Andrew Cooke | Contents | Latest | RSS | Previous | Next

C[omp]ute

Welcome to my blog, which was once a mailing list of the same name and is still generated by mail. Please reply via the "comment" links.

Always interested in offers/projects/new ideas. Eclectic experience in fields like: numerical computing; Python web; Java enterprise; functional languages; GPGPU; SQL databases; etc. Based in Santiago, Chile; telecommute worldwide. CV; email.

Personal Projects

Choochoo Training Diary

Last 100 entries

Surprise Paradox; [Books] Good Author List; [Computing] Efficient queries with grouping in Postgres; [Computing] Automatic Wake (Linux); [Computing] AWS CDK Aspects in Go; [Bike] Adidas Gravel Shoes; [Computing, Horror] Biological Chips; [Books] Weird Lit Recs; [Covid] Extended SIR Models; [Art] York-based Printmaker; [Physics] Quantum Transitions are not Instantaneous; [Computing] AI and Drum Machines; [Computing] Probabilities, Stopping Times, Martingales; bpftrace Intro Article; [Computing] Starlab Systems - Linux Laptops; [Computing] Extended Berkeley Packet Filter; [Green] Mainspring Linear Generator; Better Approach; Rummikub Solver; Chilean Poetry; Felicitations - Empowerment Grant; [Bike] Fixing Spyre Brakes (That Need Constant Adjustment); [Computing, Music] Raspberry Pi Media (Audio) Streamer; [Computing] Amazing Hack To Embed DSL In Python; [Bike] Ruta Del Condor (El Alfalfal); [Bike] Estimating Power On Climbs; [Computing] Applying Azure B2C Authentication To Function Apps; [Bike] Gearing On The Back Of An Envelope; [Computing] Okular and Postscript in OpenSuse; There's a fix!; [Computing] Fail2Ban on OpenSuse Leap 15.3 (NFTables); [Cycling, Computing] Power Calculation and Brakes; [Hardware, Computing] Amazing Pockit Computer; Bullying; How I Am - 3 Years Post Accident, 8+ Years With MS; [USA Politics] In America's Uncivil War Republicans Are The Aggressors; [Programming] Selenium and Python; Better Walking Data; [Bike] How Fast Before Walking More Efficient Than Cycling?; [COVID] Coronavirus And Cycling; [Programming] Docker on OpenSuse; Cadence v Speed; [Bike] Gearing For Real Cyclists; [Programming] React plotting - visx; [Programming] React Leaflet; AliExpress Independent Sellers; Applebaum - Twilight of Democracy; [Politics] Back + US Elections; [Programming,Exercise] Simple Timer Script; [News] 2019: The year revolt went global; [Politics] The world's most-surveilled cities; [Bike] Hope Freehub; [Restaurant] Mama Chau's (Chinese, Providencia); [Politics] Brexit Podcast; [Diary] Pneumonia; [Politics] Britain's Reichstag Fire moment; install cairo; [Programming] GCC Sanitizer Flags; [GPU, Programming] Per-Thread Program Counters; My Bike Accident - Looking Back One Year; [Python] Geographic heights are incredibly easy!; [Cooking] Cookie Recipe; Efficient, Simple, Directed Maximisation of Noisy Function; And for argparse; Bash Completion in Python; [Computing] Configuring Github Jekyll Locally; [Maths, Link] The Napkin Project; You can Masquerade in Firewalld; [Bike] Servicing Budget (Spring) Forks; [Crypto] CIA Internet Comms Failure; [Python] Cute Rate Limiting API; [Causality] Judea Pearl Lecture; [Security, Computing] Chinese Hardware Hack Of Supermicro Boards; SQLAlchemy Joined Table Inheritance and Delete Cascade; [Translation] The Club; [Computing] Super Potato Bruh; [Computing] Extending Jupyter; Further HRM Details; [Computing, Bike] Activities in ch2; [Books, Link] Modern Japanese Lit; What ended up there; [Link, Book] Logic Book; Update - Garmin Express / Connect; Garmin Forerunner 35 v 230; [Link, Politics, Internet] Government Trolls; [Link, Politics] Why identity politics benefits the right more than the left; SSH Forwarding; A Specification For Repeating Events; A Fight for the Soul of Science; [Science, Book, Link] Lost In Math; OpenSuse Leap 15 Network Fixes; Update; [Book] Galileo's Middle Finger; [Bike] Chinese Carbon Rims; [Bike] Servicing Shimano XT Front Hub HB-M8010; [Bike] Aliexpress Cycling Tops; [Computing] Change to ssh handling of multiple identities?; [Bike] Endura Hummvee Lite II; [Computing] Marble Based Logic; [Link, Politics] Sanity Check For Nuclear Launch; [Link, Science] Entropy and Life

© 2006-2017 Andrew Cooke (site) / post authors (content).

Narrative and Memory

From: andrew cooke <andrew@...>

Date: Sun, 28 Jul 2013 17:52:46 -0400

[This is about software development, not MS or Literature...]

Recovery from an MS outbreak is very slow - I am still getting better after 8
months.  It's also intermittent and inconsistent - there are times when things
get worse again.

When recovery stops, some symptoms are likely to remain (and be variable).  So
it becomes important (at least for my peace of mind) to know whether things
are improving, or whether you have reached a final, noisy equilibrium.

You might think this is easy to track.  Simply remember (or write down) how
you feel at various points in time, and compare.  But that doesn't work very
well.  There are many small details, and it's unclear in advance which will be
important, and which not.  So you simply don't know what to record, while
memories don't have sufficient resolution.

Despite these problems I recently found a reliable argument for the
improvement of my right hand.  A few months ago I had a good explanation for
how my hand felt - as thought I were wearing a tight leather glove.  And that
explanation was closely connected to a restrictive feeling across the knuckles
as I clenched a fist.  Then, a month or so back, that feeling changed.  At
first I only knew that it felt "different", but after some time I realised
that the restrictive feeling had moved from my knuckles to the second finger
joint.  And in the last few days I have felt that change again; the
restriction is now "inside" my fingers (on the palm side) and felt mainly when
I try to unclench / flatten my hand.

Such a coherent "story" of improvement is very rare.  Normally I have to be
satisfied with a vague impression - "it seems better than it was".  And as far
as I can tell it came from the lucky accident of the glove metaphor, which
focused my attention on the restrictive feeling on the outside (and then
inside) of my finger joints.

Without that "story" - the structure of looking in a certain way - I doubt I
would have remembered exactly which part of my body was restricted when.
Things ache all over the damn place.  It was only chance that made see the
changes fit a nice, linear progression.

What I learned from this was that my memory was very much shaped by the
interpretation I used at the time.  The image of a glove structured my memory
in a way that fitted nicely with my recovery.


The last few years I have worked - on and off - on a rather unpleasant
project.  The development of a complex piece of software that has been plagued
by problems and delays.  To "celebrate", when it finally shipped, I gave a
talk at work, where I described the system and tried to draw some lessons from
the experience.

It wasn't a very good talk.  I struggled to find coherent lessons.  And later,
in the discussion that followed, I realised that other people on the same
project had very different memories, and very different conclusions.  Everyone
was unhappy, but the explanations, and supporting evidence, varied widely.

The connection with my hand seemed clear.  People use narratives to structure
their memories.  Then their memories selectively support those narratives.
It's hard for me to be sympathetic to someone else's explanation of what went
wrong, because I have already structured my memory around my own ideas.


Last week I started a follow-up to the same project.  Immediately I was hit by
a slew of familiar issues.  My stomach sank as I realised that we were going
to experience exactly the same frustration and disappointment as before.  We
had learned no lessons, and improved nothing.

So on Friday I wrote a short report - the first of what is planned as a series
of weekly summaries - that describe the main problems.  I am deliberately
trying not to interpret what is happening.  They are just basic, factual
summaries: X was inconsistent with Y; Z failed, etc etc.

My hope is that at the end of this project we can use them as a more neutral
memory.  And learn, and avoid.


[You might ask why this didn't already exist.  What we have is a daily written
report and weekly oral reports.  The daily written reports were too low-level
and numerous.  The weekly oral reports weren't recorded and have anyway lost
support from management.

In related news I am actively looking for a new job.  Please contact me with
info (but note: tele-commuting from Chile).]

Andrew

Comment on this post