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Maybe the default settings are too high

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Re: Maybe the default settings are too high

#101

Post by retsibsi »

satvikpendem wrote: post #82
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Noooo. Audio books feed you the content at someone else’s pace, not at your (slow) pace, which is exactly what TFA advocates. Or, what are you going to do? Hit Pause after each sentence so you can fully digest and savor it?

Then just use 0.75 or 0.5x speed? I don't understand this question.

> Then just use 0.75 or 0.5x speed?

I think this often sounds unsettling (like the reader is drunk or otherwise impaired), and anyway the listener doesn't need more time to recognise each individual word -- they want time to take in sentences and paragraphs.

Re: Maybe the default settings are too high

#102

Post by m463 »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #27
chilmers wrote: post #2

If you’re a fan of LOTR but don’t fancy reading it aloud yourself, I’d really recommend the new audio versions read by Andy Serkis. While I don’t vibe with every facet of his performance, overall it’s a tour-de-force, and really makes the prose come to life. Especially in those descriptive sections that it’s possible to glaze over when reading the text. Having an actor of the calibre of Serkis reading them to you bri…

Noooo. Audio books feed you the content at someone else’s pace, not at your (slow) pace, which is exactly what TFA advocates. Or, what are you going to do? Hit Pause after each sentence so you can fully digest and savor it?

I think a long drive in the car is complemented exceptionally well by audiobooks.

and audiobooks with really good narrators? the miles will melt away.

(I like Wil Wheaton)

(don't know about lotr oudiobooks)

(currently part way through we are legion read by ray porter)

Re: Maybe the default settings are too high

#103

Post by teekert »

Archelaos wrote: post #78
throwaway0665 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They moved the tents.

Yep. Slow reading of HN comments also has its benefits.

I guess this person sees the same mental image as me: Tents with wet floor, moisture sucked into everything inside. A tent that’s been in a lake sounds like a throwaway to me. But maybe what you see as a tent is different from what I see.

For me the story was also a bit weird. “Just take the tents out of the water”. Ok…

Re: Maybe the default settings are too high

#104

Post by anywhichway »

satvikpendem wrote: post #82
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Noooo. Audio books feed you the content at someone else’s pace, not at your (slow) pace, which is exactly what TFA advocates. Or, what are you going to do? Hit Pause after each sentence so you can fully digest and savor it?

Then just use 0.75 or 0.5x speed? I don't understand this question.

It isn't just how fast or slow it is. Reading at a slow pace gives you time to think in a way that is flexible from sentence to sentence.

To borrow the same analogy from the article, image trying to savor a meal where someone else was deciding when you take each bite. Even at a slow pace, the rigidness of the pace and your lack of fine control would still pose a problem with giving each bite it's rightful consideration.

That being said I love audio books and think I would struggle to apply this article's advice in my own life. Slowing down your audiobook is still a step in that direction, though I sometimes find that slowing it down can cause my mind to wander and my comprehension goes down and not up.

Re: Maybe the default settings are too high

#105

Post by HPsquared »

teekert wrote: post #103
Archelaos wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Slow reading of HN comments also has its benefits.

I guess this person sees the same mental image as me: Tents with wet floor, moisture sucked into everything inside. A tent that’s been in a lake sounds like a throwaway to me. But maybe what you see as a tent is different from what I see. For me the story was also a bit weird. “Just take the tents out of the water”. Ok…

Tents often are waterproof for the first few inches.

Re: Maybe the default settings are too high

#106

Post by ghaff »

irishcoffee wrote: post #14
delichon wrote: post #6

My dad was a busy construction contractor. One summer he tore himself away from work and took the family to a week long boat camp out next to a big beautiful lake. It turned out that our campsite was actually in the lake by a few inches at high water, but dad saw a way to dam it off and keep it dry, so he grabs the shovel and starts digging trenches and building walls and ordering us around. About an hour into that,…

My spouse and I dealt with this on our honeymoon. We were both working 50-80 hour weeks for months leading up to our trip. The first day we got to this all-inclusive resort we spent the whole time trying to min/max and be as efficient and calculated as possible. It was a stressful, miserable day. Day two we looked at each other, had an adult beverage with breakfast, and relaxed for the rest of the trip.

I'm not really a resort person. But I do subscribe to some travel feeds mostly in the vein of maybe finding some places/attractions/restaurants/etc. that I'm not familiar with. The number of hyper-scheduled spreadsheets I see is amazing. Doesn't mean I don't often have some itinerary and even book some particular, popular attractions/venues. But the 30-minute block scheduling is something I do for work (if that).

ADDED: I'll just add that I created a loose spreadsheet for a ~week-long NYC trip with (I think) just one timed admission for a recently reopened museum and no times otherwise. I think I ended up dynamically scrawling over the printout with changes for most of the trip.

Re: Maybe the default settings are too high

#107

Post by macNchz »

irishcoffee wrote: post #14
delichon wrote: post #6

My dad was a busy construction contractor. One summer he tore himself away from work and took the family to a week long boat camp out next to a big beautiful lake. It turned out that our campsite was actually in the lake by a few inches at high water, but dad saw a way to dam it off and keep it dry, so he grabs the shovel and starts digging trenches and building walls and ordering us around. About an hour into that,…

My spouse and I dealt with this on our honeymoon. We were both working 50-80 hour weeks for months leading up to our trip. The first day we got to this all-inclusive resort we spent the whole time trying to min/max and be as efficient and calculated as possible. It was a stressful, miserable day. Day two we looked at each other, had an adult beverage with breakfast, and relaxed for the rest of the trip.

Growing up in a quaint rural town where high-powered people from NYC liked to "get away", this is very common situation, and the inability to disconnect and adopt a slower attitude was, IMO, the primary cause of friction between the weekenders and the locals. They would physically get away from the city, but were unable to mentally release the blend of Type-A competitive neuroses that helped them get ahead in the city but just made them come off as obnoxious in this slower, quieter place.

I've found myself in this mode before, too. A couple of years ago I was preparing for weeklong wilderness backpacking trip with some friends. I'd recently quit my high-stress job to take some time off, and I had a few new pieces of gear I wanted to test before relying on them on a longer trip. When I looked at the calendar, though, every weekend before we were to leave was already spoken for.

I was worrying about it to my wife, trying to decide whether I'd just have to use the old worn out gear or risk it with the new stuff, when she stopped me: "why don't you just... go on Monday?" It took me a second to even get what she was saying—I was still so much in work-all-the-time-mode that my brain didn't even consider whatsoever the possibility that I could just... go off and go camping on a weekday. I was really baffled for a moment, and I've reflected on that a bit since, it's funny how you can be trapped in your own default operating mode and not even realize it.

Re: Maybe the default settings are too high

#108

Post by snowwrestler »

This is why I re-read books. I’ve read the Lord of the Rings probably like 10 times. When I already know what’s going to happen it’s easier for me to slow down and appreciate the scenery along the way. Even later readings might reveal choices the author made; I can start to see how the story was constructed.

I find this approach rewarding across most forms of media. There plenty of movies and music I’ve revisited over and over again.

Re: Maybe the default settings are too high

#109

Post by spicyusername » 

    It might sound like I’m just offering clichés – less is more, stop and smell the roses, take your time – and I guess I am. But clichés suffer the same issue: they are often profound insights, consumed and passed on too rapidly for their real meaning to register anymore. You really should stop and smell roses, as you know if you’re in the habit of doing that.
Great quote

Re: Maybe the default settings are too high

#110

Post by godelski »

jaredsohn wrote: post #87
godelski wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but isn't there still an advantage to this? If two people are silently doing this then they don't influence one another as much, helping find a wider range of solutions as well as identify issues with certain solutions that the other might not have seen. Instead if you're blurting out your thinking more in unison. Naturally you'll stray less, exploring less. Of course you want collaboration but I find the magic…

Another way to think of it is if you're blurting out your thinking you're reducing redundant work and perhaps inspiring the other person to think of additional solutions that are offshoots of what you're dismissing. I see merits to both ways of looking at this.

Yeah I agree but that's why I think there's a balance. But the context here is the more nervous blurting which I think is going too much in the other direction. We should be comfortable with some silence and thinking.

But everyone has their own personal preferences. Which is perfectly fine too. But I think it's worth mentioning that, as illustrated by the comment, it's typically more acceptable to blurt than think silently. And there's the bias that blurting makes it harder to think silently by thinking silently doesn't make blurting harder (the uncomfortable with some silence part is not healthy imo. Of course long silence is a different issue but we're talking 30-60s)

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