Old memories

I don't know why, but today I remembered some things that happened about 30 years ago.  There was me asking my grandfather: "How are people supposed to keep their hands when they walk? Straight open, or closed in a fist?" He said: "Something in between", and it seemed to me a good answer.

I remember me watching my hand and thinking it had nice proportions, I don't think it has changed much.

I also remember some pretty boring moments, strange that they left a sign that has lasted for so long... For instance I see me sitting on the floor staring at the carpet, or watching the room's door trying to catch sleep for my afternoon nap...

Animality?

I find quite interesting that we spend a lot of time in cutting our hair and trimming our nails.  We also use special products to make our hair feel softer and look brighter.  We have even invented professionals that we pay to perform these make-up operations on us.  If an alien dropped on the Earth he would probably report that "Humans derive from monkeys but they try to hide it by polishing their hair and making their nails look more gentle."

The first five minutes

The first five minutes when I wake up, that's when I think my brain works 2x.  As if I had a double who shares my own experiences and yet can give me a different perspective on a problem.  BTW this only works when I wake up naturally, that's why I try to wake up before the alarm.  I actually think the alarm causes some sort of brain damage, it's responsible for the crime of interrupting dreams, it's the first bad news of the day -- the day itself heals the alarm's wound, and makes me forget about it.  I'm thinking that the sunlight can mend as much as the dark can hurt.

I'm a genius!

You know those stupid things that when you do them they make you feel immensely proud of yourself?   This morning I was pouring olive oil from the 5 litre can to the bottle using a funnel.   You know what happens, the oil goes in very slowly because the air has to come out.   So after wasting 2 minutes filling 10% of the bottle I took a straw and I put it in the funnel.   It worked amazingly well.   I'm so proud of me today!

I read somewhere

I have a feeling that when we say "I read somewhere that..." it's often because we don't want to say where we read it.

Am I anxious?

Is it just me?  I can't find things in lists.  If the list is not sorted, even if fairly short, I have a hard time to find what I look for.  A good idea would be to start from the beginning and proceed in order, but I have no patience -- I start jumping back and forth on my list starting to think "it's not here!"

Simple explanations

If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, then it's probably a duck.
It's funny that a concept so obvious has actually a name: the Occam's Razor, and it originates back in the 14th century. (Sometimes I think that in the Middle Ages it was relatively easy to make history!)
This principle states that the explanation for a given phenomenon that has the fewest assumptions should be preferred over more complicated ones and can be used for instance to try explaining the Fermi paradox on the fact that we haven't found any prove of intelligent extraterrestrial life even though many think it ought to exist.

TO-DOs

- Become more aware of the world we live in.
- Read a lot more, and write more too.
- Meet new people and visit new places.
- Learn to wait.
- Learn to filter out the things that don’t matter.
- Become a better listener.
- Sleep more.
- Dream more.

Lazy brain

Why is my brain so lazy?  Sometimes to enter my place I start checking each one of my keys in sequence, instead of thinking which one is the right one.  This happens when I'm tired and I start applying the most stupid algorithm, the linear search.  Sometimes it's easier that way: 33% chance is a pretty high number, if I'm lucky I'll solve my problem with no brain power, and if I fail no one dies -actually- on my second trial I'll have an even greater chance to succeed: 50%.  Worst case, my third trial will be 100% guaranteed to succeed.  Not smart but certainly a way to get things going...

To brighten up your day

What's better after a stressful day than coming home and finding in your mailbox a pamphlet that says: "What you should know about Cremation..."?

Dogs and jokes

It is always somehow touching for me when I hear dogs howling when they hear a siren. I wish I could tell the dog: "It's alright, don't worry, I know it sounds to you like another dog's howl, but it's actually something else... now go back to sleep."  I find particularly disturbing when somebody is withholding information that could make someone else feel better. Like for that kids' joke where you hide the snack to your classmate and you watch him searching anxiously into his backpack. How's that supposed to be funny? I hate that kind of jokes.

Partial information

It's hard to accept that our knowledge is always partial. We get our knowledge through our senses, and throughout time. Every day we keep interpolating the reality based upon a few isolated samples, moreover affected by noise. Only if we concentrate on the same subject long enough, then we start to get close to what its reality is, assuming that our presence doesn't affect it. Awareness of partial information is the key, never stop sampling the world, never settle down on anything, don't discard any sample, just keep collecting -- we don't know where is the noise and where there isn't.