Tales of the graphing calculator

Graphing calculators are really fun to mess with. When I first got a graphing calculator for school, I immediately tried using it to play games. It took me a whole day to figure out how to find games, install them, and run them. While doing so, I learned more about computers than I have learned anywhere else. 

Installing games on a graphing calculator taught me a lot of things about how computers work. There are lots of different programs out there that interact with each other and sometimes fail to interact with each other. So many different things float around the internet that perform interesting functions.

The best way to learn how to work with computers is through Google and experience. Google is your teacher and your own computer is your textbook. 

Learning how to operate computers with some level of technical proficiency has saved me many times, from knowing how to re purpose an old hard drive from a broken computer and recover data to fixing the various problems that come up while you're working with your computer normally. It's very hard to teach computer savviness. You have to learn it on your own. It's like language in that it's very hard to teach. 

For example, the different file types and how dangerous they are to your computer. .exe files should only be run when you trust the source. Zips are dangerous to unzip if you don't know where they're coming from. Et cetera, et cetera. It takes experience to become adept at avoiding the bad stuff and sticking to the stuff that won't harm your computer. 

And then there are pop up ads and devious advertisements that pretend to be something they're not. The only way to learn how to deal with those is to get burned a couple of times. 

The internet is a wild place. There are lots of ways to do something, and all of them are usually going to be complicated. 

In conclusion, I advise you to watch yourself at all times, and to experiment and use Google to figure out what's going on behind that screen of yours. 

Just hurry up and fill my cavity!

Today I went to the dentist. This dentist, for some reason, liked making small talk. So, every time he would drill a bit into my teeth, he would leave me hanging for a minute while he told me a story about something or other that didn't really matter. I mean, he got the job done, but several times I was laying there thinking "my teeth are only partially drilled. Please hurry and keep drilling so I can end this."

It was a bit of a funny situation. Everyone knows that time is a lot slower when you are under the dentist's drill. So a minute of small talk seems like an eternity. He would drill or scrape a bit, talk for a minute, and then drill and scrape some more. It was probably the longest amount of time I've ever been worked on for a single cavity. 

Not to say that it was a terrible experience. It was just a bit funny that a professional would tell me a random story about lipstick and door knobs while drilling my teeth. Yikes. I mean, it's the closest dentist, so I'll go there again next time I need some tooth work done (walking an extra mile isn't worth this small complaint) but seriously, it was difficult to stay sane when the dentist was multitasking like that. 

I find this situation to be funnier in hindsight. During the ordeal, I wanted him to just be quiet and drill my teeth so that I could get it done faster. I respect his skill and, again, he got the job done. But it was a little weird while it was happening. 

Duct Tape is Silver

As a kid, I used to play around a lot with duct tape. One day my mother bought several rolls of duct tape online, and though they were thinner and smaller than they looked like in the pictures, they still worked to give me a passion that I held throughout elementary school and a good portion of high school. 

I made a lot of things out of duct tape. Wallets were the main one, and sometimes I would mix it with paper to make toys. The height of my duct tape obsession happened in middle school, when I built duct tape crossbows out of tape and paper and rubber bands. I even made arrows for them. I sold them at school for about ten bucks and for maybe a week during the middle of the school year you could find arrows flying everywhere in the halls and outside. 

Duct tape is fun. If you have kids, I recommend teaching them how to make stuff out of it. It will teach them creativity and give them an outlet to create things. When mixed with paper, origami, and other crafts, it can improve the lives of kids and show them how fun it is to be a creative person. 

I don't really play with duct tape anymore, but sometimes I'll look at the stuff and be taken back to my childhood in a wave of nostalgia. 

One way or another, kids will find out a way to be creative. 

What I learned about the process of storytelling after writing fourteen books.

Being on the inside of an art gives you a different perspective when you look at from the outside. When you have spent many months working to create the same kind of art that you look at every day, you tend to gain insights into many aspects of how that art works.

Writing is a special kind of craft, both limiting and limitless. Unlike with visual media, it is hard to innovate and move past other newer storytelling mediums. Whereas painting took an abstract bent after the creation of photography, you can't write a good book without the same structures that have been with us ever since widespread literacy. 

In other words, writing is difficult to innovate with. And, in the same way, writing hides a lot of its internal workings behind its composition. 

Each author who creates a world or a story does so at great expense. It takes a lot of work to imagine things in enough detail to write stories about them that are good enough for other people to truly enjoy. 

When I read a book, I am in the same position as a car mechanic looking at the engine of a car. Whereas a normal person would just accept that it works without understanding how, my viewpoint on the matter has eternally been changed because I've worked with all the pieces and know how they fit together. 

How does this affect my enjoyment of the written word? It makes me simultaneously more critical and more allowing of mistakes. Some things I can't let slide when I see them, where other people would not even notice. On the other hand, sometimes the problems other people have with books are moot because I realize what the author was trying to do. In any case, I have a view on writing that very few other people have--one influenced by my own exercise of my craft. 

I think, in the end, we learn more when we do more, and that's a good thing. 

What I learned from walking everywhere for over a year

I have no doubt in my mind about one simple fact: I have put more miles onto my feet in the past year than anyone I know. Every day, I walk to at least two separate destinations. While this may be a normal thing in a crowded metropolis, like Tokyo or Beijing or New York, but here in a small suburban town it's remarkably rare for people to have to commute via foot. 

Ever since I graduated from college--and even before--I have had the unique circumstance (at least in America) of no car and places to go. I understand, probably more than anyone else who lives in these places, that American suburbia is not built for pedestrians. Sometimes it gets freaky, especially when I cross highway bridges. Most people don't realize this--because they haven't had to walk across a highway bridge--but the engineers of those bridges were a little bit forward thinking and left just enough room between the rushing cars and the abyss for someone of reasonable width to walk past. Just enough room to make me think: "if I take a step too far to the right, I get run over. If I take a step too far to the left, I fall onto the interstate and also get run over."

See, suburbia and small town America is about ninety-five percent built for vehicles. Four more percent is made for bikes. Very little consideration has been given to people whose only mode of transportation is their feet. 

Walking is a part of my life. I happen to do it enough that I enjoy it, if only enough to keep me from losing my mind at the inefficiency of it. It builds character. And it keeps me fit. My shoes are my most valuable asset in this case. 

I get to see an aspect of city design that most people only glimpse out the window of a moving vehicle. While walking everywhere, I look at places and know the landscape in a more intimate, close fashion. And, though I would like to eventually speed up my mode of transportation, I do believe that there is an upside to my current situation. 

These legs are made for walking, and that's just what I'll do. 

Chewing your Intellectual Cud: my thoughts about how some people know more than others.

Almost every moment that I am not concentrated on something external, I am concentrated on something internal. Every minute or so when I am not utilizing my brain power to do something, I am thinking about a random fact, thought, or insight that needs processing in some form or another. I call this action "intellectual cud chewing."

Cows actually regurgitate half-digested food into their mouths which makes it easier to digest in their many stomachs. I liken my method of thinking and learning to this action because it's almost identical--only, in my case, I am metaphorically chewing information. 

An example: whenever I read a non-fiction book (or a thought-provoking fiction book), I pick pieces of information that I picked up raw and digest them through several days of mental cud chewing. I make connections, remind myself of big technical words, and think about what the things I learned meant in the greater context of my entire knowledge base. 

I do not have insight into the heads of anyone other than myself. What I want to know is: how many other people do this? And to what extent? Is it as widespread as I hope it is?

Sometimes, the best synthesis of ideas comes when you are slightly bored. You take little tidbits of interesting information and smash them together like you're running an idea-based particle collider. Some of my best insights have come through this method. 

See, most of the time, when I spout off some tidbit of information about a subject in conversation, I have, at some point in the past, chewed that idea. It could have been months or even years ago. I am constantly renewing the spring of ideas that I contemplate. 

It takes work to produce insight--and most of that work is a habitual mental motion that takes place almost constantly, like a background process on my PC. 

Anyways, my question is: does anyone else chew their intellectual cud? If so, how often? 

I'd like to know the answer.

I wanted to be a mathematician.

If I were to be reborn into another life, I would want to be a mathematician. It's much too difficult for me at this point--I've never been the best at math--but I can see, past the things you learn in school, that there are some crazy beautiful mathematical paradigms that only open themselves to the people who deal with its highest levels.

I suppose I realize that it takes intensive work to become a Ph.D in math. And in this life I'm just not suited for it. 

I want to see the beautiful things that can only be seen by those with deep understanding of the field. The way I see it, math is like art in how it can manifest in amazing ways. You just have to look at a picture of a fractal or any video game to realize what math can do. 

Like I said, in this life I don't have the brain power to become a mathematician, let alone one who breaks new ground. But sometimes I wish that I was born with a bit more analytical ability or the conscientiousness to put in the huge amount of study required for such a path. 

In this life my wish is to become a professional author. In the next, I want to become a mathematician. 

I have this notion, I don't know where I got it, that when you die, before you are reincarnated or go to heaven or whatever, you get a set amount of points to spend on your next life. You can choose where those points go, be it intelligence, attractiveness, wisdom, or strength. In my next life I would dump all my points into what it takes to be either a professional mathematician or professional Go player. 

Go is, as far as I can tell, the perfect game. And, I've learned, playing it is somewhat similar to working with higher level mathematics. 

Either a pro mathematician or a pro go player. That's what I would have chosen for myself if I had the option. 

But this life is doing fine for me. I don't really dislike it, and I think I'm going to do well with it. 

I think everyone wishes to be something they can't. At this point my path is set for me and I have to take it. But sometimes, I can dream about this kind of thing.