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---
title: Bel-Marduk
date: 2013-06-04
techne: :done
episteme: :log
---
(Wait what? words? I need to write about stuff we did? *Again*? Didnt I
just… oh well. Fetch me the logs, Ill docum.. wait, it says there I
mostly did Japanese grammar practice, which I cant meaningfully talk
about yet, loads of boring-to-talk-about [deliberate
practice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practice_%28learning_method%29#Deliberate_practice),
and work, which I bet Im not even allowed to talk about because we
pretend were relevant to the industry? Ok, so can I post a manifesto
then? I have a draft and need to get some of this anger out of… no? What
about metaphys.. also no?
Listen, Mister. I know you had the best of intentions with this “write
about stuff you did because you like explaining stuff, which helps you
actually do stuff”, but we have some better tools now, if you havent
noticed, and while this works well for conceptual stuff, most skills are
actually pretty hard to talk about in a meaningful way and learning them
doesnt really leave neat piles of notes that can be trivially converted
into posts, so now youre making me do *extra* work here. Cant we go
back to “deconstruct texts” and stuff? Thats at least
fun.[^back]
Yes I know the rules, I *wrote* them, but even Kant would agree that
some rules can be broken somet.. ok yes he wouldnt, but you know what I
mean! Look, your paranoia isnt helping me either! Youre so worried
about distant effects of your actions, youre not letting me talk about
topics before youre sure theyre fully under your control, but youre
still making me adhere to rules that were written under the assumptions
that just documenting whatever happens is way awesome, so dont you see
the problem here? A lesson? What lesson could you possibly try to teach
me here?
“Sources of validation”?
I see. Yeah thats really clever of you. So if I dont break the rule,
Ill have to find *something* to write about even though I dont have
anything ready yet. Yeah, I get how this extra work is great for your
complicated plans. But if I just break it? What th.. whoa, thats a big
graph. Thats *all* conn.. even th.. whoa. Sheesh man, youre quite the
magician, you know that? Yes I know I joked about how Im doing acausal
magic when I wrote the rules. I didnt expect you *meant* that bit! So
if I dont follow the rules, all.. *that*.. collapses? Well, thats a
pretty [double bind](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_bind) you set
up there. Listen,
[Watzlawick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Watzlawick)s books
werent *instructions* how to mess people up. I dont care that it
works! Dont
[melon](http://www.koanicsoul.com/blog/2012/06/27/how-to-manifest-whatever-you-want/)
me! There are nicer ways to get what you want. I hate when you cloud
your incentives with magic talk and convoluted narratives. What do you
mean thats the point?
So its actually a triple bind? For all three possible modes of response
- [loser, clueless,
sociopath](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/) - youve
set up a demand that transparently subverts it, and is in conflict with
the other two modes. The loser narrative is unbelievable because I can
see the strings, the clueless reward is nonsense because I see you
printing that toy money, the sociopath power doesnt work because Im
afraid what using it will do to me. If I use any option anyway, you
still win, and if I transcend their limitations, you also win.
Youre quite the evil fuck, you know that?
…so what now?)
---
Whats the saying? If you dont know what to do, go meta. So Ill just
document one of my recent Beeminding changes.
Starting on 2013-02-28, I redesigned several things: Ive started to
switch from open-ended time-based goals to finite task-based goals,
broken my big “do useful stuff” goal into smaller sub-goals, and begun
to add percentile feedback.
I explained some of the goal organization [over on
Reddit](http://www.reddit.com/r/beeminder/comments/1e2duf/muflaxs_beeminder/c9wcevw),
relevant quote:
> I used to just track “productive hours / day” so I dont sit on my ass
> too much, but I started to substitute more fun projects for everything
> else, so I recently broke that up into various independent groups of
> goals: “science”, “guitar”, “code”, “polyglottery” and “job” (ugh). I
> still track the total too, but thats more of a nuclear option (with
> the big 90\$ pledge) and I havent settled on a good daily goal yet.
> If Im too harsh on any one goal, its more likely I just decide its
> not worth it and fail even though I still have plenty of time to meet
> it.
Ive toned down some of the time-based goals because I found “do stuff
for 20 minutes” not very motivating. Theres no sense of progress and “4
hours” looks so large, I often didnt even try to tackle it even when I
had plenty of time left. Instead, Ive begun to convert everything into
a TODO list using org-mode. So for example, Ive just turned every
chapter / unit of a textbook into one todo item, which feels much more
actionable and is done. (Also wrote [a simple
script](https://github.com/muflax/scripts/blob/master/beeminder/beeminder_org_todo.rb)
that updates Beeminder goals accordingly.[^org])
So far this seems to be more productive, but Ive not been doing it for
very long. I tried a simple Bayesian comparison of a before/after
dataset, mostly to figure out how R work. I just wanted to use
[BEST](http://www.indiana.edu/~kruschke/BEST/), but the normality of
“useful hours/day” turned out very low, meaning the data doesnt seem to
fit a normal distribution very well. After looking at a basic histogram:
<%= image("fume_histogram.png", "Fume Histogram") %>
I saw why. While this looks reasonably Poisson-y, I still dont
understand the underlying assumptions and methods very well, so even
though I could hack together a simple version of “I put numbers into
this magic box and look at these funny graphs it gave me!”, that
wouldnt be particularly useful.
However, I just plugged my “total useful hours / day” into a simple
Beeminder “weight gain” graph (so that I can track (and then raise) my
fluctuating average), and you can still see two improvements (the first
time I broke stuff down at the end of March, and the second slope when I
transitioned to tasks):
<%= image("fumeavg_graph.png", "Fume Average Graph") %>
(Note that this is zoomed in and cuts off some \>6h outliers. The points
are “total useful time” for each day as logged with my time-tracking
tool, the thin line is a (slightly lagging) average.)
Im also trying to use this graph and a simple percentile number in
[fume](https://github.com/muflax/fume) to implement [Seths percentile
feedback](http://blog.sethroberts.net/2011/05/01/percentile-feedback-and-productivity/),
so instead of just seeing “I did 1.2 hours of useful stuff today”, I
also see how good that is compared to the last week.
Im not sure yet if it actually works in terms of increasing my
productive time (not enough data), but at least its more motivating and
Ive made significant progress on several projects due to the tiny todos
that feel more like “one more turn” instead of “fix ALL the things!”.
---
I got annoyed with Dropbox mangling my data and so thought, hey my
`~/spoiler` directory (i.e. all my notes, todo lists and drafts) is
already a (huge) git repository with auto-commit, so I could just use
some git solution to sync that between machines. Then all the stuff in
Dropbox is either read-only (public shares) or written by only one
machine ever (phone -\> desktop) and I wont have sync issues anymore.
Shouldnt be hard, right?
What I considered:
1. Use git-annex. Long-term thats fine, but currently the assistant
ignores the `.gitignore` (wtf?!) and Im beginning to develop a
deep-seated hatred against all Haskell
programmers.[^haskell]
2. Sparkleshare is, quote, “an Open Source collaboration and sharing
tool that is designed to keep things simple and to stay out of your
way”. Its also written in C\#. Good joke. Is funny. I laugh.
3. dvcs-autosync is similar, but “takes a more minimalistic approach”.
Which includes no documentation, limited directory awareness and,
best of all, *requires a central repository*. It has *“distributed”
in its fucking name*. Whod be so dement.. oh, guy uses Arch Linux.
Im now convinced every Archer is clinically insane.[^arch]
So there isnt any good tool yet. Well, I could turn one of those
(probably dvcs-autosync) into something usable, but aint nobody got
time for that. So its back to my cronjobd commit-and-pull-everything
solution until git-annex assistant stops sucking. (Nonetheless, I still
put “use dvcs-autosync to auto-commit based on inotify and insta-push
via git hook” on my todo, in case I *do* got time for that.)
Sigh.
---
You know whats really annoying? Hair feedback time.
So I wanna do this totally awesome undercut thingie[^hipster],
but it will take me months, if not a full year until some parts have
grown enough that I can pull it off, and until then I cant do
*shit*.[^drunk] I just practice a bit by doing regular
maintenance, but how am I supposed to level up my self-sustaining
fabulousness if I can make maybe 1-2 big decisions *per year* and
mistakes might require rollbacks so large, you gonna have to wait months
just to *repeat* them?
On the plus side, while I was going through
[http://fuckyeahundercuts.tumblr.com](http://fuckyeahundercuts.tumblr.com),
I felt - for the first time in my life - a sense of fear of being
outdated, that by the time this “just long enough to poke me in the eye”
mess has grown into something that can unambiguously blow in the wind
and has enough surface area for a dozen Hello Kitty hair bows, that by
then fashion will have moved on and Ill look so wannabe 90s, I might
as well buy a fedora.
Then I remember no one cares and I go back to Pinterest.
---
A mini-review of the newest [Crusader Kings
II](http://www.crusaderkings.com/) DLC, [The Old
Gods](http://www.paradoxplaza.com/games/crusader-kings-ii-the-old-gods).
It adds a new start in 867, the year Rurik decided that Russian brides
are just the best and hes gonna grab himself some in
Novgorod[^rape], and more importantly, before the spread of
Christianity into the East. Ive always wanted to play before the
*Ostsiedlung*, so I just jumped right into Lusatia and decided that
minority status isnt good enough for us
[Sorbs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorbs), were gonna carve
ourselves a kingdom in the midst of Vikings, Poles, invading nomads, and
worst of all, Bavarians.
The new raid mechanics are a beautiful addition. At first, I was just
assembling little hunting parties from time to time because I thought
that it was my duty as a Pagan to pillage, but by picking vulnerable
Christian provinces too busy with bigger assholes than me, I had quickly
transformed my fiscal policy into “whatever the Christians cant
defend”. Greater Poland acting up because it thinks it should own
Silesia? Better “borrow” some money from the cities to the south.
Vikings landed again? Lets make it Nürnbergs problem and buy some
mercenaries with their gold. Once I realized I can finance the majority
of my armies with ransom money, I couldnt help but start blasting Death
Metal and cheer the burning of churches. The Christians might worship a
pathetic god, but at least their coffers come back from the dead year
after year, ready for another harvest.
The fascinating thing is how this high lasted for some time until some
even bigger Pagan decided I would make a nice addition to their
ever-growing list of vassals, and I realized I aint got no Divine Right
of Kings, I just got a big axe, and after the last succession crisis of
6 sons (did I mention those concubines?), I was exhausted and without
friends, and maybe all those saints I gladly turned into martyrs
mightve been on to something and I shouldve taken up the Axe of the
Apostles instead. But even though the March of Progress might be against
me, and even though stability and order win in the long run and I got
neither, at least for a few decades I was feared by all and when death
inevitably comes, I wont have any regrets.
My sons, though, are fucked.
<%= image("yolo.jpg", "#yolo") %>
[^back]:
But seriously, I dont always like to shoe-horn fragments, cool
links and “omg they didnt just write that” parts into logs. I know
people use their FB or G+ for that, but I dont like either site
(because at least one of them is probably run by actual soul-eating
vampires).
I wonder if I should start a tumblr. While I dont have angry
opinions about gender yet, I am confused about my personal identity,
sexuality, hair style and species. I would like to regularly reblog
[sassy
pugs](https://gs1.wac.edgecastcdn.net/8019B6/data.tumblr.com/390eb27ac775f1db1a416ca9172c28aa/tumblr_mnqtmuomAa1r8hf8lo1_400.gif)
and summarize complex arguments with a reaction.gif, but Im not
sure if Im ready to become a 15-year-old girl full-time.
There needs to be a place that is kinda in-between FB and tumblr. A
fumblr, if you will.
[^org]:
Beeminder has native Trello integration, which is probably a good
alternative if youre not already familiar with org-mode. Still,
Trello doesnt have nested items and cant be used offline, so
thats somewhat annoying.
[^haskell]:
Seriously, Haskell has a worse dependency hell than the ARM code I
maintain *which still uses gcc 2.95*. Oh, I need to update a minor
library from `x.y.3` to `x.y.4`? *Every single Haskell program ever*
on my machine is now broken. I hate academics.
[^arch]:
Sometimes I feel like ranting about Arch, but then I remember
*pacman doesnt even have versioned packages* and I dont think any
more needs to be said about it. At least the
[suckless](http://suckless.org/) guys make great trolls and
occasionally write cool projects. Arch just seems to rot the mind
with cargo cult minimalism.
[^hipster]:
Look, I have strong opinions about the metaphysics and epistemology
of 19th century Dutch theologians. Its pretty much mandatory that I
either look like Skrillex or an 80s bum. Which isnt mutually
exclusive, fortunately.
[^drunk]:
I expect to get drunk sometime this week, do it anyway, freak out,
complain on Twitter, then love my decisiveness and use the
experience as yet another guilt token later, admonishing myself why
I cant be as awesome as I used to be. Thats how I usually get
stuff done I have issues about.
[^rape]:
As [mrout on
Reddit](http://www.reddit.com/r/CrusaderKings/comments/1f9519/the_concubine_system_is_awesome/ca7zp8l)
said, “Hey Japan! This is how you do a rape game without being weird
about it.”.