Self improvement in these times

[Bella Kemp]

I'm sure this has appeared in other threads, but there doesn't seem to be one dedicated to this.
It was dispiriting to read one of the banal commentators in one of the banal Sunday supplements suggest that whilst we all started social isolation with the good intention of finally getting round to War and Peace and Proust et al, all we will really do is watch daytime tv, idiotic videos and play computer games.
But won't we all feel a good deal better if, by the end of this, we have actually conquered some of those peaks that have always seemed so far distant? I might suggest, for those of us not working, that it will help our mental health enormously if we spend a good part of each day simply getting to know what the world's greatest minds have given us over the centuries. This is literally a once in a lifetime opportunity for most people.
So what are your targets?
Mine include: those Shakespeare plays I don't know at all. Scarily, I find myself University educated and over 60, and yet I still have blank spaces here. I think this is shameful. A re-read of Middlemarch (the greatest European novel). The complete works of Julia Alvarez - a personal target because of my heritage. And, yes, while Mr Kemp sits watching Gogglebox and its equivalents, I will have my laptop on my lap, headphones on my head and watch the whole Ring cycle.
Oh, and of course the jigsaw is still to be completed on the table, crosswords will still be done and cakes will still be baked. But, above all, I won't go to bed each night thinking that I haven't been changed and bettered - at least a little - by the benediction of Art. Apologies if that sounds pretentious, but my grandparents and every generation of my family before them lived and died illiterate and I was the first in my family to become prosperous (relatively!) by virtue of knowledge and Art.
So: what are the goals that you hope to achieve in defiance of this ghastly little bug?

[LMcD]

I'm sure this has appeared in other threads, but there doesn't seem to be one dedicated to this.
It was dispiriting to read one of the banal commentators in one of the banal Sunday supplements suggest that whilst we all started social isolation with the good intention of finally getting round to War and Peace and Proust et al, all we will really do is watch daytime tv, idiotic videos and play computer games.
But won't we all feel a good deal better if, by the end of this, we have actually conquered some of those peaks that have always seemed so far distant? I might suggest, for those of us not working, that it will help our mental health enormously if we spend a good part of each day simply getting to know what the world's greatest minds have given us over the centuries. This is literally a once in a lifetime opportunity for most people.
So what are your targets?
Mine include: those Shakespeare plays I don't know at all. Scarily, I find myself University educated and over 60, and yet I still have blank spaces here. I think this is shameful. A re-read of Middlemarch (the greatest European novel). The complete works of Julia Alvarez - a personal target because of my heritage. And, yes, while Mr Kemp sits watching Gogglebox and its equivalents, I will have my laptop on my lap, headphones on my head and watch the whole Ring cycle.
Oh, and of course the jigsaw is still to be completed on the table, crosswords will still be done and cakes will still be baked. But, above all, I won't go to bed each night thinking that I haven't been changed and bettered - at least a little - by the benediction of Art. Apologies if that sounds pretentious, but my grandparents and every generation of my family before them lived and died illiterate and I was the first in my family to become prosperous (relatively!) by virtue of knowledge and Art.
So: what are the goals that you hope to achieve in defiance of this ghastly little bug?

To beat my existing record score (432) in a 2-handed game of Scrabble.
To learn to appreciate and enjoy Vaughan Williams's Sea Symphony as much as I do the other 8.
To lose at least 2 stone in weight.

[muzzer]

It’s certainly concentrated the mind, that’s for sure. I’m trying to make my way properly through the works of some writers and thinkers in enough depth to make sense, in case I don’t get the chance again. In a good way.

[BBMmk2]

I’m in the 12 week lockdown.

[Constantbee]

Excellent idea, Bella It's computer programming in Python for me, I'm afraid This is the last, and I mean THE ... very ... last ... attempt, having failed every programming course I've ever taken Named Python after Monty Python, not after the genus of constricting snakes in the Pythonidae family.

[Quarky]

Listening to a lot more music, that's for sure. Not really a Symphony man, apart from Beethoven, but I have a resolution to listen to Haydn's symphonies - but probably not all of them.

Gardening: currently raking the lawn free of invaders.

But major effort which is producing results:: morse code practice a couple of hours each day, to improve my accuracy in transmission and reception. This weekend is the Polish World wide Ham Radio Contest, and I hope to make an impression in that.

[teamsaint]

Listening to a lot more music, that's for sure. Not really a Symphony man, apart from Beethoven, but I have a resolution to listen to Haydn's symphonies - but probably not all of them.

Gardening: currently raking the lawn free of invaders.

But major effort which is producing results:: morse code practice a couple of hours each day, to improve my accuracy in transmission and reception. This weekend is the Polish World wide Ham Radio Contest, and I hope to make an impression in that.

Good luck in the contest.
If you do well, will you give a long wave to the crowd ?

[gradus]

Excellent idea, Bella It's computer programming in Python for me, I'm afraid This is the last, and I mean THE ... very ... last ... attempt, having failed every programming course I've ever taken Named Python after Monty Python, not after the genus of constricting snakes in the Pythonidae family.

A friend wrote his Sudoku solver in Python and it has been sitting on my PC unused so must try to get to grips with it.

[Historian]

Good luck in the contest.
If you do well, will you give a long wave to the crowd ?

I believe that a continuous wave might be more the thing. [Apologies if I have got the technical side wrong.]

[Dave2002]

Excellent idea, Bella It's computer programming in Python for me, I'm afraid This is the last, and I mean THE ... very ... last ... attempt, having failed every programming course I've ever taken Named Python after Monty Python, not after the genus of constricting snakes in the Pythonidae family.

Do you really want to learn Python? If so, why? Why not try a functional language, like ML or Haskell? Unless of course you know those already. Python is a hybrid language, which contains elements of procedural languages and funtional or declarative languages, and is perhaps a bit of a mish-mash. Many "new" languages get messed up by syntactic junk.

I guess learning computer languages also depends on whether your objective is understanding, or finding elegant ways to get things done, or a more brute force "simply to get things done - however" approach. Many "new" languages manage to make simple things complicated, while some languages make more complex or complicated things simpler.

Sometimes learning a language like Perl - which has practical uses - is more use than learning the details of the latest functional languages which use monadic IO and other (to many people) obscure features. On the other hand learning how to write a quicksort routine [for example] in Miranda/Hugs/Haskell might give a lot of insight, and once that's mastered, then one can go back to rewriting the code (if one can be bothered) in some other language. Also, I am particularly fond of laziness - something which isn't possible in common languages.

Good luck anyway.

[Quarky]

Good luck in the contest.
If you do well, will you give a long wave to the crowd ?

Probably - but unfortunately the "crowd" amounts to no more than a few old-stagers like me, dotted across the globe and locked up in their attics, spare bedrooms or garden sheds!

[teamsaint]

Probably - but unfortunately the "crowd" amounts to no more than a few old-stagers like me, dotted across the globe and locked up in their attics, spare bedrooms or garden sheds!

There is one round here with a most impressive ( to me ) rig. And we sometimes see the odd ( not that kind of odd) one on Walbury hill near Hungerford. It looks sort of fun.

[oddoneout]

Do you really want to learn Python? If so, why? Why not try a functional language, like ML or Haskell? Unless of course you know those already. Python is a hybrid language, which contains elements of procedural languages and funtional or declarative languages, and is perhaps a bit of a mish-mash. Many "new" languages get messed up by syntactic junk.

I guess learning computer languages also depends on whether your objective is understanding, or finding elegant ways to get things done, or a more brute force "simply to get things done - however" approach. Many "new" languages manage to make simple things complicated, while some languages make more complex or complicated things simpler.

Sometimes learning a language like Perl - which has practical uses - is more use than learning the details of the latest functional languages which use monadic IO and other (to many people) obscure features. On the other hand learning how to write a quicksort routine [for example] in Miranda/Hugs/Haskell might give a lot of insight, and once that's mastered, then one can go back to rewriting the code (if one can be bothered) in some other language. Also, I am particularly fond of laziness - something which isn't possible in common languages.

Good luck anyway.

At times like this there is the opportunity to do something just for the sake of it, rather than an end result over and above that.
It's going to be a challenge for those who are not used to keeping themselves occupied. Some will not get beyond the 'what the ... am I supposed to do', and are probably already consumed with anger at the disruption of their usual lives, not helped in so many cases by financial worries. However others will discover opportunities, thanks to the likes of Youtube and Facebook groups, to expand their skills and interests, which will prove valuable and rewarding beyond the necessity imposed by the current restrictions.

[Dave2002]

Some will not get beyond the 'what the ... am I supposed to do', and are probably already consumed with anger at the disruption of their usual lives, not helped in so many cases by financial worries.

Apart from personal characteristics, frustrated desires etc., many people may suffer considerable stress, due to one or more of the following, and maybe some other things I've not thought of:

* unexpected contact with some people
* prolonged contact with just a few other people
* coping with illness, either pre-existing or mild CV
* trying to cope with young children (or even not so young ones) who don't understand, or don't care
* loneliness (for people who are isolated)
* practical things like food and cooking
* pre-existing anxiety not direcly related to the current situation
* and of course finance.
* and for some financial responsibility for others

I can't solve all these, but it seems to me that maybe the only solution to some problems is going to be effectively to provide some goods and services for free - or if that is unacceptable, and there are means to do it, provide the services but with a later charge. The technical ways in which this could be done may be tricky, and there would still be people who woudn't fit into mechanisms. Trust might be an essential part of this, too.

For example, credit card companies could be instructed/ordered to allow people to order goods and services even if that took them into debt, with a promise (from whom - the government) that they would be reimbursed when the crisis abates somewhat.

The notion of basic pay - mentioned by teamsaint and others - could come to the fore - but in the immediate future, for some people simply being able to carry out any transactions might be hard. Some people might still be only using cash and not have any accounts - credit cards, banks etc. That would present problems.

People who are running companies - they might have major headaches unless the government and the banks work out mechanisms which allow them to continue even without any work being done at the present time. As has been noted, the government has proposed "help" for companies, but a lot of it won't actually be operational until June - by which time many companies and small businesses, under the current rules, will have folded. Mechanisms will have to be found to avoid as much of the collapse as possible.


*

[teamsaint]

looking forward to hearing how Qarky got on today. I suppose its a bit of a substitute for the footy results .

It does make me wonder what other activities ( not not those.....) could go on despite lockdown. Darts competitions would still be feasible. I think there is high level chess taking place .