Category: Daily updates

Generally musings of the day, usually accompanied by a photograph

Boston sights

I have really been enjoying Boston. The city has a nice scale to it – Sasha and I have been able to walk everywhere so far. The architecture is pleasant and interesting, and the people have been universally friendly. There are many parks and pleasant watercourses to walk along. I could definitely imagine spending a worthwhile and enjoyable few years here, doctoral acceptances permitting.

Yesterday, we saw some engaging sculpture, architecture, and video at the Institute of Contemporary Art. Especially notable were some infinitely reflective installations, made using semi-silvered glass, as well as some whimsical but sometimes horrifying biological paintings, an intense video about Chinese migrants in England who drowned collecting cockles, a kind of exploded charcoal bonfire suspended in air, and the building itself. In the evening, we saw Ravel, Stravinsky, and Shostakovich performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Ravel’s ‘Ma Mere L’Oye’ suite was pleasantly pastoral, and Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony was amazing. Sasha pointed out to me that Stalin insisted on the piece being called: “An artist’s creative response to just criticism”.

Sasha is heading back to Montreal now, but I have a couple more days here. Today, it is back to Harvard for a meeting (and to pick up 24 green Pilot G2 pens!). I am also planning to have a look at some libraries, bookstores, and coffeeshops in the area.

Risk/efficiency trade-offs in pathfinding

Finding my way to a new building, it struck me that two major strategies are possible in urban pathfinding. You can try to follow the most efficient path or you can try to minimize your odds of getting lost. Call those the ‘efficiency’ and ‘reduced risk’ approaches.

Each has some level of appeal. Nobody wants to take an unnecessarily circuitous route, when there is a shorter one available. At the same time, it is foolish to take a path that is nominally shorter but which involves much higher risks of getting lost or having other sorts of trouble.

Shortcuts are a classic example. They speak out to the part of us that seeks efficiency, but they carry special risks. When you deviate from the conventional path, you open the possibility of arriving much sooner than you would otherwise, but you also open the possibility of arriving much later or not at all.

Personally, I am willing to trade a fair bit of efficiency in exchange for simplicity. Even if I can conceivably save time by cutting corners, I prefer to stick to simple routes that I can remember and understand. Subways are good for this – they don’t take you as close to your destination as buses often might, but they are easier to understand.

As an aside, the worst ever solution to the risk/efficiency problem is the ‘try and buzz the head waiter’s home island with your cruise ship‘ strategy. In choosing people to captain cruise ships, there should probably some process to screen out those with such reckless tendencies…

Being unwell

I’ve noticed something that is both odd and somewhat rational: I find that I feel much sicker after I have seen a doctor and had them share my concern. Before seeing a doctor, I always have a nagging sense that I am going to see them about something excessively trivial and they will feel as though I am wasting their time. It’s a bit of a relief, then, when a doctor expresses agreement that you were right to see a doctor and that some sort of medical treatment is suitable.

At the same time, you lose the psychological possibility that you are making far too big a deal out of something tiny. Doctors – after all – face a never-ending stream of sick people. What seems worrisome to you is likely to seem trivial to them. So, when a doctor says that you were wise to seek medical treatment, it is both an affirmation of your inexpert medical judgment and cause for concern, in that nobody likes to have any kind of medical issue.

This is a phenomenon I have experienced before. For instance, after I broke my collarbone, it actually felt much more painful after I had seen the x-rays. They were like a validation of what my brain was thinking already, and they sharpened the experience of being injured.

(I am fine, incidentally. I just need some rest and antibiotics, administered every six hours to stabilize their concentration and reduce the odds of spawning antibiotic resistant prokaryotes.)