National Novel Writing Month

It’s early November. Halloween is only just over and the Christmas decorations are already making their appearance in local stores. But for many, the frenzied holiday shopping will have to wait another month: all their free time in November has already been claimed. If the roads seem quieter, it may not be your imagination. If the coffee shops and libraries seem more crowded, they probably are. Take a look at these newcomers (or the occasional regular who seems more settled in to their usual booth than normal.) They are part of a larger group, a silent and industrious movement that happens once a year.

Some sit in the corners of busy coffee shops, hidden away with their laptops and take-out cups filled with coffee. They jump a little and glance up as customers nearby laugh loudly, but only moments later, they’re deeply absorbed again. Their fingers tap on the keyboard, creating a din that’s nearly audible over the voices and the sounds of espresso machines and milk frothers. Or they perch on a chair in the solitude of their homes, their laptops balanced on their knees as they build up a momentum of written word.

These people are WriMos (or NaNos, if you prefer.) They are participating in National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo), an annual event that involves writers from all over the world. Between 12:00:00 on November 1 and 11:59:59 on November 30, the participants scramble to write a 50,000-word novel. Tens of thousands of participants (over 256,600 signed up in 2011 and 36,843 finished their novels) write works the length of The Great Gatsby or Catcher in the Rye. Some write even longer novels, by some miracle of time management. This year, I will be one of them. After a three year absence, I have decided to recommit my Novembers to the somewhat absurd, often infuriating, and always rewarding pursuit of writing a novel in 30 days on top of an already demanding course load, work schedule, and generally busy life.

Read more.

Casey's Law of Hipsterism

Much research and testing went into creating a definition of hipsterism for future scientific debate.

Definitions:

Let j = "tightness of jeans"

Let c = "time since last haircut"

Let u = number of times the subject has dismissively uttered "I liked it before it was cool"

Let i = "irony of eyewear or t-shirts"

Let R'(t) be the frequency of obscure cultural references over time t

Hipsterism (H) as a function of age (t) is defined as the following:

As you can see, the significance of the utterance “I liked it before it was cool” becomes diminished as the subject ages, and irrelevant after 35, as it is more likely to be a factually accurate statement at that time. The choice of clothing has no relationship to age and is consistent regardless of the subject’s age, but the obscure cultural references compound over time.

I present these findings for peer review, and for the edification of my peers and future students of the science of human behavior.

Read more responses to the question "what is a hipster?" at The Inclusive.

The Best-Laid Plans

It’s amazing the havoc that stress and lack of sleep can wreak on your mind.

I’m what psychologists call a “highly sensitive person.”  No, that does not mean that I’m easily offended.  It does not mean that I fly off the handle at the slightest provocation. It means that my brain processes information differently – in greater detail.  It’s actually a relatively common trait – occurring in about one in five people – and it appears to be biological.

Sometimes, I love this about myself.  But sometimes, it exhausts me.  One of the drawbacks to having a brain that’s more sensitive to incoming information, is that it’s easily overloaded.  I hate crowds.  I hate loud noises.  I used to be absolutely inconsolable during the 4^th of July fireworks.  They still scare me a little, if I’m too close to the source.  Combine the sensitivity with my natural introversion (the traits are not always concurrent, but in my case, they are), and if I’m around people for too long, I just want to scream.  It’s not the people – it’s just my brain.

Nothing Ever Ends: Mass Effect 3's Extended Cut DLC

Note: this article contains spoilers for the entire Mass Effect trilogy

The platform was eerily quiet. The floating shadows of the Reapers darkened the stars that hung around the Citadel while Earth burned below. I contemplated my choices, feeling again the sinking dread in my stomach. None of the three options given to me would be enough. With the entire future of the galaxy riding on my decision, I couldn’t bring myself to pick any of the choices the Catalyst presented me with. None were good enough for the sacrifices made by my friends. My team. Here, at the end of our journey, I was faced not with victory, but with discouragement.

Multidimensionality

Multidimensionality...


It's not something that is often embraced by this world that values efficiency and specialization, but it's what makes that same world so engaging and fascinating.  No one is truly one-dimensional, no matter how much they focus their energy on one or two particular talents or traits, and complexity challenges us, excites us, and teaches us.