Nudge Policies

To me.  You are going to look into nudge policies. Why? Because they are awesome.  You will note your progress here. Next Saturday, you will right a long post about what you learned.

You will explain

• What is nudge or Libertarian Paternalism
• What governments are using it
• What is it's value or ROI
• What are the leading studies on it and it effects
• What do you think
• How can this be used for good
• How can it be used for ill
• examples???
• Sources:
• Start with Google Scholar, How Stuff Works, SGC, Big Think, Rationally Speaking, IQ2squared

Fool Us

Penn & Teller Fool Us

Please enjoy the only thing I've really done recently.

Day IDK 7

One more day of accidentally offending someone. Ah well, I'll figure it out eventually.

What does it mean to feel?

For a long time I have known that I don't work the same way as other people.  I don't feel the same because of that I don't think or act the same. In many situations I am aping the feeling of others because it is expected. So as not to rock the boat.  So I don't make other people uncomfortable.  I do feel things pain, anger, shame, joy, but I have come to understand that they are muted compared to the general public.

I guess the title is a dual question.  What does it mean for you to feel, and what does it mean for me to feel? Honestly, as hard as I try I cannot understand how the general population makes it through a given day. With such a range and depth of emotion why aren't you crying in a corner or over come with bliss at some point every day? How do you contain this frothing sea of sensation?  I cannot imagine making it through the day. 

My wife is one of you.  She has tried so hard to explain how it works, what she feels. It just goes over my head, like 8th grade math to a 5th grader.  I understand all of the words individually, but they don't make any sense when you put them all together. Can you imagine what it's been like for her to be so in love with me and feel all that she feels, only to have my emotions return to her? It causes her so much pain and uncertainty some times. Just as I cannot understand your ways she cannot understand mine. The problem is her feelings are more than I will ever be able to comprehend, which is amazingly reaffirming, but mine seem shallow and petty. Imagine how you would feel if your partner seemed to have no depth of feeling for you. Truly think about it and how it would color every interaction you had every thought. That is her every day.

I just realized I have not answered the 2nd question, "What does it mean for me to feel?" It is hard to say, mostly because I still haven't decided whether or not I'll share this blog with her. Fuck it. I can always make it private if I have to.

For me to feel... is like lukewarm water. That is my emotional range is rather mild.  You go from freezing to boiling. I go from kind of cold to kind of hot. Don't get me wrong, I can get pretty angry or extremely happy but only for moments. People that know me might disagree, but remember at the top I said I ape the emotions they expect to see.  Most of the time I look much more emotional than I am. 

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Examples:

Death and Love arguably bring the greatest levels of emotion

Death

My mother just spent 30 minutes telling me how she is assisting in medical suicide (legally, to be clear) for her friend of 20 years, and slowly watching this woman die.  I have met this woman. We've hung out. She's a great person. Through the whole telling I feel exactly as I would during a budget meeting at work. There is one moment of slight sadden as she fight back tears, but that is all.

When I heard my dad might have cancer, concern caused by iffy blood tests, I felt worried, but less so then I have seen my wife fret over the children being out late. No cancer by the way.

When I learned my mother had 15lbs (6.8kg) of tumors in her stomach and we were waiting for results from the doctor, I was more worried than with my dad's issue. About as much as my wife seemed to be when the oldest, at age 11, was gallivanting around, didn't come home on time, and couldn't be reached for about an hour. The tumors turned out to be benign.

As a child classmate died and I became enraged and damaged somethings.  This feeling lasted only about 20 minutes though. Once I had broken the thing I felt fine.

At my grandmother's funeral, I was in my 20's, I had a very hard time. I cannot express the feeling beyond sadness because of my mother's pain, but again it lasted no more than an tens of minutes and I was close with my grandmother.  Many of my best memories are with her.

Love

This is more like a 3rd grader trying to understand 9th grade math. I'm the 3rd grader. Those of you who have been married or were so in love you would have said yes if asked, think of that feeling. For those that have not had this experience it is a massive load of complex feelings that tend to defy description. Now that everyone has a base line, I will explain this one. I am completely devoted to my wife and want to be with her until we die in each other's arms at age 113.

The feelings that bring me here are going to surprise you though. I am happy when I am with her. She is not irritating. She is smart. She can bring me a feeling of peace and contentment just by walking into a room, sometimes just by thinking of her. And that's it.

Now I know this seems paltry compared to what you are feeling or did feel, but for me this is wholly unique.  She is the only creature human or otherwise to bring this level of feeling out of me for more then a few minutes, let alone this almost constant increase to my base emotional level. Bell curve here, on a scale 1-10 average (70% of the time) for me is about 4-6.  With her around average (again 70%) is 5-8.  We may feel things differently but you must admit that is one hell of an increase and no one and nothing has had such an effect on me. I will do everything in my power to stay with her until we're 113, but these are the things I feel.

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Now do you see why this would cause a partner pain? Really it has hurt most of the people close to me at some time or another. What most don't get it how much it has helped them. I have been told the most painful or horrible things about people's lives. In me and my steady emotional state, they have a place to go when the world is too much. A shoulder to cry on. A wall to bounce ideas and thoughts off of that could hurt other people.  When you cannot tell anyone you could be dying because of how much pain and fear it would cause them, you come to me. I am where you going when it is all to much and you have to tell someone.  In the end I guess it's a sword that cuts both ways. I can help carry your heaviest burdens, but I can never empathize with you.

What does it mean to feel? I guess I still don't know and probably never will, but neither do you. Though I doubt I will ever be able to understand your kind, hopefully this helps you understand my kind a bit better.

Allergies, Late nights, Beauty

Allergies

So I've been sick since Friday night. It started with a scratchy throat. As the throat got worse I got more and more tried.  Over the weekend I lost my voice, still managed to DM though.  By Monday I was coughing and the headache had begun.  I mention this to my mother because we talk every day. What you don't talk to your mother every day? Well, not to get into your life, but unless she's really messed up you should, maybe even then.  She did squirt you out of a hole in her body and for most of us she kept alive until we could do it ourselves. Even a shitty parent ot to be thanked now and again for not letting you die. I say this as some one how had 2 good and 2 shitty parents.

Wow, what a tangent. Can you tell this is just word vomit.  I don't think about or edit, other that spell check, at all. I'm not here to entertain. This is for me and I like looking back and seeing my mind unwind.

Another tangent, sorry. So any way my mother say is it allergies? I of course reply no, I don't have allergies.  I have never had allergies. Well, I value truth above what I want to be true so this morning, know I've never had allergies, I take some allergies meds.  Turns out as of last week I have allergies... How do you just get allergies?  Anyone arguing a god's divine creation has no knowledge of biology. Allergies, what shit.  At least I appear to be one whom allergies meds work on, so I guess it's a wash.

Late Nights

Late nights used to mean sex with strangers and a little drugs. It used to mean car surfing, climbing 300' towers metal towers in a thunder storm, driving 120mph (193km) with the head lights off and someone on the ruff of my car and riding my bike, a Virago, out of state just to feel the wind on my face. Hell it used to mean a movie with a knock on the door to inform me of a nightmare, vomiting or "accident". Now late night means a product launch at 9-ish, there's a defect, and 3 hours of trouble shooting to find it cannot be fixed tonight.  Then 30 minutes to pull back the launch, having in the end accomplished nothing.

Late and Night just two words with such diverse meaning behind them, and so many meanings for just one person over just 15 years.  How can so much be packed into 9 letters?  How much more will be added as time goes on?

Beauty

Picture a large 12x12 cubical each corner a work station. This is my designated work area. Ah, god that suck you say, but it has a great benefit.  Though each of us work on different project we all do the same work and help each other out when we get stuck on a problem. That said I would definitely quit if I had to spend 40 hours a week there. Yesterday I worked in that box, I took my laptop out to the middle of a field, I worked in front of a pond and waterfall, and I worked in my bed and later my arm chair. Today I am outside of a Starbucks and all I can think is wow how beautiful.  A cool breeze on a warm day, sitting in the shade, watching the leaves dance in the trees.  I wish I could name drop my supervisors. They have done so much to make corporate life not suck. You are amazing D.A., S.P., C.S., and M.D. You are all wonderful!

One last thing: 

Men in Black do you remember the interview scene with the egg chairs? Here click and refresh your memory, it's great.  I watch people struggle everyday fighting to get things done by wedging themselves into impossible positions. I just watched a woman doing that 10 feet from me for over an hour.   I have never understood this.  It seems so much better to just change your environment. Please, forgive there not being a point. It just came to mind, while watching this women who sat down when I did, work around an environmental problem I fixed by changing the environment  when I got here.

As payment for my ramblings here is a picture of my work area today.

Another work day

Today. I feel like it wasn't special, but in thinking about it I realize I had a varied work day.  I started by working on Angular (programming).  Then, had near diarrhea, twice. I spent a good amount of time planning a holiday party for work. Next, I changed clothes and ran outside to help build monkey bars. Coming back in, and changing again, I did a bit of research and checked emails, which lead me to a defect that needed fixing. This defect is how I spent the next 2 1/2 hours, but I fixed it so all is well. To end my day I had a short meeting.  So I feel like I had a bland normal day, but obviously it was an odd day.

I still need to do the esperanto lesson for the day. Oh, and I have to do a bit of work at 9pm today as well, definitely not an average day.

Look I actually posted on a work day

Okay, so I typed the title of this entry at 4:34 pm. I typed the sentence you just read at 8:05 pm. Lesson: just because you open Blogger doesn't mean you are going to remember to blog.

Not much today, just work stuff.  Open enrollment for benefits.  I should be spending 5% less in premiums but getting 10-20% more value. Did the self review for Q3, part of quarterly reviews, today.  It has 4 focus areas, each with various weights. I rearranged the placement of the awesome things I've done to hopefully get a better raise next year.  This is not cheating. It is strategy.  I did not lie or fudge in any way. I just took the time to look at the weights and make sure that if awesomeness fit into more than one category I put it in the one that was the most valuable to me. The work has already been done and value extracted from me. I'm making sure I get the best return on that invested work.

No workout today. I'm still getting over, well hopefully getting over, being sick.

In esperanto I finished the plurals section.

Skpyed with my brother about trumpet repair, my son is learning.

Helped with homework a bit.

Made diner.

Ta-da, a work day. See you tomorrow... probably.