Double Up on Calories!

Many people have died
'Cause of food that's been fried,
But of all the fast foods with a curse,
This corrupt "Double Down"
May be wearing the crown---
A creation for butter or worse.

The Importance of Good Neighbors

One of the key decisions of choosing where we would buy a house was the neighborhood. But what concerned us most wasn't the state of the lawns, or the siding, or even the sidewalks. No, our biggest concern was the quality of people we'd be living next to.

The first criteria for neighbors is that they be not crazy. The last thing you want is to be spending the next twenty years next to folks who are unreasonable (whatever your definition of "unreasonable" is). But beyond that, it's worthwhile to find good neighbors.

Good neighbors are an asset in a number of ways. They can be relied on to help out in an emergency, (say, if your basement floods while you're on vacation). They might even have lawn tools they'd be willing to lend. (This last has been a big cash-saver for us.)

The difference made by good neighbors is huge. I would gladly take a sloppy neighborhood with great, genuine people over a perfectly manicured community filled with catty, comparative characters.

How do you find out beforehand whether the crowd you'll be joining is one you like? Just ask! The day after we reached mutual acceptance on the house, we headed out to the neighborhood and knocked every door on the street until we found someone at home. The guy who answered was cordial and cheerfully gave us the lowdown on the dynamic of the neighborhood, and the words he used to describe it were encouraging (to us)—"quiet," "nice," and "friendly." (He also gave us some good information on the house, like the fact that its roof was replaced eight years ago.)

If you're already living somewhere, you might be able to create good neighbors. Simple goodwill goes a long way in this regard, whether that means extending an invitation to your kid's graduation, or giving a simple holiday gift. We've discovered that a homemade loaf of bread can open many doors.

Maybe the best way to have good neighbors is to be one yourself.

Shandy, the Bone, and You

In Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach, he briefly outlines an allegory. To paraphrase:

Shandy is a dog, and her master has just thrown her favorite bone to her. Unfortunately, the master's aim is a bit off, so it lands just the other side of a chain-link fence. Down the fence some thirty feet is an open gate. There's that tasty bone, sitting right next to the dog's nose, except for that troublesome fence. What does the dog do?

Some dogs will sniff at the bone, eye it hungrily, and never move away from it. After all, if the goal is to get closer to the bone, going farther away from it is ludicrous.

Or is it?

Smarter dogs will view the problem in a different light. Namely, that the first goal is to get around the fence, and then getting to the bone is possible. Hence, going through the gate gets the dog closer to the goal, even though it is moving physically farther from the bone.

In our human minds, we wouldn't have much trouble getting to the other side of the fence. But we run into similar problems all the time. In particular, the goal of material comfort.

On the surface, getting a lot of comfort seems easy: just buy a bunch of luxury items that will make your life better! Of course, if you don't have the available resources, then you can just charge it on credit. After all, the goal is to be comfortable, so make it as comfortable as you can!

Unfortunately, this breaks down eventually, usually when someone is saddled with more debt than they can carry.

Paradoxically, the real solution to having material comfort often involves going without for some time (at least to some degree), so one can get a firm financial footing. Who would have thought that buying less things would enable one to have more (and more lasting) material comforts?

Next time you're faced with a problem (particularly one where you're repeatedly stuck in the same spot), consider Shandy and the bone—try looking for a gate!

You are what you eat...

...but also what you breathe.

Did you know that plants are largely built off the carbon they pull out of the carbon dioxide in the air? People also get a large part of their intake from the air around them, which is fortunate since there's so much of it.

Similarly, your mind isn't based just on what you intentionally consume ("eat")—it's largely influenced by the environment around it (what you "breathe"). If you find that your mind isn't growing like it should, evaluate what you're putting in it, but also think about where it lives. Forget polluted places, whether they're polluted with noise, clutter, or even attitude. Get more encouraging friends, a positive workplace, or a quiet place, and give your mind what it needs to flourish.

Different Tools for Different Problems

When I have a task to accomplish around the house, I reach for my trusty toolbox. In it are tools for all sorts of things. In fact, an important part of any home improvement job is figuring out which tools to use. A wrench and a hammer each have their uses, but they are not interchangeable.

In my college computer projects, a similar problem existed: choosing a computer language to suit the task at hand proved to be a difficult but important prerequisite to completing the work. C++ and Haskell are different tools that require and even enforce differing solutions.

In changing the way your life is going, there are different tools, too: setting goals, introspecting, analyzing patterns, and social support structures are just a few of them. Again, all useful, but hardly interchangeable.

It's usually worthwhile to give some consideration as to which tools best fit a job. Note that you don't always go with the best tool—you might instead choose a tool you already have, or even better, one in which you're already proficient.

Just be mindful that your choice of tool will change how you solve the problem, and how well.

Long Read, Short Read

Okay, I've finally finished my recent read of Godel, Escher, Bach. To break from the wordy, dense style of that work, I took on a less ambitious project, and a more pleasant one: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, by Ian Fleming. Instead of a month, this book took me just a day (a refreshing fact).

If you're in the market for a fun read, you might try it. But don't expect it to be too much like the Disney movie...

The Digital Difference

Some time ago, I bought an Nikon's D40 (now out of production, but still available refurbished). It has enough features to allow me all the expressive power of which I am currently capable. That is, I don't know for sure why I would want a "better" (more expensive) one.

A few months after my purchase, I was discussing a couple of photographs with another amateur photographer. In the midst of the discussion, he asked me nonchalantly, "So, how many megapixels does your camera have?"

I couldn't tell him.

It's not that I don't have a head for numbers. And it's not that I didn't do any research. No, the matter of megapixel count simply was not something that entered into the question of which camera to buy. Mostly because, even at large 8 1/2"x11" prints (like the kind I have hanging on my wall right now), it is nigh impossible to make out any graininess, even with pictures taken on my old Canon PowerShot (rocking a hefty 2.0 megapixels).

Another reason that megapixel counts are misleading is that the higher numbers don't (usually) mean bigger sensors. For example, "doubling" the megapixel count will actually do nothing more than shrink the size of each pixel, all other things being equal. And shrinking those pixels lessens their sensitivity to light, and therefore increases noise.

So if you're looking for a camera with expressive power, there are more important things than megapixels. Two of the biggies are ease of use and lens selection (if you're getting an SLR).

Funnily enough, megapixel counts seem to be a big part of how camera manufacturers differentiate between their models. Maybe that's because it's a number, and an easy one to increase between revisions. One thing's for sure: in the digital world, what's marketed isn't necessarily what's important.

Maybe that's true in other areas as well.