Show Notes - Week of May 6, 2019

Starting off this week's entry with two great quotes:

"I can resist anything but temptation." 
- Oscar Wilde, writing in "​Lady Windermere's Fan"

Everything in moderation, including moderation."
- Me, 25 years ago thinking that I was being original, yet that really is just another Oscar Wilde quote. 

Useful guidelines for self-improvement goals:
By now, I assume that everyone who has been in a white-collar job for over five years will know about SMART Goals. SMART goals would be helpful in any self-improvement exercise, but even more useful are the following five guidelines I came across in a web course this week. The guidelines come out of the Immunity To Change method developed by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey (1, 2).

1. True for me
2. Implicates me
3. Room for improvement
4. It is stated in the affirmative
5. It is important to me (4 or 5 out of 5)

Why nothing can ever be perfect, and why that's okay:
I'm continuing to read through my Pile of Shame in my office, and I decided to tackle "The Evolution of Useful Things" by Henry Petroski. I was hoping for more of a Bill Bryson-esque read, something like what Bryson did in "At Home", but it is still interesting. The underlying thesis in Petroski's book seems to be failure is the mother of invention, not necessity or even inspiration.

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Since nothing is perfect, and, indeed, since even our ideas of perfection are not static, everything is subject to change over time. There can be no such thing as a "perfected" artifact; the future perfect can only be a tense, not a thing. 

No, you’re not entitled to your opinion:
So leads a 2012 article from the website, The Conversation. The particular article refers to an interview where a Wollongong station quoted a known antivaxxer in a story about a measles outbreak. The question the article poses is whether the antivaxxer should be given any chance to enter into the conversation if in fact her contribution to the conversation will not be based in fact. The central quote in the article is as follows:

The problem with “I’m entitled to my opinion” is that, all too often, it’s used to shelter beliefs that should have been abandoned. It becomes shorthand for “I can say or think whatever I like” – and by extension, continuing to argue is somehow disrespectful. And this attitude feeds, I suggest, into the false equivalence between experts and non-experts that is an increasingly pernicious feature of our public discourse.

While this seems intellectually sound when entering into a debate with someone whose idea of research and rigor is little more than Facebook, the question is how to get your point across when the other side just doesn't want to listen. This makes me think of the intro to "Civil War" by Guns N' Roses (i.e. "What we've got here is failure to communicate.
Some men you just can't reach...) and a 1990 paper published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology called "Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments." This is unfortunately now behind a paywall, but it is worth a read just for the lemon juice anecdote. (No spoilers here.)

Bring Your Dice To Work Day:
Last week I posted a map of the area I was planning on taking my players through in our weekly Wednesday D&D lunch hour game. I realized later that one of the players might read this blog and therefore get advanced intel on what lays ahead in the game. This is of course pure hubris, because that requires this blog to have actual readers in the first place. But getting past that issue, I have decided instead to copy text here post facto from the campaign diary I write up. I particularly liked this excerpt, even if it has a heavy metagaming requirement to be understood. 

• After a few quick prods with the makeshift oar, Epic lost his footing and slipped into the water. He submerged completely, and flailed wildly before coming to his feet in chest-high water. In his panic, he rushed to shore without realizing that a DC 12 Athletics or Acrobatics check would have seen him out of the water safely, or that he would have had Advantage if either Yrreg or Domenic would have helped him out. Unfortunately, his flailing attracted the attentions of two slick, grey shapes that the party previously thought were rocks. One proceeded toward him, and another proceeded toward the raft he had fallen from.

Hey, I'm looking for a good movie. Any suggestions?

Movie - I Kill Giants:
Spoilers suck, so I won't spill anything about the movie "I Kill Giants" other than to suggest that you watch it. And then read the graphic novel that it was based on (caveat: I haven't read it yet, but it must have been decent since it was developed into a movie).

Book - Cuckoo's Calling:
Hey, this was a good read. I stayed up late a couple nights in a row to finish it off, and I'm glad I did. I do like detective novels, especially if the protagonist has solved the case before the answer is revealed in the story. There are a few more stories in the series that I'll be sure to read. 

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New words:
Not nearly as many new words this week. Apparently the J. K. Rowling detective novel wasn't as erudite as Rosewater.

vi·cis·si·tude
[vəˈsisəˌt(y)o͞od]
NOUN
(vicissitudes)

1. a change of circumstances or fortune, typically one that is unwelcome or unpleasant.

aph·o·rism
[ˈafəˌrizəm]
NOUN

1. a pithy observation that contains a general truth, such as, “if it ain't broke, don't fix it.”.

per·ni·cious
[pərˈniSHəs]
ADJECTIVE

1. having a harmful effect, especially in a gradual or subtle way.

se·nes·cence
[səˈnesəns]
NOUN
biology

1. the condition or process of deterioration with age.

an·nu·lar
[ˈanyələr]
ADJECTIVE
technical

1. ring-shaped.

entremets
[en·​tre·​mets]
NOUN, plural in form but singular or plural in construction
    1. dishes served in addition to the main course of a meal