Notes from CBC Ideas episode: The Fool's Dilemma

• The episode and show notes



By Kitty Terwolbeck

• While we may note when others are not self-aware of their blunders, misconceptions, etc., it is difficult for us to realize when we are thinking or acting irrationally, poorly, etc.
• Clinically depressed people are more accurate in their self-assessment compared to "happy" people.  Typically people overestimate their abilities or control over a situation  
• There are two modes of thinking, (1) Unconscious (snap judgments, hunches) and (2) deliberate thinking.  The latter takes a lot of effort to do  
• Our access to the external world is subject to a layer of interpretation that we are not even aware of.  In the paper, "Wishful Seeing", there is an experiment where after a group of participants have been given a lot of salty pretzels to eat, they perceive a water bottle placed before them to be several inches closer than before the pretzels, despite the actual, exact same distance.  Also see "Epistemological Dualism"
• Generally people are overconfident but this confidence provides hopefulness and resiliency, and the ability to overcome setbacks
• Related to wanting to have a sense of control of a situation, people have an extreme aversion to uncertainty.  The episode describes that people will agonize while waiting for the results of a cancer test, and even when they are told that the results are conclusive, that they indeed have cancer, often people will have a sense of relief, "at least I know"
• People are drawn to confidence and the most successful pundits are the confident ones, not necessarily the ones that accurately forecasted.  For theoretical issues, as opposed to, e.g. what's the best family sedan to buy, people don't want complexity and nuances  
• Confirmation bias, group think, internet is house of mirrors/echo chamber?
• Cultural differences?  Canadian students will play with puzzle that they can solve during their spare time.  Japanese students will work on a puzzle they are unable to solve during their spare time, but once solved, they will set it aside.
• To overcome our cognitive blindness, we should challenge our own beliefs as much as we challenge competing beliefs, applying Socratic questioning on ourselves 

Nicknames

In the DNTO episode, What's the story behind the name?, nicknames are noted to:

1. Distinguish a person from others (for those named John or Jane, e.g.)
2. More aptly fit the nickname'd person's traits 
3. Bond the person to his/her group of friends/peeps as the nickname is given by that peer group to the nickname'd

I wonder what nickname Skylar may have in the future.

Meaning of money, to me

By 401(K) 2013

Money IMO is about obtaining freedom to do what you want (for some, these activities may resemble "work") and spending quality time with friends and family.  We sometimes need to buy things to do those enjoyable activities but sometimes shopping for those items  (cars, gadgets, etc.) can be time-consuming and be counter to the goal of spending time with family and friends.  When I say shopping, I mean comparing, analyzing and evaluating among other things. 

Also setting up gadgets can be time-consuming although one can argue shopping for and setting up or maintaining (waxing car, etc.) is part of the enjoyment.  We just have to ensure that we are able to give the gift of ourselves (our time) to our loved ones, perhaps in addition to any physical gifts. 

Money shouldn't be about buying for status especially when the products don't fit one's needs or vastly exceeds those needs.  I feel we need to live with a feeling of scarcity and restraint in mind because it helps us leave something for our future selves (saving for a rainy day), our less fortunate neighbors, and/or future generations.

UPDATE:  This DNTO episode talks about what happens to people when they win the lottery.  Some people feel empty, don't feel they deserve it.  There is a power imbalance with previous relationships.  Whatever the state of a person, it is exaggerated by a lottery win.  E.g. if someone is anxious, suddenly having money doesn't fix that but instead aggravates it since the person now needs to worry about all the people that may treat them differently.  The Current also discussed this situation, Sudden Wealth Syndrome.   

Parenting conflicts

My family has had its share of internal conflicts since the birth of my son.  In part it was due to the stress of having a premature baby and also the precarious health of my wife.

Why bring this up?
- for my therapy
- to help others.  While I talked to many friends and people about my family's problems, I may have been looking in the wrong places but there were not many online resources during my darkest time.  

Why not to bring this up?  Why don't  others talk about it?
- reflects badly on others or self
- don't want to appear whiny or not as devoted parent

Rather than a less positive structure, I will frame my problems or past issues in terms of thanksgivings, for the silver lining around each storm cloud.

Why collaborative consumption now?

Is collaborative consumption because of our financial constraints since the 2008 financial crisis or is it something we do even when we have the financial resources?

I believe the collaborative consumption trend stems from a few movements:

• movement away from materialism because of moral conscience:  Knowing that the most coveted iPhone or Nike sneakers is made in less than ideal circumstances makes owning a lot of "nice" things for the sake of showing off less of a status symbol and more of a blight on your reputation
• seeing how overwhelming it is for our parents to down-size and and discard their many belongings, and thus a striving for minimalism (http://www.theminimalists.com/)
• environmental awareness - in general, less consumption means less stress on the planet
• an awareness of mass production and duplication and therefore (1) a desire for uniqueness and personalization by hanging onto certain things (e.g. furniture, clothes) and making them "your own" by customizing or skinning and/or (2) it is undesirable to accumulate mass-produced copies
• desire for physical mobility and exploring the world - owning stuff ties you down

Traditional Chinese medicine

For around the past two years, my wife has been boiling a herbal remedy that our son drinks that is meant to improve his overall health and particularly his eczema symptoms.  The drink is produced by reducing (boiling off ) a specific amount of water until only several ounces remains.  In order to overcome the bitter taste that these herbs naturally create, she adds dried dates to the mixture.

By spotreporting

I am thankful that we switched to boiling with a stainless steel pot rather than a ceramic pot.  Sometimes one of us would forget that the mixture was reducing and the pot would boil dry.  For the stainless steel pot, the burned blackness can be scoured off but for the ceramic pots, they crack and we went through at least four of them this way.

I am thankful that my son drinks this remedy less often now so that we don't have to be boiling these herbs every day (down to once every three days or so).

Before buying pit-less dates, my wife used to take out the pits of the dates herself.  For her, it would take approximately a minute to remove the pit of each dried date, for about 8-12 dates. During this pit removal session, she'd be oblivious to everything else.  I am thankful that she finally verified with the herbalist and was told that:  There is no need to remove the pits of the dates.

Diaper changing

By miguelb

While I had no reservations about changing diapers, "wet" or "dirty", our baby would cry and shake when we changed his diaper.  Very loudly.  For the entire time.  With almost every diaper change.  For the first couple months, if I recall correctly.  This is different from the desirable bonding experience some parents have where there is eye contact, cooing and an eagerness of the child to be diaper-changed.

I was thankful when the crying during changes subsided.  And more thankful when he became toilet-trained and we didn't have to scurry after him to change his diaper.

United Way - how do they spend our money?

It's that time of year where businesses join the United Way bandwagon.  I need to do more investigation but this "fact" that is shown to prospective donors got me thinking:  Where does United Way buy their goods from?  From partners that have inflated prices? 

 $52 to buy four board books?  I quickly searched amazon.ca for "board books" and sorted by the top-reviewed books.  Here is a sampling of four books which total $33; the majority of board books are less than $10 and these are the prices for end consumers, not for large bulk purchases. 

Did I choose the wrong name for our baby?

Some rights reserved by Lindsay Maizland

After choosing our baby's name at the hospital by process of elimination, essentially finding a male name in a baby names book that had no bad connotations for me and that I generally liked, I always wondered whether I choose the right name.  I knew from the baby book that it was also used for girls but subsequently I was a little distraught that people often though his name was "Tyler".  At least most other people spelt it the way I intended, with a "-ar".  I thought what a hassle it would be for our little guy when he grew up to have to repeat his name to teachers, administration clerks, etc.

Therefore, I was interested to listen to the Freakonomics podcast "How Much Does Your Name Matter?"  What I learned was that the name I choose would be considered a male-sounding name because of the "r" sound in its pronunciation and that if the name was chosen for a girl, that family was likely conservative.  Mainly I was relieved to learn that according to research of one of the Freakonomics pair, Steve Levitt, "a first name doesn’t seem to affect a person’s economic life at all."

Our little guy's name is Skylar.  

Freakonomics Radio - economics and story-telling

Some rights reserved by MIGreenberg

Recently uncovered my latest favorite podcast Freakonomics Radio which reminds me of DNTO's style of life story-telling combined with economics and psychology terms like "opportunity costs" and "cognitive dissonance".  Hard and soft gently mixed together.  Very professionally done and an enjoyable audio experience.

The end of working and jobs

The Spark podcast, The Automated Workforce, talks about a world where machine learning enables computers/robots to do even highly skilled jobs.  Estimates appear to place this a generation away (25 years?).  While some may consider a world where few people work a utopia finally realized, it is also a world where few people can earn money to spend and thus the economy is devastated.  It is interesting that it might be possible that robots bring about an Armageddon quite differently than imagined with movies like The Terminator series.  

What does my toddler have to learn to survive in such a reality?

Preparing for having children

Some say to prepare for having children, raise a puppy first.  While that is an idea, I think it is ideal if the couple thinking to have kids should have together or individually helped take care of their nieces, nephews, cousins, friends' babies, etc., even for a couple hours.  Having some experience and knowing what to expect before the real thing is very important.  I played with my nieces when they were toddlers and it could be exhausting, so I had some faint idea that a baby would be even more work. 

Our baby experience was terrible but now that our toddler is approaching three, my sister-in-law came to Edmonton with her 5-month-old daughter and we went out on a Sunday with her.  With the five of us, 3 adults, a toddler, and a baby, it was eye-opening to somewhat relive those baby years, but have a toddler in tow as well.  Stuffing our compact SUV with additional baby equipment, keeping a toddler amused while keeping a baby from crying, we did this with 3 adults and it was a lot of work.  Obviously it would have been worse with only 2 adults.  No wonder birth rates worldwide are declining.

As with a couple thinking of becoming parents, for parents wavering on having a second child, my advice is "test drive" with a real baby.  

Undergrad regrets

In his article Whatsoever Things Are True, Todd Babiak talks about his regrets during his undergraduate years.  I too have regrets but looking back, I don't think I could have changed much.  May sound fatalistic, but my circumstances were the way they were and I could have made only minor adjustments rather than e.g., intern overseas or do some risky financial venture. 

However, a general behavior change I could have relatively easily done was to try to coordinate to do activities with people.  For example, if I was going to the Van Vliet gym, among my friends, I could have tried to find gym-mates despite it being a little more difficult to arrange.  That is, not necessarily do activities I had no interest to do (e.g. run for student council, ha) but do activities I liked with others.  I was/am prone to working alone to get things done faster rather than adding a socializing element and possibly being hindered.

Violence-free

Scanned from pamphlet from Lurana Shelter Society

Seeing my little toddler sometimes throwing temper tantrums and knowing that I can get unnecessarily angry at times too, I know it's easy to be violent and much more difficult to behave "with grace".  Good or bad, we learn by example.

Haute art versus art for children

I used to go to art galleries (Louvre, Metropolitan Museum of Art, etc.) and while many of the pieces were interesting, I would only linger at a handful of them.  I'm not sure if it was because of the overwhelming number of pieces and the limited two to three hours I usually had such that I ended up walking past the majority of exhibits with only a glance.

However, nowadays, with my toddler interested in looking at children's books, I am lucky to have the opportunity to read with him and marvel at the illustrations in these books.  I am often astonished by the imagination the illustrators have put into their creations.  Considering the Voice of Fire versus the Secret Seahorse, I'll take the latter any day. 

It's nice to once again enjoy books with both an author and an illustrator.

Taking responsibility of your health by tracking it

I started to track my health more closely in my early 30s when I developed a condition called hyperthyroidism.  I had to take a prescription to control my overactive thyroid as I began losing weight and hair seemingly inexplicably.  I was also extremely anxious at times for no apparent reason.  Prior to this, I didn't have any sort of long-term health issue.  Over a period of a couple years, I monitored my weight, free T4 level, and Tapazole dosage.  Fortunately, taking the prescription got my thyroid under control and now I don't have to take any prescriptions.

But I learned that it was necessary to not rely on my doctor's records to analyze how I was doing, whether I was improving or not.  Also it was important to store my own records in an electronic form for ease of analysis (in this case, a simple spreadsheet).

After our premature son was born, he had a number of issues that required more doctor appointments and home care than the typical child, if there is such a thing as a "typical child".  While we should be fortunate he didn't have anything of a serious nature, in my opinion, it became clear that it was necessary to make a log of his health and progress over time.  Being new parents, sometimes there were disputes about what happened when and whether X was "normal" or not.  With a log, I could refer to it and say, X happened on these dates and it has little correlation with Y.  Another benefit of a log for our child is I can see his motor skills or language development, for example, over time when curious in the future.

Finally, my dad's health has been noticeably deteriorating over nearly 10 years.  But the downward slide was gradual so it wasn't obvious to me to track anything until last summer when my dad had two serious incidents over the span of a month.  When numerous doctors asked my dad and I questions about his medical history, obviously I had to keep careful records of my dad's medical history as I couldn't rely on him or his family doctor.

Probably as a senior and as a man, and simply as someone with a sense of pride and self-dignity, my dad is very reluctant to talk about his health, even to his family members.  Thus it was up to me to track my dad's medical history as I recalled it over the past 10 odd years, his prescriptions, symptoms, etc.  And 80% of the questions asked by health practitioners were the same, so this effort was well spent to say the least.  The flip-side is that by making careful notes of my dad's medical history, we (my dad and I) could bring to the health professionals' attention anything they might have missed in their direct questioning.

Only recently, I learned of a practice called the Quantified Self.  Monitoring everything possibly all the time is a logical progression and with consumer electronics available at an affordable price, I may look into it more.  The idea is not much different to having a human coach, personal trainer, or mentor but at a more intimate level than ever before. 

Barrier to entry for searching for information, assumptions, and poor decisions

Google has made searching for most information much easier.  But searching for information at home (because of poor organization and non-digital documents?) and within our work organizations is not as easy.  What are the reasons for this discrepancy and what impact does it have on our quality of life?

In my distant past, I collected newspaper clippings but after trying to reorganize following a move, I realized I never refer to these, mainly because I don't even remember the specific topics that I archived.  There wasn't an easy way to search through these clippings to look for that nugget of information.  And yes, it needs to be "easy as pie" for one to even bother beginning a search.

What do we do when we can't search easily to find the information that we need?  At home, what are we teaching our children when they ask questions we don't know the answers to?  Do we make a best guess and put it forth as fact, or defer it?  As another example, why do so few people read user manuals.  I, for one, often skip over the warnings at the beginning of a user manual unless a block of text is clearly highlighted.  Too many details, no time.  

Besides easy-to-access information, I'm seeking "better information".  That is, valid and unbiased information.  What sources of information are trustworthy?  For example, is information from government health authorities reasonably accurate?  Some of my motivation stems from the medical situations faced by my wife during pregnancy (and after) and my son's premature birth and resulting complications, and my father's heart condition.  Also our son is now not only understanding what we are saying but repeating it back:  I don't want to pass on misinformation if I can help it.

Notes on Spark 214: Listen, Touch, Command

• The podcast
• Cannot scan audio readily as opposed to text (same for scanning video). Thus more "intimate" and immersive
• Problem with museums, like going to a class or conference where you can't apply what you've learned: What difference does it make in your life? What is the take-away? Without pictures etc., How much will you remember in a week, a month?

Staycation for young families in Edmonton

Having traveled extensively for work and for conferences and courses sponsored by work, now that we have a child in the family, I don't have an inclination to travel for the near future.  Although I don't pooh-pooh families that do a lot of traveling with their young kids, neither do I feel envious of them.  For me, traveling takes too much planning plus after coming back from traveling, it seems like there's a lot of catch up to do as things left undone continue to pile up.  Before again traveling extensively outside of the city, I'd like to get my ducks in a row so that things aren't spiraling out of control when we return home.  In addition to our sometimes "naughty" toddler, both my wife and I have elderly parents to look after so that is another reason for traveling less.

I am trying to find places in and around Edmonton, my home city, to enjoy on weekends and days off.  Criteria include:
* family friendly, that is, clean washrooms, safe space for toddler to explore
* free or economical
* fun and/or educational for toddler
* free wi-fi (optional)

While Edmonton is not a tourist mecca, we are lucky to have West Edmonton Mall and the indoor attractions there because our winters can be cold.  We are also fortunate to have the river valley and the extensive opportunities it offers during all seasons and especially during the summer.  Although we are not anything like Vancouver or Toronto, we have a number of ethnic neighborhoods where authentic food from other cultures can be enjoyed.  Isn't enjoying different foods one of the best things about vacation?

Unlike for jaded adults, almost anything is new to a toddler so traveling outside of the country is mainly for the adults in the family.  I think of myself as very familiar with the river valley, especially the central and northeast sections but I realized that I haven't explored the west and southwest regions.  What better companion to explore with than with my toddler?  And while I take the LRT nearly every day, I think my son will like taking the LRT for the first-time.  So many first's.

Some places we like:
* Ikea
* Public libraries, especially Whitemud Crossing and Meadowlark branches
* Galaxyland
* Edmonton's River Valley
* High-level Streetcar

"There is beauty and adventure in the commonplace for those with eyes to see beyond." - Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Notes on Spark 205: MOOCs, Crowdsourcing, Crisis Mapping

• The episode
• In the show, it is pointed out that the scarcity is the instructor's and TAs' one-on-one time, not the lecturing and the lecture notes.  Those that comb the web extensively for answers (notably programmers) intuitively understand this:  While the answer is probably out there somewhere, it can be tricky to formulate a query for your favorite search engine to find it.  Content farms are also making search engine querying more difficult.  Question and answer sites like Quora and Stack Overflow help as you can tailor your question to your situation but still they are not as dynamic as a face-to-face conversation you can have with an expert.  That is, while the PowerPoint is important, the more valuable thing is the post-presentation conversation you can have with the presenter while most everyone else is leaving the room
• The topic of MOOCs has also made me think about professional development opportunities I had from the workplace.  Many of these opportunities involved taking in-classroom courses in other cities.  While it allowed me to do a lot of traveling on company dime, the fact that they were in-classroom did not make them good courses by default.  The best courses or sessions were the ones in which I could apply what I learned immediately on the job.  For most of the courses in which I didn't have a problem at hand that could be solved by the course material, I quickly forgot what I learned or didn't even absorb it in the first place:  Salman Khan could have been teaching me and I would not have "got it"
• People taking MOOCs are usually self-motivated to learn but there are also techniques to "learning better".  I can go to local seminars and get a lot out of them because the intent to learn is there, I'm frequently making notes during the seminar, and I review and digitize my notes (if they weren't already digital before) so I have access to them anywhere
• I have not taken a full 40-hour online course or MOOC before, but am considering an online course over in-classroom courses if I can't find a local class.  Being at home with my toddler is important.  However, collaborating with fellow students is something I seldom did for in-classroom courses but something that I realize now is also immensely valuable, like instructor face-time.  How does that translate for online courses?
• Finally MOOC, online course, or in-classroom, all of that is premised on having the time to study.  There's a lot of great courses and tutorials out there but most importantly is having the time to study, considering work and family commitments.  Regarding work commitments, hearing about programs like Google 20 percent time makes me very envious ...

"Bookmarking" all the time

Bookmarking isn't just for web browsers or paper books. With a child in our life, I've come to realize it is important to know where I left off with any task because my available time is often chopped into little pieces. I've come to see it valuable for work as well when there are many projects or tasks at hand and interruptions from emails, coworkers, meetings, etc.

The way I keep track of where I was last varies but I try to keep it digital, resorting to yellow stickies when a digital note is not feasible (e.g. Sorting through paper). With digital notes, it may be a README file at the root of a folder structure, an electronic calendar entry, or a spreadsheet stating what I did for a particular day and what I have planned for the next day or week. The key is that the digital note is somewhere you know you will look in the future or else it is easy to find with some digital search capability.

How podcasts saved my sanity

Audio podcasts diffuse the monotony of many household tasks like washing the dishes, cutting up a whole chicken, hanging laundry, etc.  They are ideal for tasks where you have to pay attention to the task visually but you can still expand your mind via your ear.  I want to experiment listening to podcasts while shoveling snow and vacuuming (i.e. with a more enclosing set of headphones) and determining if I can still follow the words being spoken. 

There are many podcasts out there but the best are the ones produced by people with a professional background in broadcasting.  Many other podcasts have lousy, difficult-to-hear audio, as if everyone was calling in on VIOP via a 14.4K modem.  My favorite sources of podcasts are TWiT and CBC because the topics are interesting AND the quality in production and information is second-to-none.