics of Confucianism and Taoism. I like the points it makes about how the view of ethical leadership in Confucianism is a great way to take it in as a modern person, but some of the patriarchal and controlling ideas that stem from it’s practice don’t mesh with modern life. The little part on Taoism was short, and said that there are lots of good ethical points made in Taoism, but it is more personal and deals with balance. Both of these have prospered in their pure forms due to not being made into political weapons like many other religious or philosophical beliefs have been. I listened to this twice, just to make sure I got the smaller points it made.
Last night I set up some veggie pulp + soy sauce + honey nut granola bunches of oats that had been blended together to dry out in Nick’s dehydrator. They weren’t fully dried this morning, but I tried a bit anyway. They were unbearably bitter. I’m not sure what happened, because the mixture was pretty good last night before it was dried. I’ll try spicing it tonight, but I’m not sure it can be salvaged as it currently is.
GT Daily Digest (5/2/2013). Three years after we graduated GT still loves using this picture!
This was not as strange as the first book but a lot more meta. The first book had a lot about physical things that simply could not happen. This book focused on the mind and how we can view thoughts as though they are simply thoughts and not necessarily us. I like the theme, but the exact way they define it leaves no definition of self. That is somewhat the point of the definition, but I don’t agree with it. I can tell that this concept was used by Scientologists to define the concept of Thetan, but there are many significant differences.
The overarching practice of being mindful, and always aware of what you are doing and why. Using this you can teach yourself to think objectively more often instead of emotionally, realize that your actions should not follow from anger, confusion, sloth, or ‘desire.’ Desire as they put it is something that I would more describe as coveting. The idea of desire being a bad influence isn’t something I fully agree with, even though that is more or less what they mean. The subset of desire, which I would call coveting, is what I would consider a bad influence. I believe that there are many desires that can be good influences. When I was reading the section on good and bad influences I got images in my head of hands representing the good and bad, while being the same shape. Coveting is a hand reaching out trying to grab something, while charity and good desire is a hand reaching out to give. Both these hands are the same shape, only one is palm down, the other palm up. Similarly the idea of confusion and clarity are two hands making circles between the thumb and middle finger. The confusion has the hands linked, and the clarity has them separate. Anger and Empathy are hands illuminated from the top by a red light and the hands are flat. The angry hands were palm down showing bright red knuckles, the empathic hands were palm up and looked like they were cupping blood. The slovenly vs. productive hands were in the shape of holding a rod. The one was holding a tool, the other was holding something else.
I think the last book will be far too meta for me to enjoy, but I still look forward to listening to it.
Nick had us over to play board games at where he works, Box. I ended up getting there late and so I didn’t join the first round of games. I played Taluva with Brian and Candice. Candice kept destroying all my settlements and handing the game to Brian. It was Candice’s first game and Brian was nudging her to do things that would help her, but at my expense. Then played a two person game of Hanabi with Brian. Then Steph joined for another game of Hanabi. The games of Hanabi went really well. We didn’t make almost any mistakes, but it was intense. Hanabi is a really amazing cooperative puzzle solving game. The game is best described as coop indian poker where you have to make straight flushes, but you can’t really talk to each other.
This book was a lot more about the history of Hinduism than the beliefs. Due to the fragmented nature of the beliefs it is necessary to explain the history of the different traditions, but there was surprisingly little on the actual belief structure as it exists today. Some of the interesting parts were about the rebirth cycle and how the god/gods work by being separate, but the same. It reminds me a lot of how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is said to be separate but the same. I’m going to need to listen to a few more books on hinduism before I feel that I have a decent understanding of the religious beliefs.
This book points out a lot of ways to determine if a person you are talking to is under stress, how to identify exactly what part of what you are saying is causing stress, and how to lead that to determining what the stress is about with regards to that part. The author points out many times that the techniques will indicate stress much more than they will indicate deception. Deception is only one thing that will cause stress. The biggest thing the author says is an indicator is a change in behavior. The behaviors themselves can be normal, even if they seem strange, but a change in a behavior is indicative of something no matter what kinds of behaviors are normal for a person.
It's an Exciting World 