100 Reasons to Panic about Being a Grownup
Book Notes Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 20:53 on 2 October 2016
I bought this book this past weekend on my walk-about around San Francisco last Saturday. I had walked to a Paper Source (I know, shock, I went to a paper store), which turned out to be a newly-opened, concept store (which means it has new merchandise before it is generally available at other Paper Source stores) on the walk for specific Pokémon, and, well, if you're close, of course you have to go it.
I'm uncertain what page in particular caught my attention. I think it was the positive aspects the book: here's a list of all the crappy things that are the result of growing up, becoming an adult, and accepting responsibility for ones own life. And yet, here are the good things that come of those crappy things.
I kinda feel like we could use this format for our adulting book.
Anyway, reason 32 in particular moved me.
You'll Feel Lost.*
Upside, *You're on a journey -- getting lost is part of the fun.
And that is the way to view this life.
Yeah, takes five minutes to read the book. It was adorable.
Indonesia Etc.
Book Notes Instead of being asleep at 21:28 on 30 September 2016, kitt created this:
Really now, I need to change this idea of a "Book Review" to "Mom Chose This Book and I Read It Review." This is another of Mom's selected books. I think I'm nearing the end of her pile. That just means, however, that I'll start in on my pile, which is significantly bigger than Mom's pile, to be sure.
This book is the story of a woman's journey around Indonesia, with her saying "Yes" to every adventure that presents itself. Elizabeth Pisani had previously worked in Indonesia, a couple decades before, so knew much about the country, and had lived through much of its recent turmoil. As she describes it, her journey was much like trying to show everyone why your bad boyfriend deserves a chance, look at his many good qualities.
While reading this book, I contrasted the history telling of this book to the history telling found in the Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Mao. The latter was much richer in its telling, while Pisani's travels were much broader and more flavorful at the local, individual level.
I was surprised that I enjoyed the book, picking the book up more frequently than I thought I would. I had checked in with Mom when I first started the book, having discovered that Mom disliked one of the books we both read, and wanting to see if she had finished this book and liked it. She said, she had started the book, but had been distracted by another, so hadn't finished it yet. I think it's worth finishing if you'd started it, and an entertaining read if you're interested in a woman's year-long adventure in the world's largest nation.
A Different View of Helping
Blog Posted by kitt at 18:04 on 28 September 2016"You don't like him, but you're trying to change him."
Yes, helping. It's a big part of me. Problem is, even with the best of intentions, what I think is helpful might not be either helpful or perceived as helpful.
The comment caught me off-guard, to be honest. I wasn't expect it. I was helping, dammit, helping!
I was talking about helping a mutual friend who seemed unable to hear the feedback many of us were giving, and was thinking maybe I should try a more direct way of saying his chosen path wasn't a good one (as if I can believe any scenario of me with tact exists).
And yet, and yet, the road to hell and all of that.
Maybe my helping really isn't. And the change that needs to happen is with me.
What? Stop Buying Books? Never!
Blog Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 12:03 on 26 September 2016"I should stop buying books."
A friend of mine, Mo, who is a big physical-book fan in the way that I am (as in, he enjoys scanning a bookcase full of books, seeing the different books, pulling one off the shelf, and reading it, as I had with books like Candide and The Mysterious Island), commented to me last week that he worries his kid won't have the joy of looking at bookcases and finding a book to read just by pulling it off the shelf, what with digital books and the like. She won't be able to skim the titles, see the binding, feel the book in her hands, smell the scents of the book, notice the typography and layout, and enjoy the physical sensation of the books. A dying experience with the coming of digital libraries and such.
He lamented about it, then commented that maybe he should stop buying so many books, what with the pile of books he has currently unread.
gasp!
I responded, as I do with every person who voices this horrifying thought, "Purchasing a book, even if that book is never read, signals to the publisher that this book is worthy. You, as a consumer, want this type of book to exist. It tells the publisher, 'Please continue to provide books of this nature.'"
A book does not have to be read to have fulfilled its purpose.
He smiled. I hope his stress was reduced by this insight.
Factor of 2
Blog Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 11:50 on 25 September 2016I'm taking a machine learning class with the kid, mostly because three weeks ago, he said he wanted to do machine learning, that was what he was most passionate about. So, to help him achieve his goals, I searched for different machine learning classes and meetups, realized Coursera's class was starting up this past week, signed up, and asked him to sign up, too. There are now three in our group of Coursera Machine Learning class students, meeting twice a week to review what we've learned and work on the lessons.
Early in the class, when the instructor was writing out the cost function J, which is a summation i from 1 to m, m being the number of elements in his set of data, the instructor commented,
"We're just going to add a 2 in there, makes the math easier later."
In particular, he divided the summation by 2, (factor of ½), without explanation.
Well, further along in the first week's lesson, we see why he added the two. He's taking the derivative of a square, which puts a factor of two in front of the answer. Hey, divide that by 2 (say, by multiplying by ½) and POOF, we dispose of all those pesky twos!
I LOVE MATH and computer scientists. "Let's just add a constant factor in there to make things easier." I am laughing so hard right now at the joy of this, my sides hurt.