2022 update 43/52 (late)
Job
004/156 weeks in (ca. 2.6%). I arbitrarily set a timer on three years with this organisation.
I got my 2 day SAS training. The first part was great, the second less so. I have good materials to work through. SAS is a nice piece of software, much less canned than SPSS, there is quite a bit of coding / writing scripts going on. I don't know if SAS has an official status of a programming language, but looks like it does a good job operating huge csv files.
I will also be working with Power BI on a regular basis.
Generally I am excited to be getting hands-on experience in learning and applying a new skill set.
My organization is getting me the Royal Statistical Society fellowship and there are quite some talks and trainings at my workplace. At this stage my tactic is to be all in on most if not all of them. My manager is happy with this as well. I will also be getting a pay bump next month, something between 5-10%.
DW had her first week at the new job. Rather easy going - is my impression. She has to go to the office so is more concerned about clothes and such. We went for a family event and my mum gave her lots of clothes that are reasonably 'office like', so she is sorted. I think the 12 months placement she is on is somehow subsidized by the government because she is treated as a bonus. Has been invited to go to Wales for a few days in November to have a look at wind farms. Had been encouraged to and applied for a graduate scheme that pays some 80% more and is to do with cybersecurity.
Anthropology of the Cave
There is a Christmas Party initiative that I talked myself out of with the argument of effective altruism. Instead of buying food and drinks I would not enjoy and hanging out with people I can hang out at work anyway (though not sure I would choose to), I might stream the money towards
Low-Tech Magazine. This is maybe not the most efficient cause from the effective altruism standpoint, but might just be a good middle ground all things considered. Thanks to @Scott 2 for starting the thread on the ERE forum.
I have finished the The Tobacco Lords. An excellent example of application of Smithonian economics to the case of Glasgow tobacco merchants. Their way of doing business and tapping onto smallholding planters was of buying tobacco in the colonies rather than acting solely as an intermediary, thus appropriating risks inherent to international trade in XVIII century. This gave them an edge vs the English merchants who acted solely as intermediaries. Also, Scots exploited access to the English capital and the geographically advantageous position of the Scottish west coast. Also, employing matrimonial and friendship ties. Lots of arbitrage there. Significant portion of the book was about the War for Independence 1775-82 and debt arrangements during and after this period. All that nested in the history of the first industrial revolution.
Nota bene, in 1763 there were 28300 people in Glasgow, whereas in 1801 there were 77385. Makes me want to see a gapminder style map of populations of cities throughout centuries.
Leisure
We went to two art galleries over the last week and one urban garden. Found some wood blewits in the garden.
Went for a family party to continental Europe over the weekend. Family was happy to see us.
Stoic exercises
Week 40: Focus on the Mind-Body connection. Last week I wrote:
If I experience a physical discomfort in the form of being tired of sitting at a desk, my feet being cold or needing to go to the loo desperately,
I will say to myself
'This is a hindrance to what is currently do or how I prefer to feel, but not to my will. What can I do? Which virtue (wisdom, justice, temperance, courage) can I exercise here?'
I think I have been pretty good in trying to exercise virtues in the face of huge adversity that was the above mentioned family party. Lots of food on the table, the sort I would not prepare myself for sure. Temperance when eating stuff that I thought I would actually eat, courage in refusing other stuff despite repeated offerings, giving justice to the attempts of hosts to accommodate differences.
Week 41: Question judgements around pain and disease.
Oh well, Murakami must have read Seneca:
Seneca wrote:It is according to opinion that we suffer.
The task for this week is, whenever finding oneself thinking or saying catastrophic thoughts around pain or disease, to pause and reframe them. This is going to be fairly easy as I am having a cold just now. So
if I start complaining about my cold (internally or externally),
I am going to
pause and say to myself 'cold is really not the worst thing that could happen to you.'
Maths and Stats
3/19 assignments now done. I have finished the first two chapters of Applied Statistical Modelling: Unit 1 Introduction to Statistical Modelling and R and Unit 2 Multiple Linear Regression. The assignments for this course are done in jupyter notebooks, cool to learn how to put things together in this medium.
Last week I have read through the introduction of 'Graphs, Networks and Design' and started re-reading first books of each graphs, networks and design. I had read it all over summer as it was available online. I was away for the family event already on Friday early, early morning and returned yesterday straight to work, so I managed to only start the 4th assignment. This is also accompanied by a small online homework that I have mostly done. I hope to be done with assignment no 4 by the end of this week.
Well-being
Travelling the past weekend was a strain as we had to get up practically mid night on Friday and were returning overnight to be back Monday morning. I have a bit of a cold, but nothing too bad.
Got a VGA-VGA cable to connect the extra screen to my personal laptop.
Thanks for reading!
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I might take a specialist stance over the next few months and concentrate on work and studies until our trip to South America in March next year. The journal might have shorter entries, or be more monotonous.