Justin Lloyd's Thinkering

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Creative Valleys

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First, I shall paraphrase what every article written around this paper is stating: “Creativity peaks during our early 20’s and then again in our 50’s. But let’s focus on the early 20’s.”

Complete waste of time BBC “news” article with irrelevant and unrelated image attached here:

https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-48077012

And the original Ohio State University study here, which you probably don’t want to waste your time reading either:

https://www.nber.org/papers/w11799.pdf

Abstract:

This paper studies life cycle creativity among Nobel laureate economists. We identify two distinct life cycles of scholarly creativity. Experimental innovators work inductively, accumulating knowledge from experience. Conceptual innovators work deductively, applying abstract principles. We find that conceptual innovators do their most important work earlier in their careers than experimental laureates. For instance, our estimates imply that the probability that the most conceptual laureate publishes his single best work peaks at age 25 compared to the mid-50s for the most experimental laureate. Thus while experience benefits experimental innovators, newness to a field benefits conceptual innovators.

Wow!

What an absolute steaming pile of bullshit filtered through the lens of shoddy journalism from a questionable, non-longitudinal study of a limited data set (31 non-participating subjects) that focused on a single data point (citations of a science paper) in a single field (economics) set up by two people who ranked (subjectively) the style of creativity someone demonstrates.

Interestingly, this quote: “…For the most conceptual laureate, the probability of a single best year peaks at age at age 24.8…” indicates a single data point of a single subject that can skew the story we are telling ourself (28.8 was the mean age for the first peak) which is just barely “in our 20’s”. Perhaps a rephrasing to “our late 20’s” might be better.

The results are inconclusive and the conclusion is so littered with “weasel words” like “could” and “may” I honestly thought I was reading a paper written by someone with commitment issues.

The paper also seems to be at odds with many of the papers it cites which state, quite clearly, that creativity is mid-30s to late-40s but also that “creativity” is not governed so much by age but by the absorption into the cultural mindset of the field and also where the person is in their career and their life.

There is a reason why theoretical mathematicians do their “best work” in their 30’s and multiple studies have found it has nothing to do with how creative they actually are.

There’s an awful lot of articles (none of which are linking to the original study but appear to be just parroting each other’s misconceptionw) written around this study, and everyone is throwing away forty years of psychological research in to how creativity works and its peaks and valleys, and quoting this paper as though it is the New Gospel and there are only two points in life where we are now creative. So we’re right back where we started with ageism and erroneously defining “creative peaks.”

This paper should be treated as what it is, another data point in how creativity works. We humans really need to stop the cycle of touting the latest paper as the final answer on a subject.

Creating and creativity to some, is like breathing, they cannot stop even if they wanted too.

Robots assemble

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Making use of mostly off-the-shelf components (I’m not proud) I built a new cat toy last week that keeps my cats entertained for hours.

I’ve had to add in code that limits how much time the cats can play with it for so that they don’t wear themselves out.

I have some ideas on how to improve the toy, mostly to do with vision recognition and feline detection.

The robot is a 3-axis arm controlled by servos and a simple driver circuit that plugs in to either a microcontroller or laptop.

Right now I am using a Microsoft Surface but will switch over to a Raspberry Pi 3 once I get the code working how I want it to.

Talking at vs talking to

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Anybody who believes that voice controlled user interfaces are the future has never had to try and use Siri or Google to get directions with my future mother-in-law sat in the passenger seat nattering away about nothing at all.

It is nigh on impossible to actually ask for directions and she (my future Mother-in-law, not Siri) is in the habit of answering for the phone.

“You know your car’s navigation system is very rude. It rudely interrupts me when I am talking to you.”

Overflowin

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“Can you help me debug this?” ask my colleague.

“Sure.” I said, I browsed through his code, “Jesus Christ, where did you steal this code from?”

“Stackoverflow” he responded.

I stared at the code a bit more.

“The question? Or the answers?” I asked.

Burrrrrnnnn!

Day #107 – Walking to Norway – Vrå, Denmark

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Location: Vrå, Denmark

Miles walked today: 11

Total miles: 1174

Notes: I hear talk of a ferry master’s strike. Not sure if it is ferry master’s, ferry pilots, customs, border control, what. Spoke to three people and they each gave different stories. But they were adamant that “border is closed” on Norway side until the dispute is resolved.

Day #93 – Walking to Norway – Kolding, Denmark

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Location: Kolding, Denmark

Miles walked today: 0

Total miles: 1023

Notes: Hirtshals it is. I will take the ferry. I just don’t think I can make it through Sweden before the warm weather breaks. Either way, unless I want to walk all the way around through Finland I am going to have to take a ferry to reach Copenhagen. There’s just no way around it.

Day #87 – Walking to Norway – Vojens, Denmark

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Location: Vojens, Denmark

Miles walked today: 13

Total miles: 998

Notes: I should make Sommersted late tomorrow or day after next. Going to spend a few days there hanging out with Peter. Had to push on an extra half an hour today due to the airport security getting suspicious. Weird.

Day #84 – Walking to Norway – Padborg, Denmark

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Location: Padborg, Denmark

Miles walked today: 6

Total miles: 964

Notes: “No sir I do not have any drugs. Yes sir it is a long way to walk. No sir the guitar is not carrying drugs.” Two hours sat on a hard plastic chair. Supervisor comes in a few hours later “What are you doing here? Why haven’t you been let go?” I shrug. “Go! Have a nice time.” And that was that.

Day #83 – Walking to Norway – Handewitt, Germany

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Location: Handewitt, Germany

Miles walked today: 8

Total miles: 958

Notes: The weather is crap. I’m soaked through. I’m stopping in Handewitt for the night. I called ahead and found a hotel not far from my route and I am going to stay there and get dry. Fuuuck. Tomorrow I will be in Denmark. Got to the border a day earlier than I expected but I don’t want to push on this afternoon.

Day #82 – Walking to Norway – Oeversee, Germany

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Location: Oeversee, Germany

Miles walked today: 11

Total miles: 950

Notes: The more I think about it, the more I am leaning towards a ferry from Denmark to Norway. And then spend a week or so walking up to Oslo. I do not want to be traversing Sweden and Norway in October. It also means I cut 500 miles off my journey because I don’t have to trek all the way up through Findland and then all the way back down through Sweden.

Day #70 – Walking to Norway – Hamburg, Germany

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Location: Hamburg, Germany

Miles walked today: 0

Total miles: 846

Notes: Hanging out with Mikhael for a couple of days. He’s going to let me use his spare bedroom and I can get a shower. I can also take this chance to go through my backpack and figure out what needs to be replaced. Mikhael is going to drive me over to a camping shop so I can get supplies. He also gave me three new sets of strings for my guitar. Total score.

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