The Monthly Two Cents - August 2024 Edition

Olivier Chabot

Sep 01, 2024

Kayla and I spent a week in northern Ontario celebrating our wedding with the people who couldn’t make the trip to the July ceremony. It was nice to spend time in nature, chill with my family, write and think, play Catan, and enjoy my mom’s cooking.
I applied for my PhD in Education with a focus on psychometric theory at the University of Ottawa. Nothing is official yet, but getting the first steps rolling is exciting. I’d start in September 2025.
I also deleted my Facebook and Twitter accounts. You can read more about my reasoning in this article. It’s only been a month, but I don’t regret it.
School started on August 26th. I spent the last weeks of August prepping my classes. I’m rebuilding my statistics (MDM4U) notes with everything I’ve learned from the first 3 times teaching the course. I’m also updating my assessments to align with Standards-Based Grading principles.
It was nice to end the summer with a free two-week pass at Movati. It’s an awesome facility with a pool, sauna, CrossFit gym, traditional gym, and many fitness classes. I mostly went to yoga classes which was good for the mind and body.

Two Cents

I really enjoyed Jonathan Plucker’s appearance on the Chalk & Talk podcast. You can read or listen to my episode notes here. It’s cool that the podcast host, Anna Stokke, tweeted my notes.
I encourage you to check out Artem Kirsanov’s channel and this video in particular. It introduces key concepts from probability theory, machine learning, and cybernetics. The quality of his videos is impressive, and he manages to explain complex ideas coherently.

For those of you with an Android phone, you can use Google Chrome’s “Listen to this page” feature to proofread your writing. It’s a great way to catch typos and improve the flow of your writing without looking at a computer screen.
I’ve been using Microsoft OneNote as a second brain for years (see my video). In the video below Tiago Forte seemed impressed by OneNote’s capabilities. As a math and science teacher, the Surface Pro and OneNote combination is one to be reckoned with.
I can’t find the source for the image below, but it’s troubling to see the graph at the bottom right. It also speaks to the importance of a life-long partner and working in person. We are a social species and the digital nomad life is far from optimal from a relationship perspective. You can check out my four-thousand weeks book summary for more on this topic.

Books Read This Month

I started reading God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens. I don’t think I’ll finish this book. It’s not a bad book, but he’s preaching to the choir so it doesn’t feel like I’m learning much.
I finished Determined by Robert Sapolsky. I skipped a few chapters, but the book is solid. I’m on board with 99% of what he’s saying. I still don’t see how he and Sean Carroll disagree about Free Will. It seems self-evident that the free will language is a useful way to describe the emergent properties of humans.
I read most of Douglas Hubbard’s How To Measure Anything. It’s a bit repetitive at times, but the main ideas of the book are groundbreaking. I’ll implement the calibration tests as part of my stats lectures when talking about probability as a way to quantify belief.
There’s one more chapter I want to read from the Active Inference textbook. I plan to summarize my insights in an article. I skipped the super technical chapters as I’m only interested in the broad principles.
I’m still reading The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe. This is a fun read and I pick and choose interesting chapters.
I have about an hour left in A Mathematician’s Apology.

Podcasts Notes

Follow my reading journey on Goodreads and catch my podcast insights on Snipd. Both sync seamlessly with Readwise, my go-to for spaced repetition and daily note reviews. Check out my all-time favourite books.

Duddhawork

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