3:10am, 9am wakeup call to lab-rat for Knuth's MRI in time to make a noontime job interview in Chapel Hill. Sleep hasn't been circadian, but not bad either. Oh well, this shouldn't be an epic.

Analogy #1 of the day: the appeal of going back to sleep demands explanation given its (destructive) frequency. Thinking in the shower, as has been custom since at least the days of mentally routing cables to my forthcoming SBLive Platinum, I decided it was like -- wait for it -- staying in the shower. You know that you're going to have to pay for that hot water; that there's a wide world of opportunity on the other side of the curtain; that nothing lasts forever; but ultimately turning off that faucet takes an impulse of will (thanks Kraig) that may derive from some of those but comes more internally than any of them. The classic illusion of self-determination, and all that. I don't have too much trouble with showers so I suppose a key difference is having full control of mental faculties, whereas after hitting Snooze it's easy to find compelling "reality" on both sides of the pillow.

Analogy #2: in the debate over manic-depression ontology that won't quit, I've decided the argument put forward by my MW-in-proxy is a non causa pro causa. Bipolar disorder can explain a lot of events in my life. But ask yourself if this is a valid argument for the existence of God (made up): "just when I needed someone to comfort me, God sent John." I mean, the chances of someone randomly coming to you at the right time are astronomical, right? There are two very good criticisms which I believe apply to my situation. (1) what you now call "the right time" (aspect X of the symptomology*) is highly shaped by both the event and your beliefs about it (2) odds are meaningless against a nonfalsifiable premise. The second hasn't nearly the bite it does against deities, but it still points out an overgeneralization, especially when we're talking about symptoms outside the DSM and a syndrome supposedly on a chemical leash.

Observation: all this time later and I still haven't really, really come to grips with the fact that I'm not as smart as some people. You'd think that Nathan Curtis' trumping the wide-integral argument would help, but...well, maybe it's in his absence that I return to defensiveness when faced with David Arthur and other one-trickers (Smash Bros. doesn't count). This arose when pondering the job situation and the 110 final (#2 = DiningPhilosophers with only message passing). I'm apparently badass enough for several companies to perform courting rituals, but let's be critical: I don't have broad swaths of knowledge-knowledge the Win32 API; I can't solve little algorithm tricks as fast as DukeBeatlesFan if at all; there are now bona-fide classes of real-world problems my brain simply can't intuit. I know I've seen DriverGuru or someone post that multithreaded programming is no more difficult, just a different state of mind, and it wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that Wagner has no clue how to teach this state. But for all I know it requires another "gift" on top of whatever programming itself does. 149S could teach me some TopCoder tricks, but it's safe to say I'm not going to turn into NDBronson upon graduation. That leaves me potentially heads on with mere PeterB, and only if I study my butt off at that.

I was flirting with poker even before I heard about DavidRoss, but now the temptation is overwhelming. If nothing else, I have hypotheses to test about my skillset, and even moreso about the raw talents I'm certain it takes to multitable. I suppose in addition to questioning my computer prowess I'm also worried about the other aspects of being a knowledge worker: all that stuff about having to work, usually on time to boot. Poker you can always catch up so long as there are still hours in the day. In theory, of course. I of all people know how good a dictated schedule can be, and for all my arrogance can't deny that my game would suffer if I played longer than my sanity permits.


*Mark has a much better word...gah! -> Thought of it! "Phenomenology"

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More, almost 5am. I'm officially scared shitless that WRT my portfolio for Jaffe, (a) it might not be good enough (b) there's nothing I can do about it. The suckage potential is great with this one. Dammit, I did way better than the bar set by many previous classes...and on with the premature justifications...sleep on it and trouble your mind no more.


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