2022 update 51/52
Job
012.4/156 weeks in (ca. 7.9%).
I couldn't help myself and did some work on the code yesterday despite it being a day off. The changes have been lingering at the back of my head the last few days. I managed to get a good chunk of work done. The project is this. I have two data sets about the same thing. One data set is more accurate and less precise and the other less accurate and more precise. I am writing a code to extract information that does not match from both data sets. Then I want to send the information to the team producing the information. The team can then (a) check and confirm changes or (b) agree a protocol to introduce the changes with no need to meet. One example would be to agree that one data set is always right and merge the information from it with the other. I am happy about the work I have done on this so far.
I have been reading about SAS. Is seems a bit like what @zbigi was talking about in the context of software development legacy work. Knowing an older programming language and working on an organization's legacy code. This would be less stressful and less paid. Sounds good to me, a meat-and-potatoes work, sleep-well-at-night kind of work. So I am happy I get to know SAS.
I am trained to work as a practitioner and a supervisor of delivering care. Soon, I will also have enough experience and training to be able to do some meat-and-potatoes data work. I am eyeing desperate attempts of recruiting STEM teachers everywhere. The Government pays analytical profession folk £20,000/years to retrain as teachers. Sometimes I am ruminating about doing a PhD. But I would find it hard to position the idea so that it was homeotelic to other life aspects at this stage. I do think about enrolling and doing a MSc in data science or similar alongside the work I do now. With the MSc dissertation written at work using work data this should be possible. There would be a lot of synergy there, the question is of doing a lot of the same. Would it affect other aspects of life?
Reading
In the end I stopped reading 'the snowball'. I better focus on maths and stats the next 11 weeks. It is difficult though, I have been thinking of reading some Hemingway.
Stoic exercises
Week 50: Decompose your difficulties
Pigliucci and Lopez wrote:
- Explore the components of pain or discomfort by asking where it is exactly in the body. Can you locate it precisely? If so, where are its borders? If not, how does it move or change?
- Does the intensity remain constant, or does it shift? If it does, how does it shift over time?
- Is the discomfort or pain a single thing, or is it made up of different sensations such as shooting, heat, pressure, or throbbing? How are these sensations connected to your thoughts around them?
Over the last two days I have been decomposing two phenomena:
- Eating. Sometimes after eating I keep sharp while other times I am drowsy and cannot concentrate. This is to do with the type of food eaten of course. Eating fruit and veggies even adds to the ability of focusing on other things. Eating starchy and carbohydrate rich foods tends to do the opposite. So there I was, having my bean-and-grain casserole and examining how it made me feel.
- Reading something I do not understand. Now that I am learning many new things, this is easy to come by. I had been examining how it made me feel to read something I do not understand. What were the physical phenomena associated with it.
Week 51: Pay attention to the right things
This week is about booking some of the working memory to keep the stoic principles in mind at all times. That is, developing techniques not to lose focus off of following stoic values in life.
@Ego wrote recently somewhere that it is much harder to start something cold than to do a little bit more of the same. This is an impediment if it comes to diversifying income streams. But it can be a good thing if it comes to keeping stoic virtues in mind!
Epictetus writes, that there is nothing we are better off doing without attending it. It is always better to pay attention. Come to think of it, it makes sense. Imagine not paying attention to making a cup of coffee and burning your hand with boiling water. Somebody might be better off not paying attention and overlooking dubious business practices. But this would make one better off only in the short run and not in the long run.
What to pay attention to?
To the will: there the good and bad unfold. No one can control yours and you cannot control anybody else's.
Control your will by following:
- the principles of dichotomy of control,
- virtues of moderation, justice, courage and wisdom.
This materialises in answering questions such as for example
- when is the time to be jovial
- how to act in front of other people
- when to call injustice,
- how to maintain your character in society.
In particular, acting with justice in mind gives clear conscience; what others think of us is not up to us.
The assumption is that we are rational and social animals. The outcome of paying attention to rules and roles is living a life worth living, and also being more serene.
This week the task is to try to pay attention to the
Rules: dichotomy of control. The only good lies within our will, other things are outside of our control.
Roles: who we are and so how we act.
Some of my roles:
- husband
- son
- brother
- analyst
- steward of my body
- citizen
- student
- resource manager
- intellectual
- cyclist
It is simple to say, 'keep these in mind', but of course it is a very complex exercise so it is difficult! Still, it would have been more difficult without going through a year of Stoic exercises.
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For the author: Stoics still believe, Epicureans are already converted? Also, Conversion by A.D. Nock (1933).
Stoicism has an upper leg as it was
(1) incorporated by Christianity
(2) hence operates in a sort of echo chamber.
Stoicism nested in Epicureanism? Epicureanism nested in Confucianism, or they do not overlap?
Also, I will aim to go through what @mF has in one of his first posts about 'the kind of person I am'
I have been attending mindfulness sessions at work three times a week for 30min each. It is good. Relating mindfulness and attention?
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Maths and Stats / Studies
I worked through 'applications of probability': branching processes, random walks and Markov chains. Then I worked through birth and death processes. I wrote an assignment on this so now I have 10/19 assignments done. Nine more to go, I give myself 10.5 weeks for it.
I will now be working on mathematical statistics. Hypothesis tests and confidence intervals, and later on asymptotic theory. The latter will be rather abstract.
Learning these approaches, processes and theories will contribute to approaching data tools. It is useful to have some understanding how to make a hammer or an electric drill. It is more useful to have an understanding of why, when, where and how to use them.
Keeping the technical analysis of what is most in-demand in the marketplace aside. If we want to do something or work somewhere, we only have to be successful once. Interest contributes to being successful.
Thanks for reading!