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The Quiet Ones

nytimes.com

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Re: The Quiet Ones

#371

Post by sjayman »

bonobo wrote: post #323
furyofantares wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of an anecdote from Feynman about what sorts of mental things he could and could not do while counting seconds, and how it was different for different people. His counting was internally verbal and he could do anything that didn't require him to speak or anything else that was internally verbal. On the other hand, a mathematician he knew was able to do lots of mental things while counting that Feynman…

Some nights, when I lay on my bed trying to sleep but my mind is still racing, I try to calm down by counting or something that requires concentration in order to forget everything else. I noticed how I cannot count without having another train of thought talking or replaying a song I was listening to the same day. It's like having two threads running in parallel. Trying to count visually is almost impossible, I lose…

stop reading if you're not a smoker...

-----

"mind racing before sleep"? If you smoke, try not to smoke at least 1 hr before you go to bed.

Re: The Quiet Ones

#372

Post by theatrus2 »

britta wrote: post #41
weisser wrote: post #34

The problem with the quiet car is that offenders usually do not realize they are in it. Unless you travel on Amtrak frequently (I don't do it often but certainly more than the average person) you may not even realize a quiet car even exists. It isn't common to have a quiet section on an airplane or any other form of public transportation so I can see why people would not expect this. Ignorance is no excuse for being…

Not every Amtrak line even has a quiet car - long-distance lines don't have them, and even some regional lines don't have them (such as the Pacific Surfliner).

And some lines only have them at certain hours. For instance, Capitol Corridor (Sacramento Bay Area) only has them for the super-early-morning and late night trains.

Re: The Quiet Ones

#373

Post by anigbrowl »

pg wrote: post #81

My life has been a search for quiet for as long as I can remember. I think the fundamental problem with noisy people is not that they're inconsiderate, but that they don't have any train of thought to interrupt, and they thus don't realize the havoc they're wreaking. When I was living in Providence, working on On Lisp , I told my loud but well-meaning neighbors that I was writing a hard computer book, and that made t…

I must say pg, I am a bit baffled by this after Startup school; there were so many people at the reception on Friday evening that I went hoarse within 15 minutes of arriving. It was nice to be there but almost impossible to hear what people were saying.

Re: The Quiet Ones

#374

Post by duncan_bayne »

pg wrote: post #81

My life has been a search for quiet for as long as I can remember. I think the fundamental problem with noisy people is not that they're inconsiderate, but that they don't have any train of thought to interrupt, and they thus don't realize the havoc they're wreaking. When I was living in Providence, working on On Lisp , I told my loud but well-meaning neighbors that I was writing a hard computer book, and that made t…

Anecdotal, but: I can be noisy as a consequence of having a train of thought. Sometimes, for certain types of problem, I think best while talking out loud, waving my arms, and diagramming on a whiteboard. Not a quiet process but definitely underpinned by a train of thought.

Re: The Quiet Ones

#375

Post by jtheory »

SiVal wrote: post #272
thaumaturgy wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep late hours in part because, once everyone else goes to bed -- not just housemates but my entire town -- everything becomes still and quiet, and in that stillness I'm finally able to think more deeply, more clearly, about anything. You've probably already had your fill of argument for the day, but I think that assuming that noisy people don't have a train of thought to interrupt is a little bit uncharitable. (I…

I'm with pg here on the endless search for silence as well as your use of late nights to find it. I have sound-blocking ear muffs scattered all over the house and in two backpacks for when I'm studying on campus at Stanford, because at Stanford "quiet study area" seems to be an oxymoron. Studying, like everything at Stanford, is a social event. One disturbing phenomenon I've discovered: When I use these ear muffs to…

I have to do any high-concentration work at night as well, and have likewise found that successfully finding some level of silence in life makes me more sensitive to noise...

In my case I've made a concerted effort to remove all aural advertising from my life -- this is rather easier nowadays, when it's trivial to watch videos and listen to music without ever consuming broadcast media.

But now when I do accidentally encounter normal TV/radio, it's amazingly grating and completely invades my head. I was in an airport in the US with TVs everywhere, and it was like trying to do work next to a fistfight. Commercial jingles pop into my head and stay there, when I'm unlucky enough to encounter them.

I think the problem is compounded by the fact that modern advertising is calculated to break through the normal deluge of attention-seeking noise that people are drenched in, so if you are not, in fact, already swimming in other noise, the sudden bursts are overwhelming.

Re: The Quiet Ones

#376

Post by jtheory »

Muzza wrote: post #351
marbletiles wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, if proven they would cease to be sexist, because they'd be discriminating based on facts, not based on his apparent prejudice. (However, since the conjecture does seem to come from a combination of sexism/ageism/confirmation bias, it would be surprising if they were proved.) BTW: Are you proud not to be in the politically correct "lot"? All it really amounts to is trying not to be unnecessarily hateful or demean…

> Yes, if proven they would cease to be sexist, because they'd be discriminating based on facts, not based on his apparent prejudice. (However, since the conjecture does seem to come from a combination of sexism/ageism/confirmation bias, it would be surprising if they were proved.) I see. It's good to know that employers are now free to throw out all applications from Ethiopians, because of the fact that the average…

There needs to be a logically-valid reason to bring gender/age/country of origin/etc. into the discussion at all.

I.e., if you're interviewing an individual for a job, that means you're evaluating that individual's ability to fulfill the job requirements.

You'll get a hell of a lot better mileage out of, say, talking to them about complicated problems than you could ever get from even the average IQ in their family, let alone country or some other ridiculously large group like that. No need to get into the discussion of how valid that number is -- it's irrelevant to a job interview.

To the original point -- if maybe some large-scale study does show that young women tend to make more "social noise" than young men, I'm still having trouble imagining ways that might be relevant when noisy people enter a room I'm in.

Re: The Quiet Ones

#378

Post by jseliger »

philwelch wrote: post #357
jseliger wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The deeper I get into writing, and what it means to write well, the harder it is. Reading Martin Amis's The War Against Cliche was a particularly pernicious moment for me. So was Lakoff and Johnson's Metaphors We Live By . I think the question is this: does a rhetorical figure of speech help the reader or writer see the things being compared or figurized in a new way? If the answer is no, then perhaps we should look…

Orwell, "Politics and the English Language", 1946: "By using stale metaphors, similes, and idioms, you save much mental effort, at the cost of leaving your meaning vague, not only for your reader but for yourself. This is the significance of mixed metaphors. The sole aim of a metaphor is to call up a visual image. When these images clash -- as in The Fascist octopus has sung its swan song, the jackboot is thrown into…

Thanks! I assign "Politics and the English Language" to my students every semester.

Re: The Quiet Ones

#379

Post by corporalagumbo »

psweber wrote: post #332
corporalagumbo wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ordinary people can understand And so is the fundamental problem with quiet people that they're hyper-sensitive, judgemental assholes?

You are generalizing. Every group has assholes. Hyper-sensitive is probably closer to the truth.

No, actually I was mocking.

Re: The Quiet Ones

#380

Post by queensnake »

eupharis wrote: post #125
bpatrianakos wrote: post #75

Oh, the quiet car. I ride the quiet car every weekday to and from work into and out of Chicago (except ours is Metra, not Amtrak). His description of it is completely accurate. The people on the quiet car tend to be thinkers, readers, writers, and I dare say just a bit more intelligent than the average rider. I've had the same experience before. For some reason people think the signs and the announcements don't apply…

This diversity of opinion about what is and is not hard to tune out is fascinating. Also 26 here. One of the great shortcomings of youth is not being able to understand that other people can be fundamentally different . Not better, not worse. Just different . This is something I'm only truly beginning to appreciate lately. I had never realized until this thread that people could find typing annoying. Well, theoretica…

Also, age: you're more easily distracted & thus annoyed at /being/ distracted as you get older.
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