In week 40 (that’s Monday October 4 to Friday October 8 for those of you not so much into week numbers) I had the privilege of giving a week-long Information Visualisation course to a group of post-graduate students (a mix of B.A. Honours in either Socio-informatics or in Decision-making and Values Studies) at the Centre for KDD of the University of Stellenbosch in the building previously-known-as “The BJ”.
(post summary: I’m teaching in Stellenbosch next week. We have another published paper. Next DeVIDE will have InfoVis. Peter Norvig spouts backyard philosophy on slow email and work-life balance.)
This week, yet another Weekly Head Voices Quickies! The handsome and sun-drenched building below, known as “The BJ” to generations of students, is part of the reason for my current posting-diet. You see, next week I have the pleasure of teaching a post-graduate Visualisation course at my old university in the beautiful town of Stellenbosch. I’ve been putting together a new course especially for this purpose, which has obviously taken up a significant portion of my time.
The really pretty building under a really pretty sky where I shall be spending most of next week. (thank you Google Maps.)
Dear readers,
I would like to introduce you to my new friend:
Pretty Leifheit kitchen timer, ideal for the Pomodoro Technique. Also the first time I use the macro setting on my Canon. Doh.
It is old-fashioned and mechanical. It makes an extremely comforting ticking sound, and then after the 25 minutes of focus-time are over, starts ringing. The ticking is not too loud, and not too soft. The ringing is just the right length. You don’t take my word for it, as I’ve made you a short movie clip:
I probably shouldn’t be spending deadline-chasing time writing this post, but I can’t not, you know? I do have some Sunday pomodoros behind me, so the FNSF (and other involved parties) will probably not mind too much. Also, to shave off a few more seconds, I’ll temporarily switch to the Swimgeek Quick Update-style bullet list.
Before the first bullet however, you really have to see the DTV Shredder in action, the vehicle I’ve decided to equip my evil footsoldiers with, right after I manage to purchase a suitable volcanic island and install my evil lair:
Dearest readers,
I’m truly sorry that you’ve had to endure three full weeks without any Head Voices. I’ve been in full-on Crisis Mode(tm) for the past weeks, doing my best to complete a number of projects, most prominent of which has been the brand-spanking new TU Delft first year CS course TI 1100-a. During Crisis Mode, all but the most critical of tasks have to spend some time on the back-burner. Almost like the adrenaline-fueled mammalian fight-or-flight response, when even one’s digestion is temporarily halted in order to divert all energy to for example bounding over trees whilst evading some sharp-toothed predator, even my GTD processing more or less came to a stand-till. TNR’s pomodoro suggestion, however, was a life-saver. There’s nothing like a succession of 25 minute periods of being completely in the zone for flattening mountains of work. If you’re not continuously zoning yet, I can’t more firmly recommend giving this a try.
(This post touches on one noteworthy good news tidbit from my last week, then secretly waxes nostalgic over Dolly Parton, showcases some cheeky parkour and then, after complaining about my overloaded schedule, raises backyard sociological questions as to the most suitable work approach: Time-driven 9 to 5 or output-driven? Oh yes, its WHV Nerd Index is a reassuring 0/5, so it’s safe for everyone!)
I couldn’t come up with a catchy title involving Dolly, so you’re going to have to make do with what I have. When I say Dolly, I’m not referring to the cloned sheep, but to her Country singer namesake Dolly Parton. Google seems to think that Dolly Parton (3 million hits) is more famous than Dolly the cloned sheep (1.25 million hits), so now you know. In any case, Dolly (Parton, for those of you with really short attention spans) once starred in a movie called Nine to Five and, being a famous Country singer, also performed the theme song, called, in a completely unexpected turn of events, 9 to 5. And yes, I do remember seeing the movie more or less when it came out, and I vividly remember Dolly Parton: She was on our television a whole lot, plus that her unique appearance would make it hard not to.
Dolly Parton with Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda at the left and right respectively: The leading Nine to Five cast. Those were the days!
(This post has a point. A very important point if I might say so myself and I’m even skipping the Weekly Head Voices because of it. Please read it, in sessions if you have to, from start to finish. It has a WHV Nerd Index of 0/5 and a Backyard Philosophy Index of 5/5. You can get back at me in the comments.)
It turns out that when any normal human being is faced with observations or evidence that oppose their already formed opinions, they tend to ignore or downplay the value of those observations. Conversely, any scrap of evidence that seems to confirm the opinion in question is considered to be good and trustworthy evidence. This is called confirmation bias: You and I both suffer from it, and it can be a dangerous phenomenon. Ideally, we would be able to judge the evidence and come to a reasonable decision, but this turns out to be exceptionally hard.
A photograph I recently took of a confirmation bias. Note that observations from below confirming preconceived ideas are favoured more than observations from above, resulting in the tell-tale yellow tinge and staircase edge at the bottom of the core.
(This post introduces the new Weekly Head Voices Nerd Index, or WHV-NI, a metric by which you can see if you should read a post or not. See this page for an explanation of the WHV-NI. The NI of the first part of this post is 0/5, whilst the NI of the part starting with the accepted paper is 3/5, also due to the extensive Head Voices Review at the end.)
I use many abbreviations in the Weekly Head Voices, mostly to indicate people. This page contains a handy summary.
The WHV-NI is used to classify posts, and help you to decide if you want to read or not. The NI is a figure out of 5, grading the nerdiness of the post and the minimum nerdiness of the reader. Below is a handy table: