(no subject)

In the book "Blink", it is revealed that we use a different part of the brain to conceptualize people than we do for objects.  A more complicated part of the brain.

I wonder if this has any bearing on the naming of artifacts.  And it also puts a new light on the practice of personification, which I'd viewed as a bad habit up to now.  I'd always tell people, "Don't anthropomorphize computers.  They hate that."  But maybe that's the only way you can wrap your head around the wacky things computers do to you.

(no subject)

I've decided to start taking advice again.

About this time last year I got all cynical and stopped believing in advice.  But I think I just misunderstood how it works.

It's very rare that advice actually changes one's course of action immediately and directly, especially if it goes against a long-standing habit.  But where no long-standing habit exists, it's still useful in shaping behavior. And it can help in indirect ways, too, by showing one where to focus one's attention.

I dare say this even applies to dating advice. But I won't be asking about that for a while; I'm not really in a good state of mind to date just now. I'll wait until I'm feeling ambitious before I ask about that.

I accepted advice on my résumé when I applied to Google for the second time, and I got up to a second phone interview that time.