put some of these into Tiddlers?
revised Insight Matrix – in complementary pairs:
| Mindfulness | Attention | Path | All | Away | Be | ||
| Nonattachment | Acceptance | Body | Spirit | May | If | ||
| Oneness | Alliance | Love | Kind | Stay | Do |
sona lukin nasin ale weka lon pana jo sijelo kon ken tan wan kulupu olin pona awen pali
| sona | lukin | nasin | ale | weka | lon | ||
| pana | jo | sijelo | kon | ken | tan | ||
| wan | kulupu | olin | pona | awen | pali |
William Stafford
from the preface to Ask Me:
... "I would trade everything I have ever written for the next thing."
He traveled for poetry-sometimes thirty readings in thirty days. He was an ambassador for the possibility of peace through poetry The calendar was black with engagements. At a reading, following one of his deft, quiet offerings, a listener helplessly spoke aloud, could have written that" And William Stafford, looking kindly a the speaker, replied, "But you didn't." A beat of silence. "But you could write your own."
You could write your own. What a democratic idea. Each of us could write our own poem, our own proposal for peace, our own aphoristic meditation at the un-national monument, our own con-solation, manifesto, blessing. "The field of writing will never be crowded," he told me once, "not because people can't write, but they don't think they can." His life as teacher and witness and corresponding friend advocated the pen in hand, the moving pen, "your own way of looking at things." ...
and the poem "The Way It Is":
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prat%C4%ABtyasamutp%C4%81da
"if this exists, that exists; if this ceases to exist, that also ceases to exist … all things arise in dependence upon other things …” — too mysterious for this Junior Seeker (2nd class) 🐣
https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/42/moby-dick/682/chapter-32-cetology/
Now the various species of whales need some sort of popular comprehensive classification, if only an easy outline one for the present, hereafter to be filled in all-outward its departments by subsequent laborers. As no better man advances to take this matter in hand, I hereupon offer my own poor endeavors. I promise nothing complete; because any human thing supposed to be complete must for that very reason infallibly be faulty. I shall not pretend to a minute anatomical description of the various species, or- in this space at least- to much of any description. My object here is simply to project the draught of a systematization of cetology. I am the architect, not the builder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_on_Vacation
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/07/02/opinion/jeff-jacoby-frederick-douglass-july-4-speech/ (or maybe https://www.pressreader.com/usa/boston-sunday-globe/20230702/282565907586855 ) – "The Essential Insight in Frederick Douglass's Independence Day Speech" by Jeff Jacoby
and
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/03/opinion/july-fourth-patriotism-douglass.html by Esau McCaulley
... table of mystical hand positions-gestures? ... language of signs? ...
| Kataka | fascination & enchantment |
| Hirana | antelope, powers of nature |
| Tarjani | menace |
| Chandrakal | moon, intelligence |
| Abhaya | fearlessness |
| Varada | beneficence |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parvati
work on this as a poem!
random notes
- concept of curvature - poem?
- how to say in Latin: "Who watches the watcher-watchers?" Quis custodiet custodiet-custodiet?
- look up "The Chronicles of Reuben" by Abraham Lincoln
- look up Sanjiv Augustine book on agile programming, scrum, ...
- Principal moments — strip off the largest one, then the next — apply to life?
Dark Star scene with fellow sitting in the dome at the top, just watching the stars ... reminded of it by the beginning of the song "Rhythm of Life" (Plain White Tees) ...
Macroeconomics, and boom-bust — the Beer Game in FIFTH DISCIPLINE by Senge, teaching a little systems thinking with time delays and feedback loops — what causes mass manias? — dot-com bubble, housing crash, etc. — major misinvestment and subsequent unwinding — change of heart re saving and spending — demographics — money supply, price levels, employment, income distribution, productivity — see Paul Krugman ... SLOSHING MODE — government's role to be a damper, not add untimely positive feedback to make things worse as happened in the Great Depression etc.
... something about how the "Best" isn't the fastest, longest, highest, heaviest, richest, etc. ... mention the OptimistCreed
- value of not working so hard — French vs. US hours worked, etc.
- ECONOMIST quote p. 105 — "Be prepared to turn back if conditions turn against you" — English Mountain Rescue — look up full page of advice ...
- Procrastination poster: "Laziness pays off now"
- how a mirror really works — electrons that are shaken by arriving electromagnetic field, cancel out forward-going wave, produce copy going the opposite way — and quantum mechanically?
- chaos in orbits — Physics Today 2011-09 p. 22 — factor of 10 in earth orbit every 10 MY, so 60MY is the ultimate limit of prediction (but weather vs. climate metaphor)
- songs that appeal — Pink "Raise Your Glasses" — ??? "Arms" * write about not being afraid of death?
- career in bureaucracy is like life of a cell — atoms enter, serve, leave — the organization goes on — like the quote about baseball in SparkyAndSandy
- transcend: it's ok to write a story about writing a story, or make a movie about making a movie ... but another level? Doubtful ...
- "flatness" — metaphorical, and flat databases, interfaces, file systems, etc.
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/2011/08/18/gIQA7yxNXJ_story.html on philosophy therapists — "Thinker-Shrinks"?!
- Eric Frank Russell, "And Then There Were None" phrase "Freedom — I won't!" = "FIW"?!
- Jump Out of the Groove: escape from the rut, be free ...
- Tricycle magazine old issue, cute articles .. δ Greek letter delta, and the upside-down "del" symbol of calculus, ∇, the gradient operator ... Delta of Venus ...
- "Do You Feel Like We Do?" song by Peter Frampton, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_You_Feel_Like_We_Do, and the philosophical question of whether malfunctions in perception can reveal inner workings of mind/brain, and how similar everybody is in their mechanics of thinking ... see http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/mar/24/can-brain-explain-your-mind/?pagination=false "Can the Brain Explain Your Mind?", Colin McGinn essay/review ...
- look up "KRIYAS" — visions? like in Atheist Spirituality book?
edge and node, ying and yang, background and foreground, universe and empty set, ...
Dennett's comments in Elbow Room on "follow-through" and free will ...
look for & read? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Way_of_a_Pilgrim = The Way of a Pilgrim is the English title of a 19th century Russian work, recounting the narrator's journey across Russia while practicing the Jesus Prayer. ....
- Toltec Wisdom Cards ?? Clair Sullivan?
- Arabic concept "WASTA"?
- "Disturbia" commentary
- Tom Stoppard play "Jumpers"
Best line so far in Arrested Development by Portia DeRossi's character Lindsay, in a prison visitor room: "It is obvious I'm not wearing a bra, right?"
Not running — just "being on the trail"
Boss recommended martial arts: Aikido (but no knee walking) ... Pakua (Baqua) ... Pentjak Silat ...
Boss recommended gun: Ruger 10/22
Zen = 0, the empty set
Earth as "Foundation" — mystics, exploring the physical universe — 10-5 of population ... we send out probes into math, chemistry, astronomy, physics, ...
Look for Justified — quotable dialogue? — Elmore Leonard short story "Fire in the Hole"?
Gott vs. Caves — "How to Predict Future Duration from Present Age" debate between J. Richard Gott and Carlton M. Caves ...
Infosec - image of a dark moat around a blinding-bright core of data flows, with thin bridges over the moat, well-guarded ...
Revelation, Reduction, Distillation
Remove everything that can be removed, and what core of belief is left? Might it be something like the Zen Buddhist notion of just sitting?
- Money as a social tool for, paradoxically, sharing — resource-allocation, always temporary (death, bankruptcy, etc.) — so I shouldn't fret about money?!
- Reason magazine — flawed in execution, but such a great name! — cite to my "always have a reason for things" sea breeze item
- word of the week "Inconcision" — the opposite of conciseness, economy of speech?
- Nicholas Carr, "Chaos Theory", p. 3, "filling a bathtub with a thimble" metaphor — and p. 4, re fast skills, visual & spatial, neuroplasticity, cf. PlasticMemory — and pps 4-5, easy distraction? — also Nicholas Carr in THE ATLANTIC, "Google is Making Us Stupid" essay, last few paragraphs about inner richness and slow deep thought and memory ... like ultrarunning? ...
- "The Imaginarium of Doctor Ranussans" (?)
- http://aintitcool.com
- "Otaku" ?? Train Man and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time recommendations
from APS NEWS Dec 2010: "Being able to deal with extended periods of bad luck or things not going well is something that's also required to be a physicist. ... I think there is an element of emotional control that perhaps physicists learn." Jeff Harvey, Univ. of Chicago, on why there are so many physicists that are pro-circuit poker players, NPR, 2010-10-23
Venus (Hesperus? other word for Venus in morning/evening sky?) seen during morning walk to Metro — reminds me of LOTR about something far away and immune to evil/pollution ... — look up?
Ghibli Museum?
Organizational gullibility — Bobby H and cyber-war exaggeration? other examples from years past — find a threat and magnify it, make it not falsifiable
rebirth problems - chap in Batchelor BUDDHISM WITHOUT BELIEFS — how to fit "self" into one (or few) cells? — but how about simple persistence from year to year? day to day? moment to moment? all miracles
"From Plato To NATO: The Idea of the West and Its Opponents" — David Gress — get a copy?
Larry McMurty - "Lonesome Dove"
David Foster Wallace - "Infinite Jest" and "Consider the Lobster"
Gott's Copernical Principle — how to recognize the onset of instability? when is a goverment about to topple?
David Cronenburg - DEAD RINGERS
- Contention for Attention — the modern cacaphony
- get books by Dan Ariely
- Polyani Pournelle?
- look for books by Jim Collins — "Good to Great", "Built to Last", "How the Mighty Fall" ... recommendations by Finn
- falsity of "with enough eyes, all bugs are shallow" — some things are DEEP
- carping at change — inflexibility that some people have, esp. about technology — insecurity?
Technological Nightmares:
- plagues, natural or human-engineered, human or animal or agriculture
- infrastructure collapse
- power grid
- Internet
- water supplies
- resources
- petroleum (international shipments)
- phosphorus or other fertilizer minerals
- food supply, famine, crop failures
- world financial system, banking networks, markets
- low-earth orbit (small nuclear explosion raises radiation levels, destroys satellites, makes it impossible for people to stay there for more than a few hours)
- Wexford Cream Ale, Belhaven Scottish Ale — little nitrogen-compressed dingus/widget in can ... look up how it works?
Sunrise splashes brilliant greens on the treetops
While nightshadows retreat to crouch under the limbs
- "Plenty of Nothing" lyrics? Zen?
- Impute motives — Paul Krugman NYT op-ed columns ... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/22/opinion/22krugman.html
- http://www.brownstudy.info/2010/11/27/writing-lessons-learned-yet-again essay and PDF of writing rules http://academicproductivity.pbworks.com/f/thinkingonpaper-cheatsheet.pdf
- Garlic versus Steel?
- reinstate early Olympic Games sport of hunting live pigeons (1900)? — as good as most non-throwing/running/jumping so-called "sports"
- loud "music" on the Metro, overdriven headphones etc. used to bug me — now it's no bother, if I'm mindful about it ... need to apply same letting-go approach to other troublesome issues
- Hagen, Chapter 34, "How Do We Know" — authority and logic and direct seeing (?)
- Physics Today recent (Nov. 2010?) article about string theory, and "tests" that aren't ... reminiscent of the medical research statistical problems — and GW detection by varying thresholds (Weber)
- Dignity and Attention ... "stand at attention" ... posture and mindfulness
- boxing, Caren, James, Paulette comments — Fight Club, concussions, "Boxing Daze", extreme cage fighting
| Be Just this Awareness Let go Now |
- Word of the Week? — "Opt Out"? — "Audacity" — "Aspire" ...
- Tolstoy's bicycle?
- value of multi-level style people — micro precision plus big-picture scope ... efficiency in local actions plus long-range guidance ...
- "Frontlog" as opposed to "backlog"
- Dempster-Shafer method as opposed to Bayesian
- "Leaning forward on the stone bench, reading under the streetlamp a book on computational complexity in the twilight outside the Rockville Library, I wonder who might see and marvel at me"
- State of Emergency With all the declarations of disaster these days, I think some state in the USA should change its name from "South Dakota" or "Arkansas" or whatever, to simply "Emergency"
- how to generate a space-filling corner-turning curve?
- "Little Mosque on the Prairie", Canadian comedy show?
- J: Irate ... J: Being
- at the party, young runner so enthusiastic and certain of herself ... oblivious to differences in potential, in risk-aversion, in goals ... I restrain myself ... ask, "And when you get injured?" at one point ... prescriptions for what to eat, how to train, etc.
- iPhone lover, now doesn't have to do nothing when waiting ... I on the other hand revel in doing nothing now when waiting!
- Inaction in Action
What's the actual cost per mile of recreational running? Makin a rough estimate I come up with:
- $0.25 - equipment (dominated by shoes)
- $0.20 - food (not just exotic energy gels, salt tablets, etc., but also the extra ~100 calories consumed)
- $0.20 - time (allowing $1/hour for lost productivity — ????)
- $0.20 - transportation (driving to/from a place to run — ??)
But counterbalancing these is the increase in health and lifespan, as well as the psychological benefits. How to compute? Not just doctor's bills and psychiatrist's bills avoided ... lifetime extra earnings?
^z - 2010-08-??
- leaky bowl model of training, for chess and for running?
- remember from 2nd grade: not knowing how everybody ELSE knew that the teacher was expecting a baby as the end of the school year approached ...
Thunder rumble of train
Bead of sweat crawls down my back
Headlights gleam
explain how heat exchangers work — can they be generalized to other conserved quantities?
look up C. Northcote Parkinson discussion of committee wasting time on the bike shed?
- "The Blank Swan" (Ache?)
- Prodromals and early novels by F. Paul Wilson?
- novels by Richard K. Morgan, Ian Banks, Alistair Reynolds
- write down stories of encounters with Feynman, Hawking, Stoll, Vinge, Forward?
- E. Nesbit quotes?
- "toe to nail ratio"
- forgotten at Apple: Bill Atkinson, Andy Hertzfeld (?), ...
- Running keys: diet & determination & discipline?
- "The Raft and the Pyramid" by Ernest Sosa
To Do:
- read http://www.brownstudy.info
- look up http://incharacter.org/review/stoicism-is-just-so-yesterday/ re Marcus Aurelius: A Life, by Frank McLynn, Da Capo $30.00, 720 pages
Between the hyper-intellectual abstractions of university philosophers and the calculating, materialistic schemes of self-help gurus, lies another philosophy. This is the philosophy of the ancients, of Marcus Aurelius. It is a practice that intends to help individuals answer life's great metaphysical questions in both material and spiritual terms: What is my place is the world, the cosmos? What is the purpose of existence? How do I live a good life? What is happiness and how do I achieve it?
- need for ALLIES, BLOCKERS, etc. in organization ... people who know you and will look out for you ...
- Tetlock example of rat beating humans — T-maze with reward randomly assigned 60% to the left-hand side ... people try to find patterns and play the sides in 60-40 ratio, thereby winning 0.62+0.42 = 52% of the time — the rat always goes for left and wins 60% of the time ... rat advantage maximized at 75% ratio, decreases to nothing at 50% and 100% ...
iPaddle ?
... iPad with a handle? ... iPad that's the size of an HDTV ... gestures aren't fingers but with whole hands, like dog-paddling to scroll and spreading arms wide to zoom ...
"J Says That ..."
use "J" as the supervisor process that watches "I"? write little essay from J's viewpoint?
- "The Unusuals" - good TV show, cancelled ...
- "Chi Whiz" - spray Qi out of a bottle?!
- ClingFree softener for the Fabric of Life
- Zen and Round, All Around ... spheres/circles/curves ...
- spouse-pair handshake puzzle?
- The Unreliable Navigator (play on Unreliable Narrator)
- Bears: sun, spectacle, panda, brown, black, asiatic black, polar, sloth
- taxonomy of cryptids?
- foreground-background ... the air breathes me ... Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain technique of drawing the outside of things ... put oneself inside the other's mind ...
Some want not, yet want to want
Some want, and want to want not
- http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/business/economy/03stra.html fiction of "momentum" metaphor in stock markets ...
- Valentine Michael Smith in Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land—zen? hurrying slowly ... running at rest ... meditation in motion ... running while sitting ...
- Heinlein's heroes as competent men? cf. Kimball Kinnison & Worsel citation, etc.? Look up story "Throwback" — Mack Reynolds? Analog in the 1970's? hyper-competent hero
- use of running/walking as fundraiser ... like using sex to raise money for some cause?
Look up and think about:
- Robert Nozick and his book about logic, prisoner's dilemma, locked box paradox, etc.
- contraposto vs. dehanchement vs. ?
- "Nambe"
- "Zodiac Killer" code
- 28-letter Arabic alphabet hash function or information retrieval theory
- retrocausality and back-reaction into the past, Feynman-Wheeler-Stukelberg electrodynamics, etc.
Reasons for recent improvement:
- smarter training
- hillwork
- speedwork
- tuning the stride/gait
- better/newer shoes
- more mileage
- meditation
- mental toughness
for some readings see http://www.patricksrealm.com/blog/?p=46 and http://ceki.blogXXXspot.com/2008/08/hth-or-htt.html and the TED talk (which I haven't watched yet) http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/peter_donnelly_shows_how_stats_fool_juries.html cited in both ...
btw, the problem has some excellent connections to the Boyers-Moore and Knuth-Morris-Pratt string-matching algorithms (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boyer%E2%80%93Moore_string_search_algorithm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuth%E2%80%93Morris%E2%80%93Pratt_algorithm ... on the Metro this morning I worked out some state-transition diagrams for each case (HTT vs. HTH) and I think if I can understand that approach it will yield the answer pretty easily ... must study it some more first though ... might be fun to write a simulation to test the result empirically ...
^z - 2009-09-??
Key_Concepts_in_Analytic_Thinking
- conditional probability
- correlations
- evidence
- information theory
- entropy
- systems analysis and coupled differential equations
- ???
- ... negative space ... around self ... every hair, every cell, every atom ... in time as well as space ...
- I'm the micro guy—I know the deepest levels of electron and field, of wave and quantum...
- I smile at myself for seeing so much beauty everywhere ... cite Gerard Manley Hopkins poems? half-smile and attend to breath?
- to do: find a logo of the Zen circle ...
- think about: "This is your brain" vs. "This is your brain on wiki"
- comment about big three things for job satisfaction: what you do, who you work for, and who you work with
- what am I proudest of? family, work, learning, helping others, ...? helping various folks do their first marathons and ultras ...
- "The little things aren't so little"
- Vanishment of newspapers from front steps—small sign of shallowness in society?
- Katwallk
- "Lily pad" metaphor for retrograde analysis, "what-if", "how did I get here?"
- Falsifiability and the scientific method
- Finkelstein's (?) department store in SLEEPING PLANET and how it patriotically put its robots in service of the authorities ...
- we tend to forget how BIG the world is, until we step out of the office, out of the home, get out into the wilderness, look up into the sky ...
- Image of a blank sky, seen through a window pane streaked with raindrops ...
Periodic Table of Running Injuries]]
blisters ... bruises ...
lost toenails ... rolled ankle ...
stress fracture ... ITB ... plantar fasciitis ... torn Achilles tendon ...
The Wall ...
dehydration ... sunburn ...
arthritis ...
(as inspired by the Periodic Table of Awesoments at http://www.dapperstache.com/index.php?contenttype=ptoa )
other categories?
injuries ... Toenails ... Equipment (shoes, clothes, GPS, etc.) ... Attitude (machismo/machisma, boasts, hash-harrier-ness, lying about mileage and speed, etc. — fisherman's rule: add one and double ...) ... Fuel (preferred eats/drinks, electrolytes, etc.) ... Goals (get faster, enjoy life more, be all that I can be, ...) ... Groupishness (attitude about running with others) ... Trail Markings ... Logbook (recordkeeping level of detail ... nothing, build memories ... anecdotes and observations ...every step with pace info ... fisherman exaggeration (+1 *3 rule) ... ) ...
Quotes from David Fontana's 2001 book Discover Zen: A Practical Guide to Personal Serenity:
p. 35, "Exercise 5: Move Beyond the Self" — maybe I should give up judgment that satori is a delusion?! — point here is nonlocalization — that consciousness isn't pointlike or contained — as Dennett and Hofstadter and Vinge have pointed out in various ways ...
- Proof that String Theory is true? — little hairs, bits of lint, threads, etc. constantly seem to appear on my laptop's keyboard, stuck between the keys, etc. ...
- Yoda-Speak ((quote some examples of Yoda-Speak here)) ... The late Keith Laumer, one of my favorite science fiction writers, often had ... (cf. NotCare (13 Feb 2006), ...)
- Milepost Photo Album: Northwest Branch Trail
- Reading List ... more by John Stuart Mill? History of the British East India Company by James Mill? Will Rogers biography?
- Schlumberger - scholarship, Heathkits, oil well logging, ...
- Every Day a Holiday – For me, every run is a miracle — just like every day being a holiday ... need to read Terry Pratchett story with the golem who feels that way ...
- Least Time — Nikon and Canon as optical glass companies ... lenses as materials with particular properties to bend light ... Fermat's least-time principle for optics ...
- Evolution of the 'Net — NYT business section 14 July, Ebay moving away from auction site to become mass-market retail channel ... hmmm ... maybe Google will move away from search engine to become a place to click for advertisements ... maybe Microsoft will move away from operating systems and applications to become a marketer of video games ... it's all about selling stuff, apparently, nowadays ... cf. OurOneRing (18 Dec 2001), SomethingToSell (14 Apr 2002), For Themselves (8 Jun 2003), CircusSponsorus, MoneyOlympics, ConspicuousAnticonsumption, ...
- physicist's vocabulary of metaphors ... principal axes, fields, ...
- "Pilot new methods using old data" — test new tools/techniques on something you know well already
- weight of evidence ... entropy ... information ... seeing a non-black non-crow adds a tiny bit to the hypothesis that all crows are black ...
- "Tight underwear can kill you!" skit on SCTV
- styles in music and how different generations like different things ... imprinting? ... experience?
- competency recognizes other competency
- "I'm gonna run to you" song — "when the feeling's right, I'm gonna stay all night, I'm gonna run to you"??
- "exaggerated relief" — pebbles cast long shadows near sunrise ... hills are bigger when one is smaller (and running on foot rather than driving) ...
- Tolkien's descriptions of Gandalf laughing?
- endorphins, "Runner's High" — let me know when you find some! — I could have used some at mile 20 of a 50k ...
- Monty Python riddle, troll, "None shall pass, unless you answer me, these questions three ..."?
- flywheels store up momentum — bicycle, giant flywheel, pedal to store energy for a long time before start riding? ... in life, one works and works and works to save up "energy" ... better plan to use it some day?
- zen thing, about "paining, paining" or "itching, itching" ... separate observation from feeling
- Australia as a place where it's all "At Your Own Risk" ... like trail-running?!
- "Be Here Now" — "It Happened" — "Not Do" — and other zen-like "let it be" mantras??
- A dear friend who must remain anonymous told me, while we were running one day, of her frustrations with the people whom she has to supervise. "They act just like little children!" she complained. I had to commiserate ...
- belated discovery that more people than I had hitherto realized have severe problems, mental disability, can't hold down steady job, poor models of reality, can't make decisions ...
- to Technology, Toughness, Training, and Talent — add Technique!
- what's the name of the feeling when one's eyes suddenly fill with tears — "Tearing Up"? ... emotional overload
- I have a many-threaded model of history, Tolstoy-like (hedgehog vs. fox, Isaiah Berlin) ... empowering in way — relieving — maybe I can't change history, do anything overwhelming — but then, nobody is — and maybe it won't turn out so bad ... try to do whatever one can to help weave the tapestry a bit better ... make a tiny contribution ... George Eliot quote from the end of Middlemarch
- garden slugs — and the song from Watership Down — O slug-a-moon, O slug-a-moon, O grant thy faithful hedgehog's boon"?
- character type "Tourist" in Rogue/Nethack? — only armed with a camera? — are Caren & I "tourists" in ultrarunning compared to the elite? ...
- Paul Heller — visiting his house in the early days of HIS.COM ... inviting him to come talk to librarian group at work about CD-ROM technology ... local Mac bbs ... early work on information retrieval ...
- renormalization ... high-energy physics meaning, and meaning in running, redefinition of what's "normal" ... 10 miles, no biggie ...
- new plateau, reached after much training — will be here a long time ... but hey, the view from here is kinda nice ...
- "Edlin School" on Sunset Hills Rd in Reston — memory of EDLIN, the old text editor ... like TECO ... type in your name and see what it commands ...
- when someone/something is bugging me, trick: look at myself and my reaction ... I'm the only one I can change ...
- like Utility Monster — a Charisma Monster? — a Wisdom Monster? — someone with off-the-charts stats ... allude to Aura Monster in Good Omens
- tide going out for newspapers ... only an intellectual/elite subgroup find them useful, valuable — maybe not enough for them to survive
- http://steve-yegge.blogXXXspot.com/
- filoFax and "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" class ... daytimer as "Jedi sword" — shield — vade mecum ?
- old sf story about fissionable isotopes and the need for moderator ... metaphor for societies and types of people?
- what causes the pattern of ripple textures on the river that I see from the bus window?
- depth differences?
- wind patterns?
- wave reflections from the shoreline, focusing in different ways?
- carbon offset: if you buy that wasteful low-mileage car, then I won't set fire to my lawn? (cf. StudyOffsets)
- practice — not something you do but something you live — Buddhist meaning of the word?
- "Your compass spins wildly" — random room exit in game (Adventure descendant?) ... scene in Heinlein's Glory Road where protagonist's sense of direction is disrupted after interplanetary jump ... my experience at the Rosslyn Metro station likewise ...
- What counts isn't what goes into the logbook but what you actually did ... but on the other hand, over time the logbook is such a great tool to remember with ...
- check http://crookedtimber.org ?
- "Fire Walk With Me" — cute phrase/title (from Twin Peaks)
- "Knees in Curves" — inflection points, places where second derivative changes sign, acceleration reverses, growth begins to slow — S-shaped curve (error function, erf) ... web ... cellphones ... wiki ... other examples where much-hyped trend is topping out in growth rate
- Advertising business model — try to live by selling eyeballs
- notes from talk at offsite by retired WASH POST editor ... "Civil Service Model" of old-style monopoly newspapers — collapsing as alternatives emerge and monopolies dissolve ... alternative: charity? service to society? public interest (PICON)? ... newspaper as aggregator? ... like monks in monasteries, preserving knowledge by copying manuscripts ... "public record" ... SLATE is surviving, barely ...
- country music and philosophy ... "life ain't nothin' but a funny funny riddle" ... etc.
- labeling: clever technique to detach and release thoughts—give them names and then let them go
- watching the breath
Thoughts flit
I sit!
- the newest big prime number: did it always "exist", or is there a quantum mechanical "collapse of the wavefunction" observer-observed phenomenon? — was it not there until someone found it?
- Stranger than versus stranger to ...
- "Inaction In Action!"
- watching every footfall, and even more, every footrise
- Serenity—lovely word, lovely goal
- Reginald Smyth? — or whoever it was who gave that interesting talk at Rice ~1973 that I still remember, about popping up a level, imagining that one is viewing the world through a thick glass window or on a TV screen — mental separation from what's happening
- Offsite Insight
- Being and Going — a function and its derivative ... the "timelessness" of the path-integral approach
- self-observation and the deceptiveness of introspection: one can't get to lower levels of the stack by thinking about thinking — only to higher levels
- http://bensbookblog.blogXXXspot.com/2008/10/worried-sick-by-nortin-hadler-md.html — discussion of book Worried Sick by Nortin Hadler MD ... and "Calories Do Count" in NYT http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/dining/29calories.html ...
- do a review of Shakespeare in Love movie?!
- "The Last River" poem?
- modern Tarot deck? — what cards? — fear, hunger, technology, marketing, money, cubicles, large-screen TVs, SUVs and pick-up trucks? Illuminati deck elements?
- Music as ink blot, Hofstadter essay, other things like that: some modern art? cloud animals? ink blots? constellations?
- Chinese Room observation by Robin — use of non-English/non-French speaking Chinese grad student to translate poem in Le Ton Beau de Marot ...
- Physical therapy handouts — line drawings of well-proportioned stocky lady, perfect waist-to-hip ratio, doing the various exercises for my broken arm ... Mary Ewell sees after our run, comments ... I reply, "Maybe if I do my exercises I'll develop a bust like that!" ... comment about line drawings and their strange power over me — yoga advertisement ...
- interesting book? — Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales ... good review in http://www.languagehat.com/archives/003347.php ...
- babies are on the edge of self-sustainability ... as they grow bigger, they get more stable, have larger margin of safety ... but even adults live in a limited domain as systems ... think about what's bigger still and more stable — society? universe?
- if the key to everything is higher-levels (Gödelian transcendence of symbols into meaning) then it can happen outside human minds ... maybe slowly and noisily, but still it can be there ...
- "now" as light cone
- EQUANIMITY
- how a mirror works — free charges generate fields that cancel forward direction, "reflect"
- The "thinking trick" — talking to oneself, symbol-shuffling — so productive, and so seductive. It can occupy the ur-mind so thoroughly that no real perception remains — only discussions about perceptions, like a marriage that substitutes reading bedroom manuals for consummation — that replaces reality with opinions about what might be going on.
- it's hard to write an exciting story about an intricate plot that works because 106 subsystems function and the 105 that fail are outvoted, compensated, and suppressed ... like in the brain, or cell biochemistry, or the economy, or ...
- key: think on OTHER LEVELS — up or down the hierarchy — jump out of the box, change perspective, zoom, rotate into a higher dimension ... don't get trapped and imagine that the solution must be on the same level as the problem
- Instead of "There is no 'try', only 'do'!" Yoda-ism, how about "There is no 'do', only 'be'!"
- "prodromal" — JK-Z use of word, medical term ... also in old sf stories — by whom? — in ANALOG, early 1970s? look! — Free Vacation (1967) by W. Macfarlane — Optimum Pass (1968) by W. Macfarlane — like Voortrekkers, pioneers who went ahead?
- Emo-monitors? sf story ref, ANALOG, 1975ish?
- Bruce Sterling & neologisms ... "people doing things they can't describe"
- local newspaper section "Fit" turned out to be all about spending money, simulating experience on exercise machines, eating non-food substances, wearing strange clothing, ...
- "The Thinking Trick" — talking to oneself, symbol-shuffling ... so productive, and so seductive ... it can occupy the ur-mind so thoroughly that no real perception remains ... only discussion of perception, like a relationship that substitutes watching movies for conversation ... replacing reality with opinions and judgments ...
- The Now — light cones, physically, but mentally? — a 1/5th of a second rapid-assembly process of consciousness ... plus all the past that drives it here, the memories and habits and compulsions and experiences ... plus all the inevitable future, from the imminent sneeze to the vague but still real hungers, drives, plans coming to fruition, etc. — but free will? elbow room?
- Ringing the Changes (2n) ...
- Elie Wiesel — "looking a lion in the face" ... talk ~1985?
- Chale Chalo — Indian movie ref, explanation of meaning
- the illusion of entertainment, storytelling — virtual reality is always unreal ... different from real experience such as falling down, breaking an arm, getting lost, getting hungry ... versus play-acting, make-believe, game of pretend, faking it ... (xref FunVersusEntertainment)
- Calculator program that displays the cost of a meeting based on salaries of those present
- "Unleash My Inner Tapir" ... taper is runner's word for cutting back on mileage and speed ... tapir is ...
- Space Weather? — http://www.spaceweather.com etc.?
- Parallel fifths in counterpoint as cliché ... other triteness? purple prose ... wide-eyed waifs in paintings? ... greeting-card rhyme poetry? ...
- Passalaqua (?) wine/vineyard in Napa Valley?
- use of the "wrong" preposition, as in song/title "Crazy on You" — other examples?
- "The process is the product" ((re need to provide not just "The Answer" but also to explain the context and thought processes behind it))
- Rene Magritte - notes on/about some surrealism paintings by Magritte?!
- Smile Running - suggestion to colleague who talks about paying attention, mindfulness-style, to his breath, feet, legs, etc. during long runs ... and smiling ... I say that following the model of Chi Running and suchlike he should write a book called "Smile Running"
- Single Step - "A journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step ... and a single step begins with a single micro-act of will ... and a single act of will begins with ...?
- Blessing - Such a blessing: that the simplest things can give so great pleasure: the curve of a hip, the glimmer of a star, ...
- Memories - Why do certain images take up permanent lodging in the mind, then pop their heads up to salute at the oddest moments?
- intense moments: from my first 50 miler, semi trucks whiz by three feet away at mile 20, the course segment that takes runners along the shoulder of a narrow highway bridge
- charged moments: a friend bending over to tie her shoes, rump high in the air; a frank conversation in the car before a run; the curve of a pregnant belly, like a billowing sail, as an unknown lady stands at the bus stop; ...
- Drop Into the Moment -
- Escalator Game - The Rosslyn Metro station features what is rumored to be the longest escalator in the world outside the Moscow subway system. I don't know how true that legend is, but I do know that almost every day, when I stride up its stairs to catch my bus to work,
- Water of Life - look up and discuss (?) the Brothers Grimm story "Water of Life"?
— —
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2012/08/microsoft-lost-mojo-steve-ballmer
Cool is what tech consumers want. Exhibit A: today the iPhone brings in more revenue than the entirety of Microsoft.
No, really.
One Apple product, something that didn't exist five years ago, has higher sales than everything Microsoft has to offer. More than Windows, Office, Xbox, Bing, Windows Phone, and every other product that Microsoft has created since 1975. In the quarter ended March 31, 2012, iPhone had sales of $22.7 billion; Microsoft Corporation, $17.4 billion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amit%C4%81bha
Amitābha (Sanskrit: अमिताभ, Amitābha (wordstem), Sanskrit pronunciation: [əmɪˈt̪aːbʱə]) is a celestial buddha described in the scriptures of the Mahāyāna school of Buddhism. Amitābha is the principal buddha in the Pure Land sect, a branch of Buddhism practiced mainly in East Asia, while in Vajrayana Amitābha is known for his longevity attribute and the aggregate of distinguishing (recognition) and the deep awareness of individualities. According to these scriptures, Amitābha possesses infinite merits resulting from good deeds over countless past lives as a bodhisattva named Dharmakāra. "Amitābha" is translatable as "Infinite Light," hence Amitābha is often called "The Buddha of Infinite Light."
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html
There are wavelengths that people cannot see, there are sounds that people cannot hear, and maybe computers have thoughts that people cannot think. Well, with Dick Hamming around, we don't need a computer
Ansel Adams:
There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.
The Essence of Photography (2008), Calumet Photographic
http://zhurnaly.com/cgi-bin/wiki/HalfRememberedWorlds
a surreal planet where, as one moves toward the poles, time flows faster, words get shorter, language becomes crisper — and at the northernmost zones a war rages forever, apparently in a mirror-reflection across a singularity (seen in an anthology of "classic" sf, perhaps from Astounding in the 40's or 50's?)
'My Pencils Outlast Their Erasers': Great Writers on the Art of Revision
Emily Temple | Jan 14, 2013
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Most_Interesting_Man_in_the_World
"if he were to punch you in the face, you would have to fight off the strong urge to thank him"; "he can speak French, in Russian"; "even his enemies list him as their emergency contact"
http://www.quantumjumping.com/about/faq
Q. "How exactly does Quantum Jumping work? Is it safe?"
A. At its core, Quantum Jumping is an advanced mental visualization technique. All you need to do is find a quiet place, sit down, close your eyes, and focus on my voice as I guide you through one of the Alpha Exercises. It works in the same way meditation does, by altering your brainwaves, guiding you into the Alpha state of mind and tapping into your subconscious mind. And yes, it's just as safe as meditation too. So far nobody has gotten lost in an alternate universe!
http://www.mang.canterbury.ac.nz/writing_guide/marketing/index.shtml
The interesting is something that affects the attention. Websters Third defines interesting as "engaging the attention." The question naturally arises: Where was the attention before it was engaged by the interesting?
It is hard to answer this question because, by definition, one is usually not attentive to what one is usually not attentive to. But, for those who wish to understand human behavior, it is very important to answer this question because most people spend most of their lives in this state they are not attentive to. Harold Garfinkel (1967) has called this state of low attention or low consciousness "the routinized taken-for-granted world of everyday life." Since the interesting, by definition, engages the attention more than the non-interesting, perhaps the former can be used to make manifest the latter. I will attempt to use what is found interesting to disclose what is routinely taken-for-granted.
look for and discuss more foreground/background pictures, and the general notion and extensions — yin and yang, mind, universe and how it surrounds everything/everyone — hole-shaped-like-me that defines me ...
"The General" — who knows only clichés and flavor-of-the-month — but who doesn't realize it — and is assertive and decisive and persuasive, to the shallow/ignorant ... as opposed to the quiet engineer/scientist who actually KNOWS but doesn't speak in unqualified declarations, who says "It depends" a lot, nuanced observations ...
"Parrothead"?
are 90% of all theories wrong because they've been misapplied or otherwise averaged over too large a space, including too much domain where they're not valid?
look for Mike Myers (?) mother-in-law book about her agoraphobia?
movies to look for?
- Fido
- Evony (Sam Phillips)
- Starweb "rsw"
http://www.pyramidcollection.com
"Scope Creep" — dangers and benefits?
The corollary to "never throw anything away" is "never find anything when you really need it""
""Bayes Builder" – help people think Bayesian network model building? – causal flows, opposite direction to data flows?
Mumford & Sons
"Between the Folds" – origami ...
World running large-scale ill-controlled experiments - alcohol, tobacco, firearms, sugar, exercise, childbirth, breastfeeding, ... Results coming in ...
– Zžźż-iPhone 2013-03-01 10:14 UTC
statistics of infection and germs? poisson process? what are the odds that a single germ (or single droplet of a sneeze?) gets into a cell, reproduces, spreads??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm_of_Love_(Plain_White_T's_song)
Rhythm of Love (Plain White T's song)
The only prize is that after 100 miles, they get to stop.
This is the Barkley Marathons, the world's toughest and most secretive trail race.
"The Barkley is a problem," Gary Cantrell, 59, the race's director and creator, said recently. "All the other big races are set up for you to succeed. The Barkley is set up for you to fail."
http://www.yalom.com/pagemaker.php?nav=lec&subframe=pfister
I'll also sketch out some comparisons between existential psychotherapy and religious consolation. I believe these two approaches have a complex, strained relationship. In a sense, they are cousins with the same ancestors and concerns: they share the common mission of ministering to the intrinsic despair of the human condition. Sometimes they share common methods – the one to one relationship, the mode of confession, of inner scrutiny, of forgiveness of others and self.
http://www.annaoneglia.com/india.html
pocket litter transcription:
- "The Life of Pi" — worth seeing/reading?
- Carrie Fisher books - funny?
- reading glass prescription? — Right +2.25 to 2.75 — Left +0.75 to 1.50
- personality types: "Director, Thinker, Relator, Socializer"?
- book: "Things I've Changed My Mind About"
- Support Theory and Prospect Theory (Kahneman?)
- Requirements for good colleague (or soul mate?):
- intelligent
- creative
- optimistic
- articulate
- flexible
- helpful
- "chemistry"(!)
- pastiche poem: I am the very model of a modern ???
- notice when falling asleep, the "drifting" sensation — is this the Executive disengaging, control fading? - random associations pop up
- Mula Bandha - allude? define? poem?
| And a leaf drifts down As Orion swings his sword |
sparkly shoes smile up on the Metro
from Kristin:
1) Give yourself loving kindness so that you always 2) set realistic goals for yourself, and 3) instead of the usual negative emotions (e.g., envy), be proud of other people's accomplishments!
New Names for Tai Chi Poses
- "Wave Hands to Befuddle Briefing Audience"
- "Pick Up Paper Clip from Carpet"
- "Push Back Against New Tasking"
- "Play the Air Guitar"
Velveteen Rabbit - read by Meryl Streep - http://youtu.be/M_m054tLKvs perhaps
– Anonymous 2013-12-10 09:16 UTC
Helping Doctors and Patients Make Sense of Health Statistics
Many doctors, patients, journalists, and politicians alike do not understand what health statistics mean or draw wrong conclusions without noticing. Collective statistical illiteracy refers to the widespread inability to understand the meaning of numbers.
Little Big Man Chief Dan George Goes up to the mountain to - YouTube
LITTLE BIG MAN scene, 4:30-5:15 in — "Sometimes the magic works; sometimes it doesn't!"
– Anonymous 2013-12-29 01:56 UTC
Walking - Henry David Thoreau - The Atlantic
June 1862
Walking
Henry David Thoreau, the naturalist, philosopher, and author of such classics as Walden and "Civil Disobedience," contributed a number of writings to The Atlantic in its early years. The month after his death from tuberculosis, in May 1862, the magazine published "Walking," one of his most famous essays, which extolled the virtues of immersing oneself in nature and lamented the inevitable encroachment of private ownership upon the wilderness.
Honne and tatemae - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Honne and tatemae are Japanese words that describe the contrast between a person's true feelings and desires (本音 honne?) and the behavior and opinions one displays in public (建前 tatemae?, lit. "façade").
McKinsey 7S Framework - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Seven Interdependent Elements
The basic premise of the model is that there are seven internal aspects of an organization that need to be aligned if it is to be successful
Hard Elements
Strategy
Structure
Systems
Soft Elements
Shared Values
Skills
Style
Staff
tiny thought: most people become harder, more rigidly set in their beliefs (and physically stiffer, less flexible) as they get older ... perhaps the trick, as in so many things, is to try to do the opposite ... to soften ("Soften into Experience"?!)
type in notes from filoFax "Diary" section re 2010-04-16 Emily Pronin, Princeton talk "The Bias Blind Spot" ...
am working on non-judging myself (and others) ... innate contradiction in the goal of having no-goals <LOL> makes it fun ... so can I judge that I am making progress in not-judging? ... :-)
LOL!!! Perhaps you can if you immediately let go of the judgment...like passing weather...LOL!
whatever happened to "Webrings"???
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webring
... or Tripod, or Technorati, or GeoCities, or Pointcast, or ...
http://www.azquotes.com/author/56672-Jim_Blinn & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_teapot and quote from Blinn about doing the same thing but with more pixels – from COMPUTER IMAGERY: VISIONS IN THE MIND'S EYE ?
- minor change to video-game: instead of hacking zombie monsters to bits as the player runs through the castle, how about petting lonely kittens to make them purr?!
- "We Are Loved" mantra? - source? - Byron Katie? - Tara Brach?
- "For Us" - Sylvia Boorstein & Scott Pilgrim ...
Not-clinging applies to everything, not just physical abilities, material comforts, emotional relationships, etc. For me, perhaps the area that needs most work is nonattachment to the brain. For more than half a century now I've played the rle of the Clever Kid — brainiac curve-spoiler, quick-witted dweeb, smartest guy in the room.
cites?
Wash POST article on fearing Alzheimer's - 2015-07-06
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_and_aging
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/health/06brody.html
http://m.psychologytoday.com/blog/statistical-life/201401/the-myth-age-related-cognitive-decline
^z - 2014-12-??
??? As per Control Theory of Taiji:
- if you can think and react x times faster than an opponent and your speed advantage is large enough, then you can surely destabilize him and always win, but ...
- if x is too small for you to destabilize him mechanically, if you can anticipate your opponent's moves and prepare your moves time t in advance, then you can always win, but ...
- if t is too small for you to always win, then if you can optimize the probability (maximize the expectation value) by applying mental computational resources r then you can probability win, but ...
- if r is too small to compute in advance, if you can change your utility function u to maximize your happiness independently of externals, taking joy in the achievements of others as if they were your own (1), and not clinging to problems (0) ...
???
^z - 2014-07-??
Emails often are used to send files, and there's an "Attach" button in most systems to link, preview, download, and otherwise manipulate those files.
But how about a "Nonattach" button? ...
^z - 2013-10-??
The micro-Mark ...
and units of awesomeness - nano-Katie?!
discuss cute cat garden game?!
"Seeing is always the beginning of freeing." - from page 184 of Tim Burkett's book NOTHING HOLY ABOUT IT: THE ZEN OF BEING JUST WHO YOU ARE
scene in Niven's PROTECTOR where alien in the library gets A Mission ...
– z 2016-01-14 11:04 UTC
"vast distances" ... ultrarunning
"vast generalization" ... Yoneda theorem
"vast emptiness" ... Zen
– Anonymous 2016-04-06 11:53 UTC
pilayo - "The Pilayo fabric is 88% Supplex nylon and 12% Lycra spandex. I usually prefer cotton, but the Pilayo fabric has a substantial weight, smooth drape, and it's soft, so I don't mind that it's all-synthetic. This pant features a "peace rise", which means that it sits two fingers below the natural waist."
dobby - "Dobby cloth is a type of woven fabric known for having small geometric patterns. It is also known for being very textured compared with some weaves. It is made on a special machine known as a dobby loom. These looms have been around a long time, first appearing in 1843. They are a floor standing loom that uses something called a dobby. This is believed to be a corruption of the term ‘draw boy’ and refers to a weaver’s helper who controlled the warp threads. The dobby is the alternative of the treadle loom. The modern version of the loom is a computerised affair that can create an almost unlimited range of sequences. Dobby fabrics have a great variation and a large number of uses. It can be woven with fine yarns to make dress shirts. Thicker or fluffier yarns can are also used for home furnishing material such as curtains and sofas. It is made with cotton but also other fibres such as rayon or silk. One of the most famous weaving styles that has come from the dobby loom and is therefore a dobby fabric is pique. This is the fabric with raised parallel cords or sometimes a fine ribbing effect. It is similar to twill cotton and is sometimes known as Marcella. "
– z 2016-08-17 16:01 UTC
Tarot cards: four forces of nature for suits ... Strong, Electromagnetic, Weak, Gravity ... major arcana laws of nature, conservation laws ... charge .. energy ... angular momentum ... linear momentum ... Maxwell's Equations ... Keplers Laws ... Fourier transforms ... quantum mechanics ..
– z 2017-06-07 00:57 UTC
natural human tendency to harden and cling and close ... consider the opposite ...
– z 2017-11-16 12:02 UTC
count Joe Polchinski grad students & where they went?
ditto Kip Thorne?
– z 2018-02-13 22:53 UTC
JASON Rare Events report
maybe use the "multiply-by-3-add-1-divide-out-the-2s" progression as a card "game"? ... or somehow another pseudorandom-generator-series?
– z 2019-12-07 15:17 UTC
the word is "from Latin doctor (“teacher”), from doceō (“I teach”)" ...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/06/style/work-life-balance-tips-pandemic.html = "Remember: What You Do Is Not Who You Are – The line between our personal lives and our work lives has all but disappeared. Make the effort to redraw it."
– z 2022-08-18 10:58 UTC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL_lOoomRTA
Donella Meadows "A Philosophical Look at System Dynamics" (1977)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=vJ1STks8MUU&t=4s
Donella Meadows "Lecture: Sustainable Systems" (1999)
– z 2022-09-01 11:02 UTC
"... The Catalyst Award was established in memory of Vartan Gregorian,12th president of Carnegie Corporation of New York and cofounder the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy, who believed in the transformative power of human kindness. ..."
https://www.medalofphilanthropy.org/celebrating-the-recipients-of-the-2022-carnegie-medal-of-philanthropy/
– z 2022-10-14 10:59 UTC
Paul Krafel – links to read – https://roamingupward.net/ and http://krafel.info/
– z 2022-10-19 11:10 UTC
https://iamronen.com/ interesting & mystical
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjy5s2_fyXs Paul Krafel TED talk?
– z 2022-10-19 11:11 UTC
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2022/dec/11/japanese-milk-bread-ginza-nishikawa-taste-test
"LA’s ‘orgasmic’ $18 Japanese milk bread sells out in seconds every day"
“[Tastes] like challah and angel food cake had a passionate but very high-class relationship in a five-star hotel,” she texted me. “With champagne. Nothing tawdry.”