Last year making it to LAX was quite troublesome:
As I settled into my seat, my tattered notebook
in hand, the air crackled with anticipation—though
whether it was due to my formidable intellect or the
odor emanating from my well-worn jacket, I cannot say.
With a flourish of my pen, I delved into the esoteric
realm of differential equations, blissfully unaware of
the chaos that would soon unfold.
Enter the stalwart guardians of order, the flight
attendants with their practiced frowns and accusatory
glares. "Explain yourself!" they demanded, their
nostrils flaring in disgust as they beheld my
disheveled appearance and scribbled calculations.
But fear not, dear reader, for even in the face
of such adversity, my spirit remained unbroken,
my resolve as firm as the unyielding laws of
mathematics. For though my appearance may be
shabby and my origins humble, the fire of
intellect burns bright within my breast, illuminating
the darkest corners of human understanding.
Mild Shock schrieb:
John wrote:
But if pushed, I'd go for both.
What about a non-reflexive preference relation
between the two. Which one would you read first?
I am also undecided in this matter.
John schrieb:
On Thu, 11 Apr 2024 02:34:07 +0200, Mild Shock <janburse@fastmail.fm> wrote:
I am planning to go on a vacation.
Whats the better read this here:
Illusions, Delusions, and Your Backwards
Bayesian Brain: A Biased Visual Perspective
https://karger.com/bbe/article/95/5/272/47302/Illusions-Delusions-and-Your-Backwards-Bayesian
Or this here:
Quantum Mechanics and Bayesian Machines
https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/10775#t=aboutBook
I'd take some form of e-book reader and a couple of dozens of books
that don't require much intellectual power to process. Some easy SF or early Deen Koontz or Stephen Coonts or something.
Books like those above, I'd leave for nice, Winter nights at home
with a hot drink and snacks, and perhaps some notepaper and a pen.
Some may say that you should *NEVER* take books on a holiday and
that's a valid viewpoint if you think of the time as a period of
gaining new experiences and seeing new things. Meeting new and exotic strangers, eating new and weird food and nearly dying from them,
petting cute furries that don't exist in your home town and just
seeing stuff that is *different*. These experiences should be enjoyed, reveled in, locked into your memory forever.
But ... and this is more and more important as the Century passes ...
due to Security Theatre among other idiocies, there will be extended
times of blankness when you can't go anywhere, can't wander off, can't even talk to anyone because of ten million screaming gremlins so books
are going to be a boon. Headphones and loud music, too.
Even when you're travelling, on the bus, on the jet, on the boat or
on the Orion, books are useful as a distraction if nothing else.
But you don't want books whose reading means that you need to *think*
especially not to think deeply. That way, you miss your flight or the
call to lunch or both.
Most of us can set our "watchdogs" to alert us when our flight is
called so we stop eating or watching the laptop's TV program or
whatever we're doing but that may not work when we concentrate on deep stuff.
Sorry, the foregoing was all just my opinion. Maybe you *can* wake up
from a mathematical stupor instantly. I know people who can't. They
blink like a half-awake cat for some seconds before Reality becomes
part of their world.
Maths is hard. It takes thinking.
Alan. E. Nourse is easier.
But if pushed, I'd go for both. You never know how long the stay in
the airport is going to be and running out of book is horrible. It
might force you to actually *talk* to people.
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