me-sheep: writing a better way to bake bread

[azurelunatic]

So of course this is half-baked shower thoughts, because that's how these things come out, and I'm trying to get to bed. Starting points: Snow Crash, that drawn-out conversation(s) I had with iroshi about mutual brain function and levels of conscious awareness, that video I watched of that woman trying to boil water, the fact that while I'm smart I only consider myself average because I hang out with a bunch of very very smart people, and also the fact that when I'm very very tired I will zombie around with little self-awareness and need to be forcibly put back on track unless I'm caught in a routine, and then the routine carries me through, and it's easier to go through it than break out of it if I'm that tired. (Literally, it's less effort to take a complete shower when going to bed than just go and undress in the bathroom.)

And it makes sense that someone who is aware of deeper levels of thought would have more trouble forming useful daily routines.

And someday maybe people will write and sell software for the human brain/body: how to make bread. How to shower. How to ride a horse. And if you can just install that package and trigger it, and it'll have to be fully error trapped oh god oh god oh god, that would be easier than having to remember all the steps, and learn it yourself.

And maybe some of it is a broken self-programming module? I have a pretty decent self-programming module. But I know when I'm tired I'm essentially a zombie, and I get sucked into deceptively complex and not easily broken routines. Like the check-email-check-lj-answer-anything-relevant-then-shower routine. I look fully conscious and awake. I'm not aware of time passing. Fun times.

Comments

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

Bread baking is not all that difficult from a technical standpoint. The problem is that without practice, it's hard to follow the tiny messages written in your flour by the yeastie beasties. Kinda like most cooking, only with more Monerans.

My zombie module is pretty non-functional. It makes food and tea and reads, not much else.

[pauamma]

Mine has trouble reliably brewing coffee.

[amberite.livejournal.com]

In the past I had trouble making coffee before I'd had coffee -- though I eventually got it down more or less. I have at various times, though, forgotten (a) to grind the coffee (b) to put in the filter (c) to put in the water (d) to put in the coffee {this is the most common of the aforesaid errors by far: I've made hot water through a filter many times}. Fortunately I never forgot to put the pot under the spout.

[pauamma]

Fortunately I never forgot to put the pot under the spout.

I did a few times, and at least once watched coffee drip on the baseplate for a few minutes, thinking that something didn't look quite right, but unable to figure out what it was. My current coffeemaker has an interlock system, so now instead of coffee dripping on the baseplate I get a mix of water and grounds oozing down from the filter holder, which is enough of a pain to deal with that I remember to put the pot now. Unfortunately, the interlock actually checks that the lid is there, not just the pot. Guess what I did earlier this week?

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

My partner is enough of a coffee fiend that I have a solution for "grind it". He'll go through a pound within 2 weeks, which is fast enough for all but the fussiest of coffee geeks to be happy with ground at the store. Lots of foofy coffee shops will sell smaller quantities.

The pot now has a reusable filter. Hard to forget the filter when it's always there. Added bonus of less to throw away isn't bad either.

And since I have a rule that grounds/leaves stay in the filter til you make the next pot, it's easier to remember to check whether it's fresh grounds/leaves or not. (and yeah, that rule's been around since I was a tiny tea-drinker, so... it's an *old* habit)

Usually what I forget is to put in water or turn the pot on. Usually both at once. That's a mercifully non-destructive failure mode.

[amberite.livejournal.com]

Yeah, like that.

[azurelunatic]

I think it's bizarre and interesting that humans can go through their life operating on zombie-routines, and never notice the difference.

ADHD feels to me like a problem in the routines department, in part -- inability to create routines for boring shit, inability to get into routines that are for boring shit, and inability to break out of sufficiently strong, self-reinforcing, endless routines.