Multitasking
2009-10-07
It just occurred to me how much I'm trying to do at the moment, and a sudden thought of how these things are working together (or not, as the case may be) was of interest to me.
As always, things of interest to me might not interest anyone else. Your mileage may vary.
My EVE character is mining ice. Player-owned space stations run on the stuff, so the corporation goes out once a month to stock up. I say 'my character is' rather than 'I am' for two important reasons: besides the obvious desire not to sound like a crazy person who doesn't know the difference*, mining - especially mining ice - is almost a non-activity. I wait for the little progress bars on my mining lasers to tick around and every so often empty my cargo into the hold of a nearby hauler so that I don't fill up.
* The discussion of how much I am averse to immersion, why, and how much that has changed over the last year or so is very interesting to me and perhaps a little to some of you. Another day, perhaps.
(I do love the game, but I only mine to socialise with the corp [and help them fuel the POS]. The socialising thing isn't too hectic tonight and I'm catching up with the chat and throwing in two cents every so often)
I'm listening to some Frank Sinatra; one of the 'best of' compilations.
(If anyone knows who did that more recent version of 'For Once in My Life', or which film it's from [end credits, I think], give me a shout)
I was reading a book. [A Theory of Fun for Game Design by Raph Koster] (I hope you people appreciate this potholing)
I've now stopped the reading to make a blog post.
Some of the time, I was singing. That's normally something I do without really paying attention, but I was thinking hard about why it is I don't sound like Frank Sinatra (it might be that I could sound more like him: I need to practice singing from the diaphragm rather than the larynx).
I didn't notice how much effort this last part was taking until he got to a song I don't know, at which point suddenly I was able to breeze through a couple of pages without any missed ideas or though that I should be rereading anything.
I'm really no good at multitasking. Well, that's not really true, in the sense that lots of people use it: I don't believe that humans can multitask (beyond autonomic functions). I'm not so bad at task switching, even when time needs slicing quite fine (depending on the grain of the tasks, of course), but ultimately I believe that for higher brain function humans are single-core.
So I can do ice mining (which requires only a few seconds' of action every few minutes, plus however much attention I need to give to make sure I get the right few moments) and read the book, but I might have to leave Frank for later :-)
As always, things of interest to me might not interest anyone else. Your mileage may vary.
My EVE character is mining ice. Player-owned space stations run on the stuff, so the corporation goes out once a month to stock up. I say 'my character is' rather than 'I am' for two important reasons: besides the obvious desire not to sound like a crazy person who doesn't know the difference*, mining - especially mining ice - is almost a non-activity. I wait for the little progress bars on my mining lasers to tick around and every so often empty my cargo into the hold of a nearby hauler so that I don't fill up.
* The discussion of how much I am averse to immersion, why, and how much that has changed over the last year or so is very interesting to me and perhaps a little to some of you. Another day, perhaps.
(I do love the game, but I only mine to socialise with the corp [and help them fuel the POS]. The socialising thing isn't too hectic tonight and I'm catching up with the chat and throwing in two cents every so often)
I'm listening to some Frank Sinatra; one of the 'best of' compilations.
(If anyone knows who did that more recent version of 'For Once in My Life', or which film it's from [end credits, I think], give me a shout)
I was reading a book. [A Theory of Fun for Game Design by Raph Koster] (I hope you people appreciate this potholing)
I've now stopped the reading to make a blog post.
Some of the time, I was singing. That's normally something I do without really paying attention, but I was thinking hard about why it is I don't sound like Frank Sinatra (it might be that I could sound more like him: I need to practice singing from the diaphragm rather than the larynx).
I didn't notice how much effort this last part was taking until he got to a song I don't know, at which point suddenly I was able to breeze through a couple of pages without any missed ideas or though that I should be rereading anything.
I'm really no good at multitasking. Well, that's not really true, in the sense that lots of people use it: I don't believe that humans can multitask (beyond autonomic functions). I'm not so bad at task switching, even when time needs slicing quite fine (depending on the grain of the tasks, of course), but ultimately I believe that for higher brain function humans are single-core.
So I can do ice mining (which requires only a few seconds' of action every few minutes, plus however much attention I need to give to make sure I get the right few moments) and read the book, but I might have to leave Frank for later :-)
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