Shower Think Tanks

[marcusmarcusrc]

As happens every so often, I had an idea in the shower and was forced to run to my computer wrapped in a towel and still dripping. I remember a professor once telling me that a true scientist "lives, eats, and breathes their science, it is with them when they fall asleep, when they wake up, and in the shower". While I have no desire to be that obsessed with my work, I do find that showers are good thinking time, and clearly this is not unique to me... why, it goes all the way back to Archimedes, at the very least.

Taking this thought to its logical conclusion, there should be think tanks with massive banks of high-tech showers installed with waterproof computers or voice dictation devices, where employees are encouraged to take several showers a day to stimulate the brain. Good hygiene would just be a plus. Wrinkly fingers a minus.

Comments

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

I think it's the combination of not needing to think about anything and the sensory input of the shower hitting ones body.

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

When there was a particular mechanic or plot that I was stuck on in Oath, I'd take a shower to think about it. :)

[nonnihil.livejournal.com]

One of my fondest and most recurring wishes is for a spoken programming language, so that I can dictate code in the shower or on my bike.

[arcanology.livejournal.com]

"if left parend bang stir-buff dot is-capital-eee-empty right parend left brace..."

You'd need a bigger hot water heater.

[nonnihil.livejournal.com]

Yeah, see, that's why I figure it would have to be a new language rather than an existing one. Inform7 gives a good example of something more suited to the problem, albeit special-purpose, but a small amount of experimentation shows that it's basically a highly-polished turd.

The speech recognition problems of identifier naming are only barely within the capacity of the best modern recognizers, so I doubt that it's a problem even worth approaching for the next five years. After that, maybe.

[marcusmarcusrc.livejournal.com]

Huh. I'd be curious as to what inform7 programs look like. What things would spoken languages avoid? Nesting seems like one issue. Lots of punctuation another.

Me, I'm waiting for the day we'll just be able to tell our computer "write a program that does X for me" and it will understand... of course, the next step will be computer which will respond, "why would I do that? That's dumb! You should do Y instead." And then we'll be doomed.

[arcanology.livejournal.com]

Maybe you should use Perl, for conciseness.

"Bang at I zero hash hash slash bing vang zoop ekki ekki ekki p'tang!"

[nonnihil.livejournal.com]

Or APL. Perhaps you speak in a fake Greek accent to get the alternate character set...

[astra-nomer.livejournal.com]

But "tank" implies a bath, no? So clearly, it should be a Think Stall.

[marcusmarcusrc.livejournal.com]

*chuckle*

Actually, we should test the thought enhancing properties of a bath versus a shower! And perhaps jacuzzis, saunas, and other such relaxing media for completeness sake.

[medyani.livejournal.com]

Waste of water. (well, you expected me to say that, didn't you?)

Now what about something that simulated the experience of a shower? Like I'll bet that if you could do one of those- what are they?-- MRI thingees (!) to the brain while someone is showering (someone like you who experiences "break throughs" during the bathing ritual) that there are measurable brain changes (remember: me no scientist; me storyteller). Then you come up with something (something that's energy/resource efficient!) that simulates the experience. There are other rituals that people use to engender break throughs -- exercise, substances . . . -- and I also wonder if they stimulate similar -- what, patterns? -- in the brain.