Maximal matching: What to do when?
My wife and I enjoy playing Wingspan, a beautiful strategy game about choosing birds to live in your bird sanctuary. This past week we played a few games together against the computer — she’s much better than I am, so I hoped to pick up some strategy tips from her for the next time we play against […]
Closing mental parentheses
On our drive back from seeing the solar eclipse last year, Clara and I listened to Solving the Procrastination Puzzle, a short book in which Timothy Pychyl outlines why we procrastinate, why it’s a problem, and what to do about it. Most of his advice is solid and helpful, but in chapter 6, “The Power of Getting […]
Goals for Winter Break
Hello there! As of this writing, I have officially finished my first term as a visiting assistant professor at Carleton College, and our unusually long winter break is essentially the whole month of December. I’m tired and looking forward to a bit of a rest, but I also don’t want to waste the opportunity to […]
Sigmoid Perception: Lateness
Clara and I were running late a few times in the last couple days, and we noticed that the difference between arriving on time and arriving five minutes late feels much bigger than the difference between arriving 10 minutes late and 15 minutes late, or between an hour late and an hour and five minutes […]