Introspector Gadget

Here is a econo-geek meme from Marginal Revolution.

  1. What do you maximize?
  2. Can you offer a simple model of yourself, using a few equations or a paragraph or less?
  3. What is it you hate [feel hostility towards]?
  4. What is your most absurd view?

This entry was posted on July 25, 2006 at 2:59 pm and is filed under Questions Need Answers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

10 Responses to “Introspector Gadget”

  1. son1 Says:
    July 26, 2006 at 9:37 am

    1. The time I spend in front of a computer screen.

    2. TotalTime = TimeSpentProgramming + TimeWithR + TimeSpentInMeetings + TimePlayingVideoGames + TimeWorkingOnThesis + TimeReadingMathBooks + BlogginTime + FreeTime,

    which is then solved subject to the constraint (among others) that

    FreeTime=0.

    3. I think that the threat of physical violence (however subtle) still (and probably will always continue to) play a significant role in human social interactions. I don’t mean this in terms of “we still have wars,” but rather, “the possibility of getting into a fight on the street is non-zero, at any given time.” It’s something that really unnerves me, and living in the city constantly reminds me of it. I also hate the feeling of adrenaline that comes with feeling in physical danger, in those kinds of situations.

    4. Academic research isn’t actually that hard — the hardest part is transferring the ideas you have, and the investigations you make, into written form suitable for consumption by others. Common wisdom is that “the first step is the hardest,” but that’s wrong — actually, it’s the last step that is most difficult.

    BTW, C — nice post title :-).

  2. sun, too Says:
    July 26, 2006 at 10:03 am

    1. Adulation

    2.

    P(S) = 1 - e^(-λ t)

    Where t is the amount of time I’ve had an article of clothing, λ is a large number (directly proportional to the cost of the article of clothing), and P is the probability that I will discover a conspicuous stain ruining said article of clothing.

    3. The people who work at the co-op daycare next door. Talk about the possibility of getting into a fight on the street being “non-zero”…

    Actually, this could be generalized to include anyone who parks in front of my house or Mom and Dad’s house. I would probably even feel hostility towards any stranger who even loitered briefly on the sidewalk in front of our houses.

    4. Humans are unable to act according to a cognitive framework.

  3. Bill Tozier Says:
    July 26, 2006 at 3:52 pm

    I’ll answer here, since I caught your version first.

    1. Number of simultaneous projects underway.

    2. d(interest)/dt = k1 * numberOfMentionsInConversationsInLastWeek - k2 * amountOfContinuousMathRequired + k3 * amountOfDiscreteMathRequired - k4 T + k5 beersPerDay

    I’m differential. Note that by framing it in terms of continuous mathematics, I have crafted My Own Model to become intrinsically less interesting to me.

    3. Disinterest. Generally, in anything by anyone.

    4. You can make a fair living by telling all your good ideas to everybody, and not expecting them to give you anything directly in return. That is, that solving other people’s problems should be done for free, with no expectation of direct compensation.

  4. son1 Says:
    July 26, 2006 at 5:00 pm

    Yeah, but how do you determine k1, k2 … k5 ??

    That seems kinda important!

    #4, on the other hand, is awesome.

    Part of my problem is that I can’t always operate like that — the fact that other people don’t live by #4 sometimes means that I can’t, either.

  5. Bill Tozier Says:
    July 26, 2006 at 5:03 pm

    Note the question for #4….

  6. son1 Says:
    July 26, 2006 at 5:13 pm

    Right, right… but still… it is your view, right?

  7. Zora Says:
    July 27, 2006 at 7:13 am

    Brought here by Mr. Tozier, I say … that you folks might be interested in reading a story called Lobsters, by science fiction author Charlie Stross, or his book Accelerando, both about a character named Manfred Macx who gives away ideas. Grateful people then take care of him. He is being pursued by the Internal Revenue Service, who want to force him to make an honest living so that they can tax him. Oh, and also the RIAA and the Russian Mafia, if I remember correctly.

  8. sun, too Says:
    July 27, 2006 at 8:09 am

    YES. Tim is an optimization problem, I’m a cumulative distribution function (I think), and Tozier is a differential equation. And, Dr. Tozier, I realize that what you gave was a first order ODE, but we think you are anything but ordinary.

    And I just found Charlie Stross’s blog (he just got back from a book-signing tour in Australia?) where in a recent post he made an order-of-magnitude estimate of the combinded sensory bandwidth of the people of Scotland. In other words, what is the amount of sensory information (measured in bytes/sec) going to everyone in Scotland, through their eyes, ears, skin, cell phones, and PCs. Check it out.

    Heh. I just saw a coyote cross the street outside my office window.

  9. sun, too Says:
    July 27, 2006 at 8:09 am

    Why did the coyote cross the road?

  10. sun, too Says:
    July 27, 2006 at 9:20 am

    To eat the chicken.

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