| | | Humble C++ programmer and Document Mode Zealot in San Diego. Also has worked as a technical writer and as developmental editor for Manning Publications. Written one book, interested in writing more, about any and all subjects. Just hasn't figured out how to make book-writing pay the rent.
mailto:bkovitz@nethere.com
Never block or deny
Right now (summer of 2001) having a blast taking a class in Improv Comedy. Lots of applications to wiki:
- You work to make the scene better, not to grab laughs for yourself.
- Scenes progress and cohere in ways that transcend any of the players' intellect or imaginations.
- You go live right now--no planning, discussing, thinking, etc.
- You always add, you never "block" or "deny".
I'm curious to learn more About Heuristic. If you post pages about heuristics, I promise to participate and say nice things about you.
I mean "heuristics" in the older, stodgier sense: techniques of discovery (not "rules of thumb"). G. Polya brought a wide audience to heuristic with his book How To Solve It. Heuristic is the companion to logic. Logic, you could say, studies connections, whereas heuristic studies ways to steer your mind to find new connections. I'm also interested in logic, though again in the traditional sense: the study of the Faculty Of Reason, or what's involved in making sense of things (not games for twiddling with symbols or winning at stupid debates).
For an example of a heuristic, see Make A Mess And Clean Up. Improv Comedy is the mother lode of fast, creative problem-solving heuristics. Heuristic Dilemma describes a difficulty with getting useful synergy going.
Stupid
"When we say our thoughts clearly, we often see that they are stupid." -- Richard Mitchell
Presumed stupid?
Ben, perhaps you'd like to concentrate here on Why on the page Lack Of First Person Is Better and, among other things, explain there exactly why you think your currently rejected changes to Strength To Mind Our Own Business are preferable to how Mark Tilley left the page (with one considerable nastiness which you did not bother to address). I'd like to have your account of that. It must be clear to you that I have favored the first person quite a lot here (though not exclusively), and others have followed suit. I'd like you to set out your stall on this issue and on "anonymity", as you chose to use that concept in your version of Strength To Mind Our Own Business. Unless you have the grace to do this, and prove convincing in doing so, for this particular context of worldview discussion, using real examples, please bear in mind that I'm unlikely even to consider keeping your revised version of any page that takes it in that direction (lack of first person and anonymity). I simply don't have the time or inclination to evaluate in detail, given past history in such areas. -- Richard Drake
The page Strength To Mind Our Own Business was later edited by Ben, with yet another Question Not Yet Answered left above, in other words with yet more Host Arguments ignored, presumed stupid, perhaps beneath contempt. Not merely typical but essential to Ben Kovitz the Why experience. Exactly why that should be, when it seems certain that someone using this name in the Real World is by no means always that way with all other Real People, is a most challenging Work In Progress called Verdict On Kovitz.
Further strange edits
Just to remind myself to look at one day:
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