# Recently - October 25


Where has October gone? It's suddenly _cold_ and _damp_ in Seattle, the election
is almost upon us (😬), and... yeah COVID is
[still a thing](https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/10/24/927389093/u-s-records-highest-number-of-coronavirus-cases-in-1-day-since-pandemic-began).
Another batch of companies
([Microsoft](https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlypage/2020/10/23/microsoft-staff-will-work-from-home-until-july-2021-at-the-earliest/#425822897c89)
and
[Amazon](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/21/amazon-coronavirus-work-from-home-policy-extended-through-june-2021.html))
announced that their work-from-home plans have been extended to ~July 2021. At
Google, we've been working under this assumption for a few months now, but, as
recently pointed out to me, _we're not even halfway through_ between March 2020
and July 2021. Oh, and the
[murder hornets are now in Washington](https://www.npr.org/2020/10/24/927384353/u-s-finds-1st-murder-hornet-nest-in-washington-state).
🐝🔪 Cool.

It's going to be a long winter.

## Reading: Anathem

Over the past ~2 weeks, I listened through Neil Stephenson's
[Anathem](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2845024-anathem). It was a 40 hour
marathon of an audiobook (though, I listen at 1.5x, which cut down the total
duration). However, it was worth the time investment; _Anathem_ is in contention
for the best thing I've read this year. I had a soft-spot for Stephenson, after
listening to his similarly hefty
[Seveneves](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22816087-seveneves) during my
otherwise boring highschool summer job, and Goodreads kept popping Anathem up on
its list of books it thought I'd enjoy. _Anathem_ is truly great scifi, in that
you can't really write much about it without spoiling its effect.

![](https://benjamincongdon.me/blog/2020/10/25/Recently-October-25/anathem.jpg)

I went in completely cold, and I'd recommend reading as little about this book
as possible if you decide to jump in. Just the plot teaser on Goodreads gives
too much away, in my opinion. It's one of those novels where half of the fun is
figuring out what's going on. Yes, you have to wade through a few hours of
seemingly pointless exposition, but it pays off in spades. Without spoiling
anything, Stephenson adds a few paradigm shifting plot points throughout the
book that are truly delightful. It feels like watching a puzzle unravel in
realtime.

Highly recommended if you enjoy slow-paced cerebral science fiction.

## Autumn Cooking & Baking

I've gotten back into my cooking/baking habit as the temperatures have dropped
to the point where it's feasible to have the oven on inside again. The bounty of
interesting autumn produce in the Pacific Northwest also makes it a fun time to
cook.

On the cooking front, I've been using a lot of root vegetables recently. I tried
making celery root puree as a side dish, and it turned out excellent!
[This recipe](https://www.fromachefskitchen.com/celery-root-puree/) made a puree
that's a little looser and creamier than mashed potatoes, and it has a really
pleasant celery aftertaste. I've also made roasted rutabagas, butternut squash
soup, and a super hearty
[West-African peanut stew](https://www.connoisseurusveg.com/african-peanut-stew/)
(this recipe was the best thing I've made in recent memory). It's hard to go
wrong with autumnal produce and warm spices.

As far as baking, I made Bon Appetit's
[Pumpkin Bread](https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/pumpkin-bread-with-salted-maple-butter)
recipe, which came out fantastic. It uses a truly shocking amount of olive oil,
but it's worth it. I'd definitely recommend the optional topping of pumpkin
seeds, which transformed this from "merely good" to "remarkably tasty". (I mean,
at this point, we're not fooling anyone: this is a pumpkin pound cake.)

![](https://benjamincongdon.me/blog/2020/10/25/Recently-October-25/pumpkin_bread.jpg)

## TikTok

Sometime in the last 2 weeks, I made the regrettable decision to download
TikTok. And... wow I can see why it's popular. It's like a dopamine drip feed --
you don't need to tell it much of anything about yourself explicitly; it uses
your behavior to curate an endless stream of short videos. No video is long
enough that you get bored enough to have the self-awareness to leave, and so
it's incredibly easy to get sucked in. There's an aspect of "just one more"
that's distressingly sticky. I can dip into Twitter to get a 30 second sense of
what's on fire in the world _right now_, but opening TikTok tends to be a 10+
minute black hole, not unlike
[highway hypnosis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_hypnosis). I know that
an hour has passed, but I'm not sure... where... it... went.

Despite the valid criticisms of TikTok, of which there are many, it feels
strangely less artificial than other social media products. I suspect part of
this is due to content being surfaced on the "For You Page" not relying on you
having followed an account, so there's less of a "the big accounts get bigger"
effect, as there is on Twitter. You see a lot more "normal" looking people:
doctors, students, parents, small business hustlers, restaurant workers. TikTok
has a "slice of life" aesthetic that's appealing. Of course, there are still
popular accounts, but it feels like the algorithm TikTok uses to surface content
is more willing to promote small accounts than other networks.

My ~2 week impression with TikTok is that it's the less performative aspects of
Snapchat and Instagram Stories combined with the "wow that blew up" algorithmic
promotion of Twitter. If Twitter is the "what's happening" livestream of the
physical/political world, TikTok feels like the firehose of the
memetic/zeitgeist world.

## Assorted Links

-   [You Reap What You Code](https://ferd.ca/you-reap-what-you-code.html)
    -   Another excellent essay (or, rather, talk transcription) from Fred
        Hebert. There's lots to glean from this: the human psychology of
        automation, how to construct useful mental models of systems, and the
        inherent difficulties in making systems observable. This also gave me a
        phrase for something that I've noticed many times, but never described:
        the "curb cut effect" is the idea that making something more accessible
        for folks that _need_ the accessibility feature often improves
        conditions for other people as well, even those who weren't the intended
        benefactors of the affordance.
-   [The Overreaction Paradox](http://shime.sh/the-overreaction-paradox)
    -   On the frustrations of enacting successful preventative measures, since
        preemptively averting a bad outcome is less glamorous than reacting to
        the bad outcome actually happening.

_Cover art:
[Children And Travellers Along The Canal (1868)](https://artvee.com/dl/children-and-travellers-along-the-canal)_