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rationalnoodles comments on Open Thread, Jul. 27 - Aug 02, 2015 - Less Wrong
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Does anybody know of a way to feed myself data about current time/North? I noticed that I really dislike not knowing time or which direction I'm facing, but pulling out a phone to learn them is too inconvrnient. I know there's north paw, but it'd be too awkward to actually wear it.
Something with magnets under the skin, maybe?
Sometimes I will be talking to a student, and be perfectly happy to talk with her until a minute before my next class starts, but I'm uncertain of the time. If I make any visible effort to look at the time, however, she will take it as a sign that I want to immediately end our conversation, so I could use your described device.
While I'm sure you've thought of setting silent alarms on your phone, a slightly less obvious idea would be to get a watch that has a vibrating alarm capability.
Actually, no, Thanks for the suggestion.
Why not look at the time and say that you need to keep an eye on the time for your next class?
I sometimes do this, but the students still get anxious and either leave or ask if they should leave.
Obviously the solution is a smartwatch which pushes retractable needles in a pattern that tells the current time in binary into the skin of your wrist once every minute.
Seem to be part of a standard razorgirl loadout:
X-)
Instead of real-time directional data, could you improve your sense of direction with training? Something like: estimate North, pull out phone and check, score your estimate, iterate. I imagine this could rapidly be mastered for your typical locations, such that you no longer need to pull out your phone at all.
Do you know about this thing? It actually gets introduced at 11:00. It's originally intended to let deaf people hear again, but later on he shows that you can use any data as input. It's (a) probably overkill and (b) not commercially available, but depending on how much time and resources you want to invest I imagine it shouldn't be all too hard to make one with just 3 pads or so.
How very interesting - I would find north to be unhelpful as it's not intrinsically relevant to me. compared to say - which direction my house is from here.
Can you use sun or shadow based heuristics? (the sun rises in the east and sets in the west - give or take a correction factor for how far towards the poles you are). And maybe note the direction of a few star signs for night-time. cloudy-time is a bit harder to manage.
There are probably compass devices you can probably get as a bracelet. as an example http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/NEW-Tactical-WRIST-COMPASS-Military-Outdoor-Survival-Watch-Strap-Band-Bracelet-/121644526398?hash=item1c52942b3e Try camping stores also for similar devices? There is probably a watch with a built in compass.
To my knowledge there are no internal-magnet systems that impart a north-knowledge by having them inside your body.
I have a natural sense of direction (I assume nearly everyone does) can you train yours?
Question: I have a strong sense of a "dominant" direction (often, but not always, west). This direction is self-apparent in virtually every memory or mental visualization of any location I can think of. So, for example, captain's chair on the USS enterprise "obviously" faces "east", and the library on Myst island is obviously on the north side. I'm not going to forget which direction is down, and I'm not going to forget which direction is (usually) west.
Does anyone else here have oriented spacial memories?
There are (indigenous) languages/cultures which give directions in absolute (compass) terms instead of our usual left/right/front/back terms. I'd guess that implies that memory gets tagged with that a lot. I'd also guess that some people are more naturally predisposed to deal with that. Like you.
Neat-o. I don't have any particularly strong sense of directions in my memories but I always know where I am in relation to other places I know. It will occasionally bother me when I walk into a maze-like building and lose my orientation. But I usually re-orientate when I leave such a building.
I wonder if this is a branch of synaesthesia?
Neat-o for both of you!
I don't have a very good "native" sense of direction, and there are lots of times I find I've gone to two different places from my home or work often and think I know where they are, but then get surprised when they're very nearby each other.
With cognitive effort, I can usually get directions right, but it's based on landmarks and reasoning rather than any type-1 sense.
I have been building a streetmap in my head for the past 15+ years of my life. at some point (before smart-maps) I realised it would be good to have a sense of location. from then on I started "building" the map in my head of where it "feels" like everything is.
Now days when I travel (drive) somewhere I recognise the main arterial roads of my city; and the common traffic conditions of them. I usually set a smart-map to outsource estimating my time of arrival, but I can also look at a map and recognise the nearness of a new place to a place I have been to previously and guide myself via "known routes"
Thanks for such an extensive answer. I can orient myself using Sun, so outdoors it's not really a problem. I could use watch, but I find it rather intrusive as well and it doesn't feed the data -- I have to look at it to get information.
This is useful.
I am imagining the creation of such a device; it seems to be a tricky one. most compasses work on a needle-like object being able to float in the direction of the earth's magnetic field. So to make something like that which can be used internal to the body and provide feedback about where it is; seems difficult.
I have been wearing a magnetic ring for several weeks and plan to write about my experiences, but essentially it would also not do what you want it to do.
North paw is the only thing I can think of. I can suggest more wearable devices but they require you to access them. I wonder if you could wear something near your ear that could somehow hint at which way it was facing (possibly with sound) or something in your mouth. Part of the problem is that we don't have a lot of methods of finding magnetic north. its basically just using needles or magnets.
There is ancient device called a "watch", believe it or not...
There's an ancient skill called "reading, rather than being snarky at every opportunity", believe it or not...
Question - was <time> a different request to <north-information>. I took it to read, "current real-time information about north-facing"
If it is a separate request most wearable fitness devices have a vibrating alarm.
I want current real-time information about north, and current real-time information about time :) (most likely in separate devices)
Your analog watch can serve as an impromptu compass.
Point the hour hand towards the sun, then true south will be halfway between the hour hand and the 12-o'clock mark. Assuming you're in the northern hemisphere.
E.g. if it's around 2-o'clock, direct the hour hand towards the sun, and south will be in the 1-o'clock direction --- and therefore north towards the 7-o'clock direction.
Only if your watch shows solar time which is normally not the case.
If you don't adjust for DST and what part of your timezone you are in it will be off by something like 30 degrees. If you need better than that the adjustments are not very hard (The 80/20 in most places being to just subtract one hour from what the clock shows because of DST).
re: time
smart watches as mentioned.
I would actually like a device that vibrated in every 5 minute window (or other settable window of time). To remind me to re-evaluate my progress on current tasks and confirm to myself that I am doing well. Essentially as a pattern-interrupt if I am in a bad pattern. It might end up interrupting good patterns as well, but I would still be interested to experiment if it works to be on par more helpful than unhelpful.
I wonder if anyone knows of an app to make my phone do it.
Caynax hourly chime and Mindfulness bell on Android
thanks. will install and try them.
Did they work? Did you try any other solutions?
Mindfulness bell seems to have bothered people around me. They are getting used to it. It's not really doing its job of keeping me mindful (I currently have it set on 30mins). I would like any suggestion you have for "thought process to go through with the intention of being mindful". I tend to still think, "is this the highest value thing I could be doing right now?" and have occasionally closed things I was messing around on and moved on; but being a smart-guy I can rationalise that "yes this is" far more often than it probably is.
At least it gets me to stop and wonder "what am I doing" frequently. which is a good thing. I expect a month from now I will have a naturally trained "mindful clock" and won't need the chime.
Also mindfullness bell conflicts with "narritive app" when the chime goes off it crashes the other app. Which is probably because of bad coding; but I have the bad coding to thank for letting me keep all my other notifications on silent while keeping that one on loud.
Thank you!
P.S. any other apps you would suggest?