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Below are the 25 most recent friends journal entries:[<< Previous 25 entries]
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12:26 am
evwhore
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/59019727/6639192) [Link] |
I didn't realize someone had imploded the Golden Nugget
Someone on vpFREE mentioned driving by the El Cortez recently and seeing a sign "VOTED THE BEST DOWNTOWN HOTEL FOR 2009." This is according to the LVRJ's Best of Las Vegas 2009 edition.
Reader pick: Golden Nugget
Staff pick: El Cortez
Yeah, I'll have some of whatever they're smoking at the LVRJ.
"This pick didn't seem possible a couple of years ago, [...]" Um, it still doesn't seem possible now. I know the E has recently undergone a renovation (friends of mine stayed there recently and reported it being decent) but NFW does it beat out the GN.
Tags: gambling, las vegas, wtf
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10:48 am
patrissimo
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/93349940/917569) [Link] |
Robin Hanson: My Favorite Cynic
He's been on a roll lately:
Ho Hum Nuclear Winter: "Today we know the situation is even worse – not only is nuclear winter easier than we thought to trigger, but more nations now have big enough arsenals to trigger it. Yet today there is far less international discussion or momentum to prevent such disaster. Why the difference?
Perhaps what triggered Western citizen interest last time was not so much that disaster loomed, but that disaster seemed attributable to our moral failings – to our being too belligerent. This time, we don’t feel so belligerent to Russia, and other wars seems like someone else’s fault. Perhaps we care less about anticipating and avoiding disasters, and more about avoiding moral blame for whatever does happen."
Why Read Old Thinkers: "the main reason most people read famous thinkers is to raise their status via affiliation, and to prepare to signal how knowledgeable they are. ... It seems to me that if a famous old thinker were actually the best person to read today on some subject, then humanity just couldn’t be accumulating much insight on that topic."
China Ascendant: "The world has emulated Western policies mainly because those nations were high status, not because their style of law or government was obviously more efficient. Chinese styles are likely similarly efficient, and if China becomes higher status, the world will emulate it instead."
Naked Promiscuity: "It seems men are eager to visibly help heroically and financially, and to spend on visible status symbols, mainly to seek promiscuous short-term sex! ... So what would happen if we all became conscious of the above behaviors being strong clues that men are in fact actively trying for promiscuous short term sex? Would such behaviors reduce, would long term relations become less exclusive, or what?"
Overcoming Bias is one of tne of the few blogs I consider "must-read".
Tags: cynic
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10:08 am
patrissimo
[Link] |
India gets its revenge!
For my satirical post: I'm now (cut for potential bodily TMI)
( Read more... )
That'll show me.
Tags: india
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11:09 am
evwhore
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/61303313/6639192) [Link] |
Scrabble prizes redux
Since I can't help myself, and there are some things I wanted to respond to/echo/comment on, I'm collecting them all in a new entry. Previous entry here.
There are also some general rambling philosophical thoughts about the state of the game at the bottom.
( cut for length )
Tags: scrabble
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04:50 pm
patrissimo
[Link] |
Article on Indian surrogacy
Including the clinic we are using."A year ago, I would have said it was very difficult to recruit a surrogate," says Sekhar. "Now it is becoming much more open. They get a decent amount of money. They get free food, free boarding, and free clothes, and they are housed in a nice place" for 12 months, away from their families.
...
Berkeley sociology professor Arlie Hochschild recently wrote in The American Prospect that Patel, the Anand-based clinic director, was perpetuating an "ideal of the de-personalized pregnancy that is eerily reminiscent of Aldous Huxley's 1932 dystopian novel Brave New World, in which babies are emotionlessly mass-produced in the Central London Hatchery."
...
But Samson implies that it's difficult for Westerners to understand the way that the money the surrogates get changes their lives—and how it would be nearly impossible for them to earn as much money in such a short amount of time doing anything else. "An engineer would earn the same amount in the same amount of time," he says. "They are happy with the money. It opens up a lot of windows for them at the same time. They can now lead a comfortable life, according to Indian standards at least. They can invest the money in a business, buy a small property. They can send kids to school or college."
Tags: india, ivf, surrogacy
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04:29 pm
patrissimo
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/17653530/917569) [Link] |
And now for something completely offensive: My Swiftian India Experience
The influence of Great Britain on India is everywhere, from the frequent use of English on signs to the cricket pitch by our hotel. But the most disturbing example is the clear influence of Jonathan Swift and the shocking beliefs held by poor Indians about Western diet.
The drive from our hotel to the hospital is long, and there is one spot in particular, entering a large roundabout, where traffic consistently backs up and sits for 5 minutes or more. Sitting in our car at that intersection a few days ago I had a most disturbing encounter.
An Indian woman, dressed in a sari, and carrying a baby at her chest walked between the cars. When she saw that our car contained Western-looking passengers, her eyes lit up, and she quickly moved to our (closed) window. There she made, via sign language, the appalling offer whose sight is seared into my senses.
First, she jingled a small purse, to say: "money". Then she pointed at her infant, to say "baby". And finally, she put her hand at her mouth and made lip-smacking noises, the universal sign for "eat".
I leapt back, repulsed, for the meaning was unmistakeable: "Will you, sir, buy my baby to eat it?" She continued, unfazed, to go back and forth between the baby and her mouth, signing again and again: "eat my baby, eat my baby, I need money, so please eat my baby!"
The woman did not speak in English, and alas, I have no Hindi, so I could not respond with what was in my mind and heart. "Please!", I would have said. "Love your baby, nourish it, educate it so that it can produce enough to feed its family. Do not sell it to a foreigner for a fricasie or ragout." "No!", I would have added, "Whatever you may have heard, we Westerners do not eat babies, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled. The very thought is repulsive and abhorrent, particularly when the baby is so underfed as your own. A young healthy baby well nursed might perhaps be another matter."
But we had no common language besides sign, so all we could do was stare at each other in mutual disgust, me at her desperation, her at my finicky palate, until traffic finally moved.
I knew that India was poor, but never had it crossed my mind that people were so desperate as to attempt to sell their own babies as a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food. I knew that people in other countries had distorted ideas about Westerners, but never had I considered that they might consider us capable of eating babies (and such stringy-looking babies at that!). They say that travel expands the horizons, and indeed, my mind was truly opened that day to the desperation of poverty.
(Yes, this is a callous post. Partly, I'm lashing out because of my discomfort at being trapped in a car while women banged on the windows and thrust their babies at me. This is my way of expressing it.
I do understand that global poverty is a major, serious problem. But a) if I was going to give I would give to a poorer country like in Africa, not India which is rapidly industrializing and fixing poverty itself, b) if I was going to give, I would give via a charity proven to optimally turn dollars into benefit, not to a random person who accosts me on the street, c) I personally value work over begging, so if I was going to give, I would give via a means, such as microfinance, which tends to put money in the hands of people who want to work, not people who want to harass tourists.)
Tags: humor, india, troll
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10:01 pm
evwhore
[Link] |
Prize distribution at Scrabble tournaments
I'm probably going to regret opening this can of worms, because people tend to feel strongly about this issue, which mostly makes for people arguing past each other about points the other person didn't make, but after reading ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) sophonax's recent post on the subject, here are my thoughts:
Prize money at tournaments should never be moved from one division into another.
Note, I am making a very specific assertion here. If there are any additional funds ADDED to the general prize pool by an outside sponsor, for example, I have zero problem allocating all such additional monies solely to the top division.
Say you have two divisions of equal size, $50 to enter, and everyone mails in their registration forms and checks to the director, and since this is a hypothetical, all the entries are mailed in on time too! Then when tournament weekend rolls around, everyone shows up, and the director says "OK, before we all start playing, everyone in D2 take another $50 out of your wallets and hand it to a D1 player."
Is this ok? However you want to define ok. Because this is exactly what happens when you move money from D2 into D1. It doesn't matter whether the D1 players use this extra $50 to turn around and convert their previously $50 tournament into a $100 tournament, or go out and blow it on (very cheap) hookers and coke, either way, $50 that the D1 player did not previously have has made its way into his or her hands out of the pockets of a D2 player.
The issue here isn't whether people know about it in advance on the tournament flyer or whether they willingly fork over the extra $50, it's whether this is "right." People willingly go along with things that screw themselves over all the time, often because they don't realize they're getting screwed over, or maybe because they don't care.
In fact, you can often find me in the "don't care" category. Despite my feeling that moving prize money from one division to another is not equitable, I'm willing to accept the equity loss in the name of recreation and entertainment.
An oft-cited reason for moving money is that D1 players are better and deserve to be rewarded for their hard work and long hours of studying. (1) What about people who have a natural talent for the game and don't study as much? (2) If you wanted me to employ you to become better at Scrabble, you should have secured a contract from me first.
As many of you know, I play rec league ice hockey, which is often divided into A/B/C divisions by ability. I've never heard of C league players paying higher league fees to subsidize the fees for A players because the A players are better/worked harder at their game/are more gifted/were born in Canada.
Various other analogies could be (re-)made and ignored, but I've already typed a ridiculous amount for not wanting to get drawn into this conversation again :-) In fact, I'm not going to reply to any replies. I've thought about this a lot, read a lot of opposing opinions and reasons, and don't find any of them persuasive (likewise for people on the other side I'm sure). Talk amongst yourselves.
Tags: scrabble
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09:22 pm
evwhore
[Link] |
The U.S. Civil Rights Movement as an Insurgency
via Schneier: Why the Civil Rights Movement Was an Insurgency, and Why It Matters
Most Americans fail to appreciate that the Civil Rights movement was about the overthrow of an entrenched political order in each of the Southern states [...] That the Civil Rights movement employed nonviolent tactics should fool us no more than it did the segregationists, who correctly saw themselves as being at war. Significant change was never going to occur within the political system: it had to be forced. [...]
As to why it matters: a major reason we were slow to grasp the emergence and extent of the insurgency in Iraq is that it didn't -- and doesn't -- look like a classic insurgency. In fact, the official Department of Defense definition of insurgency still reflects a Vietnam era understanding of the term. Looking at the Civil Rights movement as an insurgency is useful because it assists in thinking more comprehensively about the phenomenon of insurgency and assists in a more complete -- and therefore more useful -- definition of the term.
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09:19 pm
evwhore
[Link] |
Link dump, climate change edition
sciencedaily reports a study claiming that acting on climate change need not be incompatible with long-term economic growth, which is one of schmengie's bugaboos. Unfortunately one of the study's conclusions is "use of emissions offsets is an essential ingredient in containing costs" which I know won't sit well with him.
Speaking of incompatible, you might not associate "luxury ski resort" with environmentalism but the CEO has an interesting perspective. There's a long blockquote where he justifies why bother having ski resorts at all, what they've done to make theirs greener, and his overall views on addressing climate change:
I always get in the same arguments with the hard core enviro community. They want me to do rinky dink stuff like bamboo f[l]oors and recycling, and I tell them it doesn't matter, that their personal actions don't matter because the problem's too big. That pisses people off -- they get mad at me and say every little bit helps. But every little bit doesn't help because the problem's too big. If everyone who was so inclined did every little thing from the Prius to the bulb, we still wouldn't solve this problem. It's gotta be a global mandate, not a voluntary thing. My day is full of people getting furious at me. Last week I had to send the FBI some death threats I was getting about calling the governor of Utah willfully ignorant on climate. This is war. This is a combat situation. and it's gonna hurt people the way wars hurt people. I like to say, we're gonna have to break things and hurt people to make this happen. Just being straightorward and truthful about these things instead of glossing and deluding people is incredibly valuable.
The Limits To Skepticism:
jamie found a long and painstaking piece up at The Economist asking and provisionally answering the question: "Does the spirit of scientific scepticism really require that I remain forever open-minded to denialist humbug until it's shown to be wrong?" The author, who is not named, spent several hours picking apart the arguments of one Willis Eschenbach, AGW denialist, who on Dec. 8 published what he called the "smoking gun" — it was supposed to prove that the adjustments climate scientists make to historical temperature records are arbitrary to the point of intentional manipulation.
The basis of TFA is that people jizzing themselves over Climate Gate should consider things like:
[H]omogenising historical temperature data records is extremely complicated. People who maintained weather stations starting in 1880 didn't think to themselves, "Maybe someday people will need to measure climate change, so I better put down a really accurate thermometer and then ensure nothing about the instrument or the surrounding area changes for the next 130 years."
Varied and inconsistent measurements over hundreds of years require adjustment and normalization if they are to be interpreted correctly. That being said, scientists should be up front about the adjustment and say what's being adjusted and why so people can decide for themselves.
From the conclusion:
[H]ere's my solution to this problem: this is why we have peer review. Average guys with websites can do a lot of amazing things. One thing they cannot do is reveal statistical manipulation in climate-change studies that require a PhD in a related field to understand. So for the time being, my response to any and all further 'smoking gun' claims begins with: show me the peer-reviewed journal article demonstrating the error here. Otherwise, you're a crank and this is not a story."
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09:05 pm
evwhore
[Link] |
The mother of all link dumps
Various shit collected over the last week or two, mostly from boingboing, with a few slashdot/sciencedaily/etc. thrown in.
Hops Compound May Prevent Prostate Cancer. Holy fascinating connection, Batman! I would LOVE to see a followup study examining if there is a relationship between the taster/supertaster thing about how sensitive people are to bitter tastes vs. cancer predisposition.
Another cool optical illusion.
Which flights on which airlines have wifi? A comprehensive chart.
A Congresswoman has introduced a bill that would require TV commercials to be at the same volume as the program.
5-year fugitive plastic surgeon from Chicago found in the Italian Alps.
Another application of the Law of Unintended Consequences: environmentally-friendly LED traffic lights don't melt the snow that falls on them.
Reddit: "A single sperm has 37.5MB of DNA information in it. That means that a normal ejaculation represents a data transfer of 1,587.5TB". Hilarious geek humor in the comments.
Peek at the Tetris God at work might've been funnier if the player hadn't played so godawfully.
The next time you think you have a bad beat story consider the man who dove into the ocean off the coast of Australia while wearing full-body "stinger suit" and bought a peanut-sized jellyfish in the face of a species that "can kill a person in minutes."
IRS audits the H&R Block-prepared return of a $10/hour mother who works at Supercuts. She sought help from her dad's accountant, who filed a response suggesting the IRS was misinterpreting the tax laws. The IRS is responding by auditing her parents too.
NEJM, via Schneier: The epidemiology of fear responses: "When the inoculum of dramatic illness is first introduced into society, the public psyche rapidly becomes infected. Almost like an IgE-mediated histamine release, there is an immediate flooding of fear, even if the illness -- like Ebola -- is infinitely less likely to cause death than, say, a run-in with the Second Avenue bus. This immediate fear of the unknown was what had all my patients demanding the as-yet-unproduced H1N1 vaccine last spring."
You can make a reasonable living mining discarded betting slips for overlooked winners.
Another awesome creative image retrofitting: this elevator button has the Creation of Adam painted around it, so that when you press the button you touch God's finger.
Apparently the programmers for the Predator drone didn't think the video downfeed needed to be encrypted. "Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor U.S. military operations."
Based on jwz's experiences, good luck getting SFPD to get off their asses and do anything about car-on-bike assaults.
Food and Eating section:
An awesome periodic table made out of cookies.
via boingboing, which do you think has higher meat-quality standards, fast food restaurants or school lunch programs?
Which has the greater environmental impact fresh or frozen salmon?
Scene from a James Bond movie? Ukrainian student killed by exploding chewing gum. "Are you ready for the TSA to ban chewing gum?"
HFCS can damage the metabolism and "is fuelling the obesity crisis" according to a study.
I'm going to assume that by now everyone has seen the mobius bagel.
Tags: duh, geekiness, health, high fructose corn syrup, optical illusions, silliness, taxes, tetris, tv, video games
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05:13 pm
patrissimo
[Link] |
Santarchy on a Seastead?
 Flying no flag of convenience, the guy uses ice floes around the North Pole to support and cloak highly mobile capital and productive labor; with a flair for anarchy, he disregards all laws of intellectual property to create an abundance of goods that he then feels free to distribute according to a little understood moral code; his superior logistical system flagrantly disregards all national borders and crosses them with impunity... (Mike Gibson on LATNB)
The post has a real point about economics too, but I enjoyed the vision of Santa as Anarchistic Seasteader best :).
Current Music: Enigma - Atrocity
Tags: humor, seasteading
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09:41 pm
evwhore
[Link] |
Thank you, Officer McClane
Landed safely at Dulles. Cut and paste from my FB update and comment: "wow, that is the 2nd hairiest descent I've experienced. it was smooth, but the heavy snow + plane speed made it look like it was snowing hard *sideways*. reverse thrusters also created an enveloping cloud of snow when they activated. totally smooth perfect landing though."
Parents have called and are in the vicinity so they made it here; now just have to hope 495-(2)95-695 is clear.
Current Location: on board the IAD terminal/concourse shuttle bus
Tags: travel
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03:49 pm
evwhore
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/72518086/6639192) [Link] |
Someone please send Bruce Willis to IAD
I was scheduled to fly east tomorrow to visit my parents for Christmas this week, but received several phone calls from various people this morning warning me about the metric ass-ton of snow that is forecast to fall upon the east coast overnight.
Good news: I'm on a frequent flyer ticket
Bad news: No frequent flyer seats to BWI today
Worse news: Going to BWI today would be $400 one-way
Good news: available flight to Dulles (leaving one hour later than the BWI flight)
Better news: frequent flyer seat too!
Bad news: not sure parents driving ~2 hours to pick me up in increasing snow is actually an improvement on the situation.
So anyway, it just occurred to me that there is a significant probability that my Christmas flight will be landing in Dulles in the snow! Hopefully life won't imitate art. (Whether Die Hard 2 can be considered art is left as an exercise for the reader.)
Breaking update: in "even worse news" they're holding our plane here for a delayed connecting flight inbound from Los Angeles. I wonder what the line on landing at IAD vs. diverted would be. It will be interesting to see when the snow stops and how soon things get plowed, to see whether I would have been better off just keeping my original flight and landing tomorrow night.
Tags: christmas, die hard, movies, travel
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04:48 pm
patrissimo
[Link] |
Price discrimination by IP address
Visiting the Plants vs. Zombies game website from India today, I was surprised to see it offer to sell me the game for 99 Rupees. That's $2 USD. I paid like $20 USD for the game back in the states. Go price discrimination!
Downloaded software is a great place for price discrimination, because there is zero marginal cost, therefore the "bargaining range" between marginal cost and value to the consumer is maximal. And country-based price discrimination totally makes sense, as per-capita income varies widely by country.
Tags: economics
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02:13 pm
patrissimo
[Link] |
2-player mac games
Any suggestions for 2-player Mac games for Shannon & I to play? Keep in mind that neither of us are very big on computer/video games - we prefer board/card games. Colossus (open-source version of Titan) is the first idea that comes to mind. I guess we could play boardgames on BSW, but last time I tried BSW the interface sucked and the community was unfriendly to noobs.
I did enjoy Plants vs. Zombies, so there is some chance that a non-board/card game would work for us.
Tags: games
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07:11 pm
patrissimo
[Link] |
Surrogacy & the division of labor
Bryan Caplan on surrogacy:In response to these preferences and technological progress, the market splits apart three jobs joined together throughout history. The egg comes from a young woman with great genes, the womb from a woman who doesn't much mind being pregnant, and the mothering from a woman who wants a baby. From an economic point of view, it's Adam Smith's pin factory all over again. To some, it's repugnant. To me, it's not merely logical, but life-affirming. It's also a jet-lagging pain in the ass...
Current Music: Kellswater - Loreena McKennitt
Tags: surrogacy
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08:19 am
patrissimo
[Link] |
Google Nexus One
Given that I switched from iPhone partly due to love of keyboard, I'm really bummed that the vast majority of new Android devices since the G1 seem to be kb-less, including the new Google-sold Nexus One. The Droid is the very notable exception, but its kb is somewhat crappy. I guess I could get an unlocked GSM Droid, that is looking like the best option for a kb-lover who doesn't want to switch to Verizon (at our phone usage rates, Verizon would be an extra $500-$1000/year for S&I to switch).
Maybe Android 2.1 will finally support BlueTooth keyboards. Hackers have managed to get it to work, so seems like the OS is pretty close to supporting it.
Tags: android
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07:17 am
patrissimo
[Link] |
india
The indian food here is really good. Seriously, it's REALLY good. Also, there is a little lizard in our bathroom. We don't know how to let it out, hopefully it knows how it got in. It's cute.
Ok, that's most of the things I like so far. Everything else is weird. I was tired yesterday and not able to do much work, and I passed out at 8:30pm, after being up less than 12 hours, and slept poorly. Damn jet lag. Tonight I will try to stay up until 11 and see if that helps.
I guess I shouldn't be too hard on myself or give up on having a productive trip just because I didn't get much work done on the 25 hr LAX->SIN leg, or the first day in India. Long flights always seem to me like a good time to get work done in theory, but it rarely works out in practice. I just hate being tired and unproductive and "killing time", it's not what I want my life to be like.
Tags: india
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04:35 pm
patrissimo
[Link] |
india
got in last night. staying at fancy resort on outskirts of Hyderabad. Still tired & jetlagged. Have internet and quiet room. Traffic is insane. The retail sector here has not discovered economies of scale. I like that there are ads for brands of cement.
I can see why I didn't particularly want to visit :). Nothing here (except IVF, of course) makes me particularly feel glad to be away from the comforts of home. Nothing against India, but I like home.
Singapore was pretty awesome, though. I saw carlcoryell, and then we had a seasteading social on an aquaculture farm!
Shannon & I are lying around tiredly watching Supernanny
Tags: india, ivf, surrogacy
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06:05 pm
walterzuey
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/87072497/3110946) [Link] |
So What!
I knew it was just a matter of time before John Conyers and I would co-sponsor legislation.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=hr111-894
Tags: music, politics
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02:17 pm
jonathankaplan
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/66446301/6169960) [Link] |
current
I've been thinking a lot lately about the Richard Nixon entry I promised to make, but seriously, it is too bleak and ugly (and not done yet) so now for something completely different.
( a Poll )
Tags: currency, politics
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08:06 pm
patrissimo
[Link] |
kids = sociopaths
According to the Hare Psychopathy Checklist, a clinical diagnostic tool, sociopaths often display superficial charm, pathological lying, manipulative behaviors, and a grandiose sense of self-importance. After observing 700 children engaged in everyday activities, Mateo and his colleagues found that 684 exhibited these behaviors at a severe or profound level.
The children studied also displayed many secondary hallmarks of antisocial personality disorder, most notably poor impulse control, an inability to plan ahead, and a proclivity for violence—often in the form of extended tantrums—when their needs were not immediately met.
"Children will use any tool at their disposal to secure gratification," Mateo said. "And as soon as the desire is fulfilled, be it some material want or simply an insatiable and narcissistic desire for validation, they quickly become bored and lose interest in their victims, all the while thinking only of satisfying whatever their next hedonistic craving might be."
Mateo added that even when subjects were directly confronted with the consequences of their inexplicable behavior, they had little or no capacity for expressing guilt, other than insincere utterances of "sorry" that were usually coerced. (America's Finest News Source)
p.s. There are only 5 LJ posts on my reading filtered flist for the entire day today. Are y'all out leading productive lives or something? WTF!
Tags: parenting
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07:31 pm
patrissimo
[Link] |
I have the item
I'm glad that this trip is "to make a baby" and not just a vacation - otherwise all this visa crap wouldn't have been worth it. But as is, it's worth it.
I headed up to SF at 10:30AM, and I returned at 7PM, w/ passport & visa.
Now I have to pack for Tovar & I and do a million other things to get ready to leave. See you on the other side of the world!
Tags: india, ivf, surrogacy
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02:37 pm
patrissimo
[Link] |
and the dance continues
The visa outsource processor (on Mission) said they got the passport this morning, and they sent it back to the consulate because the passport # in the visa was not printed clearly, it was smudged. They will get the next batch of stuff back from the consulate at 5:30pm or so, which will hopefully include my passport. So I am staying here in San Francisco and going back at 5:30pm to pick it up.
They will also try calling the embassy to see if I can pick it up there (near GG park) earlier this afternoon.
I have several theories about wtf is going on, but they aren't actionable so I will try not to spin my wheels. But I do need to figure out where to park & chill for the next few hours.
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01:08 pm
patrissimo
[Link] |
There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so
My present reality: sitting in a cute little bar in SF, drinking pear cider and french onion soup, reading my Kindle, with nothing to do but enjoy myself until the visa place re-opens at 2pm.
My mental instinct: "Aah! Change! Stress! Worry! Panic! Will I get my visa? Will I go to India? I have so much to do!"
Was listening to a podcast interview w/ Haidt on The Happiness Hypothesis on the way here, so ideas like "our mind creates our reality" are on my mind. I love (of course) that Haidt thinks the same I do about Buddhism: it's great, there is a lot of wisdom in not striving so much, but...eliminating all striving is not the answer! A little striving (think Flow) is good for us.
Anyway, trying to focus on my pleasant present and not worry about problems that I can do nothing about other than what I'm doing.
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