Learning plan report for semiweek 19

This is my semiweek 19 report on my learning plan. 

List of blog posts:

Philosophy	I answered Elliot's questions about his screencasts and I brainstormed and made plans about reading books.
Self-evaluation, Speedrunning	I wanted to address Elliot's criticism of my speedrunning work and wrote a blog post attempting to do that.
Philosophy	I blogged about a connection between reducing batch size and Elliot's recommendation to write shorter posts.
Philosophy	I read and commented on The Choice, chapter 1.
Philosophy	I read and commented on The Choice, chapter 2.
Philosophy	I read and commented on The Choice, chapter 3.
Cooking	I blogged about what I know about cooking knives in an attempt to get feedback about whether I should be sharpening my knives or buying knives that don't require sharpening.
Cooking	I smoked brisket and documented my thoughts on it.
Cooking	I made stew and took notes. I made a realization that I need to do preparation/documentation for my taste testing sessions.

# Plan requirements completion %

Learning Plan	Semiweek #	Count-Expected	Count-Done	Completion %
6/15/2020	19	8	9	113%

Comments on _The Choice_ by Goldratt, chapter 4

I read and took notes on chapter 4 of _The Choice (Revised Edition)_ by Goldratt.

> CHAPTER 4: Inherent Simplicity

In this chapter Goldratt talks about Newton's perspective on nature/reality. 

> He continues. "What Newton tells us is that the opposite happens; the system converges; common causes appear as we dive down. If we dive deep enough we'll find that there are very few elements at the base—the root causes—which through cause-and-effect connections are governing the whole system. The result of systematically applying the question "why" is not enormous complexity, but rather wonderful simplicity. Newton had the intuition and the conviction to make the leap of faith that convergence happens, not just for the section of nature he examined in depth, but for any section of nature. Reality is built in wonderful simplicity."

> Very observant of you to notice that I substituted the word 'reality' for the word 'nature'." He is apparently pleased. "I'm not talking just about nature, not just about the material world—atoms, electrons, molecules, enzymes. I'm talking about every aspect of reality, including people and whatever they create. The same convergence, the same wonderful simplicity, exists in any aspect of reality. Reality is built in wonderful simplicity."

> I have my doubts. Softly I say, "I know that in the hard sciences Newton's speculation is accepted as the foundation; scientists are looking for the root causes without even asking, 'Are we sure that they exist?' But that is not the case in the social sciences. Show me a psychologist who will agree that reality is simple." To provoke him I add, "Don't you know that people are different, that they have the freedom of choice?"

hmm, I think that the inherent simplicity concept can be applied to Common Preference Finding (CPF). I think to do CPF well the people involved need to think that there's a simple solution to the problem of the existence of conflicting initial preferences. So like if someone thought that finding a CP was complex, they wouldn't put in the effort because they think they'd fail if they tried.

> Look at the system and ask yourself, 'What is the minimum number of points you have to touch in order to impact the whole system?' If the answer is one, then the system has only one degree of freedom. That's the case in system B, where if you impact the bottom circle you impact, through the cause-and-effect arrows, every other circle. If the answer is four, as in the case of system A, then the system has four degrees of freedom. By the way, a system that has four degrees of freedom is many orders of magnitude more complex—harder to control and predict—than a system that has only one degree of freedom.

There are far more degrees of freedom in a person than compared to anything else in the universe.

And since an organization is a collection of persons, it has even more degrees of freedom than just one person.

But an organization can setup policies, a culture, that the people are supposed to follow. This reduces the degrees of freedom. (People can't be expected to 100% follow the policies/culture but a good job can be done of it. People who are found to not follow the policies/culture can be improved via training or fired. So there's a convergence happening with each of these training or firing events.)

Oh and the same logic applies to one person. A person can setup rules for himself. Each rule is designed to avoid a category of unwanted outcomes. Each rule reduces the degrees of freedom.

Stew - session #3

Continuing my series on cooking stew (last session)...

These are my notes:

• Pre-cooking:
• I forgot to buy eggplant as I planned to. 
• These are the amounts of stuff that I decided to change from the recipe:
• Carrots - none
• Mushrooms - 12 oz instead of 5 oz
• Potatoes - 1 lb instead of 2 lbs
• Celery - 3 stalks instead of 0
• Garlic (sliced) - 6 cloves instead of 0
• flour - none
• Allspice (~2 tsp) - added as part of the rub for the meat.
• Wine (1 cup) - to add before adding beef broth
• Method changes:
• remove bacon, leaving some grease for cooking garlic
• re-add bacon + grease with veggies
• cook garlic with some of the bacon grease
• add wine to deglaze before adding beef broth
• Post-cooking:
• all the method changes were fine. everything cooked as expected.
• i can't tell a difference in the bacon or the overall product due to the difference in recipe re bacon
• the flavor of the soup wasn't as good as last time
• i realize that i need to "calibrate" my measuring tool and document that stuff when taste testing
• like if i'm hungry vs not hungry. that would have an affect on the taste. 

Comments on _The Choice_ by Goldratt, chapter 3

I read and took notes on chapter 3 of _The Choice (Revised Edition)_ by Goldratt.

> CHAPTER 3: Why is Common Sense Not Common Practice?

> But on second thought, when a person faces an undesirable situation that he or she is convinced they cannot change, they **feel blocked**. (emphasis added)

what does "feel blocked" mean?

this reminds me of how people say "feel guilty". I blogged about it previously.

> I'm willing to entertain the possibility that one obstacle that blocks me from effectively using my brain is that I, too, look for sophisticated explanations.

how does one know if they are looking for sophisticated explanations? how do you test for it?

> they no longer think that improved operations can bring a tenfold increase to the bottom line.

I disagree with the framing. I think the issue is this: they don't understand the math and probably never even thought about it, so they don't know how a tenfold increase could happen. and even if they do consider some basic math around the issue, they don't do it right. like they don't think about the potential max sales versus the actual sales.

potential max sales = actual sales + lost sales

lost sales = lost sales from shortages + lost sales from surpluses 

> I can't visualize me doing the same. I can't visualize anybody else doing it. How many people do I know that once they find a solution, a solution that is capable of reaching the inconceivable, will continue to figure out how to do much better? What gives him the motivation to continue to explore more and more solutions? This ability cannot be described as just courage or determination. Frankly, I am unaware of a proper word for it.

he did it because he was applying his theory successfully in one area of the company and there were more areas of the company to apply the theory to. 

# My process

started at 10am

ended at 10:45am

wrote full comments directly in blog post. 

I didn't do any editing of a section after moving on to the next section.

Smoked brisket - session #1.0

Continuing my series on smoking brisket (last session)...

I smoked brisket yesterday. Here are my notes:

• Cooked for ~11 hours
• @ 225F for about 6 hours, reaching internal temp of 160F
• wrapped with foil, added beef broth inside
• @ 225F for 4 hours, reaching internal temp of 195F
• @ 250F for 30 min, reaching internal temp of 200F
• set to 450F (and reached 450F after a bit), reaching internal temp of 206F
• removed
• The recipe wasn't working (getting internal temp to reach 204F) so I increased to 250F and then to 450F. 
• I liked the amount of searing.
• A friend who ate with me, who's smoked brisket previously and showed me how to do it, said that the brisket wasn't soft enough. He said it needed more time. He sometimes smokes for 15 hours.
• I did not try the idea I mentioned in last session about stabbing the meat to add garlic cloves. I avoided it this time because I wasn't sure if the stabs would change the cooking in a way I didn't like. I'll try it next time.

Connecting concepts: reducing batch size and write short posts

Almost immediately after studying chapter 2 of _The Choice_, I realized a connection between two ideas: (1) idea of reducing batch size, and (2) Elliot's recommendation to write shorter posts.

How are these connected?

I'll just brainstorm for this session.

• what is a post?
• it's a series of internal actions (thoughts) resulting in one external action (a post).
• reducing batch size means reducing the number of internal actions per external action.
• when is it useful to reduce batch size?
• if you're overreaching
• if you think you can't complete the job in the current session
• if you're stuck on a problem
• what's the method like?
• start on a problem
• if problem can't be completed in one session, then divide it up into many smaller problems
• solve each child problem (go back to "start on a problem")

Comments on _The Choice_ by Goldratt, chapter 2

I read and took notes on chapter 2 of _The Choice (Revised Edition)_ by Goldratt.

> CHAPTER 2: Uncommon Sense

> A few weeks ago, I spent a morning with a group of more than twenty middle-level managers from a major brand in apparel. We will call the company BigBrand. My reason for writing this report is the annoying feeling that you think that there is a limit to how much a company can improve, that a quantum jump in performance is possible for only small and maybe medium-sized companies. But when it comes to very large companies (the billions-of-dollars companies), an improvement of the magnitude of, for example, bringing their yearly net profit to be equal to their current annual sales in just a few years, is really beyond a realistic possibility.

The quantum jump idea reminds me of BOI's jump to universality idea.

> There was a lot of debate in the room until the top gun—the director of finance—spoke up. His decisive answer was that in five years they would almost double their net profit to $1 billion per year. They are aware that it is quite an ambitious target, and they know it is not going to be easy. Nevertheless, as a company they are determined that yes, they can make it. That ended the debate.

That director of finance isn't really doing any reasoning or calculation besides saying that they'll increase profits 15% annually (which equates to 100% in 5 years). That basically equates to (at least by some valuation models) an increase in company valuation of 15% annually. When I was in college studying engineering economics, I recall the professor talking about how big companies like Caterpillar make finance decisions regarding new projects. He said that they look for a rate of return of like 15%, and they reject any projects less than 15% expected rate of return. So I took that to mean that 15% minimum expected annual rate of return is standard in the business world. 

I think the existence of that standard pressures people (like the director of finance mentioned above) to never claim anything less than 15% expected annual rate of return.

> Rather than starting to explore how they are going to achieve this ambitious target, I preferred to ask if they think that in five years they can reach a $4 billion net profit per year. Not surprisingly, they didn't need any guidance answering this question. They made it clear this number is totally, utterly unrealistic.

A $4 billion net profit per year after 5 years (starting from $500 million), means 51% annual rate of return, or 800% in 5 years.

Earlier there was a data point mentioned that can be combined with these others to figure out how much of an increase in sales is required to make an increase in profit of $3.5 billion per year. (I'm guessing this gets discussed later in this chapter.)

I ran some numbers and found out the following. If we assume a gross profit margin of 65%, and an increase in sales of 108% over 5 years, then that translates to an annual net profit increase of $3.5 billion, taking the company to the proposed number of $4 billion annual net profit. This assumes that the current overhead cost would not need to be increased in order to handle the 108% increase in sales and production.

Instead if we assume a gross profit margin of 80%, the increase in sales needed to reach the same target is 88% over 5 years. Again this assumes that overhead cost would not need to be increased.

I don't think 88-108% increase in sales over 5 years is unrealistic. Like maybe you could buy up another company with equivalent sales numbers such that you can consolidate overhead expenses (like maybe you don't need any of the overhead expenses of the company you're buying). This would reach the $4 billion net profit target.

> To reveal the true potential for improvement I wanted them to examine the phenomenon of shortages—of missing items.

looking for missed opportunities. that could be a bottleneck.

> When many then speculated that lost sales might be as high as fifty percent, I added, "If we take as a base the existing sales, doesn't it mean that the amount you lose due to shortages is close to what you are actually selling?

holy crap. so if they greatly reduced lost sales due to shortages -- say by 90% -- they'd get a 90% increase in sales, which is near the 108% that I said was needed to get a $4 billion annual net profit. (90% increase in sales translates to $3.4 billion annual net profit (assuming 65% gross profit margin).

> We went over the following chain of logic. If an item was depleted in one month, they actually lost its sales during the next five months. The lost sales of that item are probably equal to five times the amount that was sold. (They agreed that, usually, demand for an item at the beginning of the season is not a peak but a reflection of genuine market demand.)

FUUUUCK! So for some items, 83% of their sales are lost!

> They didn't have numerical answers, but their impression was that the number of items depleted within the first three months of the season is very significant. They would not be surprised if it is typically equal to one-third of all SKUs.

so 33% of SKUs lose >50% of their sales due to shortage.

> As we said, items missing from a brand's warehouses are erased from the list of items that the shops should hold. Therefore, we should combine the impact of missing items in the shops with the impact of missing items in the warehouses. They agreed that we are dealing here with a phenomenon that is, most probably, equal to or higher than the total amount of realized sales.

But the "equal to" scenario was already decided earlier in the discussion. These new facts mean that its much more than "equal to".

> After some discussion, they reached the conclusion that if by some miracle the shops will not suffer from any shortages, BigBrand would need to increase only modestly its infrastructure to support the resulting increase in sales; the resulting increase in sales would not be associated with a meaningful increase in operating expenses. The only cost that would go up is the amount of money they will have to pay their suppliers for the additional goods. But since they purchase the goods for a price that is only one-fifth of their selling price, 80 percent of the money generated by the increase in sales resulting from the reduction in shortages goes directly to the bottom line.

Ok so now we learn that their cost of goods sold is 20%, in other words, the gross profit margin is 80% (which was my second theoretical assumption about it). 

So a 100% increase in sales translates to $4.5 billion annual net profit. That's $500 million more than the original $4 billion idea.

> Yes, they can, provided that they will abandon the illusion created by the forecast—the illusion that the future demand is known. How should they operate if their starting assumption is that they do not know the future demand per SKU?

I'm guessing he's going to explore the idea of reducing batch size (similar to what was done in the manufacturing company in the book _The Goal_ by Goldratt).

> Will ordering much smaller quantities, more frequently, raise the price?

> Not as long as the total amount ordered per season is roughly the same or larger," was their answer.

HAHA! So they can reduce batch size down a lot without increasing cost per item (though cost of shipping will go up, but that's far smaller than the current cost of lost sales).

> What would happen," I asked, "if BigBrand were to make this offer to their retailers: you will accept back any merchandise for a full refund?"

Ah. This would release the pressure on the retailer to buy less. So if retailers buy more, then there's less losses due to shortages at the retailer.

> The head of finance provided a perfect ending when he summarized: "Reaching four billion dollars net profit per year is starting to look conservative."

this made me laugh out loud. :)

# Process

Started 8am

Ended 9:25am

I did not take notes in Apple Books app. Instead I wrote full comments about each quote that I wanted to comment on. I'm not sure which method is better, the one I did in last chapter or this one.

Speedrunning review - session #1 2020-08-28

After reading this FI email from Elliot, I decided to do a whole blog post analyzing what he said and how I should apply it to my speedrunning work.

Almost immediately I thought to do a bunch of work on this such that it would become many blog posts. So I decided to plan it all out. This blog post is the first of the series.

The below text won't make a lot of sense to you. I did not intend it to be understandable to other people. I was focussed on just recording my ideas. So it's mostly just brainstorming.

I've spent a few hours on this now and I think this is a good stopping point.

------------------------------------------

# Initial exploration re action plan for writing this blog post

• tree whole discussion[1] as part of reviewing speed running.
• consider making it a separate blog post instead. 
• maybe write it as if it's one, then decide to separate it. 
• (that's my usually process)
• how do all of Elliot's and my sentences fit into the following:
• for criticism to be effective, the following things need to be factored in:
• clear goals
• reasoning
• perspectives
• context
• problem-situation
• clear pass/fail criteria
• what would be a success? what would be a fail? can you tell the difference? if not, that's not good enough. there's room for improvement.
• METHODS to apply to the whole product of the action plan: 
• only use grammar that I think I can analyze.
• make a custom API for this series of blog posts
• make it a separate blog post that I link at the start of each of the posts in the series
• say what things? what kind of criticism am I looking for?
• type: grammar mistakes. I'll treat them as leads to focus my grammar study.
• any criticism that you think I would find helpful
• even if it would require back and forth of 5 (5 from you and 5 from me) before I decide it's helpful or not

[1a] started from discussion with Elliot where he prompted me to answer questions about [forgot, fill in later]

[1b] had a thought train leading to "matrix style graphical figuring things out" (from earlier at least, not sure)

[1c] While thinking about this, I had a tangent thought train leading to "add learning goal, learn about cases where I do social dynamics - why? because sabotages rationality".

[1d] while thinking about this, I had a tangent thought train leading to "1 by 1, in order, like I did before in my FI personal notes -- see bottom of Operating System showing itemized history of thoughts during 2 hour thought train where every single thought was tracked and logged, where I said I'm rewriting my software."

[1e] recalling criticism of Lulie's post, external criticism can be improved to be well suited for the receiver.

[1f] not liking criticism = or ~= social dynamics at play, caring about your social status (in the eyes of a group or particular person, or self, as in self-esteem)

• why couldn't it be just lack of goal? 
• why lack of goal? social dynamics?
• example: not wanting to state goal (like how I don't state goal of learning parenting as a subgoal of learn rationality)
• don't want to look dumb?
• what type of criticism don't I like?
• the kind I don't understand
• why don't you understand?
• maybe because you're not clear what the goal is?
• if so, you can fix that, like by asking the criticism-giver (and you could figure it out yourself without asking, depends on context)

[1g] ratio of criticism to content published/reviewed

• if high - then what? (depends on why high)
• if low - then what? (depends on why low)

Cooking knives: must I sharpen? what to buy?

I don't know much about cooking knives. Here's what I do know:

• My parents and siblings do lots of sharpening knives.
• A few years ago I purchased a $30 knife from amazon with good reviews. I've been using it without problems since then, without sharpening it. I don't think it's lost much sharpness.
• I guess the knives that my parents/siblings use are junk in the sense that they easily become dull with use. I guess they buy knife sets from department stores (with no research) probably around the price of my one knife.
• I have a theory that I don't need to sharpen my knives if I buy the right ones. I'm not sure about this.

Suggestions/criticisms? Do you have advice on how to pick and buy knives? Do you know about particular purpose knives like for trimming fat from a brisket?

Comments on _The Choice_ by Goldratt, chapter 1

I read and took notes on chapter 1 of _The Choice (Revised Edition)_ by Goldratt.

> “CHAPTER 1: What Choice Do We Have?”

> “Father, what is the choice you made that impacted your life the most?" I ask.

> Decisively he answers, "I wanted to live a full life. The most important decision that led directly to it was my decision to constantly devote time to understanding, really understanding, each one of my areas of interest: family, friends and work.”

I like the focus on *the most important decision* -- a decision that affects all other decisions.

> Knowing that when Father says "really understand," he means spending endless hours in the attempt to decipher the causalities that govern a situation, I sigh, "That's not easy."

I often notice this mindset where people say "that's not easy" or "that's hard". I think that the vast majority of these cases are cases where the person means that the thing is *too hard to be able to succeed*.

> Being the daughter of my father I have heard this question more than once. "I know, I know. If you want an easy life just grab a hammer, a big one, and hit yourself on the head, hard. You'll have a very easy life. They'll even bring the food to your bed."

i don’t think that’s an easy life. i think an easy life is one that you’re in control of. i think living like a slave is much much much harder than living like a free man.

> I firmly say, "Everybody feels a sense of disappointment when an initiative doesn't work. The more important the initiative, the bigger the disappointment. Even when a person makes the right choice, even when a person is optimistic and chooses to look on the bright side, even when the person is made out of iron, he or she will be disappointed. The fact that you repress these feelings doesn't mean that they don't exist."

scientists have been searching for intelligent alien life and haven’t found it yet. i don’t think they are disappointed about it. and if they are, that’s a mistake. 

where do people get these theories from? I think it's basically this: they notice things in themselves and a few other people and then they decide (without reasoning, just faith) that it applies to all people.

> For my father, every situation is an opportunity to learn, every new initiative is an exploration.

All life is learning experiments.

> Father leans forward and says, "When a proto-type—a new initiative—doesn't work, we face two alternatives: **one is to bitch about reality** and the other is to harvest the gift it just gave us, the knowledge of what has to be corrected. That is the reason I titled the report Freedom of Choice. (emphasis added)

bitching about reality is a waste of energy and is counter-productive because of the opportunity cost of not doing problem-solving.

> Hesitantly I answer, "You're always the scientist. You are constantly figuring out how the world is ticking, trying to verbalize the cause-and-effect connections—on any subject, in any situation." I continue more confidently, "For you, everything is like a prototype. No wonder situations that trigger disappointment and frustration for others are, for you, a source of energy."

even the phenomenon of other people getting disappointed is a source of energy for him.

this reminds me of something. a friend told me that he didn’t call me when he was sad because he didn’t want to “bring me down”. i reminded him that people climb mountains and they do it for the struggle, the entertainment. he agreed. and i said that helping him with his sadness problem is like climbing a mountain.

> On the other hand, one must be arrogant—have the confidence that one is capable of figuring out how to make things work.

that’s not what arrogant means.

> Put these two requirements together and you have a nice oxymoron: humble arrogance.

fallible confidence

> “I'm looking for a good analogy," he says while his eyes search the ceiling. "Suppose that you have an excellent screwdriver, and you need to take out a screw from a piece of wood. You have the right tool for the task, but for some reason, you think that it's not a screw but a nail. How successful will you be? In such a case, to claim that you don't have a good enough tool is ridiculous. There is nothing wrong with people's brainpower; there is something very wrong with people's perception of reality. The biggest obstacle is that people grasp reality as complex when actually it is surprisingly simple."

life is simple not complex. i guess people make their lives complex, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

> When he sees that I get it, he continues, "When I left physics and started to deal with organizations, I was astonished to see that the attitude of most people is that the more sophisticated something is, the more respectable it is.

i recall from physics a basic thing that when we first work on a new thing, like making a model of reality, we start with the simplest model, get it working, then try to make the model more complex in order to more accurately model reality. so, simple first.

# My process for this session

I decided to read at least 30 minutes, plus spend some time writing a blog post about it. During the reading I stopped a lot to take notes on what I was reading (directly in Apple Books app). I also stopped a bunch of times to take care of something not related to the book. Like I'd get a notification about a planned meeting later in the day, realize that it's not a good time to do the meeting, send an email to reschedule, then get back to the book, then a minute later get a reply email about it, reply to it, then get back to the book. 

I started at 7:30am and I'm writing this part at 8:15am. So I've already done the 30 minutes I planned to do. But I want to do more. (I just used up another 15 minutes taking a call from a friend.)

Finished writing at 9am. So 1.5 hours (minus minor interruptions).

Learning plan report for semiweek 18

This is my semiweek 18 report on my learning plan. 

List of blog posts:

No special order.

Philosophy, Business	I helped a friend with a work problem involving interacting with an irrational coworker and did post-documentation about it.
Philosophy	I blogged about a similar situation to one I read about in a curi blog comment about asking a question that could potentially expose irrationality.
Cooking	I was trying to improve my stew recipe and found an article explaining common mistakes people make when making stew.
Cooking	I researched what veggies I could add to my stew recipe.
Cooking	I happened upon an awesome recipe by accident and decided to document it.
Cooking	I researched why one would use freshly-ground black pepper instead of pre-ground.
Cooking	I want to make smoked brisket so I found a recipe and planned my first cooking session with a slight improvement over the recipe.

# Plan requirements completion %

Learning Plan	Semiweek #	Count-Expected	Count-Done	Completion %
6/15/2020	18	6	7	117%

Comments on Elliot Temple's screencasts plus thoughts on book reading

In a recent FI email, Elliot asked for feedback on his tutoring videos. I decided to write a blog post with a dual purpose: (1) provide feedback and (2) think about my own use of the videos and request feedback.

I'll quote the email and add my comments inline:

> Alan, others, got opinions/feedback/etc on my recent videos? Tutoring InternetRules and Max, and gigahurt discussion tree.
>
> Any ideas for me to be a better teacher? 

no

> Any parts you’d particularly like or dislike if you were the student? Anything that is particularly good or bad for the video audience? 

i don't recall disliking anything.

> Have you learned much? 

I think i've learned enough that i expect to learn more from future videos. i expect this might be the case for years.

> Do you watch around 100%/80%/60%/40%/20%/0%? Why?

i've recently changed how I use your videos. I now almost 100%[1] play (@ 1.75X speed) your videos in the background as I do other stuff, and I do this for a lot more time per day than previously. My intent is to consume all of your video content. i partially made this change because you started putting out video content faster than I was consuming it.

[1] sometimes i hear something in the videos that is both interesting to me and I didn't totally understand it. in these cases i either switch to the video and listen, or i pause the video and wait to get back to it until i finish the other task i was working on, which should only be a few minutes.

> what do you like and dislike about the videos compared to text? 

for video, i dislike not being able to see a transcription. but overall i think the format is fine. i like that i can consume them while doing other stuff. i can't do that with your text.

> would you prefer one or the other, or a mix similar to what i do now, or a different mix?

with the new change in my consumption rate, i'm happy with the mix of video to text that you currently produce.

So far I've done zero book reading since I started my learning plan.

I think I should start reading books, like by Goldratt. I already read 2 of his books, which I enjoyed a lot and I think I learned a great deal. So I want to read 2 more of his books that Elliot has recommended. (I recorded the names of the books in my learning plan.)

i guess i should do something like read a chapter per day, or X number of pages (if the chapters are too long), or Y number of minutes, or maybe I should come up with a combination metric. Example: don't stop reading until I've read for 30 minutes, or 10 pages, or 1 chapter, whichever happens first. Then immediately follow the reading by writing a blog post about it.

also maybe i should do book reading as the first thing in the morning. that's when i'm at my most mentally fresh. currently the first thing I do in the morning is catch up on reading FI email, curi blog posts, etc. So I would have to move this reading to a later part of the day, which I think is fine. I'll try this method out and see how it works (with documentation about it).

thoughts on my ideas/plans?

Smoked brisket - session #0.1

I want to make smoked brisket using my wood-pellet grill. I found a recipe by Traeger.

I reviewed the recipe making sure that I understand it. It looks fine.

I thought of an improvement too. The recipe calls for garlic powder. I recall my mom adding garlic cloves to a piece of meat by stabbing the meat with a knife and inserting garlic cloves in the holes, just deep enough to be flush with the surface of the meat. I think that will work fine and I think it will produce a better result than using garlic powder.

Freshly-ground black pepper?

A few of my recipes call for freshly-ground black pepper. I can differentiate the smell of freshly-ground pepper from pepper that is pre-ground. I wasn't sure that flavor followed the same logic. So I thought to do some research. I found this article which I found very helpful.

Here's one part that I found helpful:

> THE CASE AGAINST PRE-GROUND PEPPER

> If you think you don’t like black pepper, then what you truly dislike might be the dusty vibe of months-old, pre-ground pepper. Tinned pre-ground pepper is like a dub of a dub of a dub of a cassette tape—a vague echo of its original glory.

> Grind fresh peppercorns, and the flavor will be like listening to your favorite band from 1992 digitally remastered and on a very nice stereo. In other words, wow.

This reminds me of something else I learned a while ago. Ground spices lose potency over time, but worse than that, they can also gain bad flavor. I heard this from others and I also noticed it myself (at least with respect to smell). I had a many years old container of spices and the smell was awful -- nothing like what I expected it to be.

Sunny-side up eggs with basterma and veggies - session #1

About a year ago I learned a way to make eggs that I thought was way better than anything I've tried from restaurants or from my mom. It's a recipe that my friend learned from his mom.

I've done the recipe many times, with many variations. The latest variation was done by my friend and it was so awesome that I decided to write it down so I don't forget it. The main changes were adding a particular spiced meat called Basterma and mushrooms instead of potatoes. We noticed that the mushrooms did much better at soaking up the flavor than compared to potatoes. 

So I wrote down the ingredients (see below). I haven't written the directions yet, partly because I mostly know it. Another reason is that I tried to write down the directions by asking my friend what they are but we had trouble understanding each other so we decided to write down the directions while he does the recipe live.

I tried the recipe (with the directions as I know them) without my friend being there to help correct me. I thought that I might be able to replicate the directions enough to get the same result. But I was wrong. It was tasty enough but not as tasty as when my friend did it. When my friend did it, the mushrooms soaked up the flavor from the Basterma. That didn't happen when I did it. I thought that the basic thing to do was to cook the mushrooms along side the basterma for long enough. I guess I didn't do it long enough.

Ingredients:

• 5 eggs

• 2 oz Basterma (from local middle eastern store)

• 12 oz mushrooms cut into 1 inch cubes

• 2 medium tomatoes cut into 1 inch cubes

• 3 medium sprigs green onion

• handful celery leaves or parsley

• 3 cloves garlic sliced

• 1 teaspoon salt [1]

• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric [1]

• 1/2 cup olive oil [1]

[1] estimate, will get accurate figures later

Stew - session #2

Continuing my pursuit to improve my stew recipe (see last session), I searched for what veggies are good to be added to stew.

I found this article which was very helpful.

• Various types of squash could be added. A bit later during my research I learned that squash is sweet like carrots are. But I don't like the sweetness of carrots in the stew (at least when I eat the carrots, not sure how the carrot flavor affects the whole stew). So I don't think I'll be adding squash to my stew.
• I learned that root veggies work well. I didn't recognize any of them by name (parsnips, turnips, rutabaga, celeriac, and sweet potatoes), so I searched each one of them. I did recognize all of them by picture. I might add some of these. I sometimes have extra turnips in stock, so those would be good to add.
• Eggplant! My mom makes many recipes with eggplant. I think I'll try it out for my stew.
• The other things on the list were things that either I already include or things that I don't think I would like at all, like cauliflower.

Stew - session #1

I have some new leads on improving my stew recipe.

I've been using a recipe called Irish Lamb Stew which I found here. I've tried it with lamb or beef. Both turn out tasty. I cooked it a couple days ago and it was the best I had done so far. Yesterday I decided to make some changes like reducing the amount of carrots. So I googled for other stew recipes looking for other vegetables I could add. While doing that I found an article talking about common mistakes people make when making beef stew. I learned about 3 mistakes that my recipe makes.

Mistake #1

> Including Thickeners

> There's a misconception that stew ought to be "thick." True, stew is heartier than soup, but this is mostly due to the fact that the pieces of meat, potato, and carrots are bigger than they might be in ordinary soup. That, and there is also a higher solids-to-liquid ratio. But the liquid itself should not be thick in the same way that gravy is thick. 

> So skip the roux, and don't bother dusting the meat with flour or cornstarch before browning, either, as some recipes will suggest. That will just interfere with getting a good sear on the meat, and gum up the stew with unneeded starch. Simmering the potatoes will contribute all the starch the stew needs, and it'll be plenty thick.

So I shouldn't be using flour to coat the meat before cooking. (This is interesting. I have a Black Pepper Chicken recipe that calls for this too. The recipe says it's to prevent burning. hmm) 

Mistake #2

> Not Using Any Bacon

> The notion that bacon enhances beef stew should be self-evident. The best way to introduce bacon to your beef stew is to cube it up and then render it slowly in your pot, then add your carrots, onions, and celery, and sauté them for a bit before adding them. Next, add the now-browned bacon bits to the stew. You might be tempted to try to brown the beef in bacon fat, but it will end up smoking and you'll wish you hadn't. 

So my recipe says to brown the beef right after cooking the bacon, with the bacon and the bacon fat. Before finding this article I already had an idea that the bacon is not turning out right in the recipe I'm using. I had seen other recipes that involved cooking the bacon so that it's crispy, then removing it but leaving the grease in order to cook the next thing (say vegetables), then readding the bacon at the end. So I want to implement that in my stew recipe. But I'm not sure what to do.

If I were to cook the bacon until browned, then remove the bacon and cook the veggies in the bacon grease (as the article says), then when would I cook the lamb/beef? Would I remove the veggies so that I could cook the lamb/beef? 

Or should I remove the bacon and grease, then cook lamb/beef, then add the bacon and its grease after cooking the lamb/beef, like when the veggies are added.

Mistake #3

> Forgetting the Acid

> The paradox of beef stew is that all that braised goodness can be a little bit heavy on the palate. It's easy to forget to add some sort of wine, vinegar, or yes, even lemon juice, to brighten things up.

My recipe doesn't use any of these. I'm going to add 1 cup of white wine. I've seen these used in lots of recipes.

I wanted to learn why wine (or any acidic thing) helps. I found this article saying:

> These qualities are what distinguish wine and alcohol in cooking, as opposed to non-alcoholic liquids. It’s often recommended to deglaze with wine rather than water, juice or stock because wine can dissolve both oil- and water-soluble compounds.

And this:

> As wine cooks, its sugars and acids concentrate. In savory dishes, avoid “jammy” reds and off-dry whites, which can become syrupy and imbalanced.

> Dry red or white wines (more on that below) are best for cooking with in most applications, although there are desserts that call for sweet wine. In particular, look for those that are medium- to full-bodied with good acid and little to no oak. Very oaky wines can become bitter when cooked.

I don't know much about wine. I don't understand these 2 paragraphs.

How to interact with an irrational coworker - #1: Fake Deals

A friend of mine asked me for advice on how to deal with a situation he's involved in as an employee interacting with his coworker who is acting irrationally.

This is a scenario where there are 2 job roles, where one of them is the money-maker and the other one supports him/her. My friend is the money-maker and his coworker is filling his support role. Each money-maker is assigned one support person.

There was a series of previous cases of irrationality which led to my friend discussing it with his manager and making a request to reassign his support person. (IIRC there was no clear answer from management about the request.)

In the latest case, the coworker acted as if a deal was made between them when there was no such deal. The interaction happened in a chat group which included the managers. The coworker said something like, "hey we had a deal!" in response to my friend not agreeing to something. My friend said, "what deal?" And then the coworker quoted herself from a day earlier. 

I initially gave a recommendation to say something like this:

i think we may have a misunderstanding. can you show me where i said that i agree with your proposal deal?

My friend didn't like it. he said that it was/is clear that no deal was made. so i gave the following recommendation instead:

a deal is a mutually-agreed upon thing. that means at least 2 people involved. why did you only quote you talking?

I clarified that talking like this might get him fired if the company is bad -- which I argued is a good outcome (which factors in what I know about my friend's particular context) -- or promoted if the company is good.

The coworker didn't address the question and instead said that they want a meeting to discuss these issues. 

My friend thought he might get fired and wanted to avoid a meeting if the firing decision had already been made. So I wrote another reply saying something like: 

Dear Staff/Management, 

If you've already decided to fire me, please do it now to save us time, else I'm happy to have an honest and rational discussion about how to move forward.

The coworker replied with something like this:

I only care about the issues I raised, I don't know about all that other stuff you said.

So I wrote another reply for my friend like this: 

I understand that you have issues you want addressed during the meeting. I also have issues I want addressed. So management must be present and involved in the meeting or else I don't want the meeting. 

The coworker replied in a very interesting way. She completely changed her tone. She went from bossy to polite.

And immediately after her reply a manager chimed in saying he will be at the meeting.

Learning plan report for semiweek 17

This is my semiweek 17 report on my learning plan. 

List of blog posts:

Philosophy	My kid asked me a question: "So Jeff Bezos got lucky?"
Programming	My kid and I wanted to find out how big a number a computer could handle. We used Newton's Method to do it.
Programming	My kid asked me about 10 divided by 3 and if the 3s repeat forever. That launched a fun discussion about how computers deal with such numbers.
Philosophy	I thought of the mind as a court and brainstormed about it.
Philosophy	I wrote about charisma/charm and thought about why people like it.
Philosophy	I tried to answer Elliot's questions about emergencies in my life and how I'm treating them.
Philosophy	I had a productive discussion with Justin Mallone about being fat, eating policies, documentation, etc.
Speedrunning	I answered Elliot's questions about my 30 session sub-plan re my speedrunning.
Cooking	I used my Griddler to make a tastier fajita wrap!

# Plan requirements completion %

Learning Plan	Semiweek #	Count-Expected	Count-Done	Completion %
6/15/2020	17	6	9	150%

Question designed to expose irrationality

I was reading a curi blog comment about a situation and recalled a similar situation. Here's the blog comment:

> And then, because he couldn't refer me to a person or literature that'd be adequate, he kept talking. Because if he says "i won't explain it and also there are no other people and there's no literature" then he looks irrational and is basically saying there is no way to learn SENS stuff, no way to get questions and criticisms answered, etc. So he didn't want to do that.

The similar situation is this:

A sales person partially paid by commissions sold something and didn't get the commission he was expecting. He complained to his boss and got a response like "you did it wrong and don't deserve the commission as a result". The sales person then asked, "I thought I did it right, so what should I have done instead?" The boss didn't really reply to this. So the sales person clarified, "I need to know what I should have done instead so that I avoid this problem going forward." At this point the boss didn't reply and paid the commission to the sales person instead. 

I think this is similar to the quoted situation above in the sense that the boss didn't want to reply with an irrational answer, and he didn't have a rational reply to give, so he was left only with the option of paying the commission.

Arithmetic, error, numerical methods, TV, artifacts in the images

Lulu asked me if 10 divided by 3 is 3.333 (where the underline means repeating 3 forever). I said yes, but a computer can't do that because it has finite memory. And I explained that because a computer can't do that, there's always error, a difference between the result the computer gives and the actual answer. And I mentioned that we humans don't have that problem. She asked why.

I explained that we can think in terms of 1/3rd. So like 10 divided by 3 is 3 and 1/3rd. And I explained that a computer can't do that. I also clarified, "well at least some software can't do it, maybe some software can."

I explained that computer software implements numerical methods designed to reduce the error. 

I explained geometric growth of error versus linear growth of error. I said something like: 

• imagine a computer program that does some calculations and the error adds up (the same amount per calculation -- i.e. linear growth of error), and imagine a computer program that does some calculations and the error multiplies up (the error amounts per calculation go up with each calculation -- i.e. geometric growth of error). I said that geometric growth of error can produce results with error greater than the results.

I explained that TVs use these numerical methods and that the errors are things that you can see in the images. Like when an object is moving fast across a background, you can see artifacts in the border between the moving object and the background. Those artifacts are the errors. She asked me to show her these things. I said that I'll point it out the next time we watch something where there's an object moving fast across a background.

I explained that TVs need to use numerical methods because they don't directly show you the video feed they get. Like the video feed might have a lower frame rate than the TV will display, so the TV creates extra frames from the video feed frames.

Finding the largest number a computer can handle

I was helping my daughter Lulu learn programming (she was doing a Lua tutorial) and she asked a question about how big a number the program can handle. I said I don't know and recommended that we find out. We had lots of fun finding the answer.

I told her to try out a really big number. I said to put a 9, then the "to the power of" symbol, then a bunch of 9s. She picked something huge, far above the computer's limit. Then I recommended to try a much smaller number. That was too big. At some point I started suggesting numbers such that we were using Newton's Method to find the solution. 

The method is like this: 

1. choose a high (overflow) and a low (no overflow). 
2. cut difference in half. 
1. if overflow, set that as the new high, else if no overflow, set that as the new low. 
1. if happy with precision of the result, stop.
2. Else, repeat from step 2. 

Lulu said that she's used this method before.

Here's a log of her work on this:

2+3

5

2+34

14

2394875324987532497859234875412

9.8668863389486346e+029

9^9

387420489

9^99

2.9512665430652752e+094

9^9999999999999999999999999999999

1/0 --[[math.huge]]

9^9999

1/0 --[[math.huge]]

9^999

1/0 --[[math.huge]]

9^998

1/0 --[[math.huge]]

9^100

2.6561398887587478e+095

9^500

1/0 --[[math.huge]]

9^102

2.1514733098945857e+097

9^250

3.6360291795869935e+238

9^350

1/0 --[[math.huge]]

9^300

1.873927703884794e+286

9^325

1/0 --[[math.huge]]

9^310

6.5339818865072468e+295

9^315

3.8582509641636642e+300

9^320

2.2782586118290021e+305

9^321

2.0504327506461019e+306

9^324

1/0 --[[math.huge]]

9^323

1.6608505280233425e+308

9^323.5

1/0 --[[math.huge]]

9^323.4

1/0 --[[math.huge]]

9^323.1

1/0 --[[math.huge]]

9^323.01

1.6977470088971238e+308

9^323.05

1/0 --[[math.huge]]

9^323.03

1.7740171916785718e+308

9^323.04

1/0 --[[math.huge]]

.9323.005

[string ".9323.005"]:1: malformed number near '.9323.005'

9^323.005

1.6791974321612211e+308

9^323.006

1.6828910624108526e+308

.9^323.010

1.6591015688607133e-015