It feels like the main issue with everything interesting or world changing is that there’s a lot of hard maths at the root of it. Anyway, I spent the rest of my time at the cabin getting more reading done! I ended up finishing the 6 books I was reading. I’m now back in civilisation where I’m caught up with WiFi (as I had to be to get these posted), can’t say I particularly recommend it.

In fact the time at the cabin was so valuable I need to find ways to recreate it. Maybe slicing the connections at home, or giving myself a connectivity curfew to work around. Even bringing back a little of that mentality will probably help. Apparently Donald Knuth gives himself that buffer too, he refuses to get an email address and only checks his correspondence every 3-6 months. I think that means of having no interruptions, and buffering them all together allows you to get the deep work done, but it’s a hard habit to get into. I wish I was in it already, but the second best time to plant a tree is now. The negative side of the trade off is responsiveness, but compared to throughput that’s not really much of a gain anyway. There’s nothing much to miss out on at the moment.

Aside from thinking about that I’ve been engaging with the important business of Christmas. With my partner’s family in Calgary this involved a lot of tearing around, I tried cross-country skiing for the first time (hard but satisfying), snowshoeing (just tiring), and skating (terrifying, glad to still have my teeth). We spent yesterday skiing in Banff where I had a few fun wipeouts. I fell on one slope, lost a ski and started sliding, didn’t stop for about 100m. I’m sore.

Today we flew out to Vancouver, which is the first time I’m seeing more of Canada than AB and the Rockies. It’s so wonderful here. My medium term goal is to move out here when I finish my MSc and get a job. It already feels pretty homey, but having the mountains so close by is amazing. Kind of on the edge of the world, and at the same time close to everything that matters.

Reading list

Why We Drive, Matthew Crawford
Algorithms to Live By, Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths
Complexity: A Guided Tour, Melanie Mitchell