Date: 4/24/14
Distance: 4.6 miles
Location: Carrboro, NC
Catalyst: Cracked Podcast "15 Things that Secretly Influence Who You Have Sex With"
First I saw a newspaper thrown in someone's driveway. I tried to read the headline as I ran by but with the jiggling of running and the hard-to-read angle and distance of the writing I only got the words "Fines Levied" before I was past it. Those words were in my head for a long time. I assume the next word was "Against" because I can do Markov-Chain modeling in my head. But after that is the actual payload of the headline I assume but I missed it and it bugged me. Can we all be less wordy? I'd appreciate it. Thanks.
It was good to run on the Carrboro route again. I did a run in Ann Arbor recently. I wanted to do one in Chicago but failed to make the time. I wanted to do one in Great Falls, VA but just didn't do it. I did a dumb one at The Farm near Carrboro while the girls had their tennis lessons: I just ran around in circles for a mile. Dumb. I like the familiarity of a well-known route. Maybe if I learned to enjoy charting new routes more I'd be more motivated to run while traveling.
Lots of dogs on this run. One scared the crap out of me: it was running behind his owner. The owner passed me but I didn't know he had a dog with him so twenty seconds later I heard a panting, running beast sound come up from behind me I was startled enough to yelp. The guy heard me, then he took his dog and stopped on the side of the trail until I passed which was nice of him but not necessary now that I knew the dog was there.
A guy stopped me on the route and asked where was a good place to run. I gave him some options I know about but he seemed oddly skeptical about all of them. Sucks to be him, I guess.
The Cracked kids were talking about that famous psych study where male subjects cross either a rickety dangerous bridge or a sturdy safe bridge and complete a survey handed them by a pretty woman halfway across. The upshot is that the subjects who filled out the survey on the rickety bridge were more sexually or romantically attracted to the woman than the subjects on the safe bridge. It's famous empirical evidence for misattribution of emotional states: subjects attributed their excitement and/or nervousness to the woman rather than the bridge. Anyhow, I somehow never knew that the dependent measure of the study was whether the subjects called the woman 2 days later (she'd given them her phone number and said wait 2 days then call if you have questions about the study). I'd always assumed there was a survey about how they felt about the woman when the bridge task was over. The actual measure is really interesting because 2 days is a long time to possible re-evaluate your emotional attribution and/or to do other things that are more interesting than meeting a woman on a bridge and then pretty much forget the whole experiment.
So anyway: what was the effect size of that study?
By the way, I'd like to see a study done on how much exaggeration goes on when journalists recount study results. I know that a publishable social science effect is something like d=.2 or so. When that happens, there's a slight nudge in the dependent measure from the manipulation but there's a ton of noise masking that nudge. But when studies like that are recounted, I think writers tend to overshoot the results ("none of the controls showed..." or "people who saw the X all responded with more Y" or whatever). Someone should quantify that. I bet it does our science a disservice by raising the expectations that published studies are accounts of big, reliable effects. Lord knows they are not and it's a new-ish fad to earn points by pointing that out to people who don't actually know that.
Also, running on trails is hard because rocks are not evenly spaced nor equally sized.
And I should buy a sweatband for my head.
Friday, April 25, 2014
Monday, April 7, 2014
Shall I get wet today?
1: It is raining.
2: I took a rest day yesterday.
3: One rest day is enough.
4: Being wet is okay but also kind of uncomfortable.
2+3 = I want to run today even though I will get wet.
1+4 = I don't really want to get wet, so I shouldn't run today.
Which is greater? 2+3 or 1+4? If you said neither, then you are right.
Am I being a wimp or am I looking out for my best interests? It all depends on my motivations for running at all: Am I running for the enjoyment of it? If so, then don't run in the uncomfortable wetness. Or am I running for self-discipline and health? If so, then run despite the uncomfortable wetness.
Thinking is hard.
2: I took a rest day yesterday.
3: One rest day is enough.
4: Being wet is okay but also kind of uncomfortable.
2+3 = I want to run today even though I will get wet.
1+4 = I don't really want to get wet, so I shouldn't run today.
Which is greater? 2+3 or 1+4? If you said neither, then you are right.
Am I being a wimp or am I looking out for my best interests? It all depends on my motivations for running at all: Am I running for the enjoyment of it? If so, then don't run in the uncomfortable wetness. Or am I running for self-discipline and health? If so, then run despite the uncomfortable wetness.
Thinking is hard.
Sunday, April 6, 2014
Leadership and Judgement
Date: 4/6/14
Distance: 5.66mi
Location: Carrboro, NC
Catalyst: Disc 2 of Game of Thrones, Song of Ice and Fire
There is no frickin' way I can follow this stupid book while doing anything else. There are too many characters and relationships. Plus at any given point, the narrator has a 60% chance of being in the middle of describing someone's clothing. Seriously. High velvet collars and soft sable cloaks and black ringmail and black leather gloves and oh yes where was I? How am I supposed to tune in and out of an audiobook and follow it all when half the time it sounds like a 13th century QVC pitch?
But here's one thing that got me riffing: Kings. We revere independent people who have leadership skills. When people have a vision, we generally accept that as a good thing. Self-doubt and contemplation are vices that can cripple an effective person; real strong leaders "just do it" and "the tough get going" and all that.
But what if leadership skill and self-confidence are just human qualities given in some measure to each of us like height or eye color. Some have less and some more according to the great genetic dice roll. In that case, the clarity of vision doesn't inspire leadership, it's the other way around. A leader's gonna lead no matter which direction he's facing. And if charisma and confidence draw us to them, then any foolish idea the tallest leaders have will end up defining a good deal of the human endeavor.
The Egyptian pyramids were probably a good idea in some ways, but that's an awful lot of work for some fancy piles of bricks. Maybe some of that effort could have been useful for something less geometric?
I don't know. Maybe it's just sour grapes.
On on.
Distance: 5.66mi
Location: Carrboro, NC
Catalyst: Disc 2 of Game of Thrones, Song of Ice and Fire
There is no frickin' way I can follow this stupid book while doing anything else. There are too many characters and relationships. Plus at any given point, the narrator has a 60% chance of being in the middle of describing someone's clothing. Seriously. High velvet collars and soft sable cloaks and black ringmail and black leather gloves and oh yes where was I? How am I supposed to tune in and out of an audiobook and follow it all when half the time it sounds like a 13th century QVC pitch?
But here's one thing that got me riffing: Kings. We revere independent people who have leadership skills. When people have a vision, we generally accept that as a good thing. Self-doubt and contemplation are vices that can cripple an effective person; real strong leaders "just do it" and "the tough get going" and all that.
But what if leadership skill and self-confidence are just human qualities given in some measure to each of us like height or eye color. Some have less and some more according to the great genetic dice roll. In that case, the clarity of vision doesn't inspire leadership, it's the other way around. A leader's gonna lead no matter which direction he's facing. And if charisma and confidence draw us to them, then any foolish idea the tallest leaders have will end up defining a good deal of the human endeavor.
The Egyptian pyramids were probably a good idea in some ways, but that's an awful lot of work for some fancy piles of bricks. Maybe some of that effort could have been useful for something less geometric?
I don't know. Maybe it's just sour grapes.
On on.
Encouragement is effective
Date: 3/29/14
Distance: 6.32mi (10k!)
Location: Richmond, VA
Catalyst: Ukrops Monument 10k
No headphones for me! The Ukrops 10k was my first official 10k race. The route was 3 miles up Monument Ave., turn around and come back. There were bands playing and DJs spinning every two blocks. At least a third of the houses on the avenue had people out front cheering us (there were at least 30,000 of us!) running.
It is much easier to run when people are cheering. Why? I can't encourage myself with nearly the same result as this throng of Richmondites produced in me. Listen to the little voices around me. If a bunch of "you can do it"'s help me run faster and better even while I think they are being unreasonable (I mean, they don't know me and they certainly don't know that I can "do it" and if I weren't there they would be cheering anyway, etc. etc. etc.) then imagine what the effect of all the people in my life are having on me even while I try to consider their opinions rationally and cautiously.
Also I should try to encourage more people.
Distance: 6.32mi (10k!)
Location: Richmond, VA
Catalyst: Ukrops Monument 10k
No headphones for me! The Ukrops 10k was my first official 10k race. The route was 3 miles up Monument Ave., turn around and come back. There were bands playing and DJs spinning every two blocks. At least a third of the houses on the avenue had people out front cheering us (there were at least 30,000 of us!) running.
It is much easier to run when people are cheering. Why? I can't encourage myself with nearly the same result as this throng of Richmondites produced in me. Listen to the little voices around me. If a bunch of "you can do it"'s help me run faster and better even while I think they are being unreasonable (I mean, they don't know me and they certainly don't know that I can "do it" and if I weren't there they would be cheering anyway, etc. etc. etc.) then imagine what the effect of all the people in my life are having on me even while I try to consider their opinions rationally and cautiously.
Also I should try to encourage more people.
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