I’m reading The Three-Body Problem. Mostly very good so far, but why has no one in this book heard of the, uh, three-body problem
But now he knows that behind the “C:\>” was a bottomless abyss.
CURRENT GENDER: An exquisitely framed shot of the main scientist character stoically or even perhaps emotionlessly pushing their glasses back up the bridge of their nose, seen from a high vantage point down a narrow slot between a concrete pillar and a mysterious metal crate twice their height, their medium-length hair buffeted by the rotors of the helicopter that has just delivered a shipment that could finally change the course of the war
(via etirabys)
But here’s what happened: the “Rousseauists” became very aggressive and accusatory in their arguments, and the students who both understood what was at stake and how Saint Augustine was the proper guide started becoming timid and apologetic. The Rousseau-favoring students began to accuse the Augustine students of being “not nice” and “judgmental” and “intolerant”; and the Augustine students had internalized enough of this ethos to assume their own guilt and abase themselves.
The heroine of our story, Cora Clark, very strongly believes that “God Bless You” is not just for sneezing, and soon convinces her classmates that “God Bless You” is also for passing wind. The next thing Cora knows, her classmate Billy’s father has illustrated a character of Cora for the TV show he works on, “Dora the Explorer,” and everyone watches as cartoon Cora convinces Dora that “God Bless You” is for farting, too. Suddenly, Cora is catapulted on a journey to spread the word on all the big TV talk shows, telling her story to everyone from Ellen DeGeneres to Stephen Colbert to Rachel Maddow to Whoopie Goldberg and even to the Cookie Monster. But even Cora can’t believe it when she gets a letter from two sisters, inviting her to come to their house to tell the story - and Cora goes to the White House to plead her cause for Sasha, Malia, President Obama, Michelle Obama, and even their dog, Bo.
rapeagoon asked: hey, nostalgebraist. some way back you talked about how you didn't enjoy reading history and such, or soemthing to that effect. do you think there's an opposite of math anxiety in which someone is convinced that they can be good at nothing but math, science, but will have trouble learning other topics? like how with math anxiety, the assumption is that you just can't do math. i've seen this "non-math anxiety" in a few of my friends, so i'd like to hear more about it.
I had a specific block with history, not with non-math/sci subjects generally, and although I’m familiar with plenty of people who only pursue math/sci subjects but I have no idea how much of that is anxiety as opposed to simple lack of interest. So I can’t really say.
and what is your specific block wrt history? is it a different way of integrating knowledge and concepts than you’re used to, or…? also, i think claiming lack of interest is one way people tend to cover up anxieties, it is definitely common when it comes to math anxiety, perhaps it’s the same for any other field that people have difficulties with? and thanks for talking about this.
I think my trouble with history is that it’s incredibly messy (e.g. the often very convoluted nature of diplomatic arrangements, alliances, causes of war) and has fractal layers of messy detail, and there is no clearly defined standard for which parts of all this are “important to know.” In particular, there are more facts (about any given period or event) that are, in some sense, very important than I could ever plausibly learn.
This still makes me shy away from talking about history, as I’m always aware that I could make some vast, idiotic blunder no matter how much material I have accumulated. (There are so many “orthogonal directions” along which information can be pursued, so that it’s conceivable that a far future version of me might, say, learn the exact sequence of events of the Cuban Missile Crisis while still being under the impression that it took place before the invention of cars, or getting mixed up when reading about Russian leaders and attributing all of Putin’s qualities to Khrushchev, or etc., etc., etc.)
But mostly this block has cleared up once I realized that history simply is like this for everyone, and some people just have better memories or abilities to mentally organize this stuff. I came away from high school history with the silly impression that the way to engage with history correctly was to memorize a lot of facts, and that people who were good at history beyond high school must just have a superhuman ability to memorize larger and larger quantities of interlaced, convoluted, and fine-grained facts. There is some truth to this, but once I allowed myself to say “I don’t have to remember all this shit, no one remembers all this shit” the floodgates opened and I could read and enjoy history
russianmurders asked: "There’s an epic battle for possession of three green satin dresses that goes beyond the grave. There’s an inappropriate and perverse but oddly romantic relationship, including an unforgettable dance atop of dead seagulls. There’s a Noriega-like military leader with a bazaar attachment to a jar full of human ears and another jar containing the heart of his predecessor. There’s a tarot card reader with an uncanny gift and a serious attitude. There’s a brave father’s quest to find his missing son.
There’s quite a lot of things, apparently
Among qualities to look for in a guardian, being valiant is high on the list.
Johnny Fedora is a fictional British secret agent who was the protagonist of 16 novels published between 1951 and 1984. Written by Shaun Lloyd McCarthy, under the pseudonym of Desmond Cory, Fedora was dubbed by literary critics as the ‘thinking man’s James Bond’. Preceding Bond, Fedora was also a hired assassin (“hired to kill”), but for many the Fedora plots were more complex and intellectual.
Thanks, Wikipedia, for this fake/parodic-sounding bit of trivia
rapeagoon asked: hey, nostalgebraist. some way back you talked about how you didn't enjoy reading history and such, or soemthing to that effect. do you think there's an opposite of math anxiety in which someone is convinced that they can be good at nothing but math, science, but will have trouble learning other topics? like how with math anxiety, the assumption is that you just can't do math. i've seen this "non-math anxiety" in a few of my friends, so i'd like to hear more about it.
I had a specific block with history, not with non-math/sci subjects generally, and although I’m familiar with plenty of people who only pursue math/sci subjects but I have no idea how much of that is anxiety as opposed to simple lack of interest. So I can’t really say.