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Oct. 21st, 2005 04:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebA friend lent me the DVDs of all the "Firefly" episodes. We are whooshing through them and will probably be finished with them in time to be able to see "Serenity" in a theater this weekend. I like to reward people who make good movies by going in a theatre rather than waiting for the DVD (though it's hard to tell who to reward before seeing the movie).
This series is really making an impression. Yesterday Robin was looking at some computer part and said, "Now, how do you really work?" and I thought of the episode where they brought up some philosopher who would torture people to find out what they're really like.
I don't see how that would work exactly. Don't they just keep screaming? Much better: put them in a mildly uncomfortable situation and then you can see if they stay calm and stay polite. Yes, I see this every week in ballroom dance class. Most people are perfectly fine. I think the others just quit coming. I have to tell you that eight couples doing tango in the room we use for advanced lessons is just too many couples. Learning a new step with just two backwards steps for the man resulted in many, many collisions.
And speaking of character tests, near the end of class, the instructor wanted to separate out the better people to learn a complicated step while the others continued working on the collision step. The way he did this was to ask the people who felt very confident about their pivot steps to come over to his side of the room. Shockingly, about half the class went over there (I felt that only one person could actually pivot).
I neither practiced nor tried the new step. I suck at pivot turns. And I didn't want to squoosh that old huge step into just half the room. And I wanted to see what the advanced step looked like. Also, I was feeling very snarky and was critically observing the other people's pivots. One person did surprise me in being better than I expected.
I later decided that the instructor had probably wanted me and at least one other person who sat out to be on his side of the room, and he did actually tell someone who came over to go back and keep practicing the old step. I decided that rather than measuring skill, he had measured confidence.
Journal Entry of the Day: Barriers Are Your Enemy on I Will Teach You To Be Rich. "I've been thinking about why some people are so successful so quickly, while others seem to get stuck. I think I've got one big reason: The smartest people relentlessly remove barriers around them. And the others let barriers control them." Not funny, but a very thorough explanation of a useful perspective.
This series is really making an impression. Yesterday Robin was looking at some computer part and said, "Now, how do you really work?" and I thought of the episode where they brought up some philosopher who would torture people to find out what they're really like.
I don't see how that would work exactly. Don't they just keep screaming? Much better: put them in a mildly uncomfortable situation and then you can see if they stay calm and stay polite. Yes, I see this every week in ballroom dance class. Most people are perfectly fine. I think the others just quit coming. I have to tell you that eight couples doing tango in the room we use for advanced lessons is just too many couples. Learning a new step with just two backwards steps for the man resulted in many, many collisions.
And speaking of character tests, near the end of class, the instructor wanted to separate out the better people to learn a complicated step while the others continued working on the collision step. The way he did this was to ask the people who felt very confident about their pivot steps to come over to his side of the room. Shockingly, about half the class went over there (I felt that only one person could actually pivot).
I neither practiced nor tried the new step. I suck at pivot turns. And I didn't want to squoosh that old huge step into just half the room. And I wanted to see what the advanced step looked like. Also, I was feeling very snarky and was critically observing the other people's pivots. One person did surprise me in being better than I expected.
I later decided that the instructor had probably wanted me and at least one other person who sat out to be on his side of the room, and he did actually tell someone who came over to go back and keep practicing the old step. I decided that rather than measuring skill, he had measured confidence.
Journal Entry of the Day: Barriers Are Your Enemy on I Will Teach You To Be Rich. "I've been thinking about why some people are so successful so quickly, while others seem to get stuck. I think I've got one big reason: The smartest people relentlessly remove barriers around them. And the others let barriers control them." Not funny, but a very thorough explanation of a useful perspective.