#compound knowledge

[thursdayisbetterthanfriday]

Some of the most intelligent people I know are continually asking questions which, in many circumstances, would get them labelled as idiots by some. The point is, they're not afraid to admit their ignorance AND they're also not afraid to use that as a springboard to find out more. It's an excellent attitude which allows them, and those they work and interact with, to be more accepting of their own limitations and can allow those with knowledge to share and help them to better things.

You'll sometimes see the above Awareness/Knowledge matrix cited when people talking about knowledge. I like to use it as a demonstrational tool for people.

If you don't ask questions, then your known unknowns remain unknown. It doesn't end there however, as the Unknown unknowns you would likely have uncovered by asking the question remain unknown. In other words, your ignorance compounds like bank interest. But take the opposite. Asking questions can not only help you turn Known unknowns into Known knowns, it can also uncover new Unknown unknowns which you hadn't considered, and might be crucial to what you're interested in, or doing.

In fact, if you assume each question uncovers a uniform number of Unknown unknowns each time, and you seek answers to all questions (a highly unrealistic example, but go with it for now) you can see even only 2 unknown pieces of information per question can quickly balloon to if you try to get answers to them all. If it's 4 then, well, just note that the y axis here is logarithmic. This is a feeling familiar to anyone who has done a Wikipedia binge or has encountered a human child. This is likely overwhelming, but note that this is more of an illustration of how much information can compound over time.

Asking questions also allows others, who know Unknown knows relative to you, to do the same. It's really a win-win situation if done right, creating a kind of compound interest of knowledge that builds over time. But unlike bank interest, the rate isn't fixed. One question can uncover multiple Unknown unknowns which become Known unknowns, leading to quadratic, or higher, rates of knowledge depending on how much time you have to find answers.

Not only that, by helping others do the same you can get increasing compounding knowledge as you both turbocharge each other's knowledge.

Luckily information usually isn't just individual, non-linked, snippets. It often, contextually, ties into itself, giving a network effect which can allow you to assimilate new information and fit it into frameworks of understanding that you already possess. If you're new to a subject, such as a small child or a first-timer amateur, you'll need to acquire knowledge to make your own internal information base but, again, this will compound its usefulness over time. As you gain more knowledge, it allows you to create your own internal knowledge structures which make it SO much easier to understand the world, and means you get to better know which questions to ask.

Anyway - It can be difficult to ask questions at first, and create new habits, but it's often worth the effort. By inspiring others to do the same you can significantly increase your collective knowledge base. Or if you want, which is also a completely legitimate choice, you can choose not to know. Knowledge gathering is a time consuming task after all. Just don't judge people for wanting more.

Just remember: There's no such thing as a stupid question, if it leads to you gaining understanding more about the world.

There's a whole demographic of people who are profoundly incurious and just assume everyone else is too, so when they see something unfamiliar they immediately rush to declare that not only have they never heard of it, none of you did either. You're just pretending. You had to look it up, don't lie. You didn't know this

And like, so what if someone had to look something up. That's how you learn new things. People usually say this about knowledge that's pretty damn basic, but I can't get over how they're not only scornful at the idea of people trying to learn something new, they casually assume everyone else is, too

[catsoupki]

bakugou doesn’t like you. not only had you two gotten off on the wrong foot (‘watch where you’re going, extra!’, ‘you blind, asshole?’) you’re also aggressive. he knows how hypocritical he’s being, but you’re a different kind of aggressive. you’re the type to smile and make him squint, you’ll laugh in the common room and burn him. you don’t just go head to head, toe to toe with him, you’ll match him punch by punch and kick with kick— it hurts just to exist in your presence.

but you’re everywhere, your company is unavoidable and inevitable at some point of the day— in the gym at dawn, next to his desk in school through the window, three tables reflected behind him during lunch, and the dorm next door after hours; your traces are blinding, and inescapable too, the warmth that trails after you, the scent that is particularly suffocating when he uses the bathroom after you, residues of your belongings will scatter the places he hangs around, he knows your headphones are littered with stickers and your notebooks are from muji, he can’t get away from you even when he tries.

and oh believe him, he’s tried. he’s tried so hard, he’s ushered shitty hair to sit at another table so he doesn’t have to hear your obnoxious chatter when he’s eating, he’s tried noise-cancelling earphones to not hear you talking to yourself in your room, but you’re fervent, in sparring and in everything else. in the cookies you gift him and in the protein shakes you leave for him in the fridge, within everything you do and touch and shine on, evidence is left behind, ash blond turns into orange and beige taints pink.

it’s annoying, bakugou doesn’t like it.

he thought that all he wanted was victory, and that when he comes home to an empty apartment, he won’t be fathomed by its coldness when he’s still triumphed. yet, when he learns your colours and the way you glimmer, his scale is thrown off balance and his world is tossed upside down. so he doesn’t know what to do when you dim into a soft and weak timber, when you can’t even hold a candle to itself, all that he can offer you is his nitroglycerin.

the sun works on an eleven year cycle, it’ll go through its troughs and crests regularly while its hydrogen burns and burns and everything else will be susceptible to your deviations. when you bounce back from your lows though, the nitroglycerin that gathers at his palms is once again lit up by your vehemence.

‘your cheeks are so red, are you sunburnt? are you okay, katsuki?’

[sunlight-shunlight]

thinking about veilguard and bioware in general, i think we are reaching a point where people need to grapple with the inherent limits of what stories can be told in our Current Society and in AAA gaming companies.

on a labour level: mass layoffs, tons of developers leaving despite previously talking about how passionate and happy they were to be involved, not even paying severance, and crunching employees to the point of burnout. this is unfortunately pretty standard for AAA game companies.

on a cultural level: it is SO white and SO centrist-ly Canadian. i wrote up these asks outlining how. it is a repeated pattern of writing in which they go into tortured racial oppression allegories at best, while constantly peppering in a "but BOTH SIDES were wrong and made mistakes :( :( :(", in between their fictional atrocities that are clearly mirroring irl genocides and enslavement. or at worst, it's "the qunari are radical islamic borg" which has even less nuance. i personally thought, since dai came out in 2014, and a lot has changed since then about the world and in public awareness, that this would have filtered into the narrative and resulted in more satisfying and historically grounded writing. unfortunately not the case. it's shocking if you compare it to how sharp and aware and unflinching something like disco elysium is.

so what does this mean?

under these conditions, it is unavoidable that we get development by people who are rapidly cycled out of the company or demoralized into burnout. we get digestible, easy little soundbites of lore without much substance, because any complexity needs more time and coordination rather than the process of "quick, we have these assets, a lot of people involved in making them just got laid off, we need to make Something by next quarter to show the CEO". we get very little cohesion between games, despite the clear intent from dai to have so many plot points set up to follow through in a sequel, because the team and development are so chaotic that they can't hold onto a vision and complete it.

we also get this inherent caution and "conservatism" from the narrative, because on an ideological level, they're largely white people who want cops to be included in pride. so any major change to even a fictional society is Bad and Scary, and shouldn't be done without making sure that every character finger-wags appropriately at non-state violence. there is clearly not much ideological or even ethnic diversity within the leadership; or at least not enough that anyone there felt comfortable even speaking up on minor issues like the Incredibly Orientalist Isabela Outfit, let alone anything larger.

i don't personally think there's too much value in trying to analyze veilguard's plot or lore at this point. the final product is chaotically developed and does not seem to reflect the goals of the creators as set up in prior games, it's basically a ship of theseus in terms of the people and ideas involved in making it. this is sad for all of us, who were interested in the story, and attached to the characters, and were creatively fulfilled by engaging in the fandom. it's probably worse for the developers who have lost their jobs, burnt out, or feel unhappy with the game that they spent years of their life working on. it's certainly miserable as an indictment of The Industry, as well as the general societal climate of white Canadian centrism.

the solution is to create a society where people can develop games in peace and prosperity and stay on projects for longer, rather than constantly getting turfed out without severance pay. and to get some genuine leftists, poc, and indigenous people on staff who can weigh in and provide significant input, rather than a Council Of Liberal White Edmontonians every time.

in the meantime, at the very least, let's please stop preordering AAA games and supporting companies who notably abuse their employees.

[camthecatchameleon]

spreading "weird almost but not quite humanoid god designs" propoganda because i'm tired of seeing gods that just look like a human in cosplay

i am open to suggestions actually i am hungry for them. i have visions but i am open to suggestions.

[cultivating-wildflowers]

Prayer request (1/7/24)

My cousin’s family (him, wife, and infant under two months) got sick recently. The parents are nearly recovered, but Baby L has been in and out of the hospital and now has RSV. They are all extremely concerned for her health. Please pray for her recovery and also comfort for the entire family, including my aunt.

[prismbearer]

Idk why there's disbelief over Mark S/Helly in terms of motivation. Helly is just as capable of cruelty and selfishness as Helena. They are at the core of it, the same person with different memories/experiences. They can be two perspectives worthy of indulging their own dreams and desires and also be the same person. Narratively here especially, this isn't about morality, it's about human nature.

Helly was never cruel, sure, of course. Helly felt like she was the same as the other people in MDR. But Helly has something right now that she never even achieved as Helena. Someone who loves her. Someone who is choosing her. Helly is Winning over Helena here.

Jame Eagen wanders down just to be a freak and reinforces the reality of it. Helly is "More" than Helena, hasn't been worn down by the weight of experience and the world (and their cult and corporate bullshit). She still has, in some way, the innocence of youth and lack of experience with the world. She doesn't have the same fears and burdens or triggers as Helena in her conscious experience. She still has the ability to express her passions and outrage and defend herself. And to love and not feel sorry for it.

Severance gave Helena a chance to exist without the learned perspectives and burdens of the Eagens and she is able to be free with herself and her passions and desires-- whereas Helena was likely drained of any dreams for potential beyond a strictly guided future decades ago.

Of course Helly is feeling a rush of joy and satisfaction over Mark loving her. Mark choosing her. She tried to do the "right thing" by being logical with Mark. "I'm her." Even outside of Lumon, if they bring it all down, there's no hope for an Eagen and an ex-severed employee in reality. In the Real World they will never be together. Mark couldn't love Helena, how could anyone love an Eagen? (Poor Helly really with like, the enemy is within etc, but that's kinda the situation framed by Lumon for everyone by setting the stage with your Innie isn't human kinda rhetoric.) (This was also reinforced by Helena trying to get close to Mark to see if he still had feelings or chemistry with her and finding out they were not going to work outside Lumon.)

What if the equator is a building that could be a continent? Can be their whole world? They're choosing to live Now. Together in the present despite knowing that with their half lives, they could be brought to an end at any moment. It's very willful young love of them. And why wouldn't it be? This is their First Love. They haven't even been "alive" that long or have any memory of romance beyond their current infatuation. They don't know the world or it's places, and maybe that's okay, maybe they can exist in this space so long as they have love and the others.

It's completely human for Helly to accept Mark choosing her. To run to him just to see him for maybe the last time. It's human for Mark S to run to Helly. It's human for poor Gemma, who doesn't even know her fucking husband is severed, to be pounding on the door.

But this is their Final Day to Mark and Helly. Maybe the very end of their world. It's Judgement Day. Of course they'd have them holding hands and running back to the unknown to face the end together. To die together.

There is also zero fucking chance Mark Scout would risk his life and brain continuing reintegration once his wife is back. Mark Scout is going to choose his wife. Mark is choosing Love on both sides here.

All of it is reasonable.

[wardensantoineandevka]

I do keep glancing nervously at how the second set of voices Antoine hears isn't satisfactorily explained because he is introduced as a specialist in setting fires at scale non-magically in the same game as Taash and their fire-breathing as an adaari and the Devouring Storm stuff in the same game that we learn Anaris found a substance that "devours" magic long ago and caused some other presence in Atrahel in the same game where an ending about the Executors also gives you codex entries where Dalish encountered circles associated with the Executors that do the same

I keep looking at the pieces and going [laughs nervously] everyone's in danger. Something's coming, indeed.

[moodyseal]

There's no eloquent enough way to describe the emotion one feels when finding out they got a question wrong on a test because they doubted themselves and changed the answer at the very last moment

[x-v4mp3y3lin3r-x]

so what happens if you get a sports scholarship and then show up to college and don't make the team? do you just leave? or does getting a sports scholarship mean you'll be on the team no matter what

[rederiswrites]

Really loving recent work by borosilicate glassworker Beau Barrett.

[kingdrawcse]

Name Reaction, The Schotten–Baumann reaction

The Schotten–Baumann reaction is a method to synthesize amides from amines and acid chlorides: Schotten–Baumann reaction also refers to the conversion of acid chloride to esters. The reaction was first described in 1883 by German chemists Carl Schotten and Eugen Baumann.

[instantpansies]

every time i see an oz mutual mention the tin woodman in passing i'm like HRGK I KNOW THAT GUY and i have to hold myself back from tacking a thousand rambling tags on their post that only tangentially has to do with the tin woodman. literally seeing the words right now i am trying to not say the same things i have already said a million times but like THATS MY GUY HES ME HES MY FAVORITE THING EVER AUGH AUGH AUGH!!!

anyways. the masculine urge to hijack every oz post that says the words 'tin woodman' for my own ulterior motives (convince everyone to make nick chopper their favorite guy ever).

[badolmen]

“I wasn’t assigned female at birth; I was female at birth! A doctor didn’t look at me and decide I was female enough at birth, I’ve been female since the moment of conception.”

*loud buzzer sound*

Given how common the intersex condition is (~2% of the population - how many redheads have you seen?) and the fact that genitalia is not the only physical manifestation of an intersex condition, yes the doctor very much did look at you and decide you looked ‘female enough.�� Indeed your genetic makeup is determined at conception, and your genetic makeup could very well result in the development of an intersex body that may not be externally evident at birth.

Don’t get me wrong, there are issues with the afab/amab dichotomy both colloquially and medically speaking (some people are marked intersex at birth, the dichotomy just reinforces the gender binary with different language, etc.) but it is true that medical assumptions are made at birth based on your external physiology, regardless of genetic or hormonal profile. ‘Biological sex’ is far from binary and pretending otherwise is ignorant at best and dangerously intersexist at worst.

[lycanthropomorphic]

They should exterminate the inventor of AP classes and weekend homework. Anyways rant in the tags bye.

[kc22invesmentsblog]

Unlock Financial Wisdom with "Rich Dad Poor Dad": A Life-Changing Read

Written by Delvin Hey there, fellow bookworms and aspiring wealth builders! Today, I want to share with you one of my all-time favorite books that had a profound impact on my financial mindset: “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki. This book holds a special place in my heart as it was not only one of the first books I ever read but also the catalyst that sparked my journey towards financial…

[da-ill-spot]

Music Video: Noa James - A King’s Reflection

Peep the fresh new visual from the Inland Empire OG, Noa James for “A King’s Reflection,” featured on his recently released EP, Mirrors in the Clouds.

The track was produced by Asend. The video was shot by Lesa J at The LAF Compound and edited by Noa.

Enlighten yourself and press play above!